Hedy Lamarr starred in Jack Conway’s Boom Town with Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Clark Gable, and Frank Morgan (in the exhibition) Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Hedy Lamarr: Actress. Inventor. Viennese is an impressive exhibition curated by Danielle Spera (director of the Jewish Museum Vienna from 2010 - 2022) and designed by Stefan Fuhrer (Fuhrer Vienna) at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York. You can watch scenes from Georg Jacoby”s Money on the Street with Heinz Rühmann, Carl Boese’s No Money is Needed, Gustav Machatý Ecstasy, John Cromwell’s Algiers (1938), Georg Misch’s Calling Hedy Lamarr (2004), and Hedy Lamarr – An Ingenious Mind (2022).
Danielle Spera with Anne-Katrin Titze on the KaDeWe Group Lamarr building, Rem Koolhaas and his Oma partners: “Ellen van Loon is the architect and she is great to work with …”
Hedy’s beauty was an inspiration for Walt Disney’s Snow White, Batman co-creator Bob Kane’s Catwoman,...
Hedy Lamarr: Actress. Inventor. Viennese is an impressive exhibition curated by Danielle Spera (director of the Jewish Museum Vienna from 2010 - 2022) and designed by Stefan Fuhrer (Fuhrer Vienna) at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York. You can watch scenes from Georg Jacoby”s Money on the Street with Heinz Rühmann, Carl Boese’s No Money is Needed, Gustav Machatý Ecstasy, John Cromwell’s Algiers (1938), Georg Misch’s Calling Hedy Lamarr (2004), and Hedy Lamarr – An Ingenious Mind (2022).
Danielle Spera with Anne-Katrin Titze on the KaDeWe Group Lamarr building, Rem Koolhaas and his Oma partners: “Ellen van Loon is the architect and she is great to work with …”
Hedy’s beauty was an inspiration for Walt Disney’s Snow White, Batman co-creator Bob Kane’s Catwoman,...
- 4/7/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
"Think like you're lost in the forest." Greenwich Entertainment has revealed an official US trailer for the documentary film titled simply Mau, the feature-length documentary about design visionary Bruce Mau. This originally premiered at the 2021 SXSW Film Festival last year, and it also stopped by Cph:dox and Hot Docs. Filmed over a period of approximately three years and directed by Benji and Jono Bergmann, the documentary looks back at Mau's life to date and his career. It tells the story of his humble beginnings in Canada to his sharp rise to fame in the design space. "From working with the greatest living architects (Rem Koolhaas & Frank Gehry) on books and museums to rebranding nations such as Guatemala and Denmark. Bruce Mau is a pioneer of transformation design and the belief that design can be used to create positive change in our world." I want to see this just to hear...
- 1/27/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Specialist streaming service Mubi has teamed up with fashion label Prada’s Fondazione Prada foundation on “Perfect Failures,” a curated selection of movies deemed to have been “widely misunderstood” upon their release.
The joint project will launch on both the Mubi platform and the Fondazione Prada’s website on April 5 with U.S. director Richard Kelly’s 2006 flop “Southland Tales” (pictured) which Variety at the time called “A pretentious, overreaching, fatally unfocused fantasy about American fascism, radical rebellion, nuclear terrorism and apocalypse” in its Cannes festival review.
The overall selection will also include “A Countess from Hong Kong” (1967) by Charlie Chaplin; “Fedora,” (1978) by Billy Wilder; Kelly Reichardt’s “Night Moves (2013); “Un divan à New York” (A Couch in New York), (1996) by Chantal Akerman; and Paul Verhoeven’s “Showgirls” (1995).
The idea is to bring to the fore box office flops, critical disappointments, “shocking divergences from a beloved artist” or pics burdened with production woes,...
The joint project will launch on both the Mubi platform and the Fondazione Prada’s website on April 5 with U.S. director Richard Kelly’s 2006 flop “Southland Tales” (pictured) which Variety at the time called “A pretentious, overreaching, fatally unfocused fantasy about American fascism, radical rebellion, nuclear terrorism and apocalypse” in its Cannes festival review.
The overall selection will also include “A Countess from Hong Kong” (1967) by Charlie Chaplin; “Fedora,” (1978) by Billy Wilder; Kelly Reichardt’s “Night Moves (2013); “Un divan à New York” (A Couch in New York), (1996) by Chantal Akerman; and Paul Verhoeven’s “Showgirls” (1995).
The idea is to bring to the fore box office flops, critical disappointments, “shocking divergences from a beloved artist” or pics burdened with production woes,...
- 3/31/2020
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
The little country at the edge of the Iberian Peninsula, long under the radar, received a big profile bump last month when Madonna revealed she’d be moving to Lisbon so her son David Banda, 11, could attend the prestigious Benfica soccer academy. The Queen of Pop has reportedly picked up an 18th-century Moorish-style mansion for $8.9 million in the picturesque suburb of Sintra, a Unesco World Heritage site, that was long a summer destination for Portuguese royals.
Related: The Best Places to Travel in October, Whether You Want to Peep Leaves or Track Elephants
But Madonna‘s not exactly roughing it...
Related: The Best Places to Travel in October, Whether You Want to Peep Leaves or Track Elephants
But Madonna‘s not exactly roughing it...
- 10/5/2017
- by Mackenzie Schmidt
- PEOPLE.com
What a surprising city Rotterdam is and the Festival and Cinemart are full of surprises too.
Being in The Netherlands is like a homecoming for me. My first major job in the film industry was with 20th Century Fox International and City Fox Films in Amsterdam in 1975 which is when I first attended the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, three years after its founding by Huub Bals. It was much smaller then. Iffr’s logo is a tiger, loosely based on the M.G.M. lion as an alternative. From the beginning, the festival has profiled itself as a promoter of alternative, innovative and non-commercial films, with an emphasis on the Far East and developing countries. It has become one of the most important events in the film world, an integral part of the winter circuit of Sundance, Rotterdam and Berlin Film Festivals.
“Fox and HIs Friends”
Except for my...
Being in The Netherlands is like a homecoming for me. My first major job in the film industry was with 20th Century Fox International and City Fox Films in Amsterdam in 1975 which is when I first attended the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, three years after its founding by Huub Bals. It was much smaller then. Iffr’s logo is a tiger, loosely based on the M.G.M. lion as an alternative. From the beginning, the festival has profiled itself as a promoter of alternative, innovative and non-commercial films, with an emphasis on the Far East and developing countries. It has become one of the most important events in the film world, an integral part of the winter circuit of Sundance, Rotterdam and Berlin Film Festivals.
“Fox and HIs Friends”
Except for my...
- 3/8/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Most Crucial Art Documents of the Season
Setting from your Zombie Formalism section. It was an eventful year for craft publishing, with a lot of adjustments while in the scenery, as new guides exposed (including this one), or jumped up. or reinvented themselves. But beneath all-the institutional shuffles, what were the suggestions that got people excited? the remaining selection under is clearly an individual one, although I polled peers to attempt to answer that issue. The planet is reflected by it around me, and is weighted towards bits that reflect my own personal spot and my own personal feeling of this year;s troubled features. Regardless, listed below are a number of writing that I think are touchstones of 2014 of the items: Holland Cotter – Sophisticated, New York Times. Jan 17, 2014 It;s a little insane if you ask me that s fretful, condition that is sweeping -of-the-scene part is per year old.
Setting from your Zombie Formalism section. It was an eventful year for craft publishing, with a lot of adjustments while in the scenery, as new guides exposed (including this one), or jumped up. or reinvented themselves. But beneath all-the institutional shuffles, what were the suggestions that got people excited? the remaining selection under is clearly an individual one, although I polled peers to attempt to answer that issue. The planet is reflected by it around me, and is weighted towards bits that reflect my own personal spot and my own personal feeling of this year;s troubled features. Regardless, listed below are a number of writing that I think are touchstones of 2014 of the items: Holland Cotter – Sophisticated, New York Times. Jan 17, 2014 It;s a little insane if you ask me that s fretful, condition that is sweeping -of-the-scene part is per year old.
