Zaha Hadid´s Guangzhou Opera House

The Opera House is located at the foot of Zhujiang Boulevard across from the new Guangdong Provincial Museum. Adopting state of the art technology in its design and construction it is slated to be a lasting monument to the New Millennium, confirming Guangzhou as one of Asia’s cultural centers.

“We liked erosion and stones. It worked well next to the Pearl River. The metaphor is two pebbles picked from the bed of the river and placed on the river bank.” Simon Yu, Project Architect

Keep on reading about the Guangzhou Opera House. All pictures from Iwan Baan.

http://www.arcspace.com/architects/hadid/guangzhou1/guangzhou1.html

El deterioro de los edificios históricos de Buenos Aires

El Palais de Glace, en Buenos Aires. En su lamentable estado. Aquí he tenido el placer de exponer concursos con trabajos seleccionados de arquitectura, junto a mi esposo y colega, más otros colegas amigos. Tengo muy lindos recuerdos de esos días.

Leía la nota de Pablo Tomino para La Nación, sección Sociedad, y no lo podía creer. Me partió el alma ver nuestro patrimonio edilicio en semejantes condiciones, y pensaba si de pronto yo ya me he acostumbrado a vivir en un sistema distinto, donde las ciudades son limpias y la policía terriblemente estricta. Entonces, me cuesta mucho más aceptar este abandono, porque no todo es presupuesto, sino políticas de mantenimiento, o políticas, en general y sin distinción de partidos.

No sé en otros estados, la ciudad de New York está bastante sucia, pero al menos en California, si la policía ve a alguien pintando graffitis, esa persona va a la cárcel o es arrestada por unas horas y luego se la envía a trabajo comunitario más cursos, según la gravedad del delito. Por supuesto hay multas, además hay brigadas anti graffiti, de voluntarios que son entrenados para remover las pintadas con pericia, sin cometer la barbaridad que comenta Pablo en la nota, que han dejado los ladrillos expuestos de tanto rasquetear. Además, existen las hot line para graffiti y los vecinos pueden denunciar en cualquier momento. Los nuevos edificios públicos, deben ser pintados con pinturas anti graffiti. En conclusión, sumado a las multas por tirar basura, se pueden ver las parquizaciones hermosas, las veredas, las casas, todo muy bello. No debiera generalizar, porque el Este de Los Angeles es otra historia, y el sociólogo Mike Davis cuenta en uno de sus libros sobre la muerte de un muchacho chicano, que fue baleado por la policía, cuando pintaba una pared de Los Angeles junto con un amigo, esto fue hace muchos años ya, bajo tolerancia cero. Sin llegar a estos extremos, creo que nuestro sistema en Buenos Aires, tan superpoblado, debiera cambiar. No nos podemos deshacer de los inadaptados, pero al menos intentar educarlos con trabajo comunitario y talleres.

La pared lateral del Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires. Contra esta pared, viven 9 personas. Aún recuerdo cuando íbamos a la confitería del parque, y de allí a visitar exposiciones y participar de conferencias. Caminábamos por el costado del edificio, sin toparnos con nadie....

También he visto homeless o gente sin techo caminando por San Francisco, y en otras ciudades, pero, se los lleva a campamentos de instalaciones semi fijas, con pequeñas habitaciones prefabricadas, como trailers, no se deja familias enteras en las calles, y la toma de terrenos no existe. NO SE PERMITE y así se evitan enfrentamientos, muertes e injusticias.

Dejo acá el link y unos párrafos de la nota. Hay cuatro fotos -lamentables- de las cuales sólo reproduzco dos. Y espero en unos meses poder hacer un post con la situación revertida.

¨Varios edificios de valor histórico de la ciudad, emblemáticos por su importancia arquitectónica, cultural y social, y que están al cuidado del gobierno nacional, muestran hoy un deterioro que es motivo de numerosas quejas. En la lista se apuntan desde el mismísimo Cabildo, desdibujado en su fachada con viejos grafitis, hasta el tradicional Palais de Glace, entre otros sitios desmejorados, como El Palacio de las Aguas, en Córdoba y Riobamba, y hasta la Secretaría de Cultura de la Nación, en la avenida Alvear 1690.

