10(+) MORE architects i have been thinking about

I love the Bloomframe and I would sit in a Panton chair in it.

ah yes, i remember conrad.

venice yeah, go there. march is a good time to go, i think. i want to go back because i was only there for a day and a half but i loved it.

marseille i remember being quite rough but it's good to go and see the unité.

I would say Copenhagen is well worth the visit!

Copenhagen is rich with stuff - see the Flickr stream and sets of user seier_seier_seier. Really interested in going myself. Here's an email seier wrote me when I was considering a trip:

****

difficult question, copenhagen in two days...

copenhagen is pretty expensive (as is the rest of scandinavia) especially when coming from the u.s., so I'll recommend you a youth hostel which opened recently in a central office tower (not a tower by american standards, but by danish...you'll see).

www.danhostel.dk/composite-185.htm?HostelId=144&RegionAbb=SN

the same site mentions an even more central hostel opening in april. might be worth checking out:

www.danhostel.dk/composite-185.htm?HostelId=2068&RegionAbb=SN

helsinki and stockholm has some OK hostels too, I would look for the hostel in the olympic stadium in helsinki and the hostel on an old boat in stockholm, if I were you.

stockholm, btw, is my favourite city in scandinavia - it is beautiful, has great nature, landscape, architecture, and wom...its a nice place.

[re copenhagen:]

now, what to see....if the weather is good, I would go for places rather than buildings, in bad weather (of which we have plenty) vice versa...

places to see would be:

strandvejen north of copenhagen, the coastal road leading through the well off suburbs to the north, great on a summers day, will take you past lots of fine sites, including good buildings like arne jacobsen in klampenborg:

www.flickr.com/photos/seier/515032609/in/set-72157600269237235/
www.flickr.com/photos/seier/515004940/in/set-72157600269237235/
www.flickr.com/photos/seier/515030853/in/set-72157600269237235/
www.flickr.com/photos/seier/515031363/in/set-72157600269237235/

and utzon's related housing projects in fredensborg and elsinore:

www.flickr.com/photos/andrewpaulcarr/319888268/
www.flickr.com/photos/seier/1544636977/in/set-72157600103941003/

there is a fine renaissance castle in elsinore which inspired shakespeare a few years ago...can't miss it.

the louisiana museum of modern art in humlebæk is a hugely influential building from the fifties, taking the formal out of the museum and putting in nature instead. lots of contemporary architects has named this building as an inspiration, including nouvel, foster and herzog + de meuron.

oh, hang on, from elsinore the thing to do would be to take the ferry to sweden (30 minutes) and drive to klippan to see the lewerentz church

www.flickr.com/photos/seier/528487325/in/set-72157600288780668/

now, that's a whole day in a rented car, so maybe you'll prefer to stay in the city...

there's christiania free town, www.flickr.com/photos/seier/1244185274/in/set-72157603843053592/, a good place to see in the evening, food and bars and a very different street scene.

should the sun shine, the island of amager, formerly known as the ass hole of copenhagen, is seeing some very interesting change these years...on a sunny afternoon, former working class and industrial neighbourhood "islands brygge" is full of young copenhageners sunbathing and swimming in the habour. it is really lively and some of the gir...MVRDV has one of their best buildings nearby:

www.flickr.com/photos/feil/113830815/

further east, on the amager coast facing sweden, is another interesting industrial area undergoing radical change. surrounded by large scale infrastructure like a wind mill park, the airport and the bridge to sweden is a new beach, a huge piece of landscaping very popular with the locals already.

and there's the old town, of course, lots of cafés and shops and the odd arne jacobsen building...

if you are just going for the buildings, I would not miss:

- the foyer of the national bank, arne jacobsen 1961-1978. central copenhagen.
- bagsværd church, utzon. 20 minutes by train from copenhagen.
- klippan church, klippan, sweden. about 2 hours by train, I think.

thanks for that - going to weigh up copenhagen further but it would involve two flights. venice seems like the right choice for a lot of reasons and might be possible w/ some juggling but oslo currently £11 return for four nights is going to be hard to beat even though a cheap hostel has yet to make itself known

strandvejen north of copenhagen, the coastal road leading through the well off suburbs to the north, great on a summers day, will take you past lots of fine sites, including good buildings like arne jacobsen in klampenborg:

Very true. Try and end up at Ordrupgaard. Recently reopened with new wing. Bakken in the Dyrhaven nearby is trippy and good fun (I also think it might be the world's oldest fairground, I spent far too much time there growing up as it was free in unlike Tivoli).

there is a fine renaissance castle in elsinore which inspired shakespeare a few years ago...can't miss it.

Merely a legend alas. The crown jewels are there so well worth a look.

the louisiana museum of modern art in humlebæk is a hugely influential building from the fifties, taking the formal out of the museum and putting in nature instead. lots of contemporary architects has named this building as an inspiration, including nouvel, foster and herzog + de meuron.

Yes. Avoid visiting if there's a rehang because the permanent collection isn't huge for the trip involved. Another good gallery is the Glyptotek near Radhuspladset. Carlsberg money built and filled it. Lovely stuff.

there's christiania free town, www.flickr.com/photos/seier/1244185274/in/set-72157603843053592/, a good place to see in the evening, food and bars and a very different street scene.

