Focus 4 - Dalston Print Club

Went to a crazy exhibition put on by The Dalston Print Club in a damp, dark subterranean bunker-type space just off Dalston High street. There were a couple of eerie projections of shadow-like kids playing with leaves if I can remember......another room with a spiders web covered in lights....a harpist lit by candlelight....and lots of bodies moving about in the dark. The last room was lit by UV with a table tennis table lit with neon tape and matching neon bats....dim fondling of balls with a bunch of strangers.

The second part of the exhibit was at another spot around the corner...above ground....also lit by UV but this time a series of screen prints by local artists all influenced by the patterns and shapes of the various ethnicities found in the Dalston area.

+ Dalston Print Club

Focus 4 - ROA

ROA is an artist from Belgium who's recently been painting in his distinctive sketchy black and white style, huge urban wildlife all over the east ends........

Pure Evil Gallery in Old Street has just held his first exhibition of works....painted on random pieces of metal and wood, ROA's collection is quite beautiful and gritty. Old locker doors are closed and painted with giant rabbits or foxes, and when the doors are opened, the animals internal organs are on display.........brilliant.

New street pieces are popping up on 'abandoned' walls every week. Keep an eye out for that giant bunny...

+ Pure Evil

Focus 2 - Container City in Mexico

A new container city has opened in Cholula, about 2 hours outside of Mexico City. It is beautiful, brightly painted, hip and looks like a brilliant spot to hang out and drink afternoon coffees. Created by a small community of businesses, it covers an area of about 4500 sq m and consists of restaurants, juicebars and normal bars, bookstores, art galleries, and even living spaces.

The clever layout of the 50 containers has also created alleys courtyards, streets and even an open public space with ping pong tables and bands playing for various events. I think this is such a brilliant project, and I have posted other container projects around the world in the past but this is by far the most attractive and sensible use of containers. One of the 1st floor containers even has a slide access to the ground!! So so cool. It puts container city in Greenwich to absolute shame.

The Container City website is also quite cool...........

+ Container City Mexico

Focus 1 - Serpentine Pavillion 2009

I visited the latest Serpentine Gallery Pavillion of 2009 before it closed on a gorgeous Autumn sunny day. Designed by Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA Architects.

They describe their structure as: ‘The Pavilion is floating aluminium, drifting freely between the trees like smoke. The reflective canopy undulates across the site, expanding the park and sky. Its appearance changes according to the weather, allowing it to melt into the surroundings. It works as a field of activity with no walls, allowing uninterrupted view across the park and encouraging access from all sides. It is a sheltered extension of the park where people can read, relax and enjoy lovely summer days.’

I really liked its delicateness, the organic curves, and the reflective peacefulness of such a simple structure. I think I may have read some bad reviews when it first was constructed but as with everything, it's all a matter of personal choice.

+ Serpentine Pavillion

+ SANAA

Radical Nature

Went to Radical Nature at the Barbican on Sunday....I'd been seeing the posters up when I take the tube every now and then and thought it time I go and have a look before it finishes. I have to say it was such a let down, a real shame.

I remembers going to this exhibition space at the Barbican a few years ago to see the Future Cities exhibition and that was unbelievable. Some really exciting projects and models and a sense of real organisation. That was not the case with Radical Nature. First of all taking photographs was not allowed which I thought to be unquestionably stupid, especially considering there was nothing really original or amazing being exhibited.

While to some it may be considered art, and with all due respect to the artist, I thought Henrik Håkansson's Fallen Forest was a waste of space and good plants. They have been on display since June and seemingly struggling to stay alive. I don't think this could be a realistic template for vertical planting, it may make more sense to keep to planting that will gravitationally survive.

The hydroponic system in the centre of the room of Tomas Saraceno, entitled Flying Garden, I found interesting, nonetheless that the plants here too were pretty much on their last legs. It did remind me of a project I posted months back of the Parisian hydroponic Living Green house of R&Sie Architects for the white which (found here). I understand that this is an exhibition but I think in order to keep it a successful piece, it needs to be properly maintained since it is situated indoors. Just my opinion.

Aside from that, the others were really forgettable, some vegetable patches, a mirrored room for the inhabitat with a tiny garden. Upstairs there were some interesting projects from designers of yesteryear.

I loved the handdrawn images of Newton Fallis' Autopia (1978) and also Wolf Hilbertz's Autopia: Internalised Oceanic (1985). (A beautiful image can be found here)

Agnes Denes' Wheatfield and Tree Mountain were the most inspirational for me. In 1982, she carried out what has become one of the best-known environmental art projects when she planted a two-acre field of wheat in a vacant lot in downtown Manhattan. Titled, Wheatfield - A Confrontation, the artwork yielded 1,000 lbs. of wheat in the middle of New York City to comment on "human values and misplaced priorities". The harvested grain then traveled to 28 cities worldwide in "The International Art Show for the End of World Hunger" and was symbolically planted around the globe.

