Althouse: Commercial architecture.

August 14, 2012

Commercial architecture.

In Missoula, Montana.

45 comments:

Carnifex said...: All architecture is commercial. Wow! That almost sounded like a truism. I don't like cookie cutter architecture. The big box houses with your choice of 1 of 7 entrances etc. The nouveau riche neighborhoods with their steep camel roofs with multiple gables/eyebrows/ and just corners to make corners are deeply offensive to me. They lack the soul to make a true neighborhood, and so you just have acquaintences, the guy next door, maybe across the street. Souless traps that prevent a true community.

Give me a house with character, style, a je ne sais quais, a soul to hold my family. Maybe it's just atavistic animism, but it's how I feel.

Ps

There is a house down the street from where I live, and every nerve tingles when you drive past it. As an experiment once, I drove a friend past this house with the instructions "Tell me if you feel something" "what would I feel?" they asked me. "You'll know" was my reply. Sure enough, we drove past the house, and she said "Here! Something happened here" I thanked her and told her I agreed. When she asked what happened I had to confess that I had no idea, it's just the feeling I got also. Other friends have asked about the house, with no prompting whatso ever. Take it for what it's worth.; 8/14/12, 12:49 AM
wyo sis said...: More fish.
They look like the fish in Flotsam. One of my favorite kids books.; 8/14/12, 1:01 AM
dhagood said...: that dairy queen, at the corner of higgins and strand, is very busy during the summer months. it's open late, and with it not getting dark till 9:45 or so all manner of people are out and about enjoying the evening.

missoula in the summer is very nice indeed.; 8/14/12, 1:46 AM
MadisonMan said...: My nephew was born in Missoula, and I was there long ago at his christening. Pretty town. Now he's about to become a Dad.; 8/14/12, 2:17 AM
LoafingOaf said...: The Right’s brittle heroes
The contrast between Paul Ryan's iconic image and his personal reality is typical of America's partisan leaders; 8/14/12, 3:42 AM
Menahem Globus said...: I know that Dairy Queen but don't recognize the first building. What part of town is it in?; 8/14/12, 5:46 AM
edutcher said...: Commercial architecture is bright colors and angles, it would seem.; 8/14/12, 5:49 AM
Rusty said...: Alan said...
I know that Dairy Queen but don't recognize the first building. What part of town is it in?

Looks like a fly shop of some famous fly tier or another. Dan Bailey maybe? Missoula being central to a lot of trout water.; 8/14/12, 6:05 AM
cpu said...: Not architecture related, but for Ice Cream, "Big Dipper" 631 South Higgins is the place to go in Missoula. We usually stay at Ruby's Reserve Street Inn, just to plug another local business.; 8/14/12, 6:48 AM
KCFleming said...: As I understand it, Paul Ryan will personally bulldoze Missoula flat.

Swear to God.
Heard it from Debbie Wasserman Schultz.; 8/14/12, 7:09 AM
AllenS said...: Steel roofs and steel siding is a good solid investment.; 8/14/12, 7:17 AM
KCFleming said...: The bulldozer thing is scheduled just after Ryan does a tractor jump over 200 Medicare grandmothers.

Not sure if they're stacked or laid end-to-end.; 8/14/12, 7:31 AM
wild chicken said...: Are you still here, Ann? Before you leave, you must visit our law school - the best one in the state!; 8/14/12, 7:38 AM
prairie wind said...: Dairy Queen is the best ice cream...though if I were in Missoula I would give Big Dipper a try, too.

Stacked grandmothers, Pogo?; 8/14/12, 8:12 AM
KCFleming said...: "Stacked grandmothers, Pogo?"

Republicans are evil, ain't they?; 8/14/12, 8:18 AM
Carnifex said...: Wow! Zero has become unhinged by the Ryan pick! He's no longer hiding his communism!...http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/08/13/obama_a_new_vision_of_an_america_which_prosperity_is_shared.html

And after the gafftastic Dingy Harry channeled Mitt's dad, we have Slow Joe doing the same for Ryans--http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/biden-invokes-paul-ryans-deceased-father-question-vp-candidates-values_649913.html

It's one thing to convert someone after they're dead. It's another to channel them into castigating their own children, before stealing their ID's to commit voter fraud!

