A Developer’s Unusual Plan for Bright Lights, Inspired by a Dark Film: A flying car glides past the enormous eye of a smiling geisha hundreds of stories above the wet urban streets. That is the world of “Blade Runner,” Ridley Scott’s 1982 film set in a futuristic dystopia. It is also an obsession of a real estate developer, Sonny Astani, who hopes to evoke those atmospherics by affixing rows of light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, to the facades of his two newest condominium towers in downtown Los Angeles. [NYT]
Verdict on the new US embassy in Berlin: as elegant as a council house: The design of the embassy drew scorn from critics, who felt it would be more at home in Baghdad’s green zone. [Times]
Why is symmetry so satisfying?: Symmetros is a Greek word, and ancient Greek architecture used symmetry as a basic organizing principle. As did Roman, Roman-esque, and Renaissance. Indeed, it is hard to think of any architectural tradition, Western or non-Western, that does not include symmetry. Symmetry is something that Islamic mosques, Chinese pagodas, Hindu temples, Shinto shrines, and Gothic cathedrals have in common. [Slate]
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