Ricardo Bofill

Ricardo Bofill, Bofill Arquitectura, “Walden 7″, Barcelona, Spain

Walden 7, built in 1974, represents the successful implementation of an old ambition of architect Ricardo Bofill and it has a special significance within the development of his work. Working to a budget appreciably lower than the norm for subsidized housing at the time, and with some unusual funding, Walden-7 rose up as a monument and point of reference in this area to the west of Barcelona.

Walden 7 consists of a fourteen-storey cluster of 446 apartments, grouped around five courtyards, on top of which are two swimming pools. With few exceptions, each apartment faces both the outside of the block and into one of the courtyards, There is a complex system of bridges and balconies for access producing a fantastic variety of vistas and enclosures.

The exterior facade has the appearance of a huge fortification completely painted in red, which is opened to the interior spaces through large overtures like urban windows with a height of several stories. The courtyards have a lively treatment because of the intense blue and yellow colored facade. The main courtyard, at the building’s entrance, is a recovery of the street and the plaza for the benefit of the inhabitants, which generates an interior world apart from the exterior chaos.

The dwellings, a combination of square 30 square meter modules, come in different sizes, ranging from the single-module studio to the four-module apartment, either on one floor or as a duplex. The ground floor consists of public spaces, meeting rooms, games rooms, bars and shops.

Igor Samsonov

Igor Samsonov, Title Unknown

Igor Samsonov is a contemporary painter from Voronezh, Russia. He graduated in 1980 with honors from the School of Arts in Voronezh.  He attended the Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and was a student of Oleg Eremeev. Influenced by Renaissance, Dutch Renaissance, and Post-Impressionist artists, Samsonov has his own modern take on Classical Realism.

Calendar: June 11

A Year: Day to Day Men: 11th of June

The Sun King

June 11, 1936 was the opening day of the International Surrealist Exhibition.

The International Surrealist Exhibition was held from June 11 to July 4, 1936, at the New Burlington Galleries in London’s Mayfair, England. The exhibition was marked both by the high quality of the exhibits and by the fact that Andre Breton, Salvador Dali and many another European Surrealists came over for the occasion. The opening day stopped the traffic on Piccadilly due to the swell of the crowds and, over the weeks that followed, it forced the British arts establishment to reappraise what art actually was as well as what an exhibition could be.

Surrealism’s main flag bearer in Britain was Roland Penrose, a wealthy young artist. A meeting on the Rue de Tournon took place between him and a precocious young poet called David Gascoyne, who had become passionate about surrealism, and had just completed a book about it. The two men got talking about how extraordinary it was that, while Paris was undergoing a seismic art revolution, a few hundred miles away in London no one knew anything about it. They decided to change all that, with a show to jump-start the British imagination.

In the end, some 392 paintings and sculptures were assembled at the New Burlington Galleries. True to the surrealist notion of “objective hazard” (a random but ultimately fortuitous happening), the show was beset by problems which, added to the planned surprises, made it a veritable festival of the best that surrealism had to offer. First, there was the business of transporting the art: two days before the opening, a consignment was seized by Customs and two pieces – one by Wilhelm Freddie showing the naked bodies of dead soldiers, another by the Argentinian Leonor Fini showing young men dancing naked in the twilight – were turned back on grounds of decency. The hanging of the show happened just hours before the opening, only to be rearranged once again at the last minute.

The painter Sheila Legge showed up dressed in a long, white satin gown, her face obscured by roses and holding an artificial leg wearing a silk stocking. The poet Dylan Thomas offered the guests teacups full of boiled string. Andre Breton gave the opening speech dressed entirely in green. Salvador Dali gave his lecture wearing a diving suit with helmet. During the lecture, it became apparent that he was slowly suffocating inside his helmet; it had to be pried off to save him. He continued the lecture with a slide show, with the slides presented upside down.

Calendar: June 10

A Year: Day to Day Men: 10th of June

A Scattering of Suds

June 10, 1971 marks the passing of the English actor, Michael Rennie.

A meeting with a Gaumont-British Studios casting director led to Michael Rennie’s first acting job, a  stand-in for Robert Young in the 1936 film “Secret Agent” directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  He put his film career on hold for a few years to get some acting experience on the stage, working mostly in repertory theater in Yorkshire. Rennie eventually became a lead actor with the York Repertory Company.

Rennie played minor roles in films during this period including “Conquest of the Air” in 1937, “Bank Holiday” in 1938 and the 1939 “This Man in Paris”. After the outbreak of war in September of 1939, he began to receive offers for larger film roles, in particular Leslie Howard’s 1941 anti-Nazi thriller “Pimpernel Smith” which became one of the most valuable films of British war propaganda.

With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Rennie was given his first film break, when cast alongside Margaret Lockwood, who was at the peak of her popularity, in the 1945 musical “I’ll Be Your Sweetheart”, for Gainsborough Studios. Rennie was billed below Lockwood and star Vic Oliver and given an “introducing” credit; but his character was the actual protagonist of the film. Although the movie was not a large hit, Rennie received excellent notices for his perfomance.

After moving to Hollywood in 1950, Rennie was signed to a 20th Century Films contract by studio head Darryl F. Zanuck. In 1951, Robert Wise became the director of the first post-war, large budget science fiction film “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, Originally cast with Claude Rains in the lead, Rennie received top billing when Rains turned down the role. The film was a serious, high-minded exploration of mid-20th century suspicion and paranoia, combined with a philosophical overview of humanity’s coming place in the larger universe. Rennie’s portrayal of the spaceman Klaatu is arguably his most popular role and a classic in the science fiction genre.

After the film’s release, Rennie worked as a supporting actor for eight years until his return to England in 1959. At that time, he took the lead role of Harry Lime in the 1959 television series “The Third Man”. Throughout his career, Rennie made numerous guest appearances on television, particularly on American programs. He completed what amounted to guest roles in two films, “The Power” and “The Devil’s Brigade”, both filmed in 1968, before moving to Switzerland in the latter part of that year. Rennie’s final seven feature films were filmed in Britain, Italy, Spain and, in the case of the film “Surabaya Conspiracy”, the Philippines.

Michael Rennie journeyed to his mother’s home in Harrogate, Yorkshire, following the death of his brother. It was there that he died suddenly in June of 1971 of an aortic aneurysm almost two months before his 62nd birthday. After his cremation, Rennie’s ashes were interred in Harlow Hill Cemetery, Harrogate, England.