Por caso, el Palais de Glace, un histórico centro de exposiciones enclavado en el corazón de la Recoleta, tiene hoy un visible abandono. Y quedó en evidencia, más aún, en una zona en la que en los últimos dos años mejoró sensiblemente con la remodelación de la plaza Francia, donde se construyeron veredas y se sembró césped.

Paredes descascaradas, pintadas con grafitis y visibles parches de revoques de cemento, en tres caras de la estructura son los signos del abandono que muestra el Palais de Glace, que sólo conserva una aceptable imagen en su fachada, sobre la calle Posadas.¨...

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1353139-abandono-del-patrimonio-edilicio?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=titulares&utm_campaign=NLTitu

South Sudan is planning its new Capital

A scale model of the new capital of Southern Sudan. Photo by Pascal Ladu

Juba Town

Southern Sudan, a semi-autonomous region that has just voted to become fully independent, is to build a brand new capital city, replete with modern town planning and expansion possibilities for generations to come, according to a government official. Juba, located in Central Equatoria State, is the current capital of Southern Sudan.

The oil-induced expansion of Juba has been chaotic and unplanned. It is in this context that the authorities have been making provisions for an alternative seat of government.

The proposed plans for the future capital city are now on display in the meeting hall of the Council of Ministers in Southern Sudan. Last week, the GoSS Council of Ministers proposed two sites including Ramshel (also spelled Ramciel), which was first proposed in 2003 by the former Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) chairman, the late Dr John Garang De Mabior.

Ramshel is in the centre of Southern Sudan, located in the border areas of Lakes State, Jonglei State and Unity State. The second possible location – which remains nameless at this stage – is in the Northeast of Central Equatoria State, bordering Eastern Equatoria, Jonglei and Lakes States. Basing a capital in either of these locations would ensure proximity to the principal oil-producing areas.

REFERENCE:

Excerpts and pictures from Pascal Ladu´s article. At 

http://www.sudanvotes.com/articles/?id=574

Ozymandias

Aerial View of Thebes' Ramesseum. - showing pylons and secondary buildings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesseum

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away".

The 'Younger Memnon' statue of Ramesses II in the British Museum. From wikipedia.org

Ozymandias is a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in 1818. It is frequently anthologised and is probably Shelley's most famous short poem.

The central theme of "Ozymandias" is the inevitable complete decline of all leaders, and of the empires they build, however mighty in their own time.

The 'Younger Memnon' statue of Ramesses II in the British Museum is thought to have inspired the poem. Ozymandias was another name for Ramesses the Great, Pharaoh of the nineteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt. Ozymandias represents a transliteration into Greek of a part of Ramesses' throne name, User-maat-re Setep-en-re. The sonnet paraphrases the inscription on the base of the statue, given by Diodorus Siculus in his Bibliotheca historica as "King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works." Shelley's poem is often said to have been inspired by the arrival in London of a colossal statue of Ramesses II, acquired for the British Museum by the Italian adventurer Giovanni Belzoni in 1816.Rodenbeck and Chaney, however, point out that the poem was written and published before the statue arrived in Britain, and thus that Shelley could not have seen it.

The 2008 edition of the travel guide Lonely Planet's guide to Egypt says that the poem was inspired by the fallen statue of Ramesses II at the Ramesseum, a memorial temple built by Ramesses at Thebes, near Luxor in Upper Egypt.  (wikipedia.org)

100 Eleventh Avenue Jean Nouvel's Kaleidoscopic Condo

On the far West Side of Manhattan, adjacent to Frank Gehry's IAC Building, Ateliers Jean Nouvel's new residential project features a jumble of tilting glass on one facade and simple punch windows framing views of the skyline on the other. We speak with Nouvel's project manager, Francois Leininger, and Marc Simmons of facade consultant Front about both faces of the building.

Upcoming exhibition: Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century

“Frank Lloyd Wright: Organic Architecture for the 21st Century” runs Feb. 12-May 15 at the Milwaukee Art Museum. For more information, visit www.mam.org

.

