Too much Ssion is never enough

Normally I would just post the youtube clip and be done, 

but no, its not enough, we have to look at stills too:

Ssion's genius Clown, from the equally genius Fool's Gold

everybody had black noses

Ssion as is Pa Ssion, Mi Ssion etc

Mr Cody Critcheloe

Mr Capability Brown

Been doing some research into landscape architecture, 

for a class called Nature and Architecture no less. 

Capability Brown was the designer who did away with all formalities 

in garden design, and basically invented 

the faux-natural English landscaping.

VVORK Afternoon

»QUARTERED METEOR«, 1969 by Lynda Benglis

It's a slow stormy afternoon,

what better moment than to browse through the various genius of the lovely VVork blog

»ohne Titel«, 2009 by Katharina Grosse

“Metal scum lamp”, 2008 by Jerszy Seymour

»Retired Form«, 2008 by David Maljkovic

“Eight-legged elephant trunk table”, ca. 1900 by Adolf Loos

Pistoletto

I think AiWeiWei but it didnt really say

»Table and Chair«, 1963-4 by Richard Artschwager.

»Chair«, 1963-2000 by Richard Artschwager.

Celebrity Modernism

Recently I borrowed a book on architect Craig Ellwood, because I was in a California kind of mood (which is every other day actually). Elwood was a modernist, at the very tail end of the movement but well before any post-business happened.


Funny enough, the book starts off with how overlooked and underrated Ellwood is etc.


Ellwood might have not been the most original,

but there is definitely something to his woodsy minimalism.

great collage for the Bridge House.

or maybe this is the Bridge house and the other one is called something else...  I've since returned the book to the library, and too lazy to google.





Anyway, as I'm browsing through I happen upon the ultra fabulous Palevsky House in Palm Springs, which I know was Ellwoods' since I've blogged it before, but somehow it really popped amidst all the other Bear Bungalows in the book. 

The Pavlevsky house is fabulous because it has no windows. 

Everything that goes on inside is behind tall white walls, and the plan does not allow even for a glimpse when the gates open. And because you cant see, it makes you (me) want to know what goes on even more. 

Lindsay Lohan detoxing?Celebrity Modernism? 

Perhaps a Tina-fuelled week-long party? Chi Chi LaRue shooting another bad gay porn? In fact the house would be the perfect setting for something like that.

High times on the Highline

The Highline has played a major part of the restructuring of the west side of Manhattan, and to think that a few years ago it was an abandoned railroad that became the pet project of a few dedicated Manhattanites called the Friends of the Highline.

What is really genius is the way Diller Scofidio & Renfro together with Field Operations managed to translate and retain the abandonedness of it, while completely redesigning the place as a fabulous public space, dare I say it, as a brand new ruin.




And suddenly you are walking on the highline and there's even architecture to look at, which is really new for NY.

Like this housing by Jean Nouvel with the somehow mesmerising facade treatment.(perhaps even a bit scary if you look at it every day)

next to the Shigeru Ban garage door lofs , sitting next to the familiar Gehry office building.

all together making a sort of dysfunctional family one enjoys to look at

as the sun goes down reflected on the now perfectly located Phillips de Pury showroom, 

and looking the other way, a view you never had from a public space in New York, unless you went all the way to the river

Further along the "coast", we saw the great Spencer Sweeny "show" with a different performance every day at Gavin Brown

a few days later followed by the almost opposite but equally great exhibition of Silke Otto Knapp's eerie painting. 

Another night I went to The National Arts Club to listen to Mr Renfro talk about everything apart from Lincoln Center (and the Highline of course).

NAC has to be one of the weirdest decors ever, ready for a Casa Vogue photoshoot.

and finally a few more gems from MOMA:

Two amazing models of Best stores 

by SITE of course

and a great model of Dome House by Paolo Soleri, so far away from anything New or New York

Electric Labyrinth Revisited

So when a few weeks ago I blogged about Arata Isozaki's Re-Ruined Hiroshima, I mentioned the legendary "Electric Labyrinth" installation. Well it was legendary in my imagination, because it sounded legendary. Browsing through Isozakis' super cute (though I'm not lovin the sketchy handcrafted layout) UNBUILT book,

I see photos from the said Electric Labyrinth, and while it is what it sounds like, it wasnt really what I had in mind. Still to be able to pull off an architectural installation during the 1968 riots is really quite a feat.

The installation was in fact cool, a forest of rotating metallic panels printed with images from Re-Ruined Hiroshima and with other images projected on top.
So not just a ruin, not just electric but also quite trippy, but hey it was the 60s after all.

Browsing through the book, there's of course plenty of space dedicated to the "Cities in the Air" category of projects, nice plan of clusters, etc.

Also, a great photo from  the maquette of the truly legendary Osaka Expo 70, that talks about all the mechanisms and the robots.

And then all of a sudden the book skips to Isozakis' later preoccupation with platonic solids and symbolism, leading right into his glass pyramid and terracotta arch period, which doesn't really make sense with the heroic projects of the 60's but maybe Osaka was the missing link to that transition. Anyways, I feel like I'm about to OD on blogging so...