The Cleveland Institute of Art is extraordinarily important to Northeast Ohio and the world for the great artists and designers educated there, and for the great artists and designers who are the educators, and staff. Each year, the work of the diverse CIA faculty is showcased in an exhibition not to be missed... the reception for 2007 was last Friday, December 7, and a great event, as always... perhaps the last ever in the historic Gund Building Reinberger Gallery space, as the CIA moves in total to Euclid Avenue.

As part of the Star Neighborhood Development planning for the Star Complex and surrounding one mile radius, I have been planning the redevelopment of the current Cleveland Institute of Art Gund Building and land, on East Boulevard in Cleveland, shown below (full size image here).

November 28, 2007, renowned architect Carl Stein, FAIA, Principal of elemental architecture, llc, of New York City, shared his valuable understanding about the environment in Northeast Ohio and the world, focusing on the energy of buildings and a specific analysis of the Breuer Cleveland Trust Tower, in downtown Cleveland. This is the only high-rise by revolutionary architect Marcel Breuer, and it is globally appreciated as a masterpiece of modern design and construction... yet it is planned for demolition by Cuyahoga County Commissioners Dimora and Hagan.  Stein worked with Breuer for many years, including when Breuer built the Cleveland Trust Tower, and Stein's conclusion is there is no rational excuse for demolishing the Breuer. As Stein states, "just that Breuer and this building are so important is enough reason to preserve the Breuer"... although Stein gives many other reasons!

Third and Last of 3 Bauhaus-Breuer events this week: Wednesday, November 28 at 6 pm at Judson Manor —Green building and modernism; are they antithetical?  (I'm  posting this for Susan Miller who's one of the organizers)

CHAPTER ONE Recently, when I spoke with a conductor on the Albany-Boston Amtrak coach, he told me that he had been working on that run for the last four years and the train had NEVER arrived on time.  Consistent with his experience, we arrived an hour late.

 

FOUR YEARS!?  Well, right off the bat you’ve gotta find that that is intentional. 

 

So why? What seems to be going on?

The mood in the United States is changing towards people who don’t look like they are from here.

For years I have traveled around the US and around the world and, besides being inspected and asked to produce my passport at the physical border crossing between nations, I have only been stopped inside a county once - in the 70’s – by soldados in Patagonia when Argentina was governed by the military right before Peron returned to power.

Be sure to visit the Cleveland Museum of Art and see the Modern Master’s.  Really, it is way too much to take in during one visit. 

 

Rockefeller / MLK Drive is as beautiful a place to enjoy nature - these days, fall colors - as any place on Earth that has been touched by man.  As I've been thinking about the Native Americans of this land, and Indians of India and America, and the current hostility in this county of past invaders against all others who want to live here too, I was drawn to the Indian Cultural Garden, today, and it was spectacular (full size image here).

I stood there alone, in one of the world's most beautiful places, as commuting suburbanites whizzzed by, and I thought of the last photos I took near here, of the demolition of historic apartment buildings on East Boulevard, that were part of this park's historic fabric and culture, quietly demolished for parking lots, for the whizzzzzing commuters (Full size images: above and below).

It is interesting to reflect on "Cleveland" as a "shrinking city", with 100,000s in declining population, 10,000s of abandoned residential, commercial and industrial lots and buildings covering 1,000s of acres of land, and a failing tax base. Simply put, much of Cleveland is free to the taking, and taxpayers will even pay to get taken by their leaders - the land that is being freed up in this latest Savings and Loan "crisis" is worth $ billions and is being given to the friends of politicians for long term speculation and short term enrichment... what is bad for the poor is very good for the rich, who can buy low (can't beat free, with public subsidy). I'd say all this foreclosure hoopla is as fraudulent as was the housing bubble itself, being pure voodoo economic bullshit media spin to steal from the poor and give to the rich - the "Developed Nations" way and a NEO leadership specialty. I'd like to propose a completely different spin on dealing with our shrinking city crises, which is to give back to the Native Americans what we stole from them in the first place, since we destroyed it and supposedly it is now a burden to we settlers in our cowardly New World.