 Read more about Frank Lloyd´s Wright: 

http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/article-13738-frank-lloyd-wright-for-the-21st-century.html

Beekman Tower Frank Gehry's Rippled New York High Rise

Gehry Technologies near the top of what--at some 867 feet high--is New York's tallest residential building to discuss how the design team produced the tower's distinctive, wavy skin with a cost-efficient and easily constructible process.

Earthquake in New Zealand

Christ church

¨At 12:51 p.m. on Tuesday, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island, near the country's second-largest city, Christchurch. It is an aftershock of a massive, deeper earthquake that hit New Zealand last September, and has already caused more damage, injuries, and fatalities than the earlier quake. Hundreds of structures in Christchurch have now been severely damaged or collapsed completely. At the moment, at least 65 deaths have been confirmed, hundreds have been injured, and many are still missing.¨

From The Atlantic. See a gallery of 54 so sad pictures:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2RB1Cm/www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/02/earthquake-in-new-zealand/100013/

Murturm Nature Observation Tower

Godorf, Austria
Germany-based architecture firm terrain:loenhart&mayr modeled their 80-foot-high observation tower in southern Austria after the steps of a nearby castle built in 1499. The Murturm Nature Observation Tower’s double-helix design provides a striking contrast to the surrounding woods and a place for hikers to observe the Mur River.
Read the article by Laura Raskin
http://archrecord.construction.com/features/snapshot/2011/murturm_nature_observation_tower/default.asp
Photos by Hubertus Hamm

A video about Frank Gehry's New World Center

A new concert hall by Frank Gehry opens on January 25, 2011, in South Beach, Miami. Howard Herring, president of the New World Symphony, takes us on a tour of the building.

ULI Awards for excellence in Downtown revitalization

Los Angeles Downtown. Development strategy in the area of Staples Center. From http://www.migcom.com/

Three 2010 ULI Awards for Excellence winners—Sundance Square: Fort Worth, Texas; the Columbia Heights revitalization in Washington, D.C.; and L.A. LIVE in downtown Los Angeles. Theodore Thoerig makes a brief explanation of the before-and-after look at each city’s downtown.

I copy here the paragraphs about Los Angeles, as this is the most interesting for me. See the link below to read the article in Urbanland.uli.org:

South Park, Los Angeles, late 1990s. The South Park neighborhood is dominated by industrial uses and automobile dealerships. The struggling Los Angeles Convention Center is in the red, costing the city more than $20 million a year. Despite its location next to the central business district and at the confluence of two major freeways, the area remains unnoticed and underdeveloped—a place no one would think to go.

http://urbanland.uli.org/Articles/2011/Feb/ThoerigAwards

The Chinese conception of a house

Traditional Chinese house. From http://dreamhouse.onsugar.com/I

" The Chinese conception of house and garden is therefore determined by the central idea that the house itself is only a detail forming a part of the surrounding country, like a jewel in its setting, and harmonizing with it. For this reason, all signs of artificiality must be hidden as much as possible, and the rectilinear lines of the walls must be hidden or broken by overhanging branches.

A perfecdy square house, shaped like a magnified piece of brick, is justifiable in a factory building, because it is a factory building where efficiency is the first consideration. But a perfectly square house for a home to live in is an atrocity of the first order. The Chinese conception of an ideal home has been succinctly expressed by a writer in the following manner:

Inside the gate there is a footpath and the footpath must be winding. At the turning of the footpath there is an outdoor screen and the screen must be small. Behind the screen there is a terrace and the terrace must be level. On the banks of the terrace there are flowers and the flowers must be fresh. Beyond the flowers is a wall and the wall must be low. By the side of the wall, there is a pine tree and the pine tree must be old. At the foot of the pine tree there are rocks and the rocks must be quaint. Over the rocks there is a pavilion and the pavilion must be simple. Behind the pavilion are bamboos and the bamboos must be thin and sparse. At the end of the bamboos there is a house and the house must be secluded. By the side of the house there is a road and the road must branch off. At the point where several roads come together, there is a bridge and the bridge must be tantalizing to cross. At the end of the bridge there are trees and the trees must be tall. In the shade of the trees there is grass and the grass must be green.

