According to Pitchfork quoting TripAdvisor, there are precisely five “Things to Do” in the Melbourne suburb of Preston—and coming in at number two on that list of attractions is…the local library. “Depreston” is the name of a song by Courtney Barnett who’s humdrum setting finds herself considering a move away from the town’s quaint coffee shops to a place further out, where green space is plentiful. But whereas previous generations found solace in the predictability of tree-lined streets and boxy houses, Barnett can’t help but feel depressed while eyeing the innards of a deceased estate, the ghosts of the past tugging at her in the form of left-behind war photos, sugar cans, and, most pointedly, a handrail in the shower. The house may have been someone’s dream, but it ain’t hers.
Every now and then something rumbles out of the WHAT_radio office PA which literally strikes a (sonic) chord. We Are Shining’s Hot Love features Adwoa Aboah sulking and dancing through the streets of East London. The moody video matches the blues-tinged and slightly hip-hop inspired psychedelica of the track. Before that there was “Killing” which reminded me of Santa Sangre (“Holy Blood”), the 1989 Mexican-Italian avant-garde horror film directed and written by Alejandro Jodorowsky. Divided into both a flashback and a flash-forward, the film, set in Mexico, tells the story of Fenix, a boy who grew up in a circus, and his life through both adolescence and early adulthood.
Whilst I am not entirely sure how this all lends itself to the design process I recall a recent comment by the councillor for the Forest Gate ward, in last week’s Newham Development Committee Members’ Design Review, that the “architects must demonstrate more love for their project”. So Hot Love is the current musical score to 221dog_ reminding us all to love architecture. Just in time for Halloween…
Blablablarchitecture is going on air! Joe Public will be talking buildings once a week on Chicken Town Radio! The ideas include getting the everyman (the local butcher, the Hackney fashion bike shop retailer, the kiwi fascist coffee connoisseurs, the London Pearly Kings and Queens singing to raise money….) and the everyday to talk, or sound off, about the built environment and user occupation. What does building mean? If buildings could talk what would they say? Heck, we will probably start with the roots of blablablarchitecture and open with Mister Ed, the 50’s American sitcom of a talking horse who only spoke to his owner, an architect. The discourse of architecture is fantastically dense yet inappropriately opaque, so perhaps blablablarchitecture on Chicken Town Radio can break it all down…
There is an Antipodean precursor to architectural criticism as talk-back radio: check the dulcet Aussie drawl of: Radio Architects on Melbourne’s finest Triple R.
And beyond radio, “Living Architectures is a series of films that seeks to develop a way of looking at architecture which turns away from the current trend of idealising the representation of our architectural heritage. Through these films, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine put into question the fascination with the picture, which covers up the buildings with preconceived ideas of perfection, virtuosity and infallibility, in order to demonstrate the vitality, fragility and vulnerable beauty of architecture as recounted and witnessed by people who actually live in, use or maintain the spaces they have selected. Thus, their intention is to talk about architecture, or rather to let architecture talk to us, from an «inner» point of view, both personal and subjective.” The first project of the Living Architectures series was Rem Koolhaas’ Maison à Bordeaux from 1998. The film lets the viewer enter into the house’s daily intimacy through the stories and daily chores of Guadalupe Acedo, the housekeeper, and the other people who look after the building. Pungent, funny and touching.”
Nowhere as good as the recently posted 000OFF_ハイスイノナサ”地下鉄の動態, Michel Gondry’s Star Guitar or even or own Olivier Giambattista’s rub 127SHO_SITE GUITAR, nonetheless Jacques Lu Cont’s Underground adds to the WHAT_lineage of train tracks…