Food for thought
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Public anger in Turkey
Jun 02 2013Hundreds of protesters have reoccupied a central square in Istanbul following two days of violent demonstrations that saw almost 1,000 people arrested. The situation is generally calm and city workers are clearing up after the protests in Istanbul and Ankara. Officials say 26 police and 53 civilians were hurt, one seriously. Protests began over the [...]
Modern architects have forgotten how to build beautiful new houses
May 19 2013The British public have gone on buying beautiful, old buildings. Who could possibly defend the modern horrors inflicted on our cities by architects over the last half century? Michael Gove is quite right to say that the best British urban plans – the Nash Terraces of Regent’s Park, or Edinburgh’s New Town – make [...]
High Style Is What You Make It, by Carl Lana
Mar 27 2013Tony Duquette, John Pawson and Cy Twombly – Disparate Yet Comparable There once was a trinity of high style, Le Corbusier, Emilio Terry and Charles De Beistegui, who created one of the most unusual and surreal collaborations in design history with the Parisian apartment for De Beistegui. I ask how would anyone top that today? Or [...]
Photographer Alyse Emdur Documents the Landscape Paintings Seen in Prison Visiting Rooms
Mar 05 2013Alyse Emdur first came across a pretty painting in a prison at the age of five while visiting room while visiting her brother. Normally only seen by a small audience, such large-scale paintings in visiting rooms are used as backdrops for photographs taken of inmates to be shared with friends and family. They feature various landscapes [...]
NLE architects: floating school in Makoko
Mar 04 2013In a geographically changing world where water levels are steadily rising, many coastal and waterfront communities are finding themselves inundated with the problem of adaptive housing solutions that withstand swelling tides and swift currents. Flood-proof schemes are floating around most commonly implementing various stilt systems to elevate the structure above predetermined water lines, but even [...]
Soldiers’ Engraved Lighters from the Vietnam War
Feb 20 2013Last year, Cowan’s Auctions put up a lot of 282 Vietnam War-era Zippo lighters featuring personalized and anonymous engravings chosen by U.S. soldiers, sailors, and airmen during deployment. The collection was compiled by American artist Bradford Edwards over several years in the 1990s, on-site in Vietnam. The collection sold for $35,250 on June 21, 2012. The following [...]
An amazing dance of birds during prayer time in Istanbul
Feb 09 2013Look what a strange timing between birds and a prayer from an Istanbul mosque can generate. I would suggest to watch the video in full screen. Enjoy
In prison they called me Picasso
Nov 28 2012Described by Scotland Yard as “the biggest art fraud of the 20th century”, the life of artist John Myatt reads very much like the pages of a best-selling novel. Success arrived for John in the Seventies, when he co-wrote the number one chart hit ‘Silly Games’ in 1979. Moving from London to his native Staffordshire, [...]
Stranded house in the middle of a newly built road in China
Nov 24 2012There are times when the city decides that it needs to clear space for an infrastructural redesign or for the construction of new buildings, and in these cases whatever unfortunate neighborhood that lies in the way may have to relocate. Such is the case in Zhejiang province, when a village of 500 families was demolished [...]
Architects want Obama to win
Nov 06 2012If architects ruled the States, Barack Obama would be re-elected president. A recent issue of Architect, the magazine of the American Institute of Architects, found that 59.5% of designers polled chose POTUS over Mitt Romney for this year’s presidential election. The poll was published alongside two editorial pieces by US journalists on why electing their favored candidate would [...]
The Latest in the Wright House Demolition Saga: The Developers Tell Their Side
Oct 26 2012The David Wright House, a hidden gem that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for his son, still stands, but its fate remains precarious. On October 9th, the Arizona Planning Commission met to discuss the proposed landmark designation for the house, an event which attracted over 100 people. According to The New York Times, only 3 people [...]
A painter’s struggle with Alzheimer – The Self-Portraits of William Utermohlen
Oct 25 2012When he learned in 1995 that he had Alzheimer’s disease, William Utermohlen, an American artist living in London, immediately began work on an ambitious series of self-portraits. The artist pursued this project over an eight-year period, adapting his style to the growing limitations of his perception and motor skills and creating images that powerfully [...]
Design Stories in Paris: Theater Bouffe du Nord
Oct 20 2012When you are in Paris, apart from the good food and the sight seeing, for those who speak the language, theater is a must. But even for those of you that do not speak French, there is a legendary space in the north of Paris that you have to see, the Theater Bouffe du Nord, [...]
David Byrne on TED: How architecture helped music evolve
Sep 25 2012As his career grew, David Byrne went from playing CBGB to Carnegie Hall. He asks: Does the venue make the music? From outdoor drumming to Wagnerian operas to arena rock, he explores how context has pushed musical innovation.
LIFE AND THE GEOMETRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT, BY DR. NIKOS SALINGAROS
Sep 17 2012How can people live in a way that is more fully human? Quality of human life comes in large part from contact with nature, and from processes that evolved from our intimate contact with nature. Industrialization and mass production have unfortunately led to dehumanization. Confusing humans with machines represents the negative side of the industrial [...]