Astrospies - NOVA PBS

North Korean Posters: The David Heather Collection

PROPAGANDA is one of the only forms of artistic expression in which representation equals endorsement. Fraught with exclamation points and the color red, this stunning volume of art collector David Heather's collection of North Korean propaganda posters, edited by Koen de Ceuster, portrays an even rarer form of artistic expression: a representation of representation that equals endorsement. Of course, any review is a representation of a representation of a representation, but that does not necessarily equal endorsement -- triple removes and the
Droste effect notwithstanding.

A socialist realism of clarity, compactness and delicacy -- tenets crystallized by North Korean ruler Kim Jong Il -- informs these pictures. The exhortations accompanying the images are equally concise: "More milk and meat, by positively expanding grassland!" "Here and there in the country, let's build more small-scale power plants!" "Bombing suicide squad, forward!", "Socialism is invincible!", even, "Let's popularize basketball!"

"North Korean Posters" is a book that comes at a deeply auspicious time. With the easing of U.S. sanctions and the discreet charm of the Internet, it won't be long before images of gleaming patriots are tested by the perception of freedoms in the world outside and the withering onslaught of capitalism -- and all the fast food and graffiti that that implies. North Korea is the last country of its kind in terms of fervent isolation and nationalism; these priceless examples of agitprop exist simultaneously as history lessons and time capsules. Ironically, as curiosity and avarice congeal into the wax of capitalism, posters like these become coveted collector's items -- trading for sizable sums that to the propagandists who created these fierce and stoic artifacts would represent a psychological disembowelment -- and be vastly more effective than any four-color, four-story call to arms.

Article courtsey of Latimes 3 August 2008 by David Cotner

Enzo Mari's Autoprogettazione

We knew Enzo Mari from his simple fruit prints and interlocking wooden Animali puzzle, but didn't know about his furniture until recently. In 1974, he came out with 19 designs for wooden furniture entitled Autoprogettazione. Autoprogettazione (or "self design") was Mari's collection of designs for furniture you could make yourself with just a hammer using inexpensive, off-the-shelf lumber.

We've always loved Enzo Mari's low-key, sincere approach to design-- recently he has been designing chairs for Muji, who shares a similar aesthetic. We read that in the 1950's Mari was noticing that mass-produced furniture was starting to change people's tastes away from quality and craftsmanship, so he created simple designs to help reconnect people with how things were made. During his 1974 exhibition he gave out a free catalogue with detailed instructions for making these basic, easy-to-assemble furniture pieces using standardized wooden planks and nails. Anyone (except for factories and dealers) was encouraged to make the furniture, or to make varations on them, and send him a picture.

Mari's Autoprogettazione made plans for nine tables, three chairs, a bench, a bookshelf, a wardrobe, and four beds. We especially like the long dining room table (top), the "F". With current design focusing on locally-made, handmade furniture, DIY, simplicity and collaboration, we think his Autoprogettazione and the thought behind the collection fits in just as well today as over 30 years ago when he designed them.

Mari's Autoprogettazione made plans for nine tables, three chairs, a bench, a bookshelf, a wardrobe, and four beds. We especially like the long dining room table (top), the "F". With current design focusing on locally-made, handmade furniture, DIY, simplicity and collaboration, we think his Autoprogettazione and the thought behind the collection fits in just as well today as over 30 years ago when he designed them.You can buy a reprint of Enzo Mari's Autoprogettazione catalog at Unicahome for $27

Posting and pictures courtsey of http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/

Top 15 Modernist Gas Stations

Some of America’s best Mid Century Modern architecture is in the form of gas stations, with their simple space requirements and focus on innovative roofs.

Several of the best known names in architecture have created gas stations, around the world, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies Van der Rohe, Willem Dudok, Jean Prouve, Arne Jacobsen and Norman Foster, but nobody created a design package that was as enduring and comprehensive as Elliot Noyes for Mobil.

To vote on your favourite modernist gas station visit:
http://oobject.com/category/Top-15-modernist-gas-stations

Isaac Hayes, Deep-Voiced Soul Icon, Is Dead at 65

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -- Isaac Hayes, the baldheaded, baritone-voiced soul crooner who laid the groundwork for disco and whose ''Theme From Shaft'' won both Academy and Grammy awards, died Sunday afternoon after he collapsed near a treadmill, authorities said. He was 65.

Hayes was pronounced dead at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis an hour after he was found by a family member, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office said. The cause of death was not immediately known.

With his muscular build, shiny head and sunglasses, Hayes cut a striking figure at a time when most of his contemporaries were sporting Afros. His music, which came to be known as urban-contemporary, paved the way for disco as well as romantic crooners like Barry White.

And in his spoken-word introductions and interludes, Hayes was essentially rapping before there was rap. His career hit another high in 1997 when he became the voice of Chef, the sensible school cook and devoted ladies man on the animated TV show ''South Park.''

''Isaac Hayes embodies everything that's soul music,'' Collin Stanback, an A&R executive at Stax, told The Associated Press on Sunday. ''When you think of soul music you think of Isaac Hayes -- the expression ... the sound and the creativity that goes along with it.''

Hayes was about to begin work on a new album for Stax, the soul record label he helped build to legendary status. And he had recently finished work on a movie called ''Soul Men'' in which he played himself, starring Samuel Jackson and Bernie Mac, who died on Saturday.

Steve Shular, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, said authorities received a 911 call after Hayes' wife and young son and his wife's cousin returned home from the grocery store and found him collapsed in a downstairs bedroom. A sheriff's deputy administered CPR until paramedics arrived.''The treadmill was running but he was unresponsive lying on the floor,'' Shular said.

The album ''Hot Buttered Soul'' made Hayes a star in 1969. His shaven head, gold chains and sunglasses gave him a compelling visual image.''Hot Buttered Soul'' was groundbreaking in several ways: He sang in a ''cool'' style unlike the usual histrionics of big-time soul singers. He prefaced the song with ''raps,'' and the numbers ran longer than three minutes with lush arrangements.

''Jocks would play it at night,'' Hayes recalled in a 1999 Associated Press interview. ''They could go to the bathroom, they could get a sandwich, or whatever.''

Next came ''Theme From Shaft,'' a No. 1 hit in 1971 from the film ''Shaft'' starring Richard Roundtree.

''That was like the shot heard round the world,'' Hayes said in the 1999 interview.
At the Oscar ceremony in 1972, Hayes performed the song wearing an eye-popping amount of gold and received a standing ovation. TV Guide later chose it as No. 18 in its list of television's 25 most memorable moments. He won an Academy Award for the song and was nominated for another one for the score. The song and score also won him two Grammys.

''The rappers have gone in and created a lot of hit music based upon my influence,'' he said. ''And they'll tell you if you ask.''

Hayes was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.''I knew nothing about the business, or trends and things like that,'' he said. ''I think it was a matter of timing. I didn't know what was unfolding.''A self-taught musician, he was hired in 1964 by Stax Records of Memphis as a backup pianist, working as a session musician for Otis Redding and others. He also played saxophone.

