Pat Finn
“Seeking everyday magic.” This is the tagline for Manuel Pita’s Instagram page (@sejkko). In this re porter’s opinion, however, the sentiment is too humble: Sejkko doesn’t find everyday magic as much as he uses his artistry to infuse magic into the everyday. The tool he uses to achieve his alchemy is one that will be familiar…
Popular Instagrammer Koyuki (@koyoox) is drawn to clean, functional lines and surfaces. The Tokyo-ba sed graphic designer’s photographs feature both natural and built spaces, but there is a congruency between the two. That is, the built environments featured in her photos are rational, calm and follow design principles that are anything but arbitrary or ornamental. {%…
Previously on Architizer, we have discussed photorealism, a genre of painting that aspires to the un canny illusionism of photographs. There is a converse to this, of course: photos that capture scenes of such boldness and clarity one would think they were looking at a painting. Instagrammer Yener Torun is an expert in such photographs. He…
There is much discussion these days about the need for architects to attend to the needs of their en vironment rather than impose their personal visions from up on high à laHoward Roark. This is, of course, a mature, responsible position and one that most architects eventually come around to anyway. But still, the injunction that,…
Hudson Heights is one of New York’s hidden treasures. Located along the northwest coast of Manhattan , the Heights is known for its architecture, including the Castle Village and Hudson View Gardens housing cooperatives. These complexes were built in the 1920s and 30s and combine eclectic Tudor Revival styles with iconic Art Deco buildings that define…
“Appropriation” is a concept that has gotten a lot of attention over the past few years. This is whe n someone takes an idea or cultural practice and uses it for purposes that are contrary to the will of its originators. While the term is usually invoked in cases of “cultural appropriation” — which occurs when…
Construction has begun on a new headquarters for the Chinese fashion company Xinhee in the southeast ern city of Xiamen. If the renderings are anything to go by, Xinhee’s competitors will soon be MAD with envy! For this project, the Chinese architecture firm MAD decided to follow the methods of the fashion industry, taking the human…
Cyborgs used to be the stuff of fantasy. The term — a portmanteau that combines the words “cyberneti c” and “organism” — was coined in 1960, but the basic idea was around long before that. Since the 1818 publication of Frankenstein —a novel in which a mad scientist utilizes the then-novel technique of channeling electricity for…
Metabolism might not be the best-known postwar architectural movement, but it was surely one of the most imaginative. The brainchild of young Japanese architects including Fumihiko Maki, Masato Otaka, Kiyonori Kikutake and Kisho Kurokawa, Metabolism sought to create buildings that, like organisms, would grow and develop over time. “We regard human society as a vital…