cityofsound

My Rating - is - 5 stars AND Year - is - 2006

I'm shortly about to sneakily post last year's list, backdated to last December. I never got round to it. But to make up for that, here's this year's list of my favourite new music from 2006. In case you want to track any of this down, links open in Amazon.co.uk, Boomkat.com or the next best alternative.

Perhaps this is about "trying to contain sheer chaos in little patches of consoling order", as Paul Morley would have it. And as Matt notes, the Last FM-generated list is only partly a true reflection of your feeling for music - a "ghost-written musical memoir", in his good phrase. So I prefer to present a curated list of new music I value, rather than music I've simply played a lot.

However, if you want to skip the lists and head straight for some hot video action, then here's my selection of YouTube discoveries this year. Otherwise, here's my picks for '06 (see also 2004, 2003, 2002). Happy New Year!

Acid Mothers Temple and the Cosmic Inferno: Starless and Bible Black Sabbath
Adrian Klumpes: Be Still
Aidan Baker: The Sea Swells A Bit...
Aki Tsuyuko: Hokane
Ammon Contact: With Voices
Battles: EP C/B
Beirut: Gulag Orkestar
Bill Frisell, Ron Carter, Paul Motian
BJ Nilsen - Chris Watson: Storm
Black Ox Orkestar: Nisht Azoy
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy: The Letting Go
Boxhead Ensemble: Nocturnes
Calexico: Garden Ruin
Cassandra Wilson: Thunderbird
Cat Power: The Greatest
Clogs: Lantern
Colleen et Les Boites à Musique
Conjoint: A Few Empty Chairs
CSS: Cansei De Ser Sexy
Dabrye: Two/Three
Danielsson, Dell, Landgren: Salzau Music On The Water
Four Tet: Remixes
Fovea Hex: Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent
Fovea Hex: Bloom
François Couturier: Nostalgia - Song For Tarkovsky
Geir Jenssen: Cho Oyu 8201m: Field Recordings From Tibet
Geoff Mullen: Thrtysxtrllnmfstns
Hisato Higuchi: Dialogue
In The Country: Losing Stones, Collecting Bones
Jan Jelinek: Tierbeobachtunger
Joanna Newsom: Ys
John Zorn: At The Mountains Of Madness
Jolie Holland: Springtime Can Kill You
Juana Molina: Son
Junior Boys: So This Is Goodbye
Julien Neto: Le Fumeur De Ciel
Keith Jarrett: The Carnegie Hall Concert
Kieran Hebden & Steve Reid: The Exchange Session Vol. 1 & 2
Loose Fur: Born Again In The USA
Madlib: The Beat Konducta Vol. 1-2
Magnolia Electric Company: Fading Trails
Moha!: Raus aus Stavanger
Mountains: Sewn
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis: The Proposition
One Second Bridge: One Second Bridge
Ornette Coleman: Sound Grammar
Pan American: For Waiting, For Chasing
PG Six: Music From The Sherman Box Series And Other Works
Psapp: The Only Thing I Ever Wanted
Richard Jäverling: Two Times Five Lullaby
Robert Horton: Dirt Speak
Ryan Teague: Coins & Crosses
Sickoakes: Seawards
Stereolab: Fab Four Suture
Steve Coleman & Five Elements: Weaving Symbolics
Sufjan Stevens: The Avalanche
Sun City Girls: Static From The Outside Set
Sunburned Hand Of The Man: Complexion
Susanna And The Magical Orchestra: Melody Mountain
Susumu Yokota: Wonder Waltz
Svalastog: Woodwork
Taylor Deupree: Northern
The Catholics: Gondola
The Cracow Klezmer Band/John Zorn: Book Of Angels Vol. 05: Balan
The Gentleman Losers: The Gentleman Losers
The Jamie Saft Trio: Trouble: The Jamie Saft Trio Plays Bob Dylan
The Mars Volta: Amputechture
The Necks: Chemist
The North Sea & Rameses III: Night Of The Ankou
Thomas Strønen: Pohlitz
Tirath Singh Nirmala: Bluster, Cragg, & Awe
Tobias Froberg: Somewhere In The City
Tom Verlaine: Around / Songs And Other Things
Tom Waits: Orphans
Tortoise: A Lazarus Taxon
Triosk: The Headlight Serenade
TV On The Radio: Return To Cookie Mountain
With Throats As Fine As Needles
Yo La Tengo: I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass

