Astro-turf river
21/07/2009 – 10:35
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Photos taken at New River Park, London, on a strange Saturday morning.
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2 heures à 150°C
19/07/2009 – 12:00
Le plaisir de laisser la vaisselle trainer toute la nuit c’est que le lendemain matin elle nous réserve de sublimes et graisseux paysages.
Et en la laissant un peu plus longtemps (sans toutefois attirer les foudres des colocs), pour qu’elle trempe et réfléchisse, elle se fâche, tourbillonne, et devient bas fond sous-marin.
Le bestiaire anglais
18/07/2009 – 11:35
Durant les nuits d’été, le chant des merles noirs laisse place aux hurlements nocturnes des renards. Oui, les terribles hurlements des doux petits renards roux. Avant qu’ils ne viennent me réveiller en pleine nuit en “jouant” sous ma fenêtre, me laissant ainsi découvrir l’identité de ces spectres, j’avais cru en une chauve-souris géante. Sans blague. C’est à glacer le sang.
L’incinérateur des carrières
06/07/2009 – 23:53
Pour ceux qui passent beaucoup de temps le long de la voie ferrée entre Rosemont et le Plateau, vous aurez sûrement déjà remarqué ses deux énormes cheminées de plus de 75m de haut. Inauguré en 1970 dans le but d’y incinérer des tonnes de déchets montréalais, l’incinérateur fut désaffecté en 1993. Les activités industrielles y sont maintenant complètement absentes, mais le bâtiment reste debout comme témoin impressionnant du patrimoine industriel de la ville.
Les photos présentées ici ont été retenues comme finalistes du concours Montreal Matters de l’Office National du Film du Canada en 2007.
A Revaluation of Public Space in Toronto (1955-2005)
05/07/2009 – 14:14
Cross-posted from the Bartlett Think-Tank.
Dundas Square, November 2004
Paper presented at the 2009 Anglo-American Conference of Historians “Cities” in London.
You can download the full paper with images here.
INTRODUCTION
What we will look at in the next twenty minutes is a study of three iconic projects in Toronto that were all planned and built between the years 1955 and 2005: City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square, the Eaton Centre, and Dundas Square. I argue that the three adjacent projects parallel a development in the design and representation of public space in the city starting with an idealised projection of the public realm and ending with its commodification and transformation into spectacle.
The research has focused primarily on the play between the official description of the projects by the authorities and their reception by the public as represented in the local and national media. The goal was to collect an “assembly” of participating voices in the dialogue surrounding the creation of each project and allow the argument to surface organically from the fragments. In parallel to this, each site was “read” through the theories of three different thinkers. City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square with Hannah Arendt, Eaton Centre with Jean Baudrillard and Dundas Square with Guy Debord. What I would like to present here are some of the themes that emerged during the process.
Lloyd’s sublime picturesque
30/06/2009 – 12:00
This case study was presented as part of the History of British Architecture module at the Bartlett School of Architecture.
The work takes the form of a fold out pamphlet. You can download the full PDF here.
[...] London’s Lloyd’s Building has been described as a ‘mechanical cathedral’, a ‘heroic’ monument to modernism built during one of ‘modernism most vulnerable periods.’ The audacity of the project indeed contrasts post-modernist buildings of the same period and the tendency for symbolic historical collage. Yet the Lloyd’s Building, despite it’s alignment with the high-tech movement and functionalism, is described by Richard Rogers as ‘history conscious’. Alhough not evident at first sight, the building does draw on its historical and immediate urban context. The project’s distinctive ‘inside-out’ scheme, despite of all criticism, has contributed to its consecration as a modern icon. It is rightfully considered one of the most significant buildings in London, and without much exaggeration one of the most important work of architecture of the 20th century [...]
