ESCHERESQUE WORKMEN

(M. C. Escher, Dutch graphic artist with a taste for illusions and paradoxical constructions drawn in 2D.)

(Robert Leighton, cartoonist. A short article on how this one was created can be found here.)

SNOW IN FLORIDA

Perhaps you know this very well, but there is a place called Celebration, a small town in Florida, built by the Walt Disney Company. An early example of New Urbanism put into practice, the people in this town seem to be living (that's right, they live there for real) on the very edge of reality as we know it. The idea of letting it snow in Florida is rather surreal by itself, but accompanied by music and voices seeming to come from nowhere in particular, it's beyond weird, seen with my European eyes.

And on the other hand: What if this works for the people who live there? Celebration is a walkable town, and people make real friendships there, just by passing each other by on porches or the sidewalks. At least it's an alternative to suburban sprawl, isn't it? And what are the alternatives? How much "real" traditional urbanism is there in the US?

I'd never live in Celebration, but perhaps we'll have to let fantasy play a bigger part in architecture when dealing with the need for reshaping society to meet the ecological crisis ahead. Is Celebration a definite answer? Absolutely not. Is it an interesting question? I would say yes.

SKATING IN ORDOS

What do you do with a city built for 300 000 people, but with a population of less than 10% of that? (It's Inner Mongolia, I don't blame humanity for not moving.) We're talking large urban spaces, attempts at innovative architecture, oversize bronze horses galloping across stone plazas, organic concrete shapes and four-lane roads without cars.

You bring your skateboard, of course.

The poetically named Kangbashi New Area, Ordos. Not Bregna.

MIDNIGHT CITY (ARRIVAL IN HAMBURG)

Midnight City from M83 on Vimeo.


Waiting in a car.
Waiting for a ride in the dark.
The night city grows.
Look and see her eye, the glow.
Waiting in a car.
Waiting for a ride in the dark.
Drinking in the lounge.
Following the neon signs.
Waiting for a roar.
Looking at a mutating skyline.
The city is my church.
It wraps me in the sparlking twilight.
Waiting in a car.
Waiting for the right time.
Waiting in a car.
Waiting for the right time.
Waiting in a car.
Waiting for the right time.
Waiting in a car.
Waiting for the right time.
Waiting in a car.
Waiting for a ride in the dark.

FICTIONAL FRIDAY: HANDRAILS OF MIDDLE-EARTH

An architectonical observation from the incredibly funny Youtube channel Cinema Sins in the video counting the sins of the first Hobbit film (which by the way contains loads of cool fictional architecture and urbanism).

But what is the explanation for this? Why no handrails? Might just be because it looks good, but that doesn't explain how no one would try to prevent the thousands of casualties which inevitably would be the result of this policy. Visual pleasure vs. security is a debate in this world as well (just think of the organisations for people with impaired vision, who wants there to be gigantic glowing yellow arrows and stripes absolutely everywhere), but it's quite easy to see who won in this one.

Why not include the whole video:

FICTIONAL FRIDAY: GWEN'S CARROLLESQUE GARDEN

One of the coolest gardens I know, quite clearly inspired by Lewis Carlloll's Alice in Wonderland, a book which I was very fascinated and confused by in my childhood, and still love.

FICTIONAL FRIDAY: HELL HALL

In the Disney classic 101 Dalmatians, the said dalmatians are kidnapped and kept in the old country house of the film's villain, Cruella de Vil. Hell Hall is the name of the manor, and the architecture seems to be quite eclectic, mixing gothic, elizabethan and rococo. An interior view:

I also tried finding the clip where the puppies are rescued from the manor, but that wasn't very easy to find. However, if you're a real fan of Cruella and her house (or if your children are(in which case you should probably call you local exorcist)), you can buy the Hell Hall toy house:

I actually think I wouldn't mind living there, considering how I love houses that look like they have been added to again and again. I'd prefer miss de Vil to move out first, though.

PRUITT-IGOE

A younger man than myself helped me remember this beautiful piece of music, written by Philip Glass for the film called Koyaanisqatsi (1982). The title derives from a scene in which the failed housing project named "Pruitt-Igoe", designed by Minoru Yamasaki (mostly known as the architect of the Twin Towers), is being demolished.