Compilations
Jukebox Buddha
Type Records Primer Vol.1
Touch 25
A Raga For Peter Walker
Rip It Up And Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984
Lo Compilation STR-12: Mixed by Susumu Yokota
Art of Field Recording
Four Tet - DJ Kicks
Sonoro: Resonance For Sleeping And Eating By

Reissues/re-releases:
Neil Young: Live At The Fillmore East 1970
Miles Davis: The Cellar Door Sessions 1970
Robert Fripp: Exposure
Brian Eno/David Byrne: My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts
Jean Claude Vannier: L'Enfant Assasin des Mouches

Songs:
In the absence of a more qualitative way of discerning this i.e. my memory, I can use LastFM to see my most frequently played tracks. Lloyd Swanton owns the top 10 (all the tracks off The Necks and The Catholics albums, basically), and the other tracks drawn essentially from Cat Power's The Greatest and catching up on last year's Sun Kil Moon album Tiny Cities. Older favourites apparently include Eno's Julie With ..., Miles' Flamenco Sketches, Bonnie Prince Billy's Wolf Among Wolves, Caetano Veloso's Alfómega, John Surman's Edges of Illusion, and John Zorn's awe-inspiring Kol Nidre. Sadly, no real new pop songs this year. Though my most-listened to artist was Stereolab and I loved Susanna and the Magic Orchestra's cover of Kiss's 'Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Nights'. Do they count? (No; Ed.) OK, then I'll have to plump for Sao Paulo saucepots CSS, with 'Let's Make Love and Listen To Death From Above' or 'Alalala'.

Favourites:
Aidan Baker; Beirut; Bonnie 'Prince' Billy; Boxhead Ensemble; Clogs; Colleen et Les Boites à Musique; Four Tet; Joanna Newsom; John Zorn/Electric Masada;  Juana Molina; Nick Cave & Warren Ellis; Pan American; PG Six; Psapp; Sickoakes; Susanna And The Magical Orchestra; Susumu Yokota; Svalastog; The Catholics; The Cracow Klezmer Band/John Zorn; The Necks;  The North Sea & Rameses III;  Tom Waits; Tortoise [NB: Eno/Byrne's My Life ... is of course an unimpeachable classic, but the reissue didn't add anything at all. In the same vein, from the same era, the reissue of a special edition of Robert Fripp's Exposure is much better value.]

Film:
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis's soundtrack for The Proposition was probably the best integration of sound design and great music I'd heard in a movie all year. C might add that another Aussie movie, the excellent 'Little Fish', is worth a mention for use of 'Chisel. And the sound in Michael Mann films is generally almost as good as the vision, and Miami Vice was no exception. Cracking film; great sound design, including getting all actors to mumble such that their words are inaudible and therefore become part of the overall mix rather than dialogue in its own right. Heh.

Live/Theatre/Art:
Aside from gigs by mates, the only thing worth mentioning is the John Zorn tribute to Derek Bailey at the Barbican. That was loud, confusing, disjointed and engaging in equal measure, mainly remembered for the sight - and sound - of a screaming Mike Patton being hoisted atop Milford Graves' shoulders and being carried around the stage in a tumultuous finale. In terms of sound/video art, Paul Schütze's music was used well in a rather lovely Isaac Julian installation, 'True North', at the Victoria Miro Gallery. And the Christian Marclay piece 'Video Quartet', which is a recent addition to the Tate Modern in London and quite the most amazing piece of sound/video art I've seen in years. (A mention for that here.)

Shop:
Boomkat.com reigns supreme. Their weekly newsletter is my primary method - alongside the recommendations of friends - of finding out about new music. Recommendations systems my arse. All you need, as ever, is a smart record shop. In that sense, special mention should also go to London's Sounds of the Universe. But Boomkat win overall, not least due to their curation skills, but also the user experience of their site/shop, which now includes a fledgling but superbly done mp3 download service.

