Years ago now, a university friend told me of a woman – probably someone his mother knew – who had had her smallest toes surgically removed so she could wear the kind of shoes she wanted to. I guess we could call this a cosmetic amputation as opposed to regular amputation where a limb or part […]
Two posts ago when I was searching for more information on Arata Isozaki’s 1980 house project House of Nine Squares, all references led to this article on Art Forum. You can also read it here. https://www.artforum.com/features/pastiche-prototype-purity-houses-for-sale-208677/ Actually, the ArtForum article is a reprint of this next one, and might come from the second of three […]
The Nakayama House is Isozaki’s first recorded house, completed in 1964 one year after he left Tange’s office to start his own. It was later demolished and a facsimile built in 1998 at Akiyoshidai International Art Village. By 1964 it was already expected of Japanese architects to have elliptical theories about their work and how […]
The rate of building stock churn in Japan is well documented and the architectural churn it generates more so. This very real manifestation of the Futurist concern for neverending newness meshes perfectly with the post-WWII belief in continuous growth that architects are, on the whole, inclined to accept. Toyo Ito isn’t alone in decrying the […]
I only learned about Victorian era architect Decimus Burton (1800–1881) a few months ago when two articles on him appeared in The Guardian online the same day. Decimus Burton was a skilled and prolific architect who, until recently, was mostly forgotten or, more to the point, never remembered. Both articles suggested this was because he […]
This list of memories isn’t ordered according to my memory but according to the year of manufacture and so it’s an unintentional history of materials, technology and trends over the past fifty or so years. Ahh the 1932 1227 Anglepoise desklamp, designed by George Carwadine! Circa 1975 when I was in second year, I bought […]
The Three R’s used to without irony refer to Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic but, more recently, we know them as the sustainability performance mantras Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. There are as many R’s as you want. Re-use works for buildings but Repair works better for washing machines and Replace better for old refrigerators. It’s not […]
This curious nautical building with the striped masonry is Shanghai’s Gutzlaff Signal Tower. It was built in 1907 and the podium was added in 1927. Flags provided the weather forecast and a ball on the mast dropped at midday so mariners and townspeople could adjust their clocks. This little functional building facilitated the shipping that […]
Shanghai is what it is not just because of its built environment but also because of some unique chemistry of culture, geography, history, politics and the people themselves and, as a recent visitor, I can’t pretend to understand any of it. If you want to learn more about the historic development of Shanghai, then I […]