- 3/31/2016
- by toga
- Scott Feinberg
The Main Art Documents of the Year
Environment from the Zombie panel. It had been an eventful year for craft writing, with lots of shifts inside the scenery, as new journals popped (including this 1), or sprang up. or reinvented themselves. But beneath all the institutional shuffles, what were the tips that got people excited? I interviewed peers to attempt to answer that problem, but the remaining choice below is obviously a personal one. It displays the entire world and it is weighted towards parts that echo my own personal location and my own feeling of this yr’s struggling qualities. Regardless, listed here are a number of the pieces of publishing that I think are touchstones of 2014: Holland Cotter – Complex, New York Times. Jan 17, 2014 It;s somewhat crazy if you ask me that #039 Cotter&; s fretful, sweeping express -of-the-picture item is already per year old. But it stands here...
Environment from the Zombie panel. It had been an eventful year for craft writing, with lots of shifts inside the scenery, as new journals popped (including this 1), or sprang up. or reinvented themselves. But beneath all the institutional shuffles, what were the tips that got people excited? I interviewed peers to attempt to answer that problem, but the remaining choice below is obviously a personal one. It displays the entire world and it is weighted towards parts that echo my own personal location and my own feeling of this yr’s struggling qualities. Regardless, listed here are a number of the pieces of publishing that I think are touchstones of 2014: Holland Cotter – Complex, New York Times. Jan 17, 2014 It;s somewhat crazy if you ask me that #039 Cotter&; s fretful, sweeping express -of-the-picture item is already per year old. But it stands here...
- 3/31/2016
- by toga
- Scott Feinberg
The Most Important Art Essays of the Entire Year
Setting from the Zombie Formalism screen. It had been an eventful year for craft writing, with a lot of changes while in the panorama, as new publications popped (including this 1), or sprang up. or reinvented themselves. But beneath all of the institutional shuffles, what were? I polled colleagues to try to answer that concern, nevertheless the final choice below is obviously a personal one. The entire world is reflected by it around me, and it is measured towards pieces that replicate my own area and my own personal feeling of the year’s troubled attributes. Regardless, listed here are some of publishing that I believe are touchstones of 2014 of the items: Holland Cotter, Lost in the Gallery – Sophisticated, & quot York Times. January 17, 2014 It’s a bit nuts tome that state that is sweeping, s fretful -of-the-world piece has already been per year old.
Setting from the Zombie Formalism screen. It had been an eventful year for craft writing, with a lot of changes while in the panorama, as new publications popped (including this 1), or sprang up. or reinvented themselves. But beneath all of the institutional shuffles, what were? I polled colleagues to try to answer that concern, nevertheless the final choice below is obviously a personal one. The entire world is reflected by it around me, and it is measured towards pieces that replicate my own area and my own personal feeling of the year’s troubled attributes. Regardless, listed here are some of publishing that I believe are touchstones of 2014 of the items: Holland Cotter, Lost in the Gallery – Sophisticated, & quot York Times. January 17, 2014 It’s a bit nuts tome that state that is sweeping, s fretful -of-the-world piece has already been per year old.
- 3/31/2016
- by toga
- Scott Feinberg
The 220,000-square-foot Whitney Museum opened May 1 and is already a huge success. It’s almost three times as big as the dark old Breuer Building uptown, sun-lit, praised by critics and thronged with tourists. The oddball outside of the Renzo Piano building might be a bit controversial, but maybe that can be fixed with a deft addition: After all, the Whitney, like all museums in the city these days, has a plan to get bigger, too. The only question is how soon they’ll get to it. It’s good to remember that the Whitney is only downtown because it was frustrated for decades by a plan to expand on Madison. Remember the 1985 Michael Graves proposal? Or the crazy spaceship idea from Rem Koolhaas in 2001? Or even the comparatively demure 2004 Madison Avenue annex designed by Renzo Piano, before the High Line came calling? The fact is, the new Whitney...
- 5/29/2015
- by Nate Freeman
- Vulture
In 2008, Dasha Zhukova, known for her cultural patronage as well as her marriage to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, opened the Garage, one of the largest contemporary arts spaces in her home country, inside Moscow's defunct Melnikov Bus Depot. Soon it hosted inquiries into the influence of John Cage and explorations of Eastern-European art, opened another temporary home, and finally, next month — Ukraine-related sanctions be damned! — it will debut its new Rem Koolhaas–designed home, a low-lying transparent prism that will host suitably sprawling exhibitions from artists like Rikrit Tiravanija and Yayoi Kusama.If you can't make it, here's a video, which is suitably high-flown in its inspiring vagueness: Garage is a magazine. Garage is a memory, as the trailer, narrated by Zhukova herself, describes. It's a blockbuster introduction to what promises to be an international cultural behemoth. The video trailer positions Garage less as an institutional gallery and more as...
- 5/13/2015
- by Kyle Chayka
- Vulture
A new series from Al Jazeera, titled "Rebel Architecture," uncovers architects who shun the limelight that comes with being a "StArchitect" (essentially, architects that have become celebrities in their own right, like a Rem Koolhaas or Zaha Hadid), and focus their on using design to tackle the world’s urban, environmental and social crises. Nigerian architect and urbanist Kunlé Adeyemi is 1 of 6 ground-breaking international architects profiled. The episode featuring Adeyemi, titled "Working on Water," focuses on his partnerships with coastal slum communities to pioneer floating buildings, including a...
- 8/13/2014
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Sheffield Doc/Fest announced programming for the Interactive at Sheffield Event, which runs from June 7-June 10. The full Doc/Fest program will be unveiled later this week. At the Interactive at Sheffield Event, Crossover Labs will present 15 projects that push the boundaries of interactive documentary filmmaking across several platforms, including 6 projects that are shortlisted for the Innovation Award: animated web doc "Iranorama;" National Geographic produced "Killing Kennedy;" Kat Cizek’s New York Times Op-Doc "A Short History of the Highrise;" "Brenda Longfellow, Glenn Richards and Helios Design Labs' "Offshore;" Samuel Bollendorff and Olivia Colo’s "Burn Out" and Tommy Pallotta and Femke Wolting's "Last Hijack Interactive." Other immersive projects include the transmedia documentary "Love Radio," architect Rem Koolhaas and director Bregtje van der Haak’s "Lagos Wide and Close" and "In Flight," which marks the centenary of commercial aviation with live and interactive...
- 5/6/2014
- by Indiewire
- Indiewire
The International Film Festival Rotterdam mandate is the discovery and display of new talent. Like its home city, filled with mind-bending modern architecture by the likes of native son Rem Koolhaas (who boasts a co-writer credit on the noir film "The White Slave" as well as an unproduced script for Russ Meyer -- who knew?), the festival favors edgy, arty films from around the world that for the most part are unlikely to open in the U.S. Definitely not the usual suspects. Rotterdam Iff is not a deal-making event like Sundance, for example. Rather, it aims to find support, financial and artistic, for talented new filmmakers. Those looking for funding support can pitch their projects at the Cinemart. The Hivos Tiger Awards, a small competition of 15 first or second features, highlights emerging filmmakers. At the heart of the festival is the "Bright Future" section of first or second films.
- 1/26/2014
- by Torene Svitil
- Thompson on Hollywood
Today, the Romanian director Tudor Giurgiu announced plans to adapt the story of last year's insane multimillion dollar art theft in the Netherlands for the big screen. In anticipation, we've reprinted our 2012 map of movies the Dutch robbers seem to have studied up on before looting the Kunsthal, from "Ocean's 11" to "Home Alone." Let us know which heist movie you think we're due.
Given its scale and brazenness, this week's major art theft in the Netherlands clearly resembles a movie. But which one? So many genres were crossed -- the robbers come off as both brazen and bumbling, and museum personnel don't fare much better, given how easy it seems to have been to stymie the building's security system.
Luckily, this is a mystery we don't need Politei to solve. Here are the facts: In the early hours of Tuesday morning, one or more persons strategically looted Rotterdam's Kunsthal...
Given its scale and brazenness, this week's major art theft in the Netherlands clearly resembles a movie. But which one? So many genres were crossed -- the robbers come off as both brazen and bumbling, and museum personnel don't fare much better, given how easy it seems to have been to stymie the building's security system.
