Tag: architecture

Spencer Means, “Balcony at Casa Calvet”

Spencer Means, “Balcony at Casa Calvet”, Barcelona, Spain

Casa Calvet is a building, built between 1898 and 1900, designed by Antoni Gaudi for a textile manufacturer which served as both a commercial property and a residence. It is located at Carrer de Casp 48, Eixample district of Barcelona.

Gaudí scholars agree that this building is the most conventional of his works, partly because it had to be squeezed in between older structures and partly because it was sited in one of the most elegant sections of Barcelona. Its symmetry, balance and orderly rhythm are unusual for Gaudí’s works.

However, the curves, the double gable at the top, and the projecting oriel at the entrance are almost baroque in its drama. Modernist elements are evident in the isolated witty details. Bulging balconies alternate with smaller, shallower balconies.

Jon Atkinson, “Casa Batlló”

Jon Atkinson, “Casa Batlló”

Jon Atkinson is a wildlife and travel photographer.

Casa Batlló was designed by Gaudí for Josep Batlló, a wealthy aristocrat, as an home. Gaudí used colours and shapes found in marine life as inspiration for his creativity in this building e.g. the colours chosen for the façade are those found in natural coral.

Jeffrey Milstein

Jeffrey Milstein, Five Photographs from His Series LANY: Aerial Photographs of Los Angeles and New York, Published by Thomas & Hudson,

Using the highest-resolution cameras available mounted to a stabilizing gyro, Milstein leans out of helicopters and does steep circles in small airplanes over Los Angeles where he grew up and over New York where he now lives, looking for shapes and patterns of culture from above, continually awed by the difference between the aerial view and the view on the ground.

Millstein emphasizes the abstraction of pattern and reveals aspects of urban design and planning of both cities at the same time as he offers an intensification of detail and an abundance of information. He composes his images so that the viewer is still vividly aware of the human scale.

Please credit photographer when reblogging. Thanks.

Imperatore Constantino

Artist Unknown, Imperatore Constantino, Musei Capitolini, Rome, italy

The colossal statue of Constantine I,  sculpted in marble, was one of the most important works of late-ancient Roman sculpture The remaining segments are at the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome and were dated between 313 and 324. A hand and the right arm, the two feet, the knee and the right femur, the left calf and the head are the only remaining parts of the statue. The origin statue judging from the remains was a seated form that reached approximately 12 meters in height.

The head, which was originally decorated with a metallic crown, is grandiose and solemn, presenting the characteristics of Roman art of that era, with the stylization and simplification tendencies of the lines.  The face is squared, with hair and eyebrows rendered with very refined and “calligraphic” marble engravings, but still completely unnatural looking. The eyes are big, almost huge, with the well-marked pupil looking upwards; they are the focal point of the whole portrait.

The Emperor’s gaze seems to scrutinize the surrounding environment and gives the portrait an appearance of extraterrestrial austerity. The hair is treated as a single swollen mass deeply furrowed by the streaks that separate some locks. The face posesses an aquiling nose, long, thin lips and a prominent chin. This is an idelaized face, despite the classical importation, which seeks to show an aura of holiness.

Calendar: July 21

A Year: Day to Day Men: 21st of July

Gathering Apples on High

July 21, 1920 was the birthdate of Constant A. Nieuwenhuys, a painter turned architect and one of the founders of the Situationist International.

Constant Nieuwenhuys was a Dutch artist born in Amsterdam and one of the founding members of the Situationist International formed in 1957. He is also known for his utopian project, New Babylon, on which he worked for nearly twenty years starting in 1956. Constant was one of the theoretical drivers behind the Situationists alongside Guy Debord. It was a widening gulf between their two positions that eventually led Constatnt Nieuwenhuys to leave the group in 1960.

The Situationists were an overtly political group whose critique of the alienation of capitalist society has had a lasting effect on contemporary culture. They saw modern society as a series of spectacles, discrete moments in time, where the possibility of active participation in the production and experience of lived reality were eluded.

The rift between Constant and Debord focused on the structuralist tendencies of Constant. Through his exploration of “unitary urbanism”, Constant focused not only on the atmosphere and social interactions of the Situationis city, but also on the actual production of the city as a built space. His project New Babylon is today considered and exemplary expression of a Situationist city.

Designed around the abolition of work, New Babylon was a city based on total automation and the collective ownership of land. With no more work, citizens were free to move around; New Babylon being designed to facilitate a nomadic lifestyle. Divided into a series of interconnected sectors, the city operated on a network of collective services and transportation.

Through a large number of models, drawings and collages, Constant explored the various sectors, floating above ground on stilts, interconnected with bridges and pathways. Traffic flowed above and below; while the inhabitants traveled by foot from section to section. The degree to which the details of the city had been worked out and Constant’s own discourse showed that he viewed this as a concrete proposal for a future city rather than just a polemical project.

Constant Nieuwenhuys’ New Babylon focused on the social construction of space with every aspect of the city controllable by its citizens in order that they could construct new atmospheres and situations within the given infrastructure. It was a dynamic environment that could easily be adapted and changed, allowing inhabitants to explore their creativity through play and interaction. Constant, ultimately, did not see New Babylon as a city, but rather as a design of a new culture.