Posts about Arts
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Five ways DC rocks (and two ways it doesn’t) at social entrepreneurship
A DC-based business incubator looks at what draws social entrepreneurs to a given city, then ranks them by how friendly they are to ventures that work for social good. Here's what they discovered about the District. Keep reading…
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Public art isn’t just a way to fill space. It can turn whole communities around.
Last month, Ben’s Chili Bowl unveiled a new mural. The display brought a crowd of people outside to reflect on the bright colors, cultural touchstones, and iconic images that represent DC, U Street, and the history of the local black community. It also got me thinking about how public art fits into public space. Keep reading…
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A giant jazz band will decorate Reston Town Center’s Metro station
By 2020, there will be six new Silver Line Metro stops in Northern Virginia. Metro plans to decorate at least five of the new stations with artwork, and this week released the design for the Reston Town Center station. Keep reading…
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Can a bookstore open east of the Anacostia River?
Wards 7 and 8 are rich with cultural institutions, from THEARC to Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum to the Gateway Pavilion at Saint Elizabeths East Campus. Yet there is not a single independent bookstore east of the Anacostia River. Can this change? Will it? Keep reading…
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The five best Brutalist buildings in DC
Metro was just one part of a building boom that swept Washington in the 1960s and 1970s, leaving DC with a substantial legacy of Brutalist structures that celebrate the geometry and texture of raw concrete. This post highlights five buildings that combine the Brutalist style with a human scale. Keep reading…
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And the champion of Game of Zones is…
Today, at long last, we have a Game of Zones winner… Keep reading…
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Sandra Bullock once played a loveable NIMBY on the silver screen
You usually don't expect to have your urbanist beliefs challenged while watching a romantic comedy from 2002. But the film Two Weeks Notice, starring Sandra Bullock as a lawyer fighting a new development in New York City, has a lot to say about how much compromise and coalition building matter to a place's progress. Keep reading…
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Let’s cover blank walls with public murals
One of the most basic tenets of good urban design is that walkways should be lined with things to look at. So, given that, why do we accept so many blank spaces in our cities? Keep reading…
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Dune, one of the most popular sci-fi books ever, has a lot of urbanism in it
Frank Herbert’s Dune is one of the best-selling science fiction novels in history. Dune’s fictional universe has a number of parallels to resource use and the built environment in our world, from water shortages and overpopulation to the way places shape habits and personalities Keep reading…