 |
 |
| Billie Silvey |
| February 2007 |
|
| An eclectic website about Women, Christianity, History, Culture and the Arts--and anything else that comes to mind. |
| Architecture |
 |
| At Abilene Christian College, I used to gaze in wonder at the administration building--a dramatic three-story brick structure with a large stairway leading up to a colonnaded entrance. My husband Frank worked for the Abilene Reporter-News, and the downtown area had really |
| tall buildings and sidewalks with flecks of shiny stone in them. It made me think of streets of gold. |
| Then we left Abilene and moved to Los Angeles. Los Angeles has always had interesting architecture--the Bradbury Building, the art deco Bullocks Wilshire, several houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and the case study modern houses of the 40s-60s. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| I’ve always enjoyed looking at buildings. I think, if I could live another life, I'd become an architect. When I was a child in Happy, Texas, the tallest thing around was a grain elevator, and it seemed to touch the sky. The other buildings in town were one- or two-story. |
| We hadn’t lived here long when the downtown began to be developed. Earthquake technology had improved to such an extent that the previous twelve-story limit was lifted. Now the sky was the limit. Frank currently works in a 60-story building! When we visited London, we saw venerable buildings from medieval times to the present, in a nation where history is preserved. On a later trip, we saw medieval buildings in Florence and ancient architecture in Rome. |
| Now even Los Angeles is beginning to boast world-class architecture with the Getty Center, the Disney Concert Hall and the Japanese Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. |
 |
 |
 |
| In this website, we’ll be looking at some of the history of western architecture. We’ll also consider God as architect, closing with an interview with a local architect, Mary Archer. I’d love to get your reactions to this or earlier websites (see Archives) and to hear your views on the built world around us. Just email me at b.silvey@sbcglobal.net |