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Jan 30

Phenomenal, Phenomenal

Now, it takes a lot to make get me walk down a 12” wide corridor as I am really claustrophobic.  Usually it’s a very dry, very strong martini. In this case, however, I did it for art (how many times have I heard that statement before?) when I went to see a show in San Diego. It was called Phenomenal: California Light, Space, Surface and featured artists like Bruce Nauman, James Turrell and Doug Wheeler.

 

This is my friend, Pauline, in the corridor. I may have rushed through a bit too quickly for the camera to pick me up.

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Jan 17

Archi Babble

Martin Filler, admittedly, gets a few chuckles out of me in this article about architectural firms and their names (or their “renames”). Firms want to seem modern and unique but their new names just seem to over complicate their identity. Filler provides some hilarious examples:

But surely no architectural moniker has been as thoroughly annoying as Coop Himmelb(l)au, dreamed up in Vienna in 1968 (perhaps over a funny Zigarette?). The effortfully parenthesized second part of that contorted tag conflates the German words for heaven (Himmel), blue (blau), and building (Bau).

And while Filler doesn’t necessarily touch on this directly, his article got me wondering about architects and language (I worry my daughter’s English degree is rubbing off on me). Namely, why architecture seems to be desperately looking for a new language in which to lose itself.

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