Above the grass plot there is a ditch and the ditch must be slender. At the top of the ditch there is a spring and the spring must gurgle. Above the spring there is a hill and the hill must

be deep. Below the hill there is a hall and the hall must be square. At the corner of the hall there is a vegetable garden and the vegetable garden must be big. In the vegetable garden

there is a stork and the stork must dance. The stork announces that there is a guest and the guest must not be vulgar. When the guest arrives there is wine and wine must not be declined. During the service of the wine, there is drunkenness and the drunken guest must not want to go home." 

FROM: The Importance of Living. By Lin Yutang. P.267/268 New York, 1937

A Skyscraper Brings Danish Urbanism to Manhattan

From Good Design Daily:

It's impossible not to be downright envious of Denmark, what with their bike superhighways and a harbor so clean you can swim in it. But now the United States will get a little slice of Copenhagen with West 57th, a new residential tower planned for Manhattan's Upper West Side that promises to bring the Danes's appreciation for green urbanism to New York.

The building is designed by BIG, where principal Bjarke Ingels has become a poster boy for groundbreaking sustainable architecture, including plans for a ski run that doubles as a waste treatment plant. West 57th will have more of those dramatic sculptural qualities BIG is known for, plus it will transform an underdeveloped industrial site adjacent to the Hudson River into a verdant architectural destination.

Keep on reading the article by Alissa Walker:

http://www.good.is/post/good-design-daily-a-skyscraper-brings-danish-urbanism-to-manhattan1/

Selection of pictures from the book ¨Earth from Above¨. Author Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Boat Houses in Nigeria

Yann Arthus-Bertrand has sold more than 3.000.000 books of his title ¨Earth from Above¨. 

Here, a selection of a few pictures.

The Changping district. Beijing, China

Favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Pigeon Houses Mit Gahmr Delta, Egypt

Ruins of the medieval city of Shali, Egypt

Suburbs of Copenhagen, Denmark

From http://justpaste.it/3ky

La ciudad y la basura

Basura en las calles de Palermo. Foto de Palermonline.com.ar

Hace unos 17 años, vivía en el barrio de Olivos, provincia de Buenos Aires. En ese entonces éramos 4, y vaya, que generábamos basura, entre pañales y comida. Recuerdo que los recolectores de la cuadra me ofrecieron bolsitas de plástico para residuos, y yo me negué a comprarles, aduciendo que en el supermercado estaban más baratas. Al día siguiente, mis bolsas llenas, las que se dejan en la calle en espera de recolección, estaban totalmente rotas, toda la basura desparramada, desde mi casa hasta la esquina. Me pregunté mientras juntaba todo, a quién me quejaría, la empresa, el Sindicato, seguramente los protegería y culparían a algún perro.

Hoy leía la nota de La Nación, sección Opinión ¨La falta de higiene urbana¨ y veo que mucho no ha cambiado. Entré a un sitio de Palermo, y sí, sigue habiendo basura en las calles, incluso luego de juntarla. No incluyo aquí algunas provincias, que se ven tan limpias y cuidadas, como Mendoza.

Luego, hay una cuestión de educación. Mucha gente, ve basura e incorpora más basura, como los boletos de los colectivos, los papelitos varios que debieran ir a los bolsillos hasta llegar al cesto correspondiente.

El autor de la nota hace mención a EEUU, y sí, acá hay otra cultura de la basura, aunque debo reconocer, que Los Angeles es mucho más sucio que Orange County (impecable) y New York, más sucio que San Francisco, etc. Además, la cultura viene de la mano con el rigor. Tirar un papel a la autopista, dependiendo de la localidad, implica 200$ de multa, por ejemplo.

Un plano de restaurante que no muestre un recipiente para basura, grande, de un material a prueba de roedores, no sería aprobado, es más, hay que mostrar en el plano dónde se dejará la basura, si el lugar de los contenedores está lejos, habrá que construír otro más cerca, para evitar que alguien se tiente a dejar la basura afuera. Dicho espacio, se construye con bloques y posee un portón metálico.

