FICTIONAL FRIDAY: SIDONIA

Long after the destruction of our Solar System, the space station city state of Sidonia may be the last remnant of mankind. In the newish Netflix series Knights of Sidonia, we observe what happens when an outsider from the deep and mysterious foundations of the city enters the world above, and goes further into space to fight the monsters that threaten the city's existence.

The city of Sidonia is a curious place. Unlike so many other visions of the future, a certain degree of organised complexity seems to the the principle with which it has been formed. The steel and glass skyscrapers which are at the core so many visions of the future are very absent, and in their place, we find an amazing diversity.

Artificial landscapes, bodies of water and immense structural skeletons of metal actually seem to be complemented by masonry buildings, with facades reminiscent of fortified European architecture, modern Japanese structures and weightless Middle Eastern villages stacked on top of each other. 

Hipped roof with terracotta tiles and what looks like green copper cladding, external staircases, courtyards, cloisters and even streetscapes give these conglomerates a wonderful amount of variation. Especially interesting is the way it all seems to have grown over time, with additions, nooks, balconies, bridges and towers. However, it all comes together as a rather harmonious-looking built environment, forming an effective background for the dramatic actions of the series. I'm fascinated.

PS. If you'd like to check out some real world-attempts at the same thing, check out the work of Ricardo Bofill, or MVRDV's Vertical Village concept.

FICTIONAL FRIDAY: PARALLEL UNIVERSE SWEDEN

Somewhere, in a not-too-different world, you'll find this slightly absurd house, standing somewhere in the Swedish countryside. Why does it look the way it does? How did it come to be that way? It's great, like something that has grown naturally over time, but I'm not very sure how it would seem in real life.

Anyway, be sure to visit the brilliant webpage of artist Simon Stålenhag for more of this strange and captivating vision.

FLAMING BRICK WALLS

What can shadows do to buildings? Here's one example. A brick wall, simple on the verge of being boring, suddenly looks almost like it's burning, just from the shadow of some nearby trees. The photo was taken in a student village where the office is currently doing some redesign work.

HEY GIRL

JENNY BEVAN AND THE SHADOW OF ARCHITECTURE

Here's a photo taken some time ago in Charleston, South Carolina, by the brilliant young architect Jenny Bevan.

So, consider this: How interesting are the shadows cast by the architecture you make?

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:

URBAN PLANNING ACROSS THE WORLD

Because it's true.

SNOW CURTAIN

"Who needs ccurtains on the isle of Røst"? Photo taken yesterday by my friend Gaute Granlund, who is also the island's vicar.

FICTIONAL FRIDAY: MOOMINS AND THE COMET CHASE

I recently saw this charming little film, which was compiled from parts of the old Moomin tv-series. I've always loved to Moomin universe, and not at least the charming wooden architecture that fills it. Thanks to my briliant and charming classmate Inga Hegdahl Eggen for suggesting the Moomin house!

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.

JIM KAZANJIAN AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE SURREALLY POSSIBLE

The works of artist Jim Kazanjian, these amazing pictures are compiled from images of buildings found online. Although dreamlike and amazing, what I like the most about them, is that the majority of these structures actually could be built. I truly wish contemporary architecture was more like this.

VISUAL STRUCTURE FILM

Almost three years ago, I wrote a short post explaining about our particular academic discipline at BAS, called visual structure. Today, I was made aware of this video, showing an assignment usually done in Decembre first year, where uniformly coloured geometric shapes are given a contrasting treatment of different colours in non-geometric patches. The idea is that you should be curious to find out what the next side of the shape looks like, so that you'll be intrigued to look all the way around it. Quite charming video, and I think it expresses this concept clearly.

PRESENTATION

Today was my first presentation about architecture at BAS without drawings or models. I was presenting my essay concerning sustainability and the use of local materials, showing mostly pictures and telling about my findings and my views, and the response was good. I've done loads of presentations before, but this one was the first about architecture in a theoretical perspective, so I was a bit nervous. All the more rewarding when people came up to me afterwards and told me that it was exciting and focused!

