Golden Brown

Dont really know what to post today and not up to too much. I thought about writing something on WIRED's extensive Second Life Article (Wired 10-06 Lets Go: Second Life) but then they havent put it online yet so who am I to start photographing magazines etc, its all very first life. Typically Second Life was doing maintenance at EXACTLY the time I was giving my "second life" lecture last week in Milan, so I couldnt take the audience for a walk, but anyway the title was more symbolic than anything

So anyway I was shopping for land and found myself on some beach as usual and there was a raft and you could lie down on it in different ways, and it was early morning because the servers are in San Francisco I think, and I just decided to relax and just spend time there, looking at the waves and listening to The Stranglers' "Golden Brown".

3 cute houses from a while back

I took these photos ages ago Thessaloniki. At the time I was using a video camera to off of which I copied still because digital cameras didnt really exist (yes this far back) 1/2 building 1/2 tree

little black garage maybe?

oh and this doesnt fit in here but the Philosophy Hut was just dismantled from Thissio, I guess that could have been a "goodbye summer vol III" or whatever

A Book-Shaped building and a Hand monument

Rafael sent me this article on a Book-Shaped building. It's the House of Free Creativity in Turkmenistan, inaugurated by their totally crazy dictator Saparmurat Niyazov, who says that if you read his book of poetry you will definetly go to heaven. And propably that heaven will be shaped like him or maybe like this hand monument that Jonathan sent me a while ago. I guess there's an argument about figurative architecture and I've definetly been on this track for some time now though I have no idea where it leads.

And Voltnoi sent me this graffiti about schools in neverland

Casa Vogue: Milano to Athens

Here's a little piece I wrote in this months' Casa Vogue, about the architecture scene in Athens. I featured some of the heroic modernist buildings of the 60's, when it seemed that architecture mattered in Greece, and some of the very few public buildings of note today. The most interesting work happening in Greece though is private houses but Vogue had asked strictly for public buildings, so houses maybe next time. Casa Vogue is a quarterly supplement to Vogue Italia.

If you're in Milan tonight

come see me
NABA
Nuoava Accademia di Belle Arti Milano
Via Darwin 20
20143 Milano, Italy
tel. + 39 02 973721
www.naba.it

Goodbye Summer vol II

just some pics to keep the blog awake, had to make a rather big post on the Athens9 blog today so I'm all blogged out (if you read greek, check it out)
These meanwhile are from Laggeri in Paros, the gay/nudist beach that by itself is a reason to visit this crowded place (paros).



I really tried (a little bit) to place a google earth bookmark thingie but it's sooo complicated I gave up after 30 seconds - its a busy day)

God Damned Athens

Angelo Plessas "Angelo" ascii drawing

Last night was total !Panic at the Deste Foundation for the opening of the Anathena exhibition and party for the Panic Room show. Anathena was curated by The Marinas (Fokidis + Gioti) and features a short history of greek alternative art. Here's some of the works around Deste, from both shows.

David ShrigleyFoivos Papadopoulos

Angelo's OneAfterTheOther.com thatI always wanted to own but finally it went to some Spanish collector

Marios Perakis

Andreas Kasapis

and my own little incognito contribution, the house with the chimney column. For more juicy pics and stuff got to Dafni's and Angelo's blogs

Another Mark

This blogs' fave architecture mag is now bi-monthly, and out with a fabulous new issue that doesnt seem to be designed by the lovely people at Machine but it's still good. The issue includes an extensive article on the utterly wacky Eugene Tsui which must rank as the weirdest piece of work seen on mainstream architecture press, some cute tube apartments by the fantastic Arakawa + Gins, earthquake-proof housing in Mexico, a hotel made of concrete cylinders thrown in the park (!)
and oh, a piece on Cloud House along with a quote from "Worlds" a text I wrote in Textfield 2 years ago, and seemed to fit nicely with their piece on virtual communities like second life et al.

Subscribe to MARK here!

Frederic Chaubin: Soviet SF Style

Frederic Chaubin, who was born in Cambodia of a French father and Spanish mother, is chief editor of the French magazine Citizen K, and also a photographer who has been attracted by strange architecture in the former Soviet Union. The photos he takes in countries like Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Georgia, reveal an extraordinary, almost sci-fi world. Today, PingMag takes you to the world of Soviet style architecture with Frederic Chaubin himself. via BLDGBLOG

Goodbye Summer

I'm totally in a goodbye summer mood but not yet in the Hello Winter Season. Here's some pics taken some time ago around this time of year, very GS:

A sunken palm tree somewhere in Krete

The Sunken Forest, Fire Island NY, September 2001

the unreal view from Richard and Todd's house in West Cornwall, NY state

Journey towards the End of Architecture

Seems I can't stop looking at Superstudio these days, and propably because their work is just so bloggable. Here's some excerpts from their "Life without Objects" book. These images come from the "Superexistence" project, which was their participation in the 1972 MOMA exhibition "The New Domestic Landscape, Achivements and Problems in Italian Design" curated by Emilio Ambasz. SUPEREXISTENCE was supposed to be 5 films (Life, Education, Ceremony, Love and Death) 2 of which were realised and shown, while the others exist as storyboards. In these films architecture is replaced by a SUPERSURFACE, a mirrored grid that extends all over the planet and upon which everything takes place. The iconic stills show a super relevant techno hippie but also cute existence, a party and life and death and kids type of thing. I guess they were just predicting the future, and this SUPERSURFACE where everything takes places is just the INTERNET.

Terraforming is the new Building

This is a little house I made in Second Life, to test drive a piece of land I was thinking of renting. The area was full of normal looking houses and I was a bit lazy so I just terraformed the land a bit, like there was something underneath the grass pushing it up. The I added some patterned balls on the various plateaus, and a little lake-jacuzzi by the beach. Was nice to spend a few days there. Later I forgot that I had built this and that I was supposed to say wheather I was renting or not so it all got deleted, which is definetly not the first time that I loose a building on one of these worlds. Anyway the land was on a island in the middle of a void, which meant when you tried to go swimming or walking on water, you bumbed against an invisible wall, because the area towards the horizon had not been assigned disk space. So you could look at it but it didnt exist. What was the pooint of paying for beachfront property if you cant enjoy the water?

Venice Leftovers (and Milano Misc)

Here's some leftover images from my venice visit last month.

How big can a boat get? Big Boats look even Bigger in Venice,because everything else is human sized. This was the Norwegian Glamour or something like that, parked right outside the Giardini.
Cute 80's (1880's) looking cabinet from some local furniture maker. Looks kind of like 1980's too
A still from the brazilian pavilion showing the SESC Pompeia by the fantastic Mrs Lina Bo Bardi. I waited for ever to get a better frame, of this great building. When I went to visit it in Sao Paolo it was closed and I could only peek through the heavy gates. I suppose I just have stay with the books.
The Tree Pavilion outside the Giardini. A very popular spot with the locals but maybe too cute for architects?
A passage way roof in Milan
some trees

and a haunting piece of the Castello Sforzesco