February 10

Beyroutes – A Guide to Beirut

Filed Under books | Leave a Comment

An interesting-looking guide to the capital of Lebanon has just come out, so we thought you might want to check it out:

The field manual for 21st century urban explorer.

Initiated by Studio Beirut, supported by Partizan Publik, Archis and the Pearl Foundation – Beyroutes, a guidebook to Beirut, one of the grand capitals of the Middle East. Beyroutes presents an exploded view of a city which lives so many double lives and figures in so many truths, myths and historical falsifications. Visiting the city with this intimate book as your guide makes you feel disoriented, appreciative, judgmental and perhaps eventually reconciliatory.

Art Direction: Jeanno Gaussi, Nicolas Bourquin – Design: Pascale Harès, Jeanno Gaussi, Nicolas Bourquin
Chief Editor: Christian Ernsten – Editorial Team: Rani al Rajji, Joe Mounzer, Steve Eid, Christaan Fruneaux, Joost Janmaat
 Publisher: Archis – Distribution: Idea Books – ISBN: 9789077966549
Read more

January 8

MilanoCittàAperta, Journal of Urban Photography. New perspectives on the city

Filed Under architecture, arts, ideas, web | 1 Comment

Dear readers, in case you don’t already know MilanoCittàAperta, Journal of Urban Photography , it’s high time you knew this open collective and have a look to its fine Milan reportages. You could be the next photographer to release your research on the metropolis and let your work be known worldwide! What we appreciated the most of this photographic Milan insight, apart from the obvious good quality of the snap selection, is the attitude of its authors. The editorial team and contributors are all very young but passionate and fierce in their mission, directly dating back to the modern photojournalism of Henri Cartier-Bresson. In times of thought standardization and political genuflection, it’s cool to read someone utter a manifesto and remind us that, quoting Miciap:

“every click/shot corresponds to a reality fragment captured forever, rescued out of becoming and given to timelessness. The photographer can offer his ethical look through his aesthetical look and viceversa [….]. We want to get down to reality and disclose its secrets, use the photographical act to give body to our personal experiences. We declare Milan ‘open city’ and accept the war within the confused chaos of the city. The same city we love and, as photographers, we try to understand and let you know. To know it is to change it.”

© Nicola Bertasi, 2009, Milano, Islands; MilanoCittàAperta, issue #0, summer 2009

Read more

October 29

Urban Simulacra

Filed Under ideas, web | 1 Comment

(Text by Nicola Bozzi)

Ion Bitzan, Map (1978)

It’s no surprise Polis has recently opened one of their articles with the same Jorge Luis Borges quote as Jean Baudrillard did in his introduction to “Simulacra and Simulation“. The quote comes from a story about an insanely detailed 1:1 scale map of an empire, eventually shredding apart and leaving scattered remains on the very soil it used to discipline.

The reason why Borges’ vision is so important today is not only the recent popularization of mapping, especially on the internet, but its evolution into a virtualized and pervasive layer overlapping with both our online and offline experiences. If Christopher Alexander’s “Notes on the Synthesis of Form“, although focused on architectural design and civil engineering, has also influenced software writers, augmented space and virtuality make the conceptual relationship between city design and network design intersecting rather than isomorphic. Read more

October 23

Snapshots from Creativity Festival

Filed Under events | Leave a Comment

(Photos © Ludovica Brigalli – Foto © Ludovica Brigalli)

metarmorfosi urbane 01

metamorfosi urbane 02

Urban Metamorphoses: from Montreal to Brasilia, passing by Dubai. Exhibition in the City Talk department – Metamorfosi Urbane: da Montreal a Brasilia passando per Dubai. Mostra all’interno del dipartimento City Talk

Montréal, Medellin, Buenos Aires, Milano, Parigi, Dubai, Il Cairo, Seoul, Shanghai, Tokyo, Belem, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Sao Paulo, Brasilia. E’ andato lontano lo sguardo del Festival della Creatività, quest’anno! Il progetto Metamorfosi Urbane ha voluto indagare le trasformazioni in atto in alcune città del mondo: Seoul, capitale mondiale del design nel 2010 e Shanghai sede dell’expo 2010 che ospiterà l’ambizioso progetto del padiglione Italia, “Better city. Better life”. E ancora, Il Cairo e gli interessanti casi della città dei morti e del garbage village attraverso i contributi del Cospe e di alcuni antropologi. Non ultimo, gli ambiziosi interventi urbanistici che trasformeranno alcune zone di Milano in previsione di Expo 2015 e di Parigi (progetto del Grand Paris). Read more