The picture is of the village of Rocamadour in France, a great example of how the use of local materials (in this case limestone from the cliff on which the village itself stands) can result in "an unrestrained harmony", to quote the essay. (Ha ha, I'm so pretentious!) Picture credits: Wikimedia Commons.

FICTIONAL FRIDAY: PUSHWAGNER'S SOFT CITY

In the early 1970s, the Norwegian artist Hariton Pushwagner created a dystopian vision of the modern city, with cars, monotony and soulless architecture, called Soft City. In this amazing series of drawings, he showed a day in this horrible society where identity is history, variation is fault and likeness the prime virtue. In many ways, this was probably nor only a reflection of Pushwagner's political views, but just as much a reaction to how Norwegian architecture was developing at the time.

One example can be found in Fantoft student hostel in Bergen, where repetition, uniformity, lack og scale and boring and ugle materials are combined with boring setting to create something that could easily have inspired Pushwagner.

The artist kept returning to Soft City, and not all of these drawing come from the original series. A book with the first edition of Soft city was published some years ago. I own a copy, but I'm not sure if it can be bought online. The ISBN number is 9788291187785, and the book is very much recommended.

Finally, a short film version of Soft City:

WES AND MATILDA

Today, while sitting at the desk in our classroom with my brilliant fellow student Matilda, who makes the world's most beautiful ink drawings, I suddenly felt like I was part of a Wes Anderson film. It may have had something to do with the amount of symmetry, an element which he uses a lot in his movies. At one point, I felt I was Bill Murray, but now I'm much better, thank you very much.

FACEBOOK 101

Yesterday, this blog's Facebook page reached 101 likes! As you can see, 92 of them are friends of mine, most of whom were probably invited by yours truly. Still, I think this is fun. I joined Facebook in 2006, and I use it almost every day to connect with friends and co-workers, learning new things, and finding out about real-life events. In this way, the "social network"actually works almost like a well-connected city, with more or less rounded blocks of homes, stores, offices, restaurants and cultural scenes.

In this amazing map of Facebook friendships made by Paul Butler, you can see how large parts of the world are interconnected using this powerful network. I, for one, com from Norway, but have connections going to such far-off places as Kenya, Colombia, South Africa and Bangladesh. Read more about how the map was made in this short and interesting article.

Finally, a picture of a well-connected city, for comparison. Bologna in 1640:

May both the world and its cities become increasingly interconnected in the years to come!

THE UNIVERSE AS SEEN FROM UTØYA ISLAND

If you look long enough, you'll see how the trees spell out the word 'love'.

FICTIONAL FRIDAY: OLIVER!

Thank God it's Fictional Friday! In this new series of posts on my blog, I'll present fantastical and fictional architecture from books, television, films, computer games, art etc. every Friday.

Today's contribution is the gloriously silly "Who will buy?" scene from the 1968 musical film "Oliver!", which won an Oscar for Best Picture. Although this may look very much like a real London street, and some even believed it was filmed at the Royal Crescent in Bath, it's all a gigantic film set which was built at Shepperton Studios. According to movie-locations.com, the designer was John Box, Production Designer, and the inspiration is of course classical terraced houses, garden squares and architectural crescents such as the aforementioned Royal Crescent.

Not only is the street and park beautiful, and most definitely a place I'd like to live myself if it was real, but the scene, which by the way took six weeks to film, also has a great interaction between choreography and architecture, with dancing and stunts following the rhythm of the facades.

STAY AWAKE

These tips are very useful for all architure students, and I dedicate this blog posts to my friends whose exams are closing in rapidly:

NICHE

Is the wall you're designing flat and boring? A window or door or climbing plant would be out of place? Why not try a niche, like this marble one, to be found in the courtyard of Istabul's Blue Mosque? With the word deriving from Latin nidus, meaning nest, the architectural niche has been around for about 2000 years, and still works as a way to break up monotony, disperse light and shadow in different ways, house books or statues or birds, create a warm and sheltered space in the sun, or just remain empty and, if you're very lucky, once in a while being occupied by cute girls eating turkish delight.