sensual feline continues...

Andromeda Chained to the Rocks was painted by Rembrant to represent his first full length mythological female nude history painting and is taken from a story in Ovid's Metamorphoses. In the story, an Ethiopian princess was chained to a rock to be sacrificed to a sea monster as a punishment for her mother's boasting that tormented the Ethiopian people. Unlike many other artists that depicted this story by showing Andromeda, her rescuer Perseus, and the sea monster all in the same composition; Rembrandt's shies away from classical conventions by showing her not as a glamorous beauty but as a frightened naturalistic looking girl. He didn't include any other figures except for her alarmed look out of the picture space to the right creates narrative tension. The painting is an example of Rembrandt's rejection of idealized beauty. Since he did not believe true beauty existed naturally, he painted women as he saw them; naturally imperfect and flawed.

corten chilies

Cristian Fernandez Arquitectos, Lateral Arquitectura + Diseño won the Chilean governments International Architecture Competition for their new cultural centre. The Architects approach to the building was to immediately address the surrounding environment, providing a new relationship to the previously unacknowledged surroundings.  The Architects decided to focus on four main concepts: openness to the city and its urban relationships across a large deck with loose volumes under it, the creation of new public space, the opening of the building to the community by incorporating community programs, and the legitimacy of the project through the incorporation of as many social agents in shaping a new benchmark for the city.

The Architects believe that a arts/culture building should always have varying degrees of transparency, share and engage the visitors not only directly but also to the whole community.  Therefore, the Architects opted for a design that provided openness with in the public spaces and transparency into the interior spaces.  The halls for the performing arts of music, dance, and theater, are on display to the public as 'boxes or containers'. Horizontally the building is organised around three volumes that contain and represent the three major program areas; Documentation Center for the Performing Arts and Music, a Training Room of the Performing Arts and the Great Hall Theater seating 2,000 people. The three buildings are separate at street level providing multiple covered pedestrian spaces. Meanwhile, at the lower levels all three buildings are connected.

The main materials that make up the building are all possible to find in the original building with five design elements that are worth noting; weathering steel, reinforced concrete in sight, glass, steel, and wood. The Architects have chosen the weathering steel (with holes) to link between past, present and future visually.

under the skin - one

These picture above of Steven Holl's Simmons Hall, MIT is by New-York photographer Stanley Greenberg. He ventures into the parts of modern cities that others do not or cannot go, capturing the bowels and structural backwaters of the working urban environment. His two previous books: Invisible New York: The Hidden Infrastructure of the City, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998) and Waterworks: A Photographic Journey Through New York’s Hidden Water System, (Princeton Architectural Press, 2003) confirmed his mastery in this field.

In this new project for which he received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, Greenberg studies modern architecture under construction:

"With the advent of powerful computers as design tools and to control fabrication processes, buildings have taken on new shapes and structures. This has also led to new construction techniques. When a new “blob” building is built, few can imagine what holds it together. When the skin goes on almost any new building, the structure often disappears. With the intentional (World Trade Center) and accidental (Charles DeGaulle Airport Terminal) destruction of modern buildings, the public has become much more interested in what makes buildings stand up, and what makes them fall down. As the designs for new buildings are revealed, the public watches closely as architects and engineers suggest new forms and ideas. These pictures are x-rays of the process.”

 

A book of the work will be published in 2009 by the University of Chicago Press, with an introduction by Joseph Rosa, Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Greenberg’s work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum. He received a Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation in 2005, and has also received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

Stanley Greenberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1956 where he still lives.

kaa-boom!!

