Life with Rem.... wait, where's Rem?

I can't tell if this movie was a recruitment tool for prospective (...) or what.
It's still kind of interesting to watch.

The first young woman that they interview is speaking in Dutch.
(I think, although it sounds alot like my attempt at conversational German)



"Ok people! I want everyone to look busy while the camera crew is here! Everybody- look REALLY interested in your jobs."

Don't worry, I'm sure Rem is just camera shy... right?

Besides, I'm sure they don't want to raise a young hipster's hopes by allowing them to think that working for Rem means working with Rem.
I applaud their honesty.

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."

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....

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

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"