The Tennessee Valley Authority: Design and Persuasion (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2007) explores design’s role in promoting the United States’ most extensive regional planning endeavor. Following my introduction, essays explore the several design disciplines that were united in the effort: Christine Macy writes on architecture, Jane Wolff on landscape architecture, Barry Katz on industrial design, Steven Heller on graphic design, Todd Smith on mural painting. Jennifer Bloomer reflects on rural life in the Tennessee Valley, before and after the work of the TVA, and the volume concludes with an afterword by Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr. 2008 marks the 75th anniversary of the TVA.
Illustrations include both archival photographs and new photographs by Richard Barnes, including those below. (Click on an image to enlarge.)
Download the Introduction to “The Tennessee Valley Authority: Design & Persuasion”
The 1%
The 1% program of Public Architecture challenges architecture and design firms nationwide to pledge a minimum of 1% of their time to pro bono service. The 1% connects firms willing to give of their time with nonprofit organizations in need of design assistance.
Rivers Make Lines
A map of southern Louisiana, modified as if sea level were a mere one foot higher than it actually is, suggests the natural form of cities along the lower Mississippi.* Naturally, they are linear. Rebuilt as an essentially linear city, New Orleans could become one of the few cities in North America where light-rail transit actually works.
We might expect denser development uptown in the band between Magazine Street and the river, with nodes of activity at the foot of each of the major radial streets — Jackson, Louisiana, Napoleon, Nashville, and so on. A light-rail route along the existing railroad right-of-way at the river could merge seamlessly into a regional storm evacuation network.
* These maps are derived from more precise maps, based on satellite imagery, developed by Richard Campanella in his extraordinary Time and Place in New Orleans: Past Geographies in the Present Day (Gretna: Pelican Publishing Company, 2002), an essential cultural and topographical reference for the rebuilding of the city.
In chemistry, a catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction by reducing the amount of energy required to initiate the reaction. The catalyst enters the equation, accelerates the process, and slips away as if it had never been.
That’s what I do for architects who want to expand, refine, or redirect—in short, to enrich—what they’re doing.
Get in touch: tim@culvahouse.net.
