emerging components

auto-assembly

Frédéric Chaubin’s photography of future-orientated architecture in the old Soviet Union

The momentum of ostalgie grows. I particularly enjoyed k-punk’s comparison between Mark E. Smith’s autobiography, Renegade, and David Peace’s The Damned Utd - a novel concerned, in particular, with the character of the football manager, Brian Clough. k-punk concludes his article attacking the short-termism of neo-liberalism and re-enchanting the era of the cold war:

The puffed-up patricians who hounded Clough out of Derby have long since been replaced on the boards of football clubs by bland accountants representing corporate interests or pharaonic figures with vast personal capital available for potlach. The continuous upheaval of post Fordism has destroyed the long term in football, as everywhere else. In a perfect reflection of the general situation after thirty years of neoliberalism, the rich clubs have become richer, more remote, impervious. Derby, Forest or some other small club winning the Premiership is unthinkable. The grim Seventies - the Eastern Bloc as an era - has become a time of fairy tales. [k-punk]

An image of the architecture of Eastern Bloc fairy tails was serendipitously supplied by Frédéric Chaubin’s photography of future-orientated architecture in the old Soviet Union [pingmag]:

Ministry of Transportation
Transportation Ministry, Tbilisi, Georgia (an old favourite)
Druzhba Holiday Center Hall
Druzhba Holiday Center Hall, Yalta, Ukraine
Soviet Palace
Soviet Palace, Kalinigrad, Russia
Wedding Palace
Wedding Palace, Tbilisi, Georgia
Polytechnic University Minsk
Polytechnic University, Minsk, Belarus
Circus of Kazan
Circus of Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia

According to PingMag, Frederic Chaubin, chief editor of a French magazine, Citizen K, is considering a book about Soviet Architecture from the 1970s and 1980s.

July 8, 2008 at 6:40 pm by auto-assemble «« Permalink »»
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Houses of the Future #1

I remember this house from the Time Life series volume on plastics in the early 1970s. There are parts of the world that will be seriously considering the pedestal design as a safety option at the moment.

Monsanto plastic house

The original design was part of a campaign by Monsanto to promote the uses of plastics in construction.

December 23, 2006 at 11:34 pm by auto-assemble «« Permalink »»
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Kazakhstan’s New Oil Capital in the Steppe to Host the World’s Largest Tent

According to the BBC Norman Foster has designed an enclosure for the new capital of Kazakhstan. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has moved the capital city to the Steppe from its original location in Almaty. The move was funded by $15 billion of oil revenue. Foster’s enclosure is designed to concentrate sunlight and make this shelter from the winter of the steppe more temperate.

December 10, 2006 at 11:25 pm by auto-assemble «« Permalink »»
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How Gazprom sees its Place in the World

Gazprom are commissioning architecture for their capital, Gazprom City, in St. Petersburg. Needless to say, if any of these designs are built in St. Petersburg it will tell us all rather a lot about power in modern Russia.

Gazprom HQ

[Source: Spiegel Online via BLDG BLOG and William Gibson]

November 28, 2006 at 1:46 pm by autoassemble «« Permalink »»
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The Earliest Modular Capsule Architecture

This wonderful building, the Nakagin Capsule Tower, was designed by Kisho Kurokawa in 1970-1972 and built in the Ginza district of Tokyo. See Dork Magazine, and arcspace for more information including interior photos. [Source: Maximalism]

Metabolic Structure

November 19, 2006 at 7:22 pm by autoassemble «« Permalink »»
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Ministry of Transportation in Tbilisi

I first came across the link to this photo on boing boing which was linking to an article in we-make-money-not-art.

Ministry of Transportation

By photogropher Geert Goiris

November 17, 2006 at 2:38 am by autoassemble «« Permalink »»
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