Entre las curiosidades, leía en el 2005 en Los Angeles Times, que la cantidad de cuervos que nos despiertan día a día junto a las gaviotas, se debe a  toda la comida disponible dentro de los contenedores metálicos que se dejan en los alleys o calles de servicio. A ellos se suman los possums o comadrejas, tan gordas, de un tamaño que jamás había visto en mi vida -están muy bien alimentadas-. La recolección doméstica se hace una vez a la semana, con todas las bolsitas dentro de contenedores plásticos o los grandes metálicos, resistentes a ratas, perros, comadrejas, coyotes, osos y ardillas.

Los invito a leer la nota de La Nación:

¨Es lamentable el aspecto de algunas ciudades, empezando por Buenos Aires. En las esquinas se acumulan residuos, sobre todo durante los fines de semana, y abundan desperdicios y los olores nauseabundos que estos despiden por doquier. Esto no es nuevo. Se ha agravado en forma proporcional con el aumento de la población. Es común culpar a las autoridades de una situación tan desagradable que afecta tanto las pupilas como el olfato.

¿Es realmente culpa de las autoridades? Tienen parte de la responsabilidad, desde luego, pero ocho de cada diez argentinos admiten que la gente contribuye poco o nada a la limpieza de la ciudad, según un revelador sondeo de TNS Gallup. Las opiniones están divididas, en realidad. Seis de cada diez argentinos consideran que su ciudad está algo o muy sucia; el resto, cuatro de cada diez, opina que está limpia.

Es innegable que existe un abismo entre Buenos Aires y el conurbano bonaerense y el interior del país, en algunas de cuyas ciudades se preservan sanas costumbres como barrer a diario la vereda y ufanarse de una higiene que a menudo no reconoce el límite entre lo público y lo privado. En la Capital, como en toda ciudad de grandes dimensiones, no hay condena social entre nosotros mismos si alguien arroja basura en la calle y, de ese modo, no sólo contribuye a afear su aspecto, sino también a tapar las bocas de tormenta o poner en riesgo la integridad de los demás.

Del sondeo surge un dato esclarecedor: siete de cada diez entrevistados han coincidido en que la gente es la responsable de que la ciudad en la que viven esté sucia. Es diferente esa percepción en la Capital, donde el 79 por ciento cree que está "algo o muy sucia", respecto del 66 por ciento y el 59 por ciento que piensan lo mismo en el Gran Buenos Aires y el interior del país, respectivamente.¨

Continúe leyendo:

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1350052-la-falta-de-higiene-urbana?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=titulares&utm_campaign=NLOpi

Hermès Rive Gauche´s interior design. Paris

Hermès’s newest emporium has an unassuming facade and a pair of store windows with displays of furniture and flowers that fit neatly into the bourgeois row of shop fronts on the rue de Sèvres in Paris’s 6th arrondissement. They little prepare the visitor for what lies inside: the dazzling renovation of an Art Deco space that once housed a swimming pool, the Piscine Lutetia, next to the fabled and still extant Hotel Lutetia.

In this adaptive reuse converting an indoor swimming pool into a store, Denis Montel, the architect and managing and artistic director of Rena Dumas Architecture Intérieure (RDAI), which has designed a number of Hermès stores, created the undulating structures. These intimate yet permeable display pavilions are intended to “inhabit and divide the space” of the 16,000-square-foot main floor, Montel emphasizes, and establish a dialogue with the rectilinear lines of the 1935 pool interior originally designed by Lucien Béguet. The new biomorphic insertions also successfully mediate the scale between the atrium’s volume and the smaller display counters and merchandise.

Since the site is a registered “monument historique” but is not classified, the law allowed some stylistic leeway in its restoration.

 Hermès Rive Gauche´s exterior

Read the full article by Erich Theophile and Steven Yee

http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/Building_types_study/adaptive_reuse/2011/Hermes_Rive_Gauche.asp?bts=AR

All pictures from http://archrecord.construction.com/

The Precolumbian city of Cahokia

Cahokia mound. From sacred destinations.com

Preserving the remains of an ancient Native American city near Collinsville, Illinois, the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. Covering more than 2,000 acres, Cahokia is the only prehistoric Indian city north of Mexico.

Best known for large, man-made earthen structures, the city of Cahokia was inhabited from about A.D. 700 to 1400. Built by ancient peoples known as the Mound Builders, Cahokia's original population was thought to have been only about 1,000 until about the 11th century when it expanded to tens of thousands.

