A Quick Animated Tour of Iconic Modernist Houses

in Architecture | July 23rd, 2014

From Ital­ian graph­ic design­er Mat­teo Muci comes “a two-minute ani­mat­ed voy­age through some of the most icon­ic mas­ter­pieces of mod­ern archi­tec­ture: Ville Savoye by Le Cor­busier, Rietveld Schröder House by Ger­rit Rietveld, Farnsworth House by Lud­wig Mies van der Rohe, Glass House by Philip John­son and Falling­wa­ter by Frank Lloyd Wright.” Illus­tra­tions of the hous­es can be viewed and freely down­loaded here.

H/t goes to Ian M. for send­ing this quick visu­al treat our way.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

An Ani­mat­ed Tour of Falling­wa­ter, One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Finest Cre­ations

Alain de Botton’s Quest for The Per­fect Home and Archi­tec­tur­al Hap­pi­ness

The His­to­ry of West­ern Archi­tec­ture: From Ancient Greece to Roco­co (A Free Online Course)

Bauhaus, Mod­ernism & Oth­er Design Move­ments Explained by New Ani­mat­ed Video Series

Ice Cube & Charles Eames Rev­el in L.A. Archi­tec­ture

Free: The Guggen­heim Puts 99 Mod­ern Art Books Online

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London Mashed Up: Footage of the City from 1924 Layered Onto Footage from 2013

in Architecture, Film, History, Travel | May 13th, 2014

Great cities are high­ly change­able by nature, though cer­tain sky­line-dom­i­nat­ing land­marks endure. Vis­i­tors and res­i­dents alike roman­ti­cize the Eif­fel Tow­er, the Empire State Build­ing, and the Colos­se­um. (That last one’s got real stay­ing pow­er)

In Won­der­ful Lon­don in 1924 and 2014, above, film­mak­er Simon Smith  goes with the flow estab­lished by his pre­de­ces­sors, Har­ry B. Parkin­son and Frank Miller, who fea­tured St. Paul’s Cathe­dral on the title cards of their short doc­u­men­tary series, “Won­der­ful Lon­don.” That icon­ic dome makes for a love­ly and sen­ti­men­tal view. These days, it can be tak­en in from the Mil­len­ni­um Bridge or 6th floor cafe of the Tate Mod­ern (housed in the for­mer Bank­side Pow­er Sta­tion).

Time has altered all of Parkin­son’s and Miller’s loca­tions over the last 90 years, as Miller’s 2013 footage shows. The icon­ic archi­tec­ture may remain, but Covent Gar­den now caters to tourists, a rack of Boris Bikes flanks the Hay­mar­ket, and the West End reflects the sen­si­bil­i­ties of ladies who dare appear in pub­lic in trousers.

Using Gus­tav Mahler’s Fourth Sym­pho­ny as a sort of son­ic mor­tar, Smith bricks the present day onto the British Film Insti­tute’s recent restora­tion of Parkin­son and Miller’s work. Actu­al­ly, it’s more of a key­hole effect, through which view­ers can peep into the past.

Assum­ing the medi­um (and species) sur­vives, we may one day seem as quaint and the sepia-toned fig­ures bustling through the ear­li­er film. Unthink­able? What will the mod­ern world sur­round­ing our key­hole look like?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Syn­chro­nized, Time­lapse Video Shows Train Trav­el­ing from Lon­don to Brighton in 1953, 1983 & 2013

Prize-Win­ning Ani­ma­tion Lets You Fly Through 17th Cen­tu­ry Lon­don

A Jour­ney Back in Time: Vin­tage Trav­el­ogues

Ayun Hal­l­i­day rec­om­mends the work­ing man’s caff E Pel­li­ci  in Lon­don’s East End the next time you’re in the mood for lunch with a side of his­to­ry. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Famous Architects Dress as Their Famous New York City Buildings (1931)

in Architecture, History | March 15th, 2014

On Jan­u­ary 13, 1931, the Soci­ety of Beaux-Arts Archi­tects held a ball at the Hotel Astor in New York City. Accord­ing to an adver­tise­ment for the event, any­one who paid $15 per tick­et (big mon­ey dur­ing the Depres­sion) could see a “hilar­i­ous mod­ern art exhi­bi­tion” and things “mod­ernistic, futur­is­tic, cubis­tic, altru­is­tic, mys­tic, archi­tis­tic and fem­i­nis­tic.” Atten­dees also got to wit­ness more than 20 famous archi­tects dressed as build­ings they had designed, some of them now fix­tures of the New York City sky­line.

