Tale Of Two Starchitects

Here's an interesting interview with Daniel Liebskind from the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper. A reporter had 10 minutes to ask the designer of the ROM some pointed questions about the functionality of the building.

A couple of great quotes:

“Money is not a determinant of architecture. If you give a poet more money, the poem he writes wouldn't be any better.”
(where does he get this stuff? -ed.)

"A work of architecture is not like a meal where you can add more salt later. It's all thought out before it's constructed."

"I'd be delighted to design a hot-dog stand. It's urban furniture."

Furniture indeed. We'll all be looking for Liebskind branded hot dog vending machines at the local Target...or maybe it'll be exclusive to Saks.

I don't want to seem like I'm picking on Danny lately, but the recent swath of design commentary is too hard to resist.

On the lighter side, the dubiously titled "Worlds oldest architect" turns 100 years young this week. (He's a spry old guy)
Here's a great interview with Oscar Niemeyer, in which he has some provocative quips about his experience working with Le Corbusier on the United Nations building.
This interview was conducted RIBA International Conference.
He also has some interesting (although somewhat less earth-shattering) thought of how reinforced concrete changed our thoughts on design.

"I'm interested in architecture in that I'm interested in life."

LEED Gingerbread Houses

Terry, at Bake For A Change has created an intriguing holiday contest that should test the green skills of architects and engineers alike.

The goal, in a nutshell, is to: "Apply sustainable building design practices to a gingerbread house."

Just remember,

Time Lapse ROM

This time-lapse was taken over a 3 1/2 year period at 1:00PM every day and 10 minutes during the opening.
This is one of the better construction time-lapses I've seen, mostly due to the unique structural lattice.



That crazy Danny....

The Condensate

I've been mildly interested in string theory for almost 11 months now. (I lose count it's been so long, whew)

The idea that there might be one unifying theory about how the universe operates, from the very smallest particles, to the very largest bodies, is enticing.

The Bose-Einstein Condensates are objects at the atomic level which act as though they were governed by some sort of string theory. (when cooled to very nearly absolute zero temperatures or 200 nanokelvin, I just love saying that)



One of the beautiful things about this, and string theory in general, is that a scientific halfwit, like myself, can understand about 10% of any given explanation. Since it typically only requires about 9.33% of a my understanding a topic to get really excited about it, I'm hooked! Not only is it a complicated theory in the mathematical sense, but it is a visually breathtaking paradigm as well. Since there is no way of finding or viewing these super-super-super-small objects, possibly into the foreseeable future, many artists have been consulted to interpret how the mathematics might translate into a visual reality. This could have over-arching consequences on our taste in visual arts, music, design, etc.

And, it should be noted that I've been involved in some design charettes where the whiteboard looked about the same in the end.

Christmas Albums

I'll admit, nothing gets me in the holiday mood like a good Nat King Cole standard.

One thing that I miss during these hectic holidays of the digital era?
Records, real vinyl LPs, with various christmas cover art, strewn across the living room floor in front of the Hi-Fi.

There are so very few holiday songs, that many simply become variations on a theme. Not all of the records, therefor can be winners, like Nat King Cole's Christmas Song.

A few christmas albums stand out for shear desperation alone. Those tied to TV shows, or merchandising like the Brady Christmas debacle, or The Chipmunks. (my ears are ringing from the memory of it)

But here are a few albums that I can't quite remember being in the pile of Christmas platters.

Christmas With Colonel Sanders
aka "A Finger Lickin' Christmas"


The Year Without Santa Claus, by Carol Channing
Her voice... really melts all those tensions away after a crazy day at the mall.



A Star Wars Christmas
Attempts to answer that age old question: "What can you get a Wookie for Christmas?"



And of course, Liberace is a walking snow angel on the cover of his "Twas the Night Before Christmas.



I'm sure if we did have these albums, we would've worn the grooves right down from overplaying them....

....or they would have just melted because someone (who shall remain nameless) left them too close the fireplace.

Ode to Paul Rand

The "iconic" Paul Rand was one of the most prolific and influential graphic designers of the twentieth century. His treatise "Thoughts on Design" changed the way we look at pictorial identity.

Here is an incredible tribute to the art of Paul Rand set in motion:



He passed away in 1996, leaving a huge legacy and enormous body of work. He created trademark identities for some of the largest corporations in America; one's which we take for granted today. He also asked future design students important philosophical questions about the function and mechanics of design.

