A visit to Kamakura on a very hot humid day in July...

... On a travel day going from Hayama back to Tokyo, we took a side trip to visit the Daibutsu in Kamakura... traveling on the Enoden train from the Kamakura station over to Hase station, and then walking north to the site ...

Travel map Japan 7-2017

... first draft of travel map to Noto, Ishikawa ...

Domo-kun found on side of the bus in Tokyo ...

#Domo-kun #どーもくん sighted on the side of the bus from Shibuya station #NHK mascot found dressed up in costume...

Friday morning TV Tokyo characters

It's Friday in #tokyo on the morning #TV show for #children like me! #kinyobi #きんようび 

Flying from California to Japan today>....

The buildings of Chicago always thrill me...

Starting with the Wrigley building... a simple line drawing and then adding more to the scene below...

Carl Sandburg wrote this poem about the city...

CHICAGO

     HOG Butcher for the World,

     Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

     Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;

     Stormy, husky, brawling,

     City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I

     have seen your painted women under the gas lamps

     luring the farm boys.

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it

     is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to

     kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the

     faces of women and children I have seen the marks

     of wanton hunger.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who

     sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer

     and say to them:

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing

     so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on

     job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the

     little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning

     as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

          Bareheaded,

          Shoveling,

          Wrecking,

          Planning,

          Building, breaking, rebuilding,

Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with

     white teeth,

Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young

     man laughs,

Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has

     never lost a battle,

Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.

     and under his ribs the heart of the people,

               Laughing!

Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of

     Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog

     Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with

     Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

4th of July!

Views east from the window at the New Hotel Jen revealed the CCTV building and CITIC tower.  Views within the hotel illustrate the desk setting, built-in seating, Samsung screen on arm, and warm wood and carpet finishes...

Beijing CCTV tower once again in purple ...

dà kùchǎ (大裤衩

Every time I see this building, I have to draw it, here's a view from the restaurant level at Hotel Jen...

The CCTV main building is not a traditional tower, but a loop of six horizontal and vertical sections covering 473,000 m²(5,090,000 sq ft) of floor space, creating an irregular grid on the building's facade with an open center. The construction of the building is considered to be a structural challenge, especially because it is in a seismic zone.  The architect, Ren Koolhaas has said the building "could never have been conceived by the Chinese and could never have been built by Europeans. It is a hybrid by definition". Because of its radical shape, it's said that a taxi driver first came up with its nickname dà kùchǎ (大裤衩), roughly translated as, "big boxer shorts'.  Locals often refer to it as "big pants". A Chinese critic said that the structure was modeled after a pornographic image of a woman on her hands and knees, which Koolhaas has officially denied.....  From Wikipedia... 

Back in Beijing for the week for work time

Back in the big city of Beijing for meetings with financial groups, and some viewings of the new construction in the CBD ... CITIC Tower next to the CCTV tower...

Wrigley Building in Chicago, viewed from hotel, 1921-1924, first part

The building was designed by the architectural firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst & White using the shape of the Giralda tower of Seville's Cathedral combined with French Renaissance details. 

The 425-foot (130 m) south tower was completed in April 1921 and the north tower in May 1924. Walkways between the towers were added at the ground level and the third floor. In 1931, another walkway was added at the fourteenth floor to connect to offices of a bank in accordance with a Chicago statute concerning bank branch offices. 

State Street bridge, Chicago visit

This bridge is among the newer of Chicago's deck truss bascule bridges with a 1949 construction date...The bridge is an example of the unique Chicago design which raised the position of the deck truss up just far enough so that the top chord is above the deck like a pony truss, where it can act as a guardrail and also increase both the clearance under the bridge and the streamlined aesthetics of the bridge. This design is known as the railing height truss...

Chicago visit for IIDA and Neocon

Today Chicago boasts somewhere over 40 movable bridges. At least 20 of these are in the downtown area. During Chicago's boating season, which runs from April 15 through November 15, over 52,000 boats pass through the Chicago River, and the bridges are opened close to 30,000 times a year.

Santa Monica palms over Memorial Day weekend

Fuente de la Diana Cazadora in Mexico City

The Huntress Diana Fountain (Fuente de la Diana Cazadora) is a monumental fountain of Diana located in the roundabout at Paseo de la Refirma and Río Misisipí and Sevilla streets, on the border of the Colonia Cuauhtémoc and Colonia Juarez neighborhoods of Mexico City.

Here is my drawing of the scene from the 3rd floor lobby of the St. Regis Hotel...

Flatiron print framed at Gensler NY

...One of my good friends and a principal at Gensler in New York, Rocco Giannetti, has framed the Flatiron building drawing shown here... this was created on my iPad back in April during a Big Apple trip...

Southern Edge of Central Park, Manhattan

While flying to New York at 32,000 feet altitude, I draw a Landscape of Objects...

I love to draw while flying, I often spend that unique space and time event in explorations of new ideas and concepts...

Celebrate Earth Day with my daughter

 Her drawings and collages are an amazing collection of ideas and thoughts about taking care of our very special planet Earth...

The flatiron building, New York...

"I found myself agape, admiring a sky-scraper the prow of the Flat-iron Building, to be particular, ploughing up through the traffic of Broadway and Fifth Avenue in the afternoon light."

H.G. Wells

From Wikipedia...When the building was first constructed, it received a lot of mixed feedback. The most known criticism received was known as “Burnham’s Folly”. This criticism focused on the structure of the building and claimed that “combination of triangular shape and height would cause the building to fall down.” Critics believed that the building created a dangerous wind-tunnel at the intersection of the two streets, and could possibly knock the building down. Although the wind is strong at the intersection, the buildings structure was meant to accommodate four times the typical wind loads in order to stabilize and retain the building’s iconic triangular shape.

The New York Tribune called the new building "A stingy piece of pie ... the greatest inanimate troublemaker in New York", while the Municipal Art Society said that it was "Unfit to be in the Center of the City". The New York Times called it a "monstrosity".