4 Inspiration Sunday...

This week's inspiration is Tadao Ando's Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth.

This is a building that is near and dear to my heart. I lived in Fort Worth for the first 18 years of my life. Over the years I spent lots of time in the Cultural District, at the Kimbell or the theaters. I remember being so excited about the design and construction of the new modern. It came at a great time, just before I went to Architecture School. I ended up doing my thesis project focusing on a community art center in the Cultural District, meaning that I have analyzed every aspect of the area time and time again. The Modern was by far the most influential factor in my design and thought process. I try to make a point to visit whenever I am in Texas. It was wonderful to be there with some of my most favorite people {lulu, mom, and gram.}

1 Kalmar Museum of Art

Kalmar Museum of Art designed by Architects Tham & Videgard Hansson...love this.

1 Origami Dreams

I find this so fascinating and beautiful.

Artist Wu Mali From the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco via Flickr also seen on Oh Joy!

2 Inspiration from Art...

{A trip to the Getty on Friday made me long for the days of art history classes

{I minored in art history at Tulane}. I found these details wonderfully inspiring...}

2 Museum of Useful Things

A fairly recent AT email reminded me about the Museum of Useful Things, the online store of Black Ink {quite possibly my favorite place I went in Boston}. They really do have all kinds of useful {and not so useful but very fun} things!

PS. If you are looking for a gift for an Architect or Architect in Training, I highly recommend 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School...it is fantastic.

8 New Orleans Audubon Institute INSECTARIUM

As an Architect, you get to do all kinds of cool things, like tour people's homes, go behind the scenes at some of the most historic building in the US, and play at museums while they are closed. Last week, I did two of the three. Lauren, Dante, and I toured the brand new New Orleans Audubon Institute INSECTARIUM. It was completely phenomenal...I totally recommend this to anyone in town. Lauren had a blast in the butterfly sanctuary, where butterflies live in a semi-natural habitat filled with beautiful flowers, natural light, and a koi pond with mini waterfall. The butterfly displays were my favorite...just take a look...

2 Destination Boston {Day 1}

Ok, the reason you haven't seen any pics of Boston yet is because I was a little snap happy, so it has taken me a while to get them organized. I was there for 5 days, and I took 500 pics. So, I decided to post a day by day summary of what we did and saw...

For the record, I absolutely loved Boston...even more than I thought I would. The fact that it is compact and you can walk and/or take the T {which I'm completely obsessed with by the way} everywhere is phenomenal.



The beginning of it all...the main reason for going to Boston in the first place was for the AIA National Convention. Most of the Convention was held in the Boston Convention Center designed by Rafael Vinoly, which is pretty awesome in itself. We stayed right next door in the Westin, which was fantastic. Any architects out there who are thinking of going to the
Convention next year {in San Fransisco}, I would totally recommend it. It was extremely well organized...I was quite impressed.

One of our first stops was the Barking Crab {right on the water} for some delicious fish and chips...they were quite tasty and the atmosphere was perfect...

Various pics walking from the Barking Crab to the Children's Museum...

The Children's Museum looked like a lot of fun...we didn't actually make it inside, but I hear it is Boston's first green museum which is great. And there is this strange milk bottle shaped Au Bon Pain just outside...which was strange but in a good way...

More pics walking on our way to the South Station...My favorite is the yellow stairway plastered with pics, we think it was a travel agency, but I'm really not sure- it was awesome nonetheless...

Our next stop was to the Prudential Center to get tickets for the Duck Tour, once again I would totally recommend this tour. You ride in an amphibious vehicle and see quite a bit of the city from land and water...it was fun...