10' WILL NOT CLEAR, the great arched bridge on Ponce

It's not quite as grand (or pink) as the Red Bridge Over Ormewood Avenue in Grant Park Atlanta. It makes for a grand entrance to Decatur to the east or to Druid Hills to the west. Don't drive your tall truck in the outside lanes. "10' WILL NOT CLEAR"

Atlanta's best drive-through view?

This is the view from the Bank of America drive-window at the Emory University.


It's Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church. To me it's the most pleasing Philip Shutze public building. It also serves as Emory's largest auditorium and it contains Shutze's "Little Chapel" (more in post script).

I don't mind the teller line when I can peruse the proportions and details.


When the leaves fall I get a better view.




It's been home to many graduations, church services, concerts, weddings, and funerals. I think it's the centerpiece of Druid Hills and the standout building at Emory.


What a pleasure to see this uplifting and humane building while waiting for the teller or for the light to change, or eating pizza at Everybody's.

Thanks,
Terry

P.S. Folks just don't know about the little chapel. From the Glenn website:

"The chapel is almost an exact replica, on a smaller scale, of the interior of St. Stephen Walbrook, an Anglican church in London that is considered to be one of Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpieces."

White and Pointy - 80 years apart

I'm participating in Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch. Thanks to Susan! Not a nice metamorphosis now, but let's hope these come back.

This new house - a teardown - by Atlanta architect Bradley E. Heppner - takes my breath away. It's a 2009 Morningside interpretation of something older. But isn't everything? In any case I love the pointy shapes, the simplicity, the interesting roof, the straightforward windows. I think it will be on magazine covers.



So here is a 1929'er in Druid Hills. I've been driving by it forever, always enjoying the simple white shapes. Would you keep the white windows or go for a more metal look?


The new one is a bit stark in the picture, it hasn't weathered in yet, the driveway too new. In person, it's striking but not so stark. Can you imagine white windows?


My field guide to American homes says that English houses have a door emphasis, French ones a roof emphasis. I include the door surround for Things That Inspire's post about a "carved" doorway.


Compare to the neighboring house. I've been watching it since before the teardown. Every day has been interesting. Exterior walls are concrete block with hard coat stucco.


The more I look, the more I learn, the deeper I look, the more I like.

Thanks,
Terry

P.S. What I particularly appreciate about architects and builders: Their work is forever in public and can't come in out of the rain.


That can mean gutter rocket science.

Thanks to Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch.

Pink in Druid Hills

I'm not sure if this is the only pink house in Druid Hills.


Architecture tourists should enjoy Druid Hills for it's variety of stately homes. Quite a few are by Buck Crook and Neel Reid and others I don't know so much about yet. Unlike Buckhead, Druid Hills has smaller lots. You can see all the houses.

Some are special. Drive Fairview Road: A few blocks of great houses, many styles, close to the street for our enjoyment.

2 that burned this fall

I'm participating in Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch. Thanks to Susan! Not a nice metamorphosis now, but let's hope these come back.

Few drive Whiteford Avenue in Atlanta. It's a short cut for Architecture Tourists on the way to grandmas through the Edgewood neighborhood. It's hardly a street of high-style homes but it's very interesting and "sets my mind a wandering." This was the belle of the ball. Always meant to stop for some pictures, always thought there'd be another day.



Now this.


Queen Ann, classic revival, greek revival, trglyphs and metopes, cross-gabled hipped roof, pretty metal fence, arbor, lived-in yard, overhangs, what windows ...




Words fail me. They don't do porches and windows like this. If you can bear it, there are more pictures in the slideshow below.


On the Druid Hills side, on the "good side of the tracks" Paideia School's "Mother Goose" burned. It's a re-purposed Druid Hills beauty, now in ruin.

Whiteford Avenue parallels Moreland Avenue in the transitional Edgewood neighborhood. As with many Atlanta streets Whiteford changes it's name at the tracks: Oxford in Druid Hills to the north, Whiteford in Edgewood to the south, leftovers from segregation. Edgewood is in the string of neighborhoods that begin east of downtown just south of the tracks with Cabbagetown, then Reynoldstown, Edgwood, Kirkwood, Eastlake, Oakgrove.

There is more in the slide-show but it's not fun:



Let's hope they can restore these houses.

Thanks,
Terry

Thanks to Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch.

Tudor high style in a small house

In Druid Hills, not on the way anywhere, it's a neck-snappin good.

Greek revival: an Emory Theater and a Brookhaven dry cleaner.

The Schwartz Center for Performing Arts at Emory University is a showpiece at the corner of North Decatur and Clifton Roads. It has a lot to live up to. Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church anchors the west street front of Emory. The Schwartz center anchors the east end. It's a very high style block where Emory shows it best. If you can find a parking place, tour the center on foot. It's special.


