Wordless Wednesday

New Elle Decoration South Africa Megazine

Elle Decoration South Africa Megazine Pictures

Elle Decoration South Africa Megazine Pictures

Elle Decoration South Africa Megazine Pictures

Elle Deco South Africa Megazine Pictures

Elle Decoration South Africa Megazine Pictures

Now I will give an analysis about elle decoration of south africa. The winners of the anniversary South African leg of the Elle Decoration International Design Awards (EDIDA) were appear aftermost week, and we're captivated to allotment them actuality on the blog.

The all-embracing EDIDA honours accept gone to Johannesburg-based Willowlamp, for their able-bodied yet cautiously formed chandeliers fabricated out of accomplished metal chains.

Industrial artist and jeweler Sian Eliot’s and artist Adam Hoets’s latest ambit is aggressive by annual forms like proteas and fuschias. The arresting chandeliers accept appearance such as petals fabricated out of ample brawl alternation lobes, while the annual stamens and filaments are blind lights fabricated of arctic pyrex bottle visors over halogen lamps.

What About the Last Urbanisms?

Potentially Valuable

What About reconsidering the last (Hardcore) Urbanisms?

By Nathalie Frankowski and Cruz García (WAI)

L’urbanisme n’existe pas : ce n’est qu’une « idéologie », au sens de Marx.

-Attila Kotanyi [1]

Ideology

Urbanism is not a profession; it is ideology in a pure state. Often confused with urban planning, its real value gets undermined; its potential spoiled. Urban planning can be taught in school, and like architecture, it has become a conformist result of endless discussions, bureaucratic dialogues, constant editing and undesirable modifications. On the other hand urbanism implies an intoxicating faith in the power of design to transform the city and whoever that lives in it. Urbanism is architecture’s oxymoron: if Architecture is constrained, urbanism is unlimited. How to explain that urbanism as a belief has ceased to exist just when prosthetic architectural reincarnations of yesterday’s ideal cities seem to be proliferating everywhere? Are those architectures organs without a body? Would we be able to unearth the corpse?

Value

A contingent of statistical failures has forced urban visionaries to abandon utopia in exchange for taxable facsimiles. Usually accompanied by totalitarian regimes the potential of urbanism has been abandoned, overlooked; never again seriously considered. After declaring “all the solid melted into air”, urban production has been reduced to a belated and partial reclaiming of the city. Paradoxically, architecture has become the immediate substitute for urbanism at the very moment that architects stopped talking about architecture and concentrated all their “manifestoes” on the city. We have read an endless list of (post-modern?) arguments about generic cities and junkspaces, metacities and datatowns, spaces of flow, green cities and virtual networks, and all the other speculations about contemporary urban understanding, but we have failed to see the staggering potential of the last real urbanisms. More than forty years ago urbanism was declared dead, and after that nobody has even tried to resurrect it. Conformity with the status quo and the role of the architect as a rockstar has forced a prolonged disqualification of the wholesome ambitions of urbanism. In order to claim relevance the architect has remained irrelevant; the urbanist has become nonexistent.

Bolshevik Urbanism

Visionary

Despite its premature abandonment urbanism is not finished. The inevitable resurgence of Brasilia fifty years after its creation proves that ideas don’t die. A statement on the belief of the spatial politics of Juscelino Kubitschek, Brasilia reinforces the notion that the true value of urbanism doesn’t lie in the conformist policies of categorized living standards, but in the potential to establish visionary plans with a strong determination. A newly founded Brazilian capital marked the apotheosis of a period characterized by an intense intellectual urban brainstorming fueled by social reform and political ambition. Motivated by decades of social instability, urbanism became a tour de force in the hand of visionaries. From the Bolshevik constructivists, to a Le Corbusier led CIAM, urbanism was the ultimate tool for change; a deus ex machina for social transformation.

