Miso, City Of Reubens


misobuffdiss2.jpgWhilst 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.

Master's Chair


kartell-welcomeblack1.jpgSometimes 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.

If only they'd added Adolf Loos to the mix.

As seen on Cool Hunting.

Springs Mills Building Gets Landmarked


millikensprings1.jpgNow 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.

Seriously, I am dying to post the design I did for this building's gorgeous floorplate 10 years ago, but copyright laws prevent such intellectual property being shared.  Let's just say that the slender hexagon of a floorplate is as sexy-awesome as it sounds to everyone who describes it.

The Ethics Of Dust


ethicsofdust.jpgJorge 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."

And how.  Our favorite project of his is The Ethics Of Dust, consisting of a large latex sheet that pulled off ancient pollution from the Doge's Palace last year at the Venice Bienale.  Backlit and freefloating, it's like a Shroud of Turin for architects: a study of time, and the value of recording even the decay of an important icon.

Anish Kapoor Does All Towers At Once


KA---POW.pngLike 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.

However, the insanity of it almost rescues it.  Perhaps Tower Of Power will perform at the opening ceremony?

Tipped off by Art Lovers at The Awl.

Herzog and DeMeuron Get Tough


Fondazione Feltrinelli HdM.jpgWhile 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.

Mayer Rus On The Tyranny Of Taste


rus with love.jpgAh, 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 Where Home Is


Hollin Hills Charles Goodman 1949 - 2.jpgHollin 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.

In fact, there's a few modern real estate gems for sale, and an entire website devoted to finding them.  Some good deals there too: people in that neck of the woods apparently haven't caught on to how cool these houses are yet.



Acido Dorado: Mies Finally Loses Control And Gets Giddy


outside-pool-fence-gold1___2d3401dbab58d49e5c491294aee95f3d.jpgFor 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.  It's like Mies is still doing houses, and he's in his late-period expressionist phase, and he's really lost his previous control.  This is a good thing.  He brilliantly does his color-symmetry thing, except this time with the desert, and the color GOLD MIRROR.

Except it's not Mies.  It's Robert Stone, who develops these houses and then rents them out.  The most brilliant strategy for creating new and idiosyncratic buildings in the USA today.  Don't take our word for it, just read the website:

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: Oscar Niemeyer Did Not Design Brasilia


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

In my last post, I stated that Oscar Niemeyer designed Brasilia.  This is wrong!  In fact, the city was designed by Lucio Costa in 1956-7.  It was Costa who developed the city's distinctive curved-cross shape and the shape of its blocks and transportation cores.  Oscar Niemeyer was the principal architect, with Roberto Burle Marx as the lead landscape architect.

Thank you Adriana Marasca for being our Brazilian Architecture fact checker!

Oscar Niemeyer: Never Say Die


Torre de TV Digital.jpg
Oscar Niemeyer, the guy who designed Brasilia in 1737, is still alive, and designing buildings!  He just finished the design for Torre Digital, a new TV tower for the capital of Brazil, on his Atari 2600, and the rendering has now been shared with us. Facts about the tower:

Location: Brasilia, Brazil
Height: 180m (about 62 stories)
Number of Glass Domes: 2
Programs in the domes: 1 restaurant, 1 art gallery
Surrounded by: 1 Curved ramp over a reflecting pool (what else?)
Best translated pull quote (by Secretary of Culture): "I'm very optimistic, because this will be one of our sights. I'm sure."
Amount of Crazy in the Design: 100%