We're sure to get lots of hate mail for this one, which we're okay with (better angry mail than a life of sob-filled solitude, right?). So after reading stories like "The New Trophy Home, Small and Ecological," which is about people like John Cusack and Pierce Brosnan jumping on the green bandwagon by thinking about purchasing $2.8 million dollar, gigantic luxury homes that will produce their own energy, despite the fact that it will take the power of seventeen villages to build the behemoths, we get a little cynical and return to a story from a while back about the co-opting of the green movement, taking the message from "Buy less and use less" to "Don't change a thing and maybe even buy more! Just make sure it's vaguely, sorta green-ish!" And when we're really fired up at this black and white perception of earthiness, we like reading stories like this one in the SF Gate about the big troubles with building using recycled home furnishings, because it shows that things aren't so simple in dealing with all the junk we have and keep making. Okay, lecture over. We're going to go back to clubbing baby seals.

We've shifted back and forth over the past few weeks between the renovations being made to Paul Rudolph's Art and Architecture Building on Yale's campus and the desperate plea to save the architect's Riverview High School down in Florida. Now that the latter has come to an unfortunate end, we thought we'd check in on what's going on over at the building which is sure to stay up. Luckily, we found The Sun's James Gardner offering up a whole slew of details on the project to give Rudolph's most creation a nice polish and some extra features, all on the path to get it ready to open come November 9th. It's a piece that's heavily focused on Rudolph himself, which is always a good thing, given how much people either love him or hate him (same with his buildings, too). Here's a bit:

When it reopens on November 9, the original building will be officially renamed Paul Rudolph Hall, in honor of the charismatic figure who not only designed it, but ran the entire school as his personal fiefdom between 1958 and 1964. Rudolph was the sort of polarizing figure who, both in his pedagogy and in his practice, inspired an equal measure of devotion and ill will. Even today the building remains obviously and instantly controversial. But 45 years ago, at its inauguration, it possessed the fury of a polemic. A sullen gray megalith fashioned out of corduroy concrete, this bully of a building was perhaps the first on our continent to introduce the more subjective, Brutalist aesthetic that Le Corbusier had developed in the postwar period. To a culture that, for two decades, had been fed a mortifying diet of glass and steel, the abrupt intrusion of so much raw emotion was a shock to the system.

Speaking of Paul Rudolph, Robert A.M. Stern, and Sarasota, Florida, as we were yesterday, we now offer up a two-fer. First comes a quickie, looking back at the Herald Tribune, which helps to explain just what the "Sarasota School of Architecture" is and why followers of such school would care so much about saving Paul Rudolph's Riverview High School. And second comes an interesting update from Art Daily about the ongoing restoration of Yale's Art & Architecture Building, also designed by Rudolph, and the pet project of A.M. Stern, who is doing all he can to preserve the building and make it all nice and new again. Here's a bit about what exactly they'll be doing to the building:

Work on the Art & Architecture building has included a mix of literal restoration, interpretive renovation, and sensitive intervention, all sympathetic to Rudolph's vision. Mr. Gwathmey's design restores open spaces that have been fractured, revives vertical views that have long been blocked by prior renovations and ill-placed partitions, recaptures Rudolph's concept for the building's fenestration, and restores the exterior walls. The renovation also includes the complete restoration of the penthouse and rooftop terrace, creation of an easily accessible entrance to the main lecture theater, Hastings Hall, and installation of replacement windows that use contemporary technology and materials. In addition, new lighting and furnishings are being introduced throughout the building.

While Robert A.M. Stern pools together the millions of dollars donated to save his favorite Paul Rudolph creation on Yale's campus, several thousand miles away finds the people of Sarasota, Florida deciding what to do with their own Rudolph buildings, chiefly, if they should tear down his Riverview High School. It's an interesting story from the local press, in the Herald Tribune. Getting away from the money involved with restoration projects like Stern's and into a place where, despite the town already building a $135 million dollar replacement, a handful of architecture fans and the Sarasota Architecture Foundation are trying desperately, and even succeeding on some occasions, to not see the building demolished and turned into a parking lot (which is exactly what's in the agenda and has been for some time). If you're at all a Rudolph fan, it's definitely worth a read (and maybe a donation to their cause, Revive Rudolph's Riverview).

The refurbished Paramount Center for the Arts has been open for 17 years. It reopened with much fanfare with an appearance by hometown hero Ernie Ford. The Bristol, Tenn. theater, originally opened in 1931, came back to life on April 24, 1991 as the "Paramount Center for the Arts." It had been vacant for 14 years. Now the center shows a heck lot more than just movies. Celtic rock group Gaelic Storm played on April 24th to celebrate the building's anniversary. (For what it's worth, you might wonder why there were so many Paramount theaters in the U.S.; Paramount Pictures had a plan to build one in each state, according to Merle Dickert, the center's executive director.