He began writing songs, establishing a songwriting partnership with David Porter, and in the 1960s they wrote such hits for Sam and Dave as ''Hold On, I'm Coming'' and ''Soul Man.''

All this led to his recording contract.

In 1972, he won another Grammy for his album ''Black Moses'' and earned a nickname he reluctantly embraced. Hayes composed film scores for ''Tough Guys'' and ''Truck Turner'' besides ''Shaft.'' He also did the song ''Two Cool Guys'' on the ''Beavis and Butt-Head Do America'' movie soundtrack in 1996. Additionally, he was the voice of Nickelodeon's ''Nick at Nite'' and had radio shows in New York City (1996 to 2002) and then in Memphis.

He was in several movies, including ''It Could Happen to You'' with Nicolas Cage, ''Ninth Street'' with Martin Sheen, ''Reindeer Games'' starring Ben Affleck and the blaxploitation parody ''I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka.''

In the 1999 interview, Hayes described the South Park cook as ''a person that speaks his mind; he's sensitive enough to care for children; he's wise enough to not be put into the 'wack' category like everybody else in town -- and he l-o-o-o-o-ves the ladies.''

But Hayes angrily quit the show in 2006 after an episode mocked his Scientology religion

''There is a place in this world for satire,'' he said. ''but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs of others begins.''

Co-creator creators Matt Stone responded that Hayes ''has no problem -- and he's cashed plenty of checks -- with our show making fun of Christians.'' A subsequent episode of the show seemingly killed off the Chef character.Hayes was born in 1942 in a tin shack in Covington, Tenn., about 40 miles north of Memphis. He was raised by his maternal grandparents after his mother died and his father took off when he was 1 1/2. The family moved to Memphis when he was 6.

Hayes wanted to be a doctor, but got redirected when he won a talent contest in ninth grade by singing Nat King Cole's ''Looking Back.''

He held down various low-paying jobs, including shining shoes on the legendary Beale Street in Memphis. He also played gigs in rural Southern juke joints where at times he had to hit the floor because someone began shooting.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

AP writers Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Ky., and Nekesa Moody in New York contributed to this story.

In Changing Harlem, Soul Food Struggles

The white Formica counter at Louise’s Family Restaurant in Harlem is the original, and is more than 40 years old. Southern dishes like pig’s feet with black-eyed peas and candied yams cost $8. Sweet lemonade is still served in a plastic foam cup.

The restaurant seats 18, about the same number it always has, but it is rarely full. The menu makes few concessions to modern eating habits. The food is unapologetically heavy, fried, salty and fattening, with nary a fresh fruit or vegetable. Many dishes are considered incomplete without a dollop of brown gravy, a big clump of butter, or both.

Louise’s is among a handful of culinary survivors of an older Harlem, when inexpensive, family-run restaurants operated by black Southern transplants dominated the streetscape. “People are used to eating soul food the way we make it,” Julia Wilson, 63, Louise’s owner and the daughter of the restaurant’s founder, said on a recent afternoon. “A lot of people like it how I keep it, old-fashioned.”

But Louise’s is on the wrong side of several trends. Soul food is dying in Harlem and elsewhere in the city, and not being able to fill 18 seats is as good an indication as any. The reasons can be chalked up to the vagaries of contemporary city life: Changing tastes; health consciousness; the fast-food culture; and an influx of wealthier young adults — including African-Americans, long a customer base for soul food restaurants — who are more comfortable eating Indian or Thai dishes.

A recitation of the names of the vanished Harlem soul food restaurants — where the waitress/owner called everyone “Baby,” and the temperature in the room was determined by the amount of lard in the skillet — would be longer than the menu at most of the places.

Among those now out of business are: 22 West, where Malcolm X used the pay phone in back to do radio broadcasts; Adel’s, popular for its fried chicken; Pan Pan, which burned down in 2004; Wilson’s, known for its breakfasts; Wimps, revered for its smothered chicken and red velvet cake; Singleton’s, which was among the last restaurants to regularly serve pig tail stew, hog maws, and pig ears; and Wells Supper Club, best known as the restaurant credited with putting chicken and waffles on the same plate.

Onetime staples like butter beans, country fried steak, hog maws, oxtails, chicken livers, ham hocks, neck bones, and chitterlings have become uncommon, and in some cases, unavailable, in this former soul food capital.

“There used to be two or three soul food places on a block,” said Johnny Manning, 67, who has lived in Harlem since 1966 and for the past eight years has operated a Web site, eatinharlem.com, focused on the neighborhood’s culinary options. “Now you’ve got to look for them. When I came here, Harlem was predominantly black, so you had a predominantly black cuisine in restaurants.”

Each month seems to bring a new casualty: Charles’s Southern Style Kitchen closed its 125th Street location this summer after the rent doubled; and House of Seafood and an outlet of Manna’s Soul Food Restaurant will most likely be shuttered by the end of summer, the casualties of a planned shopping mall, also on 125th Street.

Charles Copeland, 83, who closed his landmark soul food restaurant Copeland’s last summer after 50 years because of declining business, said gentrification and accelerating prices for basics like cooking oil and collard greens may doom many of the rest.

“The transformation of Harlem snuck up on me like a tornado,” Mr. Copeland said. “I don’t expect many of those places to last. Soul food was supposed to be a cheap type of food that black people made at home. What we used to call cheap isn’t cheap anymore.

Louise’s, on Lenox Avenue, was opened in 1964 by the sister of Sylvia Woods, who started Sylvia’s two years earlier. But while Louise’s has resisted change, Sylvia’s has bucked the trend and become a soul food temple, expanding into grocery stores nationwide and onto the Internet with items as varied as canned turnip greens and shampoo.

In addition to Louise’s, Sylvia’s, and the original Charles’s Southern Style Kitchen location on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, holdouts include M & G Diner and several newer soul food places, including Amy Ruth’s, Margie’s Red Rose Diner, a Taste of Seafood, Miss Maude’s Spoonbread Too, and Londel’s.More recently, restaurants serving dishes inspired by soul food have also arrived in Harlem. Their food is lighter and tends to be more healthful. They include Mobay, Cafe Veg, Native, Revival, Melba’s, and Raw Soul, a raw food restaurant.

Mobay, on 125th Street, for instance, serves collard greens with a vegetarian flavoring, instead of pork or turkey.

Though some of the newer restaurants charge as much as $15 for an entree, Charles Gabriel, 60, owner of Charles’s Southern Style Kitchen, said he could not afford to raise prices.

“Uptown, people don’t have so much money, so when the prices go up, they’ll go to a Chinese place,” which have sold items such as fried chicken wings for years, he said.

Restaurants, including soul food places, are also operating under increased pressure from the city to offer more nutritious meals. This summer, the city banned restaurants from using artificial trans fat to prepare foods, and also required chain restaurants to post calorie counts of their menu items.Even before the new laws took effect, some traditional soul food restaurants began to offer more healthful choices, including sometimes using skim milk in macaroni and cheese, and offering the option of oven fried, instead of deep fried, chicken.

