The Hawthorne Hotel, Salem, MA
post 8 by Sherman Brennan

This was the hotel I stayed in for 4 nights in Salem, MA while on vacation.  We were there to celebrate Halloween in Salem and it was a great time.  The people and places of the town were great.  The hotel itself is supposed to be haunted but we didn't experience anything other than loud bathroom pipes during the night.  The building was constructed in 1809 and after a fire in 1860 it took on the more Italianate-style facade it has today.  The architect who designed the building was Phillip Horton Smith of the Smith & Walker firm.  I thought this was an appropriate post considering tomorrow is Halloween!

This was the mantle piece in the lobby during our stay.  I highly recommend going to Salem just once, if only for the history of the place. 

Post 9 Alexandra Bradford

The Inn Marin; Novato, CA
Designed by Alexandra Ray

This is where I stayed in Novato for the conference over the weekend. What made an impression was its environmental initiative. I'm pretty sure they have an LEED silver rating, and some of their practices include sustainable bamboo floors (more efficient carbon sequestration and faster growth) and water conservation (low flow fixtures). The building itself made me feel like I was on a road trip. It was more like a motel, small and quaint. The guests staying there were all different. We were next to a guy who I think was a construction worker and staying there. He and his buddies were loud and woke up really early to go to work. There was a family with a crying baby on the other side. I guess the building just imparted this homely feel, but the environmental sustainability it practiced was cool to see in action. These kinds of practices and certifications are sweeping over the bay area there.

Alexandra Bradford Post 8

Golden Gate Bridge
Designed by Joseph Strauss, Leon Moisseiff, Irving Morrow, and Charles Alton Ellis

I was in San Francisco over the weekend for a conference. It was the first time I had been to California, and driving from the bay to Marin County over the suspension bridge was awesome. There were tons of sailboats on the water and so many people and cars in general. I liked the color and the view I had like in this picture. I didn't get to spend much time in San Fran, but going over this bridge had everyone's attention in that bus. It was like we were supposed to observe it.

Kevin Price - Week 10 - Natural History Museum Utah

 

 This is the Natural History Museum of Utah just outside Salt Lake City Utah. The chief architect was Todd Schliemann. This building is one of the most interesting buildings I have been in. There are multiple levels in the building and it is very dynamic in the way it presents itself. The layout is very interesting in the way that you walk through the museum to view all it has to offer. You go through a walkway looking both up and down to view the exhibits. The building has some very clean cut lines, yet it fits into the mountain side very well and nearly blends in. One thing I really enjoyed was the roof deck where there was an array of solar panels as well as a spectacular view of Salt Lake City to the West.  

Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport
post 7 by Sherman Brennan

 

This was the view outside of the Hyatt connected to the DFW airport that I was treated to during this years Texas Frightmare Weekend.  The airport held its' opening ceremony in September of 1973.  I have wondered if one architect works on all of the airport grounds and facilities so through trying to find an architects name to associate at least with the main concourse/terminal to quickly find that various aspects of the architecture of an airport is handled by as many different architecture firms.  There is one for infrastructure architecture, one for the lettered terminals, and so on.  A series of buildings this large and interconnected has many people who helped design it into what it is today.

 

Hyatt Regency DFW International Airport
post 6 by Sherman Brennan

I was shocked to find that I don't have any pictures of the three different hotels Texas Frightmare Weekend has been held in, but this is its' current home.  I also could not find the architect of the building itself, but I found that Geoffrey Cramer Aia did the interior design while at the firm Seifert Murphy.  This particular hotel has been incredibly enthusiastic about hosting a horror convention to the point that they create special drinks and food menu's just to satisfy the tastes of your typical horror fan, which basically means creepy, ghoulish sounding names given to every day fare.  But the management and staff all get into the convention by dressing up or attending panels or movie screenings along with convention attendees.  I have been to a few comic book and sci-fi conventions, and though they are always fun and a bit crazy, this is the only one where the people where it was being held enjoyed it to the point of joining in. 

The Westin Dallas/Ft. Worth Airport hotel
post 5 by Sherman Brennan

This was one of the three hotels that Texas Frightmare Weekend used during it's history as one of the only horror movie/literature/art conventions in the southwest of the U.S.  It was here that I met John Carpenter, director of Halloween (the original), The Fog (again, the original), and They Live!, to name a few.  This also where TFW started its' now defunct tradition of having a zombie walk, and where I got to party with the director of The Human Centipede, a Dutch guy by the name of Tom Six, the evil doctor in the movie, a German by the name of Dieter Lazer, and the director of a Japanese horror movie called Helldriver, Yoshihiro Nishimura.  It was the year that many foreign visitors came specifically to TFW because they had heard that it was fast becoming the horror convention to attend if you wanted to meet, up close and personal, any of the celebrities, directors, and special effects masters involved in American and International horror.

The Westin hotel chain is owned by Starwood Hotels but I could not locate the name of the architect who designed this particular building. 

Post 7, Alexandra Bradford

This building is so familiar to me. The Catlett Music Center elicits memories of my first piano recitals, boldly walking down the stairs from the audience to play my piece in front of all the parents and piano students and having my Alice in Wonderland doll with me. Fifteen years later I was in the same room again for my theory classes as an undergraduate. I was here every year growing up for judging festivals, yes they combined the two, and theory tests (also part of the festival). My freshman year, my theory classes were at 8 and 8:30 every morning, and three days a week there was a quiz at the beginning of class. I would wake up at 8:25, put on my winter gear, get on my bike and high tail it Catlett. I would get there almost right on time. 

Designed by Kaighn Associates Architects, it is supposed to have a Gothic Cherokee style. The roof is copper, which is supposed to darken over time. It wasn't completed until 1998, much later than I would have guessed. The music library is down a ramp, of which there are many, so it is underground. There are three beautiful halls, Sharp, Gothic (the foyer with all the tall windows out front), and Pittman. My jury class was held in Sharp and Pittman, and I got to play there once a week. As a music major, I also attended a lot of events here.