From http://www.legendsofamerica.com/il-cahokia.html

Cahokia Mounds. Photo: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

From the article by Tim de Chant, for ¨Per Square Mile¨, I´ve learnt about the ancient city of Cahokia. Read a paragraph and keep on reading:

Cahokia is one of the largest historical American cities you’ve probably never heard of. Peaking around 1250 CE, Cahokia is considered the first Mississipian settlement, a culture which spread to throughout the central and southeastern United States. The city’s inhabitants built over 100 mounds, eighty of which remain. One of them still towers 92 feet over the surrounding fields and is easily visible from the scratched postage-stamp windows of St. Louis’ Gateway Arch. With somewhere between 10,000 to 15,000 people, it held the record for the largest American city until around 1800, when Philadelphia finally overtook it.

With that many people crammed into just under three-quarters of a square mile—the estimated size of the city’s neighborhoods—it may sound like Cahokia was as cramped as the slums of Upton Sinclair’s Chicago. But it probably didn’t feel that way. Sweeping plazas and towering mounds added nearly three square miles of open space, keeping much of the city open and airy like Baron Haussmann’s Paris. Yet unlike the city on the Seine’s astronomical modern density of 58,890 people per square mile, Cahokia’s population lived at a positively suburban 1,000 to 1,500 people per square mile, thanks to the plazas and mounds.

http://persquaremile.com/2011/02/08/density-in-the-pre-columbian-united-states-a-look-at-cahokia/

Woodhenge

From cahokiamounds.org:

After a summer of intense excavation, Dr. Warren Wittry was studying excavation maps when he observed that numerous large oval-shaped pits seemed to be arranged in arcs of circles. He theorized that posts set in these pits lined up with the rising sun at certain times of the year, serving as a calendar, which he called WOODHENGE. After further excavations by Wittry and other archaeologists, more post pits were found where predicted, and evidence that there were as many as five Woodhenges at this location. These calendars had been built over a period of 200 years (A.D. 900-1100). Fragments of wood remaining in some of the post pits revealed red cedar had been used for the posts, a sacred wood.

http://cahokiamounds.org/explore/cahokia-mounds/woodhenge

The happiness of building a house

New  tile. Digital painting by Myriam B. Mahiques

My father spent many years building the house where he and my mom died. It was not easy for a worker to gather all the money we needed, but one day, it was ready, with the furniture, plants, curtains, everything. I remember when after the moving, we sat outside at the patio, enjoying the beautiful afternoon, everything so new and smelling clean. I felt so happy...

I´d like to share this feeling in the beautiful words of Lin Yutang: The Importance of Living. Chapter: Thirty three happy moments. Pages 133/4

¨Without any serious intention to build a house of my own, I happened, nevertheless to start building one because a little sum had unexpectedly come my way. From that day on, every morning and every night I was told that I needed to buy timber and stone and tiles and bricks and mortar and nails. And I explored and exhausted every avenue of getting some money, all on account of this house, without, however, being able to live in it all this time, until I got sort of resigned to this state o things. One day, finally, the house is completed, the walls have been whitewashed and the floors swept clean; the paper windows have been pasted and scrolls o paintings are hung up on the walls. All the workmen have left, and my friends

have arrived, sitting on different couches in order. Ah, is this not happiness?¨

Anubis arriving at London

Picture from http://www.bbc.co.uk/spanish/

This picture from 2007 shows Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of the dead, making his way up the Thames on the deck of a cargo ship. That´s impressive to see him out of his environment, like ruling the city of London.

