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A HOUSE FOR LADY GAGA. ICARCH Gallery Competition

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(Special thanks to ICARCH Gallery)

Image from “Bad Romance” set, © Lady Gaga official site

Sometimes speaking half in jest produces the best results ever. Down from its ivory tower, architecture speculation stll creates for the sake of creating despite times to remain aloof from economic systems, bureaucracy and democracy are almost reduced to none. Unprofitable ideas and designs spread among every studio. We all need to disconnect and, who knows? The weirdest trick could change into a profitable project and find a client…And if not, who cares? We invite you to visit the Chicago-based ICARCH Gallery – deliberately inspired by Ephimeteus (literally “afterthought,”), Titan brother of the most reknown Prometheus, openly “confused, imperfect, hungry, anti-business, passionate” and, most of all, provocative. Since 2003 ICARCH has launched competitions like: “The House of War”, “A New Facade for Florence San Lorenzo”, “The House of Pi”, “The House of Oxymorons” and others themed on a series of personalities like Eric Rohmer, Federico Fellini, Albert Camus or Friedrich Nietzsche. Now ICARCH goes pop and it’s time for Lady Gaga, the flamboyant singer brought to the fore for her spectacular mise-en-scène and outfits.

Lady Gaga, Bad Romance video

Here follows ICARCH’s announcement for A HOUSE FOR LADY GAGA COMPETITION:

The more she hides, the more she exposes. And vice versa. We reflected on the strange dialectics between hiding / exposing, as illustrated by Lady Gaga. Quite often she seems to want to hide away… her hair, her masks, her veilings betray a very high interest in hiding, in concealing… Even her use of umbrellas, when outside it is sunny…!? And the fact that quite often she hides her face behind her hand, when photographed (as if she is guilty of something, almost like Adam in the famous painting by Masaccio “Adam and Eve banished from Paradise”), does show the same thing… and the meaning of her video Paparazzi seems to be the same: an intense almost neurotic questioning of the violation of privacy that contemporary life seems to be unable to avoid. She probably does not want to end like Princess Diana or like the main character of Das Parfum. But the price of fame is high, quite often! Sometimes tragically high!
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February 5

Bari Airport Nursery school and recreation center

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[Read the Italian version of this post]

(Materials courtesy of Laboratorio Permanente)

The Bari Airport Nursery school is shaped as a little child-scale world, a new landmark for the airport area and Bari itself. Furthermore, the nursery project is equipped with an advanced technology system which allows it to be energy-autonomous.
The project’s concept was inspired by the intrinsic scale contrast between a nursery and an international airport: an intimate space confronting with a monumental space of exchange. Read more

February 4

Apartment Fandl by schlosser+partner in Graz, Austria

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(Introduction by Aresha Gul, materials courtesy of schlosser+partner, photos by Croce&Wir)

Imagine a white canvas, with absolutely no sketch, no color, not even a single dot, placed in the middle of many colorful paintings and drawings in a room. Obviously a keen eye and an artistic mind will gaze upon all the paintings, perhaps critically or appreciatively, until it focuses on the raw canvas with nothing on it. Now, a question will arise in one’s mind that whether this canvas is yet to be painted upon, or maybe it is of no use at all. Hence, an empty white canvas will provoke a keen mind to think for some time as other more colorful pieces of art are juxtaposed around it. The same reaction takes place when we look at the Apartment Fandl, a private residence, where the client specifically asked the architects to plan and build something which her eye had caught while browsing through other colorful buildings and modern contemporary or conventional architectural plans or houses. The predominant color is white, representing purity, simplicity, & elegance. This simple bright and pristine design stands out prominently when placed side by side with other more colorful interiors. The plain white simplicity glows like the sun, actually drowning the other colorful designs by its sheer presence, and dominating the mind of the viewer who otherwise is attracted to color. Read more

February 3

Last Action Hero: Coast to Coast, Real to Unreal

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(By Nicola Bozzi)

After last week’s post about Demolition Man (1993) and the city of Los Angeles, today I’m writing about another action flick dealing with urban imagery, also come out the same year: Last Action Hero. Both movies are cop-tales, reterritorializing a way of dealing with crime and justice from one world to another. In Stallone’s sci-fi exploit the change happens in time, while in the more sophisticated – and also more tongue-in-cheek – film starring future governor Arnold Schwarzenegger the jump is twofold: from reality to fiction and, quite significantly, from New York to Los Angeles. Before we go further about the retorritorialization I mentioned before, a short introduction to the movie’s plot is necessary.

Urban Flux issue 2009-4 review

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(Text by Gaia Bianchini, all images of Gantenbein Vineyard Façade courtesy of Gramazio & Kohler, Zurich, photos © Ralph Feiner)

Conceived as a bimonthly issue, the Chinese magazine published by the Academy of Architectural Design & City Planning of Tianjin University and by Tianjin School of Architecture is dripping architecture from every edge of its rectangular, compact volume. Starting from the cover graphics, the “UrbanFlux” on the top left, challenging the border, to the minimal, rationally composed interior pages, the architectural structure of the magazine is above all reflected in the articles treated.

With a schematic index, thought like an underground map, the 2009/4 issue is mainly focused on Switzerland and ARCH/SCAPES, the Swiss exhibit contribution to the 7th International Architecture Biennal in São Paulo, 2007, whose theme was “Architecture – the Public and the Private”.

