From Barcelona: The Urban Evolution of a Compact City, by Joan Busquets, published by Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
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January 13, 2006
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- World Design Congress 2009, Beijing: Day three
- World Design Congress 2009, Beijing: Victor Margolin: The politics of survival, the potential of data display
- World Design Congress 2009, Beijing: Zhu Dake: "Consumerism, authoritarianism, inconsistency, harmony and modern China"
- World Design Congress 2009, Beijing: Day two
- World Design Congress 2009, Beijing: Opening ceremony
- World Design Congress 2009, Beijing: National Centre for Performing Arts
- World Design Congress 2009, Beijing: Day One
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- 10 Hills Place, London, by Amanda Levete Architects
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RECENT READING
Mary Myers: Andrea Cochran: Landscapes
A glorious book, about glorious work. Cochran's landscapes are pitched perfectly, balancing formal order with controlled explosions of planting, light and colour. It's quite beautiful work, stretching mainly down the west coast of the USA, and so with beautiful landscape to borrow. And the book presents and dissects the work, and the thinking behind it, with equal precision. Wonderful. (*****)Alain de Botton: A Week At The Airport: A Heathrow Diary
Lovely little book describing an endlessly fascinating subject. de Botton on top form when constrained by scope and surrounds. Full review here. (****)Jacques Attali: A Brief History of the Future: A Brave and Controversial Look at the Twenty-First Century
Undecided. Fantastic tour through the history of humanity - utterly compelling - and then a projection over the next 50-100 years which is fascinating, insightful and probably spurious in equal measure. Definitely worth a read. (****)Aurora Fernandez Per: The Public Chance: New Urban Landscapes (Spanish Edition)
Absolutely wonderful compendium of urban design and architecture projects worldwide. (I have the English edition rather than the Spanish this link points at.) (*****)- John Birmingham: Leviathan: The unauthorised biography of Sydney
A fantastic read. Thoroughly subjective, impassioned, personal and slanderous. Well researched and hefty, but written with a light touch, it takes apart the Emerald City, revealing it to be both impossibly dark and essentially conservative. Along with The Fatal Shore and a few others, essential reading in terms of understanding the city. (*****) Gary Hume: Toyo Ito: Sendai Mediatheque
As with the Seattle Public Library book in this series from Actar, I've been poring over this over the last year, pulling details and insight into recent work. A good resource, well-produced. (*****)Office for Metropolitan Architecture: Seattle Public Library
Decent overview from the Actar series. I've been using this heavily, along with the Sendai Mediatheque title, in work over the last year. (*****)- Christos Tsiolkas: The Slap
Clever yet eminently readable novel of modern Melbourne manners. Written with the devilishly compelling page-turnability of a good grown-up soap opera, it's also a smartly structured and beautifully nuanced depiction of contemporary Australian urban:suburban society, warts and all. (*****) - Steven Carroll: The Art of the Engine Driver
Lovely evocation of late-'50s Melbourne suburb, and of the railways just before the heart was ripped out of them. Not just a warm nostalgic costume drama, but with rich atmosphere and complex themes rippling beneath the surface. (****) Geoff Dyer: Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi: A Novel
Hugely enjoyable, as ever. One of the finest British writers around. Not autobiography, but autobiography. Fiction, and non-fiction. Travel writing, and not travel writing. Hilarious and occasionally moving, learned and light, warm and bad-tempered, revelling in facile reactions and almost immeasurably deep. A mess of contradictions that establishes a coherent world-view. Which is a contradiction in itself, of course. Beautifully turned prose too, apparently effortless but almost certainly not. (*****)William H. Whyte: The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces
Amazingly, I'd never read this in linear fashion, from cover to cover, until recently. Quite brilliant, clearly, and written so well. With humility and grace, wit and candour, insight and experience. Although focused primarily on New York of the '70s, it's still essential. (*****)- David Malouf: 12 Edmonstone Street
Wondrous writing on memory and place in this famous set of short vignettes by Malouf. (*****) - Robert Freestone: Designing Australia's Cities: Culture, Commerce and the City Beautiful, 1900-1930
Not quite as advertised, and solely focusing on seeing the cities through the 'city beautiful' idea, but a good history. The writing could do with a bit more pep, but an extremely useful reference book on a subject that warrants further exploration. (****) David Peace: GB84
Not sure why it's taken me so long to read this, as I'm a big fan of David Peace's writing and this book is set in and around the early-80s Sheffield of my youth. But it was well worth the wait. Peace fictionalises the miners' strike, and the extraordinary events of 1983-85 as Britain teetered on the edge of large scale civil unrest. But it's only just fiction, no matter how brutal it seems. A brilliant evocation of the time, and a social fabric stretched taut to breaking point. (*****)R. Klanten: Data Flow: Visualising Information in Graphic Design
Pretty thorough compendium of examples. (*****)J. G. Ballard: Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton: An Autobiography
Hugely enjoyable read. His life is incredible and humdrum all at once, which explains a fair bit of his writing. You feel there's a lot more he could tell, but his books have rarely outstayed their welcome. (*****)Cormac Mccarthy: The Road
I don't recall being quite so affected by a book before. Absolutely extraordinary, particularly if you read within one day. It left me speechless, shattered and reflective. (*****)Julianne Schultz (Editor): Griffith REVIEW 21: Hidden Queensland (Griffith Review)
Very good issue. Although it pores over the same old ground again and again from numerous angles, it ultimately reveals a fascinating, multiperspectival portrait of a place. Beneath its becalmed, languid easy-going surface, QLD has the scars of an extraordinarily rich half-century of history; a set of stories and characters well drawn out here. (****)Conny Freyer: Digital by Design: Crafting Technology for Products and Environments
Excellent overview by Troika. Some lovely projects - although many seen before, a few I hadn't - and decent essays. A useful marker of what is now a discrete area of work/play. (*****)Frank Duffy: Work and the City (Edge Futures Ser.)
