Jeune fille endormie raises 13 million pounds for science

The University of Sydney just sold this lovely piece to an unknown collector, with all proceeds going to scientific research. Read more...

Zaha Hadid and the despotic reign of design

Designers these days are like gods. They are given such reign over function; the world is blinded by swoopy lines and bubbly surfaces.

It took engineers no less than ten years to figure out how the hell they could build this monstrosity of design that pays little heed to the laws of physics:

Oops, not the shoe that Zaha Hadid designed for Lacoste a few years ago...

Oops, not the ones she did for Melissa. 

I mean this bridge that is down the street from me:

Ten years...

....to build a silly bridge. An engineer could have built it in 3, used half the tonnage of steel and concrete and made it more elegant and more efficient.

Now she's building a building on Saadiyat island:

Stunning.

But form over function is untenable when our (those of us that will use the building) values conflict with the designers' fancy.

In Abu Dhabi, it doesn't even matter that buildings are not functional, as long as they look pretty from a birds eye they'll get the green light. Wouldn't you green light this building?

But, what about the people that have to live in there? Did anyone consider them? What about a nice balcony to take advantage of the beautiful weather? Hmm?!

Designers must be forced to consider the the systems of communication, transportation, energy and waste; the greater environment in which their creation will rest is of utmost importance. They must consider ground level experience and they must play off the surrounding buildings.

It benefits no one when a beautifully designed finger sticks out like a sore thumb.

 Someone tell them that. 

Scent

How ironic it is that the sense most associated with 

memory

 is most hopelessly lost in 

history.

Lluís Domènech i Montaner

When I lived in Barcelona, (ahhh, the nostalgia) I lived just down a pedestrian street from the incredible Palau de La Musica. This moderniste marvel was constructed by a lesser sung hero of Catalan architecture (in the shadow of another Art Nouveau giant, Gaudi).

The Palau is so ornate it is almost blinding. These photos don't even do it justice.

He also designed and began to build the fanciful, fairy-tale Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona which has recently been redesignated, along with the Palau, as a UNESCO world heritage site. 

Lluís Domènech i Montaner is a true visionary.

Anything wrong with this picture?

From ArtDaily.org:

"On 17th February 2011, Sotheby’s will sell a rare, newly re-discovered, 16th century ivory pendant mask depicting the head of the Queen mother from the Edo peoples, Kingdom of Benin in Nigeria along with five other rare works from Benin collected at the same time."

Notice the word "collected" in there? Replace that with "looted" and were still not even close to the real picture.

Supposedly, the mask was not known of until the descendants of Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry Lionel Gallwey contacted the auction house a short while ago. Gallwey wrote the master plan to burn and loot Benin in 1897, and helped provide the 'legal basis' to destroy the entire civilization. He wrote the master plan! And, of course, he was given a title and a promotion for his efforts.

Now, it is only right that the family make money (estimate: £3,500,000 - 4,500,000) off the art he so succesfully stole a century ago, right?

Is this really happening?

I love this quote from FT.com:

"Jean Fritts, director of African and Oceanic art at Sotheby’s, said: “It has an amazing, untouched surface which collectors love. Its honey colour attests to years of rubbing with palm oil.”

I suppose we ought to applaud them for taking care of such a treasure that surely no Beniner could ever appreciate. Hah!

Here's a thought, why not use the proceeds of the sale to help rebuild the civilization that England destroyed (and continues to destroy in this manner)?

Not bloody likely is it?

Well, there is an international convention, signed in the 1970's, that prevents this very thing from happening. It makes me wonder if this will actually go down. You better believe there would be a reaction against an auction if it were, say, a Polish artifact stolen by a Nazi and put up for auction in Germany...

Henry Galway: a capable murderer and thief

Ugh.

HT: Bombastic Elements

treeburst

Photo of the week - Liwa

Every eight years the human body generates 100 trillion cells. That is, every single cell you had eight years ago is now no longer a part of you; you are completely new. Therefore you are not what you were, and you are not the stuff of which you are made.

Unless... we are like a sand dune; ever giving and ever receiving grains of sand from dunes around, yet somehow maintaining a consistent guise. We are never static, never solid... unless we are captured in a pretty picture.

Liwa Dunes, like the meringue of my dreams, rise hundreds of meters from the desert floor