gehry and gaga

In a recent performance at the MoCA in LA, Lady Gaga linked together several different forms of art to create her own little gesamtkunstwerk (hi Ting!)  Her hat was designed by Frank Gehry, mask by filmmaker Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin, and costumes by Vezzoli and Prada.  She also played a piano painted by Damien Hirst while accompanied by dancers from the Bolshoi Ballet.

More info:

http://gagadaily.com/2009/11/lady-gaga-performs-at-the-moca-gala/

-Maddie

New Foundations

Architecture TED Talks

 

-Kendra

The Invisible Man

i stumbled upon this artist this afternoon and thought that it was really interested and figured id share it. Take a gander.

Here’s a link to the site http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#1ltPoj/v1kram.posterous.com/liu-bolinthe-invisible-man/ 

- Joe Colarusso

photosynthing

Blaise Aguera y Arcas is an architect at Microsoft that creates a program to hyperlink every associative image on the web to merge into amazing 3D visual space of the particular subject of the images.

http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html

Jensen

Tree Frog

Wow, look at these tree frogs.

Architecture in the Country

Check out the architecture we all know in this music video.

-Kendra

Parish Church of Santa Monica

This was the church I was talking about earlier last week and today. Just another example of architecture that incorporates light modulators into its design.

by Vicens and Ramos

-Johnson Pun

“Challenging Glass”

Hey everybody! Richman here. I was Internetting last night and stumbled upon a 600-page treatise on structural engineering for avant-garde uses of glass, available in almost full version for free from Google Books.

short link here

This link brings you to a page where instances of the word “Pavilion” are highlighted, but click on any of them and you’ll be brought to the entire document.

The full title is “Challenging Glass: Conference on Structural and Architectural Applications of Glass.” Included are professional reports about the engineering of the Apple Stores, some of Norman Foster’s buildings, a university campus pavilion in Basel, Switzerland, some Herzog and de Meuron buildings, and so forth. Hope it inspires you!

Richman

Different Glass Types

This is a site that has different glass types for sale. They come in different styles and the website has pictures with examples of how they have different effects.

http://www.decorativefilm.com/index.asp?c=13313

Hope this helps!

Sandra

Nomiya Temporary Restaurant by Pascal Grasso

Hey guys, I just saw this on Dezeen.com and thought that it kind of has to do with our next project. It’s a temporary restauraunt by Pascal Grasso. It consists of a glass cabin with a metal screen covering the center. There are also colored LED lights between the glass and the metal shell.

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/09/11/nomiya-temporary-restaurant-by-pascal-grasso/

Enjoy!

Anna

Carnegie Museums

Check out the new exhibit, Palm Springs Modern: Photographs by Julius Shulman, at the Heinz Architectural Center. It opens next Saturday, September 19th, and runs until January 31, 2010.

Palm Springs Modern exhibit

Shutter House

I came across this on archdaily just now and decided to post it because we’re all workin on the light modulator project. Its a shutter house designed by Shigeru Ban. Thought it would be interesting to show some examples of light modulators in current architecture. anyone know of other buildings that incorporate light modulators?

On this building, Shigeru Ban once again innovates on the material use by incorporating motorized perforated metal shutters on its -dynamic- facade, which act as light-modulating privacy screen at the outer edge of each residence’s terrace adjacent to the double-height living rooms.

http://www.archdaily.com/3102/metal-shutter-houses-shigeru-ban/

-Johnson

SkyscraperPage Forum

A friend pointed this site out to me this summer; you can follow architecture in particular cities.

-Kendra

Assorted Architecture

I originally intended to keep up with the blog and create posts as I went places this summer, but ended up getting caught up in whatever was going on at the time. So here are my recent observations in one epic post:

In May, I took a drive to Mercersburg Academy which is a prep school in southern PA (1,2,3). I wanted to see how it was different from the boarding school I attended in high school (4,5) since it has a much longer history than my own school. Though there are a few outcasts, many of the buildings on the campus are built in the Gothic style. I was interested in seeing how newer buildings on the campus were adapted to fit the overall theme. The second image is obviously that of a newer building. While it is clear that it stands apart from the other buildings, it still seems to “fit” within the group. Its steep peaks resemble pointed arches found in some of the other buildings and its use of stone is utilized to carry through the same central theme.

1. Mercersburg Academy

2. Mercersburg Academy

3. Mercersburg Academy

4. My campus

5. My campus

Next up, I checked out the Washington National Cathedral (6) which was beautiful but I had been told beforehand it was marvelous so I think I had envisioned something that might rival Milan’s duomo (7) I saw the year before. An interesting bit of info though: the sculpture incorporated into the central portal is named “Ex Nihilo”, meaning out of nothing. It portrays eight humans emerging from nothingness. A few days later, I saw a replica of this sculpture while I was visiting a friend at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. The replica is installed on a wall in Belmont’s athletic center!

6. Washington National Cathedral

7. Milan's duomo

While there, I also visited Nashville’s Parthenon (8,9), a full-scale replica of the actual, in Centennial Park. While being blown away at the scale of it and feeling so tiny next to the columns and having to clamber up the steep steps, I imagine its setting creates a completely different feeling than the one in Athens does. I imagine the Parthenon in Athens seems even grander since it overlooks the city. You can use the people in the first image to get an idea of the scale.