Le Corbusian Urbanism

Heroic

Urbanism’s passionate involvement with utopia has evaporated into the air. The twentieth century alone saw urbanism dissolve from the most volatile, experimental and intellectually fertile period into a passive analytical phase that extends right up to today. [2] It’s not a coincidence that the heroic period of Modern Architecture was not driven by architecture but by the appeal of the city as a hotbed for social, political, and economical transformation. After the Bolshevik revolution urbanism was highly fueled by ideology and ideology was being catalyzed by urbanism. The series of stratagems utilized by the architects of the revolution were not only relegated to the creation of propaganda, the city, and hence its architecture, became a monument for the class struggle and a collective infrastructure for the highly mechanized communal lifestyle of the new “ruling” working class. As strongly as these ideologies were manifest in the projected urban landscape, the palette of proposals could not have been more diverse; une autre ville pour autre vie was easily translated into whatever form urbanism can take. During this same period Le Corbusier went from declaring a war on the actual city with his publication Urbanisme and the presentation of the Plan Voisin (both released in 1925), to using the CIAM—the most ambitious modernist enterprise—as a screen to project his urban intentions. [3][4] After him, a fluctuating series of sublime urbanisms took shape, from the rapidly multiplying Metabolist cities in Japan, to the high flying Architecture Mobile of Yona Friedman and the GEAM, to the Walking, and the Instantaneous and Plug-In Cities of Archigram. Even the Situationists with their sharp critique on modernist urbanism –especially on Le Corbusier, went on to develop their own customized version of urbanism: Constant’s New Babylon.

Situationist Urbanism

Genealogy

Forty years after those clouds of tangible possibilities dissolved from the urban atmosphere, the remaining forms of urbanism have been turned into an exhaustive catalog of pessimistic explanations and uncompromising arguments. No matter how strong the convictions can be, or how inevitably obvious the ideas can seem, urbanism appears to be unable to be crystallized into concrete forms. What would happen if, with the humorous sense of a Foucaultean genealogy, we decided to carry out an archaeological survey of the remnants of the last specimens of urbanism? What if we decided to analyze them not by their known fate, but by their conceptual value? What if for once we stopped admiring that last breed of hardcore urbanisms by their seductive aesthetics and their aura of naïve ingenuity and evaluate the potential they had to carry out the hedonistic utopias that the old reformers envisioned? Maybe then, we would stop looking at urbanism as a fossilized enigma, reconsider its true value and grasp its ultimate potential.

Archigram Urbanism

Metabolist Urbanism

[1]. Attila Kotanyi, “Programme élémentaire du Bureau d’Urbanisme Unitaire” originally appeared in Internationale Situationniste #6 (Paris, August 1961).

[2].Ideological Urbanism or Hardcore Urbanisms as stated in this article passed through three main phases during the Twentieth Century: revolutionary, reactionary and analytical. The revolutionary period started to reach its peak during the 1920’s with the Bolshevik revolution, the multiple ideal cities proposed by Le Corbusier and the creation of the CIAM, and lasted until the upheavals of 1968 following the dismissal of the CIAM. The reactionary period post 1968 includes projects like Superstudio’s Il Monumento Conitnuo, Archizoom’s No-Stop City (both 1969) and Rem Koolhaas’s Exodus or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture(1972). These proposals were created as ironical critiques on urbanism and its tools of representation. The beginnings of the analytical period could be traced to the publication of Robert Venturi and Denisse Scot-Brown’s Learning from Las Vegas (1972). This category marks a distancing from the proactive urbanistic proposals of the reactionary period and creates a more descriptive attitude towards the city. The projects –between them Rem Koolhaas’ Delirious New York, and all the other observations on Atlanta, Lagos, Pearl River Delta, Singapore (just to mention a few) —are more observations that incursions on the city.

[3]. The Plan Voisin was an adaptation of the project for three millions of inhabitants or “Ville contemporaine de trois millions d'habitants.”

