Last summer photographer ↑Timothy Allen met Alexander Ivanov, a colleague of his, at a photo festival in Bulgaria: ‘Back then he showed me some pictures of what looked to me like a cross between a flying saucer and Doctor Evil’s hideout perched atop a glorious mountain range.’ This winter Timothy went there, 250km from Sofia, and took ↑glorious pictures of the Buzludzha monument, a gigantic, now abandoned and decaying monument to socialism. The pictures show the building from the outside, the inside, and even from the sky. Goes well with the ↵cosmic communist constructions photographed by Frédéric Chaubin. via ↑entry … Continue reading
Tag Archives: architecture
If I do remember correctly, it was ↑KerLeone who years ago pointed me to ↑Bruce Branit‘s magnificent short film ‘World Builder.’ This year Bruce was so kind to allow me to ↵screen his film without any fee whatsoever and even let me have a true high definition version—tnx a lot! And, I can tell you, it was very well received! In addition I thought it to be a nice follow-up to ↵glasshouse. BRANIT, BRUCE. 2007. ↑World builder [short film]. Kansas City: BranitFX. … Continue reading
Just in case you think that I am not doing anything sensible—here’s my house in ↑Minecraft … quite a mad-scientist hideout, isn’t it? … Continue reading
Canadian photographer ↑Greg Girard has a nice collection called ↑Phantom Shanghai online. Girard’s pictures perfectly catch the cyberpunk ambience and æsthetics and remind me very much of the photographies my pal ↑2R took in China years ago: ↵cyberpunk china and ↵more cyberpunk china. See also Mike Doyle’s ↵abandoned homes. via ↑entry at ↑kueperpunk … Continue reading
↑Environmental Graffiti carries a ↑collection of 34 photographies shot at 10 different abandoned and meanwhile decaying former mental institutions in Great Britain. The pictures are haunting and really give me the creeps. After viewing them you know that all the versions of ↵Arkham Asylum are not the products of imagination. via ↑entry at ↑infocult—tnx! … Continue reading
Here are two sketches— from pages 32 and 35 in the sketchbook—for Rick Deckard’s (Harrison Ford) apartment as seen in ‘↑Blade Runner‘ (Scott 1982). Note the distinctive relief ornamentation on the faces of the concrete cubes, inspired by the texture blocks designed and used by ↑Frank Lloyd Wright for ↵Ennis House: SCOTT, RIDLEY. 1982. Blade runner [motion picture]. Burbank: Warner Brothers. SCROGGY, DAVID (ed.). 1982. Blade runner sketchbook. San Diego: Blue Dolphin. blade runner sketchbook from [HP] via Facebook—tnx! … Continue reading
In the navigation menu above ↵cyberpunk has appeared as a new element. Here is what the new element and its dropdown menu are all about: On the pages assembled in this menu I am collecting ↵motion pictures, ↵literature, ↵comics, and ↵computer games which can be called cyberpunk or cyberpunkish. A cultural artefact out of this categories qualifies, and is added to the respective list, if it comprises a sufficiently critical mass composed of peculiar core themes, æsthetics, settings, and protagonists. At the thematic core there are the reciprocal effects between state-of-the-art technology and culture, society, the … Continue reading
↑The Earthscraper proposes burrowing down into the heart of Mexico City to create a new civic structure which preserves the city’s historic urban landscape while serving the needs of a modern metropolis. Designed by BNKR Arquitectura, the Earthscraper is an inverted pyramid whose base is the surface of Mexico City’s main public square and traditional center the Zocalo, and which is bordered by the city’s most treasured monuments–the Cathedal, the National Palace and the City Government buildings. Such a central site demands a decisive urban strategy that negotiates and reconciles the city’s seemingly disparate histories. BNKR Arquitectura’s pyramid does just … Continue reading
zeph’s pop culture quiz #2 The screenshot was taken from the opening of a classic horror movie. Throughout the movie vistas of the house are to be seen many times. Interestingly enough the house’s spectacular interior was not used at all—instead a mock Victorian interior was built at a sound stage. The mock-up has nothing to do with the house’s real interior, although a particular design element of the original was interspersed here and there. Decades later the movie was remade, without the house—the stories of the remake and its sequel play in a fictitious art deco building. … Continue reading
The best comment I read on this was the wonderfully ironic: ” … and you thought it was made of Lego.” Having recovered from that realization, here’s the next hit: This is a picture of ↑Two Story with Basement, ↑Mike Doyle‘s first Lego creation (not counting what he did as a kid). Meanwhile he has added two more projects to his abandoned homes series: ↑Victorian with Tree and ↑Victorian on Mud. More at Mike’s blog ↑snap (including very insightful essays) and at ↑his MOCpages page. Especially interesting for anthropologists: Mike does not cease to emphasize that his creations … Continue reading