You know why the NEA needs to be defunded? This is why--http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/08/13/detroit-store-tries-to-draw-kids-to-school-with-new-shoes/

As long as little Jimmy shows up for the 1 day a year, he gets counted for being a pupil, so they get money from DC. What could possibly be wrong with this system?; 8/14/12, 8:33 AM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/14/12, 8:40 AM
JAL said...: Noe there's a *real* fisheye for ya', Professor!

Wonder what you looked like to it/him/her?; 8/14/12, 8:41 AM
Michael Haz said...: On your way home you could stop in at Herb Kohl's $25 million ranch called Red Hills, near Jackson Wyoming.; 8/14/12, 8:47 AM
JAL said...: Noe = Now

stacked grandmothers! Whoa, Pogo, must be interesting at work this morning.

Meanwhile Glenn Greenwald is screeching over at Salon about Ryan.; 8/14/12, 8:48 AM
Farmer said...: I've only been to Missoula once and hated it. I was standing outside a club smoking a cigarette and two hicks drove up in a pickup truck with personalized license plates that read BOZE MAN and threatened to beat me up.

I mean, sure, I guess they were technically Bozeman hicks, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth.

On the other hand, I was walking up State Street yesterday afternoon with my wife and daughter when the idiot in front of us hocked a massive loogy on the sidewalk directly in our path. I guess there are savages everywhere.; 8/14/12, 9:00 AM
Robert Cook said...: I'd like to turn the building with the fish painting in the glass into a house to live in.; 8/14/12, 9:01 AM
JAL said...: Can Chip give us a visual of stacked grandmothers being vaulted over by Ryan?

OT we watched the new Stars Earn Stripes reality show last night. (Note: I have disliked every realtiy show I have surfed across.) But I respect our military so had to check it out ...

Hahah. Good thing for Todd McCain/Palin didn't win the election (:-(). Todd would have gone crazy in DC -- or been out at Qauntico with the Marines slogging just to have fun.

Money quote from the US military's best sniper after watching him ... "Forget sending in Chuck Norris -- Send Todd Palin." And his personal character didn't get edited out as he was concerned that they needed to get back and support team mate Terry Crews who had to be rescued in the water drop and thus left the team one man short.

Picabo Street was no slouch either. Isn't she from Idaho? That girl can shoot.; 8/14/12, 9:03 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: Greenwald is generally a bore, but I'll give him credit for this:

This dynamic — in which the defining image of partisan icons is the antithesis of their personal reality — is, of course, also prevalent among Democrats: a point I note not to fulfill a both-sides-are-guilty obligation, but because it’s indisputably true. Obama supporters pretended that his 2008 campaign was some sort of populist uprising even as Wall Street overwhelmingly supported his candidacy. Now, especially with the selection of Ryan, they’re going to act as though his re-election is all about shielding Medicare from cuts even though, as Matt Stoller documents today (citing this), Obama already tried to cut not only Medicare but also Medicaid and Social Security, and clearly intends more of the same with a second term (along with his ongoing empowerment of America’s most extreme corporatists). And, of course, the “chickenhawk” insult that was so popular among Democrats during the Bush years has completely disappeared, as they now celebrate the so-called Toughness of two political leaders — Obama and Biden — in their continuous willingness to use military force in other countries even though neither ever served in the military.

At least he's not entirely blind.

The sentence that followed did elicit a laugh though:

But the American Right seems to have a particular need to inflate their leaders into beacons of courage, self-sufficiency and virtue, even when their lives are completely devoid of those traits.

Really? The right has this "particular" need that the left does not have? I guess it's particular in its one particular value of self-sufficiency, but you could easily replace that with equality and say the exact same thing about the left.; 8/14/12, 9:05 AM
KCFleming said...: I read that as bacons of courage.

Mmmm, bacon.; 8/14/12, 9:13 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: CNN gets caught parroting the liberal's TPM.; 8/14/12, 9:42 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: It's early later in Montana ..; 8/14/12, 10:03 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Stacked grandmothers

I'm a grandmother. My husband says I'm stacked.

@ Carnifex. [cue the twilight zone music] Maybe you are psychic and should investigate if there was a mass murder at that location..... Or there is a strong electrical current in that vicinity tickling your brain.