Excellent summary of issues around working environments by DEGW's Duffy - from numerous angles, taking in history and future. Very useful read, even if you sense there's much more to come here. (*****)
Recent Listening
There Is Love in You
Four Tet: There Is Love in You
Worth the wait, put it that way. Absolutely wonderful. Kieran Hebden at the top of his game. (*****)Sycamore
David Daniell & Douglas Mccombs: Sycamore
A cracking album. Something of Talk Talk at their best (i.e. electric Miles meets loose art-pop). Very good. (*****)Solar Life Raft
DJ Rupture & Matt Shadetek: Solar Life Raft
Top. (*****)Movies Is Magic
Klimek: Movies Is Magic
Dedications was one of the albums of the last decade, and this is a supreme follow-up. Breathtakingly gorgeous music. (*****)Contra
Vampire Weekend: Contra
A vaguely more ethical version of Graceland, this is perfectly pleasant pop with little glamour or edge, but is just arch enough to tweak the synapses. (****)History, Mystery
Bill Frisell: History, Mystery
Gentle, supremely tasteful, and beautifully arranged - and therefore without the edge of Frisell at his best. Those days may be gone forever (although the Gerhard Richter album gives us some hope) but this is 21stC easy-listening at its best. (****)The BQE
Sufjan Stevens: The BQE
Come on Sufjan, could do better. And this doesn't qualify as New York State. (Though even coasting, he's still good.) (****)Gutter Tactics
Dälek: Gutter Tactics
Crunching relentless paranoid dark-hop. Form an orderly line, 'The Wire'-fans, your soundtrack is in. (*****)Laulu Laakson Kukista
Paavoharju: Laulu Laakson Kukista
Shimmering Outer-Finnish distressed-tape beautiful oddness. (*****)Monoliths and Dimensions
Sunn 0))): Monoliths and Dimensions
Ye Gods, the most startlingly beautiful thing I've heard for a long time. Absolutely stunning. They say: "the most musical piece we’ve done, and also the heaviest, powerful and most abstract set of chords we’ve laid to tape"." Features Eyvind Kang, Julian Priester (!), frequent collaborator Oren Ambarchi and a Viennese choir. (*****)SND: Atavism
Brutal in its starkness, these ultra-precise, ultra-sparse clipped rhythms are the polar opposite of Sunn O))). (*****)Jon Hassell: Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street
(*****)Inland
Mark Templeton: Inland
(*****)Glass: Music in Twelve Parts
Philip Glass: Glass: Music in Twelve Parts
(*****)Filastine: Dirty Bomb
Not every track works here but those that do are fantastic. A rich stew of jump-cut rhythms and Hispanic samples, framed by an architecture of R&B. (****)Pan-American: White Bird Release
Typically seductive delicate ambient wonder. (*****)Various Artists: Pop Ambient 2009
A few quite lovely tracks on here, generally those featuring the brilliant Klimek. Others are pretty enough but a little insubstantial. (****)Flying Lotus: Los Angeles
Beautiful fractured rhythms and smeared fizzing neon samples. Wondrous piece of work. LA, indeed. (*****)Antony and the Johnsons: The Crying Light
Luminous, shimmering, iridescent. Seriously, quite lovely. Only a couple of off-notes; otherwise, a major progression. (*****)