The calorie count for a traditionally prepared dish of macaroni and cheese, for instance, is about 650 calories, and a single piece of deep fried chicken can have more than 400 calories, said Lindsey Williams, author of Neo Soul cookbook.

Those numbers are in line with a typical fast food meal: At McDonald’s, a Big Mac has about 540 calories, while a McDonald’s premium crispy chicken club sandwich contains 630 calories, according to the restaurant.At Louise’s, Ms. Wilson, a tall, quiet woman who was a factory worker before she took over the restaurant, has changed little about the place since her mother, Louise Thompson, died in 1977.

The handwritten menu above the grill includes breakfasts of fried bologna, corned beef hash and a sardine sandwich. There are more choices now, but the sign remains. Three stools at the old lunch counter are missing their seats. The juke box, featuring songs by Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, has not worked for at least 10 years.

“The guys from the phone company used to come and play it,” Ms. Wilson said, smiling at the memory. “It used to be fun. We used to play it as much as the customers did.”

During a recent afternoon, the restaurant had four customers during the lunch hour. Three other people looked at the menu, but left.

As they waited, Ms. Wilson, her husband, Issac, 67, who does the cooking, and her daughter, Cassandra, 43, who is the waitress, watched the “Young and the Restless” on a portable television set.

Mornings are busier, and Louise’s does a brisk business in dishes like fish and grits.

“A lot of people look forward to breakfast: grits and home fries and biscuits,” she said. “They wait on that.”

Maurice Robinson, 48, who was eating breakfast at the counter recently, has been coming to Louise’s for more than 20 years.

“I can get grits here,” he said, between bites. “And it’s not easy getting grits.”

Ms. Wilson said she might like to update the restaurant’s menu with salads and baked goods, and perhaps give the place a makeover. She is reluctant to make too many changes though, she said.

Then she turned to the coffee machine, a 1950s-era stainless steel gas-powered model that dispenses coffee through a spigot. “Maybe get a new coffeemaker — with a coffee pot,” she said.

After a few moments, she changed her mind. “I don’t know,” she said. “Everybody loves my coffee.”

Ms. Wilson, who has been on her feet at the restaurant from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. six days a week for decades now, said she wanted to keep Louise’s open to pass it on to her children, as it had been passed to her.

In the meantime, health issues have led to a ticklish situation that she has kept to herself for years.“The doctor said I’m not supposed to eat fried food anymore,” she said, chuckling, as fish and bacon sizzled in oil on the grill. “How am I supposed to give up fried food?”

New York Times 5 August 2008 by Timothy Williams

Syrian General Who Oversaw Arms Shipments Assassinated

CAIRO, Aug. 4 -- A Syrian general shot to death at a beach resort over the weekend was a top overseer of his country's weapons shipments to Hezbollah, according to opposition Web sites and Arab and Israeli news media.

Syria by late Monday had issued no reaction to widespread reports of the assassination of Brig. Gen. Mohammed Suleiman near the Syrian port city of Tartous on Friday night.

Maher al-Assad, head of Syria's Republican Guards and a brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, attended Suleiman's funeral Sunday, the Reuters news agency said, citing unidentified sources.

The Syrian president is on a state visit to Iran. His government enforces rigid secrecy about security matters.

The Free Syria Web site of Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian vice president now living in exile, said a sniper on a yacht shot Suleiman. The Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper said he was struck by four bullets fired from the direction of the sea.

Suleiman, 49, was known to have been a top security official, a friend to Syria's president and his brothers since their youth, and a former schoolmate of at least one of the brothers.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper said Israeli officials believed Suleiman had been in charge of shipping Iranian and Syrian weapons to the armed Lebanese movement Hezbollah, including long-range rockets used in attacks on Israel.

Haaretz did not identify its sources. Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth daily said the slain man also had been in charge of Syria's alleged nuclear program. In September, Israeli warplanes destroyed what U.S. officials described as a clandestine nuclear site in Syria's eastern desert.

Asked whether Israel was responsible for the reported assassination, Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said, "The Israeli government has neither any direct knowledge nor any comment on this incident."

A February bombing in Damascus killed Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyah. Israel denied Hezbollah accusations of responsibility for the assassination.

Despite their enmity, Israel and Syria this year confirmed they were conducting indirect talks through Turkey on a possible peace deal, based on the return of the Golan Heights to Syria.

Olmert and other Israeli officials in recent weeks have stressed weapons smuggling by Syria to Hezbollah as a major Israeli concern.

Washington Post 5 August 2008

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Samuel Sockol

Blogs, bribes, booms and post punk Beijing (with distant peasant protests and executions). Reading the News from China

Once closed to the world, China is now in the middle of a media feeding frenzy. From state controlled radio and TV to the western media and Youtube, not forgetting 16 million bloggers (and rising), there's an unprecedented flow of stories pumped out daily. But sometimes it seems that the more we're told, the less we know.

As the world braces itself for the Beijing Games, Radio Eye has assembled its own Olympic team for this week's feature, Reading The News From China. James West is a journalist with Triple J's Hack program. His book Beijing Blur (Penguin Australia) is based on his experiences working for China's state run radio; Stephanie Hemelryk Donald is professor of Chinese media studies at Sydney University and Nicholas Jose is the author of Avenue of Eternal Peace (Wakefield Press with a new Postscript Beijing 2008).

Punctuated with the sounds of China online and the music of punk and post-punk Beijing, Reading the News from China was produced by Steven Tilley and Nick Franklin.

To download audio visit:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/radioeye/stories/2008/2313040.htm

Beijing Blur

'I was in China and I wanted something more Chinese than Chinese: bigger, better, badder, redder. China held the promise of dragons' heads, acrobatics, mahjong and brothels. I was also expecting a display of kitsch, old-school communism: messages daubed on walls, Mao sculptures propped up against cash registers, crumbling socialist monoliths... But when my eyes hit Beijing for the first time, all this fell away.'

When Sydney journalist James West lands a job at a state-run radio station in Beijing, he imagines he knows a lot about China.

Then he arrives, and finds himself at a rave, dancing on the Great Wall. But is one night of hedonism on China's most well-known landmark an accurate reflection of the 'real Beijing'? Or an anomaly in an otherwise tightly controlled culture, still dealing with the aftershocks of the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square?

To find answers, he talks to the next generation about their experiences and frustrations, about politics and about the China they will create for themselves. Against a backdrop of the changing seasons in Beijing, a city he grows to love, he enters a brave new world of bloggers, punk-rock dens and underground queer culture.

An intimate account of one young Australian's year abroad, Beijing Blur is also the story of modern China - a nation poised at one of the great turns of the global historical tide.

Published by Penguin Group and available at good bookstores.

Boyd Baker House, a 50’s Modern Home for Rent

The Robin Boyd Baker House has been called one of the most important post war Australian residential buildings by Melbourne University’s Professor of Architecture, Phillip Goad. Often seen as the leader of the International Modern Movement in Australia, Boyd was based in Victoria in the 1950’s, he led a highly creative and prolific life as an architect, teacher and writer.

