All Mighty Facade

 

 

 

No matter how you paint the box, the box is still a box.

This, look at this. It's the least we can do. What does this look like. Yeah, looks like people could hang out there. And have a decent time perhaps.

Drive Up Living

 

Please come home. I've left the "light" on for you.

Mini Winnie

 

Rufn it in the Winnebago. Lately I have had the urge to get one of these. And live in it. I'm sure it wouldn't get old at all. Especially when the propane got scarce and the thing would get hard to heat.

All In Service Of The Car

 

This house used to have a lot of vegetation surrounding it, but when these people moved in they took it out, and paved over part of the lawn with gravel, so they could park their 3 RV's and snow machine trailer on their lot.
And to top it all off, they put up that corrugated tin carport right on the front. Like a big wart on the nose, you can't help staring.....

Current Study Material

 

 

The great Jonah Shue loaned my this, along with a book called The Music Of Time, written by Preston B. Nichols with Peter Moon. Total mind benders.
The Death And Life Of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs, was written in 1961. It goes to show that the things we are discussing here, the things we take for granted in our landscape, are nothing new. This tome, written by a lay person, was a work of observation rather than scholarly analysis. And I don't mean that as an insult. I am looking forward to digging into this.

Container Box On Turn Of The Century Downtown Building

 

 

So much character, It's great to see something that wasn't torn down in an orgy of urban renewal.
Of course, when you examine the entry for this building at the Boise Architecture website, the corrugated shed on top is not in evidence.
http://www.boisearchitecture.org/structuredetail.php?id=182

Banker Bunker III

 

Putting their best face forward, wherever forward is.

Yard Of Chairs

Where the office furniture comes when it's done. Caution. Our castoffs have no irony. 

The boxes in the inside are never empty, never emptied. Always attended.
(Idaho Youth Ranch Outlet Yard)

The Facade Continues

 

The psychology of previous investment. Of course, it could have been different. Or the same. No matter.

Another Banker Bunker, Dwarfed By The Power Grid

 

The repository of energy, with BoA bunker in front.

You need to get PAID!!

I pay a fair amount of taxes these days and I want you get paid from it. Do good works.
But no more dams please.

Two Very Wrongs Don't Make it A'ight

 

This is a legendary example of brutalist architechture. And I see it from my job every day. I try to avert my eyes. But it's always there. The Boise Cascade building, formerly a single occupant building, surrounded by Kunstlers hated parking lagoons, was bought up by a Californian with plans. He started off by dividing this monolith up, painting it army green, built an ominous looking parkingstructure next to it, (don't worry, no buildings were harmed in the making of that concrete box,) and there you have it. Somethings make people proud.

BANKER BUNKER

 

In the banker bunker, on the corner, for your convenience. When the downtown transit mall is built (start holding your breath .......wait for it......NOW) this homey little bombshelter will go the way of the bailout money, down the drain, never to be seen again. So enjoy it while it lasts.

Fast Forward.

Fast forward the near future to the future past, the present is too awful to contemplate anyway. The "built environment" now generates its coming detritus before projects are even completed. Our garbage precedes us, to be gathered in an oceanic gyre as dead as the black hole at the center of the galaxy.

Arid Deco

 

Shining light of this downtown. How did we avoid tearing it down?

Functionality and aesthetics are not exclusive qualities.

Out Of Scale

This is an alright place to build a house, I guess. It certainly adds a lot to the setting. I guess. I just wonder what the motivation was to build something to this scale? Good for them. It certainly doesn't look out of place up there, in much the same way a big zit doesn't look out of place on an adolescents face.

Meet Me On The Veranda

 

It's a faux porch. There is room, but not to much room. It's made of concrete, so it's built to last. It's an uneasy place, and you hang on by your fingertips. It is meant to signify something, but not stand for anything.

God Bless This Humble Garage

 

Our reason for living. Come on Down America.

The End Of The Road

 

The grass is not turf, it serves a purpose, it serves us. Contempt for useless space, and the drive to consume the pasture. Drive to work, then drive to consume the pastoral life. But not too pastoral. Because, while we like the rural life, we have no use for the rural lifestyle. The land is there for us to ruin, just like the lives we ruin everyday.

In good light.