conventioneering

(soundtrack: Ethiopian Berklee alum Mulatu Astatqe)

The AIA convention comes to Boston tomorrow! Boston has the highest per capita number of architects. As in other cities and other times, clients for high-profile projects often shop elsewhere for their designers. The vision of outsiders can be more daring, free from an inhibitive sensitivity to the clutter of context and memory. But the outsider's unfamiliarity with local climate, code, construction methods, and first and foremost, the peeps also carries an economic impact that seems often to be overlooked. The Boston Convention Center, where the convention will be held, the Stata Center, and the ICA have each proved a mix of flash and flaw. What is the solution? A case study of a client trusting and challenging a local architect is the birth of the Wieden + Kennedy building in Portland, Oregon, launching pad for Allied Works Architecture.

New acquisition

(Soundtrack: ah, the memories)
A streamlined beauty: my new Dell Inspiron 530S. It is just wide enough to fit your hand around the front and into the fingerholds/channels along either side. And it runs so much faster than a dying laptop! It's like getting a haircut--I wonder why I waited so long.

Kenneth Frampton, LIVE!

(Today's soundtrack by Bjork)
Heard Kenneth Frampton lecture this evening. Titled, "Architecture in the Age of Globalization" the lecture was structured to parallel the format of the concluding chapter in the book pictured above, which has just had a 4th edition published. He did not address globalization as directly as I had hoped, but did express his displeasure with the work of global starchitects which he finds to be too concerned with image: Gehry's Bilbao, Koolhaas's CCTV, Herzog & de Meuron's Olympic Stadium. He did not use the word but I suspect he finds them self-indulgent.) Frampton surveyed buildings that he finds exemplar in the categories of topography, morphology, sustainability, materiality, habitat, and civic form. Lots of inspiring photos, including work by my perennial favorites, Patkau Architects.
At the end, he was asked by a professor if critical regionalism is possible in the age of globalization, a question the professor gets from students after reading Frampton's essay. Frampton noted that because "the vernacular barely exists" today, there is a universal sense of "uprootedness." He is an advocate for architecture that is specific to a place, not locally-based. He said that "sensitive architects can allude" to regional qualities through landscape, material, light, climate -- the essential qualities of critical regionalism. At the end, another faculty member commented, "It is clear that what Kenneth is involved with is to establish grounds for an ethical architecture." By which he meant, it's really just all about the three H's.

High-content concepts

(Soundrack: Smokey Robinson and the Miracles)
Here are a few examples of activism as art that I found on the Land + Living Network. The above image by Gordon Matta-Clark was suggested by the LLN as a possible inspiration for the DDD Project in Detroit which called attention to the decay to which city officials and residents had become accustomed. The LLN post also introduced me to the dedicated designers at the Detroit Collaborative Design Center whose work blends art, research, architecture, and community activism.

The pendulum has swung!

(soundtrack: Joni.)
NPR had a thrilling story Monday with cases demonstrating that the increased cost of fuel may have already started to reverse urban sprawl. (Why is this topic neglected in political and economic analyses?) I was in Worcester, Massachusetts, this weekend. The visible difference between Boston and Worcester as seen in the built environment and the health of the inhabitants is startling. (I just caught the first episode of PBS's series on health and wealth titled "Unnatural Causes," but it was brilliant. A must-see for sure.) In our age of post-industrial globalization, the biggest cities have swelled and sprawled at the expense of second-tier cities like Worcester and Springfield. I've heard it described as a return to the ancient era of city-states. But it doesn't have to be that way. (See page 23!)

Kenneth Frampton, critical regionalism essayist, is speaking on globalization in Cambridge next week. Can't wait!

light as art

(Soundtrack: from Berio's Sinfonia)
] making space with light [

] sunset at the Tate [
] just mist [

] monochromania [

] color revealing time [

] "inverted shadow tower" [
The MOMA and PS 1 have an exhibit on the art of Olafur Eliasson through June 30. (Photos from the NYTimes review and his site.) Conveniently, this year's "WarmUp" series at PS1--Public Farm One by WORKac-- opens June 20.

Storage & Porridge

(The sound of simple beauty from Delfeayo Marselis)

Picture porridge in a bowl, and a single image comes to mind: a form shaped by its container. Familiarity with an experience creates an expectation or an assumption of future experiences. Our past experiences with telephone booths shape our future experiences with telephone booths, despite the changing purpose of the booth, because familiarity is comfortable, and nostalgia and historical tradition are satisfying. (I love shingle style houses, well-loved "Peanuts" comic books, and especially Christmas!) But porridge is amorphous, and can take any shape we choose to present it in. So, too, are books, clothes, and alarm clocks!

Some goodies for those of us who can't be in Milan this week:
Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec's Corian Wardrobe for Cappellini
Lloyd Schwan (an American!) has a bookcase that I also discovered through Cappellini. And this last image of a bed with storage is by a design student, Marcia Harvey Isaksson, whose project ("Stripe") was selected for production by Lectus. Marcia is a former accountant who was born in Zimbabwe and educated in South Africa. After replanting herself in Sweden she is now finding success in Scandinavian design. And yes, the bed can slide along the track, making storage easier to access than normal under-the-bed methods like mine. (Thanks, MoCoLoco!)