October 13

Plurima•Palermo, an urban publishing project

Filed Under books, design, ideas | Leave a Comment


[Read the Italian version of this post]

logo-PluPa

3-PluPa

Today we’re pleased to introduce you Plurima•Palermo, a good european example of practice born out of the research of italian architects able to look beyond the parochialism afflicting our country. Starting from specific experiences on the territory or reached by local identities, it offers case studies with such an expressive strenght and glocal meaning that they cross the boundaries of their departure and suggest a shared architecture and communication pattern. Read more

October 6

What Makes India Urban?
Challenges towards mobility, infrastructure, energy and perpetual change

Filed Under events | Leave a Comment

(All materials courtesy of Aedes am Pfefferberg)

s17M

The growing demand for dwellings is particularly challenging for urban designers and architects in dense Dubai (landscape)

s13M

Marine Drive Mumbai

Opening: Friday, 9 October 2009, 6.30 pm
Location: Aedes am Pfefferberg, Christinenstr. 18-19, 10119 Berlin
Duration: 9 October – 26 November 2009

An exhibition of Aedes East International Forum for Contemporary Architecture, non profit organisation. A project in the framework of the Asia-Pacific Weeks 2009 with this years’ focus on “Mobility and Energy”. The Asia-Pacific Weeks are supported by the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin (DKLB).

With Kuchipudi Dance Performance by Sudarsana Kumar, and
Indo German DJ/VJ set with B.L.O.T. from New Delhi & 22Rockets from Berlin Read more

September 30

Medellín Botanic Garden and Café del Bosque
by Ana Elvira Velez V. & Lorenzo Castro J.

Filed Under architecture, design | Leave a Comment


[Read the Italian version of this post]

esp
[Read the Spanish version of this post]

(Text and photos by Ana Elvira Velez V. & Lorenzo Castro J.)

Cafe_14

By converting its high border walls in a perimetral park, where the visitor can enjoy the Botanical Garden without entering it, we reclaimed the urban area surrounding it.
For this purpose the walls have been replaced by a carefully-designed skin-fencing allowing a 100% visibility inside the park and also, thanks to the geometry of the module that adapts to the different topological conditions. This new fencing thus contributes to the configuration and projection of the Garden’s image towards the city. Read more

June 18

Disappearing Milan. Aria, by Alberto Dedè

Filed Under arts, ideas | Leave a Comment

[Read the Italian version of this post]

(Text by Simona Galateo, video © Alberto Dedé)

Aria is a visual experiment first featured in the exhibition Dreaming Milano in the span of the Salone del Mobile week. Photographer Alberto Dedè’s project has the purpose of giving air form and materiality as a physical element, through the sequential assembling of a series of 17 images, shot in different days. Framing and point of view are the constant elements the project develops on. The video shows the disappearance of the city of Milan. The rapid condensation of the pollution, produced by the city, is here represented as a curtain, progressively denying the clear vision of the city and becoming the same subject of the visual field. Suddenly the air is a dense and heavy substance, it descends on the city with big quiet and measure, till it swallows the city completely with all its weight. For a little while, as in a bad nightmare or a subtle dream, it still remains a sort of tabula rasa. For a little while there’s the possibility to guess. What will follow? What could the signs for the future be? What kind of surprise will hide behind this white space? Read more

January 13

Worldwide Complaint City Choir

Filed Under arts, events | Leave a Comment

Screaming citizens of all towns, join your forces and sing your urban neuroses!
That’s basically the funny idea the finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kotcha/Kalleinen first organized in Birmingham in 2005. A Complaint Choir to give a – melodic and ironic – voice to the city dweller. Traffic jams, slowcoach-like public transport and lack of (cheap) amusement places can now be sung in a process of community involvement. From the businessman to the pensioner and the mother, everybody has the right at least to complain and usually something to complain about. Dozens of cities all around the world have already adhered and started their musical production and the complaint repertoires are exhilarating. Read more

 

You need to log in to vote

The blog owner requires users to be logged in to be able to vote for this post.

Alternatively, if you do not have an account yet you can create one here.

Powered by Vote It Up