Pandamonium Playland
When I was a kid growing up in Austin, birthday parties were fairly typical. If it wasn’t a friend’s house, it was video games, putt-putt golf, bumper cars, or a … Continue reading
Sing the City of the Rounded Shoulders
For Carl Sandburg and Nelson Algren. O sing this city! a land of unstoppable drive to the self-satisfied middle where it stops to spare its energy for another corporate happy … Continue reading
Making Granite Shake
The state capitol of Texas sits in the center of Austin on the top of a hill. Its sunset red granite looks pink in the sun. Statues dedicated to a … Continue reading
Black and White Austin
These photographs were taken in Austin on December 10th and 11th. I met these kids while exploring the neighborhood east of downtown. Anna Kuperberg is a photographer based in San … Continue reading
Start Fresh: Never Give Up
TEOA asked Andrew Takano, a video artist, to comment on the relationship between the morphing character of Austin’s graffiti and the city itself as reflected in a recent time-lapse video … Continue reading
Capital Improvements, 2013
If you want to learn something profound about how Austin has transformed itself in the last few decades, one of the best places to look is through the eyes of … Continue reading
Familiarity in (Sub)Urban Form: The Death of Highland Mall?
Where do malls go when they die? They go to deadmalls.com, or, alternatively, Facebook. In 2009, deadmalls.com visitor “Susan” warned that Austin’s Highland Mall was one foot in the grave: … Continue reading
The Rise
The Austin skyline is punctuated by cranes and rebar and silhouettes of future buildings in every direction you look. I work downtown at 301 Congress Avenue, a building constructed in … Continue reading
The End of Education
Oh, Austin. The world has been witnessing your gentrification from all angles. When we look back as recently as Richard Linklater’s early filmography, we see a more desirable city than … Continue reading
Austin is a Graffiti Wall
The aerosol boom of the 1980s gave rise to a new wave of street artists who commandeered the popular image of graffiti as an illicit and subversive medium and breathed … Continue reading
The End of Austin
What is the End of Austin? It is the beginning of a much-needed conversation about the identity of Austin. Bringing together writers, scholars, and artists from Texas and beyond, TEOA is … Continue reading
Moonlight Towers
In 1895, the City of Austin acquired a novel street-lighting system from Detroit consisting of thirty-one 165-foot tower lights. Their cool glow and looming height earned them the popular moniker … Continue reading
Downtown Real Estate and the Music Scene
Imagine two performances from the original cosmic cowboy and outlaw country musician, Willie Nelson. The first takes place in an austere concert hall that holds about 400 hundred people. Nelson … Continue reading