Luckily, this is a mystery we don't need Politei to solve. Here are the facts: In the early hours of Tuesday morning, one or more persons strategically looted Rotterdam's Kunsthal...
- 8/1/2013
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
Rem Koolhaas has been named director of the Architecture section of the Venice Biennale, the board announced on Tuesday. The Pritzker Prize-winning architect, who received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2010 Architecture Biennale, will be charged with curating the 14th international architecture exhibition in 2014. Also read: Architecture Writer Ada Louise Huxtable, Awarded First Pulitzer for Criticism, Dead at 91 "The Architecture Exhibitions of the Biennale have gradually grown in importance internationally. Rem Koolhaas, one of the most significant personalities among the architects of our time -- who has based...
- 1/8/2013
- by Lisa Fung
- The Wrap
From squirming table legs to a swooping bed frame, the Hollywood superstar's foray into high-end furniture design has spiralled into something altogether ungainly
Brad Pitt is no stranger to the world of architecture. He has collaborated with Frank Gehry to build homes in New Orleans, dropped by the offices of Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam, and has said he is "pushing his kids" to become architects. But now he has turned his hand to furniture design.
His first collection, which will be officially unveiled in New York next week, is a collaboration with furniture maker Frank Pollaro, whose New Jersey firm mainly produces slick art deco reproductions.
Comprising a number of tables and chairs, a double bath and a vast ocean liner of a bed, the pieces are a strange mishmash of Pitt's eclectic influences, which he says span everything from Arts and Crafts to Bauhaus and Tiffany lamps.
"I've been...
Brad Pitt is no stranger to the world of architecture. He has collaborated with Frank Gehry to build homes in New Orleans, dropped by the offices of Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam, and has said he is "pushing his kids" to become architects. But now he has turned his hand to furniture design.
His first collection, which will be officially unveiled in New York next week, is a collaboration with furniture maker Frank Pollaro, whose New Jersey firm mainly produces slick art deco reproductions.
Comprising a number of tables and chairs, a double bath and a vast ocean liner of a bed, the pieces are a strange mishmash of Pitt's eclectic influences, which he says span everything from Arts and Crafts to Bauhaus and Tiffany lamps.
"I've been...
- 11/9/2012
- by Oliver Wainwright
- The Guardian - Film News
If you're vaguely aware that one of the most dramatic art heists in the history of ever just occurred in the Netherlands, but don't know the details, sit right down. Grab some popcorn, and turn off your cell phone, because we're about to play you a movie with words. Where it fits in the vast pantheon of caper movies, we don't yet know. But this, at least, is a mystery we don't need Politei to solve.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, one or more persons strategically looted Rotterdam's Kunsthal Museum of seven of its priciest works, on display in the "Avant Gardes" exhibit: paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Gaugin, Freud, two by Monet, and a self-portrait by the "minor Dutch artist" Meyer de Haan.
In movie thief terms, this lands us somewhere between the "Ocean's Elevens" crew and Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci in "Home Alone" -- brazen, but prone to goof-ups.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, one or more persons strategically looted Rotterdam's Kunsthal Museum of seven of its priciest works, on display in the "Avant Gardes" exhibit: paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Gaugin, Freud, two by Monet, and a self-portrait by the "minor Dutch artist" Meyer de Haan.
In movie thief terms, this lands us somewhere between the "Ocean's Elevens" crew and Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci in "Home Alone" -- brazen, but prone to goof-ups.
- 10/17/2012
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
As the filmic fare at Ole Scheeren's floating cinema illustrates, mixing design and documentary can be a bad move
For some reason, Venice's Architecture Biennale and its film festival open at the same time this year. Since the theme of the Biennale is "common ground", you'd expect some overlap between the two disciplines. They can work extremely well together – after direct experience, cinema is often the next best way to appraise architecture. But looking at the crossover here, it's also clear the combination can be terrible. Despite their collective creative qualities, architects and film-makers are often susceptible to complete loss of perspective when they get together.
Take the Archipelago Cinema, designed by German architect Ole Scheeren. This is a delightful pop-up floating cinema, a sort of split-level raft with bleached decking and casual beanbag seating. Scheeren made his name as project architect on Oma's much-publicised China Central Television (CCTV) building in Beijing,...
For some reason, Venice's Architecture Biennale and its film festival open at the same time this year. Since the theme of the Biennale is "common ground", you'd expect some overlap between the two disciplines. They can work extremely well together – after direct experience, cinema is often the next best way to appraise architecture. But looking at the crossover here, it's also clear the combination can be terrible. Despite their collective creative qualities, architects and film-makers are often susceptible to complete loss of perspective when they get together.
Take the Archipelago Cinema, designed by German architect Ole Scheeren. This is a delightful pop-up floating cinema, a sort of split-level raft with bleached decking and casual beanbag seating. Scheeren made his name as project architect on Oma's much-publicised China Central Television (CCTV) building in Beijing,...
- 8/30/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Marina Abramovic has been refining her particular brand of grueling performance art for nearly 40 years now, but you’d have been hard pressed to find anyone who’d heard of her until two years ago. That’s when the Museum of Modern Art hosted their headline-making Abramovic retrospective, complete with naked people and a silent “opera” in which Abramovic sat for 700 unbroken hours as visitors took turns staring (and crying) into her eyes. A Marina Abramovic Made Me Cry Tumblr sprang up, then a homemade Abramovic retrospective video game, and online at least, she was officially an artist people had heard of.
This April, the Yugoslav-born Abramovic will go one step further, with her American television debut. She joins a roster of high-profile international artists, including Ai Weiwei, whose work will be featured on PBS’ month-long showcase series “Art21.” Abramovic’s collaborative 18-minute piece -- part of the show’s second episode,...
This April, the Yugoslav-born Abramovic will go one step further, with her American television debut. She joins a roster of high-profile international artists, including Ai Weiwei, whose work will be featured on PBS’ month-long showcase series “Art21.” Abramovic’s collaborative 18-minute piece -- part of the show’s second episode,...
- 3/15/2012
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
Nine of the world's 10 tallest buildings are now in Asia – and Hollywood wants to jump off all of them
Aerial shots over Manhattan's forest of skyscrapers. Yellow cabs crawling like ants through the city grid. The hero stands on a ledge 20 floors up, provoking a street theatre of police cordons, firetrucks, news crews and onlookers. Meanwhile, in a top-floor office, a corporate villain admires an architectural model of another shiny skyscraper. Elsewhere, an acrobatic thief hangs precariously in an elevator shaft, dropping a spanner that goes clanging down innumerable storeys to the ground. The ominous ping of an approaching elevator spells danger. The hero and villain finally meet for a climactic rooftop showdown.
These scenes could be from a hundred Hollywood movies or more, but in fact they're from just one: Man on a Ledge, an enjoyably silly new thriller that at least sets out its stall in the title.
Aerial shots over Manhattan's forest of skyscrapers. Yellow cabs crawling like ants through the city grid. The hero stands on a ledge 20 floors up, provoking a street theatre of police cordons, firetrucks, news crews and onlookers. Meanwhile, in a top-floor office, a corporate villain admires an architectural model of another shiny skyscraper. Elsewhere, an acrobatic thief hangs precariously in an elevator shaft, dropping a spanner that goes clanging down innumerable storeys to the ground. The ominous ping of an approaching elevator spells danger. The hero and villain finally meet for a climactic rooftop showdown.
These scenes could be from a hundred Hollywood movies or more, but in fact they're from just one: Man on a Ledge, an enjoyably silly new thriller that at least sets out its stall in the title.
- 1/26/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Pritzker
In a joint announcement, the Mayor of Beijing, Guo Jinlong and the chairman of the Hyatt Foundation, Thomas K. Pritzker announced that the Pritzker Architecture Prize Ceremony will be held in Beijing, China on May 25, 2012.
This is the first time in the prize’s 32-year history that the ceremony will take place in China.
“We have held ceremonies in fourteen different countries, in venues ranging from the White House in Washington DC to Todai-ji Temple in Nara, Japan. The...
In a joint announcement, the Mayor of Beijing, Guo Jinlong and the chairman of the Hyatt Foundation, Thomas K. Pritzker announced that the Pritzker Architecture Prize Ceremony will be held in Beijing, China on May 25, 2012.