Here is his headstone:

It's officially news...

"Architects are not plumbers"
-John Maeda, Prof of Tech, MIT Media Labs

Every rag and digital fish-wrapper in the trade has written about this in the past 2 weeks, and I would feel remiss if I didn't chime in.

First, in that grand-old tradition of news-hound alliteration, a roundup:
(insert spinning newspaper graphic here)

1. Gehry designs a garish garage (sans-guilloche) for goofy geeks!
stop

2. The geeks are glorified at how the garish garage, (sans-guilloche) will glimmer!
stop

3. Bob, the builder, bickers that the building is too bombastic to be built!
stop

4. Frank follows not, and fantasizes about the features of his facade! (this is getting fachachte, ed.)
stop

5. Bob, the builder, bitterly bites the bullet and builds the bombastic building!
stop

6. Regretfully, the roof of the rotund residence is not repellant to rain (a reprisal is required!)
stop

7. Sad Stata owner sues the shirt off of said star-chitect!
full stop

So anyhoo, everyone is pissing in everyone's cheerios about a building that leaked when it wasn't supposed to.

You might claim that Frank wanted to create his own version of Falling Water, but I couldn't possibly comment on that. (rim-shot, ed.)

And the broadsheets are bristling:
the Globe
the Trib
the Times
the Post

The Veal-Fattening-Pen

It all started in Denver, Colorado in 1953. A young designer and inventor named Robert Probst setup shop. He was a talented inventor, and had true intentions to simplify and change the way people lived and worked.

He was a professor of fine arts at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His inventions were varied; from a vertical timber harvester, to jet planes, to a quality control system for concrete.

There is one invention, however, for which he is most famous... or infamous.

Herman Miller called upon him in 1962 to help them design a system of office furniture. Probst wanted to capture the restlessness of the era, as well as allow workers to move freely about the office. The solution that he came up with, which Miller would give surrogate birth to in 1964, was called the "Action Office". This would be the progenitor of the cubicle.

But it started with the best intentions. It had light, sleek, ergonomic lines, adjustable-height workspaces for those who preferred to stand and work, comfortable chairs, and a transparent under-carriage and structure. It was only a few years before all grace and transparency was stripped, and even it's fairest virtue, mobility, was being subjugated. Office managers used the system to save money on construction costs, by renting large open floors and filling them with tightly packed rows of dividers. As an added benefit, the office manager could also use a shortened depreciation for temporary dividers, making a genuine impact on renovation costs to a growing company.

The rules of economy prevailed, and cubicles were seldom changed, or moved, or stylish, or airy. In fact, they became a serviceable way to cram as many middle-managers onto one floor of an office building as they would tolerate, without causing an insurrection. Julie Schlosser, in Fortune Magazine, would call it "The Fidel Castro of office furniture." And, as it turns out, white collar suck-ups had a high tolerance for degradation.

Later in life, Robert Probst regretted his involvement in this dehumanizing debacle, as the origins of his ideas were perverted into what he called "Monolithic Insanity"

So it is with that preamble in place that I give you:
Wired.com's "Saddest Cubicle" contest.

Co-opted Yuletide

Is nothing sacred?

It's widely known that the holiday advertising blitzkrieg started early this year. We put our DVR on alert to eliminate any commercials that have glitter, bells, holly, turtle-necks, or Kay jewelry. I'm wondering if I need to reinforce the mailbox to support the incoming onslaught of un-recyclable glossy catalogs.

I suppose in the American Holiday season, there are not enough secular icons of celebration. In order to "sell the spirit" to all mankind, without isolating anyones beliefs, advertisers have to dig deep.*

There are a few things that I think should be off limits to those "Fat Cats of Madison Avenue" this holiday season.

1. You are not allowed to bastardize any portion of A Christmas Story.
(I'm looking in your general direction AT&T, formerly Cingular)
I don't care if you are selling Italian leg lamps with fishnet stockings, or pink fuzzy-bunny one-piece jam-jams. This John Shepherd tale is off-limits to any crass commercialism.**

2. Nothing that even looks remotely similar to a Rankin/Bass animation can be used.
(This means you, annoying Aflac duck)
Not only is this a travesty, but it's just too easy. Did you phone that one in?

