Tropolism

Tropolism Newsletter #2.6 and 2.7

2009-02-23T11:11:24Z

We've been scurrying around with other tasks this month, and we apologize for the dip in posts! Rest assured we still love and appreciate you, and the posting will start to increase.

Wherest we scurry:

- New York Magazine.

- Curbed.

- And a house I have under construction (which I'm not ready to unveil yet!).

Also under construction:

- pretty concrete!

- videos of awesome magazines!

- utopian superstructures!

Best

Chad Smith

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Tropolism Newsletter #2.5

2009-02-09T16:28:46Z

Last week we: -Saw some <a href="http://www.tropolism.com/2009/02/keith_harings_the_ten_commandm_1.php">really dirty pictures by Keith Haring</a>. 25 feet tall dirty pictures of the Ten Commandments. -visited <a href="http://www.tropolism.com/2009/02/20_peacocks_shop.php">20 Peacocks by L.E.FT</a>, one of the most brilliant shop designs we've seen in a while. -found more of <a href="http://www.tropolism.com/2009/02/documenting_disappearing_st_lo.php">disappearing St Louis</a>. -visited <a href="http://www.tropolism.com/2009/02/chicago_spire_tower_spawns_chi.php">the big hole where the Chicago Spire</a> used to be going to be. -visited Brasilia <a href="http://www.tropolism.com/2009/02/brazilians_tell_niemeyer_to_ju.php">just as they were telling Oscar Niemeyer to retire</a>, already. -and yes, checked out <a href="http://www.tropolism.com/2009/02/yes_more_mies_gas_station_news.php">more news about the Mies gas station in Montreal</a>. Best Chad

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Tropolism Newsletter #2.4

2009-02-01T19:55:33Z

This week we:

-we went to the Museum of Nature

-Alvaro got the gold

-the Mies gas station stopped pumping

-we found some amazing hybrid furniture

-someone is looking at moving the Mies gas station

Look for a big book review this week on Tropolism.

Happy February!

Chad

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Tropolism Newsletters #2.2 and 2.3

2009-01-25T11:38:08Z

Because of holiday, and a little inauguration, I chose to combine Tropolism Newsletters numbers 2.2 and 2.3.

The last two (almost) weeks we:

- Saw some amazing images of the best Zaha Hadid project yet.

- Got in touch with our inner hippie.

- Revisited a 7-foot model of some old friends.

- Experienced a typeface based on OMA's work.

- Was unexpectedly given a great view of an airplane floating in the Hudson River . As they are wont to do.

- Read After The City, This (Is How We Live) , and loved it.

- Went to Brazil to see Roberto Burle Marx .

- Went to Brazil again to see construction comedy.

Enjoy!

Chad Smith

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Tropolism Newsletter #2.2

2009-01-12T11:52:08Z

Last week we:

- went to the mall, with architects.

- caught up on the undulating construction progress of One Jackson Square

- looked at what Kengo Kuma is designing for Muji: houses and neighborhoods!

- looked at Amish houses: well-crafted or criminal acts?

- looked at the best Tom Kundig house so far.

- went to the Guggenheim for 24 hours . Seriously.
- reviewed the wonderful book The Infrastructural City.

A special shout-out goes to two Tropolism contributors who are rapidly becoming regulars. Saharat Surattanont is the NYC correspondent who visited the 24 hour Guggenheim project, and John Southern is the Los Angeles correspondent who reviewed Infrastructural City.

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Tropolism Newsletter #2.1

2009-01-04T11:28:10Z

Dear Tropolism Readers:

Happy 2009!

During our break, we:

- engaged in some handicrafts (although they were not as messy as these)

- checked out a library

- showed off some hidden construction pictures of this spring's verdant High Line

- floated around in a house.

2009 will bring a lot of growth to Tropolism. Expect to see some new writers come aboard, expanded coverage of other cities, and other goodies we're not yet ready to reveal.

Best

Chad

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Tropolism Newsletter #1.7

2008-12-15T11:22:38Z

Special Tropolism Newsletter #1.7 is in honor of one of the features I am most passionate about on Tropolism: book reviews. Architecture books inspire me to discover new ways of thinking, as well as new ways of representing the art of my profession in print (and, these days, PDF ). This will be the last Newsletter of 2008. See you in '09!

Tropolism Books, The Favorites Of 2008

1. The Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century Architecture

This huge book is solid for more than just its size: it exhaustively collects, presents, and cross references over 1,000 new buildings, only 4 years after a similar book catalogued 1,000 entirely different new buildings in the same way.

2. Bunker Archaeology

Paul Virilio's original is back in print after over a decade of being missing. Nothing about the book has changed: the essays and photographs retain the raw power they had the day they were written.

3. Loot: The Battle Over Stolen Treasures Of The Ancient World

Anyone who knows the big museums has been inspired by works from the Ancients collected in their walls. This book blows open our understanding of those collections, and puts them on the forefront of cultural disagreements in today's headlines.

4. Transmaterial 2

Even though our review seemed to be truly the most fastidious thing I've ever done, I reiterate here that this is an important book. It maps a clear direction for the interest in the cutting edge of materials and is an invaluable reference.

5. Density Projects

Like anything A+T Ediciones prints, this book contains an interesting selection of unbuilt work and analyzes them with diagrams and data for every project.

6. Marmol Radziner + Associates: Between Architecture and Construction

This monograph about an architect-led design-build firm is the gold standard for monographs, in our view. It includes unique side bars from clients, craftsman, and other project stakeholders.

7. Minka: My Farmhouse In Japan

At times rambling and not quite as detailed as I like, this book is still an irresistible love note to one of our favorite building types. A fascinating portrait of vernacular Japanese building, and a particular house, written by a non-architect.

