notes on becoming fearless

BRUTAL/beauty

The Barbican. I love the brutalist design of the towers and the complex. The architecture tour they run is really fascinating - there are so many levels to the design. 

a grand DESIGN

I love Grand Designs so much that I often bore Lewis half to death watching it on 4od. It fuels my (highly unlikely) dream of renovating or building my own home. I'm even considering subscribing to the magazine. I think I must be turning into my dad.

I particularly loved this house built by interior designer Kathryn Tyler, I would like all of her furniture! Plus she seemed so lovely. Often the subjects are a little annoying. I would like a house of my own one day! The episode is available to watch here.

All pictures of Corkellis House from Kathryn Tyler's website Linea Studio.

SPLITTING

I've posted this before but I love it so here it is again...

Splitting, 1974 by Gordon Matta-Clark.

the modern HOME

Currently persuading myself to purchase this Handcrafted Modern book by artist and photographer Leslie Williamson. I have a feeling I'm likely to cave in.

 

Top to bottom: Wharton Esherick home & studio, Paoli, PA, Louis Kahn's Esherick House, Chestnut Hill, PA, Bertoia Barn, Barto, PA, Vladimir Kagan’s living room, NYC, JB Blunk's home, Inverness, CA & Walter Gropius' living room, Lincoln, MA.

120/NYC

Camera: Holga

 

making WAVES

I went to see the Yohji Yamamoto wedding dress on show at the Wapping Project when it opened a while ago. The dress is suspended upside down over a flooded boiler house room. The room is very darkly lit so you see a reflection of dress the right way up from the water which becomes clearer as the boat man takes you closer around the dress. The boat can seat 2 people and costs £5 but just viewing the dress from the entrance platform is free. I would definitely recommend the boat ride though - it was serene and quite beautiful and a much more interesting way to look at the piece. Wellies are provided although be careful if you're wearing anything long - Jennie's coat unfortunately got a bit wet from the water at the bottom of the boat!

 

downtown

Splitting by Gordon Matta-Clark & Roof and Fire Piece by Trisha Brown.

holidays for HIPSTERS

These Living Architecture holiday homes in England work out surprisingly affordable for large groups would be fun place to have a break with friends. Living Architecture want to shift perceptions of modern architecture and allow people a taste of what it is to live in a modern space designed by an outstanding architectural practice. Sadly the likelihood of ever managing to arrange something like this with my friends is pretty low, plus pretty much none of us drive which makes this sort of holiday almost impossible. Obviously if you did end up staying at any of these houses you'd be pretty much duty bound to take some Unhappy Hipsters style photos. 

operating manual for SPACESHIP EARTH

 
I've talked about my fondness of the geodesic dome before both as buildings in the amazing hippie commune that was Drop City and as applied to clothing so I was excited to find that much of the work of Buckminster Fuller, the original architect of the geodesic dome, is available for free online. Fuller was a philosopher as much as an architect devoting his life to solving problems of all kinds.

 I'll be reading Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth his essay on our intellectual evolution and our capabilities of surviving in the vastness of space.

 

 

                           

 

 

the RUINS of detroit

I love the delapidated and run down, paticularly in photography, where it can provide a distant but haunting image of the passage of time, the ravages of nature and the futility of life.  I'd love to one day visit the city of Detroit where these pictures were taken to see the sad and decayed splendour of its empty monuments to a boom time now past. 

 

 

 
 

All images from The Ruins of Detroit by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.

Online tours of the ruins of Detroit.