Label:
I almost dropped this category as it's always the same people (Norway's Rune Grammofon; Germany's ECM; New York's Tzadik etc.) But worth noting the work of the Seattle-based Sublime Frequencies label; particularly their superb compilations of pop music and field recording from particular 'non-Western' places: Burma, Sumatra, Nepal, Mali, Syria etc. I've enjoyed their spooky Night Recordings from Bali, of which they say "Field recordings from central Bali at night, with mood, magic and all the mystery this great island can supply. Several styles of Gamelan music are present along with sounds of the midnight forests and crossroads. Supernatural sound from the Balinese interior!" and also Streets of Lhasa, which ”lifts us to the high plateau of Tibet where anonymous street balladeers sell folk songs for a living and ghostly voices drift in an ambience of time forgotten. This ornamental carnival of sound was recorded by Zhang Jian (of the Beijing-based sound collective “fm3”) on the streets of Lhasa, ZhaDa and Shigatse in August 2003."

Context
I wrote a couple of things about music and place this year, with respect to last year's greats, Ry Cooder's Chávez Ravine and Winter & Winter's Metropolis Shanghai. I also hugely enjoyed Ruy Castro's breathless and partisan descriptions of the various musics of Rio de Janeiro.

Graphical scores - I note Russell recently mentioned a Stockhausen classic - featured in my Aula talk about media movements. And after years of suggesting its importance, it was good to see cover art emerging in iTunes. And there was the Buddha Machine, which I've already mentioned.

But in terms of visual accompaniment to music, this was really the year when we all figured YouTube is not actually about user-generated content at all; but essentially about user-uploaded content from years of professionally produced and performed media, and especially music clips. Long lost live performances, sections from films no longer available, music promos too creaky even for VH1; they're all there. I've lost hours in YouTube this year, joyously clicking through music performances, staged and impromptu. Robert Lloyd wrote a fantastic article about this - "One click leads to another: the YouTube experience is half treasure hunt, half trip down the rabbit hole" - noting YouTube's particular facility for music:

"Once I depended on the occasional largesse of well-connected, tape-trading friends to fuel this small obsession. But YouTube is like having that friend a thousand times over, always available. The material comes from all over the world, and from many sources: from television or stripped from (not always) out-of-print commercial tapes or DVDs; from "liberated" unofficial, never-for-broadcast outtakes or rehearsal footage; from concerts captured by the posters themselves on digital cameras or cellphones."

"In recent days I've seen Ella Fitzgerald in 1957, at her peak, singing "Angel Eyes" in Amsterdam; the Penguin Cafe Orchestra on Britain's "South Bank Show"; Bob Dylan sound-checking for his 1984 "Letterman" appearance backed by members of the Plugz; Fela Kuti jamming with Ian Anderson and Jack Bruce on German TV in 1983; the Stooges in 1970; Funkadelic in 1979; Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn singing "Easy Loving"; the prelapsarian Mothers of Invention performing "King Kong"; pre-paralyzed Robert Wyatt in the Soft Machine; the KLF on "Top of the Pops" with Tammy Wynette; Liberace playing "Flight of the Bumblebee"; Eddie Cochran playing "Summertime Blues"; the Dada-pop Bonzo Dog Band, in their '60s prime and on a reunion tour last month; cerebral bluesman John Fahey live in 1978; Tom Waits on "Fernwood 2Nite"; the Incredible String Band at Woodstock; footage of Tom Verlaine teaching Richard Hell how to play "Venus" when Hell was still the bass player in Television; a fierce PJ Harvey at some unnamed pop festival; the Lou Reed/John Cale/Nico semi-reunion from Le Bataclan in Paris in 1972; John Zorn's Naked City (with Bill Frisell and Fred Frith), live in New York in 1992; Yoko Ono dolphin-chirping "Don't Worry, Kyoko" at the 2005 Arthurfest at Barnsdall Park; Ornette Coleman on Italian television in 1974; Malian guitarist Boubacar Traoré, Algerian rai singer Khaled, Argentine accordionist Chango Spasiuk, Yo La Tengo, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Delgados and a whole lot of French pop, from Charles Trenet to Françoiz Breut."

That's what Lloyd found, and a fine list it is too. I'm about to track a few of those down, while they're there. (He's right to gloomily point out that this feast probably won't last for long.) But here's a selection of my favourite YouTube clips I've enjoyed this year. And this is where it gets properly nostalgic. So look away now, neophiles ... (Tip: RSS readers will have to visit the site to see the videos. If you're finding the videos a bit jerky, as I've embedded quite a few here, click the YouTube logo on the video itself and watch it there.)

