TROPOLISM

Whilst perusing the website for the Living Walls Conference (coming to Atlanta in August!) I was taken particularly by the artist Miso, living in Melbourne, Australia.  An entire section of her site is devoted to street art.  Not necessarily original (any dweller of New York has seen dozens of work like this, living as we do in the graffiti capital of the world), but definitely with a specific grasp of how street art affects how we use and inhabit cities.  Her work unifies a lot of the poster detritus it operates on, and creates a new standard for site-specific street art.

Sometimes referencing three other things all at once in a design is a ridiculous mess (however fabulous the result may be).  Sometimes, it rocks.  Witness Kartell's new Masters Chair, which references silhouettes of famous chairs by Arne Jacobsen, Charles and Ray Eames, and Eero Saarinen.  The resulting chair is some kind of seriously whacked out Thonet No. 14, capturing the lightness and alien spirit of that chair.  In plastic.

Now that the Springs Mills Building is no longer taking second seat as part of the Milliken Building, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission was able to see it in its full glory and give it Landmarked status (warning: PDF press release).  It helps that the Milliken Building got demolished last year.

Jorge Otero-Pailos, an architect/artist, is our favorite kind of preservationist.  His bio is all we need to know: "his work rethinks preservation as a powerful countercultural practice that creates alternative futures for our world heritage."

Like the love child, or a genetically spliced clone of, the DNA of the Eiffel Tower, Tatlin's Tower, and Umschreibung, Anish Kapoor has unveiled his proposal for the London 2012 Olympics: ArcelorMittal Orbit, which seriously makes no sense to me, is that one, two, three corporations mashed together or is that the name of the work?  2012 is the new 2007.

While more of a concept than a realized building idea, Herzog and DeMeuron's design for the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli in Porta Volta, Milan is brutally straightforward.  In fact, the brutal finalness, the balance between grace and heaviness, the superscale and prefabricated grit had our first thought be thus: this is going to be Gino Valle's finest building ever.

Ah, we wondered what Mayer Rus was up to these days.  It's good to see his wit has found a suitable outlet.

Hollin Hills is a modernist residential development from the middle of the last century in Alexandria, Virginia, not far from the US capital.  This is our thing, and we have several bookmarks around these developments.  The development was designed by architect Charles Goodman and features many of his house designs.  What's exciting to me is how fresh and alive the houses look now.  And, how wonderful of a departure it is for houses which in that part of the country are mind-numbingly attached to being some form of Oldene Lookinge Colonial Style.  For those of you looking to explore, there is a house tour of Hollin Hills on May 1.

For those of you who thought Rosa Muerta was pretty sweet (and most of you did, the house got jillions of hits and went on a magazine tour) we would like to direct your attention to the amazing Acido Dorado.  We got wind of this last December, but in our winter business flurry we let it fall to others to announce the awesomeness.  Now we chime in.

Acido Dorado sits in a 180 degree nook of a small mountain of rocks and presents on the outside a long and low chopped and channeled profile with huge mirrored overhangs, hearts, flowers, and 3 colors of acid-tinged metallic gold. Inside, it's all preppy-glam; a beige and tweed country club strung out on gold and mirror accents.

Tropolism Corrections: we almost never do them!  But this merits one.