The photography of Martin Parr

I really like the humorous, tongue-in-cheek approach that Martin Parr has to documentary photography. He shoots ordinary - whether it's about tourism, consumerism, contemporary living or what not - scenes in such a way that makes you want to feel uncomfortable, and fascinated at the same time. Like in the books "bored couples book" (see image above), or "think of england" (below). Or in many of his other books, for that matter.

And the cool thing is that, on his website martinparr.com, you can browse through a great part of his books. It's all so british (in style and content), and yet very universal. Satire without trying. Compelling by keeping a distance. Fascinating by being normal.

A different perspective

I know that I should definitely stop mentioning the Euro 2008 football championship. And I'm sure that I would have stayed off the subject if I hadn't heard about this brilliant feature by Eurosport and Yahoo, called "Virtual Replays". You can watch every single goal from Euro 2008 from a bunch of different perspectives. But the most brilliant thing about it is that you can actually see the goals from the perspective of some of the players involved. My favorite ones: well, probably either the goal by Arjen Robben (Netherlands) against France, seen through his eyes. Or the goal by Nihat (Turkey) against Czech Republic, as seen through the eyes of the Czech goalkeeper? Anyway, it's really nice to have such a feature at hand that really takes advantage of computational powers available.

Writing on the wall revisited

So, yeah, I've written about this subject before, in a post called "writing on the wall". But recently, I've came across some texts scattered across walls, that are just to brilliant to pass up.



The top image was found on Eyeteeth, the bottom one on Hardcopy.

Fantasy architecture league

New York Magazine has remodeled itself into the client that most architects dream of: the one that doesn't pose any restrictions, but gives the designer freedom to do whatever they'd like to.

Well, that's almost true: they invited four architects to make plans for an empty lot in downtown New York. The rules were simple, and I quote "We required only that the result include a residential component and that it more or less meet zoning requirements."

It's nice to see the different approaches the invited architects took. Flank, for instance, came up with a concept to make affordable, middle class housing in this area - a type of dwellings that is not that well represented in the urban tissue of the area. Flank came up with a design, in which a corporate logo is integrated into the facade of the building. But it's not just a building with a billboard on the side of it - the billboard is fragmented to ensure that it's highly visible from a little distance, without interfering with the quality of the appartment as such.

But, if I were to decide which design should be built (if any of it would actually be built in the future), I'd definitely go with the proposal of Work AC, called The Locavore Fantasia. They went for a snazzy appartment building, with anurban farm on top. The whole is stretched to get a potential for maximizing farmland in the city - creating shorter lines of transportation, closer contact with nature, and all the other advantages of urban agriculture. The building is devised to have different crops on each floor. It might not only be urban agriculture, the building would also have potential for more recreational used green sites, such as golf courses, for instance. Also, art in the public realm is included in the proposal: the columns supporting the building (and leaning it to face towards the sun) are commisioned by artists. In the rather cute, Sim City-styled presentation drawing, they used a Brancusi to support the entire building...

Sculpting yet another museum

The Guggenheim Museum is a brand. It's a world-wide concept of museums. It doesn't even matter that much what is on display, it's about the brand of the museum. And a big part of the the branding exercise has to do with spectacular architecture. For instance, the Guggenheim in Bilbao is world-renowned, but that's mostly because of the spectacular building by Frank Gehry. Probably, more people know the building than the items on display. And the concept is expanding ever more, all over the globe. The latest addition is a plan for a new Guggenheim Museum in Vilnius (Lithuania).

Well, maybe calling it "a plan for a new museum is stretching the truth a bit. There has been a feasibility study for the establishment of a new museum in Vilnius, in a joint project by the Guggenheim Foundation and the Hermitage Museum. And as those things go: the organisation went for big shot, famous architects to come up with an awe-inspiring, iconic building. So they commissioned Libeskind, Fuksas and Hadid for this museum building. And the three of them came up with signature, impressive icons. Libeskind strayed from his regular "stacking boxes in a faux symbolic language", Fuksas went for a rather becoming "contemporary plastic-looking blobby animal", and Hadid... well, she just did the same as always. Organic, dynamic structures, very elegant with odd-shaped windows. I can understand why she won this competition. And I'm sure that it'll be an amazing building, if built.
But the thing is - and I never ever thought that I would say this - it's so damn safe! It's not so much a signature, it's just more of the same. Sure, it's spectacular and beautiful, but it's not that refreshing anymore. I've seen Hadid do this multiple times before. Not to mention the groups of followers and copiers who are doing lesser versions of this kind of stuff.