Spaces speak, as do cities, Buddha Machines, films

A quick portmanteau post which certainly approaches the title of this site. First up, via Russell and others, Ambient Addition:

"Ambient Addition is a Walkman with binaural microphones. A tiny Digital Signal Processing (DSP) chip analyzes the microphone's sound and superimposes a layer of harmony and rhythm on top of the listener's world. In the new context, some surprising behaviors take place. Listeners tend to play with objects around them, sing to themselves, and wander toward tempting sound sources. With Ambient Addition, I'm hoping to make people think twice about the sounds they initiate as well as loosen up some inhibitions."

Watch the video and you'll get the picture, as it were. It's a quite lovely effect, taking as input the ambient sound surrounding you and then processing that into something more 'musical'. I'm not sure about this aural enhancing of the city's noise; any more than a visual enhancing. Yet it's probably better than isolating oneself with an iPod.

Of course, it's not the raw sound of the city filtered; there is definite a musical sensibility at work in the choice of effect in Ambient Addition. Just as there is in 2006's other great music toy, the rather more basic Buddha Machine. I picked up one of these - from Boomkat, £14.99, bargain - and it's huge fun. It's a small, mass-produced - in China, for maximum futurism - plastic box, containing some very simple noise-making hardware. Nine electronic loops, which you can switch between via a small button on the side. On/off switch combined with volume. Headphone socket. That's it. But the loops are charming, in an ambient electronica kinda way. Very well crafted loops, actually, by Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian of the FM3 label in Beijing. Most charming of all, the low cost production values and combination of slowly fading batteries and simple speaker technology mean that every box will sound slightly different. The plastic box and lo-fi AM radio-style reproduction lead to a fuzzy, crackling tone which offsets the ambience perfectly. It's also fun to mix with other music. When most people hear it, they either say a) "That's perfect accompaniment for a massage/yoga/beautician" or b) "That's perfect accompaniment for my hardcore electronic music project." Apparently the first customer was Brian Eno. Who bought six, based on seeing a prototype at dinner. As you do. You can imagine the conversation with the VCs: "We see our target market as beauticians and Brian Eno". Either way, they've sold over 10,000 and counting.

There's a compilation, Jukebox Buddha, which is pretty good, and Boomkat has an excellent interview with the creators.

Thirdly, Barry Blesser writes, noting that readers of cityofsound might be interested in his new book with Linda-Ruth Salter, "Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? Experiencing Aural Architecture" which has just been release by MIT Press. It does look right up our strasse. The blurb goes: "We experience spaces not only by seeing but also by listening. We can navigate a room in the dark, and "hear" the emptiness of a house without furniture. Our experience of music in a concert hall depends on whether we sit in the front row or under the balcony. The unique acoustics of religious spaces acquire symbolic meaning. Social relationships are strongly influenced by the way that space changes sound. In Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?, Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter examine auditory spatial awareness: experiencing space by attentive listening. Every environment has an aural architecture. The audible attributes of physical space have always contributed to the fabric of human culture, as demonstrated by prehistoric multimedia cave paintings, classical Greek open-air theaters, Gothic cathedrals, acoustic geography of French villages, modern music reproduction, and virtual spaces in home theaters. Auditory spatial awareness is a prism that reveals a culture's attitudes toward hearing and space. Some listeners can learn to "see" objects with their ears, but even without training, we can all hear spatial geometry such as an open door or low ceiling. Integrating contributions from a wide range of disciplines - including architecture, music, acoustics, evolution, anthropology, cognitive psychology, audio engineering, and many others - Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? establishes the concepts and language of aural architecture. These concepts provide an interdisciplinary guide for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of how space enhances our well-being. Aural architecture is not the exclusive domain of specialists. Accidentally or intentionally, we all function as aural architects." Sounds good eh? You can pick it up at Amazon [UK | US]

Finally, Christian Marclay's 'Video Quartet' (2002), recently installed at the Tate Modern is one of the best artworks to hit London in recent years. A four-screen projection, room-sized, a 13-minute collage of hundreds of clips of music and sound effects in films, tightly cut and orchestrated together into a glorious new piece of music and film. It's utterly stunning. I saw it today, and I'll be going back. I could sit and watch it for about an hour.

