Gehry Goes 2d

Tonight FOX reran The Simpsons episode with Frank Gehry and I must admit it's still hilarious. I grabbed my camera and took a few screenshots.


Mr. Gehry receives the letter from Marge requesting his services. He's especially impressed by the Snoopy stationary. Nice mailbox.


At first he crumples up the letter and throws is on the sidewalk, a sign of rejection, but when he sees the paper's form, Eureka! "Frank Gehry, you've done it again!"


Erecting the steel frame, the building looks conventional, but then the cranes start swinging wrecking balls to whack the structure into shape.


Upon opening, Mr. Gehry must thwack ruffians with his broom so they don't skateboard on his curvy creation. "Hey, Frank Gehry. Design curvilinear forms much?"


But the Concert Hall isn't a success, as witnessed by these marquees. This must be about the fifth time the Simpsons has ripped on David Brenner.


Mr. Burns buys the Concert Hall and turns it into its final incarnation, a prison. A commentary on contemporary architecture, perhaps?

Update 08.01: Looks like I'm not the only fan of this episosde. Check this page for screenshots of the whole episode. Thanks Alejandro!

Comic Book of the Moment

The New York Times reports on Manhattan Guardian, a comic book series set in the fictional city Cinderella City, an amalgam of real and imagined New York City. What sets it apart from other comic incarnations, like Gotham and Metropolis, is the overt inclusion of unbuilt projects for the city, beyond the usual grime and grit found in Superman, Batman, and the like. An issue from earlier this year featured a proposed hotel by Antoni Gaudi and an office building by Hans Hollein with a facade resembling the grill of a Rolls-Royce. This image from the forthcoming September release shows a design that Frank Lloyd Wright proposed for Ellis Island.



Created and authored by Grant Morrison, he said "by embellishing on the existing New York he was tapping into his favorite comic book power: the ability to create alternative realities." I can only imagine, as the article indicates, that "after immersing yourself in Mr. Morrison's version of New York, it's a little hard to see the city in quite the same way."

Asian Historical Architecture

I just discovered the web page Asian Historical Architecture: A Photographic Survey and - WOW! - it's amazing. The pleasantly simple interface lists the various countries (nineteen) and buildings (a lot) on the left, with the images and other information displayed on the right. While the images aren't huge, the coverage is impressive and some helpful maps are used with some buildings to orient the viewer, like Japan's Himeji Castle (below). Most importantly, the images are quite beautiful.

The Space of Light

At lunch yesterday I walked over to the MCA and zipped through the Dan Flavin Retrospective currently on view until October 30. The same show was on display at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth when I was down there for a wedding a couple months ago. Housed in a Tadao Ando design, the exhibition was a delight, breaking out of the typical "white box" galleries of many modern art museums to interact with the ground floor reflecting pool and the concrete walls so prevalent in Ando's architecture.



So walking on over to the MCA, I couldn't help but anticipate how Flavin's multitude of fluorescent tubes would work in their new location, and not in a good way. It seemed like his pieces gained something in the unique spaces and textures of Fort Worth, but I was wrong. The colored glow of the tubes is not only amplified by the MCA's plethora of white walls but it is used to full effect by the museum in the placement of the pieces and the location of the exhibit's temporary walls.

The retrospective is housed in the museum's top floor, typically accessed by an elliptical stair located at the northwest corner. Before arrival at this floor, one senses the soft glow of the colored tubes, fading away ever-so-softly from its source. The small gallery atop the stairs houses Flavin's beginnings into what became an obsession for the rest of his life, his "icons". These first pieces seem crude in comparison, but nevertheless they are extremely important in the artist's development.



The strongest presence at the top of the stairs is the green glow of the piece above, this time located in front of the MCA's bank of windows above its monumental stairs and plaza. This location makes for a striking view from the plaza and the park across the street, especially at night (makes me wonder if they "leave the lights on" after close).

