Archive for the ‘Architecture’ Category
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
Alain de Botton – A Temple for Atheists Image: Thomas Greenall & Jordan Hodgson
The writer, Alain De Botton, famous for his musings on Proust and the nature of happiness, has always had an interest in the way humans are impacted by architectural spaces. De Botton has explored transitional places and the way they affect human emotions – and he has lived in an airport continuously for a week for research on his book A Week At the Airport. But, for his latest project, De Botton has been inspired to create an edifice for atheists to counter the millions of monuments that exist for gods.
For the scores of glorious cathedrals and mosques built by architects there appears to be none that had been built for atheists. Places of worship have been built for Jesus, Mary and for the Buddha, but temples can also be built for love, friendship and calmness…
Alain de Botton – A Temple for Atheists Image: Thomas Greenall & Jordan Hodgson
De Botton intends to build his tower in London at a symbolic height that reflects a scale of 300 million years of life on earth. He explained in the Guardian, “Each centimeter of the tapering tower’s interior has been designed to represent a million years and a narrow band of gold will illustrate the relatively tiny amount of time humans have walked the planet.” De Botton’s idea is to encourage contemplation. He also added, “the exterior would be inscribed with a binary code denoting the human genome sequence.”
Read more on Alain De Botton’s temple
Tags: Alain De Botton, Architecture, Christopher Hitchens, Living Architecture, London, Peter Zumthor, Proust, Religion, Richard Dawkins, Sculpture
Posted in Architecture, Design, Environment, Publishing, Sculpture | No Comments »
Friday, January 6th, 2012
Tomás Saraceno Observatory/Air-Port-City Hayward Gallery,London, 2008. Gesamthöhe: 9,6 m Courtesy: The artist and Andersen's Contemporary,Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, pinksummer contemporary art. Foto: Courtesy Tomás Saraceno
Photo: Courtesy Tomás Saraceno
Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno’s visionary exhibition Cloud Cities at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin is a hall of floating spheres and webs inspired by utopic visions of hanging settlements or cloud cities that can migrate across the globe.
Saraceno builds on his knowledge of architecture and astronomy to create artwork inspired by soap bubbles and the tensile configurations of spider webs. Viewers at the museum can interact and enter the bubbles to experience their translucent, trans-dimensional qualities. The Mother Bubble, features an undulating plastic base for visitors to lounge on.
Photo: Courtesy Tomás Saraceno
Read more on Saraceno
Tags: Berlin, Buckminster Fuller, Hamburger Bahnhof, Tomas Saraceno
Posted in Architecture, Art, Design, Environment, Sculpture | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012
By Kiša Lala
© Shane Vincent, Stay Connected, from 'Stand in Line' 2011
© Shane Vincent, All Directions, from 'Stand in Line' 2011
Nineteen year old street photographer Shane Vincent has an eye for capturing those ephemeral moments when the changing light transforms the mundane into the sublime.
The project, Stand in Line, came about when Vincent began photographing utility poles in the streets of North London where he lives: “The series started at a time where the sky looked pretty cool,” he says. “It was autumn so it would change constantly. It caused me to look up a lot.” The outcome of his first photograph, Stay connected of a utility pole “with wires coming out at all directions,” was captivating enough, recollects the young photographer, that it caused him to pay more regard to the perpendicular poles and lampposts which most take for granted and which habitually punctuate the urban horizon. By isolating them against the vivid autumnal sky, and shooting them from an anamorphic perspective, Vincent enhanced their geometric abstractions.
© Shane Vincent, Change Direction, from 'Stand in Line' 2011
(more…)
Tags: Kisa Lala, London, Photography, Shane Vincent
Posted in Architecture, Art, Interview, Photography | No Comments »
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
By Kiša Lala
Tom Sachs, Photograph by The Selby
After a few years of tinkering in his studio, Tom Sachs has resurfaced with a new show entitled Work at New York’s Sperone Westwater gallery filling three floors with art exploring as many creative tangents: a series of pyrographic works, using a wood burning-etching technique; a foamcore crafted collection based on Sevres porcelain; and a series that pays homage to James Brown, with a JB listening station, his Last Supper packed in a microwave, and a framed array of JB’s hair products.
Sachs had cited James Brown’s work ethic as an inspiration for the show, so I took him to task for being late for our meeting and disappointing Brown’s high standards for punctuality.
“When Brown fined his workers for being late it was contributing to a culture of punctuality,” explained Sachs in defense of the Hardest Working Man in Show Business. “He fined them for missing a beat, he used punctuality as a percussive element: to be on time, to keep time; not miss a beat.”
Sachs runs his Vulcan smithy of tinkerers like a boot camp, with red beans and rice every Monday. “Rather than a prison fantasy it’s more a utopian fantasy. More Amish. You can leave,” he forewarns me, “but you might find that the outside world may not be as inviting.”
Tom Sachs' tribute to James Brown: © Tom Sachs 'Please, Please, Please', 2011 mixed media 64 x 22 x 14 inches 162,6 x 55,9 x 35,6 cm overall Courtesy Sperone Westwater Gallery
(more…)
Tags: James Brown, Kisa Lala, Sperone Westwater Gallery, The Selby, Todd Selby, Tom Sachs
Posted in Architecture, Art, Interview, Photography, Sculpture | No Comments »
Friday, December 2nd, 2011
The first air show at the Grand Palais in Paris, France. September 30th, 1909. Photographed in Autochrome Lumière by Léon Gimpel
While art fairs have become common, attracting patrons the world over – they are still a long way off from the extravagant theatricality of events from the past century.