My true feeling throughout my years of school, college, university and training before a life-long future as an Alcoholic Architect...

light stilts

Steven Holl Architects new gallery floats over the natural landscape. It has 9 steel columns and 9 elevations, all integrated via proportions of 1:1.618. A rain skin of natural 2x2 cedar is suspended on stainless steel screws. There is no plumbing, or sheetrock. The interiors are painted plywood and the floor is sanded marine plywood with all the stains of the 4 month construction process exposed. The Architects have created bespoke wooden windows, doors and skylights for this space. The gallery is reached from the east by a gently sloping wooden ramp, and exited on a wooden ramp through the south elevation which is a large pivoting wall. Light play comes from skylights thus eliminating the need for electricity.

work work work

This is Fearon Hay Architects latest fit out for a private office in a newly built shell in Auckland's Victoria Precinct. The Architects had the opportunity to create a relaxed environment that removed the formality and conventional nature inherent to most office interiors. They have rejected the idea of closed cells and clear divisions between front of house and private offices thus the notions of rhythm and transition could be explored without sacrificing the functionality and order of these spaces. The Architects have chosen natural materials such as concrete steel and timber, complimented by custom crafted furniture to create an artisanal and warm environment, deconstructing traditional perceptions of office space.

geisha transplant

Alvaro Siza, Carlos Castanheira and Kim Jong Kyu's museum for the client, Amore Pacific in Korea. The client's grandmother initiated the collection  when the cosmetics company first began. Today, the collection is immense with national value and interest. The dark brick building are all the staff training facilities and the improvised museum, displaying only a small part of the collection. The rest of the ever-expanding collection is in storage, in the basement. There is also another small building, which is isolated, as if pushed into a corner, to the northeast, serves as accommodation for anyone who comes here from a distance to do training or research. The exterior area is characterised by a huge collection of trees and shrubs that the client buys or transplants here from elsewhere.

play nice

Someone to hold me tight; That would be very nice; Someone to love me right; That would be very nice; Someone to understand; Each little dream in me; Someone to take my hand; To be a team with me

So nice, life would be so nice; If one day I'd find; Someone who would take my hand; And samba through life with me

Someone to cling to me; Stay with me right or wrong; Someone to sing to me; Some little samba song; Someone to take my heart; And give his heart to me; Someone who's ready to; Give love a start with me

Oh yes, that would be so nice; Should it be you and me, that would be nice

Someone to cling to me; Stay with me right or wrong; Someone to sing to me; Some little samba song;  Someone to take my heart; And give his heart to me; Someone who's ready to; Give love a start with me

Oh yes, that would be so nice; Should it be , you and me?; I could see it would be nice...

4 bridges

bureau SLA were commissioned to turn the two buildings into a home for the National Glass Museum. It was suggested to turn Cochius’ former residence into an exhibition area and to use the second villa as offices, storage facilities and a cafeteria.Although the spaces were enough, the Architects thought that creating both buildings fully accessible to the public would be a better solution. Their idea was that the museum’s employees could eat in the restaurant, the visitors could have full access to the collection of glass, including that in storage, and the administrative staff could work in the library. Furthermore, the exhibition rooms could be far more spacious and instead of the small rooms of the existing villas, in which visitors need to climb up and down stairs all the time, circulation and exhibition spaces could to be much more generous.

In the end, bureau SLA designed 4 bridges that draws everything together in an elegant manner. Visitors can idle through extensive rooms with only one lift is needed and an enormous amount of space is gained. The bridges serve as storage space in which all the museum’s objects are on display, in cases specifically designed for the museum by Piet Hein Eek. The bridges were constructed from several layers of polycarbonate panels and covered by a translucent skin of grey, powder-coated, aluminium mesh. During the day they contrast sharply with the refined old villas, whereas at night they glow in reflection of the 9000 glass objects inside them.

long bar

Ogrydziak Prillinger Architects have designed this 2,400 sq. ft. house for a young family moving from the city to the country. The design strategy attempts to maximize the exposure of the interior of the house to the lightly forested surroundings. The site has a steepl slope, covered with mature oak trees that provides an ample privacy screen for an essentially transparent house. The Architects decision was to elongate the primary space into a long bar. The bar is embedded along the slope, its roof tilted to match the site gradient in an effort to merge the primary mass of the house into the landscape. This space is also mirrored on its long axis to create an outside room bounded by a high retaining wall. The entry to the house also operates as a cut through the house, demarcating the public and private spaces. Here, exterior space penetrates the interior, and the procession from outside-in-and-outside-again is is fully appreciated, merging the house into the landscape. The walls and roof are considered as a continuous skin that wraps the interior with varying degrees of transparency.

