Commentary

• Comments on Ai Weiwei: Surgeon of Space, by Geoff Manaugh

  Ai Weiwei: Surgeon of Space, by Geoff Manaugh – Ai Weiwei's show of four collections of furniture at Phillips de Pury & Company in London is accompanied by this essay by Geoff Manaugh. Manaugh's discussion of Ai Weiwei's work is interesting in its ability to imagine new worlds projected out from Ai Weiwei's distortions on furniture. Like Manaugh's essay on his own blog, BLDGBLOG, Manaugh's writing takes a fresh, nuanced look at

  03.12.09 | no comments | Filed Under: Commentary | Arthur McGoey

• Comments on RATP Bus Center in Thiais / ECDM | Arch Daily

  RATP Bus Center in Thiais / ECDM | Arch Daily – The RATP Bus Center in Thiais, Frnace by ECDM Architects is a deceptively simple building. Covered in precast concrete panels with the "non slip" domes common to pedestrian paving, the building feels like it is drawn from the surrounding pavement of the bus control center. Its careful choice of materiality is both contextual and abstract, giving the building a very clear

  03.12.09 | no comments | Filed Under: Commentary | Arthur McGoey

• Comments on MANUEL DELANDA: Opportunities and Risks « LEBBEUS WOODS

  MANUEL DELANDA: Opportunities and Risks « LEBBEUS WOODS – Manuel De Landa takes on perception from a materialist point of view. De Landa views perception as the ability of an animal to assess and take advantage of opportunities and risks in its environment. He defines this ability as the capacity of an animal to affect and be affected by its environment. Though he never explicitly addresses it, in many ways this

  03.01.09 | 2 comments | Filed Under: Commentary | Arthur McGoey

• Comments on James Howard Kunstler dissects suburbia | Video on TED.com

  James Howard Kunstler dissects suburbia | Video on TED.com – James Howard Kunstler discusses the failures of suburban public spaces with polemics and humor. His very serious critique of the faults of contemporary architectural design are stinging in their validity but his advocacy of New Urbanism caries with it the same nostalgic problems as post-modern historicism. When will there by a theory of urbanism and architecture that will address our very real

  02.28.09 | no comments | Filed Under: Commentary | Arthur McGoey

• Comments on Building on Canvas: Sarah McKenzie and the New American Landscape | Arch Daily

  Building on Canvas: Sarah McKenzie and the New American Landscape | Arch Daily – An interview with Sarah McKenzie, who is a painter that has taken to painting images of the modern landscape, specifically buildings. She started painting aerial perspectives of suburban subdivisions but has since moved on to buildings under construction. Her painters are an interesting twist on abstraction and still life. Their rich, creamy colors confront the viewer with

  02.28.09 | no comments | Filed Under: Commentary | Arthur McGoey

• Comments on Ningbo Historic Museum / Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio-Arch Daily

  Ningbo Historic Museum / Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio-Arch Daily – The Ningbo Historic Museum is a strange combination of local Chinese construction methods and contemporary formal logic. Made of board formed concrete, stone masonry and clay tiles mixed into patches, the walls of the building splay and tilt as they rise form the ground. Like a material collage, the building challenges one’s understanding of design as the hands of the workers

  02.23.09 | 1 comment | Filed Under: Commentary | Arthur McGoey

• Comments on Villanueva’s Public Library / Meza + Piñol + Ramírez + Torres | Arch Daily

  Villanueva’s Public Library / Meza + Piñol + Ramírez + Torres | Arch Daily – Villanueva’s Public Library is a study in spatial layering and materiality. The simple rectangular form of the main building is clad in stone gabions while the public loggia like space in front is clad with crisscrossing wood pallets which shade but still let diffuse light into the building. The two story structures houses a library as well

  02.22.09 | 1 comment | Filed Under: Commentary | Arthur McGoey

• Comments on SEEING SPACE << LEBBEUS WOODS

  SEEING SPACE « LEBBEUS WOODS – Lebbeus Woods presents a series of drawings by Sotirios Kotoulas whose research explores making visible the spaces of the electromagnetic spectrum. While his drawings are fascinating in their angular complexity, they lack a direction forward beyond their own creation and internal logic. The drawings feel too much like a subjective rationalizing into formal ideas based on a metaphorical understanding of the logic of electromagnetic waves.

  02.17.09 | no comments | Filed Under: Commentary, General | Arthur McGoey