cover photo



blog archive

main site

artwork

bio






Schwarz



View current page
...more recent posts

john zoller (fuzzy balls with a message)


[link] [add a comment]

highline update


[link] [1 comment]

dumb angel number four

a return to unique perspectives on surf instrumental music, Wall-of-Sound productions, Hawaiiana, post-war fashion/graphic design and Modernist Los Angeles architecture. Drawing inspiration from a beatnik surf aesthetic, the magazine has taken on a new look drawn from the vision of surfing’s ’50s and ’60s iconographers. We offer thought provoking pieces from talented writers such as Domenic Priore (author of Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece), Brad Elliot (Surf's UP! The Beach Boys on Record), Otto von Stroheim (Tiki News), Harvey Kubernik (co-writer of Hollywood Rocks the Movies, Part 1 & 2 and oft-published journalist in MOJO, The Los Angeles Times and Goldmine magazine), and Mark A. Moore (Jan Berry / Jan & Dean historian). Great artists and photographers like Shag and Peter Frame (Rock Family Trees) also add their unique talents to what we're trying to achieve.

[link] [3 comments]

outdoor steel cabinets per request matty mccaslin


[link] [4 comments]

the original bore

“There will be nothing new in what I say, but maybe it will have a new twist”

Robert Venturi comes to modernist shrine Crown Hall to out Mies van der Rohe as a closet symbolist and attempt to define the architecture of our time. (Originally published in abbreviated and far better edited form under the title, Live by the I Beam, Die by the I Beam in the December 16th Chicago Reader.)


[link] [1 comment]

found footage fest preview


via zoller
[link] [1 comment]

steve parrino in the 2006 whitney biennial



[link] [add a comment]

elegant design


[link] [1 comment]

cut away


[link] [2 comments]

cont gif

new use for used shipping container


[link] [add a comment]

(image)

as you may have noticed ive located gif icons for shipping container and the wtc (thanks wsj) posts. i have no idea what a katrina or nola gif should look like. upfront i'd say musical notes, trolly cars and noah references are out. any suggestions welcome.


[link] [3 comments]

itwtc

Besides the lack of prospective tenants, Mr. Silverstein has had several setbacks and is engaged in an increasingly tense struggle with politicians and government agencies who could derail the plans of the 74-year-old real-estate veteran. Even his longtime financial backer may be open to a deal that would allow their partnership to be removed from at least part of the rebuilding process.

Mr. Silverstein's latest bad news came this week, when he failed to reach agreement with New York City on a timetable for the project and on how much Mr. Silverstein can request as a developer's fee. That pact was necessary for the city to approve $3.5 billion in tax-exempt bonds to help pay for the rebuilding of the Trade Center site. The two sides are still talking, but Mr. Silverstein says the lack of a deal will only delay rebuilding.

More than four years have passed since 9/11, and little has been rebuilt on the site except a temporary commuter rail station and 7 World Trade Center. The lack of progress has led to finger-pointing between Mr. Silverstein and the city, New York State and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the Trade Center site and serves as Mr. Silverstein's landlord. Political leaders are becoming more involved in the rebuilding. This is the last year in office for New York Gov. George E. Pataki, and he is concerned about his legacy, while New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, fresh off a re-election romp, is no longer focused on building a football stadium for the New York Jets or bringing the Olympics to the city.
the wsj
[link] [add a comment]

that brutal joint

If the craft of architecture is concerned with the physical joints between materials, the meaning of architecture appears in its intersections with other disciplines. This blog explores those relationships in contemporary theories.

[link] [add a comment]

itwtc

urban blogger misrepresentation attended this meeting and provides lucid commentary :

And there is no doubt that is the case. A fascinating moment of total implosion occurred when a family member came up and read mostly disingenuous statement that seemed like it came directly from the Machiavellian mind of Debra Burlingame. We heard the usual garbage talking points about “it’s not about the arts, but the kind of the arts” followed by a litany of projects that, absent the loaded emotional context from which they were drawn, would have resulted in pained eye-rolling from most everyone there (and probably still did for some). There were glimmers of a viable argument, via pandering to positioning these examples of outsider art (that might be welcomed at places like MAD or the American Folk Museum), or terms that might indict the clannishness of the arts we were lamenting the exclusion of. But no one rose to point out that the some 30-odd examples offered, from a traditional curatorial viewpoint, were infinitesimal for an institution that needs to fill programming for a century (MoMA has what, 100,000 items in inventory?), and the Memorial is already slated to have something on the order of 200,000 sf of display space. I'm not aware of anyone recommending that the Memorial Center -- or whatever we are calling it nowdays -- not include such times. But, true to form, no one wanted to attack a family member by pointing any of this out, or, worse, the awkward, polite disinterest indicated that, yes, this is even less a dialogue than anyone presumes.

Controversy Still Clouds Prospects at 9/11 Site
By ROBIN POGREBIN for nyt
Published: December 14, 2005
A sense of despair about the prospects for cultural activity at ground zero pervaded a panel discussion on the issue on Monday night, even as some speakers suggested that the idea could be resurrected.

