Treasure in Paris
I recently attended the conference for Hands On! Europe – the children’s museum association of Europe. This was the second of their conferences I have attended and it was wonderful and challenging. I am always humbled by meeting with a group of folks who have managed to learn multiple languages in their lives (among the many things that humble me!).
Leaving aside the conference for the moment – maybe more on that in a later post – I want to write a few words about the spectacular museum moment of my trip. For some years I’ve wanted to visit the Museum National D’Histoire Naturelle and I took the opportunity of being in Paris to do just that.
My wife had to pry me away after three hours of my open-mouthed gawking. What a wonderful museum! It is among the most beautiful museums I have ever visited. Bar none.
After almost 20 years since the central installation was complete, it is beginning to show its age. If they are smart, they will simply assemble as much of the original team as can be found to minimally spruce it up. Every decision was elegant, economical, and beautiful. The designers applied a deeply respectful sense of play in assembling the menagerie. Very little is behind glass, most of the collection occupies the same space as the visitors with only the slimmest of barriers between them. One has the feeling walking among God’s wonders, how much a part of this group we are.
The masterfully mounted taxidermy specimens vie for attention with the fossil or skeletal specimens. Because the visitor can look them all in the eye, so to speak, it is more a relationship across time and species than I am used to. Rather than make me uncomfortable, it was profoundly reassuring.
Visit this museum! It’s worth the transatlantic voyage!
High Tension Towers
I love electrical high tension towers. How many times have you looked past these hulking behemoths while driving down the New Jersey Turnpike, through Boston’s industrial outskirts, near Gary, Indiana’s old steel furnaces? OK, how many of you have been to Gary?
While designing the Morris Arboretum’s tree canopy walk (sorry I am not finished writing about this) I was looking for a visual inspiration for its towers. I started with the incredible geometry of these pylons. Triangles dominate and resonate throughout. Large and small. The cables that fly over your head not only transmit power across the sky, they also provide stability. All the towers act as a piece, holding each other up. See how transparent and lace-like they are. The structural components are paper thin angles that make huge three dimensional trusses in the
sky.
And the towers vary by the installation, each set with their own character, marching to the horizon.
Architizer, A New Social Network for Architects, Launches Online
Yesterday, a new social network for Architects, Architezer, launched. While the site is still in its infancy, it shows real promise – highlighting architects, firms, upcoming competitions, and job openings throughout the world.
The need for architects to display their work in a sanctioned environment could lead to something very successful. I see Architizer beginning where Coroflot left off.
Read more about the site and its launch at Metropolis Magazine.
What do you think about a social network dedicated to Architects? Is it a much needed addition to the industry or just another clutter-filled website?
Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg
I was just in St. Petersburg, Florida, as a guest speaker at the Industrial Perforators Association annual meeting. Great people. We work a lot with perforated metal in our projects.
We visited the Salvador Dali Museum there—an unlikely location for this impressive collection of this artist’s work. Apparently, the Morse family of Ohio collected his work and at some point ran out of space for the collection. They made a national request for a home for this sizable collection. St. Pete stepped forward with a home. They are now building a new and larger building for it—also downtown.
I was most impressed by Dali’s later work. Everyone knows his earlier surrealistic work with the dripping clocks, sliced eye and ants in a flesh wound. Less familiar are his canvases from the ‘60’s onward.
The Persistence of Memory - Salvador Dali
They brought me back to a sensibility of a time that I had forgotten. His work from this era is large, bold, experimental, spiritual and hallucinogenic (I kept wondering what drugs he was using). Like all painters, he was obsessed with perception and in his case, content. His work is also incredibly accessible as it is painterly, figural and full of references to popular culture.
We loved understanding the stories behind the canvasses—a lunar landing mixed with Columbus’ discovery of the New World, mediated by the invasion of Spain by the French via the excesses of Club Med. (I am not kidding).
Discovery of America - Salvador Dali
Multiple portraits of his muse and wife, Gala that turn into a portrait of Abe Lincoln when you squint at the canvass from 16 meters.
Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea - Salvador Dali
Multiple images of the famous statue of Venus de Milo become a symbol of Spanish culture as embodied in an ethereal portrait of a bullfighter and bull in a bullfighting ring once you stare at them. They echo de Chirico’s lonely architectural landscapes . WOW! What a show.
Hallucinogenic Toreador - Salvador Dali
Apparently, Dali collaborated with many others. Soon to come is the 2010 release of Dali’s animated collaboration with Walt Disney. This project was “lost” and never released. Can’t wait.
More Press for Out on a Limb Tree Adventure at the Morris Arboretum
The amount of local press received for Out on a Limb Tree Adventure at the Morris Arboretum has been spectacular. We never tire of the news segments, newspaper columns and magazine articles highlighting our recent project. At the risk of blogging too much about the project, we want to share a recent news segment displaying the Canopy Walk in the condition it was designed for: chock-full of playing children!
iPhone Apps Appealing to Architects and Designers
The New York Times City Room blogged today about a new iPhone app that presents Manhattan as it never was: Museum of The Phantom City. As you travel past highlighted locations, your GPS signals to the App to display what site would look like if the architects had their way. Basically, the New York that never came to fruition.
