Mi Dacha es su Dacha (Armenia Days)

After the opening of Playgrounds and Toys we went up on Lake Sevan, just to see what it this huge lake looks like. The mountans are bare, not a tree in sight, and apparently this happened in the early 90's when the Soviet Union collapse and Armenia was left without any type of energy in winters where the temperature went way below freezing. Anyway, Lake Sevan looks amazing, like an abandoned resort landscape, very rough. On a small peninsula where the Sevanavank monastery is, we saw an amazing little soviet-modernist house, must have been a dascha from, well, the soviet times. I was fully expecting to see an interior full of similar furniture, wacky 60's soviet shtick, but of course I got the new international style: The Plastic Chairs. The house was amazing though, and it was no longer a house but a kind of haphazard restaurant where you could order some toasted wonderbread and if it was a good day they could also have butter and jam to go with it, oh and maybe coffee.

Yerevan Days

Recently I read about the Armenian Plane that crashed in Russia, and it was scary and I remembered the tons of amazing stuff I saw in Armenia a couple of years ago when I was there with Adelina, working on a project. Here's just a few pics, I'll post more as I browse through them... This is one of the things you see when you enter Yerevan

I was totally jetlagged so I'd wake up every day at around 5:30 and I see the sun rising behind the "revolution" hills or whatever, quite amazing...

this is a kind of market in downtown Yerevan, never went inside.

Some random post-soviet administrivia building. Maybe its' a pool?

It looks a bit hazy right now

Clouds of Worry are passing by, I'm not sure these pieces will actually fit together. It will be ok if they dont, just another Neen Ruin...

Ancient History

Just found out that the oldest webpage to contain information about my work still exists online, here. It was the thesis page from exactly 10 years ago when I finished my MSAAD at Columbia with Keller Easterling at her first paperless studio. Its' funny how the pictures take so long to download since back then we didnt know how to "save for the web".

Towards a Figurative Architecture

Saw these on the way to the east coast of Attica, nearly crashed, had to take deep breaths, this was a definite architecture high, or an architecture that is high or whatev.
So, are we ready for The Elephant House people? and this Diogenes things is just too confusing. And sometimes I feel like I'm talking to myself, which is ok too.

Buildings and Graphics

These are some images left over in my 2BLOG folder, from the trip to Lugano a couple of weeks ago. They are buildings with metal graphics on them, two butterflies and a fabulous logo that Angelo pointed out to me. It says "riri".

Printing a building

Printing a Building is definetly up there with Being able to Fly or Reading Peoples' Minds, but 3D printing technology is still inproportionally expensive so I decided to make a lo-fi 3D print using my 3D programs' unfold options, a very heavy coated paper and a very cheap printer.

Jules for Ever

I've forever been obsessed with Jules Vernes' "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "20000 leagues under the Sea". Both seem to be about escaping from where you're at. Some of these images via the great Cylon Alliance a site dedicated to preserving the future's past.

If you read Japanese...

...tell what this review of my show at Inmo says. Only thing I know is that the lovely Rika Hiro wrote it, and that this magazine apparently rocks in Asia. Together with the review I got the invites for Inmos' booth at the 2006 China International Gallery Exposition, otherwise know as the Beijing Art Fair. Where you there? Did you see it?

If you read Greek

Check out the super-nice interview that Evgenia Migdou did for Soul magazine.

The Blog Project

Havent blogged in a few days because I'm just drowning in deadlines and also I'm sorting through this blog to choose which pieces will go in the architecture section of Textfield magazine of which I'm guest editor.

Meanwhile have a look at these great Textfield related t-shirts

Scary Skyscrapers

I know I said arriverderci to Milano, but there's still stuff in my 2BLOG folder so bear with me. why o why do I like these? I wonder if post modernism is ready for the big comeback, and this is so scary, it cant be happening.

Arriverderci Milano

Milan is surrounded by 70's satellite towns that don't feel like suburbs but like a ghost office park. Opera is one of those places, and it takes it's name from an amphitheatrical hi-rise grandly facing nothing. Next to it is what seems like endless empty office buildings in the middle of empty fields, filled with empty roads and trees without leaves.Next to Opera is Milano Tre, another satellite city modeled after the American dream of quiet roads and two story houses and trees and squirrels and neurotic lonely kids bicycling around aimlessly where nothing is happening and everything is under control.

How fast can you say arriverderci?

Manetas' Feelings

So our Lugano weekend is over, but the feelings remain. We went up to Locarno where Miltos had his Feelings show at Fabbrica. 20 amazing large-scale digital drawings of feelings, looking like memories, floating in a liquid smoke, in a unique technique . At night we stayed in a loft that was part of a clown training center.

Swissminiatur

Passing through Lugano, we stopped at the Swiss Miniature Village which includes many mini Alps, Airports, many Swiss Chalet and funnily enough 80's deserted mini malls with what seemed like drug dealing. Not what you would expect to find in a toyland.

Say Hi to Neen Book

The NEEN book is here, edited by Miltos Manetas, edizioni Charta.

Casa Vogue

Casa Vogue is the Architecture/Art/Strangeness quarterly supplement to Vogue Italia, and its usually the most inspiring magazine around. Stuff you see in Casa Vogue are almost impossible to see anywhere else, like weird tree houses, gypsy camps, metal villas on remote mountans etc etc etc, the list is really endless. I'm always excited to see a new issue, and the current issue features a page on Hotel Blue Wave with a really nice text/interview by Flavia Fossa Margutti so the excitement is, ermm, double.

Double Take

I'm in Milan but also just spoke at the L.C. Vers conferance on Le Corbusier in Volos (via DVD). Sometimes its fun to be somewhere that you're not.

Ride This: Annika Larsson

Havent seen this video but I LOVE Annika's work. I was in a trance when I saw her New Gravity video. This one has has amazing stills

RIDE THIS20.45 min DVD loop(c) 2004 ANNIKA LARSSON Music by Sean McBride

Say Hi to Mark Online

Mark magazine just launched their new website and issue #2, with a great cover, again.