Sublime notebook

torsdag 27 februari 2014

Finding the poetry

Architecture that is sublime or architecture that is thriving, to me, manages to find the poetry - /of a space /a context /an environment and becomes the most it can be. Capturing the specific characteristics of a site, reinventing and playing with the landscape, how a project is a part of or forms something externally and internaly. Finding the poetry is always a common mentioner.

Alvaro Siza is extremely good at finding the poetry. It seems like a sharp eye (pure talent also of corse) and travels can do that to a person.
Like with his Portuguese World expo pavilion from 98, the horizontal thin sheet that is held up on each side by rhythmic columns that forms spaces between them. The sheet is so thin, almost like a boat sail or a paper sheet laying across, that it is hard to grasp how the construction is even made up. The entity forms a frame through which one can see the blue horizon of the ocean.

Sketch by my friend Camilla Levin during our trip to Portugal in 2012
(Portuguese World expo pavilion '98 by Alvaro Siza)

fredag 7 februari 2014

Sublime blog

I am freaking out over this amazing blog: http://tectonicablog.com that has everything innit!

Landesarchiv NRW by O&O Baukunst Architects

torsdag 16 januari 2014

Left to it's destiny

Photo by Emelie Nielson, Norway 2009

Character

It happens quite often that people point at building we pass, asking what my opinion is of it?

The problem is that many times I have no opinion, they don't move me. Like a person without any feature of personality to remember they remain anonymous. Sometimes they can be vulgar and unattractive to me, but many streetscapes are just full of the bland.

But then, there are buildings that tell me something about themselves. I am mysterious, or young and nifty or ancient and wise. Buildings are of course more than the surface that meets the eye, skin and bones and structure as well as spatial personality.

Something that annoys me is too much steel, the kind you keep seeing in many new-built corporate buildings.
I think that a building with excessive steel bracing is like a beautiful girl with big braces smiling.
Personality - pleasant or unpleasant, interest me a great deal.

The Fuller Building, or 'the Flatiron building' is grandpa-like to me, or more like a dandy-like grandpa when he was young and slender and handsome.

'Flatiron building' 1902 by Architect Daniel Burnham
Original photo credits to nycvintageimages.com

måndag 25 november 2013

Give me a continuos space with a pocket to myself. No doors, please.

There is something fascinating about continuos spaces. I am dreaming about a home with continuos space without doors, where there is still privacy and it's only one peek around a corner away.