This is the first time in the prize’s 32-year history that the ceremony will take place in China.
“We have held ceremonies in fourteen different countries, in venues ranging from the White House in Washington DC to Todai-ji Temple in Nara, Japan. The...
- 10/28/2011
- by Alexandra Cheney
- Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal
Director Gary Hustwit is fast making a name for himself as a documentary filmmaker focused on the seemingly mundane. His first movie, 2007′s Helvetica, was entirely about the titular font. In 2009, he tackled industrial design in Objectified. Now he’s wrapping his design film trilogy with another documentary about something you see every day and never think twice about. This time it’s urban planning and design in Urbanized.
Urbanized premiered this year at Toronto, and we’ve got the trailer below.
Synopsis:
The final documentary in director Gary Hustwit’s design film trilogy (Helvetica and Objectified), Urbanized asks who is allowed to shape our cities, and how do they do it? How does the design of our cities affect our lives? Traveling to over 40 cities and exploring a diverse range of urban design projects around the world, from massive infrastructure initiatives to temporary interventions, Urbanized frames a global discussion on the future of cities.
Urbanized premiered this year at Toronto, and we’ve got the trailer below.
Synopsis:
The final documentary in director Gary Hustwit’s design film trilogy (Helvetica and Objectified), Urbanized asks who is allowed to shape our cities, and how do they do it? How does the design of our cities affect our lives? Traveling to over 40 cities and exploring a diverse range of urban design projects around the world, from massive infrastructure initiatives to temporary interventions, Urbanized frames a global discussion on the future of cities.
- 9/23/2011
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Sometimes the most beautiful things are the ones we take for granted on a daily basis. One example of that is also the subject of Urbanized, the new documentary by Gary Hustwit: our cities. From the roads, to the trees, to the buildings and sidewalks, almost every square foot of every city in the world is carefully planned, yet we drive around not thinking about the intricate detail that was considered years and years ago to try and control congestion, pollution and a million other things. Hustwit's previous documentaries, Helvetica and Objectified [1], were also about seemingly mundane subjects but, once he was done with them, you couldn't look at typography or everyday objects the same way again. Urbanized will certainly do the same for your place of residence. Read a plot description and see the new trailer after the jump. Thanks to I Watch Stuff [2]for the heads up.
- 9/20/2011
- by Germain Lussier
- Slash Film
The Observer's critics pick the season's highlights, from Degas to Depp, and Britney to the Bard
September
1 Theatre: Decade In a former trading hall on London's St Katharine Docks, Rupert Goold's production evokes the legacy of 9/11, with the help of Simon Schama and Abi Morgan. Until 15 October.
4 Pop: Adele After her summer to die for (No1 album, ubiquitous single), Adele starts her UK tour in Plymouth. She's in London on the 19th and 20th and ends in Glasgow (25).
6 Dance: Tezuka New evening-length piece by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, inspired by the work of renowned Japanese manga artist Osamu Tezuka. Starring Daniel Proietto, the piece features a specially commissioned score by Nitin Sawhney. At Sadler's Wells until 10 September.
8 Pop: Bestival The Isle of Wight weekender always has a hefty line-up: this yearboasts new kids James Blake and Odd Future alongside the Cure, Brian Wilson and Björk.
9 Theatre: We are Three Sisters...
September
1 Theatre: Decade In a former trading hall on London's St Katharine Docks, Rupert Goold's production evokes the legacy of 9/11, with the help of Simon Schama and Abi Morgan. Until 15 October.
4 Pop: Adele After her summer to die for (No1 album, ubiquitous single), Adele starts her UK tour in Plymouth. She's in London on the 19th and 20th and ends in Glasgow (25).
6 Dance: Tezuka New evening-length piece by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, inspired by the work of renowned Japanese manga artist Osamu Tezuka. Starring Daniel Proietto, the piece features a specially commissioned score by Nitin Sawhney. At Sadler's Wells until 10 September.
8 Pop: Bestival The Isle of Wight weekender always has a hefty line-up: this yearboasts new kids James Blake and Odd Future alongside the Cure, Brian Wilson and Björk.
9 Theatre: We are Three Sisters...
- 8/27/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
From stage-door duties for the RSC, to the village famous for Straw Dogs, Observer writers reveal their idea of a perfect summer, past and present
● What are your tips for summer culture? Join the discussion
Kitty Empire
Pop critic
Let's be honest – the notion of summer as an extended golden period of rest and re-stimulation really now only applies to the young, the retired, or those in the teaching professions. The rest of us slog on, hoping to catch the odd festival (or maybe just gig in a park), marking time until camping in Cornwall or fly-drive to France, where finally luxuriating in the latest Alan Hollinghurst will come a distant second to stopping the youngest weeing in the hotel pool.
Once, though, I was artfully feckless too, making the rent by working as an usher for the Royal Shakespeare Company. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the...
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Kitty Empire
Pop critic
Let's be honest – the notion of summer as an extended golden period of rest and re-stimulation really now only applies to the young, the retired, or those in the teaching professions. The rest of us slog on, hoping to catch the odd festival (or maybe just gig in a park), marking time until camping in Cornwall or fly-drive to France, where finally luxuriating in the latest Alan Hollinghurst will come a distant second to stopping the youngest weeing in the hotel pool.
Once, though, I was artfully feckless too, making the rent by working as an usher for the Royal Shakespeare Company. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the...
- 8/1/2011
- by Kitty Empire, Mark Kermode, Rowan Moore, Philip French, Susannah Clapp, Laura Cumming, Luke Jennings, Fiona Maddocks, Rachel Cooke, Robert McCrum
- The Guardian - Film News
The 2011 Seattle International Film Festival is on track to break $1 million in ticket sales and to tally over 80,000 submitted ballots. Not only is that an impressive feat by any festival’s statistics, but considering what else is on offer in the underrated capital of the Northwest, might almost be considered a miracle.
Yes, people know Seattle’s coffee history – Starbucks started as a roaster, and then a coffee shop by Pike Public Market selling beans and serving up coffee to the fisherfolk who needed some warming up. And people know Seattle as a port of call for Copper River salmon, Dungeness crab, and a first class purveyor of other fruit of the sea. But, for savvy festival-goers, including this first time Siff guest, the unique combination delivers a cinematic and culinary 1-2 punch that marks Siff as easily one of the best festival experiences in the country.
Ironically, and appropriately,...
Yes, people know Seattle’s coffee history – Starbucks started as a roaster, and then a coffee shop by Pike Public Market selling beans and serving up coffee to the fisherfolk who needed some warming up. And people know Seattle as a port of call for Copper River salmon, Dungeness crab, and a first class purveyor of other fruit of the sea. But, for savvy festival-goers, including this first time Siff guest, the unique combination delivers a cinematic and culinary 1-2 punch that marks Siff as easily one of the best festival experiences in the country.
Ironically, and appropriately,...
- 6/13/2011
- by admin
- Moving Pictures Network
The 2011 Seattle International Film Festival is on track to break $1 million in ticket sales and to tally over 80,000 submitted ballots. Not only is that an impressive feat by any festival’s statistics, but considering what else is on offer in the underrated capital of the Northwest, might almost be considered a miracle.
Yes, people know Seattle’s coffee history – Starbucks started as a roaster, and then a coffee shop by Pike Public Market selling beans and serving up coffee to the fisherfolk who needed some warming up. And people know Seattle as a port of call for Copper River salmon, Dungeness crab, and a first class purveyor of other fruit of the sea. But, for savvy festival-goers, including this first time Siff guest, the unique combination delivers a cinematic and culinary 1-2 punch that marks Siff as easily one of the best festival experiences in the country.
Ironically, and appropriately,...
Yes, people know Seattle’s coffee history – Starbucks started as a roaster, and then a coffee shop by Pike Public Market selling beans and serving up coffee to the fisherfolk who needed some warming up. And people know Seattle as a port of call for Copper River salmon, Dungeness crab, and a first class purveyor of other fruit of the sea. But, for savvy festival-goers, including this first time Siff guest, the unique combination delivers a cinematic and culinary 1-2 punch that marks Siff as easily one of the best festival experiences in the country.