Boyd Baker and Dower House, Victoria, Australia, Starting from $1,500 AUD per a week, designed by Robin Boyd.

Reservations: http://www.boydbakerhouse.com.au/

Design Art London

An international fair dedicated to modern and contemporary design.

DesignArt London, the City’s premier design art fair, will return this year for its 2008 edition from October 15 to 19, with a panoramic offering of the classics of 20th century design to the most avant-garde of contemporary creations

This year, DesignArt London, is proud to count within its ranks, some 40 international exhibitors, doubling last year’s participation. This innovative and eclectic new edition will serve as an elegant showcase for some of the world’s most reputable and sought-after galleries of design and fine arts, in a strikingly beautiful setting bringing together the talents of decorators like India Mahdavi, Maria Pergay, and Jean de Piépape.

A rendez-vous not to be missed in London, at the heart of one of the most dynamic art centers of the world, at a time when the city will be the hub for the best of design and contemporary art, for the collective pleasure of the most discerning art connoisseurs.

A highly anticipated groundbreaking 2nd edition DesignArt London’s second edition will once again overlap with Frieze Art Fair and London’s Contemporary Art Week, emphasizing by that choice, the symbiotic relationship between design and contemporary art.

This year, DesignArt London expects 30,000 visitors, twice as many as last year. For this reason, DesignArt London has selected a larger venue in the center of London's fashionable Berkeley Square, behind the chic area of Bond St., down the street from Stella McCartney's boutique and a short hop from Bentley Motors’ outpost and the legendary Annabel's Club.

Art and design collectors will not miss, in the selection of unique vintage classics by Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand, and the contemporary sculptural creations of today’s superstars like Marc Newson and Zaha Hadid, the carefully curated theme of this year’s edition: the vanishing line between industrial design and artistic creation.

While DesignArt London’s international participants will dazzle you with their diversity, each shares the same kindred spirit in their passion for design creation and their dedication to the highest quality.

The vocation of DesignArt London’s organizers, Patrick Perrin, Stéphane Custot and their dedicated team at SOC, is to breath life into their concept of a 21st century “Design Salon” akin to an “ideal museum” where long-established dealers can display their wares alongside those of a younger generation of promising talents.

A feast for the eyes!

Beijing: CCTV Tower

See picture of new CCTV building in Beijing. Sublime. Almost completed.

Apologies for the limited number of posts of late. I am on a three week grand global tour - Beijing, Paris, London, Southern Spain, and Tokyo. Ideas for future posts are percolating.

Cheap Thrills - Another DiddyWah Muxtape

Visit for tunes http://www.cheapthrills.muxtape.com/

Enjoy!!!

The 9 Variables – Sun Tzu

A general should know the importance of "The Variables" in order to win the battle:

(1) An inaccessible area is not an ideal place to set up camp.
(2) Route to neighboring country from the camp must be easily accessible.
(3) Avoid remote terrain.
(4) Beware of area surrounded by mountains in case of sudden attack.
(5) If surrounded, employ various tactics to fight.
(6) In a hopeless situation, fight with all strength.
(7) Change route to confuse enemy.
(8) Ignore small skirmishes but concentrate on gathering all the army at the main battleground.
(9) Refrain from attacking minor places, but advance to the major strategic center in order to gain a speedy victory.

Diddy Wah's pre-soul rhythm blues muxtape

Diddy Wah's Muxtape

mp3: Frank Frost - My Back Scratcher
mp3: Big Joe Turner - Shake Rattle And Roll
mp3: Slim Harpo - Shake Your Hips
mp3: Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog
mp3: Gary Spider Webb - Drum City Part 1 & 2
mp3: The Sonics - Walking The Dog
mp3: Chuck Berry - Too Much Monkey Business
mp3: Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup - Shout, Sister, Shout
mp3: Arthur Alexander - Black Night
mp3: Bobby Bland - St. James Infirmary
mp3: Benny Spellman - Fortune Teller
mp3: Rene Touzet - El Loco Cha Cha

Courtesy of Diddy Wah’s ever jiving blog - http://diddywah.blogspot.com/

Heaven Is An Amusement Park That Never Closes

“Heaven is a place,” sang the Talking Heads, “where nothing ever happens.” Not so in this version of the Afterlife. This is what Heaven might have looked like in the Divina Commedia had Dante not been a medieval Italian intellectual, but a contemporary Californian comic artist, like Malachi Ward, who drew this map. In Ward’s vision, Heaven is a place very similar to your local amusement park. Only better: it never closes, you don’t ever have to leave!

Beyond the Pearly Gates (emblazoned with the slogan You Did It!) is a Nu-Body Machine (1), instantly providing everybody with the body they’ve been trying to shape into while still alive. Catholics are welcome to Heaven, but are confined to a small section next to the entrance (2) where they can indulge their semi-idolatrous tendencies at the Throne of Mary (3). Others can try their hand (and their wings) at Angel Boot Camp (4), which is “great for Pentecostals and Charismatics.”

Those less inclined towards spiritual war could go for the snack bar (5), the marital coitus castle (6), the go carts (7), the dinosaur petting zoo (8) or Joab’s candy shop (9). Joab, a nephew of King David and eventually killed at his behest, was mainly known for his martial exploits, not for his sweet tooth.

Evil is not completely out of view in this Heaven: in fact, the Damned Viewer (10) allows you to visually check up on “Adolf Hitler, your philandering boss, the smug atheist next door and all the vile people you hate” get their comeuppance in the ‘other’, decidedly less amusing place. Maybe in Hell there’s a similar viewer, showing the Throne of God and Jesus (11) and the place where people can line up to sit, as if he were a giant Santa, on God’s lap.

And there’s more. Go to Family Land to chew the fat with pre-deceased loved ones (but wouldn’t you eventually bump into them anyway elsewhere in the park?). Visit the Arena of Answers, where the Illuminatron will tell you who really shot JFK, RFK and MLK. Go to Memory Land to relive your own finest moments or, if your existence was less than extraordinary, to Fantasy Land to relive somebody else’s. In the Hall of Heroes, visit with Abraham Lincoln, Moses and Princess Diana (among others). Visit America Land, where it’s always Memorial or Veterans’ Day.

Many thanks to the ever wonderful http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/. Visit website to see an enlarged and detailed map.

Moso Pendant Lamp

The Moso pendant lamp creates an inviting warm glow with its bamboo veneer shade panels. This innovative design combines sustainable materials with an energy-efficient light source. The shade panels pop into a bamboo frame without the use of fasteners or glue. This permits the lamp to be shipped flat to minimize packaging. The Moso pendants are expertly crafted in the US. The bamboo is produced by Smith & Fong Plyboo® from sustainably managed bamboo forests in China.