8. Nashville's Parthenon

9. Nashville's Parthenon

While travelling to and from Nashville I started to develop some theories I had brainstormed about several months before. I went to Chicago in mid-February and viewed the city from the Sears Tower (10). I could see for miles, and for all the miles I could distinguish the routes people used to commute. Heavily used routes were bold and more brightly lit and those that were secondary were less-bright. My plane to Nashville was delayed over and over again so I arrived in the middle of the night. As I flew over Tennessee I was amazed at how I could see the little cities clustered here and there over the earth. Within those clusters I coud again see the routes that people drove and I could also see the little cars making their way through their commute. So this made me think more about traffic and the routes I take everyday when I am driving at home. My town has many one-way streets and many many detours. It is exciting  for me to think about where I plan to go when I drive and consider the many different routes I can take to get to my destination. Sometimes I will pick one route because it takes the least amount of time, I will pick another because it will be the drive where I encounter the least amount of other cars, I will pick another route because it is the most fun/challenging to drive. These routes say a lot about the city I live in, its landscape, and a study of its population and activity which are all things that architects must take into account. Imagine if all the roads had lanes going both directions and never veered off to take you a different way. The way I travel and go about my day would be changed completely because of the new access. It’s hard for me to even imagine my town like this and I know that if I were given such freedom I wouldn’t know how to get anywhere if this freedom were granted overnight. I would find myself taking my old routes because it would require a lot of energy to come up with a different route. I would have to think about it and consciously change my ways.

10. Chicago city plan

I’ve spent my summer in Pittsburgh and I’ve come to believe that too many people underestimate the city and don’t give it enough credit. Pittsburgh is a great place and it has a lot to offer. I’ve had a lot of fun and I’ve seen so many interesting things so far. I took a walk to Chatham to see Richard Meier’s Giovannitti House (11) and the house behind it rumored to be designed by Robert Venturi (anyone know if this is true?).

11. Giovannitti House

Another day I went downtown to the Pennsylvanian (12); it was a very enchanting place to be in.

12. Pennsylvanian

I went for breakfast one day and ended up taking a long way back. From Shadyside I walked to East Liberty and explored the East Liberty Presbyterian Church (13,14). It has an amazing organ and some really beautiful stained glass (14).

13. East Liberty Presbyterian Church

14. East Liberty Presbyterian Church

Then I walked down the street and noticed this building on the corner of Baum Blvd and Beatty Sq. I tried to figure out what it was just by looking at it and some friends I was with thought it might be a place of worship or an old train station. I was unpleasantly surprised to find out it was converted into a AAA center. I went in and was amazed by it’s interior structure (15,16). It was like I was looking at a skeleton. A lot of effort goes into hiding the structure in most buildings. I snapped a few photos before being kicked out of the place and hope to go back at some point. It’s structure really reminds me of a photo I took during final reviews of a snowflake on a windowsill (17). It looks delicate, but at the same time it is very determined in its form. Sort of relates to Danny’s post , Nature as System, about the lake water and biomimicry.

15. AAA building

16. AAA building

17. Snowflake

This weekend I visited Wright’s Fallingwater (18,19,20) and Kentuck Knob (21,22). I visited both once before when I was in high school. At the time I was really excited to see them both but I wasn’t very impressed after my tours. I felt it was a novel experience. Now, I’m really glad I went back to see them both after being in school for a year. They had more meaning, seeing them the second time. I could see more in both of the works; I could see how spaces and shapes were derived and how the architecture was manipulated to create an experience for whoever would live in the houses. Tiny details brought the projects together to create a continuity. Thumbs up. It was a really great experience to have the opportunity to go back and rediscover these things. I also had a great tour guide which helps (that’s her in the center of image 19). It was also a strange feeling to be able to snap the photo for myself that you always see when you think of Fallingwater (18). Even stranger was being able to see the project from all different angles and perspectives. It was almost like seeing a completely different work since you get so used to seeing it from that specific angle that all the books portray.

18. Fallingwater

19. Fallingwater

20. Fallingwater

21. Kentuck Knob

-Kendra

Dom Tower

Hey everyone,
Hope everyone’s summer is going well. I wanted to post a little bit about a cathedral tower i visited in Utrecht during my trip to Europe. The Dom Tower is the tallest church tower in the Netherlands. Built in the 1300s, this Gothic styled tower was to be the focal point of the city. Attached to the Dom Tower was the Cathedral of St. Martin.
But because of unfinished construction in 1674, the unfinished nave collapsed and set the tower apart from the cathedral. I went on this tour which takes you up the entire tower consisting of 465 steps. Throughout the tower, there were several atriums for the members of the church and a room where they housed the bells that are still rung today by the Utrecht Klokkenluiders Gilde.

Near the top, we reached the grand carillon, a huge wooden structure that houses a series of bells strung onto keys which play like a piano. Unfortunately, the carillon had been broken for a few weeks so we weren’t allowed to see or hear it in action.

After reaching the top, the view of Utrecht and the Netherlands was breathtaking. Besides the amazing view, I took notice to the pattern and system of the surrounding land. This view was an incredible way to understand why the buildings and houses were positioned the way they were. It showed distinctive patterns and circulations around what was probably viewed as essential elements to the city. Here are a few photo merged shots in which i hope to have captured at least a little bit of the city pattern.