design, architecture, urbanism… with a grain of salt

On the weekend I received this comment from Release in relation to an older post;

What the hell are you talking about when you say that giger’s alien, and lebbeus’ work are alike- while at the same time proclaiming that, that for some odd reason, you have ‘the eye’. I see this as total babbling. In Lebbeus’ work- he creates rigid forms, usually with recognizable sharp points, that seem to emerge randomly from a form at first, but are in harmoney. In Giger’s work that you showed here, there is a harmony that is clearly visible, with repeating shapes and design elements. If you are saying the two are similar, then any artist/designer’s work, whether modern or of old, are all similar.
For some reason, your statement pissed me off to no extent. On top of it all, you tried to pull the whole “i know what I’m talking about” deal.

On Sunday I took it upon myself to edit this blog and rid past posts of too much unjust self-proclamation and vague topics my experience doesn’t cover. I suppose it’s a remnant of starting any type of publication, it starts being interesting not when you put stuff in, but when you take the shit out. 

There is always going to be a few shit posts, and in all honesty I have to say I find the crisp sting of criticism leads to improvement. Though on criticism, in no way do I agree with Release’s deconstruction of the topic. It makes as much sense as my post did (none at all, that’s why its not up anymore) and he/she spelt harmony incorrectly. 

From now forward, I’ll try to stay within familiar territory.

In other news, Ten Commandments for Christian Bloggers has been released. I choose to stay neutral on this.

Barrio Venecia Bogotá on Flickr - Photo Sharing.

The view from Ned’s cafe looking across the small, frustrated line of traffic on Broadway.
The Nedlands Park Masonic Hall is beyond, in all it’s hard edged, deco glory. This building reminds me of the skyline of Gotham in the Batman comics.

A small taste of home for all those UWA ex-pats.

… Grain of salt just got mobile. Blogs are now coming from the road.

Currently in… Margeret river, it’s wet and cold and crisp.

This is more if a test you’ll have to put up with. When I find something Architecturally informative, I’ll post. Have a good weekend.

Dan: Is design everything?

K8: No, but everything is better with good design.

We would like you to think of these 5 questions. Only briefly, and answer by adding your answers in the comment section. You can remain anonymous. 

[Picture of Corb, painting nude. Sourced from http://www.gravestmor.com]

q1. What do you do, and did you study to get there?

q2. Is it what you want to do?

q3. What “designed thing” is most important to you? Do you need this thing to do what you do?

q4. Do you think design process matters? Is knowing the process important?

q5. If you were to buy something, do you think of the process before you buy it?

[Cutaway of the mouse, Sourced from wikipedia]

Very vague questions we know. So answer them however you want. If you need meaning for the questions to be relevant, make the meaning up.

I was  busy reading my Daily Dose of Architecture, and this passage appeared; 

“Architecture used to be about beauty. Now it’s just about money. What has changed? Well, everything, really, in three revolutions: social, theoretical, cultural. The social revolution occurred when democratic capitalism took money from the hands of a cultivated aristocracy and gave it first to the mercantile classes and then to the plebs (us). This fitted architecture with an entirely new client-class, which is really two classes — the developers who build, and the people who buy. Neither of them is especially interested in architecture, urbanism or the making of place.    

[...]The second revolution was, if not theory-led, at least theory-coated. In the mid-twentieth century, design-meisters Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius jointly marched architecture towards an engineering aesthetic of bare functionalism. That they did not practice their creed made their preachings no less effective, and led, inevitably, to a wholesale burning of the books. Which was the third revolution. The people are not the only ones who know what they like but can’t get there. In schools and academies across the planet, ignorance of the ancient (or indeed, modern) canons of beauty is profound. Which is not to argue that beauty as a rule thing. It’s more that old tenet that knowing the rules is especially essential for those who would break them.

The problem, therefore, is not just a lack of clients-with-taste-and-money, though that is real enough. It’s that the knowledge itself is no longer architecture’s dilly-bag. Beauty has become an embarrassment never to be discussed outside those inner-sanctum slide-nights when architects warm their hands against the tiny flame that flickers now at the profession’s core, blowing protectively on the coals lest the chill winds of commerce extinguish the flame forever.”  

- Elizabeth Farrelly in Blubberland (MIT Press, 2008)

If you would like to buy it, click on the link. Then read it. Then come back here and make a comment.  I’ve ordered the book. It appears that the author is an Australian. I look forward to reading it. One 5 star review has already been given on Amazon.  

daft punk.

[DAFT PUNK B&W. Alive 2007. Hedi Slimane - Beautiful Photos]

Amazing live show no doubt, people can’t fault it. Me included. They can put forth their opinion, and their skepticisms about if it is being played live (which it is by the way), but that is not criticism my dear skeptics. That is still opinion, and no one gives a shit. Listen to these words you masters of the airwaves at triple J. I noticed many of you were the ones pushing the doubt. Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter set out to put on a fantastic theatric experience. They spent time and money, and endless man hours formulating said theatric experience. They had a concept, they set out with this concept and developed it, all the way to implementation, and they succeeded. The people that worked on this show rival broadway production dammit. Can you imagine? Daft punk on broadway? Ha! They’d need to set up a permanent show!