atv not mtv

What a better way to describe a city than in music. Strange as it may sound, certain cities are better sounding in songs than others. New York being one of the favourites but somehow London just doesn't seem to cut it. Some artists (UK & US) have tried but failed miserably and I wonder what a list would like if each cities are individual artist producing up-to-date music albums and instead of MTV Hits, we would have ATV Tempo. 

Eureka!! Guido has a new project to think about...

that's life

That's life; That's what all the people say; You're riding high in April; Shot down in May; But I know I'm gonna change that tune; When I'm back on top, back on top in June;

I said that's life; And as funny as it may seem; Some people get their kicks; Stomping on a dream; But I don't let it, let it get me down; 'Cause this fine old world; It keeps spinning around;

I've been a puppet, a pauper; A pirate, a poet; A pawn and a king; I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing; Each time I find mself; Flat on my face; I pick myself up and get back in the race

That's life; I tell you, I can't deny it; I thought of quitting baby; But my heart just ain't gonna buy it; And if I didn't think it was worth one single try; I'd jump right on a big bird; And then I'd fly

I've been a puppet, a pauper; A pirate, a poet; A pawn and a king; I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing; Each time I find mself; Flat on my face; I pick myself up and get back in the race

That's life; That's life, and I can't deny it; Many times I thought of cutting out; But my heart won't buy it; But if there nothing shaking coming this here July; I'm going to roll myself up in a big ball; And die...

My my...

deathly still

EASTERN Design Office was commissioned by a client to design him a house awaiting death in the next 15 years. The clients request was for a house awaiting death, for the moment when life is extinguished, not the sunset, but the desire to see the sunrise. I know it sounds rather dark but personally it is so refreshing when such an honest brief is given to any Architects. I'm almost jealous.  This particular project takes to a beach far beyond the sublime Suzuka mountain range, past the ravines of the Ise Penninsula and exceeds the boundaries of this the clients own site. The Architects have created several polygonal windows that plays with the early morning light, with the overlapping windows and accumulation of light and shadow, the entire building erupts in a hymn to the morning. The distance from the site to the beach is 150m and its breadth extends for 7km.

'Are you going to live alone?'.

'Alone. Sometimes I want to call over friends'. A quiet pause, 'I want to hear the crash of a wave.'

sensual feline

Came across these pictures as I try to clean up my overladen bookcase and realise that perhaps I should write more about S&M. I remembered writing about 'bondage architecture' (yes, my own term and trademarking in process as we speak) a few months back and I think its time for me to revisit the idea. For those of you who are interested, I'll be focusing on Rembrant's Andromeda Chained to the Rocks next.
 

pawson-esque

Shinichi Ogawa + Associates designed this house for a couple in Itoman-shi, Okinawa, Japan. The house is built on a 3m grid module in all XYZ spatial directions. A functional layout is created by inserting a void of 3m x 18m which is the courtyard for the house and a wall-like furniture into the concrete structure. The Architects composition is characterised by the division of the house into two areas by a wall furniture. Firstly being an area composed of the living room, dining room, and bedroom with the exterior court in a linear arrangement and secondly, the other space is composed of the kitchen, toilet and study room. 

italian reflections

Apparently lust is better served with a daiquiri and love with a prozac...
 

staircase living

Guz Architects designed a house that is a contemporary interpretation of a traditional courtyard house, laid out around a central green courtyard with a double height stair and entry area forming the focal point of the project. The Architect's L-shaped plan creates an open space that encourages natural ventilation and offer resident’s views over the courtyard to the verandah, roof gardens and beyond. The large roof above the courtyard creates an indoor and outdoor space leading to the gardens and swimming pool which wraps around two sides of the house.