Friday’s Feast this week is a charming installation by Ball Nogues in the courtyard of the M&A Gallery in Los Angeles.

Viva la Daffodil Vortex!

Advertising is definitely a medium that gains strength in numbers. Individually, advertisments are mildly offensive but put a whole lot of them in one place and make them glow however, and the whole slowly gains ground over the sum of the parts. A single ad on the side of a bus stop gives me the shits, but an intersection full of neon gets me all kinds of randy. Shibuya, Ginza, Times Square, Picadilly Circus have all had a bite of my cherry. Advertising at this scale and saturation becomes a kind of spectacular conglomerate.

It has become its own entity; an attraction in its own right. Who cares what its selling?

Online, advertising is as much a scourge as it is in the meatspace - generally crass, insubstantial and intrusive. Banner ads, popup ads, google ads, whatever. Occasionally it can be polite and demure, but this is rare. Sites like Boing Boing approach a kind of saturation close to, say, Times Square, but as others have noted elsewhere, it is more Nascar than New York City. The attractation here is still the content, not the spectacle of brand awareness.

With the launch of The Million Dollar Homepage, the internet has its first neon intersection. It is advertising for the sake of advertising; there is no reason to stop by other than to bask in the glow of its vulgar pixels.

Set up by UK student Alex Tew as a means to fund hisUniversity tuition the page is ingenious in its simplicity. There a million pixels for sale for a dollar each. And the audacity has paid off - he has already sold over half the pixels.

I like this form of online advertising; saturated, singular and meaningless.

Jeppe Utzon, grandson of Joern Utzon, has designed a BBQ for Electrolux:

The webpage states that it has been designed to be “a style icon”. Good luck with that.

Thom Mayne, back in one piece, came out to Sydney give a lecture last friday. This is the lecture that I spoke about earlier, the one that was being arranged before the East Darling Harbour Competition had been judged and before Morphosis had made the shortlist of said competition.

I have never been a huge fan of their loose-fit aesthetic, and Mayne’s lecture did not do too much to change my mind. It is all a little bit too shiny, a bit too fast for me. The exception was the Diamond Ranch High School which is a solid bit of work; well resolved and neatly crafted and the project for Columbia (I think?) University which looked as though it may exhibit a similar mass. These gems were too far between however and the general mood after the lecture was one of being slightly underwhelmed. Not to mention one patron falling asleep in the front row…

Australians love to cut down a tall poppy and Mayne’s inability to deal with criticism, mouthing off against Elizabeth Farrelly for referring to the Morphosis scheme as being ’sculptural’, didn’t help his cause. I am assuming the remark he took umbrage to was Farrelly’s opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald where she referred to the Morphosis entry as being “wild’n'wacky figuralism”, his counter being that talking about architecture through the lense of mere formalism is too simplistic, that there are always a programmatic rationale for the wild and wacky shapes. That’s fine, however he immediately went on to talk about how their work was like clothing. Clothing, of course, being an acceptable metaphor where sculpture is not… When you are name dropping Issey Miyake I guess it is definitely cooler.

(As an aside, I am also told by sources that a request was made that their scheme not be referred to as the ’slug’ scheme in a journal article. Which is fair enough I guess, ain’t no one wants to be the slug scheme.)

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the night was watching Mayne attempting to position the work of his office from the now daggy deconstructionist dogma, preferring to position it in the jargon of today, using the current buzz words of ‘field condition’, ’tissue’, ’skin’ etc to describe their work. And while the clothing metaphor may be an apt trope for the layering of Morphosis’ buildings, it cannot be argued that Morphosis is not pushing a formal and gestural architectural agenda. Sure, there may be more determing the form of each space other than willful modelling but how this is different from every single other building in the whole wide world I dont know.

And finally, cheekily, I wonder if the other East Darling Harbour teams will have the opportunity of delivering a lecture detailing their ideas on urbanity to their colleagues and members of the competition Jury in the manner in which Morphosis have been?

I have scanned and uploaded a bunch of black and white photos I have taken over the years. Robots, Ronchamp, Venice,Vals and some more to be added in the coming days.

Uploaded to flickr.

Sydney has taken the next step to becoming a fully fledged theme park with the announcement of the Skywalk. The nonsense began a couple of years ago when the Bridge Climb began filling the top of the harbour bridge with a relentless march of teeny little grey clad tourists. Sydney went crazy for it - you have to book, like, months in advance - and it is costs $245.00 AUD…

You: Did you say two hundred and forty five dollars?

