From CityLab — 77 Metro 'M' logos in one @markbyrnes525 graphic

Which is your fave? 77 Metro 'M' logos in one (@markbyrnes525) graphic - http://t.co/64DP45WEFt pic.twitter.com/nGYloCGUvv

— eric jaffe (@e_jaffe) June 8, 2015

Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend — Discovering the sociability, the congeniality of the city

In this excerpt from Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend, the first book of the four Neapolitan novels, the 12 year old Elena spends the day with her father. She has qualified for high school and he wants to be sure she knows how to navigate the city to get to her new school. Her neighbourhood has been her entire world up to this point, a place described as violent—feuds and recriminations, domestic violence. This is her father's day to day world, he's a porter at city hall. She observes in him traits of habit and character that he never displayed at home or in the neighbourhood. And through observing her father she experiences a very different world, a world of civility, courtesy, congeniality. She witnesses and documents what Jane Jacobs said were the "sidewalk contacts [that] are the small change from which a city's wealth of public life may grow." To my reading Ferrante's account through the eyes of her 12 year old protagonist rivals Jane Jacobs' description of the "sidewalk ballet" of her New York Hudson Street neighbourhood.

The boundaries of the neighbourhood faded in the course of that summer. One morning my father took me with him. Since I was enrolling in high school, he wanted me to know what public transportation I would have to take and what route when I went in October to the new school.

It was a beautiful, very clear, windy day. I felt loved, coddled, to my affection for him was added a crescendo of admiration. He knew the enormous expanse of the city intimately, he knew where to get the metro or a tram or a bus. Outside he behaved with a sociability a relaxed courtesy, that at home he almost never had.

He was friendly toward everyone, on the metro and the buses, in the offices, and he always managed to let his interlocutor know that he worked for the city and that, if he liked, he could speed up practical matters, open doors.

We spent the whole day together, the only one in our lives. I don’t remember any others. He dedicated himself to me, as if he wanted to communicate to me in a few hours everything useful he had learned in the course of his existence. He showed me Piazza Garibaldi and the station that was being built: according to him it was so modern that the Japanese were coming from Japan to study it—in particular the columns—and build an identical one in their country. But he confessed that he liked the old station better, he was more attached to it. Ah well, Naples, he said had always been like that: it’s cut down, it’s broken up, and then it’s rebuilt, and the money flows and creates work.

He took me along Corso Garibaldi, to the building that would be my school. He dealt in the office with extreme good humour, he had the gift of congeniality, a gift that in the neighbourhood and at home he kept hidden. He boasted of my extraordinary report card to a janitor whose wedding witness, he discovered on the spot, he knew well. I heard him repeating often: everything in order? Or: everything that can be done is being done. He showed me Piazza Carlo III, the Albergo dei Poveri, the botanical garden, Via Foria, the museum. He took me on Via Constantinopoli, to Port’Alba, to Piazza Dante, to Via Toledo. I was overwhelmed by the names, the noise of the traffic, the voices, the colours, the festive atmosphere, the effort of keeping everything in mind so I could talk about it later with Lila, the ease with which he chatted with the pizza maker from whom he bought me a pizza melting with ricotta, the fruit seller from whom he bought me a yellow peach. Was it possible that only our neighbourhood was filled with conflicts and violence, while the rest of the city was radiant, benevolent?

He took me to see the place where he worked, in Plaza Municipio. There, too, he said, everything had changed, the trees had been cut down, everything was broken up: now see all the space, the only old thing left is the Maschio Angioino, but it’s beautiful, little one, there are two real males in Naples, your father and that fellow there. We went to the city hall, he greeted that person and that, everyone knew him. With some he was friendly, and introduced me, repeating yet again that in school I had gotten nine in Italian and nine in Latin; with others he was almost mute, only, indeed, yes, you command and I obey.

From The Guardian —The Liverpool street that might win the Turner prize

 Cairns St. Assemble helped to transform after ‘managed decline’. A Teebay/Liverpool Echo

At the end of Granby Street in Liverpool’s Toxteth, past relentless rows of tinned-up houses punctuated by half-demolished corner shops, the mood is unusually festive. Television crews have been here for the past few days, camping out amid the jungle of pavement plant pots and poking their cameras into tumble-down terraces. But for once they haven’t come to report on the sorry story of urban dereliction that has plagued these streets for the past 30 years. It’s not the usual social affairs correspondents, but packs of bewildered cultural critics – because this is the street that’s been shortlisted for the Turner prize.The street that might win the Turner prize: how Assemble are transforming Toxteth | Art and design | The Guardian

Toxteth then and now: photographs of a bygone Liverpool http://t.co/SAcpix9PYF pic.twitter.com/YzUPEpweKS

— Guardian Cities (@guardiancities) May 19, 2015

---

Chris Burden died on Sunday. He was 69.

