#7

Bodies in Free Fall: Aquatic and Leisure Centre by Architect-Engineer Marc Mimram

Concept Drawing Cfwan 2010

Located in Les Ulis, France Marc Mimram's Aquatic centre is perched in mid air. The space of it's architecture seems to exist in the last possible moment before a free falling body enters the water. This brief investigation serves as the author's starting point for a new studio taking place at the University of Toronto Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design which aims to design an aquatic and leisure centre in downtown Toronto.

Sketch: Cfwan, 2010

Photo: Casabella, 2008 Dec.-2009 Jan., v.73, n.772-773, p.90-[99]

The parti is one of grace and lightness intersected with the more muscular and tectonic language of swimming and diving. The structure, most obviously the designer's strength, appears to gently lift out of the water and pause, creating a dynamic space below for both competitive and leisure swimming.

Drawings: Casabella, 2008 Dec.-2009 Jan., v.73, n.772-773, p.90-[99]

Layout: Cfwan, 2010

Drawings: Casabella, 2008 Dec.-2009 Jan., v.73, n.772-773, p.90-[99]

Layout: Cfwan, 2010

The concept is then solidified in plan, as the central arch dictates the clear and simple division between competitive swimming and the leisure pool.

Drawings: Casabella, 2008 Dec.-2009 Jan., v.73, n.772-773, p.90-[99]

Layout: Cfwan, 2010

Photos: Casabella, 2008 Dec.-2009 Jan., v.73, n.772-773, p.90-[99]

Layout: Cfwan, 2010

#6

They Should Give out Fred Herzog Pictures with Your Canadian Passport

Man with Bandage. Fred Herzog. 1968

Where has Fred Herzog been all my life? Vancouver I guess... It seems they have been keeping a tight lid on the breath-taking work of Mr. Herzog. A native of Stuttgart, Herzog emigrated to Canada after World War II when he was 22 years old. Working in colour, which was rare for 'high' art photography of the late fifties and early sixties, his work is startlingly crisp and full of life and virance. And, unlike fellow Vancouverite, Jeff Wall, his scenes are captured not carefully staged. The casual nature of his street scenes remind me of the b/w candid shots of Gary Winogrand.

Newspaper Readers. Fred Herzog. 1961

I was having a discussion with a friend of mine recnetly about Canadian Modernist Art, she being raised in rural Canada and I (like the majority of Canadians today) being raised in the urban context. I questioned the relentess appearance of natural themes in Canadian Art when we are becoming more and more a mechanized and global society, and one that is bound to the culture cities. I feel that Herzog's images are witness to the start of that transition as they feature a Vancouver that seems to be in it's adolescence, moving from a regional port to a large city.

Flaneur Granville. Fred Herzog.1960

Hastings and Columbia. Fred Herzog. 1958

2nd Hand Store Boy. Fred Herzog. 1959

Waterfront Flaneur. Fred Herzog. 1959

In closing, these images speak more to the Canada I know and love than any Group of Seven painting ever will. That is important to think about.

posted without permission from http://www.equinoxgallery.com/

#5

The New West?

Left: Seattle Public Canyon. Cfwan. 2010

Right: Grand Canyon of the Colorado. William Henry Jackson. 1883

Standing at the edge of the gigantic interior space of the Seattle Public Library, an interesting coincidence occured. A woman walked into the frame and leaned out over the edge (Even more conicidentally, the woman turned out to Renee Daoust, a Canadian Architect of note that was a juror at one of my recent critiques) and it instantly reminded me of the iconic Jackson photograph that has come to symbolize the American pursuit of the west. Needless to say I quickly snapped the image.

At first I was only thinking on my envy towards Seattle for having such a fine project and not my city. Later on I got to thinking about the lineage of this building concept. It's redefined public interiors, and spiralling library stacks were first attempted in the OMA competition entry for the Bibliotheque Nationale (1989). Thus, the idea has matrued and migrated from Paris via a dutch architect to the far reaches of the American West.

Perhaps this building is perfectly sited in west, albeit a heavily refined and cultured west. Perhaps it represents the end note of the West (capital W for Wild). More specifically, an end note of the nineteenth and twentieth century expansion towards the Pacific and the culture it fostered. The west I have come to know, after experiencing Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, and even parts of Alberta for that matter is confirms this refined and worldly sub-culture despite the outdoorsy, backwoods style on everything that stands.

#4

Rem Koolhaas makes buildings for photographers

Seattle Public Canyon. Cfwan. 2010

This past saturday I took a day trip down to Seattle to visit my second O.M.A. building (The First being the IIT McCormick Tribune Campus Centre). The Seattle Public Library is a building that I have longed to visit ever since its completion in 2004. It did no dissapoint on any scale or at any point throughout. From the wacky yet refined form of the building to most minute and very thoughtful detailing it was a pleasure to spend a few hours wandering inside. However, what was most amazing to me was how photogenic the building is. It is one of the most fun buildings I have ever had the pleasure of photographing and it will no doubt be exploited by many cinematographers and photographers in years to come.

Exterior looking up from Fourth Ave &

Madison St. Seattle WA. Cfwan. 2010.

Having looked at countless Norman Foster projects featuring a diagrid envelope system, I have to admit that I was quite jaded before arriving in Seattle. I felt that the repetition of light and shadow across the grid would approach monotony. I found the opposite to be true. Unlike other diagrids, the OMA/REX version is quite muscular and raw in its detailing and presence. This heaviness lends a real drama to the constant play of light and shadow on the interior and reminds me of scenes underneath the elevated railway in New York from Francis Ford Coppola's The GodFather. The heaviness also provides some shading and control of unwanted light in an otherwise all glass building.