"Is there hope?" asked the artist Hans Haacke, one of five panelists on the dais in an auditorium packed with 250 people at the New School. "I would say no."

"Culture is never unideological," he added. "There is no one culture that everybody agrees on."

The two-hour event, centering on the question "What's Happening to the Arts at Ground Zero?," was organized by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the New School's Vera List Center for Art and Politics. (cont.)


[link] [2 comments]

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Legendary folk rocker Bob Dylan will start a new career as a radio DJ when he launches a new weekly music show on XM Satellite Radio next March.


[link] [add a comment]

itwtc

While developer Larry Silverstein rethinks his bid for over $3 billion in taxpayer-sponsored Liberty Bonds to help fund development at the World Trade Center site—N.B. Silverstein quote yesterday: "You cannot build apartments at Ground Zero"—bigger news breaks: they're going to turn off the memorial waterfall in winter, according to Downtown Express. Why? Explained the LMDC's memorial design director, "The visitor experience will not be a pleasant one. You will not only be cold, but wet. The wind will blow water into the galleries." Not like this hasn't been pointed out before by a passel of critics, but hey: common sense! Awright!

Meantime, for those looking to make sense of the current WTC chaos, architecture blogger Miss Representation offers one of his trademark Very Long Blog Posts on the state of the game at Ground Zero. Recommended read.
from curbed
[link] [add a comment]

corbo2corbo1



ASSISTANT, LE CORBUSIER
PLANS DVD

from the gutter
[link] [add a comment]

As with all Foster designs, the Hearst tower is sleek, refined, and filled with new technology. It looks nothing like the Jazz Age confection on which it sits. The addition is sheathed in glass and stainless steel—a shiny missile shooting out of Urban’s stone launching pad. The tower’s most prominent feature is the brash geometric pattern of its glass and steel, which the architect calls a “diagrid”: a diagonal grid of supporting trusses, covering the façade with a series of four-story-high triangles. These make up much of the building’s supporting structure, and they do it with impressive economy: the pattern uses twenty per cent less steel than a conventional skyscraper frame would require.
the new yorker
[link] [add a comment]

from the self loathing desk / why does the uk hate itself? and on tv even: Its a Knockdown!


[link] [2 comments]

plastic


[link] [2 comments]

In his new book Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods, Michael Wex explores the history and culture of Yiddish: its complaints, curses and codes.

From its historic role in the isolation of Jews in Europe to its modern impact on American English, Yiddish has filled the air with lively metaphors and colorful expressions.

Now, despite a precipitous drop in fluent speakers, the language that includes elements of German and a handful of other tongues seems destined to adapt and thrive.

A novelist and lecturer, Wex previously translated The Threepenny Opera into Yiddish.

[link] [1 comment]

Three months since Hurricane Katrina it remains difficult to ascertain what progress has been made in rebuilding New Orleans and its region. Using a wide array of about 50 economic and social indicators, the Metropolitan Policy Program has compiled the first in a series of monthly snapshots of economic and both short term and long term reconstruction trends, finding that the area remains mired in a state of emergency still.
brookings institute
[link] [add a comment]

We are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.

We said this wouldn't happen. President Bush said it wouldn't happen. He stood in Jackson Square and said, "There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans." But it has been over three months since Hurricane Katrina struck and the city is in complete shambles.

There are many unanswered questions that will take years to work out, but one is make-or-break and needs to be dealt with immediately. It all boils down to the levee system. People will clear garbage, live in tents, work their fingers to the bone to reclaim homes and lives, but not if they don't believe they will be protected by more than patches to the same old system that failed during the deadly storm. Homeowners, businesses and insurance companies all need a commitment before they will stake their futures on the city.
nyt
[link] [1 comment]

Before Katrina sent hundreds of thousands of New Orleanians into indefinite exile, there was no love lost between the cosmopolitan Crescent City and its upriver country cousin, Baton Rouge. Louisiana's Baptist-leaning capital city had long tsk-tsked New Orleans's decadence and inefficiency--not to mention the baroque corruption of its political power structure.

In contrast, the government of the consolidated city-parish of Baton Rouge governs as little as possible, which is especially evident in planning. Because the city is otherwise utterly dys-functional for north-south traffic, locals have taken to using the interstate to travel in those directions. Development is permitted on a project-by-project basis, with little consideration of broader impact. The city-parish's zoning code contradicted its pro-infill master plan; and in any case, the Planning Commission and the Metropolitan Council routinely ig-nore existing plans. In a metropolitan area with barely one percent population growth, new housing development has charged unabated into the fringes.

But the influx of New Orleanians to Baton Rouge is hitting at a moment of promise--and uncertainty. The new mayor-president is the first African American to hold the job. He is a liberal Democrat, but his chief administrative officer, Walter Monsour, is a Republican with a real estate-development background. Meanwhile, a well-funded local smart-growth movement has put urban-planning issues on the public agenda for the first time. Hal Cohen sat down with Monsour to talk about his city's sudden growth and more populous future.
metropolis mag
[link] [add a comment]