Me: Heck yes I did. But slow down, that’s Australian Dollars. It’s about one eighty three in the US.

You: Well, that is still rather dear…

Climbing the Harbour Bridge had previously been the domain of drunken teenagers and schoolkids trying to rescue their footy at lunchtime but with the privatisation of our skyline, anyone and everyone is up there grinning for the cameras.

I am less convinced by this NKOTB however. From what I understand, it is a small platform perched out from the side of Sydney (nee Centrepoint) Tower. The thing is, you can already, go up Centrepoint, have a look at the view and eat at a revolving restaurant. That is what it was built for 24 years ago. How standing outside in the wind is any more desirable I wouldn’t have a clue. Perhaps it is a fetish thing; the lure of getting to wear grey jumpsuits and a harness.

I am keen to see where Sydneyland will head from here. Getting thrills from being outside and vertically separated from the pavement by many, many metres is well covered now and probably doesn’t need any further examination. So what other themepark rides can Sydney mine to expand its repertoire?

I have always thought the lamest themepark ride is that one where you sit in a log and fall not very far down a hill into some water. The downhill bit is so short and they take your photo halfway down the hill bit, arms raised,eyes and mouth exclaiming “Oh My Gosh, I Never Would Have Thought I Would Be Falling Down Such A Small Hill In A Log!”

The Sydney Opera House would be perfect for the Lameass Log Ride. It isn’t very high off the ground and you could land right in the harbour, finishing off with a short ride along the harbour maybe incorporating an attack by an animatronic crocodile. You could easily charge upwards of $450 bucks for that kind of gig.

Additionally, the thought of a Sydney Harbour Pirate Ship - the full loop variety - is a temptation that I am sure has whet the appetite of many an entrepreneur and i suspect the only thing holding them back thus far is a desire to maintain some kind of historical accuracy in Sydneyland. I respect that. However, if this is all that is holding the endevour (eh? eh?) back, then I am sure that Sydneysiders and our thrill seeking visitors from afar would find a loop-de-loop Convict Ship a more than suitable alternative. A little bit of lateral thinking, entreprenuers! That’s all we’re asking.

The Spacebox is a self contained studio. A capsule that can be plugged into a steel frame and connected to electricity, data and sewerage brought to you by De Vijf.

Each studio, I am told, comprises of a small kitchen, bathroom, living space. Cool, lets check it out:

What? That’s the interior? Of a capsule? Dude, let me show you how real capsule interiors look:

For real. They come with integrated hi-fidelity tape decks and calculators I will have you know. They have top shelves stocked with Johnny Walker and other top shelf gear and they have portholes. AND THEY DO NOT STAND FOR WROUGHT IRON CANDLESTICKS. I mean, really. I know you’re Dutch and all like ‘hey let’s stick in a cheap chandelier’ but just cut it out. okay?

And everyone knows that all good capsule towers are not stacked evenly in a row, but randomly, like half complete games of Jenga:

And they want to want to tear it down?

The wonderful Build has released a grid based clock screensaver. Each column fills from top to bottom, the first column representing hours, the next five, minutes and so on.

Imagine this on a wrist watch. Awesome. Unreadable probably. But then, telling the time is what mobile phones are for, isn’t it?

Yuko Ikawa makes lovely togography inspired artworks. We stumbled across her exibition at the Art Space Niji Gallery in Kyoto one Sunday evening as it was closing.

The artworks shown at the exhibition were all based on topographic drawings of small Japanese Islands and are all at a scale of 1:2000. Ikawa works by tracing the contours onto plywood with carbon paper, then over the course of one day burns small holes along the contours.

She continues burning plywood until the sun goes down, repeating the images if necessary. The smaller the island the more impressions are made. In this work above, two complete impressions were made and a start on a third.

I don’t have an online source for Ikawa’s artworks, so if you are interested in Yuko’s art, then I suggest you contact Art Space Niji for more information.

The Palisades rooftop talks I mentioned a short while ago have been running for two weeks now and have been a great forum for presentaion and discussion etc. It is an exceptional venue, overlooking the competition site, Sydney Harbour and the city with slides projected onto the back of the parapet. I presented my scheme the first week and had a pleasant, if chilly, evening.

Last night saw the TRUC (Trans Regional Urban Collective…hey check out our name! We Are Not Common!) team headed up by Anthony Burke from Berkeley, Ben Hewett and a bunch of others in Sydney, the RFSH team, Tony Caro and Turner/Bolles Wilson team present their schemes. I’m not going to go into the details but for better or worse, they were all very, resolved.

