You can’t seem to walk three blocks in Barcelona without running into a Gaudí masterpiece — though by masterpiece we’re referring to scale. In architecture, as in cities, grand has more than one meaning.

A commonplace Hindi term, jugaad describes everyday acts of innovation. As artist Sanjeev Shankar tells it: “A guy with 10 rupees has a dream to own a tractor or a television. He’ll start thinking in a radically inventive manner to get it, and do so with whatever means or resources he has at hand.”

Havana’s most conspicuous foreign mission is the former Soviet (now Russian) embassy, which seems to glower rather direly back at anyone who dares to look at it. The obelisk erupting from its brutalist tower block does suggest a periscope from which those inside might be surveilling the city, but for those of us with an unhealthy fascination with totalitarian design the building is utterly compelling.

During my recent Brazil excursion to research the book I stopped in Salvador, without much of a specific agenda. I had long wanted to visit, mostly because the city and the surrounding state of Bahia, predominantly Afro-Brazilian, have had such a definitive influence on the country’s culture (from samba to candomblé and capoeira).

(Photo: Heidelberg Project, Michael Takasaki)
Following up on last post: In Detroit, at least, there’s already a number of projects underway that are designed to staunch the bleeding in neighborhoods struggling with urban decay and foreclosure. Boing Boing led me to James Griffioen’s marvelous set of photos of the abandoned Detroit Public School Book Depository, which [...]

[Photo: Heidelberg Project]
While staying in Detroit, we head out toward 8 Mile and stop at the Heidelberg Project. It’s a two-block public art exercise that consumes the sides of houses, empty lots, the sidewalk, and even the trees of a long depressed, black (but once racially integrated) Eastside Detroit neighborhood. Tyree Guyton, who grew up [...]

[Photo: First Christ Church, Eliel Saarinen, 1942]
Indiana Detour: Took a day away from the China in Africa symposium to check out the southern Indiana town of Columbus, which is a little-known hub of 20th century architectural showpieces, boasting buildings by Eliel Saarinen, Harry Weese, Gunnar Birkerts, Eero Saarinen, and several Pritzker Prize-winners including I.M Pei, [...]