Shall We Dance?
December/January 2006

Described in travel guides as “concrete suburban,” the hilly Tecamachalco area north of Mexico City is a chaotic landscape of nondescript, box-shaped homes. Amidst this neighborhood of white facades, painted metal railings, and flat roofs., an idiosyncratic house designed by architect Michel Rojkind makes a bold statement. more...

The Fine Art of Gardening
26 January 2005

Few THE SONOMA VALLEY , best known for its rolling hills, boutique wineries, and Mediterranean-style villas, is not the kind of place one would expect to find a rotting Monterey pine festooned with 80,000 sky blue plastic Christmas baubles, or a giant haystack that broadcasts a looped crackly recording of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire." But since it opened its gates last July on a nine-acre tract of land off Highway 121, the Cornerstone Festival of Gardens has rocked the otherwise genteel sector of oenophilia with a riot of botanical bombast.

Devoted to exhibiting some of the edgiest expressions in gardening by leading international landscape designers, Cornerstone is the first outdoor gallery of its kind in the United States. The gardens' founder, Chris Hougie – an ex-toy company owner who made his fortune with those glow-in-the-dark astronomical stickers one finds on bedroom ceilings – initially found inspiration for the project in 1996 while honeymooning in France, where he visited the International Garden Festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire. more...

Stand By Your Van
1 January 2005

Would you like Tammy Wynette or Dean Martin to help you find your vehicle? That's what happens in America, reports Chloe Veltman

Forlorn shoppers unable to remember if they parked the car on level G3 or H4 of the local multistorey may have found relief lately, with eye-catching images of flowers, trees and animals on the walls of some UK car parks, helping drivers distinguish between otherwise nondescript concrete floors.

But American drivers don't have to settle for simple visual clues to navigate the oft-confusing course back to their cars - they're being offered an entire multimedia experience by the multi-billion-dollar parking industry. more...

An Hour to Kill in Los Angeles
October 2004

In the birthplace of the neon sign, Chloe Veltman takes a tour of illuminations great and small, starting from a museum dedicated to the subject

The first neon sign in the USA appeared in 1923 above a Packard car dealership in downtown Los Angeles. In the 80 years that followed neon became a potent symbol of US commercial culture, then spluttered out with the advent of back-lit plastic signs; it is now largely consigned to art galleries and museums. Right across Olympic Avenue from the old Packard building is the Museum of Neon Art (MONA), which preserves the country's neon heritage, encourages contemporary neon art and -- for those with three hours to kill on a Saturday evening between June and October -- runs evening tours of the still neon-rich central area of LA.more...

City Lights
11 August 2004

Few people visiting the Chinatown district of Los Angeles after nightfall are aware of the fact that they are being watched. Distracted by the smell of frying wantons wafting in the evening air and the lure of import stores selling lacquered fans and Kung-Fu posters, it’s easy to ignore the four-handed ornamental neon Buddha hanging above the door of the K G Louie Company Art Store, following your every step with his roving neon eyes.

Unless, of course, you’re spending a Saturday evening beetling around metropolitan LA on the prowl for unusual neon signs. Under the tutelage of urban anthropologist Eric Lynxwiler, who leads The Neon Cruise, a weekly tour of LA’s city lights run by The Museum of Neon Art (MONA,) even the most run-down and apparently insignificant piece of neon signage has the potential to become an object of curiosity. Only a true neon connoisseur, for instance, would know that the unimposing “Music Hall” sign above the Variety Arts Theater in downtown LA has rearrangeable letters or that the Bonaventure Hotel, with its color-themed neon-silhouetted glass elevators flying up and down its façade, is home to the city’s last rotating cocktail bar. more...

The Front Line
23 March 2002

Beetles battle the jams that bug the Bay Area: Chloe Veltman on a scheme that hopes to persuade residents to sell their cars and drive communal vehicles instead

The mission of San Francisco's City Car Share organisation, a car-hire company, sounds hopelessly self-defeating: its aim is to reduce car use.

"We are looking for ways to wean Americans off their dependence on cars," said Kate White, City Car Share's co-founder and deputy director. more...

Blissed out with bovines
16 December 2000

I have had one close encounter with cows in the past and it was a bit too close for comfort. Rambling in Dorset with a friend, we hopped over a stile to pick buttercups in an inviting-looking meadow, only to have our sunny idyll rudely interrupted by a herd of very peeved cattle, stampeding towards us with fierce determination. I have been a bit wary of cows ever since, so it was with a certain trepidation that I booked a weekend in a hotel that offers a novel facility: the opportunity to get rid of urban stress and angst by bonding with bovines. more...