open sesame!

under the bridge at w.chicago street, at the lowel level of chicago's infrastructure you can see these gears. i am not so sure which of the movable types this mechanism comes from. there are several: trunnion bascule [using a counterweight], scherzer rolling lift [rolling like a rocking chair], swing bridge [rotating parallel to the water around a central point] or vertical lift bridge.
must be bascule or a similar version...

photos by life universe.

underneath

i am reading on this article that chicago has more movable bridges than any other city in the world! 37-43! ~20 downtown!

heese houses:

river cottages by harry weese, the usual suspect!

the scale of this building, the fact that is next to the river, almost downtown [!]chicago, the small open green areas in between the houses together with the experimentation of the form makes me really want to get a small vessel and visit them...
the photos were shot in a hurry, but what do you expect while the boat was moving?

h e e s e again!

i could see this building from far away [marina towers bridge in Dearborn] and i was always intrigued by it! only couple of weeks earlier i found out that is a renovation/ conversion to appartmentss [i think] by harry weese on an old building. i don't have enough information about it, but i think its worth posting it.


for those you have forgotten who harry weese is/ was... please have a look here, here and here.

zaha@chicago

finally zaha hadid had a lecture at chicago's neocon this week. unfortunately she did not fly here due to a last minute client meeting but instead she had a videoconference with us. ok the whole videoconference thing between two of the most developed countries of this planet was a total mess: the line was interrupted several times and the image was frozen with zaha's face in weird poses every now and then. not to mention that everybody was laughing! although i 've heard some bad rumors for her rudeness etc, i have to say she was very patient with the whole process. i guess this is a hard task for a busy celebrity. she was also very funny. the videos she had included in her powerpoint did not play but whatever... you go to the lecture to feel the personality, not to learn about the projects! especially these big architects they are focusing in quantity of their work rather than showing their process... she was very excited though to show some of her models that she had handy in her office.

she presented her work in different scales and she showed even very early projects. the good thing was that you could have a holistic aspect on her work. the title [and content] of the lecture was "total fluidity".

at the end, one of the first [if not the first] question was from a student and was about the software used in the office. i have to say that people ask this question to every lecture i have been so far! the funny thing is that the answer is always the same.
another question was when she was asked what type of problems she faces from drawing to construction. i think she soothed the guy that was asking by sharing with us that all these years she did not build she had time to investigate these issues.

i really enjoyed the lecture and zaha.
although as i said she presented many projects, i want to spend some time on the dancing towers she will built in dubai's business bay where she won oma, morphosis and rur. we learnt more about this competition from rur's lecture in chicago. post is coming soon:

*lecture photo taken from a friend: thanks!
** dancing tower image taken from here

another d@d*

last 3 photos are showing the temporary location for the museum collection
*this is david [adjaye] at denver

pecha kucha

pecha kucha was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public.
each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each.
the whole event starts at 20:20.
i post some of the images from mr dytham's presentation who flew from tokyo in order to present his work and initial idea of pecha kucha- in fact we paid his ticket with the "symbolic" amount of 11$ per person, the only lecture [at least they were many of them] for which i have paid so far!!!

the leaf chapel.


the looking delicious kit-kats. but he should have showed the variations of pocky instead.

the cherry blossom season in japan. looks so beautiful.
although i have pictures of interesting works presented in the show, i 'd rather focus on dytham's snapshots to highlight the whole pecha kucha's concept: that he has started it in order to create a social networking in japan, as a foreign from uk.


anyhow, i would go again to volume 2 or to pecha kucha in any other city i might be!

glass house

starting june 21st people can start visiting the glass house made by philip johnson 58 years ago.

for those who like fame and celebrities, there is a whole article in nytimes with more photos and sayings of influential men plus [some] women related to the house. thanks to my thoughtful colleague i can always have access to the most interesting articles of the newspaper without having to go through it!
although bee-zee has devoted an enormous amount of space and time to post about the farnsworth house [which was the house that philip johnson first admired and then copied] and although bee-zee is very sensitive regarding originality and invention and although bee-zee does not like andy warhol [1964]... is still posting this photo that can capture part of the mood and atmosphere of those days.
"In the 60s, Mr. Johnson threw a big party for Merce Cunningham. It was at the time of all the massive publicity for Andy Warhol. I think MoMA had just bought the soup can.

I was standing with a double scotch, hoping for the best. It was spring and twilighty. All these people milling around, very glamorous. I said: “Mr. Johnson, look over there. There’s a white-haired man coming in.” I thought it was an old guy. Philip said, “It’s Andy.” Everyone went over to say hello, except me. I didn’t know who he was.

It was John Cage music and Merce Cunningham’s dancers — beautiful dancers. Cage’s music had something to do with doors slamming and whistles going off. Then great balloons — some big and black, some small and red and yellow. It was very strange. I thought to myself: “Here we are in 1967, standing next to a glass house listening to doors slam and whistles going off. This is out of this world.” It was so out of context for suburbia in the 60s. You were talking about car pools and how not to have babies.

We left shortly thereafter. My then-husband thought the whole thing was humbug."
ms smithers, probably ex-wife of ruth smithers, a longtime new canaan resident.

phillip johnson's companion, mr david whitney: