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.