Schmitt Design

Brian Schmitt also produces a line of lovely mobiles crafted from cherry veneers -Adrift Mobiles

Finnish Summer Houses

Nobody appreciates the summer more than Scandinavians. After seven months of winter they savor the brief spell of long days and temperate climates like a precious resource. Many residents—particularly those from Finland—choose to spend this period communing with nature, often in private summer homes. Finnish architects are no different. Their secondary homes are used as blank slates where they can construct their personalized visions and experiment with more daring design concepts.

Documenting these distinctive houses was the task of Jari and Sirkkaliisa Jetsonen, an artist and architect, respectively. Their book, "Finnish Summer Houses", details them, employing original artist sketches and archival photographs, along with contemporary shots. The 20 villas, cottages and cabins selected highlight summer houses dating from 1895 to the present. Featured homes are the products of architects like Alvar Aalto (pictured above on book cover), Juhani Pallasmaa and Bertel Saarnio (pictured at right). Common design themes include a focus on recreational comfort and an intimate incorporation of natural surroundings. Many also employ uniquely Finnish cultural features, like the inclusion of traditional saunas.

A particularly good read for the coming months, "Finnish Summer Houses" will appeal to fans of Scandinavian design and rustic architecture in general. It's available from Princeton Architectural Press and Amazon.

by Doug Black, 5 June 2008

http://www.coolhunting.com/

AntiVj

AntiVJ is a visual label from crustea on Vimeo.

Berlin Sessions @ Future Classic - 21 June Sydney

SolidState Los Angeles - Fine Lines - Edits

It has been a while since I last posted a SolidStateLA session on the blog......too long. Listen to the last mix Fine Lines - Edit Edition (and others). Soul, boogie, party classics, and some disco to boot:

http://www.solidstatela.podomatic.com/

Liquid Liquid - "Cavern" 1983

Florida Drive By - The SunShine State Mix

1. There is a Good Earth Out Tonight, Mystic Moods Orchestra.

2. Your Place or Mine, Mystic Moods.

3. Angola Louisana, Gil Scott Heron.

4. Summertime, James Last.

5. Any Way You Want It, Mystic Moods.

6. Evolution, Magnum.

7. Ego Tripping, Nikki Giovanni.

8. Give It Up, The Artistic Sounds.

9. Na Baixa Do Sapateiro, Meireles e Sua Orquestra.

10. Planet of the Apes, The London Philharmonic Orchestra with the Galactic Symphony and Synthesizers.

11. Do Whatever Sets You Free, Ramsey Lewis.

12. Evil, Upchurch/Tennyson.

13. Janitzio, Savage.

14. Bang, Bang, Nuevo Bugaloos.

Enjoy the SunShine State Mix

Apes' Shuffle - The Jeff Wayne Space Suffle

Departure lounge to nowhere

IF the Jetsons had flown Trans World Airlines, they would have felt at home in its terminal at Kennedy Airport, a swooping, birdlike concrete building, designed by the architect Eero Saarinen, that fed its passengers out to their gates through dreamlike, windowless white tubes. The departure lounges were similarly futuristic: glassy flared cabins, outfitted with curving banquettes, padded sectional tables, and a rounded desk for the gate attendant.

Last week, however, jacked up on timbers and amputated from its concourse in an out-of-the-way section of the old T.W.A. tarmac, the last remaining Saarinen departure lounge had little of that Jet Age glamour. In fact, it looked like nothing so much as the bow of a rusting beige ship.

The story of how the lounge got there is an odd tale of airport diplomacy. JetBlue Airways is constructing a large, crescent-shaped terminal just behind the 46-year-old T.W.A. building, which has been shuttered since 2001. To make way for its new structure, the airline planned to demolish Saarinen’s original concourses and departure lounges, while preserving the far better known terminal and its connector tubes, which the Port Authority, the airport’s operator, will refurbish and reopen.
But last April, to placate preservationists, the Port Authority agreed to spare a single Saarinen lounge. It spent $895,000 to saw the 700-ton structure off the concourse and haul it 1,500 feet out of the way. That feat was so gargantuan that a crew from the History Channel showed up to record it for a show called “Mega Movers.” There the lounge has sat for almost a year, while everyone ponders its future.

Among those doing the pondering is Bill Hooper, an architect retained by JetBlue. “It’s like having an anvil sitting on a bunch of soda straws,” Mr. Hooper said the other day as he surveyed the lounge.

The Municipal Art Society, a preservation group, argues that the lounge should be incorporated into JetBlue’s new terminal.

“The lounge is a piece of DNA,” said Frank Sanchis, the society’s senior vice president. “With it, if someone ever wanted to restore the Saarinen building for use by smaller aircraft, they could see the foundations, how it was supported, the configuration of the glass, the slabs, the tiling. To throw away that opportunity is a tremendous waste.”

But JetBlue has long maintained that it would be prohibitively expensive to restore the lounge, and difficult to put the structure to use. The Port Authority has come to agree, concluding that money available for restoration would be better used for the Saarinen terminal, known as the head house. Last month, with the approval of the state’s Historic Preservation Office, the authority gave JetBlue permission to demolish the lounge.

At this point, even some preservationists approve. “We support this plan,” said Peg Breen, president of the Landmarks Conservancy. “Given that JetBlue doesn’t think it works with the design of the terminal, and that the money for restoring it could otherwise be used for the head house, we think that’s a more appropriate use.”

New York Times 16 March 2008 Alex Mindlin

Cachao, The Father of Mambo Passes Away at 89

Sat March 22nd 2008, Israel “Cachao” López, better known as Cachao passed away at a Coral Gables hospital in Miami at age 89. The Cuban born bassist was considered by fans, music critics and historians to be one of the leading figures in Latin popular music. His recent accomplishments include working with Gloria Estefan’s best selling album “90 Millas,” performing alongside actor Andy Garcia and appearing in a new upcoming documentary “Cachao: Una Más” to be premiered next month in San Francisco.

Along with Celia Cruz and Tito Puente, Cachao’s music influenced generations of musicians and shaped the way Latin rhythms were played around the world. Over the years, his popularity grew as new generations of artists discovered his dazzling body of work and jovial personality.

Cachao’s career began when he was still a child in Havana; his talent were unmistakable and quickly recognized, leading him to join the prestigious Havana Symphony. Over the course his stint with the symphony, Cachao played with legendary classical music icons such as Igor Stravinsky.

Credited by Tito Puente as one of the fathers of the “Mambo,” Cachao, along with his brother Orestes orchestrated music for the band Arcaño y Sus Maravillas. The band was influential in popularizing the charanga, a music style that would be feature in Fania releases from Johnny Pacheco in the early sixties.

The next big delopment in Cachao’s career came in 1957, when he introduced—almost by accident—the Descarga. "It was a spur-of-the-moment thing," Cachao said to the San Francisco Chronicle. "We were all working in nightclubs and had to wait until 4 a.m. to do the session. I believe the freedom of the improvisation allowed us to investigate our thoughts and souls with respect to the music. I suggested ideas, but everybody did their own thing."