So, just for novelty sake, I'd rather have seen the proposal of Fuksas being built. It's slightly over the top, it's less elegant (and possibly less iconic), but it would've been a new direction. I'm not sure whether it would've been better, but any kind of experiment has the potential of failure in it. And I just applaud experiment - which the proposal by Hadid clearly isn't...





All the images are from The Architects' Journal

[C]space

For the 10th anniversary of the AA's Design Research Laboratory, a competition was held for a small pavillion to be erected on Bedford Square in London. The competition was open to all students and graduates of the DRL - and more or less the only given was that the competitors should make innovative use of Fibre C (glass fibre reinforced concrete).

And the design that won the competition (designed by the architects Alan Dempsey and Alvin Huang) does just what one would expect from a competition entry by someone from the AA: it's all computer graphics, double curved, and smooth rendered elegant shape. Sure, there's a bit more to it, but I could never really been bothered with this kind of spectacular architecture for the sake of it. It means nothing, it just looks good...

I couldn't be bothered until I saw that the project is actually under construction. The two designers set up a blog about the project, on which they document the entire production. And I must say: in reality it looks amazing. It's still just showing off, but it's really beautifully done - one can just see that the architects pushed themselves as far as they could to realize the qualities of the virtual image. Just lovely.

It's all in the details...

I'm pretty sure that it isn't exactly what Mies v.d. Rohe was talking about when he said "God is in the detail", but this advertisements clearly show what a difference a detail can make. A detail in personal experience, that is. I found this advertisement for the Belgium optician Oogmerk via hardcopy, who got it, in turn, from what some would call lies.

Atmospheric renders

The noble art of rendering for architectural projects always seemed to steer towards a more and more photorealistic style. And quite likely, this result is closer than ever with the development in software-land. Even people that are not that skilled are able to compose a pretty decent 3d-image (for instance by mixing 3D Studio and Photoshop).

But again, there are people out there that take rendering images to a whole new level. Like the people of the French firmLuxigon. It's not about photorealism per se, but more about a poetic touch to convey the inherent characteristics of the project involved. You can compare it with "normal" photography: you could either choose to frame the reality as objective as possible, or to paint reality the way you perceive it. I simply love the slightly gloomy, but very atmospheric images that Luxigon produces.

The kitch copy machine

So far I thought that the Japanese held the illustre title as biggest copy cats in the world. I mean, after all, they are the ones that rebuilt some highlights of the 17th century dutch built culture as a theme park called "Huis ten Bosch".

But they have been beaten at their game by some people in Dubai, BLDGBLOG informs us. The French city of Lyon actually signed a licensing deal for 685 millions, so that a replica of a part of the city of Lyons will be built somewhere in the desert. The resulting hyper-city, that will actually have the identity of both Dubai and Lyons, and at the same time of neither of them, will be called Lyons-Dubai City, and "will cover an area of about 700 acres, roughly the size of the Latin Quarter of Paris, and will contain the university, a hotel school, a film library, subsidiaries of Lyon museums and a football training center run by Olympique Lyonnais."

And even though I'm the first to admit that Lyon is a charming city, this raises the question: why did they pick Lyon for this deal? Will everything be built the same, even the interiors, the bathrooms and all that, even if the people from Dubai probably want different standards as the French? And more importanty: can a city actually sell itself as a franchise?

This hyper-reality that mixes both realities, to make a overlaying new patchwork-identity of different semantical meanings is so insane, that I love it.

bush library

It's a tradition that every departing US president gets to erect his own library for his legacy. Whatever that might be. It's pretty much final that the New York-based architect Robert Stern gets the job, as the Austin American Statesman writes in the article "good enough for Mickey Mouse, good enough for Bush".

I cannot really be bothered to care about this. First of all, I'm pretty sure that the library building will be un-original, un-spectacular and un-interesting (because of both the architect and the president involved), but also because I think that Bush is a disaster dressed up as president, and I suppose his legacy is right up that alley.

Basically, I couldn't be bothered about the entire thing. Until I found that a magazine called "The Chronicle of Higher Education" came with counter-proposals for the libary, in what they called the back-of-the-envelope-design contest: they asked their readers to submit ideas (literally as proposals sketched on the back of an envelope). And some of them were really funny: some play on the irony of the connection "Bush" and "library", some refer to his bad reputation as a cowboy-cum-president, and some just sarcastically insinuate that the guy is a moron. I especially enjoy the "library and fun ranch" proposal. It would definitely fit the Bush-administration better than a classical library.