Ironically, and appropriately,...
- 6/13/2011
- by admin
- Moving Pictures Magazine
On the eve of Rotterdam's 40th film festival, film critic Agnès Poirier offers a guide to one of Europe's most eclectic and design-conscious cities
Rotterdam may not be your typical Dutch city with canals, cobblestone passages and grand 17th-century houses, but it is an ode to modernism and innovation worth a detour. Flattened by the Luftwaffe in the spring of 1940, the Netherlands' second city has been rebuilding and reinventing itself ever since and become a hotbed of architecture and design. The New York Times declared that "Rotterdam is increasingly to architecture what Paris is to fashion, or Los Angeles to entertainment". The city is littered with iconic structures, such as Rem Koolhaas's De Kunsthal museum, Ben van Erkel's Erasmus Bridge (nicknamed The Swan), Piet Blom's cube houses, and Jan Willem Neutelings and Michiel Riedijk's periscope-like Scheepvaart en Transport College, to name but a few. Yet the city manages to...
Rotterdam may not be your typical Dutch city with canals, cobblestone passages and grand 17th-century houses, but it is an ode to modernism and innovation worth a detour. Flattened by the Luftwaffe in the spring of 1940, the Netherlands' second city has been rebuilding and reinventing itself ever since and become a hotbed of architecture and design. The New York Times declared that "Rotterdam is increasingly to architecture what Paris is to fashion, or Los Angeles to entertainment". The city is littered with iconic structures, such as Rem Koolhaas's De Kunsthal museum, Ben van Erkel's Erasmus Bridge (nicknamed The Swan), Piet Blom's cube houses, and Jan Willem Neutelings and Michiel Riedijk's periscope-like Scheepvaart en Transport College, to name but a few. Yet the city manages to...
- 1/27/2011
- by Agnès Poirier
- The Guardian - Film News
Back when Rem Koolhaas was still mainly a theorist here—instead of the global built starchitect he’s become—he published a second influential book (the first was the must-read manifesto Delirious New York). It was a silver monolith, entitled S, M, L, Xl, produced in collaboration with the designer Bruce Mau, and it contained a gorgeous jumble of photographs, rants, lists, and sketches for (mostly) unbuilt or unbuildable projects—organized, eponymously, into four scale-based categories. It sat in my bathroom for years, and as many times as I consulted it, it never failed to surprise me with something new.
- 12/28/2010
- Vanity Fair
Chicks On Speed, Dundee
Chicks On Speed are less a rock group than a fulfilment of every person's presumption that all art students are cuckoo. Emerging from Munich Academy Of Arts in the mid-90s, Melissa Logan, Kiki Moorse and Alex Murray-Leslie have gone on to eradicate the boundaries between fine art and trashy entertainment, punk performance and electroclash pop, historically informed painting and flashy graffiti, spirited commitment and an irreverent disregard for considerations of good taste. Their take on street fashion includes dresses made from plastic bags and gaffa tape. This, their first solo UK show, resembles more the aftermath of an art college end-of-term party than an exhibition, and will include the construction of the world's first wireless guitar stilettos.
Dundee Contemporary Arts, to 8 Aug
Robert Clark
Picasso, London
While Tate Liverpool is currently showing the iconic cubist's anti-war paintings and exploring his commitment to communism, the Gagosian...
Chicks On Speed are less a rock group than a fulfilment of every person's presumption that all art students are cuckoo. Emerging from Munich Academy Of Arts in the mid-90s, Melissa Logan, Kiki Moorse and Alex Murray-Leslie have gone on to eradicate the boundaries between fine art and trashy entertainment, punk performance and electroclash pop, historically informed painting and flashy graffiti, spirited commitment and an irreverent disregard for considerations of good taste. Their take on street fashion includes dresses made from plastic bags and gaffa tape. This, their first solo UK show, resembles more the aftermath of an art college end-of-term party than an exhibition, and will include the construction of the world's first wireless guitar stilettos.
Dundee Contemporary Arts, to 8 Aug
Robert Clark
Picasso, London
While Tate Liverpool is currently showing the iconic cubist's anti-war paintings and exploring his commitment to communism, the Gagosian...
- 6/4/2010
- by Robert Clark, Skye Sherwin
- The Guardian - Film News
Hospitals are some of the worst buildings around. But plenty of research shows that physical surroundings can improve health. Which is what makes the Maggie's Centre initiative so brilliant.
Hospitals are some of the worst buildings around--the sterile rooms, the dearth of daylight, the miles and miles of beige. But research shows that physical surroundings have everything to do with staying and getting healthy. Which is what makes the Maggie's Centre Initiative so intriguing.
Maggie's are a series of cancer treatment facilities that place architecture at the fore of healing. They don't purport to supplant chemo. Instead, they espouse basic quality-of-life stuff like natural light, lots of space, and views of the outdoors that make being sick suck a little less. Maggie's visionary and design theorist Charles Jencks calls it the "architectural placebo effect." (The centers are named for his wife, who died of breast cancer in 1993.)
So since the '90s,...
Hospitals are some of the worst buildings around--the sterile rooms, the dearth of daylight, the miles and miles of beige. But research shows that physical surroundings have everything to do with staying and getting healthy. Which is what makes the Maggie's Centre Initiative so intriguing.
Maggie's are a series of cancer treatment facilities that place architecture at the fore of healing. They don't purport to supplant chemo. Instead, they espouse basic quality-of-life stuff like natural light, lots of space, and views of the outdoors that make being sick suck a little less. Maggie's visionary and design theorist Charles Jencks calls it the "architectural placebo effect." (The centers are named for his wife, who died of breast cancer in 1993.)
So since the '90s,...
- 5/10/2010
- by Suzanne LaBarre
- Fast Company
A TV series exploring daily life in Lagos finds its inhabitants coping in extreme circumstances with startling ingenuity
It is initially hard to see why Lagos has been called the "megacity of the future", with the potential to become the "Singapore of Africa". There's plenty to think about if the Nigerian city of 16 million tightly packed inhabitants is the ultimate expression of modern urban living. Lagos is growing at such an astonishing rate that by 2015 it is predicted to be the third largest city in the world, behind Mumbai and Tokyo, but it is an unlikely model metropolis.
Although the country has vast oil resources, the city's infrastructure is appalling. Three-quarters of Lagos residents live in slums. The rail network manages one train per week. Despite being the world's sixth biggest oil producer, power cuts are a daily occurrence and a national joke. Lagosians have renamed the National Electric Power...
It is initially hard to see why Lagos has been called the "megacity of the future", with the potential to become the "Singapore of Africa". There's plenty to think about if the Nigerian city of 16 million tightly packed inhabitants is the ultimate expression of modern urban living. Lagos is growing at such an astonishing rate that by 2015 it is predicted to be the third largest city in the world, behind Mumbai and Tokyo, but it is an unlikely model metropolis.
Although the country has vast oil resources, the city's infrastructure is appalling. Three-quarters of Lagos residents live in slums. The rail network manages one train per week. Despite being the world's sixth biggest oil producer, power cuts are a daily occurrence and a national joke. Lagosians have renamed the National Electric Power...
- 4/3/2010
- by Akin Ojumu
- The Guardian - Film News
Jean Nouvel, winner of the Pritzker Prize in 2008, is to design this year's Serpentine Pavilion in London. For the past decade, the gallery, situated in Hyde Park, has been home to some of the most innovative pop-up structures designed by a whole raft of architectural luminaries, including Zaha Hadid, Olafur Eliasson, and Frank Gehry, whose 2008 structure of timber and glass was absolutely breathtaking.
[youtube 5HsZbmhI954]
Previous pavilions have--with the exception, perhaps, of Oscar Niemeyer and Rem Koolhaas' designs--blended in with the Serpentine's bucolic surroundings, particularly Japanese duo Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, aka Sanaa, with their delicate open-sided glass and chrome structure.
Not Nouvel's. The architect, who famously wears only black in winter, and white in summer, has gone for the brightest shade of red imaginable with his design, which incorporates a 12 meter-high freestanding wall which juts out of the ground at a hairy angle. It will be fascinating to find...
