Tel Aviv waterfront

Tel Aviv is a great city. It has spirit, a lot of things are going on, in some areas you can find even nice architecture (that now is being discovered thanks to UNESCO) and it’s on the sea! potentially the city could have a wonderful waterfront. In reality nothing much is done in this remarkable urban space.

the project of the current promenade was built in the early 80's (the Lahat promenade). It’s paved and covered with a horrible material – pebbles (granolit), a mixture of small stones and cement. you absolutely don’t want to fall on it. there are not many shadow areas. few trees are plant but they are all palms...one good thing is, that when they built it, breakwaters were placed, causing significant expansion of the beaches allowing a greater number of people to enter. but it’s not easy to walk to the water. in the summer the sand is boiling.

The mixture of a wide send beach with pebbles paving, asphalt, armed concrete constructed hotels and no trees or shadow make this space, especially in the summer, a very non pleasant space. forget Nice, Barcelona, Venice beach in LA or Rio.

In my project there is, first of all, a replacement of the paving into alternated “softer” materials such as wood deck and tiles. the wood deck should be used only in limited areas and not all over as lately proposed (what will cause the cut of half of the Amazon forests); it has designed urban elements (not of pebbles) and areas with trees shadow. big trees like the ficus or maritime pines. think how wonderful it would be to sit in the shadow, in front of the see and enjoy the see breeze? the wide send area between the promenade and the water would be partly used for sport activities as biking, rollerskating, beach wolley and services.

Persepolis

persepolis is a comic book you have to read if you want to know a little bit more about what is happening in Iran in these days.

it is the story of a girl, Marjane Satrapi, through her childhood during the islamic revolution; her high school years as a foreigner in Vienna and her return back in Iran until the decision to leave again her beloved country for good.
although it is kind of a biography, it provides a lot of information about the history of the post-shah Iran and about the everyday life in Tehran.
the illustration in the book, and then in the movie, is great. it is sharp and expresses so good with only few lines. it is influenced by the style of the comic book artist David B. who Marjane studied under (wikipedia).
the story made me feel very familiar with certain aspects of it; the middle-eastern way of life (some of the characters really reminded me of my cousins and aunts) and the difficulties in a foreign country. it is an absorbing, funny, sad story.

Persepolis. author and illustrator: Marjane Satrapi. published for the first time in France in 2000.

Light Architecture

realities:united (realU), is a studio for art, architecture and technology. they develop and support architectural solutions, usually incorporating new media and information technologies using the facades as the base for their work. the aim of their projects is not to create new kind of advertising but to use the skin of the building as a material that can be shaped with light and images. among their works is the display skin of the Kunsthaus art museum in Graz Austria

i wonder though weather this kind of art, which consumes quite a lot of energy, is not in contrast with the global trend sustainability and energy efficiency?

one thing for sure, it's a pity they didn't leave the installation on the facade of Grassi's building in potsdamerplatz. that could have helped a lot.

Time Life

i used to have once an encyclopedia of time life . it contained volumes dedicated to selected countries in the world with great photography of a past grand epoch. some can still be found on the website of life among other updated celebrities shots.

Berlin-am-Hudson

a small part of a germanified New York. Neu York is a project made by Melissa Gould using an old plan of Manhattan as a base, replacing the street names by names taken from contemporary Berlin map. so my apartment in Berlin would be somewhere close to Chinatown. my former apartment in NY would be in the beautiful address: Heerstrasse and Kaiserin Augusta Strasse (36th St. and Lex. Ave.)
thanks again to strange maps

Illustration III

Evol is the name of an artist based in Berlin (although you might think the name comes from spelling Love backward, it's actually after the name of the sonic youth album).
he began his career as a street artist and a graffiti writer but then he moved inside. his work is connected usually to architectural elements (platenbauten) or urban context applied on 'dirty' surfaces: electrical boxes, wood and cardboard that accumulated dust or patina just because they were sitting outside or used.
Evol uses spray-paint, adhesive tape and stencil to create his images that look completely realistic.
unfortunately i couldn't find his website to make a link. if you know of one, please let me know.

i was trying to be a street artist as well, but the only time me and my friend Sharon tried to write a graffiti in Jerusalem in the middle of the night, we were caught by a passing by policeman that was by a chance on his way home. he forced us to cover it with paint. well, it wasn't a big loss anyway...

Swiss architecture

Close up Graber Pulver Architects, Zurich
Aedes Am Pfefferberg, Christinenstraße 18-19, 10119 Berlin until July 30, 2009.
a very well done exhibition of minimal swiss architecture. a lot of organic shapes and curves you will not see there (the photo is quite an exception), but still these guys won a lot of local competitions. some of the projects, mainly on the website, include an interesting study of stairs and apartment typologies. one example is the project of housing development at "weissenstein" in Bern, where each apartment is organized around an inner patio. the housing projects shown in the exhibition however, have apartment typologies in which the access to the private areas (bedrooms and bathrooms) is on the hallway between the kitchen and the living room. there is no strong division between the private area and the public area of the apartment.

now that i think of it, the last time i was in zurich i was staying at friends house. beautiful apartment in an old building and it has the same configuration. maybe it's a swiss stuff?

Illustartion II

a comparison between two visions of the world. on the left, the famous cover of the New Yorker by Saul Steinberg on March 29, 1976. on the right the cover of the Economist by Jon Berkeley on March 2009.

by the way, both of the illustrators are great. i saw some works of Saul Steinberg two years ago in new york and i just discovered Jon Berkeley. his website really worth a visit.

Illustartion I

one of the good thing that happened to me since i'm here in berlin, is getting to know a little bit the world of illustration. until than, illustration for me was mainly comics - Garfield as teenager and Diabolik in Italy. yes, and some tv cartoons. anyway thanks to friends here, especially Tim Dinter, i got to know some really interesting illustration works. illustration is in a way the perfect combination between architecture and art (maybe better architecture and graphic design?). it's a personal interpretation of architectural situations that transforms the reality into a different place. it gives the viewer the chance to see things that he never saw before. i will try to show here a list of artist that i personally like and that use urban scenes in their works.

the illustrations from top to bottom are of: Evan Hecox, Daniel Egnéus and Tim Dinter. i'm sure there are still many. but it needs time to learn and study this territory. i will keep the blog updated...

it's all greek to me!

another image, also found on the blog of riccardo (thanks to another great website strangemap), is a map that shows what is the common perception of an unknown language.
definitely the right thing to post before you start writing.

Fellini's Roma - Catholic Church Fashion Show

A wonderful piece of Fellini. thanks to Riccardo