[4]. A Le Corbusier fueled CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne) produced documents like La Charte d'Athènes, that summarized under an official document that the future city relied under the four canonical values of travailler, habiter, circuler, et le cultivar le corps et le spirit.

Have a great weekend

Carmel River Beach Love (The End)

Now that I'm back in 98 degree Austin humidity, I'm longing to be back on the cool Carmel coast.
Missing this little Carmel Valley Coffee shop. Here comes hubby with our lattes.

Quaint Carmel Shops (Part 2)

Life is better at the beach. I agree!

Through their gates was the garden area.

Oh, how I loved the French inspired shop, Mimosa:

And my favorite window shopping of all, this paper shop, Spencer's Stationery and Gifts. Rows and rows of colorful wrapping paper!

Wordless Wednesday (Carmel)

In the lobby of our Carmel hotel, the Hyatt Highlands Inn.

Quiet and Charming Carmel (Part 1)

We just returned from an incredible getaway to Carmel and Pebble Beach. Each morning while waiting for my coffee at the nearby Carmel Valley coffee shop, I peeked inside this darling little flower shop.
Flowers by the stem for sale and beautiful yellow orchids plants. I wanted to take them all home!

Look at the way they wrapped this hand tied flower bouquet in burlap. Oh, and isn't the chocolate brown settee in limed wood finish so chic and current?

An orchid plant in a tomato can. What a nice summertime touch. Simple and sweet.

Too bad it wasn't open!

Morning 5. Still too early for opening. Completely new fresh flowers by the stem and rearranged tablescape. Rose Hip knows how to make window shoppers drool!

Lusting for Yellow

My sister has always admired yellow walls. These gorgeous spaces make me long for a yellow room of my own.

Images via Traditional Home

Happy Weekend

strange house

Looking for something cool to put on your wall or to give as a gift? Wall clocks come in all kinds of shapes and sizes these days, some of which are wonderfully unique. Nearly every house or office has a clock on the wall, most of which are very ordinary looking. If you want your room or office to stand out from the crowd and become a conversation piece, here are a few odd styles of clocks to consider:

The Binary Wall Clock

At first glance, a binary clock just looks like a bunch of incomprehensible lights that blink on and off. But with a little bit of practice, you will be able to figure out what time it is quickly. They work the same way a computer sends signals, using a system of 0's and 1's. These make great gifts for any scientific-minded person, and they are guaranteed to give your brain a little extra workout every day.

The Projection Clock

Want the time on the wall, but not the clock? Projection clocks will let you aim the time on the wall, the ceiling, or anywhere else you might want it. Some people use a projection clock in their bedrooms so they can glance at the wall at night and see what time it is. Some projection clocks can project the time into midair, and it is just hovers there by itself.

Crazy Cuckoo Clocks

Although the cuckoo clock has been around for hundreds of years, a relative newcomer on the cuckoo circuit is the addition of other animals instead of birds. You can get a clock which has an elephant that comes out of a house and trumpets. There is a clock that has a crazy dog that barks on the hour, a rooster that comes out of a barn clock, and even an orangutan clock. These clocks do wonders for lightening up the mood in your home and giving it a fun atmosphere. You might not want to put one in your room though, as they will probably keep you awake!

Comedy Wall Clocks

There is no shortage of fun shaped wall clocks that will look great on your wall. Here are some of the most unique ideas I've seen:

• The Salvador Dali melting face clock, which appears to be melting
• The "will return" sign clock that shows that famous window store sign, but actually moves.
• The mathematician clock, which has equations with the answers equaling the clock numbers
• The "backwards" clock that has the numbers in the wrong order

You can easily find a strange wall clock to hang in your home or office on the internet, although you might come across one at a specialty store near you. Some of these clocks are very cheap, starting at just $15 or so, with binary and projection clocks costing a little bit more.Strange Large Wall Clocks - Guaranteed to Raise Eyebrows

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