punctuating the science life with arts
Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
WTF: 1890s Lavatory Reimagined As A Chic Cafe
In what’s easily the most creative (and nuttier) adaptive re-use project we’ve seen, The Attendant in London converts a Victorian-era public lavatory into a posh new cafe. The flip, conceived and overseen by Pete Tomlinson and Ben Russel, preserves the erstwhile loo’s period urinals, produced by Doulton & Co. in 1890, which were cleaned (duh) and polished to a sparkling white finish. A long wooden plank was wedged into the upper halves of the urinals to create continuous table space along the back wall. The urinal walls function as table partitions, while the banquette showcases their surprisingly plastic forms.
Menu of options ... architect Terry Farrell at Delikatesen in Edinburgh. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian Sir Terry Farrell CBE – the world-revered guru of urban design, adviser to the Mayor of London and unlikely conjurer of the "tallest building by a British architect" in China – will undertake an independent review into the UK's architecture policy, it was announced this morning. That should come as something of a surprise, given that we don't have an architecture policy.
What should the government's architecture review focus on? | Oliver Wainwright | Art and design
In 1957, when local officials in Sydney, Australia, were judging entries in a competition to design their new opera house, they settled on an unusual plan by a Danish architect, Jorn Utzon. In Utzon’s vision, the building would feature a series of curving segments, evoking the billowing sails of a ship, an apparent homage to Sydney’s harbor and maritime orientation. However, no one was certain if Utzon’s design was structurally possible.
Bits of buildings: How is computing changing the architect’s job?
yolanda dominguez : Poses
Poses (2011) “Poses” is a direct criticism of the absurd and artificial world of glamour and of fashion that magazines present. Specifically, the highly-distorted image of women that they transmit through models that do not represent real women and that avoid all those who are not within their restricted parameters. These images are virtually the only feminine reference in the mass media and they have a great influence in both men and women when building our roles in terms of behavior and ways of thinking. Using these impossible stances of the fashion publishing houses as a symbol of how grotesque and unreal this industry is, a group of real women transfer these poses to daily scenes: the queue of a museum, the supermarket or the bus stop, sparking off the reaction of the spectators (on the other hand, regular consumers of these images). The aim: to make it clear how ridiculous, and at times harmful, it can be to follow these models that the world of glamour impose on us.
[ Editor's note: In celebration of the holidays, we're counting down the top 12 Flavorwire features of 2012. This post, at #1, was originally published January 31. ] With Amazon slowly taking over the publishing world and bookstores closing left and right, things can sometimes seem a little grim for the brick and mortar booksellers of the world. After all, why would anyone leave the comfort of their couch to buy a book when with just a click of a button, they could have it delivered to their door? Well, here’s why: bookstores so beautiful they’re worth getting out of the house (or the country) to visit whether you need a new hardcover or not. We can’t overestimate the importance of bookstores — they’re community centers, places to browse and discover, and monuments to literature all at once — so we’ve put together a list of the most beautiful bookstores in the world, from Belgium to Japan to Slovakia.
The 20 Most Beautiful Bookstores in the World
Writing office for National Geographic's "Explorer in Residence"
Writing in Washington Life , Karin Tanabe describes the remarkable writing office designed by Travis Price architects for Wade Davis, National Geographic's "Explorer in Residence." It's one of the most beautiful rooms I've ever seen, the apotheosis of writing-caves. “Travis did a studio on M Street in Georgetown for me,” Davis says, noting that in his current home, zoning prohibited a detached building. While many need light-filled rooms for inspiration, he wanted to avoid large windows opening onto a residential neighborhood and sought a cave-like atmosphere to disappear into his work. Subtle light was brought in by other means when the architect built a dome above his client’s desk (which Price describes as similar to the rotunda of the oracle’s temple at Delphi) and filled it with the books he uses the most. Davis whimsically calls the space his “Navajo kiva of knowledge.”
One was a Bulgarian stowaway who became the love of an English literary giant; the second was a gentleman art dealer who once had an affair with the opium-addicted Jean Cocteau; and the third was an aristocratic music critic who inherited one of Britain's largest houses. Together they created a remarkable art collection about to be seen in public for the first time. The Radev collection, containing works by artists including Amedeo Modigliani, Graham Sutherland and Alfred Wallis, can from this weekend be viewed online.
Radev collection: tale of three art lovers to be told in new touring exhibition | Art and design
Bjork's latest album, Biophilia comes in the form of several apps, but they're only accessible on iOS devices.
Bjork trusts pirates to take 'Biophilia' cross-platform
Political street art in Tahrir Square during the Egyptian uprising in February 2011.
'This is freedom' – visual art and the Egyptian uprising | Art and design
Kenneth Grange: A very British modernist | Art and design
Grey eminence ...I remember it as a rat-infested dump. Water dripped down walls.
Sir George Gilbert Scott, the unsung hero of British architecture | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free
Freestyle dancer Casie.
The wild world of freestyle dance | Stage
A t a glance, a painting by Jackson Pollock can look deceptively accidental: just a quick flick of color on a canvas. A quantitative analysis of Pollock’s streams, drips, and coils by Harvard mathematician L. Mahadevan and collaborators at Boston College reveals, however, that the artist had to be slow — he had to be deliberate — to exploit fluid dynamics in the way that he did. The finding, published in Physics Today , represents a rare collision involving mathematics, physics, and art history, providing new insight into the artist’s method and techniques, as well as his appreciation for the beauty of natural phenomena. “Our article is mainly an invitation to think about some aspects of art from a scientific perspective,” said Mahadevan, who is the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and a professor of organismic and evolutionary biology and of physics. Crossovers between art and science are nothing new.
Pollock: Artist and physicist?
17 May, 2011 by: Rupertspoonfed Can rapping about Darwin introduce a new generation of schoolchildren to the theory of evolution? Rupert Uzzell chats to Baba Brinkman.