Living Room. Cfwan.2010

Stacks. Cfwan.2010

It is really is hard to take a poor photograph inside the Seattle Public Library. Looking outwards through any of the exterior surfaces, one gets a dynamic play of minor and major structural elements that seem to collide in quite resolved and framed moments. Similar to the CCTV building, this envelope/structure is intelligently designed for specific conditions accross its surface. The grid is noticeably doubled at certain points between struts and columns (see below).

Seventh Floor Reading Room. Cfwan. 2010

Seventh Floor Reading Room From Stairwell.

Cfwan. 2010.

If the the rather masculine play light and shadow is the story for the skin, the guts of the library are much more cuddly and playful . The spaces cut off from views outward literally explode with vibrant colours exectured in a virtual catalogue of different and rather unique finishes. The effect is that the eye is continually excited by difference in colour and shade. It really is a restless interior architecture. The positive side of this restlessness is that each program area is very unique and one's place inside the building is always certain.

Book Spiral. Cfwan. 2010

REDRUM. Cfwan.2010

The 4th floor, or Red Floor of the Library was an amazing place to hang out. Stepping out of the flourescent green elevator into a shiny, dark red hallway one almost has to revert to touch to navigate out of the elevator bank while the eyes adjust. The sensual experience is quite well choreographed. Touring around the floor one eventually arrives at a T-junction of two hallways and dead end corridor (shown above). The dead end it just that, yet one finds a gaurd posted in front of a strange and attractive surface (that I believe is a left-over plane from the floor below). I wanted to note this becuase instead of covering this remnant up, the architects decided to expose the surface, paint it in a texturized paint and give it a pure white spot light (the only pure white light on that floor). This end space now becomes and event within the small floor. I think deconstructivists like Daniel Liebeskind could learn something from this treatment of rogue spaces.

Interior Design. Cfwan. 2010

Space Age. Cfwan. 2010

Frosted Glass Book Shelf End. Cfwan.2010

Cork Flooring in Book Holds Area. Cfwan.2010

If you're in Seattle I highly recommend hanging out in the Library for a while. Designer or not, it really is eye candy.

#3

Something Unique and Lovely about Toronto's often Maligned Subway System

Toronto Subway Typeface.

Layout by author. 2010

I was recently thrilled to have tracked down a free typeface file for Toronto's Subway Typeface. Having unconsciously glanced at the unusual letters over countless trips during my childhood, it wasn't until I began working on Transit projects on the west coast that I began to really think about the TTC's unique typographic heritage.

Most systems around the world have a chosen typeface that is consistently used to direct their customers amongst a sea of advertising and invading fonts, signage and graffiti. Few, have their very own typefaces. Perhaps the existence of Toronto's unique typeface is indicative of the spirit of growth and excitement felt after WWII when Toronto took its first steps towards becoming a real city by building massive and impressive public works like the Yonge-Eglinton Subway. Much of that energy has been lost today as the TTC subway system has slowly fallen behind Montreal and Vancouver in terms of infrastructure despite servicing far more customers daily.

Created in 1954 by an unknown designer, the TTC font or "Toronto Subway" typeface is one of the most unique features of Canada's most heavily used public transit network and makes it standout amongst other networks. The pastel tiled interiors of the original TTC, Often sarcastically referred to as the 'height of Canadian bathroom architecture', featured the typeface. In recent years renovations along the Yonge-Eglinton line saw many of the original tiles lost. However, most of the Bloor-Danforth stations still feature the lettering as well the Sheppard Line which chose to resurrect the style for its interiors.

Toronto Subway Typeface In use at St. George Station
City of Toronto Archives. Date Unkown

Loosely modelled after Johnston font family (1913), the typeface features near perfect circular shapes for the capital 'O' 'G' 'C' and 'Q'. The circular forms always reminded me of the well known Frank Llyod Wright style of lettering.

For more info:
I found this great research paper by an OCAD student from 2007
http://joeclark.org/appearances/atypi/2007/TTC/inscribed/
as well as this site which compares other systems from around the world... but not Toronto?http://mic-ro.com/metro/metrofonts.html

#2

a note on the MoMA online catalogue

Rem Koolhaas.

Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners

of Architecture, Exhausted Fugitives Led to Reception.

1972

In looking for images to post, I came accross the Museum of Modern Art's Online Catalogue. It is a wealth of images and photographs, architectural and otherwise and an invaluable resource for young artists and designers.

If you ever wondered why all of the world's greatest modern works are at the MoMA it is because they literally wrote the book on twentieth century art and design. Their collection forms the basis of nearly every casual to intermediate english language modern art history book out there. It is gospel so to speak.... and it is now also avaiable to you.

http://www.moma.org/explore/collection/index

#1

Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe. Horizontal Column Section.

Barcelona Pavillion. 1929

This is intended to be nothing more than a steam of consciousness. Outside of academia, with all the free time and trappings of a real life my mind has time to wander.... and wonder.

The name is informed by a recent discussion I had with a colleague. While both of us are working on large and complex urban and architectural projects at either end of the country we have found ourselves missing the finer points in architecture.

Hence: god IS IN THE DETAILS -LMVDR 20th century