From @CityLab "When it comes to thinking critically about what makes cities run, Burden’s genre-spanning career places him among the most useful, inquisitive artists of our time."

Posted by The Sidewalk Ballet on Monday, May 11, 2015

For Warhol, J.G. Ballard, and others the destroyed car is one of the most potent symbols in modern art

Post by The Sidewalk Ballet.

Background / Vancouver — An artist's view of the city, October 30, 1972

Post by The Sidewalk Ballet.

From @ArchiDaily — Architecture Music

Post by Architecture Daily.

From @Dezeen — 3D Animation Completion of Sagrada Família

More at: One-minute 3D animation shows final phases of Gaudí's Sagrada Família

From craftsy.com —Bright Lights, Big City Inspiration: Urban Sketching Tutorial

Illustration: Bird’s eye view via Craftsy member artistkierstan.

Urban sketching might seem intimidating at first, but there’s a whole world of subject matter out there just waiting to inspire you. In this post, we’ll explore a number of different ways to approach sketching in the city, from subject matter to style. More at: Bright Lights, Big City Inspiration: Urban Sketching Tutorial

James McNabb Solo Exhibition — Metros @McNabbDesign @Vimeo

James McNabb Solo Exhibition - METROS from The Greatest Trick on Vimeo.

RT @humansofny "We're all victims of the architect."

"We're all victims of the architect. Architecture is the only art that you can't help but feel. You can avoid..." pic.twitter.com/1hqgCc2eGl

— Brandon Stanton (@humansofny) October 14, 2014

From CBC Radio — Ideas with Paul Kennedy Witold Rybczynski: Art We Live In

We love and hate them, but we can't escape them either - we're all obliged to live and work in buildings, and we all have strong feelings about how they look, how they function, and how they affect us.

Witold Rybczynski plays architecture tour guide to explore some big questions: What makes buildings work (or not)? What were the architects thinking? And what do buildings tell us about ourselves, our times and what we do? More at: Art We Live In | Ideas with Paul Kennedy | CBC Radio

NYC Museum Mile— June 10 a traffic-free Fifth Avenue free admission at 9 museums @Guggenheim

Post by The Sidewalk Ballet.

Twitter List — Architecture, Design

Tweets from https://twitter.com/1sidewalkballet/lists/architecture-design

Spur — a festival of politics, art and ideas Vancouver May 22 - 25 Live tweets #spur14

Tweets about "#spur14"

From The Atlantic Cities —Robert Moses Vs Jane Jacobs: The Opera

The legendary 1960s struggle pitted planning czar Robert Moses against neighborhood activist Jane Jacobs. Moses wanted to make the city easily navigable by car. During his reign, hedisplaced half a million people with highways. But the powerful planner met his match when he proposed an expressway through Lower Manhattan. Though she had little institutional support, Jacobs built a citizen coalition that ultimately defeated Moses. Read more: Robert Moses Vs. Jane Jacobs: The Opera - Amanda Erickson - The Atlantic Cities

5 Mind-Bending, Pioneering National Film Board Short Films By Norman McLaren

Post by NFB.

From Metropolis Magazine — Ballet of the Sidewalk

Moves + Pepsi, New York City, 1955 © William Klein

Author Jeff Speck asks how lively streets can make for not just walkable cities, but good and just ones.  The soul of a city can be found by taking a walk. This is the essential premise behind all great street photography. Here Metropolis presents both classic examples and contemporary work, from Vivian Maier and William Klein to Boogie. More: Ballet of the Sidewalk - Metropolis Magazine - February 2014

Street art panorama. Commercial Drive. pic.twitter.com/zywqjP3bX3

— Wise Monkeys (@wisemonkeysblog) January 25, 2014

Check out the Lower East Side of yesterday.. http://t.co/E36CAi6hTY #LES #EastVillage #NYC pic.twitter.com/z0eXc80ogP

— LESNYC (@LESNYC) January 18, 2014