Architecture
I don’t think this lovely scarecrow is very scary, but she does cut a good hay figure. Fall is in the air — I saw a couple of sandhill cranes fly over this morning, so I went out to the river before sunset and a small flock flew by. The problem is the river is running really high and fast, so the places they normally roost are underwater. The Martinez House got its color coat, and the cottonwoods are turning yellow.
Open door in the Old San Ysidro Church.
While I’m on the old adobe theme, this old house on Corrales Road next to the Tijuana Bar is finally getting some attention.
Last year around this time, volunteers from the Corrales Historical Society helped prepare and apply new mud plaster to the historic Martinez house in Corrales. Little did they know they celebrated the annual event of applying mud to the Martinez House for the last time. The owner of the Martinez House must have grown weary of the age old-tradition, and rare practice, of mud plaster after this past summer’s brutal storms, because on Saturday, the Martinez House got a new coat of cement plaster to join the ranks of the vast majority of adobe structures in New Mexico that are plastered and stuccoed.
The first photo shows the north side of the Martinez House with its new plaster, while the second photo shows a similar shot of the wall as it had been prepared for the new coat of mud plaster last year. The third photo shows the south and east side of the house with its new “brown” coat of plaster. The fourth photo, from last year, shows the south wall with the newly applied mud plaster and the east wall waiting for new mud. The last photo is a view of the freshly plastered east an north walls of the house.
After the “brown” coat of plaster dries completely, they should apply a color coat of stucco that I assume will be very close to the color of the mud they covered with cement plaster. The cement plaster and stucco will provide a much more durable and weatherproof covering than the mud plaster, but the old adobe blocks do not breath properly under cement plaster/stucco finishes, which is not good for the blocks. But the durability and protection of cement plaster has obviously become preferable to the cost and burden of applying mud plaster every year, a finish that offers little protection from severe storms like we had this past summer.
The summer monsoon was not nice to the mud plaster on the old San Ysidro Church in Corrales. The north side of the church is weathered and cracked with some large chunks of the mud plaster missing — washed off by driving rains in July and August. We were at the church for the opening of the Old Church Fine Art show, which runs through October 13th. Susan Graham, friend and fellow photographer, has two pieces in the show and won third place for her photo Floral Fireworks, a fantastic explosion of colors that has the appearance of a photo-realistic watercolor. Congratulations, Susan!
This is the new Santa Fe County Maintenance facility that won design awards. The County staff call it the “Moon Base” as it looks like an advanced, high-tech research facility with its dark glass, corrugated steel siding, concrete trumb walls, and modern, modular look. The problem is that whoever gave it the design awards didn’t talk to the people who occupy the buildings, because according to the occupants the buildings are total failures. The passive solar is apparently very passive as it heats the building in the summer, but not in the winter. The swamp coolers turn the building into a swamp instead of cooling it, and the pipes simply freeze in the winter because the buildings don’t get enough heat. Every office has a stand alone fan and space heater and one staff member told us that by the end of the day everyone is worn out and grumpy from dealing with over-heating in summer or freezing in winter. While the buildings have an interesting design, they give passive solar, green, leed, sustainable architecture a really bad name.
The first day we got back to Paris, a couple of guys in the apartment across the street took the opportunity of a break in the rain to make a short film on the balcony. We don’t know what they were doing, but during our two weeks in Paris, they had several of what looked like business lunches and dinners and at least one party on their balcony. Paris, France, May 2013.
Roman ruins in Arles, France. May 2013.
A young woman was taking a smoke break and watching people go by as she enjoyed her cigarette. The boys were so involved in their mobile devices as they walked down the street that they didn’t even notice of her. Aix-en-Provence, France. May 2013.
Conversation on Central Ave in downtown Albuquerque.
Off Center & Not Even 