Photoshop disasters

I think it happened to the best of us at one time another: a fluky photoshop. Becasue of the time pressure of a deadline, or just a lack of concentration, things might go wrong in an image that you are working on in photoshop. Most of the times it goes unnoticed, but every once in a while a small error pops into prominent view.

And now: there's a weblog to have some fun with those mistakes, aptly called "Photoshop Disasters". And it has some nice examples of Playboy magazine went all out on a frenzy with the cloning tool... and made the poor girls' bellybutton dissapear...

The morality of computer generated content

Last week I was talking with some collegues about those little jokes in models. For instance, in one model there are sharks in the marina. In another there's a tank parked in the parking garage. In jet another, there's a scale figure of a secretary having sex with her scale figure boss. If you don't know it, you probably can't see it. It's those little jokes that keep the model making fun for the people working on it.

In the same way, In a lot of my photoshop-collages ended up starring friends, teachers or celebrities. It's those little uses of ironic references that are basically for the joy of the designer - without adding too much to the story.

On the other hand, there's the inclusion of characters in architectural drawings that have an actual moral meaning. Take for instant the bakers' cart that appears in many of Jaap Bakema's drawings. It seemed to imply that the traditional social coherence of neighborhood life would still remain in his large scale building proposals. (note: this is not my analysis, but it's from the book "Mart Stam's Trousers" by Crimson).

So last week, I received an e-mail from Andrew from The Worst of Perth, about a post on their blog about the weird, apparently crotchless, semi-naked people in the billboard containing a rendering of the “Map of Tassie” on James Street Northbridge in Perth (Australia). I've posted the images here. The question is: what the hell is going on in these images? It looks like the building is populated with creepy Marilyn Manson-lookalikes. But what does that mean? I'm going to assume that it's not a moral or ethical position about the people that will be living there. It was probably the work of a render that didn't want to go all out on photoshopping the building - and just inserted some general computer-generated content.



That leads to the question: why on earth would somebody do that? No wait, I think I know that one: it's quicker. But why would anybody make a figure like this in the first place? My guess is that the designer of the characters went for a "neutral" look. But the rendering program made those "neutral" people look all creepy and naked.
And since those billboards for new buildings are all about giving off the right atmosphere and positive vibe (even the most dready buildings look like fun, the gardens are always green, the sun is always shining, the people are always smiling) - I doubt that this is the right vibe for this building. You might even argue that it's better to refrain from using people in your renderings if it ends up looking as like this. Or better yet: as long as computer generated content looks like this, I think it's wise to use other kinds of images for the foreground or the visualizations.

And for all the people that assume that those people are naked, with a darker spot in the crotch-area: you have a filthy mind! On the other hand: I think it inspired me to put some naked porn-stars in the back of my next rendering for a competition area. If smiling people give jurors a positive vibe of the project, I bet that naked smiling (albeit well-hidden) people give off the subliminal message that makes people love the building...

The Illuminati

I think everybody with a SLR camera has, at one time or another, tried to play with the shutter speed of the camera a bit. And maybe, if lucky, one would've ended up with pictures of nice light traces from the lights of passing cars.

Well, Lichtfaktor has taken this form of photography to a whole new level. With the aid of different kinds of lighting tools (flashlights, LED-lights, fireworks and so on) they found a way to make a new kind of graffiti with light, which looks really great. If you look closely, you might see a glimpse of a moving person in the image, but mostly the pictures look like a graffiti-style painting with light. It's great to see abstract curvy shapes, or a phone booth wrapped in light. But I am especially intrigued by the robots. At one time, the big ben looks like a attacking (but clumsy) creature from outer space. Or a garbage bin that, by some relatively simple illuminated gestures, turns into a poor man's R2D2. Of course, there are plenty more great images on the site of Lichtfaktor, and there's probably more to come. It's great to see what a good eye for a projected lightscape and some well-coordinated lights can do.