In the pic­ture above, we have from left to right: A. Stew­art Walk­er as the Fuller Build­ing (1929), Leonard Schultze as the Wal­dorf-Asto­ria Hotel (1931) , Ely Jacques Kahn as the Squibb Build­ing (1930), William Van Alen as the Chrysler Build­ing (1930), Ralph Walk­er as 1 Wall Street (1931), D.E.Ward as the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Tow­er and Joseph H. Free­lander as the Muse­um of the City of New York (1930).

A 2006 arti­cle in The New York Times notes that the event, now con­sid­ered “one of the most spec­tac­u­lar par­ties of the last cen­tu­ry,” was cov­ered by WABC radio. A few pho­tographs remain (like the one above — click it to enlarge). As does a tan­ta­liz­ing short bit of video.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via NYT

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­to­ry of West­ern Archi­tec­ture: From Ancient Greece to Roco­co (A Free Online Course)

David Byrne: How Archi­tec­ture Helped Music Evolve

Ten Build­ings That Changed Amer­i­ca: Watch the Debut Episode from the New PBS Series

A Tour Inside Sal­vador Dalí’s Labyrinthine Span­ish Home

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The Library: A World History Presents a Stunning Visual Survey of The World’s Great Libraries

in Architecture, Art, Books, History | December 3rd, 2013

strahov-abbey-library-horizontal-large-gallery1

Volu­mi­nous­ly well-read author and ama­teur librar­i­an Alber­to Manguel opens The Library at Night, a com­pen­dious trea­tise on the role of the library in human cul­ture, with a star­tling­ly bleak ques­tion. “Why then do we do it?” He asks, why do we “con­tin­ue to assem­ble what­ev­er scraps of infor­ma­tion we can gath­er in scrolls and books and com­put­er chips, on shelf after library shelf” when “out­side the­ol­o­gy and fan­tas­tic lit­er­a­ture, few can doubt that the main fea­tures of our uni­verse are its dearth of mean­ing and lack of dis­cernible pur­pose.” Manguel goes on—in beau­ti­ful­ly illus­trat­ed chap­ter after themed chapter—to list in fine detail the host of virtues each of his favorite libraries pos­sess­es, answer­ing his own ques­tion by ref­er­ence to the beau­ti­ful micro­cos­mic orders great libraries man­i­fest.

tripitaka-koreana-library-horizontal-large-gallery1

A new book, The Library: A World His­to­ry by author James Camp­bell and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Will Pryce, takes a more work­man­like approach to the sub­ject, steer­ing clear of Manguel’s meta­physics. Even so, the book will deeply move lovers of libraries and his­to­ri­ans alike, per­haps even to ecsta­sy. One Ama­zon review­er put it sim­ply: “Book Porn at its best.”

Boing Boing calls Pryce’s pho­tographs “the cen­ter­piece of the book,” and you can see why in a cou­ple of selec­tions here. Even with­out his eye­sight, this is a project that would have delight­ed that rhap­sodist of the library, Jorge Luis Borges. At the top, see the Stra­hov Abbey library in Prague. Halfway across the world, we have the Trip­i­ta­ka Kore­ana library in South Korea (above). CNN has a gallery of Pryce’s pho­to­graph­ic trib­utes to the world’s great­est libraries, and find here a crit­i­cal review of the book by The Guardian’s Tom Lam­ont, who laments that the book sole­ly “focus­es on insti­tu­tions cre­at­ed for the priv­i­leged.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Look Inside Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s Per­son­al Library

The Odd Col­lec­tion of Books in the Guan­tanamo Prison Library

David Fos­ter Wallace’s Love of Lan­guage Revealed by the Books in His Per­son­al Library

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

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Be His Guest: David Sedaris at Home in Rural West Sussex, England

in Architecture, Books, Life, Travel | October 20th, 2013

Note:  Watch the entire 25-minute inter­view here. There’s a brief intro­duc­tion in Dutch, after which the con­ver­sa­tion switch­es to Eng­lish.

Dutch TV jour­nal­ist Wim Brands looks a bit dour to be inhab­it­ing the role of World’s Luck­i­est Man, but that’s sure­ly how bazil­lions of David Sedaris fans will view him, wish­ing they too had been invit­ed to cozy up to their favorite author’s kitchen table. Par­tic­u­lar­ly since that table is sit­u­at­ed in the rus­tic, six­teenth-cen­tu­ry West Sus­sex house that pro­vid­ed the set­ting for “Com­pa­ny Man”, one of his more delight­ful New York­er sto­ries of late.