A few items, however, have exceeded the Statute of Limitations for advertising appropriations:

1. A Christmas Carol
Have your sinister way with this dusty old rag. Just be warned, she's been around the block a few times.

2. It's A Wonderful Life
Although I am a big fan of Frank Capra's work, it reached market saturation in the mid-eighties. That was about the same time Ted Turner airbrushed it like a little girl smearing lipstick on her dolls, so unfortunately it's too far gone to save. (That's not to say that I would ever miss the George Bailey 5k this year.)

*After all, the only images they have is a type-2 diabetic in a red suit, butchered pine trees being used as fire-traps, smelly socks filled with half-melted candies, sub-orbit, antlered, freight-hauling caribou (I hear one even has nasal rosacea), candles, wreaths... anyway-what I'm saying is that they really are at a loss for secular icons. Give them a break.
**By the way, the house where this was filmed in Cleveland is now a museum.

The solution to all of your advertising problems

This is going to put alot of people out of work.

I think the AIGA is looking into it. Hopefully they can shut them down.

It's like stealing candy from a baby.

Mister Rogers, Sesame Street, Electric Company. 

Reminiscent fondness (?, ed.) for these television shows is common now. You can now order DVDs of any or all of these shows.
This can only come to one result; Other than a flash of brilliance, we find that they are mediocre at best, and we begin to realize just how much we candy-coat our memories of these television shows. There was a reason my mother sat me on the floor in front of these shows with a piece of toast and juice and excused herself into the kitchen.

There's one thing about these shows that always had me mesmerized and still does...

The factory tour.
Who doesn't remember the crayon factory tour from Mister Rogers? Brilliant. I suppose this is similar to the construction trucks videos of today.
However, on weekday evenings, I am occasionally transported back in time to when my world was much smaller and I was filled with wonder at how my crayon "became" a crayon. It is as if you are recognizing the lack of divinity on the part of consumer goods, for the first time. Your eyes glaze, your jaw drops, and you stare at the TV in wonder.

No, this is not a rerun of any of those childhood television shows. This is new, and clearly designed to appeal to young and old alike. I'm talking about "How It's Made" on the discovery channel. It's a pre-primetime filler show, amidst reruns of shows that you wouldn't have watched in the first place. But this show is like mid-evening crack, and I'm hooked.

---

Here are some cool things that I've seen on that show:
Matches
Motors
Cellos
Bolts
Windsurfing Boards (oddly similar in construction to Cellos)

---

Here are some not-so-cool, or downright gross things that I've seen on that show:
Glass (artificial) Eyes
Frozen Pizzas
Tatoos
Sanitary Napkins
Wastewater Treatment
Frozen Fish

---

This show is actually produced in Montreal and I am amazed at the access they are allowed at these factories, considering that there are very rarely any brands or company names shown. It also has a certain techno/porn/fusion soundtrack jacka-wacka-jacka-wacka thing that also helps the hypnosis along.

I suppose, on a broader, philosophical level, it inspires me to know that machines will not replace human labor. The amount of manpower it takes to engineer, construct, operate and maintain these robots, conveyers, spinny-things, whirly-ma-jigs, and generally dangerous looking mechanical objects, is stunning. That's not to say, that if these machines rose up in rebellion, we wouldn't be in a heap of trouble.
I hope the machines don't lose their 401k plans, or we're all doomed.

That's Right, We've Moved

We've incorporated our Blogger account into our meager site here on the great "inter-web". Hopefully, this isomerisation will create a page filled with more regularly contributed quips, quibbles, and quirks of life in the design and illustration business. We will be migrating some of our older posts onto the big B and hopefully they will remain chronological. We already feel like we are one small CO2 particle in the growing cloud of inane conversations.

-Gary

The Original iPod

Apparently, a 1930 inventor had the idea for a sound system you could take with you well before Sony, Phillips, Apple, etc.

Money Quote:

"...may be worn without any convenience to the wearer."

Indeed, just as long as you don't tilt your head more than 15 Degrees. I've seen people in head-gear looking more casual than this. As a bonus, the protruding horn assures that your particular fondness for Spike Jones is enjoyed by everyone.

-Via Modern Mechanics

Eisenman At A Crit

I haven't posted in a while. But I thought this was significant.

"We're losing him..... he's slowly... slipping.... out of touch"