Showing only Notes + Links tagged architecture
Iannis Xenakis - Metastasis (Spectral View)
Metastasis or Metastaseis (“dialectic transformations”), is an orchestral work by Iannis Xenakis, a Greek composer-architect and a major figure in the postwar development of musical modernism worldwide. He is particularly remembered for the pioneering use of stochastic mathematical techniques in his compositions, including probability (Maxwell-Boltzmann kinetic theory of gases, aleatory distribution of points on a plane, minimal constraints, Gaussian distribution, Markov chains), game theory, group theory, Boolean algebra and Brownian motion.
Metastasis was inspired by Einstein’s view of time (a function of matter & energy) and structured on mathematical ideas by Xenakis’s colleague Le Corbusier. The 1st and 3rd movements don’t have a melodic theme to hold them together, but rather depend on the strength of this conceptualization of time. The 2nd movement does have some sort of melodic element. A fragment of a 12-tone row is used, with durations based on the Fibonacci sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34…)
The preliminary sketch for Metastasis was in graphic notation looking more like a blueprint than a musical score, showing graphs of mass motion and glissandi like structural beams of the piece, with sound frequencies on one axis and time on the other. In this video I tried to display this by presenting the frequency spectrum (0-20.000Hz) of the piece and how Xenakis actually “drew” music.
SWF Symphony Orchestra Hans Rosbaud, conductor October 1955
Saw the Iannis Xenakis show today at The Drawing Center and it blew my mind. Architecturemusicdrawing.
Tonight in NYC: PechaKucha Night with a ridiculous list of presenters including Sagmeister, Iwan Baan, Steven Holl Architects, Zachary Lieberman, and some other amazing sounding architects and designers. Each will be presenting about something they love using 20 slides which advance every 20 seconds = 6:40 per speaker. So excited.
Cooper Union, 4pm
PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.
It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat”, it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It’s a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.
The Micheels House, Designed by Paul Rudolph, Westport, Connecticut, 1972 - 2007, by Chris Mottalini
Wrote about Chris Mottalini’s beautiful series After You Left, They Took it Apart (Demolished Paul Rudolph Homes) today on the Hey, Hot Shot! Blog:
Important works of art are handled with white cotton gloves, doted over by curators and housed in atmospherically controlled Plexiglas cubes. All too often, important works of architecture are not afforded the same attention by conservationists. Once a style falls out of favor, monumentally important buildings are bought and sold at the mercy of the real estate market, and left to decay until they meet the wrecking ball.
Untitled by Anish Kapoor (2009)
BLDGBLOG has a great post, full of images, on an upcoming Guggenheim exhibition called Contemplating the Void.
New York’s Guggenheim Museum “invited more than two hundred artists, architects, and designers to imagine their dream interventions in the space.”
In this exhibition of ideal projects, certain themes emerge, including the return to nature in its primordial state, the desire to climb the building, the interplay of light and space, the interest in diaphanous effects as a counterpoint to the concrete structure, and the impact of sound on the environment.
These and many other images will be on display when the exhibition, Contemplating the Void, opens February 12, 2010.
As a (too good to be coincidental) prelude to this exhibition, the space has already been transformed by Tino Sehgal, whose current exhibition has removed all of the visual art from the rotunda. There is literally nothing that screams ART! on the walls or in the void. However, if you stare from the top down, you will notice one unmistakeable couple that can’t stop making out and the rhythmic pattern of people-in-conversation ambling slowly upwards.
Tufte is probably going to put a curse on me for making an infographic that straight up lies, but I have seen these prints in real life and they are pretty huge.
The 20x200 Blog: Ginormous Prints, 20% Off Through Noon Tomorrow
We wanted to illustrate just HOW FREAKIN’ GINORMOUS our 40”x50” prints are so we whipped up this handy infographic for you. Somewhere between Canary Wharf and the Empire State Building in scale, these editions will fill even the loneliest wall space.