It was commissioned by SFMOMA a few year's back, so it's fairly well-covered online [Wired | Kottke | Brooklyn Rail] but Greg Allen has a good description of the production process, apparently all done in Final Cut Pro: "What had seemed impossible or magic before was now revealing itself as a complex creation, the product of arduous, inspired effort."

Fifth floor, north-west side, room 8 I think. Go and see it if you can. You won't be disappointed. Here's a few pics; a couple from the Tate site, a couple from me.

Monocle

As 2006 draws to a close, I'll just take a moment to mention and acknowledge a fairly major change of circumstances for me (one of many I could add, all good.) As of February 2007, I'll be leaving the BBC and starting as Director of Web and Broadcast at Monocle.

Here's the concept, taken from the pre-launch Monocle website:

"We believe it's time for a new, global, European-based media brand. With a keen focus, strong reporting, sharp wit and more classic approach to design, we’ve dubbed our venture Monocle. At the core there's a monthly magazine delivering the most original coverage in global affairs, business, culture and design. Alongside, there's a web-based broadcast component covering the same areas through a variety of bulletins, mini-documentaries and talk formats. Focused on informing and entertaining an international audience of disillusioned readers, listeners and viewers, it is our intention to create a community of the most interested and interesting people in the world."

"Edited out of London, Monocle is staffed by a team pulled from the world's leading news outlets, magazines and broadcasters. Conceived by Wallpaper* founder and Financial Times columnist Tyler Brûlé, the launch team calls on some of his old alumni and new talent from The Independent, the BBC, branches of Condé Nast and a host of other news outlets. Versed in politics, popular culture, business affairs, media, architecture and design, the editorial team will cover the world from its London hub and dedicated bureaux in Tokyo, Zürich and New York. Monocle will be driven by offering original, never-before-seen content to an audience of well-heeled, intelligent opinion leaders around the world."

So I'll be in charge of that "web-based broadcast component", helping create innovative, distinctive web and broadcast companions to the magazine, which aim to have all the quality, confidence and professionalism of that print incarnation of Monocle, whilst taking advantage of their own inherent strengths. I've seen the magazine emerge over the last few months and believe me, it's going to be really bloody good. Seeing magazine professionals in action is somewhat awe-inspiring - you realise that the last hundred years or so of development has honed that process to both fine art and streamlined technique - and we'll have to be quick out of the blocks in early February to start creating a suitable array of digital cohorts.

If you're familiar with cityofsound, you'll note that the broad content offering covers a great range of personal interests, from architecture and design through cities and culture via business and current affairs. If plans develop in the right directions throughout 2007, I hope to be contributing content as well as orchestrating the infrastructure, particularly focusing on Oceania, but that's another story ... First steps involve thinking through how magazines, broadcast and web can play off each other in creative, harmonious and meaningful fashion. Initially that will mean a fair bit of wireframing in Omnigraffle, whilst sketching idents for the short-form documentaries we'll be commissioning and working out a production schedule ... Wish me luck. It's going to be fascinating, and I'm very excited about the chance to help create a ground-breaking product of such quality and distinction.

I will of course miss the BBC hugely, especially the team I've built up over the five years I've been there. I'm proud of the good work we've accomplished and I'll miss every one of the good people I've had the privilege of working with. One could always achieve more, but I see the platforms emerging, the thinking changing positively, and some imaginative, progressive strategies in place, being implemented by some great people. More on all that to follow, but I think the old place is in pretty good shape, and I wish it all the best.

But there's always a time to move on. Queries to do with the new project should be mailed to dh [at] monocle dot com; stuff for the blog is still via the email address in the right-hand column.

'Leviathan Thot', Pantheon, Paris

Photos by Paul Schütze of an installation by Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto, at the venerable Pantheon in Paris.

Utypia

Related to my recent post on Typotecture, BLDGBLOG's recent post on 'Utopia', a typeface that portrays "the mixture between the modernist architecture of Oscar Niemeyer and informal occupation of the urban space that shapes major Brazilian cities". Not sure why, but very nice that it does.

Designed by Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain of Deticolain. Here's 'cityofsound' rendered in Utopia.