[youtube 5HsZbmhI954]
Previous pavilions have--with the exception, perhaps, of Oscar Niemeyer and Rem Koolhaas' designs--blended in with the Serpentine's bucolic surroundings, particularly Japanese duo Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, aka Sanaa, with their delicate open-sided glass and chrome structure.
Not Nouvel's. The architect, who famously wears only black in winter, and white in summer, has gone for the brightest shade of red imaginable with his design, which incorporates a 12 meter-high freestanding wall which juts out of the ground at a hairy angle. It will be fascinating to find...
- 3/23/2010
- by Addy Dugdale
- Fast Company
The best way to describe Architizer might be to call it a Facebook for architects. That's probably simplifying things a bit, but for an undertaking like this, simple is the linchpin.
At Architizer's West Coast launch last week, the turnout was as diverse as the thousands of projects represented on the site. Hundreds of firms--from the big names to the no-names--have created profiles and uploaded information about their work, including photos, credits, materials, even some renderings or sketches. Each project has its own dedicated page. And--perhaps most critically--every location is mapped in Google Maps so you can actually go see the building in real life.
I put the site to the test when I was looking for a recent project I needed to reference in a story (as I often do). Locating the project on the Architizer site took two clicks, compared to two minutes and four clicks to find...
At Architizer's West Coast launch last week, the turnout was as diverse as the thousands of projects represented on the site. Hundreds of firms--from the big names to the no-names--have created profiles and uploaded information about their work, including photos, credits, materials, even some renderings or sketches. Each project has its own dedicated page. And--perhaps most critically--every location is mapped in Google Maps so you can actually go see the building in real life.
I put the site to the test when I was looking for a recent project I needed to reference in a story (as I often do). Locating the project on the Architizer site took two clicks, compared to two minutes and four clicks to find...
- 3/23/2010
- by Alissa Walker
- Fast Company
After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Brad Pitt called in the world's top architects for his acclaimed Make It Right project. The plan was to build green homes to replace those destroyed in New Orleans. Now the first houses are up and inhabited… so is it just a celebrity ego trip or a true regeneration?
Debra Dupar, pregnant with her fifth child, is sitting outside her new house. She is washed by the noon sun of an early spring day, nursing a pinkish-red drink and chatting to her friends. A short way off a camera crew is setting up, assessing shots, squinting at the light, chatting to potential interviewees. They are working for Spike Lee, who is making a documentary about the place where Debra lives.
A guided tour of about a dozen people tramps along the vestigial street, marked out by some sinewy evergreen oaks, or "live oaks" as they are called here.
Debra Dupar, pregnant with her fifth child, is sitting outside her new house. She is washed by the noon sun of an early spring day, nursing a pinkish-red drink and chatting to her friends. A short way off a camera crew is setting up, assessing shots, squinting at the light, chatting to potential interviewees. They are working for Spike Lee, who is making a documentary about the place where Debra lives.
A guided tour of about a dozen people tramps along the vestigial street, marked out by some sinewy evergreen oaks, or "live oaks" as they are called here.
- 3/14/2010
- by Rowan Moore
- The Guardian - Film News
Ole Scheeren--the man behind CCTV and Oma's other Asian projects--says zaijian to Koolhaas, leaving the firm to start his own studio.
Rem Koolhaas's Office for Metropolitan Architecture announced today that Ole Scheeren, the Rotterdam-based firm's envoy to Asia and its acknowledged superstar young designer, has split to start his own studio. Scheeren was the director of Oma's Beijing office, and oversaw the CCTV tower project, among others (see below).
Asia is architecture's last boomtown, and there's more than enough room there for another great firm. Oma's Hong Kong office (opened in October) is set to expand, and the firm is working on a number of major projects there, like the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong and the Taipei Performing Arts Center in Taiwan. Scheeren accepted a professor job at Hong Kong University, so it seems like he's sticking around too.
It's not Oma's first break-up, and definitely not it's most high-profile.
Rem Koolhaas's Office for Metropolitan Architecture announced today that Ole Scheeren, the Rotterdam-based firm's envoy to Asia and its acknowledged superstar young designer, has split to start his own studio. Scheeren was the director of Oma's Beijing office, and oversaw the CCTV tower project, among others (see below).
Asia is architecture's last boomtown, and there's more than enough room there for another great firm. Oma's Hong Kong office (opened in October) is set to expand, and the firm is working on a number of major projects there, like the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong and the Taipei Performing Arts Center in Taiwan. Scheeren accepted a professor job at Hong Kong University, so it seems like he's sticking around too.
It's not Oma's first break-up, and definitely not it's most high-profile.
- 3/1/2010
- by William Bostwick
- Fast Company
Filmmakers Norberto López-Amado and Carlos Carcas release their documentary on the British architect.
There's a new architecture documentary of Norman Foster out, adding the British architect to the movie-star ranks of Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, and Louis Kahn. From the looks of it, though, it's closer to The Third and the Seventh--beautiful, sure, with slow, majestic panning shots, but oh so deadly serious. Is that a problem?
Directed by Norberto López-Amado and Carlos Carcas, How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster? is the first feature-length film produced by the art consultants at Art Commissioners. Watch the clips on the filmmakers' Web site (scroll down). It's soundtracked like a tear-jerker with swelling orchestras and ambiguous choral vocals. When architects appear (it's mostly their buildings), there's a lot of somber nodding and meaningful hand gestures. In one clip, over a crescendo of thrumming strings and a slow pan around and up the Gherkin,...
There's a new architecture documentary of Norman Foster out, adding the British architect to the movie-star ranks of Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, and Louis Kahn. From the looks of it, though, it's closer to The Third and the Seventh--beautiful, sure, with slow, majestic panning shots, but oh so deadly serious. Is that a problem?
Directed by Norberto López-Amado and Carlos Carcas, How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster? is the first feature-length film produced by the art consultants at Art Commissioners. Watch the clips on the filmmakers' Web site (scroll down). It's soundtracked like a tear-jerker with swelling orchestras and ambiguous choral vocals. When architects appear (it's mostly their buildings), there's a lot of somber nodding and meaningful hand gestures. In one clip, over a crescendo of thrumming strings and a slow pan around and up the Gherkin,...
- 2/19/2010
- by William Bostwick
- Fast Company
Voting ends Wednesday on Barbie's new I Can Be series. Will architects lose again?
In the 51 years she's been around, Barbie has lived in dozens of houses. There was the swingin' 1962 pop-up cardboard dream house, Archigram-approved, we're guessing, right down to the outrageous green-on-pink color scheme. There was the 1979 A-frame, with its sleek, geometric lines, like a Case Study house in the Hamptons. The 1982 dream cottage's transforming roof-cum-roof-deck would've made Rem Koolhaas swoon.
But things have gone downhill lately. From the tacky pink-and-teal Victorian dream house to 2008's garish, Jonathan Adler-decorated Malibu pad--has Barbie lost her design touch?
Help her get her groove back: vote for Architect Barbie as her next identity online at Barbie.com.
The architects among you might recall that in 2002, the voting public chose Architect Barbie in one of the first "I Can Be..." campaigns. It was a made-for-the-movies battle royale between architects and librarians (seriously), and the architects won.
In the 51 years she's been around, Barbie has lived in dozens of houses. There was the swingin' 1962 pop-up cardboard dream house, Archigram-approved, we're guessing, right down to the outrageous green-on-pink color scheme. There was the 1979 A-frame, with its sleek, geometric lines, like a Case Study house in the Hamptons. The 1982 dream cottage's transforming roof-cum-roof-deck would've made Rem Koolhaas swoon.
But things have gone downhill lately. From the tacky pink-and-teal Victorian dream house to 2008's garish, Jonathan Adler-decorated Malibu pad--has Barbie lost her design touch?
Help her get her groove back: vote for Architect Barbie as her next identity online at Barbie.com.
The architects among you might recall that in 2002, the voting public chose Architect Barbie in one of the first "I Can Be..." campaigns. It was a made-for-the-movies battle royale between architects and librarians (seriously), and the architects won.
- 2/8/2010
- by William Bostwick
- Fast Company
What's that I spy below? Hark, the unwashed masses!