Those Descargas went on to influence generations of Latin music superstars. Today it’s almost impossible to envision a salsa concert without a Descarga (Free Jam Session) and top players such as Ray Barretto, Celia Cruz and Héctor Lavoe. Supergroups like the celebrated Fania All Stars used the Descargas as the centerpiece of their popular concerts.

During the sixties Cachao—like many of his compatriots—sought exile outside of Cuban soil. This led him to spend a decade in Europe, where he played his music to enthusiastic audiences. Still, it wasn’t until the seventies when Cachao moved to the US, to the city of Las Vegas. Cachao played all the top hotels of the era and earned a solid reputation as one the best musicians in town.

Even so, it wasn’t until his relocation to Miami—a city steeped in Latin lore—where Cachao’s famed would experience a renaissance. Once in Miami, Cachao reenergized the city’s Latin music scene, participating in recordings with Andy Garcia and becoming a staple at festivals, such as Calle Ocho—were he was the Carnival King if 2007. He also won a Grammy for the album Master Sessions Vol 1 in 1995.

Described by his colleagues, friends and fans as a kind man, Cachao leaves us with a rich legacy, unparalleled in the history of Latin music.

AntiVJ, Projection on a Building

AntiVJ is made up of:

Yannick Jacquet (legoman)
Joanie Lemercier (crustea)
Olivier Ratsi (Emovie)
Romain Tardy (Aalto)

www.antivj.com

Sister Nancy, Bam Bam

Curtis Knight, How Would You Feel with Jimi Hendrix

Langton Hughes Library, Clinton, Tennessee

The Children's Defense Fund now owns the former Alex Haley Farm and uses it as a headquarters and conference center. Maya Lin was commissioned to remodel a barn on the property to accommodate a 5000-volume reference library on civil rights and children's advocacy and a small book store."The idea was to maintain the integrity and character of the old barn yet introduce a new inner layer. The integration of old and new allowed me to leave exposed and untouched the main body of the building yet build the library within the existing structure." (Lin, Maya Ying, Boundaries, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2000, p.10:24)

Our Latin Thing. 1971

Dizzie Gillespie, Cal Tjader, Monterrey Jazz Fest. 1975

Finding The Stuff Of Art In the Gutter

WALKING on the Lower East Side of Manhattan six years ago, Tom Fruin noticed a yellow plastic drug baggie. Curious, he picked it up, thinking that as an artist he could do something with it.

He did. Over the next 18 months, Mr. Fruin, 27, who lives in Brooklyn, collected almost 3,000 drug bags from around the city. They were plastic or glassine, some clear, others solid-colored or patterned, and they ranged from pinkie-nail-size crack bags to credit-card-size marijuana packets. He sewed them together into a quilt that sold for $20,000.

These days, collectors are snapping up Mr. Fruin's works faster than he can make them. His first solo show, at the Stefan Stux Gallery in Chelsea last year, sold out. Almost all of the 19 quilts in his second solo exhibit, ''Cultural Narcotics: The Straight Dope,'' were already sold when the show opened at Stux on March 30. The buyers included the actor Willem Dafoe, who paid $30,000 for a piece.

Asked about the Dafoe purchase, Mr. Fruin looked abashed. ''I guess these things are sort of prestigious,'' he said. ''But that's not an indicator of success for me.''

Mr. Fruin had a graphic design career in mind when he moved to New York in 1996, after receiving a degree in studio art from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Instead, he spends his days bicycling around parks and housing projects, storing his findings in Ziploc bags and scribbling notes (''extreme corner light blue bags 5'') for later reference.

Over the years, random collecting revealed patterns: a cluster of colorful heroin bags had been opened the same way, presumably by the same user; bags from the same drug batches were decorated with dinosaurs, dollar signs or logos like ''Dirty Urine'' and ''R.I.P.''

Mr. Fruin hangs his quilts from metal rods extending out from the wall, creating a stained-glass effect. ''For me it's not so much about the imagery as what it actually is,'' he said. ''The light going through completes it for me -- it's sort of an ephemeral, nonexistent residue of itself.''

Equal parts anthropology and art, Mr. Fruin's pieces are usually composed according to geography or chronology. One quilt maps out a housing project, with lighter bags representing buildings and darker ones the surrounding grassy areas. Another, replicating the American flag, contains baggies and documents -- a scrap of a tax return, a name tag -- found under the floorboards of an apartment in Manhattan's meatpacking district.

Collecting bags is occasionally hazardous -- Mr. Fruin has had boiling water and diapers thrown at him and has had run-ins with the police -- and usually solitary. With little information about the bags' origins, he spins his own tales. Finding bags with cocaine straws inside, he imagines a user tossing evidence out a window. Most bags are empty, but they sometimes contain seeds and on a rare occasion are filled with drugs (which hasn't caused legal problems in galleries so far).

''I like to think that's sort of a rich addict,'' Mr. Fruin said, laughing. ''Maybe they're just doing it in the dark.''

By Deborah Bach New York Times April 14, 2002

Record Store Day April 19 - Ameoba Music

Jail Finds

A library volunteer from Dane County, Wisconsin has carefully catalogued prisoner's abandoned poems, drawings, and scribbles from the jail house.

For more pictures visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/jumble/collections/72157594588091111/

Brain Control Monkey

East Germany lives on

I've posted about the Strange Maps website before, but thanks to that site I've learnt something that's too surreal for words.

I honestly believed that East-Germany ended with the unification of October 3rd, 1990. However, that's not quite the case. Let's go back to the year 1972, when this story started...

In June of that year, Fidel Castro visited East-Germany. As a present, he gave the communist party of that country a small island in the caribic. That the "gift" was actually the price Cuba had to pay to obtain the right to a higher production of sugar is beside the point; the point is that East-Germany got an island. It was named Cayo Blanco del Sur (white island of the south), until it was later renamed Cayo Ernesto Thaelmann, after a leader of the German Communist Party in the thirties, called Ernst Thälmann.

Now we should skip a whole bunch of years, and flash-forward to 1990, the year of the German unification. In the German-German contract of unification (Deutsch-Deutschen Einigungsvertrag), it was agreed that five new federal lands (bundesländer) and Berlin were added to the federal republic of Germany. There was no mention of the island. If the island was actually part of the deal, you'd expect it to be part of the contract, right?

The situation right now: Havana has more or less taken control of the island, claiming that the gift of 1972 was merely a symbolical one. But officially, East-Germany lives on as a tiny island in the Caribbean...

courtsey of http://archipelagoes.blogspot.com/

More Pentagon Black Patches

Clockwise from top left: Ghost Squadron. For search and rescue; National Reconnaissance Office. Dragon is code for infrared imaging on advanced KH-11 satellites; Desert Prowler. May represent Groom Lake, Nev., a k a Area 51; Special Projects Office. Oversaw F-117A stealth fighter support; 4451st Test Squadron. Stealth fighters; 413th Flight Test Squadron. Possibly referring to simulated or real electronic threats against aircraft

Skulls. Black cats. A naked woman riding a killer whale. Grim reapers. Snakes. Swords. Occult symbols. A wizard with a staff that shoots lightning bolts. Moons. Stars. A dragon holding the Earth in its claws.