[DAFT PUNK CLIP. Alive 2007. The bar has been raised yet again.]

But wait? Isn’t that just my opinion? Opinion rates as criticism too easily these days. Which is rubbish. Criticism loses its constructive nature when it becomes opinion. I’ll tread carefully from here onwards.

[DAFT PUNK B&W. Alive 2007. Hedi Slimane - Beautiful Photos]

Daft Punk weren’t there to rip it up improv. style. They wanted a show, a show they can take to numerous cities to wow the crowd and raise the bar they set all those years ago, when Homework was formulated in their spare time on some tinny Behringer mixers, some Moog Synths, non-de-script drum machines, samplers and some fuck off mad FM compression skills. That is why they remain at the top. Because they always raise the bar. They did early on, they do now.

Others in the Ed Banger crew come close, thanks to the brilliant leadership of Daft Punk’s old tour manager Pedro Winter (aka the busiests of P’s), but every time this French alliance moves higher, so does Daft Punk, and they have the capital now. Duos like Justice can only afford the cross they bare and 2 mad stacks of Marshall amps. Though I still reckon they’ve got the marbles. That song genesis just blows my mind.  As for the Aussies? Bah, a long way to go. A long long long way to go. 

history.

It is not uncommon for such theatrics to be associated with live performance. Just look up videos of Pink Floyd. They are the He-men of the theatric/music universe. Roger Waters still holds a hell of a show. Though Daft Punk would give them a run for their money in terms of the “art” of rock theatre. I’m talking about a 30 year difference in eras here though (here comes my opinion) the formula still rings true. It could only be the substances the crowd consumes dictating any change in the show. If we were all still blazed on acid I’m sure we all wouldn’t be dancing to this electro/rock/dance/disco infusion, we’d be standing there admiring the “post-whatever” thought process of some rock musician pushing the envelope. Deep down I’m sure every Daft Punk fan is in some ways a rock fan just wanting to dance. Busy P himself set out with the intent to make rockers dance. I think he pulled it off. 

[DAFT PUNK B&W. Alive 2007. Hedi Slimane - Beautiful Photos, courtesy of djredboy]

24 Hour Party people is a damn fine movie. I reckon if you view western music globally, that movie saves me from having to write about how 70’s punk/rock/psychedelic moved through to the late 90’s revival of dance. New Order had a lot to do with all this. This is a blog though not a book, so I’m not going to go into length.

Yes Daft Punk did tour in the 90’s. While the music world was still recovering from the Seattle grunge scene and the collective youth was taking the needle from its tracked up arm,  a new world order had started to evolve, led by a revival of sample based dance, and the Daft Boys had their finger right on the pulse. I’m not sure what their live show was like back then. I’ve watched some early Bangalter ripping it up on the decks and assume it wasn’t too far removed.

If someone wants to comment on this I’d appreciate it.

Anyway from early on, Daft Punk were about music and visual art being symbiotic. They did a few low budget clips with Homework, but then blew everyone away by teaming up with Leiji Matsumoto, a king amongst the Japanese anime community, for their second coming Discovery. Then Human After All has Electroma. These two art forms are transient and should be together. Like a fifth member of the band. The “lighting guy” should have an instrument that controls the lights and rock out on stage. The silent musician. The visual musician.

MTV defined music video as an industry at the turn of the 80’s. For some reason most bands still don’t get this though much to their demise. It drives me crazy (Hold the opinion Dan). A boring lifeless stage show is about as bad as a badly sound engineered stage show. Give us something to look at dammit! and give it meaning (Too late). 

perspective.

This symbiosis is essential to Daft Punk Alive 2007, and when you listen to their new live release you can’t help but imagine the depth and richness of the lighting. The whole package. The theatre. Watching it on youtube ruins the memory. Listening to the album imagining is amazing. Now where was I, that’s right I was standing somewhere in a mass of people, on a grassy knoll looking down at a stage through all the rich second hand tobacco smoke filtering from the lungs of some 20000 plus Melbournites.

Nothing beats a pitch black night and glorious cityscape as a background to watch such a spectacle, especially in Melbourne. Architecture and theatrics are closely entwined. Its all perspective, man. The whole Alive 2007 show was a flurry of light, stage smoke, and giant pyramid made of TV. You can imagine. Its best not to watch it too much on youtube. It jades the mind’s eye. I embedded a couple of clips anyway.

[DAFT PUNK CLIP. Alive 2007. Search Daft Punk on youtube.]

