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Lucy Gellman |
Oct 6, 2016 12:08 pm
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As I followed a dotted line of orange tape into an old bathroom at New Haven’s Goffe Street Armory, Martial Chazallon’s voice flowed from a pair of earbuds into my ears, directing me to sit in a plush armchair and start to relax.
Sit down, he urged, the command softened in the thick webbing of his French accent. Place your hands on your knees. Back straight against your chair. Feet flat on the floor. Are you feeling the solidness of that floor through your shoes, your socks? Listen to your breath. Listen to the building.
Huge yellow cranes hover above almost five acres of rigorously scheduled construction. The end goal: Two dormitories to house 800 new bodies and their ancillary social, educational, and gastronomic activities.
The last of the old Ninth Square merchants, ACME Furniture, is in the process of closing to make way for new apartments — while a third-generation member of the family is scurrying to preserve much of the New Haven history inside the building.
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duo dickinson |
Aug 31, 2016 12:14 pm
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(6)
Courtesy Duo Dickinson
The Yale Building Project has a relatively new name: The Jim Vlock First Year Building Project. Don’t let the new branding fool you: not too much has changed about it, except a widening and progressively hyperlocal focus. And that’s a good thing.
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duo dickinson |
Aug 26, 2016 8:15 am
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Duo Dickinson Photo
The library, before reopening.
Set to reopen to the public Sept. 6, Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, built not only to house books but to glory in their beauty and physical presence, is at a crossroads. Will the stacks, designed as a celebratory exhibit in a glass inner cube for all who enter, take on a different life in an increasingly digital age?
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Allan Appel |
May 13, 2016 7:23 am
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(9)
Allan Appel Photo
The winner.
Whether you deem it an architectural modernist icon or a human-dwarfing iconosaurus, there’s no ignoring the Knights of Columbus Tower.
The New Haven Preservation Trust (NHPT) not only did not ignore it — it awarded the building and the team that restored its heating, cooling, and glazing systems the Landmark Plaque “for extraordinary devotion to preservation.”
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Allan Appel |
Apr 18, 2016 12:27 pm
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(1)
Allan Appel Photo
Pacacha & Ely ex-curator Anna Bresnick at hearing.
After being closed for almost a year while facing an uncertain future, the John Slade Ely House Center for Contemporary Art is about to get some lovin’ from a new landlord and new/old tenants.
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duo dickinson |
Mar 14, 2016 2:27 pm
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Wikimedia Commons
The old Mishkan Israel building, now ECA.
There’s an architectural trend in secularization in New Haven, and it’s only gaining speed as we transition from the 20th century into the 21st.
The 1904 episcopal Church of the Epiphany, now below the Q-/Pearl Harbor Bridge, became a restaurant in 1944, then a plumbing supply house, then a strip club. The Calvary Baptist Church became the Yale Repertory Theater. The Trinity Home Church was taken over by the Salvation Army. The Henry Austin Design Chapel is soon to be turned into market-rate rental housing. The Orange Street location of Temple Mishkan Israel moved to Hamden, its building becoming the Educational Center for the Arts. It may be saving a building by adaptive reuse, but it means one bigger thing: churches today are in great danger.
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duo dickinson |
Feb 1, 2016 7:59 am
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(1)
Yale Facebook Photo
The Nave.
There are not many architectural expressions of the triumph of the mind — of the religion of the intellect — around New Haven. But there’s one announcing itself on Yale’s campus, and it’s just gotten a facelift. Its name: Sterling Memorial Library.
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duo dickinson |
Jan 27, 2016 5:00 pm
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Duo Dickinson Photo
With its zipline, climbing wall, and almost overwhelming selection of goods for sale, Jordan’s Furniture has created a big buzz in New Haven. It may also serve as a sign of Connecticut’s failed urban renewal, and inability to keep manufacturing in the state.
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duo dickinson |
Dec 6, 2015 2:40 pm
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(2)
The 20th century modern master architect Le Corbusier once said: “a house is a machine for living.” His Heidi Weber Pavilion was intended to convey a kit of parts ingeniously linked in creative use of technologically precise building bits and parts. 40 years ago, the job captain of that project blew the whistle on its lack of techno-bona fides: The Heidi Weber Pavilion had each piece wrought by Swiss craftsmen — no machine-age mass-production, more Swiss watch maker hand-made perfection.
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duo dickinson |
Nov 26, 2015 9:02 am
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(2)
Markeshia Ricks File Photo
It is often presumed that a scorched-earth strategy of clear-cutting sites is cheaper for developers. That is often true, unless there is perfect fit with the old site’s structures and the new use and regulations.
New Haven is a company town … well, a two company town: Yale University and Yale-New Haven Hospital. Their building permit fees have balanced the City of New Haven’s budget. Their incredible allure and endowment create an arts climate here that is extraordinary. The architecture school has meant dozens of modern masterpieces by the worlds Great 20th Century (and maybe 21st century) Architects to be built: Ingalls Rink, British Art Center, Rudolph Hall. The list goes on.
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Lucy Gellman |
Nov 11, 2015 4:08 pm
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(0)
Tyler.
Paul Bass Photo
Nemerson and Schiavone at WNHH.
Today’s programs aired on WNHH radio tackled cultural and institutional racism on Yale University’s campus, what it means to be in a “millionaire mindset,” and the next stage in development throughout New Haven. It’s Veterans Day; we reflected on that too.
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duo dickinson |
Nov 6, 2015 12:00 pm
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(1)
The dozen or so new market-rate housing developments in New Haven almost universally use “Stick Frame over Podium” building systems to create a good return on investment. Everything above the parking, public and commercial ground floor is built like a raised ranch. That very inexpensive framing technique has collateral impact: the nature of its skin. It has to resist fire, so in New Haven we have seen cement board on some, fake veneer brick on others, some synthetic stucco and, at “Crown & College,” some distracting art.