Sedaris has made a for­tune pass­ing him­self off as a self-involved fuss-pot, but in this episode of Boeken op Reis (Dutch for “Books on Tour”) he’s the per­fect host.

He sup­plies thought­ful respons­es to Brands’ unsmil­ing ques­tions and affa­bly points out the home­’s notable fea­tures, includ­ing off-kil­ter door­ways and a taxi­der­mied lap­dog (“We call him Casey because he’s in a case.”)

He brings a plas­tic bag on a stroll through the sur­round­ing coun­try­side in order to col­lect lit­ter  — an endear­ing rou­tine, even if it’s a scoop Brands must share with the BBC’s Clare Bald­ing.

Best of all, he oblig­es his guest with a cou­ple of live read­ings, the first from the afore­men­tioned  New York­er piece, the oth­er hav­ing to do with his youngest sis­ter’s sui­cide this sum­mer.

“I always fig­ure that what­ev­er most embar­rass­es you is some­thing that every­one can relate to,” he mus­es, effec­tive­ly sum­ming up the secret of his suc­cess. If you ever feel like Sedaris is over­do­ing the craven com­plain­er bit, this vis­it will set the record straight.

Watch the entire inter­view here. Non-Dutch speak­ers, please be advised that the seg­ment switch­es to Eng­lish once Brands sets the scene for his intend­ed audi­ence.

-Tip of the hat to Michael Ahn for the idea.

Ayun Hal­l­i­day’s teenage daugh­ter wrote David Sedaris a fan let­ter and David Sedaris sent a hand­writ­ten reply on a post­card. Classy!  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Sedaris Reads You a Sto­ry By Miran­da July

David Sedaris and Ian Fal­con­er Intro­duce “Squir­rel Seeks Chip­munk”

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Interact with The New York Times Four-Part Documentary, “A Short History of the Highrise”

in Architecture, History, Life, Photography | October 15th, 2013

“A Short His­to­ry of the High­rise,” a four-part inter­ac­tive New York Times “Op-Doc” reminds me of a pop-up book. The very first lever I pulled (actu­al­ly it was a wood­en buck­et) added a cou­ple of sto­ries to a medieval tow­er! I even snagged a cou­ple of com­pli­men­ta­ry fac­toids about the Tow­er of Babel! Bonus!

The kids are gonna love it!

There are doors to push, scenic post­cards to flip, a lit­tle Roman guy to drag to the right… what a cre­ative use of the Times’ mas­sive pho­to morgue. Direc­tor Kate­ri­na Cizek skit­ters through­out his­to­ry and all over the globe, swing­ing by ancient Rome, Mon­tezu­ma’s Cas­tle cliff dwelling, Chi­na’s Fujian province, 18th cen­tu­ry Europe, and Jacob Riis’ New York. Appar­ent­ly, ver­ti­cal hous­ing is noth­ing new.

( I did find myself won­der­ing what direc­tor Cizek might be angling for at the Dako­ta. The sto­ried apart­ment build­ing was long ago dwarfed by taller addi­tions to New York City’s urban land­scape, but its mul­ti­ple appear­ances in the series indi­cate that it’s still its most desir­able. Mer­ci­ful­ly, none of the inter­ac­tive fea­tures involve John Lennon.)

Would that a sim­i­lar restraint had been exer­cised with regard to nar­ra­tion. I would have glad­ly lis­tened to Pro­fes­sor Miles Glendin­ning, the mass hous­ing schol­ar who lends his exper­tise to the pro­jec­t’s sub­ter­ranean lev­el. Alas, the non-inter­ac­tive por­tion is marred by a bizarre rhyme scheme meant to “evoke a sto­ry­book.” If so, it’s the sort of sto­ry­book no adult (with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of the singer Feist, who was hope­ful­ly paid for her par­tic­i­pa­tion) wants to read aloud. A sam­ple:

Pub­licly spon­sored hous­ing isn’t every­where the diet

Beyond Europe, North Amer­i­ca and the Sovi­et Union, high rise devel­op­ment is ram­pant­ly pri­vate.

Seri­ous­ly?