As part of Agnes Denes' Wheatfield exhibition, Paris-based experimental architects EXYZT re-created the Wheatfield on a smaller site with a very different backdrop, in part of an abandoned railway line at The Dalston Junction Eastern Curve. The Dalston Mill was also designed by the Parisian architects, as a temporary structure created in 2008 with Sara Muzio for the Architecture Foundation which was based around the idea of "a community of users actively creating and inhabiting their urban environment [as] key to generating a vibrant city". Both pieces in fact form a temporary functional ensemble and eventually the mill will be processing grains from the field when the wheat is ready to be harvested. More inforamtion about the Dalston Wheatfield and Mill can be found at http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2009/07/the-dalston-mill-wheatfield.php

+ The Barbican

+ EXYZT

Queens Urban Farm @ PS1

PS1 gallery in Queens, New York City has opened an urban farm installation. 50 types of vegetables in 280 cardboard tubes filled with soil are installed on the roof of the gallery.

An irrigation system that makes use of collected rainwater waters the plants and is heated by 16 solar panels. It is estimated that there is enough surplus power to run a mobile-phone charging station and a sound and video column.

People on the ground can look through a periscope over the growing plants, which are lifted 12m in the air.

Hooray for urban agriculture.

+images courtesy of iconeye

High Line is open!

Ten years in the making, New York city's High Line is finally open and providing New Yorkers with yet another green space, ready for summer!

The City of New York is full of parks - in fact, there are 1700! There are the enormous parks (Central, Prospect, Flushing) with medium-sized offerings (Bryant, Madison Square), and not forgetting little pocket parks everywhere like Stuyvesant and Washington Market. People such as Jane Jacobs and Jan Gehl would be the first to advocate green spaces for great cities.

On a newly renovated stretch of an elevated promenade that was once a railway line for delivering cattle — surrounded by the community activists, elected officials and architects who made the transformation happen — Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg cut a red ribbon on Monday morning to signify that the first phase of the High Line is finished and ready for strolling.

As you can imagine with such an eagerly anticipated event such as this, there are plenty of online reports dedicated to its opening:

The New York Times has posted a great panoramic here.

Treehugger and the Daily Green have put up slideshows here and here.

The Huffington Post added some great aerial shots here.


+ main image courtesy of inhabitat.

Lost in Paris

Well not really. Just my camera with the fabulous photo's of this gorgeous stimulating city. So all images below are of the main weekends attractions.

Eurostar over on the Friday and out onto the Champs Elysees, all lit up in festive lights. Hidden around the corner is boutique hotel Pershinghall on 49, rue pierre charron. We had a fabulous dinner at their stunning Pershinghall Restaurant (http://www.pershinghall.com/), reinvented by internationally acclaimed French designer and Interior Architect Andree Putman, who along with my favourite man of horticulture - Patrick Blanc (http://www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com/) - transformed a small, non-event courtyard into a spectacular Parisian version of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, ...very chic and very Parisian, and of course lots of beautiful people.

http://www.jpmoser.com/images/pershinghall/p-pershinghall1.jpg

http://images.france-for-visitors.com/images/large/pershing-hall-vertical-garden.jpg

Saturday was an all day-event at the Pompidou Centre. (http://www.cnac-gp.fr/) cultural capital of Paris. The building was designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, leaving structural and movement flow systems such as the escalators freeing up interior space for museum and activity areas. There are fantastic views over Paris from the 5th floor viewing area and while the restaurant may be tempting, it may only be worth visiting to see the organic forms buit within. The service on our day was awful, and save the loo visit for the museum. (PS: wear proper shoes)

http://z.about.com/d/architecture/1/7/m/j/pompidou.jpg

Ron Arad's No Discipline exhibition on the first floor is an amazing restrospective of his works, prototypes accompanied by audiovisual documents, limited series and mass-produced objects, along with numerous architectural projects. (http://www.ronarad.com/) I would highly recommend seeing this - on until the 16 March 2009.

http://www.espacio.co.uk/cgi-bin/products/images/chairs/MT3_rocking-chair.jpg

http://www.art2bank.com/london_art_news/pics/Ron_Arad_Tiothy_Taylor_London_Gallery.jpeg

We didn't use them but it was good to finally see the Parisian rent-a-bikes in the flesh. (or the metal) Comfortable and clever, they have everything a city bike needs, basket, built in lights and can be found everywhere. Since the metro stops at about 2am, you will find there may be a small queue at the pay machine after the local bar shuts.....We saw three on one bike. Probably not even possible during daylight hours.

www.treklens.com/.../France/photo395520.htm

Our gorgeous little hotel in Place de Vosges is so worth a mention. Surrounded by antique and art stores and the loveliest boutiques you could ask for, Pavillion de la Reine is a real gem. (http://www.pavillon-de-la-reine.com/uk/navigation.htmom)

http://www.xoprivate.com/img/hotels-and-resorts/le-pavillion-de-la-reine-l.jpg