…is what I got here in Reno (where I have just arrived for a talk at the Art + Environment Conference at the Nevada Museum of Art) from the 9th floor of a downtown hotel out to the 180 foot composite dome housing an old silver mining rig. Sam Fairchild’s legendary silver mining rig is ..
Tag : architecture
…some of them lovingly hand-painted and even featuring the name of the cat over the front door, are what I stumbled upon (almost literally) this afternoon, filling a section of sidewalk on a narrow sloping street just up the hill from my hotel and the Antrepo warehouse sites of the Istanbul Biennial (opening for press previews ..
…the Istanbul based architecture studio founded by Turkish Selva Gürdoğan and Danish Gregers Tang Thomsen, presented their design of the exhibition ‘Becoming Istanbul‘ (in collaboration with the graphics of Project Projects) which opened at SALT Beyoğlu this evening – kicking off 90 events i..
…opened tonight in the middle of London’s Ridley Road Market in Dalston – which I visited with my London Animal Estates collaborator Benjamin Reichen (of the super design collective Åbäke) whose former students had masterminded the project – alas, we were to early to eat, but were at least able to see the structure, seating, ..
…was the order of the day, as I finally departed Lecce, continuing my Puglian journeys gradually making my way west then north on the slow side roads through countryside and small towns with no final destination in mind, stopping off in the ceramics center of Grottaglie, the pretty hilltop town of Locorotondo, the trulli village ..
…in super baroque style are intricately carved into local honey Lecce limestone covering every available square millimeter of each billboard-like neighborhood church facade, and parts of almost all of the pallazzi, announcing the style, taste and riches of the local sponsoring noble family – is the visual pleasure of the city to be enjoyed at every ..
…are what have drawn me to this place more than anything, such as the dry-stone conical domes of the trulli, modest shelters or residences found mostly in the central Valle D’Itria (around Locorotondo, Alberbello, Martina Franca, Ceglie Messapica); the fortified farmhouse complexes of the masserie; and the primitive storehouses and temporary shelters dotting the landscape ..
…is something I have had an intense architectural crush on since first reading about them last year (a fortified farmhouse unique to Puglia, often with a series of connecting vaulted spaces made of local stone on the ground level for animals and farm workers around a central protected courtyard overseen by more comfortable castle-like quarters ..
…at the masseria I visited late this afternoon near Nardo’ must be the coolest thing I have seen on my Puglia adventures so far – an Animal Estate of the most sophisticated and monumental sort, which from the outside seems to be a fortified castle tower, only to reveal a surprising very contemporary-seeming interior lined ..
…with a dreamy baroque historic center where old men bike around aimlessly and gather on benches with friends you imagine they grew up with on that same block, was once a rival to Lecce, it’s larger neighbor to the north, is the general area of Puglia (or Salento, as locals would hastily/testily correct you, referring ..
…the Italian town I have been curious about and yet to visit was conveniently on my way from Aix-en-Provence to Brindisi, so after a long windy scenic train ride along the French Riviera with front row seats to the late August bikini-clad bathing French masses, I arrived in this pretty but rough around the edges port ..
…my next stop this afternoon as I gradually make my way by train south from meetings in the Netherlands to a long awaited pilgrimage to Italy’s mysterious heel of Puglia (before continuing on to autumn obligations for projects and talks in Istanbul, London, Den Haag, Reno, Philadelphia, Princeton, New York, Budapest, Sofia, Lodz) – and ..
…on this little lake in the woods nearby, where we are spending our days in the sun and water, are each big enough for one – maybe two people – and I’m starting to think that this is all I could ever need – and what more could we want for a quiet Augus..
…are the handy recyclrey designery arty folks I’ll be working with on an upcoming project here in the fall produced by Stroom – so this afternoon in a jet-laggy daze I went to visit their two vast storage/studio spaces to select some materials for my upcoming project Composted Constructions from the amazing collections of industrial, ..
…is the Young Architects Program originated at NYC’s PS1 and now a new summer fixture at Rome’s MAXXI, where young Roman architects have created rolling mounds of lawn, punctuated by red tulip-like lanterns, where this evening people are lounging, dogs are running, kids are playing (one in particular seeming to be around six who is ..
…was my last minute destination of choice this morning to escape the city for a day, biking to Termini and hopping on a train to take me to the ancient and current Roman beach resort town, and yes there are picturesque beaches, and yes there are Roman ruins, but most enchanting is the historic hill ..
…was the story of the day as we made long anticipated pilgrimages to both planned communities just outside of the Roman center, starting with the 11-story 1 kilometer-long crazy Corviale housing block of 1200 apartments and 6000 people in this endless concrete Le Corbusier Unités-d’Habitation-gone-wild folly designed by a team of Italian architects headed by ..
…is the Ligurian beach town where my friend, and before that her her mother, grew up spending summers in a cute yellow house on the main street of town which her grandparents bought decades ago, and here is what we like about this place: almost all of the buildings have elaborate hand-painted trompe-l’oeil architectural details ..
…on a Saturday night all lit up in lavenders and yellows looked a little Roman-themed Vegas Strip mixed with gladiator-themed gay disco – but I’m not complaining, it’s fun to see the Italians really occupy their cities in the summer, when every public park, villa, ruin, sanctuary, etc. can boast it’s own summer stage with ..
…the iconic influential book by Christopher Alexander is standard issue to architecture students since it emerged out of the Berkeley in the 1970’s, which we were introduced to in our first year design studio, but I don’t recall ever actually reading it at the time (perhaps it seemed old fashioned, folksy, retrograde, and even conservative ..
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