Architect Alphabet

BoingBoing has a link to a fun little animation called the  "ABC of Architects" HERE.

The Sugar Trade

In the course of some research I've been doing lately into that rascally architect/pirate Barthelemy Lafon, I've been slowly learning the extent and (economic, historic, social) importance of the sugar (and allied slave) trade at the end of the 1700s until the Civil War.

It turns out that sugar - and slaves - built the new world to an even greater extent than I'd imagined.

believed public domain image

In the course of learning all this, I've found a couple fascinating things: the book Orders from France by Roger G. Kennedy, which is the beautifully written, entertaining story of French architects bringing neoclassicism to this side of the Atlantic (including a chapter on Lafon) and the sugar-mural Cargo by the artist Shelly Miller, which you can see HERE or on her blog HERE.

Avast! Readers!

This be Talk Like a Pirate Day maties!

In honor of this world-wide Piratical Celebration, here's a little image from one of my very most favorite architect/pirates, a detail from the historically important map of the Mississippi river delta and adjacent coastline drawn by Barthelemy Lafon in 1805:

Excerpt of Lafon's map:  CARTE Ge’ne’rale du TERRITOIRE D’ORLE’ANS

in the public domain

And here's a great website, Big Map Blog, where you can see the whole map and zoom in on it and everything.

Set sail for Barrataria me hearties!