This is Mary Beth Klatt, filling in the for the intrepid Steve Delahoyde. I've written about architecture and design for Chicago Home + Garden, USA Weekend Magazine, and other publications, but my specialty is historic preservation.
On that note, we're concerned about the fate of this particular Greenwich, Conn. mansion. Apparently this Richardsonian Romanesque residence will be demolished by the end of May, to the great distress of a family that lived there from 1927 through last year. (Art Malley and his siblings were forced to sell the home to pay the federal and state real estate taxes after their parents and owners passed away.) Malley says the residence is the only remaining example of Richardsonian Romanesque in town. "If we knew that they were planning demolition of this historically and architecturally very important Greenwich home, we would have sold it to another prospective purchaser," he told Preservation Online.

Not too long ago, we told you about the oil-drilling scheme that threatened Robert Smithson's monumental 1970 earthwork "Spiral Jetty," the 1,500-foot-long trail of black basalt rocks that coils into Utah's Great Salt Lake and is owned by the Dia Art Foundation. Today we heard from Dia about the outcome of its recent meeting with Utah State officials to discuss the artwork's long-term preservation:

Together we decided to pursue the creation of a buffer zone around the sculpture that will help protect the artwork for future generations and fit within the lake's mixed-use resource plan. The State has also expanded their review process for the current drilling proposal, and has agreed to let Dia comment on the findings prior to making a decision.

"Terahertz rays" may sound like something Captain Kirk ordered ready to fend off enemy craft, but they're real and they've got an intriguing use: discovering murals hidden beneath coats of plaster or paint in centuries-old buildings.

In a paper published in the February 15 issue of Optics Communications, a team of researchers from the Louvre Museum (paging Dan Brown!), Picometrix, and the University of Michigan used pulses of terahertz radiation ("T-rays") to detect colored paints and a graphite drawing of a butterfly through four millimeters of plaster. Next month, they're taking the show on the road to help archaeologists examine a mural that was recently discovered behind five layers of plaster in a 12th-century church in France.

What's so special about T-rays? Not only can they detect the faintest pencil sketches under paintings on canvas without harming the artwork (or the people using them--their radiation is non-ionizing), but they also trump existing imaging methods in their ability to detect art materials such as graphite and chalk with unprecedented depth and detail. Bianca Jackson, first author of the paper and a doctoral student in applied physics, explains it better and more spookily: "Terahertz is a strange range in the electromagnetic spectrum because it's quasi-optical," she says. "It is light, but it isn't." We do love a dubious glow!

Okay, we're all upset about our dependence on foreign oil, but that's really no reason to go drilling into the artworks located within our own borders, is it? Someone in Utah wants to dig for black gold in the Great Salt Lake and apparently the Robert Smithson land art piece Spiral Jetty is just too irresistible a target (drill...right...here!). Tyler Green posts a plea from Smithson's widow, Nancy Holt, describing the situation:

Yesterday I received an urgent email from Lynn DeFreitas, Director of Friends of the Great Salt Lake, telling me of plans for drilling oil in the Salt Lake near Spiral Jetty...

I have been told by Lynn that the oil wells will not be above the water, but that means some kind of industrial complex of pipes and pumps beneath the water and on the shore. The operation would require roads for oil tank trucks, cranes, pumps etc. which produce noise and will severely alter the wild, natural place.

Action to prevent this must be taken by 7pm EST today by calling or emailing Jonathan Jemming at 801-537-9023 or jjemming AT utah.gov. Refer to Application #8853, or just title your email GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY SPIRAL JETTY YOU OIL-GRUBBING BASTARDS!

It's true that the little 'toon with big ears and his funny cohorts will be moving into the Presidio, according to a Preservation Online story. Workers are converting three structures in the Presidio, a National park, into the Walt Disney Family Museum. The San Francisco buildings had been vacant since 1994.

Apparently, two years ago, Disney's daughter, Diane Miller and her spouse, Ron, asked Page & Turnbull to design a museum dedicated to her late father in Northern California, where she lives. Miller especially liked the Presido because her dad was a military buff and admired General Pershing, who was in charge of the Presidio. Besides, the buildings on the site strongly resembled Disney World's Main Street.

Page & Turnbull is working closely with the Presidio Trust to maintain the buildings' historic integrity. A 1897 barracks will serve as the exhibit hall. A 1904 gym will become offices and archives. A World War II-era munitions shed will shelter the museum's mechanical systems.

So it looks like the world's most famous mouse will be getting some mighty fine digs with grandiose views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco Bay. He'd better learn how to handle the area's earthquakes, but that's the stuff of cartoons, right?