Blogs traditionally quiet down a bit between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but there’s been enough activity out there to warrant a look-see.

• Of course, MissPres has been where the action is, with suggestions flying in for our growing Must-See Mississippi Places. There’s still time to add your favorite building, so check out the list of what’s already been suggested, and if you don’t see it there, go add your comment to the Help Build a Required List of Mississippi Places post.

Elsewhere . . .

• Marty Kittrell shared some atmospheric photos of Vicksburg and the Military Park in fall in “This week in Vicksburg.”
• MDAH’s Sense of Place blog posted a digitized image of Van Dorn’s original 1822 plan of Jackson in “Le Fleur’s Bluff and Jackson.”
• The Urban Decay blog by kodachromeguy introduced me to an old grain elevator, now abandoned, on Hwy 61 north of Vicksburg. Coincidentally, I recently took some pictures of the elevators at Drew, one of four in Mississippi built by the Quaker Oats Company in the early 1940s. I think the others were in Greenville and maybe Clarksdale and possibly this one near Redwood.
• Suzassippi got inspired by our focus on H.N. Austin last week, and since she has easy access to Bryant Hall, one of Austin’s creations, she took some photos of the interior and shared them over on her Lottabusha County Chronicles blog. Thanks Susan!
• Last week I went to see LEGO Jackson! at the Mississippi Arts Center in downtown Jackson. My neighbor Scott Crawford displayed his Lego city, complete with train, cathedral, and other urban amenities. It’s a fun display for the kids, and it provided an interesting modern take on the famous Old Capitol model train and town exhibit called Possum Ridge. The display also reminded me that LEGO has recently introduced a Frank Lloyd Wright series, and I may have Fallingwater on my Christmas list.

Outside our fine state:

• Kaitlin at Preservation in Pink clued me in on the National Trust’s Save the Windows campaign, which I think must be a response to the recent federally subsidized trashing of historic wood windows. As part of this effort to explain to building owners how important original windows are to both the aesthetic and practical functioning of historic buildings, the Trust has published “Repair or Replace Old Windows” on its website.
• After losing dozens of Modernist landmarks through FEMA-funded demolitions, DOCOMOMO Louisiana asked “Is there a future for the recent past in New Orleans?“
• Regional Modernism discusses how the New Orleans Modernists responded to the same climactic conditions that their ancestors had and in so doing created similar but also radically different forms in “Structure::Spirit::Sustainability.”
• Tulane’s Architectural Research blog published a space-age view of an ATM machine.
• And the Chicago Tribune’s Cityscapes began their end-of-year list last week, with the equivalent of the Raspberry awards in “Dubious design moves of 2010: From the Wrigley Building’s icebox facade to the Chicago Spire hole.”

As is traditional here on MissPres, we’ll get our own end-of-year lists going the last week of the year.

Categories: Historic Preservation, Jackson, Vicksburg