Una araña de la escultora Louise Bourgeois rumbo a La Boca, Buenos Aires

Araña de la escultora francesa Louise Bourgeois expuesta frente a la galería Tate Modern de Londres. Esta escultura mide más de nueve metros de alto y está hecha de bronce, mármol y acero inoxidable. Foto de http://www.bbc.co.uk/spanish/

Nota de Alicia de Arteaga para La Nación:

Créase o no, ya está en camino la gigantesca araña de la escultora francesa Louise Bourgeois, que será exhibida en la explanada de la Fundación Proa, en la Vuelta de Rocha, a partir del 10 de marzo. Un operativo sin precedente permitirá ver por primera vez en América del Sur esta pieza descomunal procedente del estudio de la artista en Nueva York. Por sus medidas fuera de serie -9 metros de altura por 10 de diámetro- el insecto de acero viaja en barco y llegará a La Boca para prologar la gran muestra que la Fundación Proa, por iniciativa de Adriana Rosenberg y con la curaduría de Philip Larratt, consagrará a la mayor escultora francesa del siglo XX. Pionera, iconoclasta y longeva, Louise Bourgeois murió el año último en Nueva York, a los 98 años. Los porteños compartirán con vascos, londinenses y neoyorquinos el privilegio de contemplar a metros de Caminito la obra que fue exhibida, en 1999, en el Guggenheim de Bilbao; en 2007, en el Turbine Hall de la Tate Modern, de Londres, y, en 2008, en la explanada del Centro George Pompidou, de París. La araña de esta historia itinerante se llama Maman y simboliza la trama familiar. Una saga de desencuentros tejida entre el poder y la represión.

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1349616-una-arana-gigante-en-la-boca?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=titulares&utm_campaign=NLOpi

A bit of humour: hundreds of ¨undocumented¨ stop signs in the city of Cranston, Rhode Island

Image from http://kevinunderhill.typepad.com/

I came across with this article posted at Lowering the Bar -Legal Humour- and it was really nice for me. I suddenly remembered when the Unicenter shopping mall was built in Vicente Lopez, Buenos Aires, in the middle of a residential neighborhood, and the neighbors began to block some streets, desperate them all to find some peace. And of course, to avoid trucks to access their streets. What I mean, if the signs are installed, citizens need them for sure.

¨...the city of Cranston, Rhode Island, had a puzzler on its hands after it came to the city's attention that there were hundreds of unauthorized stop signs on its streets, installed by a person or persons unknown. At the time, the mayor said his staff was still researching what to do, but that the city would probably pass a special ordinance giving legal effect to most or all of the signs. According to a report today, it is likely to do just that.

The Providence Journal reports that a committee was to meet today (February 7) to consider proposed ordinances that would legalize 587 "undocumented stop signs"¨

REFERENCE:

http://www.loweringthebar.net/2011/02/update-city-to-legitimize-mystery-stop-signs-report-says.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_me

The cataphiles of Paris catacombs

Photo by Stephen Alvarez

Excerpts from the article by Neil Shea, for National Geographic:

Paris has a deeper and stranger connection to its underground than almost any city, and that underground is one of the richest. The arteries and intestines of Paris, the hundreds of miles of tunnels that make up some of the oldest and densest subway and sewer networks in the world, are just the start of it. Under Paris there are spaces of all kinds: canals and reservoirs, crypts and bank vaults, wine cellars transformed into nightclubs and galleries. Most surprising of all are the carrières—the old limestone quarries that fan out in a deep and intricate web under many neighborhoods, mostly in the southern part of the metropolis.

Into the 19th century those caverns and tunnels were mined for building stone. After that farmers raised mushrooms in them, at one point producing hundreds of tons a year. During World War II, French Resistance fighters—the underground—hid in some quarries; the Germans built bunkers in others. Today the tunnels are roamed by a different clandestine group, a loose and leaderless community whose members sometimes spend days and nights below the city. They're called cataphiles, people who love the Paris underground.

Entering the quarries has been illegal since 1955, so cataphiles tend to be young people fleeing the surface world and its rules. Veterans say the scene blossomed in the 1970s and '80s, when traditional Parisian rebelliousness got a fresh jolt from punk culture. Going underground was easier then, because there were many more open entrances. Some cataphiles discovered they could walk into the quarries through forgotten doorways in their school basements, then crawl onward into tunnels filled with bones—the famous catacombs. In places only they knew, the cataphiles partied, staged performances, created art, took drugs. Freedom reigned underground, even anarchy.