Giv­en the lev­el of dis­course, I see no rea­son we were deprived of a rhyme for “phal­lic sym­bol.” Those ani­mat­ed build­ings do reach for the sky.

If it all gets a bit much you can head straight for “Home.” The final install­ment jet­ti­sons the cutesy-boot­sy rhymes in favor of a love­ly tune by Patrick Wat­son, which makes a pleas­ant sound­track to read­er-sup­plied pho­tos of their bal­conies. The images have been arranged the­mat­i­cal­ly — pets, storms, night — and the cumu­la­tive effect is charm­ing. Click “More read­ers’ sto­ries of life in high-ris­es” to read the first-hand accounts that go with these views. If your perch is high enough, you can sub­mit one of your own.

You can watch a video trail­er for “A Short His­to­ry of the High­rise” up top and Part 1 of Cizek’s film below that. But to get the full inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence you’ll want to head over to the New York Times web site.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Ten Build­ings That Changed Amer­i­ca: Watch the Debut Episode from the New PBS Series

The ABC of Archi­tects: An Ani­mat­ed Flip­book of Famous Archi­tects and Their Best-Known Build­ings

The His­to­ry of West­ern Archi­tec­ture: From Ancient Greece to Roco­co (A Free Online Course)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day has tem­porar­i­ly relo­cat­ed to the ground floor, but she still can bust a rhyme. Fol­low her@AyunHalliday

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Watch Antoni Gaudí’s Unfinished Masterpiece, the Sagrada Família, Get Finally Completed in 60 Seconds

in Architecture, Religion | October 11th, 2013

In 1883, Antoni Gaudí, the great Cata­lan archi­tect, began work­ing on his mag­num opus, the Sagra­da Família, the church that has become one of the most pop­u­lar tourist attrac­tions in Barcelona. Before his death in 1925, Gaudí man­aged to com­plete the crypt, apse and part of the Nativ­i­ty facade. Work on the basil­i­ca slowed dur­ing the 1930s and 40s, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the Span­ish Civ­il War, but picked up again in the 1950s. A series of archi­tects car­ried on Gaudí’s work, com­plet­ing new tow­ers and facades. In 2000, the cen­tral nave vault­ing was com­plet­ed, and, since then, mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy has put archi­tects on track to com­plete the church decades ahead of sched­ule. The new tar­get date is 2026 — the cen­te­nary of Gaudí’s death. Thanks to a com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed video released by the Sagra­da Famil­ia Foun­da­tion, you can see what the basil­i­ca, almost 150 years in the mak­ing, will look like when it’s all done. You can also take a vir­tu­al tour of the inte­ri­or of the UNESCO land­mark here.

via Slate

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­to­ry of West­ern Archi­tec­ture: From Ancient Greece to Roco­co (A Free Online Course)

Take a 3D Vir­tu­al Tour of the Sis­tine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basil­i­ca and Oth­er Art-Adorned Vat­i­can Spaces

Sal­vador Dalí’s 100 Illus­tra­tions of Dante’s The Divine Com­e­dy

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10th Graders Draw Pictures Imagining Philosophers at Work

in Architecture, Art | September 21st, 2013

philos at work 3The Tum­blr called Philoso­phers at Work has gath­ered togeth­er a fun series of draw­ings by 10th graders from Madi­son WI, who were asked by their teacher to  — you guessed it — “draw a philoso­pher at work.” I will leave it to you to peruse the gallery of draw­ings. But I’ll just say this: What­ev­er their virtues, the draw­ings don’t look any­thing like real philoso­phers. (For some pic­tures of real philoso­phers, see, of course, the Looks Philo­soph­i­cal tum­blr.) Nor do tenth graders, no dis­re­spect to them, depict philoso­phers near­ly as artis­ti­cal­ly as Renée Jor­gensen Bolinger, whose paint­ings of Wittgen­stein, Frege and Rus­sell we showed you a few weeks back. If you missed her paint­ings, I’d encour­age you to see Philoso­pher Por­traits: Famous Philoso­phers Paint­ed in the Style of Influ­en­tial Artists. Enjoy your week­end.

philosophers at work

Note: if you click on the images above and below, you can see each in an expand­ed for­mat.

via Leit­er Reports

Relat­ed Con­tent:

10 Famous Philoso­phers in Words and Images

Pho­tog­ra­phy of Lud­wig Wittgen­stein Released by Archives at Cam­bridge

Phi­los­o­phy: Free Cours­es

The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy … With­out Any Gaps

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