Yesterday's Architecture of Today

Whenever I find old copies of L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, I sit down and browse through their proclamations of what the future will be like. Would we be living in computer-chip environments? 

of course we would 

would we be putting together apartments like giant Tetris modules? 

of course we would

would we love rhomboid patterened cartoon lightning decorated public buildings?

of course we do

(Alfred Neumann, public building at Bat-Yam, Israel, 1968)

flipping through pages of early computer generated modular systematic housing nightmares

I seem to nod off into catterpillar town suburbias

little beehive modular cellular non buildings in India

and more organic 60's  circular extravaganzas

 jolted awake by sudden robot weirdness in Israel

(Mexico Olympics 1968)

only to realise that I am looking at Satellite stations in Ahmedabad

half awake confusing satellite hats and head-carried dishes

but further, more radical advertising strangeness follows

flamboyant architecture of illustration

beyond computer systems, beyond modules, beyond strangess one can only go back to the desert

Stacks of beach boulders in the snow

 Reading through issue zero of San Rocco magazine, with the White U house on the cover, 

a building I never understood until I knew it was a basically a mourning cave for Toyo Ito's sister

(at OMMU)

 then serendipitously bumping into an article on Hans Hollein's 3 travel agencies, (meanwhile I've been working on a tourism-related project)

 and an interesting reading of Artiga's Balneario in Jau

 moving through the stack to Peter Friendl's Secret Modernity, and finally the english language catalogue of Drifts and Derivations

and really learning more about the Vaiparaiso School of Architecture and stacks of beach boulders in the snow.

PINUP Number 9 and the Case Study Houses

 Run, don't walk to the newsstands, the spanking new, L.A. Special, issue of PinUp is here

featuring iconic LA neighborhoods by iconic observers such as Sylvia Lavin talking about Venice Beach (who, if memory serves me well, was on my thesis review a million years ago, in Venice Beach)

 Jeffrey Deitch on his new life and casa in LA

 photographer Lisa Eisner' incredible garden

a black knit poodle on a white staircase  

a green moss pool

 great interview and portfolio by Hedi Slimane

some Tripoli ruins by Cyril Duval

and 5 Case Study Houses, commisioned for the special issue, by 5 specially non Los Angeles architects such as Sam Causer Studio from London with House n1.1

 Emilio Marin from Santiago de Chile 

with Miss Lonelyhearts'

Architecture at Large from New York with Transformer House

 Etienne Descloux from Berlin with DonJon House

and yours truly Angelidakis studio from Athens 

with Hand House

P.A.R.A.D.O.X.O.N.

I think P.A.R.A.D.O.X.O.N.is a fanzine

 I know I got it at a popup shop at AMP Gallery, 

organized by the nice people of OMMU Distribution

 it has pictures of buildings without windows

 it says that having no windows is added protection

the last image is a grave too

FANTOM

Fantom is the fantastic Fotographic quarterly edited by Selva Barni and Cay Sophie Rabinowitz. I never thought I would love a photography magazine until Fantom came along Issue 3 just out With portfolios by Yumiko Utsu, Yao Lu, Petra Feriancova, Reza Aramesh and Taisuke Koyama, introduced by Selva Barni. Cay Sophie Rabinowitz in conversation with Elad Lassry. A dialogue between photographers Alec Soth and Lester B. Morrison. A short essay on Lisa Oppenheim’s Lunagrams by Christian Rattemeyer. The private collection of Adrian-Silvan Ionescu exposed by Francesco Zanot. Fabienne Stephan on Liz Cohen. RongRong on his Three Shadows Photography Center in Beijing. Emma Reeves on America’s Favorites. Vvork by Alex Gartenfeld. The paintings of Megan Francis Sullivan. The cover – as usual –  is a preview of Fantom’s forthcoming issue and features an image from the previously unpublished Flippers series (1977-78) by Olivo Barbieri.  For info about Fantom distribution please click here For subscriptions please click here For further information: info@fantomeditions.com

Great Kaleidoscope

Just contributed a text on MOMA's 1972 New Domestic Landscape 

and Gaetano Pesce contribution in particular 

to one of my favorite magazines, Kaleidoscope.

Check out the great issue for an interview of 

Markus Miessen by Hans Urlich Obrist, 

great stuff by Richard Hawkins, 

a lovely text by our very own Sylvia Kouvali of Rodeo, 

and much much more.

Goodbye Kalimera

It's a bit tough that in the fabulous BUTT Calendar you have to rip off the pages as the weeks go by.
That means its time to say goodbye to Kalimera.
(Kalimera is the name of apparently the most famous drag queen in Serbia. Hilariously, it means Good morning in Greek)

Face-b + Speedism

loving the new face-b magazine published in Paris and New York
by Benjamin Lafore, Sébastien Martinez Barat and Aurélien Gillier
and the young architecture practice of Speedism aka Julian Friedauer and Pieterjan Ginckels,on the cover

Another World

Its' a slow hot Sunday

I've been browsing the Domus back issues again,

here's club L'Altro Mondo, designed by Derossi and Ceretti in Rimini, in Domus January 68