But why shouldn't a dry cleaner on Dresden share the classic glory?

Bodacious Backyard Burning: The Stove Party at the Commuter Gallery

Until last night I had no idea. But if Chris knows you, do what he says.

It would have been way easier to stay home and watch TV and I'd cleaned the gutters and was sore, and I'd eaten too much spaghetti, and whine, whine, whine ... but Chris said, "This will blow your mind. 25th edition of the Stove Party, this place is magic."


This is a backyard near Toco Hills. Understatement: Clark Ashton is an artist, musician, stove builder, proprietor of a sculpture garden, and thrower of bodcious parties.


So I had my picture taken with the steel cycling skeleton.


Because even though I was there, I just couldn't believe this place. There's this tower with two stoves as you enter the back yard.


Folks milled around among sculptures and stoves from hot spot to hot spot.

 
Even those not smiling were in a good mood. I met Mr. Finkelstein (the teacher) from Macon and many others.


Of course there was a bluegrass band in the workshop.


And a rock 'n' roll band in the rock 'n' roll room.


And there were sculptures everywhere.


There was no bad place to be.


You could always find a warm place and a warmhearted person.


Statues and shadows and steeples.


They dialed a few stoves to "11."


I had no idea.

Thanks Chris.

Shutze's Gate Gets a Circle that Improves My Life

Bless those engineers.

Do you live near Emory University, drive through Emory, visit Emory from time to time? I do and my life has just improved thanks to the traffic engineers and to the planners and the politicians that put them to work.

Emory Village has a traffic circle and I feel fine. (I hope you don't mind if this Georgian pays a oblique tribute to R.E.M.)


The Haywood Hopkins Gate by Philip Trammell Shutze is on the circle. It's Emory University's front door per the master plan by Henry Hornbostel. It's a modest entrance to a campus that seems set in a wooded park.

Until this summer the gate faced a bleak, busy, bottle-necking 5-points wasteland, the intersection of North Decatur, Oxford, and Dowman, home of Everybody's Pizza. It's been horrible since my first visit in 1968.

If you've driven there, you know what I mean. If you've crossed the streets on foot, you know.


So they moved gate a little, made it an entrance, closed it as an exit...


...and put in the circle. It's not quite done yet. It's going to have trees and bushes and less paving.

Bless those engineers. They've removed 2 traffic lanes lanes, cut paving in half, made space to landscape, improved auto and pedestrian safety. In the process they gave Emory Village a more friendly center.

They improved traffic flow by slowing things down.

It's all so I can spend less time driving and more time at home.

Remarkable. Here is new left turn to the west from Oxford to North Decatur. This simple turn could take forever. Here I breeze though without a full stop.



Bess those engineers.

Meet some of Atlanta's modern archtiects

We met a bunch of Atlanta's modern architects at Modern Atlanta 10. If you read to the bottom, you'll find the horse lamp. This is an LED chandelier:


In the order of my picture taking.

This is Johnna Barrett of Barrett Design International, LLC. She designed "Spring Creek" which was on the tour.


We met Peter S.K. Yeung, A.I.A at the Eames Demetrios event. He was a fan (and architecture tourist) just like us.


Here are husband wife architects, Jose Tavel and Cara Cummins of Tac Studios. They designed the tour's Harris/Carroll residence shown in the picture. In the small world category: they live and work next door to my son.


We met architect John Bencich of Square Feet Studios (center) whose "Bencich Residence" was on the tour. On the right is builder Robert Soens of Pinnacle Custom Builders (right). Robert has done a number of modern houses including Decatur's RainShine House and the tour's Harris/Carroll residence.


Vivian Bencich is Principal, Interior Designer at Square Feet Studios. They designed the footbridge over the railroad at White Provision, one of the my very favorite structures in Atlanta.


In the center is architect Bryan Russell of Dencity Design who the did the

Liotta Residence on the tour. (If you are getting all modern'ed out, see the Dencity house at Alys Beach.) On the left is Clair Bannerman host of "Our Coastal Art Scene with Claire Bannerman" on 30-A Radio. On the right is Kara Thomas, designer with Habachy Designs who worked on the Liotta house.

This is architect, Joseph Dreher, responsible for the new "bridge" and major renovations of the tour's Wollaert Residence. Joe is an alumni of Peter Block Architects.


I'd like to thank my fellow Sunday Docents Christy Nixon, Rochelle Cole, Caitlin Henry, and to Matt-Dahlhauser from Cablik Enterprises, builder of the Liotta Residence. And thanks to the the owners who allowed us to spend a wonderful day enjoying their house.


I'd like to say hello to fell docent Allan Price, architect at Pieper O'Brien Herr Architects. Wish I'd gotten a picture.

Terry

I promised a horse lamp: