Frank Lloyd Wright – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 659

The First Day of Spring (Risshun), from the series Fashionable Poetic Immortals of the Four Seasons (c.1768) by Suzuki Harunobu. Risshun in Japan begins on the 4th of February.

• “…after centuries of imbibing alcoholic beverages as their main source of potable water, European’s new fondness for boiled drinks—coupled with the psychoactive properties of caffeine—swapped societal tipsiness with a mindstate primed for the Enlightenment’s intoxication with reason.” Hunter Dukes on A Treatise Concerning the Properties and Effects of Coffee (1792) by Benjamin Moseley.

• Steven Heller on John Wilcock, Master of the Underground: “[He] was one of the great ‘happening’ characters of midcentury America, beat myth to Hippie legend. He was founder of half a dozen underground papers, and started one of the first citizen-access cable television shows. His achievements are a dense package.”

• At Fonts In Use: Florian Hardwig explores the origin of “the Dune font” as used on the covers of Frank Herbert’s novels during the 1970s and 80s.

• At Smithsonian Magazine: “Hundreds of Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs were never built. Here’s what they might have looked like.”

• Mix of the week: Fact Mix 893 by KMRU & Aho Ssan & Sevi Iko Dømochevsky.

• New music: Hypnagogia by Martina Bertoni, and Cosmos Vol. II by Ran Kirlian & Jaja.

• “Forgotten ‘Stonehenge of the north’ given to nation by construction firm.”

• At Aquarium Drunkard: Soft Machine live at Jazz Bilzen, 1969.

• RIP Tom Verlaine.

• Goofin’ At The Coffee House (1959) by Henri Mancini | Bring Me Coffee Or Tea (1971) by Can | Starfish And Coffee (1986) by Prince

Hollyhock House

The Hollyhock House in Barnsdall Art Park was the only Frank Lloyd Wright house I got to see up close when I was in Los Angeles. The park on that occasion was the venue for the Arthurfest music festival so the house was omnipresent but was closed to visitors. After renovation the building was opened to the public last year, and in November was filmed by Houzz in this short video which includes drone shots of the exterior. Rain Noe at Core77 notes that the house was one of Wright’s notoriously poor constructions but a leaking ceiling doesn’t seem so bad if your home looks as spectacular as this.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Remembering Arthurfest

Remembering Arthurfest

The Arthur table. Free mags!

Arthurfest is an as-yet unreleased feature-length documentary by Lance Bangs which captured the two-day music festival of that name in Barnsdall Art Park, Los Angeles. The festival took place ten years ago to the day, and was the first such event organised by the sorely missed Arthur magazine. I was fortunate to witness some of the stunning performances on the park’s tree-bedecked plateau overlooking East Hollywood. Bangs’ cameras were hard to miss at the time—I even photographed one of them—but I’ve never seen any of the footage of the event until the appearance of a teaser which has been posted in advance of a tenth anniversary screening this weekend at Cinefamily, Los Angeles. This is tantalising stuff for the way the cameras bring the bands so much closer than they were when viewed at crowd level. There was also a lot happening each day on three different stages, one of which was indoors in the park’s Gallery Theatre, so it was impossible to see everything. Earth and Sunn O))) played inside the theatre but I missed both their shows as a result of a vampire-like reluctance to queue for a seat in the merciless sunlight. (I did get to drink Jack Daniel’s with the Sunn O))) guys, however…) Fingers crossed that Bangs’ film gets a proper release soon so the rest of us can see it. Meanwhile, here’s a few of my photos of the event…

Update: Arthur‘s Jay Babcock alerts me to footage of the late Jack Rose at the Arthurfest. Also at Lance Bangs’ channel there’s some of the performance by The Juan MacLean. Thanks, Jay!

The main stage.

Continue reading “Remembering Arthurfest”

Hector Guimard elevations

Design for the Facade of Societé Immobilière de la Rue Modern, No. 6 (1909).

Drawings by French architect and designer Hector Guimard (1867–1942), the man who gave Paris those plant-like entrances to the Metro stations. The examples here can be seen in greater detail at the Google Art Project where there’s a few more of his works including his typically organic smoking bench. One thing I like about the architectural drawings is seeing the way he stylised his lettering. Frank Lloyd Wright used to do the same on his plans but I doubt there are any architects today who do the same.

Elevation of an Apartment Building, Société Immobilière, rue Moderne (now rue Agar) (1909–11).

Rear Facade, Castel d’Orgeval, Parc Beauséjour, near Paris: Elevation (1904).

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Hector Guimard sketches
• Temples for Future Religions by François Garas
• Elizabetes Iela 10b, Riga
• Atelier Elvira
• Louis Bonnier’s exposition dreams
• The Maison Lavirotte
• The House with Chimaeras

Mars architectures

Mars Architectures 3

Italian architect Stefan Davidovici was in touch recently asking whether I’d be interested in his speculative views of Mars architectures and an imaginary Jerusalem. I am indeed interested in work such as this, whether the designs resemble Frank Lloyd Wright sketches for David Cronenberg’s unfilmed adaptation of Total Recall or the Piranesian buttresses of the Jerusalem pieces. As to the question of “why Mars?”, Davidovici says this:

Because the functions of any Mars settlement, be it made by near-future humans or by far-future post-humans or by the famous little green local cousins of humans are so, so, so completely obscure to us – answering to an unknown society in an unknown environment – as to become totally, completely, absolutely irrelevant. Therefore we can read the architectural space of such a place as pure art.

A range of his work can be found at his blog, the architecture draftsman.

Mars Architectures 6

Mars Architectures 9

Mars Architectures 10

Mars Architectures 9

Previously on { feuilleton }
• La Tour by Schuiten & Peeters
• The art of Pierre Clayette, 1930–2005
• The art of Erik Desmazières
• The art of Gérard Trignac