Posts Tagged ‘shenzhen’

“international festival”

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

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Swedish architects Tor Lindstrand and Marten Spangberg provided rare comic relief, with the project Four Ecologies of International Festival. Labelling themselves half architect, half performance artist, one of their ‘ecologies’ consisted of a karoake machine, some colourful LED tubing, a board with the text INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL written with a felt-tip pen in unsteady outline letters, a dry-ice machine, and a small camping table overladen with bottles of vodka, Pims and various other highly alcoholic beverages. The architects, clad in t-shirts sporting either the charachter for SHEN or the character for ZHEN distributed the booze generously and freely to any passer-by who showed an interest. Hong Rongman, Bert and Monica and myself found ourselves hooked to this little party. However corny and silly this all may sound…I think it was one of the few on-site installations that actually connected with local citizens. Like the one fellow who kept on coming for more free booze, getting Hong to translate for him that he wanted no less than 6 different types of alcohol poured into one cup.

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Hong Rongman, gentelman as always, offers to pose in the t-shirt with two unknown pretty girls. Together they spell shen-zhen- she (= shen zhen city)

mars attacks?

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

A large part of the current Shenzhen Biennale is located around, and in, the Shenzhen Civic Centre. I found myself horrified by the structure that this collection of civic services, functions, municipal government  etc. is housed in. Specifically, the scale and shape of the roof felt to me like a monster from hell, a giant creature descending on the people of Shenzhen, an alien space craft not coming in peace but hovering menacingly over the people. Seldom has a building evoked such a strong emotional reaction from me.

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In front of the Civic Center, you can make out Medular Pavilion designed by Maurer United Architects. Amazingly, it managed to hold it’s own, scale-wise, next to that unholy sized rooftop.

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Jiakun Architects made the pavilion, With the Wind 2009, that echos the shape of the Civic Center roof using a net kept afloat in the air by balloons. A comment on the meglomaniacal character of the neighboring roof I wonder?

reboot

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

After almost a month of blog idleness – due to heavy teaching load, various visitors, and a bit of travelling – I’ll attempt to resume some kind of posting frequency. Albeit in no particular chronological order. So I’ll begin with a couple photos that I took yesterday, in Shenzhen, where I was visiting the 2009 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture.
These photos obviously have nothing to do with architecture or urbanism – but I have to admit, this face mask thrilled me more than any of the works I’d seen. Striking and bizar, the zipper lips are actually rather practical too, at least I imagine they are, because the voice of the wearer is no longer muffled by the mask. However, I’m sure the main point is the visual effect – either looking like a character from a comic, or playfully conveying the issue of free speech. Cool!

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