..Architecture of Masking Tape, White Cardboard, and Leaning Walls ;) Don't say I don't work hard!
If you think the model looks awful, it's the execution - my fault and mine only! Not the idea nor the concept of the building!
H.N.
Showing posts with label architecture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label architecture. Show all posts
..Architecture of Masking Tape, White Cardboard, and Leaning Walls ;) Don't say I don't work hard!
If you think the model looks awful, it's the execution - my fault and mine only! Not the idea nor the concept of the building!
H.N.
OK, so this should explain my absence lately: I’ve re-designed my website. Not that the old one wasn’t good enough, I thought a new year, a new layout – hey why not? ;) Go check it out at www.hiennguyen.co.uk, hope you’ll like it.
Lucky me I had the right partner to do this hard work with, and I meant ‘right’ in every sense of the word. T.’s been there all along, it’s not like his support is a new thing, but his endurance for all my nagging whilst we were doing this site makes it hit me at an oblique angle.
It bolts down to this: the necessities of the day to day pull us along, against our will or otherwise. The alarm wakes us, we have to down enough caffeine to be awake and alert, and we need to look presentable to the world, all the while checking the clock on the wall. If it’s one of those perfectly easy mornings, we fulfil these obligations with time to spare.
But some mornings one of us wakes up with a massive headache, there’s nothing in the fridge for breakfast, not because we forgot our food shopping but the fridge was broken and the replacement has not yet arrived. Sometimes there’s no caffeine and we are forced to face all this when being all grumpy. And then one of us would start working on her (or his) website ;) and nag the other into helping her (or him!). And you would actually get on with it giving her your full attention and all the time you could afford. This is life. This is ‘partnership’. The majority of it is even more mundane than what I just described, interspersed with moments of joy and pain that acts as markers on the road. It’s a challenge. But when you have the ‘right’ partner, you develop a rhythm, a way of balancing each other’s weaknesses, so that even on the catastrophic mornings you can pull it off. You still sometimes take the hits from life, but you divide the pain, and at the end of the day, you commiserate together.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is THANK YOU ♥
And hey, HAPPY NEW 2011! ;) New year, new website, new job, new life for me. What’s new for you? Let us know.
H.N.
*this is the abridged version of an article on Blueprint.
‘I hate how no one ever talks about how bad British architecture really is. I hate the bastards who make these buildings. So here I am, taking the piss out of them.’ This is the strap line for Bad British Architecture (BBA), a website written under the pseudonym Ghost of Nairn that strives to point out all that is wrong with new buildings in the UK. Rowan Moore recently mentioned the site in an article for The Observer as an antidote to the pro-British cheerleading that emerges from the excessively cosy architecture establishment.
BBA, though, is not so far from the establishment itself: it is written by Kieran Long, ex-editor of the Architects Journal and Architectural Review, and current architecture critic for the London Evening Standard. Like Gavin Stamp’s Pilotti column for Private Eye, although considerably less well written and researched, BBA is an outlet for reactionary bile that doesn’t make its way into Long’s contribution to mainstream outlets.
Blogs don’t necessarily mean outlets for rage. It is, fundamentally, a mean of communication.
Moore’s distinction between the voices of establishment and the opinions of the blogosphere is understandable and widespread. Bloggers are widely seen as lone, independent hobbyists. Andrew Marr recently caused a stir by characterizing bloggers as ’socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother’s basements… They are very angry people.’ (seriously?!)
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‘I hate how no one ever talks about how bad British architecture really is. I hate the bastards who make these buildings. So here I am, taking the piss out of them.’ This is the strap line for Bad British Architecture (BBA), a website written under the pseudonym Ghost of Nairn that strives to point out all that is wrong with new buildings in the UK. Rowan Moore recently mentioned the site in an article for The Observer as an antidote to the pro-British cheerleading that emerges from the excessively cosy architecture establishment.
BBA, though, is not so far from the establishment itself: it is written by Kieran Long, ex-editor of the Architects Journal and Architectural Review, and current architecture critic for the London Evening Standard. Like Gavin Stamp’s Pilotti column for Private Eye, although considerably less well written and researched, BBA is an outlet for reactionary bile that doesn’t make its way into Long’s contribution to mainstream outlets.
Blogs don’t necessarily mean outlets for rage. It is, fundamentally, a mean of communication.
Moore’s distinction between the voices of establishment and the opinions of the blogosphere is understandable and widespread. Bloggers are widely seen as lone, independent hobbyists. Andrew Marr recently caused a stir by characterizing bloggers as ’socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed young men sitting in their mother’s basements… They are very angry people.’ (seriously?!)
Long’s Bad British Architecture, though highly critical of modern buildings, focuses upon work by large commercial architects or faceless developers that have no critical standing. Largely based on upon renderings, photographs or passing observations, it hardly amounts to a useful form of criticism. One can see the beginnings of a critical approach to architecture online: recent articles by Murphy on Zaha Hadid’s aquatic centre for the London Olympics, or Hall on the legacy of Alvar Aalto give some indication of the direction it could take, but still they remain isolated examples, and take a deeply personal view rather than a critical position. As traditional publishing media and institutions become less influential, one wonders where architects can go to find informed, intelligent criticism of their work.
Personally, I think BBA is a great blog, giving architecture the so-much-needed ‘fun’ factor. Hands up if you DON’T want to rate buildings as ‘Normal Bad’, ‘Funny Bad’, or ‘GBH’ (short for ‘Grievous Bodily Harm’)! Why so serious?
It’s no longer possible to consider architectural blogging to be purely the realm of lone speculation. They are means of establishing networks of dialogue and debate, they are increasingly by architects, students and academics, and institutions will increasingly use them as a way to curate and disseminate ideas. As blogs become a more important part of the establishment, a more realistic and rigorous approach to architectural criticism online is urgently needed.
Personally, I think BBA is a great blog, giving architecture the so-much-needed ‘fun’ factor. Hands up if you DON’T want to rate buildings as ‘Normal Bad’, ‘Funny Bad’, or ‘GBH’ (short for ‘Grievous Bodily Harm’)! Why so serious?
It’s no longer possible to consider architectural blogging to be purely the realm of lone speculation. They are means of establishing networks of dialogue and debate, they are increasingly by architects, students and academics, and institutions will increasingly use them as a way to curate and disseminate ideas. As blogs become a more important part of the establishment, a more realistic and rigorous approach to architectural criticism online is urgently needed.
H.N.
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