Round 3 in our ongoing QuizScapes on architectural details around downtown Charleston. Where can you find these decorative carvings, along what street and on what building downtown? (And help me out, architectural cognoscenti — what are these building details commonly referred to on the architectural cocktail party circuit?) Super-size that photo by clicking on it, you eagle-eyed downtown detectives.

Click to enlarge. Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille

For many years, General Seafood along Leon Sullivan Drive was an extremely popular lunch and dinner spot. The fish stew was a destination dish. So, then under mysterious circumstances someone firebombs the place via a hole in the roof — arson, really — burning out the business and sending the restaurateurs packing. So, the spot has sat unused, fish stew-less for more than five years now. If it was so popular before, why has no one taken a roll in the hay on a new eating venture? Here may be why: the locale is in the purview of the demolition that will come this block’s way if and when plans for the new downtown library location come to fruition. But at what cost? Jane Claymore, at my sister ArtAttack blog at thegazz.com, expressed concern this week that the Quarrier Diner could go down as the new library goes up. Russ Young, one of the few readable folks at Graffiti, assays the impact the new libary will have on downtown in this thoughtful piece.

Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille. Click to enlarge

After turning my camera inward at Taylor Books (see post below), I turned it outward. (Notice the etched name of the place at stage left?) I find this tree-shaded cross-walk nexus in downtown Charleston to be — for about 100 feet in all directions — one of the city’s most successful evocations of what a pedestrian-friendly, human-scale city should feel like. This is what most European cities and towns feel like by their basic natures since those places were designed for foot traffic and small shop commerce. Americans are just beginning to grapple with how badly malls, automotive culture and big-box capitalism have devastated the very idea of a city or town. (‘Wal-Mart! J’Accuse!). At least, Charleston has a few seed pockets of healthy urban-ity, as a model for where to go from here.

Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille. Click to enlarge

Not all are fans of Paula Clendenin’s artwork, like this large canvas dominating the wall inside the coffeeshop at Taylor Books, 226 Capitol St. I am a rather large fan. While some wonder and balk at the simplicity and frugality of her imagery, for me it works as powerfully as the images on heraldic shields and banners. Her images — rough crosses and mountainous shapes, bowls and moons, outlined human forms and gestural slashes of paint — attain the resonance of ancient icons, like Kokapelli or the cave drawings in Lascaux, France. And her palette — blood reds, earth tones and chiarascuro (which, evocatively, is Italian for “lightdark“) accomplished with the frequent use of gold leaf — is transfixing. Many paintings depict fine imagery and surface details; hers convey depth and mysteries, as well as texture you can almost chew upon.

P.S. The Huntington Museum of Art presents the exhibit “Curator’s Choice: Paula Clendenin Still Lifes and Vanities,” until July 23, 2006.

Click to enlarge. Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille

Every time I walk by this recently renovated building at the corner of Quarrier and Dickinson Street, I think: wonderful renovation job by the law firm which moved in here! Then, instantly, I think: What a tres merveilleux 2nd-story, open-air bar patio this would make! Not that one would ever, ever wish there to be less attorneys in town. Or to cast a debilitating hex on such a firm so as to make way for a sky-high bar where you could sip Lemon Drops or Mojitos while dropping pennies on passersby. I suppose I am going to have to violate some legal stricture just so I can sip a Scotch, a la “Boston Legal,” and have an attorney-client conference on this patio…

Click to enlarge. Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille

The warehouse district north of Appalachian Power Park offers a different set of architectural plaisirs. I am not sure what or who travels through this walkway across Hansford Street or even what Kyle offers for sale to the world. And was there once a fellow named Kyle, who once pushed a cart a century back that became the business that exists today? Whatever the case, there’s some delight in encountering Kyle’s legacy and driving beneath it.

Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille. Click to enlarge

I covet any objects made of dark blue glass: Ty Nant bottled water, Blenko cobalt blue water pitchers, the rudely named, hugely caffeinated soft drink Bawls. And the glasses in this still life, shot on Gratzi’s outdoor patio at Town Center Mall. Caveat mangeur: Gratzi’s has fabulous food and combined with the delight of outdoor consumption, this spot should be a — how do you say — slam dunk? But beware the far left table’s farthest left chair, to the side toward Tidewater. Years of slopping food grease onto the pavement between the restaurants (for recycling, one supposes) leaves an undesirable odor. Of course, a second glass of cabernet sauvignon should take care of that if there is nowhere else to abide.

Click to enlarge. Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille

Laidley Tower has an odd shape that has never seemed felicitous to my eye. From different angles, it seems like a traditional four-square, curtain wall skyscraper. From others, like two boxes of Toblerone chocolates set on end. On my way to lunch at Gratzi’s recently, I finally ‘got’ what the artchitect was after with this view, though I am still not sure it is a felicitous shape. Still, with the rhododendrons as accent and the blue sky and clouds reflected in its depths, the Tower never looked so lovely as at this moment.

Cocktail party fact of the day (courtesy Wikipedia’s ‘skyscraper‘ listing): ‘Originally, skyscraper was a nautical term for a tall mast or sail on a sailing ship.’

Click to enlarge. Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille

It’s man against parade as this fellow goes mano a mano with traffic coming off the South Side Bridge. I have nearly myself been flattened when I have poorly timed this passage, hoofing it as some Starbuck-crazed, rush hour Mad Max driver threatens to turn me into into a crepe de DeVille.

Click to enlarge. Photo for thegazz.com by Walker DeVille

From the sound of early reviews like this and this, the Catholic Church need not worry that the movie version of “The Da Vinci Code” will become a runaway smash that erodes Church teachings and starts people wondering if maybe the Holy Spirit was a hit man (or hit dove?). The question of the historical accuracy of self-flagellating albino monks aside, the Holy Mother Church does do a fantastique job on its architecture, as this triumvirate of crosses atop the Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral attests.