James Taite
banner
jamestaite.bsky.social
James Taite
@jamestaite.bsky.social
Stonemason in Ottawa, Canada.
Reposted by James Taite
The nitty gritty of medieval architecture. The corner of an upper storey. The top of Cheap Street, Sherborne.
February 10, 2026 at 11:26 PM
Reposted by James Taite
If you’re in Ottawa, don’t miss Miroyama Teshima’s extraordinary architecture for the Canadian War Museum.
Some of our students get a good look at the Moriyama Regeneration Hall during an excellent tour of the Canadian War Museum today.
February 10, 2026 at 11:44 PM
Reposted by James Taite
Post Office
Sagola, MI
February 10, 2026 at 4:10 PM
Reposted by James Taite
Random background 1960s buildings, Budapest.
February 10, 2026 at 8:49 AM
Post a banger that’s not in english

youtu.be/5neft4S0nr0
February 10, 2026 at 12:49 AM
Whisker goals
February 10, 2026 at 12:26 AM
Reposted by James Taite
Wanted to let you all know I will be at Mouse Arts & Letters Club in Chicago on Saturday, February 21 at 4pm giving a presentation on modern design in West Michigan.

No tickets required, just a $10 suggested donation at the door.
February 9, 2026 at 1:19 AM
Sunday pipe
February 8, 2026 at 6:06 PM
Reposted by James Taite
In this weekend’s @thestar.com column I look at how churches have a tradition creating needed housing in Canada & Cabbagetown’s objection to height at St Luke’s is wrong. It’s also voter-supported city policy to force all density into a few areas so you can’t have it both ways, yo.
Shawn Micallef: How high is too high? Why Toronto’s beef with the size of residential towers misses the point
The pressure to go higher in places like this is because it’s not possible in a lot of Toronto where multi-unit apartment bias is strong.
www.thestar.com
February 7, 2026 at 3:43 PM
Reposted by James Taite
Cathedral of St Mary, Newcastle

Details from the 2006 stained glass window by Joseph A Nuttgens celebrating Newcastle's industrial heritage.

• Ship building on the Tyne with the vessel towering over the worker’s terraced housing.
• Pottery painting
• Machining

#StainedGlassSunday
February 8, 2026 at 9:18 AM
Reposted by James Taite
The most important event to happen here since Winnipeg General Strike 1919: we just combined pro-wrestling with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. The world will follow.
February 6, 2026 at 6:17 PM
Reposted by James Taite
Found old Markuskyrkan photos I never processed so you’re getting Lewerentz on your feed again. I miss him
February 2, 2026 at 10:57 PM
Reposted by James Taite
love this Don Draper-ass branding of something completely perfunctory. ‘It’s Fluted’
Doric fluting was invented ca 800 BCE when Dorians needed to make a large opening through a slab but only had smaller core drills so simply cored a circle of overlapping holes

as described by Vitruvius
February 7, 2026 at 7:38 PM
Doric fluting was invented ca 800 BCE when Dorians needed to make a large opening through a slab but only had smaller core drills so simply cored a circle of overlapping holes

as described by Vitruvius
February 7, 2026 at 7:35 PM
Reposted by James Taite
The Epstein Ballroom is such a postmodernist building:

The north facade is a clean copy of Hoban's windows. The portico mirrors one on the Treasury Department, and they've just bumped it from six to eight columns to match exactly. None of this has much relation to the interior.

Decorated shed.
February 7, 2026 at 3:58 PM
Reposted by James Taite
Freiburg ist schön 6 (Susanne Groß, Kirchenzentrum Maria Magdalena, 2003-4)
February 7, 2026 at 1:21 PM
I realize that I'm not exactly a disinterested 3rd-party...

A return to building with structural stone instead of concrete or steel offers huge reductions in carbon emissions. And off-site pre-fab and post-tensioning of stone elements holds the promise of quicker & cheaper construction.
I recently wrote about how we should be building with Canadian materials, and I neglected to include stone because concrete is a local material. I have reconsidered; Ontario cement is made with US coal and petcoke, and rebuilding Canada's stone industry could create a lot of jobs.
Why we need a stone building renaissance in Canada
Canada is made of rock. If we are going to "build Canadian," we should rediscover and reinvent this very local material.
lloydalter.substack.com
February 7, 2026 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by James Taite
I recently wrote about how we should be building with Canadian materials, and I neglected to include stone because concrete is a local material. I have reconsidered; Ontario cement is made with US coal and petcoke, and rebuilding Canada's stone industry could create a lot of jobs.
Why we need a stone building renaissance in Canada
Canada is made of rock. If we are going to "build Canadian," we should rediscover and reinvent this very local material.
lloydalter.substack.com
January 30, 2026 at 1:09 PM
Reposted by James Taite
@jamestaite.bsky.social, if you haven't read this yet, you should.
I recently wrote about how we should be building with Canadian materials, and I neglected to include stone because concrete is a local material. I have reconsidered; Ontario cement is made with US coal and petcoke, and rebuilding Canada's stone industry could create a lot of jobs.
Why we need a stone building renaissance in Canada
Canada is made of rock. If we are going to "build Canadian," we should rediscover and reinvent this very local material.
lloydalter.substack.com
February 6, 2026 at 3:21 AM
We’re dismantling a stone pencheck stair right now and so it seems a good time to revisit a short 🧵 on the subject.

How pencheck stairs work (resist torsion), and how they don’t (cantilever):
February 7, 2026 at 3:33 PM
historic preservation as a process of building ever bigger boxes around boxes around boxes
The Hill House Box is itself a very nifty piece of work by Carmody Groark:
carmodygroarke.com/work/hill-ho...
February 5, 2026 at 2:24 AM
Reposted by James Taite
The Hill House Box is itself a very nifty piece of work by Carmody Groark:
carmodygroarke.com/work/hill-ho...
February 4, 2026 at 8:09 PM
Reposted by James Taite
repeatedly telling my good friend stephen holyday that the reason i can't hang out is because there "isn't a place for me to park near your place" had unintended consequences.
Councillor James Pasternak says providing visitor parking is an important part of dealing with "chronic loneliness." Councillors Cheng and Holyday also brought up parking as a way to make people feel less lonely.
February 4, 2026 at 10:07 PM
(Cake voice)

…an arch with a short cheek and a looooooooong soffit
February 5, 2026 at 1:36 AM
respect the column
February 4, 2026 at 11:07 PM