It is just about time for our annual year end wrap ups (2013's was very popular), the Guenther era digestion and some other pieces the team have been working on. Till then here are some things to tide you over:

I love this interactive Map of New York's art history. Maybe I should do something similar for the last 15 years in Portland... perhaps the most culturally dynamic period in the city's history.

This death of painting 2014 discussion is mostly interesting for its focus on "Atemporal". It doesn't surprise me... it is very similar to the "new economy" talk that preceded the dotcom bubble crash in 2000. The only argument more tired and wrongheaded than the death of painting argument is the death of history argument. It is a pangloss and perhaps the exhibition is a kind of institutional extinction burst that behavioral psychologists describe in experiments that are an awful lot like market bubbles.

Here is a very interesting article on the Centennial Mills building at the north end of the Pearl District. What really gets my attention about this project is the way Frank Gehry and Maya Lin are name checked and Jordan Schnitzer states, "We're not going to do this project unless it is right." (Disclosure the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation is a PORT sponsor) This is a corner that Portland needs to turn since growth/density is inevitable but the quality of those spaces aspire to wont rise without vision.

Also, Gehry is no stranger to these sorts of reuse projects like the much larger Atlantic Yards but it is also all about keeping the historical record visible as a variegated urban edifice of human use. For example, think about Venice and the way it is built upon itself. Saving the Centennial Mills preserves the stories of a part of town that has already lost most of its history. Still, someone like Gehry signals some promise of progressive thinking about this very visible bit of Portland's waterfront... besides the East Bank Esplanade and the new transit bridge Portland has mostly ignored the Willamette river. The trick will be to keep the convivial Portland ethos and still pencil the project out.