THE YEAR IN WEATHER

WEATHER IS DARK MAGIC. But human constructs are real. Weather threatens the stability of things like buildings and infrastructure. These solids are not supposed to fly around, burn up, or float away. The air, water, and atmospheres in which they are suspended should even seem to be invisible, so that the objects can be more palpable as property. Banks may surround the same objects with obscure mathematical calculations that render them worth less than nothing, but in the end, what could be more reliable than the rational, sensible endeavors of global finance?

More dangerous and imponderable are

architecture Summer 2008

Norman Foster’s Crystal Island

IF YOU E-MAIL Norman Foster’s London-based architecture firm to request information about his design for Crystal Island, a project recently approved for construction in Moscow, you will receive, with no accompanying note, a terse list of “facts and figures.” Perhaps this response is appropriate. Overriding fatigue with the dimensional stats that have accompanied new waves of building in China, Dubai, and Russia, mainstream media outlets and hipster blogs alike obligingly repeat the numbers with apparent amazement, as the builders strive to outdo one another’s superlative expressions of size.