Saturday, October 8, 2011

Eclectic 21 hours around Atlanta


We do get around when we can. On Thursday night I saw gloATL perform "Physical Suites on a Theme of Non Fiction" at ACAC. They danced the museum space inside and out and even the rafters. They let me watch for free. I felt like I was steeling. It's kind of crazy, there is no stage, they dance everywhere, the audience can go anywhere.


This is the beginning of a pax de deux. "Relaxed hands and feet with tension in the body."

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Sometimes you need eyes in the back of your head to take it all in.

Here is a slide show of the whole event if you have a couple of minutes. It will give you a pretty good idea, turn up your speakers a little.

Next to Astolfi Art for Cynthia Knapp's opening reception. Alessandra told me that the artists came, a show of respect for the art and the artist.

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It's no wonder. Catch these when you are at White Provision.

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Here is Cynthia with artist (and fellow Grady dad) Tom Ferguson. She knows everybody, has worked with everybody, has helped everybody in Atlanta's art community. Here they are demonstrating the sartorial range and good humor of Atlanta artists.

Here are a few more pictures of Cynthia Knapp's opening at Astolfi Art.

On Friday I did my errands with included the airport.

Columbia Theological Seminary is building the Vernon S.Broyles Leadership Center. It a modern building somewhat sympathetic to "university Gothic" style already there.

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It's got a tower which is nearly always cool.

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I'm not sure this picture will make you fall in love but in person, I think this will be OK. You can't see the side that faces the older campus, which works pretty well.

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On the way home I was cruising a tear-down and found the Village People in a backyard, appropriate for this Atlanta Pride Festival weekend. Folks in the know in my neighborhood will know just where to find this. Attn: Pecanne Log.

We avoid the interstate on the way home from the airport if we can.

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Hapeville has trains and churches.

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Central Avenue from Hapeville to East Point is major industrial. Men and boys will love it. Hard, dirty work gets done there. This is where you imagine artist colonies. It's the home of Pottery Land

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And they got 'em.

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East Point still has an active town center and some handsome buildings.

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Hapeville is 100% real town.

Hapeville's Main Street is Highway 29. I headed north towards Fort Mac and flipped to Murphy on the east side of the tracks.

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Murphy Avenue if a seriously funky street. I was looking for the 10-foot-Sharon at 920 Murphy by Ola Bad & Howdy Nater. It's legal.

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So how did my fellow soccer mom come to be immortalized on Murphy? Hard work on behalf of Atlanta's artist community, for Eyedrum, Art on the Beltline and Living Walls. We love you Sharon.

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The Krog Street Tunnel is too easy, but there it is.

Wow, two of my fellow soccer sideline companions in one Architecture Tourist post, how does that happen?

Thursday, October 6, 2011

My Final Stop: North Avenue Presbyterian Church - APC Sacred Spaces Tour

North Avenue Presbyterian Church was my 5th and final stop for the Atlanta Preservation Center's first "Sacred Spaces" Tour on September 25.



My first visit was in the fall of 1968 when my fraternity's "God Squad" visited. My latest visit was for Kate's (friend of the family) wonderful wedding.

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If there is a church on a busier noisier stretch of Peachtree Street, I don't know it. Imagine a line of Harley's cruising Peachtree. This is the North Avenue facade. Trucks need to "gun it" to make it up the hill.

There are interesting stories about the mix of styles. In fact, they planned to demolish the sanctuary in favor of the more elaborate style of the building behind it. The Depression intervened. The change of roof materials show the expansion to the sanctuary.

This is where Westminster School started. It's traditional that the pastor of NAPC serve on the Westminster board as Senior Pastor, D. Scott Weimer, does today. Many prominent Atlantans worshiped here.

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The Peachtree facade is not overwhelming. This is the way most folks see it, when the light at North is red and you have a chance to look.

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It's pretty common for folks to sleep beneath the arches. The Atlanta Task Force for The Homeless is down the street and this is a downtown church.

The first service in this building was on Thanksgiving Day, 1900. The granite is from Stone Mountain, owned for a time by the Venable family, church members then and now.

They don't claim the sanctuary as the most beautiful or the biggest. An expansion put the big transept windows and oculus a bit off. It not something you can't put your finger on.

You notice the windows.

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The big north window.

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The big south window.

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The pre-expansion windows are from Tiffany.

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The "newer" windows toward the chancel are from Willet.

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This is a Willet.

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Windows of a different era and style in the Narthex.

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A modern window in a lobby.

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Thanks to Carlisle Young (center) our tour guide from North Avenue PC for the tour and to Mickey Leso (right) volunteer from the Atlanta Preservation Center.

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