Out with the Old, In with the New

I don't really want to get into politics here, but I do need to say: thank GOD that humiliating ignoramus is finally gone. Worst. President. Ever.

I also cannot believe that Jan Kaplický is dead. I mean, he was 71, and people die younger than that all the time, but it came as such a shock to me. I've long been a huge fan of Future Systems, the long-standing original team of which only just disbanded. I'd gotten so used to hearing about the soap opera surrounding his National Library in Prague. On top of it all, he'd only just had a baby. It's a great loss to the world of Architecture.

People are rallying together demanding the Library be built as designed:

--Image courtesy Building Design Online.

I guess I'm not all that surprised it caused controversy. It is a little bit goofy looking and has been likened to the Brain Slugs of Futurama fame:

--Image courtesy The Infosphere.

Man, do I ever love that show.

But his library was decidedly futuristic and showed a whole new way of conceiving structure and enclosure. I'd not read anything about Kaplický's theories on color, and perhaps his designs would have caused less grimacing if their startling forms were clad in more restrained hues. In any case, it appears his concert hall in České Budějovice (gezundheit), Czech Republic will, thankfully, be built posthumously:

--Images courtesy The Architects' Journal.

The best thing about his work, though, is that it's just fun and delightful. He rejected these dubious notions that new architecture has to be tragically hip or pretentious and stoic. His work often put a smile on my face, and I think he owed no one any apologies for that.

Jan Kaplický

1937-2009

R.I.P.

Zaha Hadid has also unveiled two astonishing new projects. One is an extension of the Port Authority in Antwerp: 

--Images courtesy Building.

Unfreakingbelievable. 

But her new library in Vienna literally made me moan out loud in architectural ecstasy:

--Images courtesy Architectural Record.

Holy crap is that gorgeous.  Seriously, this woman is some kind of crazy genius. First, I want to have her over for a glass of wine and play her some music. Then I want to interview her for Architextures. And of course it's my dream to design and build my own revolutionary weekend house on the southern side of a mountain about an hour or so north of New York City. But my third home, let's say maybe outside London or Berlin, will definitely have to be designed by Hadid, I don't care how much she charges me.

Lastly, the Municipal Art Society has been talking quite a bit about what's going to happen to Coney Island.  One group of designs was offered up by Columbia architecture student Eduardo McIntosh:

He calls this "Parasitic Architecture." The idea is that these flexible units would sort of attach onto and grow out of the Coney Island piers to provide living and retail spaces as needed. 

I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this before. Not as much conceptually, it's clearly evolved to some degree from Archigram, but his aesthetic is fantastic. It blurs the distinctions between architecture and large machinery, something I've long been fascinated by, and yet it feels somehow biological at the same time. It's truly a state-of-the-art approach to architectural design. I am convinced McIntosh is very much going to be someone to watch in the coming decades.

©2009, Ryan Witte

Brass Monkeys

Since my preliminary post was about the importance of good booth reps, I'd like to dedicate this year's ICFF posts to the company with the best representative of all of them.  It was in Austria's booth, and the company is Lichterloh.  It would appear they specialize in antique furniture, originals of design masterpieces and somewhat oddly, antique gym supplies like medicine balls: 

First of all, I walked up and started looking more closely at a couple cute things on this sideboard, where these two reps were talking.  The guy interrupts their conversation to say, "do you need any help?"  I said "no, thank you, just looking."  But they ended their conversation anyway, and the woman went to another part of the booth so the guy could assist me more freely.  Brilliant.  His English was a little bit broken, to the point I had to kind of pay close attention to understand him at times, but his enthusiasm and friendliness were so great that I'd have taken this conversation over a hundred others with reps with bad attitudes and perfect English.

He started telling me about these little animals on the sideboard, and I'm so happy that he did, because it's such a great story.

Evidently almost anyone who grew up in Austria knows about Walter Bosse.  His little figurines were everywhere, and heads of state would even take one of them along when visiting other countries to offer them as gifts to foreign dignitaries and whoever.  

Bosse created thousands of different animals, but for years and years the molds for them were lost, and I suppose thought to be lost forever.  Recently thousands of molds for his figurines were found in a collection rescued from an old factory/ warehouse somewhere.  The owner of them approached Lichterloh, Lichterloh bought them up, and they're now selling reproductions of them.

And oh, BOY are they ever CUTE!  They're really tiny, like a little over an inch high, each.  I'm going to show you a bunch, because I adore them.  Cat:

Giraffe:

Penguin:

Frog:

Monkey:

Owl:

Bear:

The Chamois is the animal that sort of symbolizes this one particular region of Austria (I think he said Kitzbrühel, but I can't remember).  And Bosse's Chamois is famous there:

They're also doing a line of them with patinated brass, these were the ones we were looking at mostly:

They had one made into a keychain in the display, but he said they're working on doing more of them as keychains. I think they're just perfect for that.  Things like corkscrews and so on, too, he said.

But the most incredibly awesome part of the whole thing was when we got to the end of the conversation, and he tells me to choose one for myself.  I was so incredulous I actually thought I must have misunderstood what he meant.  I'm like "you...mean...I can have one of them???"  He's like "yes!"  So I chose this little cat:

TEEHEE!

I love it.

Lichterloh KunsthandelsgesmbH

(Austria) 431-586-0520

esbrennt@lichterloh.com

©2008, Ryan Witte