Although frequent attempts have been made by architects to blame the failures of the project on other aspects than the architecture, it has remained a symbol of  how ideology-driven, de-humanizing thinking in our craft can result in horrible and uninhabitable places. The famous architecture historian and theorist Charles Jencks has even claimed that the tearing down of Pruitt-Igoe nailed the moment where Modernism's optimism on behalf of the future and itself ended, and post-modernism started.

The site is now mostly empty, but suggestions have been made for it to be rebuilt in completely different ways, for example in the charming and thought-through master plan developed by architect Samuel Lima. He suggests applying traditional architecture, extracted from examples in the nearby area, and is firmly planted within the New Urbanist approach.

SEQUEL

This thing is on the top of my wish list!

AMBITIONS

I'm not going to tell you about my ambitions, that could get awkward. But please enjoy this beautiful song and video, complete with a 1920's hospital film set.

COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE

Can be nice, but sometimes it just looks weird. 

(Azania Front Lutheran church, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania)

AVANT-GARDE/COMPLEXITY 1929

He apparently saw this before anyone else:

Plan Voisin, which tearing down a large part of central Paris, replacing it with a highway and huge tower blocks. 1925




"The real effect of M. Le Corbusier's proposals is an over-simplification of the city(...). M. Le Corbusier's solution is to do away with the complexity. This complexity, however, is part of the subject of civic design. The modern great city is like a large orchestra wich often plays an inferior piece of music, and in which the instruments themselves may occasionally even be out of tune. It is the business of a reformer to improve the music and the instruments, but not to cut down the range of the orchestra, nor the number of musical effects that are aimed at by it. M. Le Corbusier has not the patience to attempt this, but substitutes for this orchestra a single tin whistle with about five notes, with which he plays a perfectly rythmical tune. But it is not enough."

- A. Trystan Edwards, The Dead City, in: The Architectural Review, vol. 66, 1929, pp. 135-138

Plan Voisin, model






Why didn't you listen?

SPEECHLESS

I'm... I... I think all I can say is 

(Picture by Karsten Reisdorf. It was shared to me on Facebook.)

TEAM BUILDING

What is a team building? I have no idea, but this is what it looks like, according to a hotel advertisement we found last week.

Photographer: Kristian Hoff-Andersen
Model: Heidi Norum

BEFORE THE CARS

Yesterday, the bus gave up on getting us into the city centre and instead dumped us right outside of it. Nairobi is full of traffic and congestion, probably because of all the people driving in their of own cars instead of using public transport, and the fact that the CBD (the tall buildings in the background) has almost no apartments, so people who work there have to spend a lot of time travelling there and back again every day.

Anyway.

When we arrived, we saw that many people were walking towards and on this bridge. There were people selling fruit, and clothes, playing music, chatting, burning things (they seem to have an affinity for burning things in this country) and looking bewildered. We decided to follow, and it turned out that this is a highway that's still being built. In between all the others, there were people in yellow helmets trying to finish it. There were huge cracks every 20th metre or so, which I guess explains why the cars haven't arrived yet. Actually, I'm even sure they should finish it. Research shows that expanding roads only leads to more people using their cars, so that capacity doesn't really increase. Maybe it would be better to keep the life and the people, use it as a new urban space and build some houses and workshops or something on and under it?

GYPSY KINGS

Gypsy Kings from Sebastien Cuvelier on Vimeo.

What happens when kitsch is so kitschy that it's not just kitsch anymore? I mean... It's not pretty, that's quite obvious, but somehow,  it is a bit fascinating.

MICHELE BACHMAN'S HOUSE

HA HA HA HA HA HA

STONEHENGE

Great archimusic from the Ylvis brothers.

WHAT YOU'LL HATE IN TEN YEARS

(Maybe you already do?)

Military History Museum in Dresden, with an addition by Daniel Libeskind.


"The new façade’s openness and transparency contrasts with the opacity and rigidity of the existing building. The latter represents the severity of the authoritarian past while the former reflects the openness of the democratic society in which it has been reimagined. The interplay between these perspectives forms the character of the new Military History Museum" Ouch. Daniel... please, just... shut up.

NATURBETONG ("NATURAL CONCRETE")

Naturbetong - unequalled combination of industrial look and dust collecting since 1950!

Launched in 1950 by architect Erling Viksjø, but somehow still not very popular amongst most people, the technique of naturbetong has been used in several very important public buildings in Norway, including the government building, which was the main target and heavily damaged by the bomb in Oslo 22nd July 2011. Now we can never tear it down.

Picture from Jernbanetorget subway station, taken earlier tonight.