If anything the slidenights have proven anything so far it is that the jury, in being seduced by the Superstars, has overlooked some exceptional home grown schemes. In particular I think Tony Caro was incredibly unfortunate not to make the list with his robust, urban proposal.

Thanks to Eoghan and Simeon for organising a great series and make sure you get down there for the last two weeks of the fun.

Previous EDH gear. Entry. The shortlist. Other entries. Open letter to the Jury.

My all time favouritest designer, Michael C Place, aka Build, has finally updated his website.

Everything this guy does is stunning.

Nabuaki Date is a Japanese artist who makes ukuleles out of parts of Japanese buildings that are to be demolished. Each house is documented through photographs and the parts for the ukulele are chosen. The finished ukulele is given to the owner of the house as a visual and acoustic embodiment of their former home.

The project was launched in April 2000 and since then 28 Ukuleles have been made.

“Their place we live, a house full of memories is set to be dismantled one day… The reason for the demolition differs in each case, however, the fact is, the house which was “sure to be there” will disappear without a trace, among the rush of moving and all the processes that come along with demolition. There is no time to be sentimental about it.”

Some of my favourites:

No 10 was made from Kasugauka High School. In particular, the blackboard from the music class, with the existing lines of tape marking the musical score wrapping around the front and back of the instrument.

No 3 consists of the timber from a post where the owner was allowed to stick stickers as a child.

Sentimental stuff, sure. But a nice idea expertly realised.

As always, more at my Flickr page.

Osaka Aquarium - KAWAIIIIIIIIIIII

One of the funnest afternoons in Japan was spent at Osaka Aquarium. Repulsive building, awesome aquarium. Amongst the incessant squeals of KAWAII! from the many schoolkids traipsing through at the same time as us, we savoured the underwater delights of Fairy Penguins, Manta Ray, a Sun Fish (!) and the magnificent Spider Crabs.

The spider crabs are some other kind of scary. The smaller resemble armoured face huggers while the large ones must be two feet tall with mighty talons about 3 feet long. We watched as the Queen (king?) crab summoned all the other crabs to her and then proceeded to chase one of them into a corner, attempting, in underwater slow motion, to either mate with or kill it. This slow dance went on for about twenty minutes with the smaller crab eventually escaping and the queen being left unsated.

Tokyo Fish Markets

Waking before dawn is not your friend. But it is a spectacle that is worth missing a sleep in for.

In Sydney we are rather proud of our Fish Markets. “Oh, you MUST go” we tell visitors. But we are timid little goldfish in the face of Tokyo’s avanc. This is a vast market stretching in every direction with every type of dead marine life you can imagine. Except for spider crabs.

The tuna auctions are of course the highlight - enormous tuna lined up, hundreds of buyers shouting, dudes ringing bells, people with hooks shining flashlights at the tuna’s tails, westerners taking photos. Later, we watched as one of these giant fish was quartered with three different swords, while next door, its deep frozen bretheren were being hacked and band-sawed in a far less graceful manner.

The complete photoset can be found here.

Following on from their high-concept stores in Tokyo, Beverly Hills and New York, Prada have opened a new flagship store. This time in the middle of the desert. Cool.

Photos.

Matt sent me the following. Probably because it is awesome.

It seems to have originated here.

Here are a bunch more photos. This time covering Kanazawa, Kyoto and Naoshima Island.

Uploaded to flickr.

If they ever do a Hollywood remake of Keifer Sutherland’s 24, they can call it 2

[update] Ludd has posted a series of scans of the house Brad kitted out for him and Jennifer. The “leather sofa and chunky armchairs must be Brad’s idea again” [/update]

This gem reached me via a series of forwarded emails with so many @princeton.edu, @eisenmanarchitects.com, @dillerscofidio.com etc addresses that I am surprised it has not made its way onto the net. (that I know of)

It is difficult to determine exactly what Brad is up to. He may trying to insert a bit of hot glue between two contours that look they are doing a good job of staying stuck together on their own. Or he could be about to drill a hole in something. It is hard to tell.

Frank doesn’t seem too perturbed either way; his is the kind of architecture that can probably withstand even the most brutal of celebrity hot glue attacks…

I have gone on record in the past that I think Brad will make a most excellent architect. This photo does not help my cause however I remain faithful to the cause.