No, this is not the fantasy world of a 12-year-old boy.

It is, according to a new book, part of the hidden reality behind the Pentagon’s classified, or “black,” budget that delivers billions of dollars to stealthy armies of high-tech warriors. The book offers a glimpse of this dark world through a revealing lens — patches — the kind worn on military uniforms.

“It’s a fresh approach to secret government,” Steven Aftergood, a security expert at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, said in an interview. “It shows that these secret programs have their own culture, vocabulary and even sense of humor.”

One patch shows a space alien with huge eyes holding a stealth bomber near its mouth. “To Serve Man” reads the text above, a reference to a classic “Twilight Zone” episode in which man is the entree, not the customer. “Gustatus Similis Pullus” reads the caption below, dog Latin for “Tastes Like Chicken.”

Military officials and experts said the patches are real if often unofficial efforts at building team spirit.

The classified budget of the Defense Department, concealed from the public in all but outline, has nearly doubled in the Bush years, to $32 billion. That is more than the combined budgets of the Food and Drug Administration, the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Those billions have expanded a secret world of advanced science and technology in which military units and federal contractors push back the frontiers of warfare. In the past, such handiwork has produced some of the most advanced jets, weapons and spy satellites, as well as notorious boondoggles.

Budget documents tell little. This year, for instance, the Pentagon says Program Element 0603891c is receiving $196 million but will disclose nothing about what the project does. Private analysts say it apparently aims at developing space weapons.

Trevor Paglen, an artist and photographer finishing his Ph.D. in geography at the University of California, Berkeley, has managed to document some of this hidden world. The 75 patches he has assembled reveal a bizarre mix of high and low culture where Latin and Greek mottos frame images of spooky demons and sexy warriors, of dragons dropping bombs and skunks firing laser beams.

“Oderint Dum Metuant,” reads a patch for an Air Force program that mines spy satellite images for battlefield intelligence, according to Mr. Paglen, who identifies the saying as from Caligula, the first-century Roman emperor famed for his depravity. It translates “Let them hate so long as they fear.”

Wizards appear on several patches. The one hurling lightning bolts comes from a secret Air Force base at Groom Lake, northwest of Las Vegas in a secluded valley. Mr. Paglen identifies its five clustered stars and one separate star as a veiled reference to Area 51, where the government tests advanced aircraft and, U.F.O. buffs say, captured alien spaceships.

The book offers not only clues into the nature of the secret programs, but also a glimpse of zealous male bonding among the presumed elite of the military-industrial complex. The patches often feel like fraternity pranks gone ballistic.

The book’s title? “I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me,” published by Melville House. Mr. Paglen says the title is the Latin translation of a patch designed for the Navy Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 4, at Point Mugu, Calif. Its mission, he says, is to test strike aircraft, conventional weapons and electronic warfare equipment and to develop tactics to use the high-tech armaments in war.

“The military has patches for almost everything it does,” Mr. Paglen writes in the introduction. “Including, curiously, for programs, units and activities that are officially secret.”

He said contractors in some cases made the patches to build esprit de corps. Other times, he added, military units produced them informally, in contrast to official patches.

Mr. Paglen said he found them by touring bases, noting what personnel wore, joining alumni associations, interviewing active and former team members, talking to base historians and filing requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

A spokesman for the Pentagon, Cmdr. Bob Mehal, said it would be imprudent to comment on “which patches do or do not represent classified units.” In an e-mail message, Commander Mehal added, “It would be supposition to suggest ‘anyone’ is uncomfortable with this book.”

Each year, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a private group in Washington, publishes an update on the Pentagon’s classified budget. It says the money began to soar after the two events of Mr. Bush’s coming into office and terrorists’ 9/11 attacks.

What sparked his interest, Mr. Paglen recalled, were Vice President Dick Cheney’s remarks as the Pentagon and World Trade Center smoldered. On “Meet the Press,” he said the nation would engage its “dark side” to find the attackers and justice. “We’ve got to spend time in the shadows,” Mr. Cheney said. “It’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.”

In an interview, Mr. Paglen said that remark revived memories of his childhood when his military family traveled the globe to bases often involved in secret missions. “I’d go out drinking with Special Forces guys,” he recalled. “I was 15, and they were 20, and they could never say where they where coming from or what they were doing. You were just around the stuff.”Intrigued by Mr. Cheney’s remarks as well as his own recollections, Mr. Paglen set off to map the secret world and document its expansion. He traveled widely across the Southwest, where the military keeps many secret bases. His labors, he said, resulted in his Ph.D. thesis as well as a book, “Blank Spots on a Map,” that Dutton plans to publish next year.

The research also led to another book, “Torture Taxi,” that Melville House published in 2006. It described how spies kidnapped and detained suspected terrorists around the globe.

“Black World,” a 2006 display of his photographs at Bellwether, a gallery in Chelsea, showed “anonymous-looking buildings in parched landscapes shot through a shimmering heat haze,” Holland Cotter wrote in The New York Times, adding that the images “seem to emit a buzz of mystery as they turn military surveillance inside out: here the surveillant is surveilled.”

In this research, Mr. Paglen became fascinated by the patches and started collecting them and displaying them at talks and shows. He said a breakthrough occurred around 2004, when he visited Peter Merlin, an “aerospace archaeologist” who works in the Mojave Desert not far from a sprawling military base. Mr. Merlin argued that the lightning bolts, stars and other symbols could be substantive clues about unit numbers and operating locations, as well as the purpose of hidden programs.

“These symbols,” Mr. Paglen wrote, “were a language. If you could begin to learn its grammar, you could get a glimpse into the secret world itself.”

His book explores this idea and seeks to decode the symbols. Many patches show the Greek letter sigma, which Mr. Paglen identifies as a technical term for how well an object reflects radar waves, a crucial parameter in developing stealthy jets.

A patch from a Groom Lake unit shows the letter sigma with the “buster” slash running through it, as in the movie “Ghost Busters.” “Huge Deposit — No Return” reads its caption. Huge Deposit, Mr. Paglen writes, “indicates the bomb load deposited by the bomber on its target, while ‘No Return’ refers to the absence of a radar return, meaning the aircraft was undetectable to radar.”In an interview, Mr. Paglen said his favorite patch was the dragon holding the Earth in its claws, its wings made of American flags and its mouth wide open, baring its fangs. He said it came from the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees developing spy satellites. “There’s something both belligerent and weirdly self-critical about it,” he remarked. “It’s representing the U.S. as a dragon with the whole world in its clutches.”

The field is expanding. Dwayne A. Day and Roger Guillemette, military historians, wrote an article published this year in The Space Review (www.thespacereview.com/article/1033/1) on patches from secret space programs. “It’s neat stuff,” Dr. Day said in an interview. “They’re not really giving away secrets. But the patches do go farther than the organizations want to go officially.”

