Living The Ephemeral City, Enjoying the Ephemeral Architecture II: Burning Man 2010

Burning man 2010. From Nate Berg´s article.

Some months ago, I posted about Burning Man, the ephemaral city of Art in the Nevada desert.

http://myriammahiques.blogspot.com/2009/11/living-ephemeral-city-enjoying.html

Today, we have an update from the article by Nate Berg published at Netizen. This year, the art works were based on architecture!.

¨It's already disappearing. The temporary city that forms during the annual Burning Man event is fading away, as the tens of thousands of people who traveled out to live in the desert of northwestern Nevada for the past week have filed out of the void and returned back to the rest of the world. The event's organizers and volunteers are still erasing the traces of the event, from demolishing structures to removing fencing to picking up trash. Within another week or so, the entire city will have disappeared.

It's an interesting way for a city to exist -- just a few weeks at a time, once a year. But it's been working for Burning Man and Black Rock City, the name of that temporary city that forms and disbands almost as soon as it comes to full life. On top of what's already a unique experiment in citymaking, the theme of this year's event was Metropolis, which spurred the tens of thousands of people and artists who make up the city to think a little more about how their "party in the desert" is actually a little city and community (the fourth largest city in Nevada during its run), and how it relates to their world beyond the desert.

Megatropolis. From N. Berg´s article

A faux development ad for Jetsons-inspired space-age future apartments. From N. Berg´s article

51,515 people had driven themselves into the far-off Black Rock Desert for the event by midnight last Friday, a new attendance record for the event, which has taken place every year in one form or another since 1986. The population has steadily increased over the years, a reality that has gradually turned the artist/anarchist/bohemian event into a temporary but perennial small-scale city. The Metropolis theme offered an interesting chance for attendees to think a little more about Burning Man's cityness, and the event's relation to real life in the "default world". Yeah, it's a party in the desert, but it's also an event that takes very seriously the community and civic experience it creates.¨

http://www.planetizen.com/node/45856

Mal Mart. From N. Berg´s article