(via jenbekmanprojects)
Another Frank Gehry creation, the Lou Ruvo Clinic (under construction). A medical center devoted to brain health, outside of Las Vegas. The interior looks insane.
Via iheartmyart
_________________________
This looks like the one place I wouldn’t want to be if I was having “brain health” issues, right?
BLDGBLOG: Remnants of the Biosphere
Photographer Noah Sheldon got in touch the other week with a beautiful series of photos documenting the decrepit state of Biosphere 2, a semi-derelict bio-architectural experiment in the Arizona desert.
View from the Top of the Burj Dubai
I’m captivated by the new tallest building in the world, opening this Monday.
(via ArchDaily
Liza has an awesome post up full of pictures of “experimental projects in architecture with respect to digital fabrication” by architects Andrew Kudless/Matsys.
Fireplace for Children / Haugen/Zohar Arkitekter | ArchDaily
An enclosed space for fire, storytelling and playing.
Yes, please.
Feeling a small, useless painter, I created an alternate world that I can menace with difficulties while simultaneously trying my best to stick it back together and rebuild communities and connections.
In my work, I am interested in storytelling, cause and effect, mistake making, finding solutions, what ifs and the everyday. I am fascinated by the resilience of life. Every disaster is followed by rebirth, where we try to cobble together a Plan B out of what remains. My paintings celebrate this fascination and my love of the urban landscape and its creatures.
Digging today’s 20x200 edition, especially the way Amy writes about her work!
What is Affordable Housing? is a great interactive map of NYC that makes a really complex set of data easy to grok.
The beautifully designed toolkit consists of the interactive map above, a downloadable pdf guidebook, and a rearrangeable felt chart*:
The Envisioning Development Toolkit is a set of teaching tools designed to help experts and laypeople communicate. Advocates, policy wonks, community board members, developers, and others can use the tools as a centerpiece for workshops and conversations that describe and clarify problems and propose and communicate solutions.
The Toolkit is visual, tactile, and interactive. Each tool translates abstract concepts and language into straightforward activities and physical objects that let people learn by looking, doing, and listening to each other. Participants teach themselves and others as they use the tools. Concepts and jargon turn out to be less complicated than they seem.
It’s put together by the Center for Urban Pedagogy, an organization that uses the power of visual arts and design to help people communicate about urban issues. I highly recommend downloading the book (pdf) and flipping through, it’s absolutely fascinating, easy to read, and important to understand.
*which I first came across (and loved!) a few months ago while exploring the Center for Architecture with Liza!
Hey, Hot Shot! Contender: Alejandro Cartagena
I’ve got a post on the HHS! Blog about contender Alejandro Cartagena who is documenting the tragic suburban sprawl happening right now in Mexico.
Like many development projects, the repetitious rows of houses forsake both their natural surroundings and cultural context. Most of the houses are a kind of boxy, mass-produced approximation of mission-style architecture, a sad nod to an endangered cultural history and an eerie parallel to the pseudo-colonial McMansions that have overtaken American developments. For me, it is painful to watch these spiritless developments envelop the landscape. Alejandro, however, “does not overtly condemn these development projects.” Instead he seeks to “openly engage a critically dense examination of the complicated balance existing between economically driven States and the yearning of a society for a fairer World in which to live.”
The entire series, Suburbia Mexicana; Fragmented Cities, is really beautiful and worth a look.
Artist Jonathan Harris has written a really inspiring series of vignettes titled World Building in a Crazy World, about “the current state of the digital world (as I see it), and some thoughts about what that world’s future could be.”
His entire website is worth a visit, too.
(via Bobulate)
Determining aural usability →
A new tool makes the connection between architectural drawings a space and the aural experience of its soon-to-be users:
A powerful tool, called auralization, is available to help make this connection. Using computer modeling and signal processing techniques, acoustical consultants can transform architectural drawings into realistic, surround-sound aural renderings of a space (an “auralization”) that allows you to “hear” your space before it’s built.
(via bobulate)
This goes well with the previously posted: The Fountainhead is Dead, about how the future of architecture is collaborative.
