Hrag Vartanian

I recently discovered this lovely civic architectural jewel in Long Island and couldn’t resist to blog about it.
Designed by architect William B. Tubby, the building at 1550 Franklin Ave. (Mineola, NY) was inaugurated in 1902 and remained the seat of county government until the start of World War II, when it fell into disrepair and [...]

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Amazing flickr set revealing an abandoned 1970s housing complex called San Zhi outside of Taipei, Taiwan. Designed as vacation homes it was abandoned because of hauntings/real estate bubbles/adverse climate, depending on who you believe.
More background on NOTCOT.
{via IanClaridge}

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The ancient Armenian tradition of khachkars (literally meaning “cross-stone” in Armenian) has made its way to America and woven its way into Armenian communities around the world.
Los Angeles, where 400,000 people of Armenian heritage reside, is a particularly rich field for the seeds of this art form to grow. Unfortunately, people still mistakenly assume [...]

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Superstar architect Zaha Hadid has unfortunately decided to throw away any progressive and humanistic values she may have held and help Azeri dictator, Ilham Aliyev, build a center to honor his equally-dictatorial and megalomaniac father Heydar Aliyev. Is the art and architecture world so money hungry that they’ll do anything for an oil buck? (Did [...]

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For years I’ve heard about the strange swastikas in Glendale. Folklore has it that this once very Germanic city adjacent to Los Angeles erected lampposts with the Nazi symbol as a sign of brotherhood with the fatherland across the Atlantic. As I’m in Los Angeles for work, I couldn’t resist to see them for myself [...]

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