There have been many articles and images of Gehard Richter's design for the stained glass window in Cologne Cathedral since it was unveiled last August. Our favorite was pointed out by Greg Allen: it's by Ralf Stockmann.
Long fans of the Library Of Congress image website (which has been around for 8 or 10 years, they were one of the first free online image banks), we are now excited to see them moving to the next phase of the interwebs by creating flickr albums. This department obviously has gotten a lot of money to play with the 'net. Good for us!
Many of the images do not carry copyright restrictions, such as the pictured This girl in a glass house is putting finishing touches on the bombardier nose section of a B-17F navy bomber, Long Beach, Calif., and they all include links back to the LOC website.
In our short list of artists we like, we would like to add Andrea Zittel and her ever-expanding A-Z project. The project explores many basic aspects of domestic life: storage, lounging, sleeping, more storage, food prep, clothing, and shelter. While some of the projects edge toward the cutely didactic (I think we were the only ones in NYC who didn't like 1996's Escape Vehicles show), projects like Homestead Unit With Raugh Furniture (pictured) cross boundaries between architecture and furniture. The distinctions are expertly blurred using surrealist techniques, without letting the project cross over into sculpture territory. A must for architects and interior designers looking to push the boundaries.
Pictures and coverage of Olafur's New York City Waterfalls were published by Bloomberg yesterday. Curbed tipped us off to this, and to a photo gallery of Olafur and the mayor doing official announcing stuff.
Our favorite part: that the waterfalls are not only powered by the river current, but they are supported by exposed scaffolding mimicking the kind used to build New York over the last century. Looks like we won't be traveling away from NYC this summer.
At first glance of this photograph we thought that an interior designer convention was marveling that the crazy-grid carpet from 1992 had not yet been replaced. It turns out that these are structural engineers inspecting a portion of Eisenman's Columbus Convention Center for structural damage after a big flood last week.
But seriously, Columbus folks. New carpet already.
Another long-lost and favorite meme of ours comes back through reader mail (keep those emails coming, folks!) in the form of some links to abandoned theme parks, many in Japan. Making the exploration of these ghost parks even more thrilling, beyond the Joel Sternfeld-like eeriness of the pictures themselves, is that they are collected on sites written in either German and/or Japanese, neither of which we read.
Our favorite is the Shiga Spiral, pictured. Happy exploring!
Opening January 26th is "Imperative Design", radical furnishings from seven designers at Barbara Davis Gallery in Houston. It isn't clear whether the gallery is attempting to outdo Moss or be their retail outlet (some of the pieces are available at Moss; pictured is Arik Levy's Rock Fusion chairbenchtablerock, available for price upon request. While not all of the pieces are new (will Zaha Hadid design another chair, please?), the work presented is interesting, cutting edge, and takes a bias toward computer-generated objects being created in real space.
Oh, and we want a Rock Fusion for our birthday (April 22, we turn 3).
Up for tomorrow: Mayor Bloomberg will announce Olafur Eliasson's city-sponsored installation "New York City Waterfalls", consisting of four waterfalls near lower Manhattan, in the East River. Until we get renderings, we will picture "Reversed Waterfall" from 1998.
Special add-on Olafur bonus for this summer: "The Parliament of Reality" at Bard College, a circular lake opening in June.
“One should be practical and not too pious,” he told a conference of art historians some years ago. Commercialism pays the bills, he said, and museums are not churches. But “it is the mystery, the wonder, the presence of the real that is our singular distinction and that we should proudly, joyfully proclaim.”--Phillipe de Montebello, who announced this week he is stepping down as director of the Metropolitan Museum Of Art after 30 years.
Architectural critics, like all art critics, are stuck between bald snap judgment and the extension of art history known as architectural history. It's a strange place to be, and the critics we admire tend to create new conversations about architecture in general, through their insightful opinions (IE Paul Goldberger) or their insightful riffing on architectural history (IE Robin Evans, RIP).
Click Continue Reading for the rest of the critique of the critics.
This time it's Tokyo from our friends at cornershots.
If you are like us, with our love affair with Tokyo, and, like us, miss its special mix of stunning architecture that doubles as larger than life retail, you will appreciate these two flickr sets.
The first is by Ralf Dziminski and covers some of my favorite spots, including this corner on Omotesando, pictured above.
The second, larger set is by nouknouk and also captures the overlap of retail messiness and retail architecture.
Both pointed out by Jean Snow.
Continuing our favorite topic of the month, another reader tips us off to another classic 20th century gas station by a famous architect: Mies Van Der Rohe's Esso gas station on Nun's Island from 1969.
We knew about this one, but were unable to find a photograph of it. Fortunately, zadcat from flickr has posted the photograph above. Extra bonus link provided by the zadcat: a survey of "ugly" gas stations in Montreal. You know where we stand on ugly (some of our favorite buildings are ugly!). And you know where we stand on Mies and drive-through culture (neon does wonders with all that glass!). So this is probably our favorite gas station ever. That is looks like the exterior is unmodified makes us love it even more, with that big awesome gas station sign out front.
Barry Bergdoll's big gun out of the gate: fill the vacant lot next to MoMA with five homes, foundations and all. The exhibition opens June 20 and will explore the state-of-the-art possibilities of prefabrication. It's a brilliant beginning for Mr. Bergdoll; he continues a tradition of MoMA exhibiting around this theme, while at the same time picking a topic that is at the current intersection of architecture, social ideas, and technological capabilities.
The architects chosen all explore this topic as their firm's focus:
KieranTimberlake Associates of Philadelphia; Lawrence Sass of Cambridge, Mass.; Douglas Gauthier and Jeremy Edmiston of Manhattan; Oskar Leo Kaufmann and Albert Rüf of Austria; and Richard Horden of Horden Cherry Lee in London.
Perhaps the best thing is his choice to announce the exhibition as if it were opening today. The houses begin construction soon and will be complete when they are open to the public in June. We'll keep you posted.
