The Utzon Room is open to the public. For a Limited time only! Matt and I went to have a look. It is very nice. You should go and have a look too.

A mighty battle is being waged in this room with each element straining to be the most humble and the most beautiful. The joinery, the lighting, the ballustrade, the structural concrete, the tapestry and the harbour are all vying to be the best they damn well can be in their respective fields. Even in these early days it is clear that there are two hands down favourites to win this battle; the tapestry and the harbour and ain’t nobody beaten the harbour yet…

Some links to some pages:
Things magazine - lots of links to design and architecture related stuff.
Spa - architecture pisstakes. I especially enjoy the lectures.

Following on from Marcus’s incisive expedition to Canberra,…… I felt like Rem or even Kahn had laid my city bare and unfortunately as I was out of town, I arrived home only to find the refuse (New years days style) marking the event. I had an equally enjoyable experience in Melbourne, although instead of photographing the Land Axis mine was the experience of existing within Newtown esque streets under a spider web ceiling supporting the battleship grey trams.

Melbourne as the arty and fashion hub of cultural Australia delivered. From the Purple Black linen Kenzo suit on Little Collins Street that cost half a years rent to the quaint feeling of sucking down purple frappes in a cafe cum fruitshop to the AFL that even in spite of the random and underhand violence had me asleep by the final quarter and then there was the ART….

The exhibition by sculptress, Kate Hendry, was a solo exhibition at the Red Gallery in North Fitzroy. The objects, a series of 9 approximately 1800mm long sculptures composed of two elements, Tasmanian oak shaft and an upholstered four face catenary plane volume. The sketch above alludes to these elements but does not hint at the colour or the scale of the work.

Upon entering the gallery the works are laid out precisely on the floor, with the sharp scoop end pointing towards the viewer.
Through observing these works it struck me how important human scale and function is to sculpture as we always expect that it is to architecture. These being objects that were uncomfortable and aggressive mainly as they were human size, denied function and were an unfamiliar form. Not that unfamiliar forms in architecture are always resisted but they sometimes are, take Sydney architects, they are not always encouraging Melbourne architects in their endevours .

These objects denied function, emotional access and comfort and unlike modern sculpture there was no sterility or essentiality within these works that made them understandable, pristine, elite. The artist actually defeated these ideas through working with fabrics evocative of French and English parlours, complete with upholstery tacks, bringing other connotations to the work, womens tools, objects with a function shielded from male eyes, feminist art and domesticity

Having sated my urban cultural needs I quickly hurried home to where I can regard Blue Poles without interruptions and consider contemporary Australian art betwixt the Melbourne and Sydney scenes

Just a short note to report that Louis Kahn has been added to the list of bowtie sporting architects on the wikipedia.

Plus. I’m not too sure that today’s restyling of the site is particularly successful but will let it stay for a little while…

I went to Canberra this weekend. Here are some photos.

The only mark of Griffin’s plan for a rail line running along Commonwealth Avenue is this line of Eucalypts; straggly, unkempt trees, obediently standing in line, socks falling down in wait of a steam powered transport that will rocket their city well and truly into the twentieth century.

There has been much fuss about the entry to this particular gallery. Apparently it doesn’t work, is confusing, whatever. The three or four people who wanted to go to the National Gallery today seemed to find their way into the building without too much difficulty. Perhaps when gallery attendance reaches double figures they will have to refigure balustrades etc for crowd loading. Or something.

The Reverse Land Axis.

The gallery, as mentioned above, was near empty. Everyone in the whole place was standing around Blue Poles. Transfixed. I was like, yeah whatever, Blue Poles, my kid could do better than that.

Today’s mission for Gravestmor has been to update The Wikipedia with up to date information on all bowtie wearing architects. For those unfamiliar with The Wikipedia, it is a free online encyclopedia. Running under much the same ethos as the Linux operating system it is free to use, free to write for and free to edit. Although it does not have the shine of Mr Britannica I must admit I am a little surprised at the amount of information that has been gathered so far. The breadth of information available coupled with the fact that it costs US $59.95 less than the Britannica, amounting to a reduction of approximately infinity% makes the Wikipedia hard to ignore.

Of course it cannot cover absolutely everything that is out there in the big scary world and this is where Gravestmor steps in. After resisting the initial temptation to run amok on the site, posting craziness at every corner, it became clear that the whole story was not being told. A quick search for bowties turned up no references to architecture nor architects. You can rest easy however as this has since been amended.

With the base information suitably amended the list of architectswas scoured to make sure that main culprits got their due. Bowtie amendments have been made to Peter Eisenman, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and of course Harry Seidler. Any suggestions of architects that should rate a bowtie mention are welcome in the comments section below. Or. If you are game, Gravestmor recommends, you dear readers, get out there and make amendments to the Wikipedia yourselves.

Together we can set the record straight.