Without going into details about the remaining parts of the exhibition, the white walls of the museum become canvases for Flavin's icons. Sometimes it's merely a corner that reflects the glow of a hidden, colored tube. Sometimes whole walls are bathed in blues, reds, yellows. The best situations come as one moves from room to room, slowly gaining a read on what's to come. The MCA sells a couple books to accompany the show, though his is an art that must be experienced to both understand and appreciate. And from my experience the more one can see his work in various places, the more one sees how his light shapes space and alters our experience of it.

Spiraling On

Following up on the BIG NEWS in these parts, more and more people are weighing in on the plans for Fordham Spire, planned for Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood.

WTTW's Chicago Tonight had Adrian Smith of SOM, WBEZ's Edward Lifson, and the Sun-Times then-staff reporter-now architecture critic Kevin Nance on Tuesday discussing the proposal. I caught about the last half where Smith, the designer of the Trump Tower just down the river from the site, actually said the two skyscrapers would complement each other, unlike his client who strongly opposes the Spire. Lifson spoke about Calatrava's charisma being a help in actually getting the building off the ground, while Nance asserted that the building would not be a target for terrorists, since it's residential/hotel and therefore doesn't carry any symbolic meaning. They ended by giving their odds on the project's outcome: Smith giving it a 10% chance, Lifson thinking a Calatrava tower will rise but in a different form, and Nance giving it a 50% chance. Last night's show featured a discussion with the designer, though I missed that one. Too bad Chicago Tonight - ahem - doesn't archive their shows online.

Nance covers the press conference where Calatrava speaks but fails "to demonstrate why he is one of the world architecture scene's few genuine superstars," but then "Calatrava picks up a felt-tip pen, walks to a nearby easel, and starts to draw....It might as well be a magic wand."


Calatrava stabilizes the Spire; the drama at night

The Tribune yesterday published not one but five articles on the project.

And finally Peter Slatin reports that Fordham Spire "signals that developers now believe that today's best-known architects not only sell condos, they sell financing." He illuminates us to the developer's previous buildings, and their problems, coming to the conclusion that "a great designer is commoditized, and a great city is caricatured."

6pm Update: Forgot to mention that the upcoming Hello Beautiful! will be a live call-in show revolving around the Fordham Spire, with Martha Thorne (Associate Curator of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago), Santiago Calatrava, Blair Kamin, Kevin Nance, and YOU. It airs at 10am CST and is also available as a live stream via the link above.

Update 07.29: Lynn Becker's head hurts from all the Calatrava commotion.

Update 08.01: A bunch more articles hit over the weekend:

:: Arcspace
:: More Kamin
:: More Nance
:: Ms. Gould
:: BugMeNot, for all those pesky news sites

Me Be Jammin'

With the taking off of Podcasting, it was just a matter of time before the mix tape found an online home. The Wooster Collective is one such repository, featuring the Vitamin_F Series curated by Vinnie Ray. The latest mix is compiled by Maya Huyak and is 74 minutes (35 mb) of quality "eclectica".



My personal favorites are the starters by X-Ray Specs and Julie Ruin (of Le Tigre) and the 1-2-3 punch of Mellow Candle, Nanette Natal, and Olivia Tremor Control. And if you've never heard the Langley Schools Music Project, now's your chance.

Listen Up

As a distraction from "The Calatrava", I offer the following tidbits:

:: Pamphlet Architecture announces its call for entries for issue #28. This is a great opportunity for "architects, designers, theorists, urbanists, and landscape architects to publish their designs, manifestos, ideas, theories, ruminations, hopes, and insights for the future of the designed and built world." Deadline is October 10. Click link above for more information.

:: Lynn Becker has a new blog, ArchitectureChicago Plus, "a place to find out what's going on in Chicago's architectural community, as well as for discussions on its current state and future potential."

and

:: Following on the heels of the recent archi-boom in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune now has a permanent outpost for architecture articles, titled cityscape. (Thanks to Lil'G for this head's up)