Urban camouflage

When you think of camouflage, what do you think of? Quite likely, you'll be thinking of the classic army look, with different brownish spots. Or about animal camouflage: tiger stripes, cameleons and such.
But how does one camouflage himself in a more urban context? This is exactly what artist Desiree Palmen seems to pose as a question: how can people dissapear against a more "contemporary" background? Well, the answer is: by means of manipulated clothing. It can be a suit painted as a perspective of a bookshelf, or a shirt that is transformed into a heap of papers lying on a table. As a viewer, you just have to imagine: what would happen if you'd move one step away from the perfect perspective from which the camouflage is correct?

Likely, Palmen tries to express her fear for the ever-increasing camera control, monitoring, cross-medialization of the public domain and such with her work. Is it subversive? Not that much - but it's a means to get people to start thinking about what they take for granted: we are all under continual control...

I found this project on boingboing.net

Cumulus Building

It might be that I'm too much of an outsider of the architectural scene of New Zealand. But looking at it on a global scale: there's not a whole lot of fresh and exciting architectural work coming from that country.

That doesn't mean that the country doesn't bring anything forth worth of architectural acknowledgement. For instance, there's the cumulus building by Patterson Associates. In itself, it is a rather simple commercial construction of eight boutiques around an internal courtyard. But it's really the facade that makes this building into something special. One could've guessed it by the name: the word "cumulus" refers to a bright white cloud formation. That's a referral to the term "Aotearoa", the Maori name for New Zealand, meaning as much as "the land of the long white cloud", making this term a direct visual inspiration.

The "cloud" of this building appears to exist out of a crisp cloth, but is in fact made out of concrete. The pattern relates to "Siapo", the traditional pacific tapa cloth. All in all, it might seem a bit literal and superficial, but the result is spectacular.

52N 4E - Google Earth (6)

A little bit south of the city centre of Den Haag (The Hague) in the Netherlands lies a pretty non-descript housing area. Nothing noteworthy, to write about, one might say. True. True. But not in google earth. Just zoom in on the corner of the Westenbergstraat and the Boekhorststraat. What appears to be a normal housing area is, in fact, an area with a pretty remarkable solution for parking: some smart engineers probably found an impressive way to turn off gravity, so that cars can park on the side of buildings. It's either that, or a funnily stitched picture...

Sleeveface

Sleevefacing is, according to the website sleeveface.com: "one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion." Well, that basically says it all: pictures of people with record sleeves in front of their faces and such. Oddly enough, it is quite fascinating to see the interplay of two photographed realities - even though it tends to come close to the kitsch holiday snapshots of people holding the Eiffel tower on their hands and such...


Other than the aforementioned website, flickr.com is a great source for sleevefaced images, too...

Deep Ascii - or Ascii throat?

Well, I'm not going to explain exactly what Ascii is. Simply because I'm not a real computer-geek. I have no idea what codes are, what a computer language does etcetera. Even though I don't understand the programming behind it, I'd like to say hats off to the people of Ascii Art Ensemble for making an ASCII conversion of the godmother of all porn movies: Deep Throat. Behold: Deep-ASCII. By the way, if this happens to actually turn you on, you need to step away from your computer...

architecture TV

It is pretty much an impossible task to get to see all the interesting buildings over the world live. For those of us that don't happen to have an unlimited amount of airmiles: thank god for 0300.TV. This website has a pretty impressive amount of videos of architectural walkthroughs. Unfortunately, the descriptions are only in Spanish (making navigation a bit challenging, to say the least), but the videos surely do make up for that. It doesn't beat the real thing, but still it's great to sit behind your computer at home and virtually walk through a building in China. Or Buenos Aires. Or somewhere else in the world...

A fashionable memorial

At the unveiling of the memorial at the Judenplatz in Vienna, Simon Wiesenthal allegedly said that "This monument shouldn't be beautiful, it must hurt." The monument was designed by Rachel Whiteread to portray the horrors of the holocaust. The inverted bookshelves - engraved with words stating that the monument was meant to commemorate the 65.000 Austrian Jews who were killed during the second world war.

But this didn't stop the high-end fashion brand Don Gil from using this memorial as part of a fashion campaign. The photos show a young, beautiful male model, casually leaning against the monument. The monument isn't depicted as a monument, but as a clean and smooth background for an advertisement. Oddly enough, there wasn't too much discussion about this. True, the Viennese Jewish Committee made some fuss about it, and as a reaction Don Gil took the images from their website. They still distribute the magazine in which it is published, though. It's a clear indictation of the impotence of monuments as such. If people don't see the meaning, they just see a beautiful image, to use for whatever purpose they see fit...


I found this case thanks to An-architecture.com.