An example is Paris’ Grand Palais, a building that was designed as the venue for singular happenings in the 19th c. and became a host for world fairs for over a hundred years.
Salon de locomotion aerienne 1909 - Grand Palais, Paris
Anish Kapoor Leviathan at Grand Palais, 2011
Tags: Art Fair, Grand Palais, Paris, Universal Exhibition, World Fair
Posted in Architecture, Art, Design, Photography, Sculpture | No Comments »
Monday, November 7th, 2011
Earthscraper, Mexico City. Designed by BNKR Arquitectura BNKR Arquitectura www.bunkerarquitectura.com © Copyright BNKR
“The Earthscraper is the Skyscraper’s antagonist,” said a spokesman from BNKR Arquitectura describing their latest venture in densely packed Mexico City. Their proposal is to drill downwards, inverting a skyscraper that would extend 65 stories under ground, circumventing restrictive local laws that prevent building skywards higher than 8 stories.
Bosco Verticale - Architectural Design: BOERISTUDIO (Stefano Boeri, Gianandrea Barreca, Giovanni La Varra)
(more…)
Tags: bosco verticale, carbon, earthscraper, Energy, Environment, Lazarides, Mexico, Milan, trees, vertical forest
Posted in Architecture, Environment | No Comments »
Thursday, September 15th, 2011
By Kiša Lala
Sculpteur de Nourissons - detail © Charles Matton, Courtesy All Visual Arts, Photo: Tessa Angus
Sculpteur de Nourissons © Charles Matton, Courtesy All Visual Arts, Photo: Tessa Angus
A retrospective of handmade miniature interiors by
Charles Matton is on exhibit in London’s
All Visual Arts gallery. Matton, who died in 2008 of lung cancer, built ‘Boxes,’ that recreated artist studios and mise-en-scènes, emotive still-frames of inhabited interiors, empty hotel hallways, lonesome ateliers and imaginary boîtes. Poking one’s head inside one of Matton’s enclosures is being Gulliver trespassing into another reality and expecting the room’s lilliputian occupants to return any moment.
The fascination with doll’s houses is that we glorify our need for tidying and collecting objects with imperial strokes and a make-belief sense of omniscience. Replicating the world exactly had been Matton’s passions, and his artistic journey began with painting hyperreal interiors that he eventually extrapolated into three-dimensions, creating rooms with walls exactly as he would have painted them on canvas, drawing cracks on the patina, filtering sun and shade on the furniture, miniaturizing the effects of light itself.
(more…)
Tags: Alberto Giacometti, Baudrillard, Charles Matton, Francis Bacon, Jean Baudrillard, Kisa Lala, London, new york, Sigmund Freud, Sylvie Matton
Posted in Architecture, Art, Design, Sculpture | No Comments »
Thursday, September 8th, 2011
©Patrick Witty - here is new york - exhibition at School of Visual Arts
Ten years ago, on just another week like this, with New Yorkers speeding to their next meetings, racing for subways with coffee in hand, and models primping for Fall Fashion week – a morning like any other suddenly unraveled. The following moments would gnaw at collective memories, punctuate lives, and instigate a series of devastating world events. It was a tragic start to the new century and an ominous beginning for the new millennium. It was America’s passage from puberty. Some still recollect their movements in dreamlike sequence, whether it was the moment of becoming first aware, escaping the avalanche of dust, peering from rooftops at the collapsing towers, or just smelling the acrid vapours alone in one’s room…
As seen from the world trade center in 2000- Horizonte Perdido, 2000 ©Roberto Linsker, Courtesy of 1500 Gallery, NYC
Tags: 1500 gallery, Christian Sievers, Elena del Rivero, New Museum, new york, new york fashion, New York Historical Society, Photographs, School of Visual Arts, september 11, Tim Barber, World Trade Center, wtc
Posted in Architecture, Art, Environment, Photography | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
Batman inspired Thierry Mugler boat - The Thierry Mugler Spire Speedboat
Speed-freaks and fashionistas will dig the Batman boat by runway designer Thierry Mugler modeled by Spire Boat Builder, set to debut in September this year in the 2011 Monaco Yacht show. The boat is a blend of nostalgic 50s era chrome and tailfin-inspired car aesthetic with the comic book style of Bat mobiles. But designing for a floating lifestyle maybe a new trend.
Aquariva by Marc Newson
(more…)
Tags: Aquariva by Marc Newson, Dakis Joannou, Dennis Ingemansson, Gagosian, Italian, Jeff Koons, Monaco, Roy Lichtenstein, speed boat, speedboat, Thierry Mugler, Yacht
Posted in Architecture, Art, Environment, Sculpture | No Comments »
Friday, August 26th, 2011
Mouth Eyes, 2009, video still, © Jessica Harrison
Jessica Harrison’s artworks are discomfitingly tactile, triggering a collision of senses, and sometimes even, immediate recoil. In this video still, Mouth Eyes, she places lips in the eye sockets, resulting in involuntary synesthesia in the viewer.
Harrison deconstructs the body, defining its interior space in relation to the exterior world of sensations, not just as a simple duality but an osmotic plane, exploring, as she describes it, “a complex chasm of surfaces and sensations that relate to and transgress one another. Rather than being a stable entity, the body emerges as one that is in constant flux, shifting, stretching, snapping, softening.”
(more…)
Tags: Jessica Harrison, new york, Times Square Gallery
Posted in Architecture, Art, Sculpture | No Comments »