Detanicolain (use the interface on the left)
BLDGBLOG: Utopian Typography
[Cheers Geoff]

Abram Games and how syndicated branding 'winds the spring'

As part of the recent 'BBC 2.0' project I worked on, leading on design and navigation, I proposed that the BBC's approach to branding elements and syndication of content should be characterised by a suite of metaphorical 'tear-off strips' or syndicable widgets i.e. should, where possible, follow the approach driven by the likes of YouTube, Odeo, Google, Widsets, our own prototypes/Backstage, and many others. Given the environment we're working in, branding elements aren't things we can 'control' nor is content something we can - or should - lock down. We should instead ensure that branding elements can be given away, like active badges that people can glue to their sites, creating multiple entry points and reinforcing personal engagement with brands and services. Equally, content itself can float freely throughout the internet, carrying embedded navigation, branding and attribution within. This is all rather basic media2.0 *cough* thinking, of course, but in somewhat traditional, large media or marketing organisations it could take careful advocacy and imaginative presentation to win hearts and minds.

So it's with great pleasure that I read the following item about the great graphic designer and illustrator Abram Games and his work on the Festival of Britain identity in 1951. Not only does it suggest that there is nothing new under the sun, but it also provides a neat precedent for me, given that it relates to design for the British public. Reference is the excellent book "Abram Games Graphic Designer: Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means".

After a well-contested competition, Games won the right to design the symbol to promote the Festival. The brief effectively exhorted designers to not mention the war, and Games managed to do just this whilst presenting "a non-aggressive naturalism" with considerable elegance. There were grumbles that his Britannia looked a bit much Marianne of France and that "there ought to be a lion around somewhere", but generally it was considered a great success. Professor Sir Christopher Frayling, in the foreword, talks of Games' "domesticated form of modernism", and noted that: "Everything else representing Britain in the early 1950s seemed to covered in lions, unicorns and heraldry, but this Britannia was more stripped down, more forward looking, like the Skylon on the South Bank."

The particularly interesting aspect is the approach to rights management and syndication, not that it would have been expressed in those terms:

"Games' symbol proved to be a success. It was reproduced in an astonishing variety of sizes, colours and contexts. It adorned the exhibition pavilions and the Festival ship, it was franked on the nation's mail, it was printed on cellophane toffee wrappers, on the stationery of the Festival administration and on the covers of the Festival programmes. It was decided that the use of the symbol should should be 'free for all with no strings attached' although use on high quality commodities was encouraged. Inevitably, many souvenir manufacturers made the most of the opportunity to profit from this national celebration. There were suggestions that it might be used long term as a 'Made in Britain' symbol and fears were expressed from the Board of Trade that overseas competitors might use it 'to foist non-British goods on the British consumer'. Though prolonged use of the symbol did not materialise it remained immediately associated with the summer of 1951. Its unrestricted use did not bring about the debasement, as some had feared, but contributed to the ubiquity of this optimistic and contemporary motif." [my emphasis]

As a general comment on his work, unrelated to the symbol, Games said:

"I wind the spring and the public, in looking at the poster, will have that spring released in its mind. You have to involve the viewer in your thought processes. There will be an inevitable association between image and advertiser. Lettering, to be kept to a minimum, is never to be added as an afterthought."

I find his work - rigorous, driven, and always "the product of second thoughts", according to Frayling - is shot through with that depth of thinking. His ability to see that the viewers will make inevitable associations between image and advertiser led to him seeing that as a benefit of letting good imagery go; that his symbol would spread like a benevolent virus. It's heartening to see that a post-WWII Britain, oft perceived as stolid, stuffy, and austere, actually appears to be as forward thinking, creative and imaginative as contemporary design strategies.

Abram Games Graphic Designer: Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means [Amazon UK|US]
Some press on BBC 2.0: BBC Press Office | Guardian | Economist I /.
Designing Britain: Festival of Britain

Typotecture: Typography as Architectural Imagery

Acquired: at the Museum Bellerive in Zürich recently, the catalogue for Typotecture: Typography as Architectural Imagery, an exhibition at the Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich, 2000 . Great collection of posters, wide-ranging in provenance and subject matter but all concerning typography "being able to subject itself to gravity and acquire a physical presence, to expand into a space and come closer to architectural form". Includes an essay by curator Andres Janser. Features work by Max Huber, Michael Bierut, Ivan Chermayeff, Mihaly Biró, Claude Luyet, Tomoko Miho, Mirko Ilic, and many others. Ten representative pages below [click for close-ups, at this Flickr set].

Related: Kapitaal; Alex Gopher's The Child