Urban Flux’s aim is to clearly present national urban strategies and architectural experiences to make them short-circuit in a common global debate on the thematic pair landscape/urbanization. The Swiss well-known, but compromised, relationship between architecture and landscape is here analysed with didactic approach. Besides country and canton maps, a selection of recent projects featured at ARCH/SCAPES are shown to follow and combine 5 different strategies of possible intervention: disruption, accentuation, dimensional dialogue, confirmation, injection. Which is the best approach – if there is one – I can’t tell for sure. Meanwhile, though, the several expert essays give the reader important clues and the projects shown definetely catch your eye. Read more

February 1

Yearbook Magazine on Architizer

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Better late than never, we finally subscribed to Architizer, the social network for architects, firms, and architectural projects. The site was officially launched a few months ago with partners such as Cool Hunting, Storefront for Art and Architecture, and Abitare.

As you can see, the design is simple and slick. The tabs are few and well located, which makes surfing the site easy and clean, and intuitive search is a major usability factor. A notable feature are the filtering handles, to narrow down search ranges in terms of budget, year of completion, and other parameters. The map showing project previews by location in the homepage is definitely a nice web3.0 twist, and there is also a Facebook-style Archifeed to follow the people and firms you want. Users can also submit competition and job offers, which makes using the site even more practical and useful. Read more

January 29

Blueprint, issue 286 review

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(Text by Gaia Bianchini)

Blueprint has traditionally made its readers well accustomed to sound explanations on design mechanisms and processes, what’s exactly up with design today. And, of course, by “today” we mean “now”. And, possibly, tomorrow.

Thinking of some attribute to generally define the thin, large format magazine, I can’t avoid stressing its most peculiar features: young and independent.

Under the wise guidance of Vicky Richardson (who’s recently been appointed as director Architecture, Design and Fashion at the British Council) and Tim Abrahams, Blueprint goes on giving its lucid, 360°- oriented glance on our world through specific sections dedicated to people/objects/exhibitions/installations/processes and meanings.

This month’s issue gives a challenging assessment on the 25 people among designers, architects and campaigners who will change architecture, design, graphics and communication in 2010. Of course – since the borders of the architect and designer profession are more and more blurring into somewhere else – the list includes personalities from researchers to graffiti artists; from economists to sculptors. Just keep an eye on architectural firms like Toh Shimazaki Architecture, or sculptor Richard Wilson; or even the think tank Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today, which is “exploring the consequences of fantastic, perverse and underrated urbanisms”, to see what’s in store in Innovationland for 2010. Read more

January 28

Elise Island Project: design for highest achievements

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(Text by Diana Nóbrega; photos: diephotodesigner.de for :: dan pearlman, all materials courtesy of :: dan pearlman)

The Evangelisches Konigin Elisabeth Krankenhaus Hospital, in Berlin, created a holistic dreamland for young patients with psychiatric issues in cooperation with :: dan pearlman creative agency.

The patients of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Evangelisches Konigin Elisabeth Krankenhaus Hospital (KEH), in Berlin, will never feel alone again. Since october, in addition to doctors and nurses the youngsters are, hosted by Princess Elise. She is the protagonist of the story told to the children and adolescents as soo as they arrive at the Institution. When Princess Elise was a child she invented her own island, with golden sand, palm trees, rocks that kiss the waves and shelters where she could rest when she needed to. Here she felt protected and sheltered. Now that Elise has grown a grandmother, she doesn’t need the island and she has decided to share it with the young patients of the Hospital.
The legend was created and transferred from the imaginary into reality by the German creative agency :: dan pearlman who worked closely with the KEH psychiatrists over ten months. The Isle of Elise project is based on a holistic therapy which gives design a central role, the result represents a completely new approach to child and adolescent psychiatry. Read more

January 27

Demolition Man: to Destroy LA is to Build LA

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(By Nicola Bozzi)

Due to a mostly comedy-oriented film education as a kid, I had missed Marco Brambilla’s action-classic Demolition Man (1993) back when I had the chance to catch it in its box-office semi-freshness (17 years ago it took a while before a movie passed from the movie theater to the TV screen). I have recently made up for this lack, and while the roughly-cut screenplay, the flat characters, and the unlikely fighting choreographies might have amused me much more when I was 10 years old, I have to be thankful I could enjoy a first impact with the movie after reading Mike Davis‘ City of Quartz and watching a couple of documentaries about the riots that shook Los Angeles in the 90s. In the analysis that follows, this article here has also been a big inspiration in terms of the movie’s relationship with Hollywood and LA’s urban and social landscape. Read more

January 25

Architect Kamil Khan Mumtaz in the spotlight. A frank chat

Filed Under architecture, ideas | 4 Comments

(Text by Aresha Gul in co-operation with Kamil Khan Mumtaz Architects, all projects and images © Kamil Khan Mumtaz Architects)

Lahore, my city, is blessed with beautiful and unique architecture. To find the true soul of Lahore you must visit the Old Walled City which dates back hundreds of years. The Walled City includes lovely buildings, homes and a network of small, narrow streets which take you back in time to relive history.

The typical home was the “Haveli”. This word comes from “Hava” that is “wind”, as the Haveli was the traditional design, with large airy verandahs on all sides, high ceilings and an atrium in the middle for lighting. Haveli gave way to modern residences and buildings, though the wave of contemporary design could not wipe out the beauty and sensible pragmatism of the Haveli. It’s not surprising that the traditional Pakistani home is now back in vogue. Architect Kamil Khan Mumtaz is among those architects and designers experimenting with the haveli form and succeeding in a delicate blend between the traditional and the contemporary.

From Delicious

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- anArchitecture: Spatial Agency - an Agency of Change. 2010/02/02

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