Mr. Paglen plans to keep mining the patches and the field of clandestine military activity. “It’s kind of remarkable,” he said. “This stuff is a huge industry, I mean a huge industry. And it’s remarkable that you can develop these projects on an industrial scale, and we don’t know what they are. It’s an astounding feat of social engineering.”

by William Broad New York Times 1 April.

Bandung Art Deco Indonesia

Bandung is the capital city of West Java, Indonesia. Its roots dated from prehistoric time, when a group of prehistoric people lived on the northern part of an ancient lake. Some thousands' years ago the lake became dry and changed into the present Bandung valley. The city is located on high land surrounded by spectacular hills and mountains, and because of that has a much cooler climate than most of Indonesian cities. The name of Bandung has been known since the fifteenth century as a part of the Hindu Pajajaran kingdom. From 1821 until 1852 the city was closed to the European and Chinese people.

Art Deco

Art Deco is the contemporary Modern Design, Architecture, and a broad spectrum of Decorative Arts. It drew renewed inspiration from ancient arts and primitive arts, and was purified by ideas of the functionalists. In the United States it was known as "Modernism," and in France as "Art Moderne." Some said that it was a reaction to "Art Nouveau," and the other said that it was an extension of "Art Nouveau."

The term "Art Deco" was first used in 1968, in a book written by Bevis Hillier to describe the interrelated art and design movement of the era. Parallel to the movements in the United States were the three main movements in Europe. The first one was started in Austria and Germany, known as "Jogendstil." In contrast to "Art Nouveau," it emphasized the functional design that was based on logic and geometry. The second one was the decorative movement as an extension of "Art Nouveau," that can be identified from the highly colorful and ornamental style which ruled Paris in the immediate post World War years. Instead of maidens and flower sprays, arches, sunbursts, colorful geometric patterns, and floral abstraction themes were introduced. The third movement was the principle of Dutch Modern Decorative Art and Decorative Movement in Architecture, as the peak of the Amsterdam School from 1910 to 1930. It was the Dutch modern expressionist architectural style, a rational architecture which elements were derived from the structure.

The climax of Art Deco came in 1925 with the "Paris Exposition International des Arts Decorative et Industries." It had originally been proposed in 1912 for 1915, in order to inspire the French designers to develop works equal to that produced by their German contemporaries. The designers produced various abstract floral ornamentation's derived from "Art Nouveau."

In Architecture, the 1920's style was characterized by the design of pavilions with zigzagged setbacks, the use of unusual materials, the incorporation of decorative wall paintings, ornamental metalwork's, and decorative glasswork on geometric and floral themes. Many examples of the works from the peak of Amsterdam School era can be seen throughout the Netherlands. Many buildings are of an exceptional quality and have superb details.

Art Deco and the Amsterdam School in Bandung

Just like the influence of Hindu and Buddhist cultures in the 7th century, followed by the Islamic and Chinese cultural influence in 13th century, the Dutch cultural influence can be seen as just another part of other influences from abroad which shaped the Indonesian culture.

After the first World War, there were various movements in design and architecture, two of which were the Amsterdam School and De Stijl. The Amsterdam School stream has often defined as a reaction to the strict rationalism of Berlage in mid 20s. It is described as a non-theoretical and unsystematic in character, the very antithesis of Berlage's concept of communal architecture. It emphasized the individual artistry. It has same concept of decoration and design as Art Deco.

The Amsterdam School was a plastic and organic expressionist architectural movement with reference to Wright, and followed more constructional and functional principles. The Amsterdam School architects designed building masses of craftsmanship in wood, brick, iron, and painted glass. The architectural works were dominated by the undulating organic forms, used rough wrought stones, concrete, and iron. Their new communal housing projects were much more plastic in their accumulation and related fully to their immediate surroundings. The design concept showed the appearance of organic architectural plans. Building structures were not concealed and clearly visible. The decoration was derived from the structure.

There is an eastern cultural influence on the architectonic conception, including the Sundanese roof style. Of the important people in this movement are Van der Mey, De Klerk, Luthman and Kramer, who are among the most admired influence in Indonesia. These architects seem to have design influences on Indonesian architecture.

The city of Bandung architecture of that era was strongly influenced by Dutch design. It is the amalgam of Western and Eastern culture, which is sometimes called the "Indo-European" culture. In the first generation of Bandung Art Deco buildings, the similarity of the modern expressionist design concept of Van der May and Frank Lloyd Wright buildings were seen, for example in the Preanger Hotel designed by C.P. Wolff Schoemaker, with its geometric decorative elements on the exterior walls.

In the second generation of Bandung Art Deco buildings, the volume is the effect of static solidity, and is more accurately of plane and surfaces. The pure architectural symbol is the open box, as well as planes surrounding a volume, a geometrically bounded and weightless space. The villa of Ang Eng Kan designed by F.W. Brinkman in 1930 exhibits this aesthetical quality. In the second half of the period, the architects used more simple design patterns like lines, and the towering cylinder that has a basic design similarity with the Isola design by Wolff Schoemaker in 1931. The dynamic interior space concept is clearly seen in the interior lay-out of the building.

A.F. Albers and the Late Art Deco

Architecture expresses the life of the epoch. The architectural concept of the modernist architect was defined by the aesthetic demand for return to simplicity of form. The play of basic form of masses brought together in light and shade. Some of the buildings designed by Brinkman, like the Singer building in jalan Asia Afrika and the villa Ang Eng Kan in jalan Sangkuriang which were built in 1930, expressed the modern composition of boxes of De Stijl.

The other beautiful basic building form which produces plastic power and aesthetical emotion, instead of the box composition mentioned before, is the cylindrical composition of form as the IKIP building design by C.P. Wolff Schoemaker built in 1928, and located in the northern hills of Bandung.

Decorative Art in the late period of Art Deco was related to the style of the modern dynamic and plastic architecture. It is the "streamline" architecture, and is one of the stylistic references of world modern architectural technology. The lightness of the building structure and the dynamic streamline facade of Homann hotel, Bank Pembangunan Daerah, Three Colour Villa, and the Dago Thee Villa, designed by A.F. Aalbers between 1935 to 1938 are the four examples that we can find in the city.

People sometimes called it the "Ocean Liner" style, its reference to the ship design expressing the goal of a modern society. It is the translation of machines into architectural terms; the expression of motion, modern technology, optimism, and social order.

The Decorative Art and the architectural development shows how the acceptance of the later and best of Western architecture allowed the Dutch influence to be absorbed without destroying the city's long term identity. We should see the cultural mixture as an integral part of a cultural continuity and part of the whole history of Indonesia. The buildings of the period are the treasure of learning, the delight in the work of another era and have to be taken more care of.

References:

Akihary, Huib, "Architectuur en Stedebouw in Indonesie", Grafiplan, Geeuweebrug, 1988.

Duncan, Alistrair, "American Art Deco", Thames and Hudson Ltd., London, 1989.

Hartono, Dibyo (et.al.), "Studi Sejarah Arsitektur Pusat Kota Bandung", Bandung Society for Heritage Conservation, Bandung, 1989.