It took me a few minutes to recognize that it was a giant trout eye looking out of the window. Very nice.; 8/14/12, 10:11 AM
Chuck66 said...: After reading Lilek's blog off and on for several years, I've gained an apprecaition of 1950-1980 architecture. Even ugly buildings.; 8/14/12, 10:14 AM
Richard Dolan said...: These buildings are reminicent of the Venturi + Brown love affair with the Las Vegas strip, all that contradiction and complexity that makes oddball street architecture so engaging when driving by (the intended perspective). Vincent Scully used to sing their praises. He might have liked the playfulness of these buildings, but would probably have wished for a bit more sophistication in the execution. Still, nice.; 8/14/12, 10:14 AM
Joe Schmoe said...: The Dairy Queen reminds me of a Star Trek shuttlecraft.; 8/14/12, 10:15 AM
Ralph L said...: the best one in the state!
And the best state fair in our state!
How many law schools does Montana have?; 8/14/12, 10:18 AM
JAL said...: Greenwald need to inflate their leaders [American Right]into beacons of courage, self-sufficiency and virtue, even when their lives are completely devoid of those traits.

"completely devoid"

Unhuh.; 8/14/12, 10:22 AM
JAL said...: @ Ralph

You have to ask?; 8/14/12, 10:22 AM
Joe Schmoe said...: @Richard Dolan, these pics made me think of "decorated sheds" and Learning from Las Vegas as well. That book is pretty obscure outside of the architectural community. Robert just retired at the ripe old age of 87. Scott Brown is still at it.; 8/14/12, 10:23 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Steel roofs and steel siding is a good solid investment.

Snow. Slides off.

Our friend is taking a trip to Montana this week to help his grandson settle in for college. I'm jealous. Montana is one of the States that I have never been to and would love to take a trip sometime.

I think it is great that Althouse and Meade are doing road trips. Take these trips while you are still physically able to enjoy them!!; 8/14/12, 10:30 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Not architecture related, but for Ice Cream, "Big Dipper" 631 South Higgins is the place to go in Missoula. We usually stay at Ruby's Reserve Street Inn, just to plug another local business."

Yeah, we saw a big crowd of people lined up there. I have a photo, but I didn't find the building as interesting as the ones here. I'm not about recommending the best this or that in town, though I will tell you about things I particularly liked.

But I'm not eating ice cream this summer, so I didn't have any Big Dipper dips, and I can't vouch for it.

Now, the Dairy Queen building I just through was insane looking. That amused me.

Haven't eaten Dairy Queen since I was a child. I did think it was quite wonderful then.

In Madison, I love Michael's Frozen Custard.; 8/14/12, 10:44 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I liked the contrast between these 2 buildings, especially as expressions of what each business had to sell.; 8/14/12, 10:46 AM
Jay Vogt said...: Ahh, we have a budding Julius Shulman in our midst. He was the true master of architectural photography. To my untrained eye, he was the rare example of a photographer who could create art. Much of his work was in the west as well.; 8/14/12, 11:01 AM
Sheridan said...: In Dillon, MT there's a coffee shop on Atlantic Ave., near the college that looks similar to the commercial building. Lots of places in Montana and Wyoming use similar designs. The buildings stand-up to the winters.; 8/14/12, 11:11 AM
JAL said...: Re ice cream and custard (Culver's anyone?):

Does Gary Taubes not allow you one sin?

On vacation, no less?; 8/14/12, 12:06 PM
Rialby said...: You have to wonder if that Dairy Queen was originally a Whataburger.; 8/14/12, 1:27 PM
Methadras said...: You know what I find amazing about that picture. If you look at the corner it has been scalloped out to allow for wheelchair bound folks to easily access the corners and merge and transition from the sidewalk to the street. However, what you don't see there like you see in california is the yellow bump pads for the blind to let them know they are approaching an intersection.

That's got ADA lawsuit written all over it.; 8/14/12, 5:26 PM
Known Unknown said...: That's got ADA lawsuit written all over it.

You'd have to sue Missoula, not the DQ.; 8/15/12, 2:49 PM
Known Unknown said...: The Right’s brittle heroes
The contrast between Paul Ryan's iconic image and his personal reality is typical of America's partisan leaders

For Loaf.; 8/15/12, 2:50 PM