A "cataphile" . Picture by Stephen Alvarez

Behind the neat stacks of skulls, tibias, and femurs in the Paris catacombs lies a chaos of bones. In the 18th and 19th centuries the city dug up millions of skeletons from over-flowing cemeteries and poured them at night into old quarries. Photograph by Stephen Alvarez

At first the surface world barely noticed. But by the end of the '80s the city and private property owners had shut most of the entrances, and an elite police unit began patrolling the tunnels. Yet they couldn't manage to stamp out cataphilia. The young couple I saw climbing out of a manhole that morning were cataphiles. Maybe they had been on a date; some of the men I've explored the quarries with met their future wives in the tunnels, trading phone numbers by flashlight. Cataphiles make some of the best guides to the Paris underworld. Most Parisians are only dimly aware of its extent, even though, as they ride the Métro, they may be hurtling above the bones of their ancestors.

Keep on reading:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/02/paris-underground/shea-text/3

NAHRO 2011 Summer Conference and National Conference & Exhibition CALL FOR PROPOSALS

The National NAHRO Conferences provides a unique educational opportunity for housing and community development policy makers and practitioners to network and learn how public, private and nonprofit groups can create affordable housing. In conjunction with the educational offering are committee meetings and pre/post conference seminars.

With the level of educational programming, peer-to-peer learning and orchestrated networking events, National NAHRO conferences have long been considered the most important events of the year among industry leaders. Share your knowledge and help shape the ideas and strategies that will influence industry professionals.

Submissions are now being accepted for concurrent session presentations at the NAHRO 2011 Summer Conference in Louisville, KY on July 28-30 and the 2011 National Conference & Exhibition in St. Louis, MO on October 23-25.

To submit a proposal go to http://nahro.scsubmissions.com

If you have questions, email at conferenceprogramming@nahro.org

Los festejos del Año Nuevo Chino en Buenos Aires

Festejos en el Barrio Chino de Buenos Aires. Foto archivo de La Nación

Cuando yo pasaba en colectivo por el incipiente Barrio Chino de Bajo Belgrano, Buenos Aires, rumbo a la facultad, no hubiera imaginado nunca cómo crecería y además se afianzarían los lazos culturales.

No ha sido sencillo, y recuerdo uno de mis primeros posts en este blog ha sido el rechazo de los vecinos ante la sorpresiva construcción del Arco Chino, en la entrada del Barrio.

De hecho, nuestra convivencia con inmigrantes asiáticos comienza a fines de los 70´, cuando el gobierno abrió la importación sin impuestos de sus productos, creando una crisis horrenda en el mercado local. Los productos que fueron novedad al principio, en unos pocos años fueron causantes de hostilidades, por la competencia económica. Y, por lo que veo, ha llevado 30 años lograr la integración cultural.

De la nota del diario La Nación, con fecha de hoy, tomo estos párrafos y dejo el link para la lectura completa del artículo.

Foto Emiliano Lasalvia

¨Decenas de miles de personas se congregaron ayer en el Bajo Belgrano para celebrar la llegada del año nuevo chino, el 4709 del calendario oriental, que tiene como símbolo el conejo de metal. Fuentes de la organización aseguraron que durante todo el día más de 80.000 personas participaron en los festejos organizados por las asociaciones chinas y argentinas.

En Juramento y Arribeños la multitud se agolpaba bajo la mirada atónita de aquellos que pasaban en el tren. Al cruzar el arco chino, una pequeña ciudad oriental emergía y los dos dragones que habitualmente protegen la entrada del barrio chino eran rodeados por decenas de personas que querían una fotografía con el legendario animal.

El festival, que comenzó a las diez de la mañana, fue inaugurado oficialmente al mediodía por el ministro de Cultura de la ciudad, Hernán Lombardi, y por los integrantes del templo Fo Guang Shan, quienes estuvieron a cargo de la histórica ceremonia del "clavado de pupilas" que se realiza cada año para que el dragón "despierte".

Luego, en la típica "danza del dragón" acompañada de música con tambores, el animal recorrió todos los locales para darles augurio a los comerciantes mientras la gente intentaba tocarlo y fotografiarlo.

Este año el lema del evento es la integridad cultural, por eso hay eventos de danzas tradicionales chinas y también festivales de tango.¨

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1347900-multitudinario-festejo-del-ano-nuevo-chino?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=titulares&utm_campaign=NLTitu