Do You Want Your Building to Look Like a Dinner Plate?

If I remember correctly this is the model and plans for a Mercedes headquarter building in Germany. I think it's really interesting that it's essentially based on a dinner plate.

MoMA

Wine and Cheese in Architecture

I love when form and function are unified seamlessly in architecture and design, but it's also fun to see when concept and function are played with. I don't even mind the cheesiness, (and the wine was pretty good.)

Here, in the Santa Clara Valley, at Kirigin Cellars the doorway to the wine tasting room is a large oaky barrel.

Architecture for Social Engagement 2

The photograph is of L.A. The white complex in the foreground shows the placement of the buildings shown in the model I posted yesterday.

River City

I do not think it looks like a river, but it does look like a mini city.

I actually like Bertrand Goldberg's buildings, but I also like curvy/circular shapes. I found this design more appealing, probably because it's more organic. Our tour-guide told us this group of buildings is not as well maintained as Marina City.

Corn Cobs

Marina City: well-known corn cob buildings by Bertrand Goldberg (right.)
There are really two towers. I just got a picture of this one.

My Favorite Windows

Look at the windows painted on Beacon's Closet in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I love them!

Topography Without Topography

I ♥ topographical maps, and this was right under my feet as I was walking down the street.



Bond Street between Lafayette and Bowery in Manhattan.

Architecture at the MoMA

I love topographical maps, and these models make me topographically happy.




This is a great drawing too, but the picture is crappy. I couldn't use the flash in the museum, and had my old little point and shoot camera.


This model is so clever! Suburbia shown with one model and mirrors!

Land Architecture

I think Maya Lin is amazing. This article and video from the New York Times actually started my greater appreciation for her work. Then going to see her smaller sculptures in the museum building at Storm King Art Center made me LOVE her work. These images are of her large scale Wavefield which is at Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, NY. Now I want to go to Michigan and California to see her other two related works.

Architectural Elements To Make One Feel Pious?

Religious European art was originally intended to visually educate the masses to be pious; this became so because most people were not able to read, or understand Latin, which was the language mass was presented in. Even if some people were able to read, no one could afford Illuminated Manuscripts or Bibles because they were outrageously expensive.

These two figures were on each side of the main door out of the cathedral. Our tour guide told us that it was the Devil on one side and his mother on the other. They were there in order to remind people to be pious and good people when they exited the cathedral to go out into the world.





They don't make me feel especially pious, but people were much more superstitious back then. Maybe if I passed them once a week I would attempt to be more pious...(piety isn't my goal in life, being more Christ-like is, so I still think I would need something else by the doors of the church to make me a better person.)

The Absence of Architectural Elements

This picture was taken a month ago from my bedroom window.

This is the annual World Trade Center Site Memorial. Every year around September 11 the lights turn on at night to remember the two towers and all the people who died. Seven years ago the skyline seemed to have such an absence, a gaping hole. Now lights fill in the gap, but there is still something missing.

(Sorry about the crappy glare from my window.)

A Shadow of An Architectural Element

Stephansdom, Vienna, Austria



"Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow."

Aesop 620-560 B.C.

Mini Architectural Elements

Have you ever realized how circuit boards from computers look like little cities and buildings? I didn't either until yesterday.