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 The CIVITAS Chronicles
Clem Labine
The Shame of New London
The collapse of a development project for New London's Fort Trumbull area, combined with Pfizer's plans to skip town, has provided a fitting climax to a landmark eminent domain case that caused dismay across the U.S. And it may have taught New London's power brokers to be wary of developers bearing promises. Read more.
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 A Capital Column
Kim O'Connell
Architecture for Haiti
By now, we've all witnessed the horrific images that emerged in the wake of Haiti's devastating earthquake. The bodies of the dead, the suffering of the injured and the grief of those who lost everything have been almost too much to comprehend. Already, the outpouring of international aid has been tremendous, but it is still unclear whether the majority of residents are getting the help they so desperately need to survive. As was the case after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, the response to the immediate crisis has also given way to numerous considerations about how to rebuild. Read more.
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 The View From Rome
Steven W. Semes
City or Zoo?
Nowhere else is the preponderance of continuity over disjunction so pronounced as in the Eternal City. Almost everywhere one looks one sees how a city can grow and change by building on rather than destroying its historic character. Rome challenges architects, urban designers and preservationists to take the long view, seeing their work as contributing to the city as a whole as it transforms itself in time and yet retains its essential identity. Read more.
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 American Craftsman
Dan Cooper
A Lone Voice in the Wilderness
See this photo of a dormer? It looks okay: it's not a great dormer, but it's a passable reproduction dormer as these things go.
So what the hell is it doing on the side of a Walmart in Hadley, MA? This Walmart is located, as are so many of them, in a sprawling new mall, far, far away from anything resembling residential construction or even anything historic.
I'm not going after Wal-Mart in this column. There are enough folks beating that horse, and I typically write about residential construction. My bone of contention is about the appropriate use of historical detail. No one expects that from Wal-Mart, but we do expect it of our architects who claim to be qualified to create historically influenced buildings. Read more.
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 A Place for Trades
Rudy Christian
The Arts and Crafts of Trades
I find it interesting how many people I meet who don't really know how to react when I tell them I'm a tradesperson. It's not like they've never heard the word, or even that they don't necessarily know what it means. It's more like they've never really expected to meet one, as if they figured they were all gone—someone they may have read about in history books but not someone they expected to meet walking down the street. Read more.
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