Dave Erickson Photography

You might guess from previous posts that I am inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s work.  While recently in New York City on a business trip I happened on the Guggenheim Museum in the Upper East End of Manhattan.  What a thrill.  The building is like none other you’ll see, especially as it shouts out to you from the sea of similar to one another buildings.  It’s no wonder Wright and his creation were so controversial when the museum opened up in 1959.

Twenty one influential artists signed a formal protest and refused to exhibit in the building.  They claimed that the intent of Wright was to overshadow the art is was displaying.  In 1992 the rectangular addition was added behind the  Guggenheim’s spiral strip beehive.

The controversy has ended and the Guggenheim is regarded by most today as an example of creative genius.

As striking as the building is on the outside, the inside of the museum is bold, beautiful, and elegant.

Here are a couple of Milwaukee lakefront icons.  This photo is of the south face of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Calatrava Pavillion.  I have included two or three other photos in earlier posts featuring the extendable wings and support mast.

Discovery World is a lakefront museum that features physical science exhibits that are targeting a learning experience.  During the warmer months (what a joke) they dock a replica of a 19th century three masted Great Lakes schooner called the Denis Sullivan.

Sometimes you happen across something when you look up, down or behind you.  I was shooting Milwaukee’s Lake Michigan shoreline when I looked down through the grate of a narrow pier.

This power plant at a medical complex in Milwaukee County is peppered with corrugate metal buildings.  At sunset the horizontal and vertical ribs in the metal siding create a jumble of patterns.  The brick chimney glistened as if polished.  Yes, the work of the sun on metal and brick is exaggerated by HDR….but I just couldn’t help it!

The ladder provided a pattern of shadow on the metal siding that looks nothing like itself.  The rivets on the siding seem owned by the shadow not the metal.

Frank Lloyd Wright died in 1959 during his most prolific period of design and project commissions.  Projects during his last several years included the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and the Marin County Civic Center.  One of his last designs was of the Greek Orthodox Annunciation Church built in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.  Common to these three projects is the circular design element.

Designed in 1956, construction of the Greek Orthodox Church did not begin until after his death in 1959 and was completed in 1961.

While this shallow, domed design is not as attractive to me personally as most of his earlier work, there are some unique design attributes.

We’re getting blasted with a blizzard as I write this blog entry.  As the storm was taking some time to organize, I as able to get out into the night’s snow.  This is the receiving dock at what remains of the Pabst Brewery.

It was a cold, drab, and damp day on Lake Champlain yesterday.  I’m finishing  a short business trip to Burlington, Vermont and since I remembered to bring a camera and I had a spare hour late in the afternoon, I walked to the lakefront to see how the winter wears on the lake.

During the ’50s and 60’s many commercial buildings incorporated some sort of lattice grille into the front of the office building in an effort to simplify the geometry.  Some attach this technique to the mid-century architectural movement, popular at the time.  It’s been a long time since 1960 or so and the grille is showing it, but the effect is still striking.

Organizers enjoyed an expanded field of participants in the Head of the Charles Regatta held in Boston this past weekend.  Teams included crews from Europe, Asia, Iraq and the planet Spandex.

The Charles River runs through some of the most beautiful, rich and exclusive Boston area.  Take a walk down below some of the bridges that span the iconic river and you see a different, equally stunning part of Boston.

There’s a fella that liked this bridge just south of MIT so much that he decided to call it home.  Just on the other side of the bridge is a NASA facility.