You can't fault the Marks Barfield Architects for trying: Their Villa Hush-Hush is designed to "disappear" into the land while affording the owners panoramic views--thus offering a high-rise lifestyle in even the most historically or ecologically delicate places. It does that by having an entire wing that rises and lowers on a huge metal pylon:
The architect seems to have thought this precisely halfway through before firing up the 3-D modeling software. I mean, doesn't it seem weird to respect a "sensitive site" with a massive squeaking cube occasionally rising over the land? Can you imagine how annoying it would be to live anywhere near this? What happens when the toddler starts pushing the button? Meanwhile, the building is actually the architecture equivalent of lifting your nose and looking down on people. I can't imagine a better piece of target practice...
You can't fault the Marks Barfield Architects for trying: Their Villa Hush-Hush is designed to "disappear" into the land while affording the owners panoramic views--thus offering a high-rise lifestyle in even the most historically or ecologically delicate places. It does that by having an entire wing that rises and lowers on a huge metal pylon:
The architect seems to have thought this precisely halfway through before firing up the 3-D modeling software. I mean, doesn't it seem weird to respect a "sensitive site" with a massive squeaking cube occasionally rising over the land? Can you imagine how annoying it would be to live anywhere near this? What happens when the toddler starts pushing the button? Meanwhile, the building is actually the architecture equivalent of lifting your nose and looking down on people. I can't imagine a better piece of target practice...
- 2/3/2010
- by Cliff Kuang
- Fast Company
The sphinx-like telecom magnate is building a wildly futuristic art museum, designed by his son-in-law.
Carlos Slim, the Sphinx-like Mexican telecom baron who also owns a huge chunk of The New York Times, seems studiously plain. But it looks like he's ready to step up the flash. As Bloomberg reports, the billionaire is erecting a wildly futuristic building that'll be both an art museum and the headquarters for his company, Grupo Carso:
Imagine a gleaming aluminum cube that has been stretched and twisted so that it soars 150 feet into the sky, its curving upper contours reminiscent of the bow of a ship. The design is at once whimsical and structurally daring...The entire project was designed by someone very close to Slim: his son-in-law Fernando Romero, 38, who before setting up his own practice in Mexico City worked for four years with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture under Pritzker Prize- winning...
Carlos Slim, the Sphinx-like Mexican telecom baron who also owns a huge chunk of The New York Times, seems studiously plain. But it looks like he's ready to step up the flash. As Bloomberg reports, the billionaire is erecting a wildly futuristic building that'll be both an art museum and the headquarters for his company, Grupo Carso:
Imagine a gleaming aluminum cube that has been stretched and twisted so that it soars 150 feet into the sky, its curving upper contours reminiscent of the bow of a ship. The design is at once whimsical and structurally daring...The entire project was designed by someone very close to Slim: his son-in-law Fernando Romero, 38, who before setting up his own practice in Mexico City worked for four years with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture under Pritzker Prize- winning...
- 1/27/2010
- by Cliff Kuang
- Fast Company
This past October, Microsoft was all aflutter with the launch of Windows 7 and its very own retail store. And those stores bore an uncanny resemblance to Apple's. Apple is now fighting back with a "new prototype for the company."
The first new store design will be in downtown Palo Alto, near one they opened in 2001. According to the Silicon ValleyMercury News:
The facade will be entirely transparent at ground level, vast skylights will flood the store with natural light, and trees will grow inside, fed by the sunlight from above, according to a proposal submitted to the city's architectural review board
The architect on the project will be Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the same firm responsible for Apple's transparent cube on 5th Avenue, in New York City. But where that design was almost purely symbolic--the cube wasn't part of the store, as much as a fancy entrances for it--the new glass-fronted...
The first new store design will be in downtown Palo Alto, near one they opened in 2001. According to the Silicon ValleyMercury News:
The facade will be entirely transparent at ground level, vast skylights will flood the store with natural light, and trees will grow inside, fed by the sunlight from above, according to a proposal submitted to the city's architectural review board
The architect on the project will be Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the same firm responsible for Apple's transparent cube on 5th Avenue, in New York City. But where that design was almost purely symbolic--the cube wasn't part of the store, as much as a fancy entrances for it--the new glass-fronted...
- 1/8/2010
- by Cliff Kuang
- Fast Company
Architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro returns to its roots with a big, bold, experimental design. But inflatable architecture isn't exactly new, as these eight projects prove.
Washington, D.C. isn't exactly a hotbed of architectural experimentation. But that's about to change: Diller Scofidio + Renfro is planning to build a giant, 145-foot inflatable add-on to the somber Hirschorn Museum. As The New York Times reports:
[The] inflatable meeting hall that would swell out of the top of the internal courtyard of the museum, which sits on the Mall midway between the White House and the Capitol. ...the translucent fabric structure, which would be installed twice a year, for May and October, and be packed away in storage the rest of the time, would transform one of the most somber buildings on the mall into a luminous pop landmark. It could be the most uplifting work of civic architecture built in the capital since I.
Washington, D.C. isn't exactly a hotbed of architectural experimentation. But that's about to change: Diller Scofidio + Renfro is planning to build a giant, 145-foot inflatable add-on to the somber Hirschorn Museum. As The New York Times reports:
[The] inflatable meeting hall that would swell out of the top of the internal courtyard of the museum, which sits on the Mall midway between the White House and the Capitol. ...the translucent fabric structure, which would be installed twice a year, for May and October, and be packed away in storage the rest of the time, would transform one of the most somber buildings on the mall into a luminous pop landmark. It could be the most uplifting work of civic architecture built in the capital since I.
- 12/15/2009
- by Cliff Kuang
- Fast Company
If some of architecture and design's biggest names seemed conspicuously absent from this month's Art Basel Miami Beach--that annual, must-attend conclave for the glitzy-arty set--it was because they were halfway around the world in the adjacent Chinese cities of Hong Kong and Shenzhen.
Why, you ask? Technically speaking, the occasion was Hong Kong's Business of Design Week and the dual openings of the Shenzhen and Hong Kong (or Hong Kong and Shenzhen, depending who you ask) Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture. But the short answer is, duh--if you haven't heard, China is where the money is. (Well, not always, but more on that later.)
Indeed, at various points in the festivities, an all-star roster--from Jean Nouvel, Shigeru Ban, and Patrick Jouin to Steven Holl, Toyo Ito, and Ben van Berkel--swung by in a further sign that nowadays, opportunity means going East.
Shenzhen opened its biennale with an over-the-top ceremony booming...
Why, you ask? Technically speaking, the occasion was Hong Kong's Business of Design Week and the dual openings of the Shenzhen and Hong Kong (or Hong Kong and Shenzhen, depending who you ask) Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture. But the short answer is, duh--if you haven't heard, China is where the money is. (Well, not always, but more on that later.)
Indeed, at various points in the festivities, an all-star roster--from Jean Nouvel, Shigeru Ban, and Patrick Jouin to Steven Holl, Toyo Ito, and Ben van Berkel--swung by in a further sign that nowadays, opportunity means going East.
Shenzhen opened its biennale with an over-the-top ceremony booming...
- 12/15/2009
- by Aric Chen
- Fast Company
The path-breaking furniture designer is about to complete a design museum in Israel
Fresh off of a landmark exhibition at MoMA, furniture-designer Ron Arad is rounding on another milestone: In January, he'll complete The Design Museum Holon, in central Israel.
Arad was born in Israel but made his career in London. Though trained as an architect at London's Architectural Association in the 1970s--a hot house period that also saw Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas studying there--his furniture business took off first in the 1980s, after Jean-Paul Gaultier bought one of his chairs, made from the gutted seating of a car. He's toyed with architecture since then, but has never built anything approaching the scale of the Holon museum.
It's hard to miss the fact that the building looks like the love child of Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim New York, and a Richard Serra sculpture. The latter similarity goes beyond looks,...
Fresh off of a landmark exhibition at MoMA, furniture-designer Ron Arad is rounding on another milestone: In January, he'll complete The Design Museum Holon, in central Israel.
Arad was born in Israel but made his career in London. Though trained as an architect at London's Architectural Association in the 1970s--a hot house period that also saw Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas studying there--his furniture business took off first in the 1980s, after Jean-Paul Gaultier bought one of his chairs, made from the gutted seating of a car. He's toyed with architecture since then, but has never built anything approaching the scale of the Holon museum.