Sadly not any more. They've closed down the drug stalls on pusher street and basically developers are moving in. Very sad now. I was there recently and was followed by four police officers. I am obviously sketchy looking.

A harbour tour is also a good idea. That way you get to see the Black Diamon of the royal library from the water and get closer to the new opera house. Rosenborg slot is a baroque palace in the centre of town near Norreport. It was one of Christian IV's vanity projects and well worth seeing.

seier_seier_seier

Check his shots of Venice for more inspiration Conrad. Again, thanks to Doctor Casino I have been following for the past few months. It is a great stream!

I have some Venice and surroundings here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorcasino/sets/72157601373054872/

this is my favorite thing in the world at the moment:

http://www.spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/0401091231094892leoniestair.jpg
http://www.spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/0401091231094893leoniestair3.jpg
http://www.spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/0401091231094893leoniestair2.jpg

by Levitate Architects

haha I thought that first shot was an elevation and was like "whaaaaaaat?"

That design is a really fantastic thing.

haha, did the same thing!

that stairbookcase is insanely beautiful: the top image reminds me of this mad dream i used to have as a child about a rabbit-warren library with walls made of earth ane books.

i posted that stairbookcase to the What do your books look like? thread on ILB and stet said:

That looks great, but is functionally crap: you'll kick dirt into the books as you climb, and the ones at eye level are furthest from your eyes.

which kinda boggled me.

well yeah but it's more of a limited space solution than it is a most perfectly accessible behind glass eye level book collection solution.

dezeen maybe needs to work on the color balance for those video interviews they're doing - ross lovegrove looks like a DEMON! I was going to post the pic here but it's actually too frightening so I'll link instead.

http://www.dezeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/rosslovegrove.jpg

ross lovegrove IS a demon. did you watch the Aranda\Lasch one? fancy themselves a bit, don't they?

I just watched it - my gosh I hate it when designers think they're doing something scientific when they're just aping the aesthetics of science.

well exactly. so they do some actually quite beautiful faceted tiles etc. that's good enough! the introduction where one of them keeps reiterating how serious they are actually made me feel quite depressed.

I would be so supportive of them if they said "We like triangles and crystals because they are pretty! We make very expensive things that kind of look like them."

Yeah, the thing is in twenty or thirty years it'll be quite clear that some designers were aggressively interrogating the possibilities of new materials and computer-aided-manufacturing, and others were picking up on the look...but while the former MAY end up more valorized, it's the pretty-looking stuff (from either camp) that will rack up big prices at vintage stores.

Thinking specifically of midcentury furniture here - some of it was made by material geeks trying to figure out how to do things that were never possible before, and some of it was made by people who thought outer space was super neat, but all of it's kind of great.

i couldn't actually work out whether they were trying to take the piss by going on about how serious they were? or do they just have zero sense of humour?

xpost

also, i still don't get the Bloomframe exactly - why not just...have a balcony?

I think they were taking the piss, but trying to be funny by talking about how serious you are only works if you're funny.

i just see it as another way to have a balcony. it's neat and clever and seductive!

Well yeah, transforming stuff is kind of guaranteed to be cool in my book.... but would you ever actually have it in the closed-up position?

I guess it depends on climate really..

if you were in glasgow the question would be - would you ever actually have it in the open position?

No, the question would be - why do you actually live in Glasgow? Ba-dum-CH!

i'd laugh at that if i didn't take myself so seriously.

I beg your pardon; I know next to nothing about Glasgow and am just free-zinging.

;)

http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/1789314738_01.jpg

ok were the designers of Jenga paid off for this

also, "free-zinging"! cute.

I blogged about Michael Graves :/
http://theskyscraperblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/something-about-hating-michael-graves.html

Great Blog Name!

THANKS!

hi, what's happening in architecture? has spaceinvading replaced our lovely thread?

Frozen skyline

And I guess things have got worse since then. Mentions Newhall in Essex, which has some quite interesting smaller houses.

Reversible Destiny Housing by Arakawa and Madeline Gins

Neo-Hundertwasser?

Ooooh speaking of Spaceinvading these are great: http://www.space-invaders.com/ I saw a good few in Paris (including on Picasso's chimney). Great fun!

http://www.space-invaders.com/images/pa636gp.jpg

I've a few on the flickr account thingy but can't post private pics to ILX sadly...

Ha, I've seen a few such things too, never realized it was a movement (or whatever)!

http://www.freewebs.com/jannekevanderlinden/Central-Chinese-Television-CCTV-Beijing%20Rem%20koolhaas.jpg = http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/2/9/1234201284213/Mandarin-Oriental-hotel-f-001.jpg

wtf?!

It's not the actualy 'square' that went up in flames, no? 'Just' one of the buildings next/across it?

Anyway, a sad thing. They had Rem Koolhaas on Dutch TV and he was pretty gutted.

ah yes, the news reports on this are pretty confusing. still an unfinished koolhaas building goes up/down. sad.

this one:

http://www.eikongraphia.com/wordpress/wp-content/OMA%20-%20TVCC%20Exterior.jpg

which i think is hideous but there's little point in discussing that now.

It looks like an uncomfortable chair. Still RIP and all that...

ha, yes it does!

symbol of 2008 starchitect culture inadvertently becomes symbol of 2009 starchitect culture

I've a few on the flickr account thingy but can't post private pics to ILX sadly...

I think you can. At least I have in the past.