Some in our office have the iPhone, others wish for it, and some didn’t drink the Kool-Aid. But, this type of feature makes it hard to avoid the fact that Apps have the capability of speaking to a broad audience with acutely specific interests, like architects and designers.
This led me to ask the question, “what other architecture Apps are out there today?”
I performed a quick search and found three more winners:
I.D. Wood: a reference App with 60 samples of different types of exotic and common woods from around the world.
Sherwin Williams ColorSnap™ and Benjamin Moore Color Capture™ : Apps that allow users to take a picture with their phone’s camera, highlight a color within the picture, and the applications will match the color with several options from their color libraries.
Are there any more Apps we can add to this list?
Age of Aquarius?
I have been at times identified as a cynic. I get squirmy at the end of my yoga class (yes a cynic who practices yoga) when we are asked to get all “thankful” and introspective in public. My yoga teacher started talking earlier this year about the coming of the “Age of Aquarius,” an alignment of the stars and planets, indicating that a massive shift in our world is coming, etc.
While I don’t particularly buy that scenario, over the last year I have been shocked how much IS changing. Perhaps for the better. A new promising president, and all that. I am a fan of his.
But at another level, attitudes are changing in this country around our impact in the world, the insanity of our culture of waste, teaching and projecting optimism to our children’s futures through responsible use of what we have.
It feels like the 70’s all over again, except that this time, there is more power, knowledge and desperation behind it.
In my industry, architecture, it seems like we woke up this year, and became green, seriously. The cynic in me thought it was merely smart positioning in this economy. But now, about half of us seem to have awakened to understand how interrelated we are.
What was a new idea last year seems obvious this year.
Draft Master Plan for the Spring Garden Greenway Unveiled This Thursday
Voice your opinion this Thursday, Sep 24, when the draft Master Plan for the Spring Garden Greenway is presented to the public.
Some improvements include more trees, fixing street lights, adding a public park along the waterfront, and inviting interesting architecture throughout the area. You can view the entire interactive map highlighting all the improvements here: Interactive Map
Learn more at Interface-Studio, and in case you just can’t get enough of the Greenway talk, read the article published in The Star on August 9th, 2009: Residents eye improvements for Spring Garden
Time: 7PM, Location: NLNA office, 3rd & Fairmount
So Much for Perceptions
I.
I’m walking down the street on a gray February afternoon and I’m in full urban protective gear. I’m referring to emotional gear in this case. A dozen or so yards ahead is a woman, maybe in her late 50s, although a hard life on the streets could put her in her 30s. She is walking and yammering away at herself and I gird my loins for an encounter with yet another damaged soul. As we approach each other, no more than 10 feet apart, I slip on a patch of ice. Not a full face-plant, but a solid stumble, catching myself awkwardly. The woman immediately stops her out-loud interior dialogue to say, “Oh, be careful sweetheart, I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” And we pass each other with nothing more said.
II.
I’m standing on the corner with my bike, waiting for a friend with whom I will ride on a glorious spring morning. Approaching me is a young man in his 20s riding a total clatter-trap of a bike. He looks like he’s had a tough night, weaving a bit as he rides. I hear myself judging this guy with an only slightly more generous thought than, “what a loser.” He pulls along side and says, “You OK, dude? You need any help?”
III.
I am taking the train to NY and happen to sit in front of a curious couple.
Quickly it becomes clear they are not, in fact a couple, but sitting together by happenstance. The gentleman is well-dressed and in his late 60s. The woman is in her late 30s and very attractive. Over the course of the next hour I learn she is in mourning for her recently deceased husband, left with two small children. Her husband went from diagnosis to death in 3 months from some form of skin cancer. The gentleman is sensitive and caring, asking good questions without prying – eliciting an enormously compelling and heartbreaking story.
“But I’ve been talking for so long. What do you do?”
“I publish a magazine.”
“That’s interesting. What is it?”
“Screw Magazine.”
“Really! What is that?”
“It’s a pornographic magazine and advocate for First Amendment rights.”
Without a trace of shame or irony he describes his work. They have a most animated conversation worthy of any pair of close friends.
When we arrived at Penn Station, they part ways with a warm handshake and thanks on both sides.
IV. Thoughts
Without comment on the categorical difference between the three vignettes above, what struck me most at the time they happened was the delicious feeling of exploding expectations. This is certainly a device fiction writers and film makers have always exploited. I can’t remember many museum experiences built on this device. I wonder if it can be made to work without being irresponsible to content.
A Video of Yoga, Out on a Limb
Back in July, we posted about a yoga classes to be held on the Tree Canopy Walk at the Morris Arboretum, Yoga on a Limb. Now, a video has surfaced on YouTube chronicling the class. Check it out:
