Arch.itect.us

You are browsing the archives of 2009 January 03.

Showers, bathtubs, etc., are no longer plumbing fixtures. They are pieces of beautifully designed and carefully crafted furniture that aren’t just meant to be utilitarian, they are meant to complement your personality and facilitate your lifestyle. The following collection is sometimes intricate, sometimes minimalist, but always beautiful and practical.

Gruppo Treesse - Milo

(source: gruppotreesse)
Another design by [...]

Amazing live show no doubt, people can’t fault it. Me included. They can put forth their opinion, and their skepticisms about if it is being played live (which it is by the way), but that is not criticism my dear skeptics. That is still opinion, and no one gives a shit. Listen to these words you masters of the airwaves at triple J. I noticed many of you were the ones pushing the doubt. Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter set out to put on a fantastic theatric experience. They spent time and money, and endless man hours formulating said theatric experience. They had a concept, they set out with this concept and developed it, all the way to implementation, and they succeeded. The people that worked on this show rival broadway production dammit. Can you imagine? Daft punk on broadway? Ha! They’d need to set up a permanent show!



[DAFT PUNK CLIP. Alive 2007.]


But wait? Isn’t that just my opinion? Opinion rates as criticism too easily these days. Which is rubbish. Criticism loses its constructive nature when it becomes opinion. I’ll tread carefully from here onwards.







[DAFT PUNK B&W. Alive 2007. Hedi Slimane - Beautiful Photos]

Daft Punk weren’t there to rip it up improv. style. They wanted a show, a show they can take to numerous cities to wow the crowd and raise the bar they set all those years ago, when Homework was formulated in their spare time on some tinny Behringer mixers, some Moog Synths, non-de-script drum machines, samplers and some fuck off mad FM compression skills. That is why they remain at the top. Because they always raise the bar. They did early on, they do now.

Others in the Ed Banger crew come close, thanks to the brilliant leadership of Daft Punk’s old tour manager Pedro Winter (aka the busiests of P’s), but every time this French alliance moves higher, so does Daft Punk, and they have the capital now. Duos like Justice can only afford the cross they bare and 2 mad stacks of Marshall amps. Though I still reckon they’ve got the marbles. That song genesis just blows my mind. As for the Aussies? Bah, a long way to go. A long long long way to go.

history

It is not uncommon for such theatrics to be associated with live performance. Just look up videos of Pink Floyd. They are the He-men of the theatric/music universe. Roger Waters still holds a hell of a show. Though Daft Punk would give them a run for their money in terms of the “art” of rock theatre. I’m talking about a 30 year difference in eras here though (here comes my opinion) the formula still rings true. It could only be the substances the crowd consumes dictating any change in the show. If we were all still blazed on acid I’m sure we all wouldn’t be dancing to this electro/rock/dance/disco infusion, we’d be standing there admiring the “post-whatever” thought process of some rock musician pushing the envelope. Deep down I’m sure every Daft Punk fan is in some ways a rock fan just wanting to dance. Busy P himself set out with the intent to make rockers dance. I think he pulled it off.

[DAFT PUNK B&W. Alive 2007. Hedi Slimane]

If I recall correctly there was about 3 layers of lighting all stacked on stage in front of each other, and when viewed from the audience gave great depth to the show. By altering lighting patterns on the triangular highly-spaced mesh hanging in the fore, the audience was sent into hyperspace down tron-esque landscapes. This was used for a good old fashioned game of snake in the encore too. How technologic!When this went dark and the over-sized pixillated back screen lit up with words colour and moving image it silhouetted the two leather clad controllers almost too perfectly.

Imagine the facade of a building with this much depth? Imagine designing a building and taking a client to Daft Punk and saying, “This is what I want your building to do”. We designers could only dream. Dream they had a huge maintenance contingency in their management plan.

The third layer? The pyramid. The brain. Centre stage, coated in TV (TV is what I call the material. If it was made of brick, I’d call it brick.). When this transmitted images of moving through a gridded Euclidean landscape, the mesh that surrounded it started “perspecting”, destroying the notion of the TV frame and extending itself beyond, like 3D TV…almost. The images of faces in the encore were cool too. Images of faces synced to the beat, while on the back screen the word “together” scorched the retina.

I got to see the show in arguably Australia’s premiere outdoor amphitheatre, the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. This thing was recently polled as one of the top 25 Australian Modernist Works. The canvas underside to the enclosure had a slight reflectivity to it, which could annoy some, and captivate others.Enough said. Some stills are below with a link to Daft Punk’s myspace page.

Anyway, I hope I described it for you without too much bias. I tried but knowingly failed. It blew my mind. Ahhhhhhhhh! The bar is now so high, it’s literally light years ahead of the next generation. It’s going to take another 30 years for someone to take this crown.

Daft Punks’s Myspace Page - Friends with many nice musicians

A blog on Hedi’s Images

[DAFT PUNK more Hedi Slimane. The black and white ironically gives back a sense of imagination]

Based in Barcelona, Kate Moore lends her words to D.A.U.G.O.S

INTRODUCING HUESCA STADIUM

[Huesca Stadium, 1000 snaps, Kate Moore Gallery]

Perhaps you are driving inland from Barcelona, on your way to Bilbao. It is summer, and you think it’s better to avoid the coastal roads of the Costa Brava. You might stop in Zaragoza to see how the city is unfolding into the 2008 Expo. (It is possible that you are a little underwhelmed by the place). The map is dotted with a plethora of medieval towns, and bodegas (wineries), and you scan it idly or the most convenient option for lunch.

Counting the exits from the AP-2, you might register the name Huesca. If, on the other hand, you make the deliberate 80km detour to the town of pre-Roman origins now somewhat dominated by modern industrial buildings, it’s possible that it registers as an unexpected important moment in your life (my favourite type of moment).

[Huesca Stadium, 1000 snaps, Kate Moore Gallery]

The Huesca Sports stadium (described more lyrically in Castilliano as Palacio de Deporte) is a sports facility designed between 1989-91 by Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos. Characteristically of several other projects by Miralles, the project was surrounded by controversy in terms of large cost overruns. Another unfortunate parallel between Huesca and the more recently completed project of Miralles’ Scottish Parliament, was its spectacular structural collapse of part of the roof. The offending bolt in the ceiling of the great hall of the Scottish Parliament, echoes the night when one of the two steel tension wires that supported an elaborate roof system at Huesca, snapped, and sent the whole roof crashing down partway through the construction process. I imagine a mysterious night complete with a full moon, whispering, dry grass and the creaking metallic grinding of mechanical site equipment, that night in 1993 when the half constructed roof came crashing down in the dead of night.

[Huesca Stadium, 1000 snaps, Kate Moore Gallery]

Probably, the truth is much more mundane, but what else is intended by the tantalising clues strewn across the site such as the steel masts for the original roof structures, if it isn’t as a starting point for memory, mystery and history to be intertwined and re-invented by the divine faculty of imagination. So, that is the version I choose. The local variation also incorporates sabotage, an angry group of Huesca residents, enter the site, late at night, (to ensure no workers would be injured), and tighten the tension wires to breaking point. Their intention to save the town from the exorbitant indulgences of these architects, and their inflexible ideals, preferring the project to be completed with an alternative, simpler roof structure.

In the end, it is interesting to hear a response from Enric Miralles as he considered the potential catastrophe, “Observing the foundations. Only making observations about the way to do things. Not interpreting the ruin at hand.” Could it be this attitude that considers all events as an inevitable part of the story of a project, and all constraints as potential opportunities, that helped make Miralles such a great architect?

[Huesca Stadium, 1000 snaps, Kate Moore Gallery]

In the end, this article has been about the story of discovering Huesca Stadium, rather than a description of the spaces it contains. Suffice to say, spatially - it is an incredible experience. At a time when there are projects of a similar scale and program being built for the Olympic Games in London, or in many sites around Australia, it is surprising to arrive in a small, semi-rural town in Spain and finnd a captivating sculpture of light, form and interweaving functions that rivals any of its contemporaries.

References:
El Croquis “Palacio de deportes de Huesca”
Paisajes “Pabell—n de deportes - Enric Miralles”