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Tropolism Newsletter #1.6

2008-12-14T10:50:11Z

This week in Tropolism:

- There was another installation festival in New Orleans , this time with architects. New Orleans just rocks.

- We reviewed a magnificent atlas . See below.

- Florescent lights tripped us out.

- New York City came alive with pictures of every Manhattan street corner (all 11,000 of them), and our new favorite architecture blog , written by a film scout.

- And we rested in a little mirrored summer house, ie paradise.

- And finally, we created yet another list, the Top Posts Of 2008 , as decided by you, the reader.

We have two more lists.

Tropolism Favorite Buildings 2008

Tropolism means context. The best buildings of 2008 are part of their context. Not the flat context of historic urban fabric analysis, but context as in conversation. Great conversationalist add to a conversation, move it in new directions. Even though they are dependent on what came before and after, they are not subject to it. After all, only a boring conversationalist says what others are saying, and they can seem cloying, dependent, or downright manipulative. Great conversation has no end, and no determined direction. But it is full of ideas, opinions, and noise all the same. Just like the city.

1. The Waterfalls . Olafur Eliasson's waterfalls gave New York City four provocative urban objects. They inspired us not in their objectness, but in how they saw us to see nature replicated by the city everywhere we went. The objects Olafur thought up were only catalysts for a larger urban project.

2. The Two Dozen. We finalized (mostly) our list of the two dozen star architect designed residential buildings of a certain size, caused by the building boom of 2004-2008. Each of these buildings is very good (and sometimes great), but as a group, they are an extraordinary addition to the city.

3. Zaha Hadid's Art Container For Chanel. The spaceship travelled to Central Park this fall. It was cool. It was disappointing. It was inspiring. It brought up a lot of ideas about exhibitions that it did not fulfill (see Newsletter 1.1). It had us longing for some Zaha Hadid designed sets in our next xbox360 game. Fall 2008 is the beginning of an era when art spaces will have to start reassessing themselves, and moving beyond all white box all the time. This was the opening line in that conversation.

4. Rosa Muerta. The building itself is over the top (and you can rent it!). Yet it retained enough of its Miesian roots to suggest that the ways of living Mies suggested have a new generation of ideas. Which is why we started tracking Miesian Delusions.

5. Water Cube . The Water Cube is the perfect intersection of everything going on in the world of architecture today: politically, technically, spatially, all the way down to its public relations saavy. Like everything built for the Beijing Olympics, the building proved that Chinese is an artistic power in the world of contemporary art, and that it's so integrated they can use western architects for some of their most high-profile buildings.

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Tropolism Newsletter #1.5

2008-12-07T16:23:01Z

Tropolism Newsletter #1.5

The last two weeks on Tropolism:

-We kept falling in love with diagrams of all sorts .

-We asked Nicolai Ouroussoff to get a photographer.

-We outlined even more Miesian delusions.

-And then Greg Allen found one for us.

-Mike Jacobs reviewed the book about Marmol Radziner + Associates.

-We revisited Bunker Archeology.

-And we checked out the new biennale of art in New Orleans.

Coming up this week, we will give you all the details of another installation-heavy event going down in New Orleans, one that opens this week. In addition, you're going to start seeing some great end-of-year lists from us.

Cheers

Chad

+++++++++

Chad Smith

Editor

Tropolism.com

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Tropolism Newsletter 1.4

2008-11-23T11:52:33Z

Tropolism Newsletter 1.4

This week in Tropolism

- We again flew over the surface of the Death Star.

- And started checking out the ancient sites and museums featured in Loot.

- We Imagined Coney Island and heard what other people are imagining, too.

- The Architecture of the new Star Trek Film was revealed.

- We went to Most Awesome Yoga Studio.

In addition, we went to The Most Awesome Desert Rental House, ever. This is a point on the line of Miesian delusions that started getting explored in OMA's early work. Recently, you may have read about another few delusions, these related to his iconic Barcelona Chair, that I wrote about elsewhere. You'll be seeing me compile more Miesian Delusions in the new few months.

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Tropolism Newsletter #1.3

2008-11-16T13:22:05Z

The week on Tropolism:

-We were reminded of how much we have always loved BLDGBLOG .

-We were reminded of Coop Himmelblau's crazy high school project in Los Angeles, because it actually got built.

-Abalos and Herreros split up , which made us sad because we have loved them since we met them in 1997, until we realized that now there will be two awesome firms where once there was only one.

-El Croquis went digital, fulfilling a dream of ours since 1992.

-Bodega Down Bronx . Title pretty much says it all.

-We were reminded of how much Sori Yanagi can contribute to your home .

In addition, Friday's New York Times included a review of Frank Gehry's addition/reorganization of the Art Gallery of Ontario , in his birthtown of Toronto. Nicolai Ouroussoff gives Gehry his usual loving treatment, including a few gilding words about the building's new integration into its urban setting, which are barely hinted at in the accompanying photographic essay . So we will have to take his word for it, apparently. Actually, I'm kind of tired of taking their word for it. Can we see some proof? Or at least have the pictures align with the words a little better? I think this is probably an editorial problem. They send the architecture critic and a photographer to the building at the same time. They visit, and it is only later that the critic constructs his argument. The photographer has already taken the pictures though. But couldn't Ouroussoff take some snapshots as backups and then use them to fill the gaps? And half of the photos in the slideshow are from Gehry Partners anyway, didn't they have a couple that could help Ouroussoff better? It's a little distressing. And it's symptomatic of why print media, even in its online editions, is going to fall to The Blog, particularly with regards to writing about the city. Print is never messy. The city and blogs are.

Oh and Gehry's stair is another one for Stair Porn.

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