Hannah and her brother Daniel have let some new space in Surry Hills. It is a space bristling with potentiality and I imagine that great works will emerge from its dusty interior. It is bigger than the shoebox they were in previously and it faces more south and more west also. The current fear, I am told, is that the office is going to get so goddamn hot in Summer that the office will need to be vacated each day at three o’clock. At this time the ‘new workplace’ with its laptops and wireless networks will head on over to Bondi where I assume clients will be charged an hourly rate for Hannah to swim and frollick and for Daniel to play computer games on the sand.

We had drinks there on friday night and it was nice.

Of all the folk I did not expect to have their own website, The Family Utzon were pretty high on the list.

And although the Opera House is described as being “exciting, even during construction” I have to say that it is a pretty pissweak website. Jørn ought to reign his kids in, they are doing the family name no good service.

Over at The Whitney Online thingy is an intriguing exhibition. Casey Reas has set about turning Sol Le Witt wall drawings into software systems. Starting by literally recreating the wall drawings using javascript the exercise then became for other designers to use those systems to create new emergent designs using various programming languages.

There are some beautiful results. Definitely worth a look.

I am not sure I understand the whole emergent software design stuff and I know for certain that I could not even begin going about creating such marvels myself. I sure wish that I could though. I have flicked through the books at the bookshop with the titles like Javascript 2.0 for Beginners and I have read the first page of these books and I find myself lost after the first sentence. They are truly daunting pieces of literature and it frustrates the hell out of me that I cannot read their language, learn their secrets. One day the kids on the street will be fluent in java or perl or c++ or somesuch because, you know, they learnt them in school and hard as I may have tried to remain savvy with the New Technologies I will have been left far behind.

Well, Mr Zumthor was not as tall as I had hoped. Don’t get me wrong, he is not short but I was hoping for something in the mauve range of the pastel rainbowhowever he was more like a greeney aqua.

Not to worry though as it was obvious in the short time that he was onstage that his clothes did not fit… His coat was too big and there was some serious low-pant in action. This was evidence that he may once have been taller. Had he shrunk? Had he boarded his flight in Zurich, green as it were, and turned up in sydney like the Swiss Pavilion, open air shrunk and ready to be dismantled and reassembled in another guise? I would like to think he had such commitment.

Aside from height issues, Zumthor gave a wonderful talk full of charming anecdotes and beautiful images giving the Australian Architecture Association {AAA} series of talks a good kickstart. In addition to the old chestnuts, a Chapel devoted to a rather gaunt looking Swiss saint and an art gallery for a single artwork by Walter de Maria stood out.

As it is one of the AAA’s stated goals to demystify architecture, make it more accessible and as the Chapel seemed quite easy to make, I would like to outline how the general public can get out there and make their own. I made my own this morning and it turned okay, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble.

Step One: Gather your entire village together in one spot.
Step Two: With your fellow villagers, go out and chop down some trees.
Step Three: Again with the villagers, lean the trees up against each other, forming a kind of tree tee-pee.
Step Four: Seal up all the gaps between the trees using other trees if necessary. This step is essential for later steps so make sure the tee-pee is water tight.
Step Five: Make a big timber box around the tree tee-pee. This will be used as form work for the next twenty four steps.
Step Six: Pour 50cm of concrete into the formwork and leave for a day.
Steps Seven to Twentynine: Each day pour another 50cm of concrete until you reach the top. If you have followed the instructions correctly you should have a big concrete box with lots of horizontal lines on it. Inside the box should be an intact tee-pee made from trees that you and your fellow villagers cut down with ancient farming tools.
Step Thirty: Go inside the tree tee-pee. Light the trees on fire.
Step Thirtyone: Run outside and let trees burn.
Step Thirtytwo: Once trees have burnt away go back inside and clear away the debris.
You should now have a big concrete box with a hole in the middle shaped like a tee-pee. If you don’t have something like this, go back through the steps to check where you got it wrong, otherwise post a comment below and one of our staff members will attempt to help you out.
Step Thirtythree: The final step is to pour floor liquid silver over the floor. This will make the floor nice and reflective.

Easy!

Presenting to you, Dear Reader, The Twin Fists of Formalist Fury, The Double Suckerpunch of Cruel, Cruel Modernism.

You will note that this poster implies that Gravestmor is updated almost daily. If you are a regular reader of this site, then you will know this to be a fallacy. However it is my intention that updates become more frequent and so now if I slacken off I know I will have the The Twin Fists of Formalist Fury, The Double Suckerpunch of Cruel Cruel Modernism to answer to. You can be assured that the fists are harsh task-masters but understand this also; they have a soft side beneath the bravado and they will take good care of this site and its readers.

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Tomorrow night Peter Zumthor is talking at Angel Place in Sydney. I am hoping that he is as enigmatic as he is tall. I don’t know if he is tall. I have a feeling that he should be tall. I will let you know.