Picked up from CoolCleveland.com Mittal Steel & Your Health

Join Cleveland area doctors, nurses, and community leaders for a public hearing on the topic Wed 11/14 at 6:30PM at Tri-C’s downtown Metro campus in room CC10. Light refreshments will be served. Come to find out why 375 Cleveland area doctors and nurses have written to Cleveland’s biggest polluter, Mittal Steel, urging pollution prevention. Dr. Kathleen Fagan from University Hospital's Swetland Environmental Health Center will speak at the event paneled by Dr. Anne Wise, Kim Foreman, and Dr. Dan Brustein. For more information or ridesharing contact Liz Ilg with Ohio Citizen Action at 861-5200. http://www.ohiocitizen.org

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Ontario, Canada has recently exempted all bicycles which sell for less than $1,000 from Provincial sales tax.   Toronto, the largest city in the Province of Ontario, has  sophisticated bike transportation management - an official part of the City government.

 

Neither the Gund Foundation nor the Cleveland Foundation made a peep to preserve the Breuer, and two of our County Commissioners (with the exception of Mr. Lawson-Jones) are (at best) too ignorant to appreciate the international architectural jewel which Jacobs bought and sold to the County  (The Breuer Tower, like the Coast Guard Station, shows Jacobs has erudite architectural taste?).

Driving back and forth between Ohio City and East Cleveland, I often take Euclid... partly to watch the progress of the "Silver Line" and Clinic Complex development. I increasingly find the "Silver Line" and Mid-Town aspects of all this disappointing, but I am fascinated by what I see coming together with the Cleveland Clinic.

Though you might not get down to see the show in its current installation in the windows of the Cleveland Chapter of the AIA, you will have a chance to see it reprised when you attend Bauhaus in America/ a film by Judith Pearlman at Cleveland Cinematheque on November 17.

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Could it be just over a year since Masumi Hayashi and John Jackson were killed by a senseless psycho ...? As the senseless killing escalates all around NEO today, it is easy for the dead to become forgotten by so many they touched in many ways, in life... or lost to all. Where NEO has seen a community that remembers is those who love the arts, as the past year has seen many shows of love and respect for Masumi and John, the most recent being a wonderful exhibition that opened last week at Doubting Thomas Gallery, called To Masumi. A collection of special works by many who love and remember Masumi, this is a powerful statement on what lasts and matters in life and beyond. Props to the organizers of this exhibition and to Doubting Thomas - really fantastic... amazing musicians performing in the front Gallery, Michael Doc Dreyfuss and Bill Weita... haunting yet alive... see today's header... image below...

When you visit downtown Chicago or Toronto you can feel those places are more civically healthy than downtown  Cleveland. 

Brutalism against Breuer in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Cool Cleveland this week ran a piece by Chris Whipple  about re-naming Cleveland’s Terminal Tower.  Mr. Whipple suggests that “terminal” (as in "terminally ill", dead, or dead end) is too much a downer name and that instead the building should be called  VanView  after the Van Sweringen brothers who built the tower and Shaker Heights, etc. 

To register for this meeting with Senator Brown in the Russell Senate Office Building, email Brooke Stoddard at brookecstoddard [at] cs [dot] com.

Committees and Subcommittees that Senator Brown serves on are:
Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry
Subcommittee on Energy, Science and Technology
Subcommittee on Nutrition & Food Assistance
Subcommittee on Production, Income Protection & Price Support
Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs
Subcommittee on Economic Policy
Subcommittee on Security & International Trade
Health, Education, Labor & Pensions
Subcommittee on Employment & Workplace Safety
Subcommittee on Retirement & Aging
Veterans' Affairs

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On Friday August 31, 2007, while Air Show jets stalled out conversations and blasted ear drums,  Susan Miller and I visited the “open house” at the Post designed Cleveland Trust Rotunda building which sits on the corner of Euclid and 9th next to the Marcel Breuer designed Cleveland Trust Tower in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.   Lee Trotter had announced this open house at the County Commissioners meeting the day before and the Dirty Dealer had carried the news a few days prior.   I wondered, why is the County doing this?