If I recall correctly there was about 3 layers of lighting all stacked on stage in front of each other, and  when  viewed from the audience gave great depth to the show. By altering lighting patterns on the triangular highly-spaced mesh hanging in the fore, the audience was sent into hyperspace down tron-esque landscapes. This was used for a good old fashioned game of snake in the encore too. How technologic!When this went dark and the over-sized pixillated back screen lit up with words colour and moving image it silhouetted the two leather clad controllers almost too perfectly.

 Imagine the facade of a building with this much depth? Imagine designing a building and taking a client to Daft Punk and saying, “This is what I want your building to do”. We designers could only dream. Dream they had a huge maintenance contingency in their management plan.

The third layer? The pyramid. The brain. Centre stage, coated in TV (TV is what I call the material. If it was made of brick, I’d call it brick.). When this transmitted images of moving through a gridded Euclidean landscape, the mesh that surrounded it started “perspecting”, destroying the notion of the TV frame and extending itself beyond, like 3D TV…almost. The images of faces in the encore were cool too. Images of faces synced to the beat, while on the back screen the word “together” scorched the retina. 

 I got to see the show in arguably Australia’s premiere outdoor amphitheatre, the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. This thing was recently polled as one of the top 25 Australian Modernist Works. The canvas underside to the enclosure had a slight reflectivity to it, which could annoy some, and captivate others.Enough said. Some stills are below with a link to Daft Punk’s myspace page.

Anyway, I hope I described it for you without too much bias. I tried but knowingly failed. It f&cken rocked. It blew my mind. Ahhhhhhhhh! So good, so good, so good! The bar is now so high, it’s literally light years ahead of the next generation. It’s going to take another 30 years for someone to take this crown.DJ

Daft Punks’s Myspace Page - Friends with many nice musicians

A blog on Hedi’s Images

 [DAFT PUNK more Hedi Slimane. The black and white ironically gives back a sense of imagination]

I like flicking through flickr. I also like flicking through photo sites like 1000 snaps and Picasa. Flickr is best, but really any will do. I just love photos.

Facebook is a waste of time as far as photos go, and even though most people use social networking, photography always is second place to the person taking the photos. Social networking is also a competitive industry. I mean its only time before Microsoft, Myspace and the other big guns want to reclaim market share, and what happens to your photos then? You’ll have to transfer them to yet another place, if they are even worth keeping. As far as storing them locally (by this I mean on your harddrive), well this is a passing fad. Who wants to keep your treasured memories on such a volatile piece of machinery like the computer?

So there is a place for photo sites, and I believe they offer more longevity to your memories than any other place both in the virtual or the physical realm. So with this, I’ll linke to some beautiful photos of some beautiful buildings from none other than flickr. The giant photo resource of the world wide web.

[Picture sourced from threecee via flickr.com]

[section sourced from arcspace.com, photography by Nic Lehoux]

[photo sourced from arcspace.com, photography by Nic Lehoux]

I was thinking of writing a critique on the above building. It is by the firm Morphosis if you don’t recognise it. Instead, I’ll link to the arcspace bio of the project, which I tend to agree with. Parts of the project begin to appear excessive. Folds in materials for the sake of making folds. In my opinion though the massing, intention behind the facade treatment and the proportion are spot on.

Below is a photo of the de Young Museum by Herzog and de Meuron. Again in San Francisco, a beautiful though slightly excessive example of facade… contrasted against the beautiful formal exercise which is the Guggenheim New York by FLW.

[Picture sourced from threecee via flickr.com]

[Picture sourced from threecee via flickr.com]

This article got me ticking. It really did. I loved it so much. You know that feeling where you read something and it clicks?

When an article clicks with me it just makes you want to read it again and again. You relate to the text, you relate to the author. Then you can’t stop thinking about it. You try, but you can’t.

The article in question is on LA. If you don’t know what article I’m talking about, the article is in this link. The author talks of his love for LA, for the isolation of it all, the futility of it all. I read the first few lines and started thinking, wtf? Why? and “hang on, this isn’t supposed to be a good thing”
I mean I’ve grown up in Perth. An Architect I used to work for, Tim Wright, not only loved LA, but used to refer to Perth as LA 40 years ago.

This is a pic of LA’s crap skyline. Look at the sprawl.

I’m sure I was of the opinion that growing up in such a disjointed city like Perth really sucks. I thought that everyone that lives in Perth loved the proximity and longed for the little bars and the alleyway culture of places like Melbourne and some traditional DENSE European cities? No? Yes?

The last week I’ve been agreeing with BLDGBLOG more and more and more (…and more). Sprawled cities are great. You get a car, fuel is cheap, we are on the coast. For instance, when it comes to surfing and there are no waves where you are, then fuck it. Hop in the car, and drive North. There is always waves north. Well, I’m not going into detail on this. BLDGBLOG already has. 

For weeks and weeks I’ve been speculating on if its such a good idea to kick start this little blog, this, social commentary if you will and after reading this article it sealed the deal. I’m on it, I’m starting and I’m not looking back.