visions of heaven

more coffee table books again, (i think i'm going to need a bigger coffee table) and while i'm not a religious person in the slightest, i've always been fascinated by the architecture, symbolism and theory behind some of the church's greatest buildings. if ever you go travelling through europe, you will notice all these ancient tiny little villages and towns scattered over the countryside that all have these amazing cathedrals that dwarf any other structure around. and one can only imagine how many more of these would still be around had it not been for the destructive bombings of world war ii. in particular, i am mesmerised by gazing up at the domed/vaulted structure and defintion that adorns the ceilings of these ancient giants. and while i always attempted to capture for myself some of these brilliant visions, i never quite had the photographic skills required to depict what i was seeing in all its glory. the autistic in me is fascinated by the complex mathematical geometry and abstract pattern involved in the construction, the vast majority of which were built using the primitive technologies of years gone by.
which is where david stephenson's book"visions of heaven" comes in handy. tasmanian photographer stephenson has kindly taken the liberty of saving me a sore neck, snapping over 120 of the most amazing images you will ever see. check out more of his images here

the bridge of aspiration

i have had an image of this bridge on my bedroom wall for the last 4 years, after i made a stealthy mission into the offices at work and defaced a coworkers calendar to steal the picture!
located in floral street, covent garden (london), engineer buro happold's "bridge of aspiration" spans the gap between the royal ballet school and the royal opera society. i first noticed this incredible, twisting, glass footbridge one evening when it was all lit up and looking incredible, despite having walked past the site numerous times before.
i wish i knew how to upload more than one image to blog entries, but do a google image search of "bridge of aspiration" and you will see some amazing images taken from all different viewpoints, including a few taken from INSIDE the bridge!

coffee table books

phaidon is reknowned for releasing some amazing books with lots of pretty pictures, i should know, my library is FULL of them. and it gives me fantastic excitement and spine chills when i check out the local bookstore in my lunchbreak (ariel at darlinghurst is absolutely phenomenal, for those who love art/philosophy/design etc, check out their collection!) and see that phaidon have released the third edition in their "10x10" series, whereby 10 design critics/architecture kingpins pick their 10 favourite up-and-coming architects (making for 100 in total) and cram this huge big book with lots of visual stimuli! also check out phaidon's other books in the series, "area"/"area 2" (meant to be little 2 to indicate area squared, but my typing skills are slightly lacking) which uses the same 10x10 concept, but with graphic designers as the topic of choice, and "cream"/"fresh cream"/"ice cream" from a few years back which went 10x10 on visual artists. makes for a well-wicked coffee table book for the design conscious mind, or for people who want to pretend to friends that they are actually "cultured".

peter eisenman / deconstructavism

...was randomly searching the intergoogle, looking up some of the old architects i used to have a fondness for, and stumbled upon this unbelievable concept model by architect peter eisenman, the master of the often controversial and highly confrontational "deconstructivist" movement of architecture, (of whom frank gehry, rem koolhaus, zaha hadid and daniel libeskind are also considered exponents) which was largely inspired by the philosphophy of derrida, and the geometrical imbalances of russian constravism and minimalism (two of my most favourite art/architecture movements!). sadly, i have no idea what this building is or any other information about it, just two ridiculously amazing images, in his distinctly unique style.

landing sites - places to go when you die.

whoa. attempting to get my head around the work of arakawa and gins at the moment in a book called "architecture: site of reversible destiny", and getting majorly mind-fucked in the process. he's a philosopher, she's an architect, and their body of work revolves around the concepts of self-knowledge and self-formation, about how the human body interacts with the built environement and the socio-historical matrix, and the role the body played in the formation of the man-made world, presented through a philosophical argument into the realms of construction. some of the images presented are equal parts stunning and disturbing.