It's hard to miss the fact that the building looks like the love child of Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim New York, and a Richard Serra sculpture. The latter similarity goes beyond looks,...
- 11/23/2009
- by Cliff Kuang
- Fast Company
The starchitect trumps the competition and wins a high-profile in his hometown.
Rotterdam almost certainly has the highest concentration of cutting-edge architects in the world--including Mvrdv, West 8, Neutelings Riedijk, and, of course, Rem Koolhaas's Oma. So it's no surprise that the competition to design its new city hall was fierce--and Rem Koolhaas, the emperor of the local design scene, has won.
The building is slated to be the greenest building in the Netherlands. Oma's proposal, though it looks pretty cool, won out thanks to a certain blunt functionality.
Because the huge structure will be made of modular units, the building will be easier and less resource-intensive to build, and it's actual shape can mutate over time. As more space is needed, modules can be added. Fitting into the surrounding site--and also creating street-level public spaces--is just a matter of hollowing out the cube structure, in clever places.
However winning,...
Rotterdam almost certainly has the highest concentration of cutting-edge architects in the world--including Mvrdv, West 8, Neutelings Riedijk, and, of course, Rem Koolhaas's Oma. So it's no surprise that the competition to design its new city hall was fierce--and Rem Koolhaas, the emperor of the local design scene, has won.
The building is slated to be the greenest building in the Netherlands. Oma's proposal, though it looks pretty cool, won out thanks to a certain blunt functionality.
Because the huge structure will be made of modular units, the building will be easier and less resource-intensive to build, and it's actual shape can mutate over time. As more space is needed, modules can be added. Fitting into the surrounding site--and also creating street-level public spaces--is just a matter of hollowing out the cube structure, in clever places.
However winning,...
- 10/21/2009
- by Cliff Kuang
- Fast Company
You don't have to try very hard to spot the architecture students on a college campus. They're the ones with the carefully considered shoes (and artful eyewear). It's easy to see why architects are so selective about their footwear: What are shoes, after all, but mini buildings for your feet? Design and fashion are kissing cousins, and moving closer all the time, so it makes sense that a group of well-known architects have begun designing shoes, especially since the economic slowdown may have left them with spare time. Though it's hard to say whether these shoes are full-square design efforts, vanity projects or glorified licensing agreements.
Frank Gehry and his son, Alejandro Gehry, an artist, collaborated on a foppish two-tone boot for the high-end French shoemaker J.M. Weston. The boot is based on a 19th-century design for Prince Albert, though it looks like the kind of thing Keith Richards...
Frank Gehry and his son, Alejandro Gehry, an artist, collaborated on a foppish two-tone boot for the high-end French shoemaker J.M. Weston. The boot is based on a 19th-century design for Prince Albert, though it looks like the kind of thing Keith Richards...
- 10/21/2009
- by Michael Cannell
- Fast Company
Connecticut-based Theatre Projects is putting final touches on two performing arts spaces: the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre and the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, as last-minute preparations continue for the October 15 grand opening of the At&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas.Theatre Projects is an international team of theater designers and planners creating extraordinary performance spaces around the world. They are serving as the theater design consultant for both the Opera House, designed by Foster + Partners, and the Wyly Theatre, designed by Rex/Oma, Joshua Prince-Ramus (partner in charge) and Rem Koolhaas. The Wyly and Winspear are widely regarded as the capstones of the Dallas Arts District.As creators with Sasaki Associates of the original master plans for the Dallas Arts District, and as design consultants for the At&T Performing Arts Center—Theatre Projects celebrates over two decades involvement in the planning and building of one...
- 10/14/2009
- backstage.com
With the NFL season less than a week old, the new $1.15 billion stadium for the Dallas Cowboys may be the most talked about piece of architecture in the country.
Designed by Hks, the go-to architecture firm for splashy sports arenas, Cowboy Stadium has gained notice this week mostly for a flaw: its $40 million high-def Mitsubishi scoreboard that bafflingly hangs 90 feet above the field--low enough for A.J. Trapasso, a Tennessee Titans kicker, to bang a punt off it during a preseason game.
The low-hanging scoreboard notwithstanding, the stadium is notable for its whopping dimensions--it seats 100,000 and the "world's largest operable glass doors" open up behind each end zone--at a time when conventional thinking favors modesty and moderation. On the other hand, who would expect a stadium in Big D to be anything but a hollering XXX-Large.
Big projects are like runaway trains--you can't stop them just because the economy sours.
Designed by Hks, the go-to architecture firm for splashy sports arenas, Cowboy Stadium has gained notice this week mostly for a flaw: its $40 million high-def Mitsubishi scoreboard that bafflingly hangs 90 feet above the field--low enough for A.J. Trapasso, a Tennessee Titans kicker, to bang a punt off it during a preseason game.
The low-hanging scoreboard notwithstanding, the stadium is notable for its whopping dimensions--it seats 100,000 and the "world's largest operable glass doors" open up behind each end zone--at a time when conventional thinking favors modesty and moderation. On the other hand, who would expect a stadium in Big D to be anything but a hollering XXX-Large.
Big projects are like runaway trains--you can't stop them just because the economy sours.
- 9/16/2009
- by Michael Cannell
- Fast Company
Chinese media is ablaze with rumors that the CCTV annex and headquarters were meant to look like a penis, next to a bent-over woman--and that exposes some truths about Chinese culture.
In the battle to win the hearts of the Chinese, the new headquarters of CCTV might be losing. Designed by Rem Koolhaas's firm, Oma, it's been billed as a masterpiece and a symbol of China's emergence atop a new world order. But some Chinese are whispering that it's a grand joke perpetrated by Koolhaas at the expense of 1.3 billion people--alleging that the building and it's annex were intended to look like a woman bent over, next to a penis.
The rumors can apparently be traced back to a Xiao Mo, a retired architecture professor who wrote a poorly sourced "essay" purporting to prove that Koolhaas intended the pornographic connotations. (Ole Scheeren actually designed the building, but let's move on.
In the battle to win the hearts of the Chinese, the new headquarters of CCTV might be losing. Designed by Rem Koolhaas's firm, Oma, it's been billed as a masterpiece and a symbol of China's emergence atop a new world order. But some Chinese are whispering that it's a grand joke perpetrated by Koolhaas at the expense of 1.3 billion people--alleging that the building and it's annex were intended to look like a woman bent over, next to a penis.
The rumors can apparently be traced back to a Xiao Mo, a retired architecture professor who wrote a poorly sourced "essay" purporting to prove that Koolhaas intended the pornographic connotations. (Ole Scheeren actually designed the building, but let's move on.
- 8/27/2009
- by Cliff Kuang
- Fast Company
How Rex designs buildings that bring the developers cash.
For developers, fancy architecture is, typically, one enormous expense: You pay the architect a huge fee, and in return, you get a fairly loosey-goosey promise of marquee attraction.
Rex--which was formerly known as the New York office of Rem Koolhaas's firm, Oma--takes a different approach. They've produced a series of buildings which, through saavy design choices, promise to bring cash. The most recent example comes from their design for a cultural center in Kortrijk, Belgium, which just won out in a closed competition.
Originally, the city wanted to build a "library of the future," comprising a library and an education center. But Rex quickly realized the problems that presents: The planned site was on the wrong end of the existing Music Center, so it would be cut off from the street life of the public square beyond. So instead, they...
For developers, fancy architecture is, typically, one enormous expense: You pay the architect a huge fee, and in return, you get a fairly loosey-goosey promise of marquee attraction.
Rex--which was formerly known as the New York office of Rem Koolhaas's firm, Oma--takes a different approach. They've produced a series of buildings which, through saavy design choices, promise to bring cash. The most recent example comes from their design for a cultural center in Kortrijk, Belgium, which just won out in a closed competition.
Originally, the city wanted to build a "library of the future," comprising a library and an education center. But Rex quickly realized the problems that presents: The planned site was on the wrong end of the existing Music Center, so it would be cut off from the street life of the public square beyond. So instead, they...
- 7/29/2009
- by Cliff Kuang
- Fast Company
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