a night at the met opera house

i love the curves and chandeliers of wallace k. harrison's metropolitan opera house, lincoln center...

us open 2012 : workin day and night

already love the new-look heineken red star cafe...

paris postcard: versailles views (day 2)

whoa. not parisienne style...

***

the lovely l'orangerie

***

all photos taken may 21, 2011

© anita aguilar

paris postcard: from the balcony, night 1...

the tour maine-montparnasse was, until 2011, the tallest skyscraper in france. at 689 feet (59 floors), this monolithic slab dominates the view in montparnasse (and it serves an effective landmark for us, but skyscrapers were banned in the city center two years after its completion).

may 19, 2011

tourist vista: "following the sun"

(with apologies to mfw, for stealing his post title)

one early evening last week, i left the office and followed the sun.

it took me downtown.

and then we drifted west, and i walked--for the very first time--though the washington square village apartment complex.

this massive, "tower in the park" superstructure is generally not esteemed (certainly not by anyone i know) so i was surprised at just how lovely the interior courtyard-slash-parking lot looked that day. the yellow fooled me for a moment--i forgot i was in new york city. until a guy started screaming at me--a security guard, admonishing me for trying to take a photo.

is the rest of the world as paranoid as we are?

here's all i got from "the inside":

ok. i snuck in one more, closer to i.m. pei's "university village" (far less charming than the colorful glazed brick of the washington square apartments) :

this 60-ton, 36-foot high sculpture, by carl nesjar --also new to these eyes--is based on picasso's "sylvette." it was rendered by sandblasting norwegian basalt and cement...

the spirit of 76?

"the silver beekman"

beekman towers, frank gehry's ready-to-rent residential design in lower manhattan, is 76 stories tall. i had mistakenly suggested to mfw that it is something like 106 stories. i am mostly indifferent to numbers, but i should have paid closer attention to such an important fact. the truth is though, when you stand at the base of the towers as i did last week, 76 and 106 stories look pretty much the same. too high.

and from that ground level vantage point, i wasn't convinced the beekman suits new york. it's impressive--for its scale and uncommon shape. and it can be mesmerizing-- the sky was bright and blue when i arrived at around 2pm, and the beekman captured the color perfectly, nearly blending into the sky. i imagined for a moment i was in south beach. when i left my appointment several hours later, grey sky had moved in, intensifying the steeliness. the bernini -inspired folds became reptilian and futuristic, like we were living in some michael bay 3D universe--the dark side of the moon. this was, for obvious reasons, the scary beekman. the sky changed yet another time and it shone silver--it could have been a landmark in any flashy town: vegas, atlantic city, dubai. it bothered me a little at first, that it could be so "anywhere." but it's rather a great trick. i'm no architectural scholar, but isn't it often the case the character of a building (if you think it has one at all) is evidenced by its shape and its architectural flourishes? but this one seems to have been given a personality that can change.

eb white wrote, "new york is peculiarly constructed to absorb almost anything that comes along." so perhaps the beekman, with its ability to absorb and exude light, is quintessentially "new york" after all?

the "sobe" beekman

the "michael bay" beekman

the reptilian view

***

and this is what makes me think frank gehry must be an incredibly charming fellow. when i was at the site, i wasn't exactly sure if the beekman was set behind and separate from the orange brick structure in the foreground, or if it formed the base of the actual skyscraper (i'd forgotten that the nytimes mentioned it). paul goldberger reviewed 8 spruce in this week's new yorker and reminded that it was a single structure, with the contrasting base intended to tie the tower to the rest of the neighborhood. who else could win with this visually ridiculous solution? not too many.

same with having a 4th side of the building, the south side, flat (let's make one side of this "plain"...).

but i'm open to the idea that it might give a great effect.

i'll have to take it all in this summer, in the twilight, perhaps from somewhere across the river. i'll try to make a few good pictures then, too.

sukkah city 2010

sukkah city was an invitation to reimagine the sukkah – a temporary structure created for use for one week during the jewish festival of sukkot, as a symbol of the transience of life and dependence on god, and to foster a reconnection with nature. the international competition received 600 entries from 43 countries; a jury of 14 designers selected 12 works as finalists. those pieces lived temporarily, appropriately, in union square for 2 days, on september 19-20. a "people's choice" winner will remain in the square through october 2.

from an architectural standpoint, this presented an interesting design challenge, both conceptually and formally, with its strict parameters regarding size (it must enclose a minimum square area of at least 7 x 7 square handbreadths), dimension (at least 3 walls, but the third doesn’t have to be complete; if it has only 2 complete walls “the third wall of at least 4 handbreadths" must be within at least 3 handbreadths of one the complete walls), materials (no bundles of straw for the roof, though individual sticks may be okay. the roof may also not be made of utensils or food). questions of orthodoxy apparently factored into the voting--at least for the people's choice competition-- just as heavily as the innovative design elements.

as public art it seemed to serve its function: to inspire engagement, calm, thoughtfulness, curiosity, crowds, education...and photography.

here are a few shots from monday afternoon:

***

time/timeless by peter sagar (uk)...

***

single thread...matter practice, brooklyn

an amazing 2000 lb spool of wire, woven around temporary bamboo "scaffolding" ...

a "single line" that meanders...

***

log...kyle may and scott abrahams

an 18-foot cedar log, as the sukkah "roof"

laminated glass offer a view of "the heavens"

(and each other)

***

repetition meets difference...matthias karch (berlin, germany)

***

blo puff...bittertang, brooklyn

***

sukkah of the signs...ronald rael and virginia san fratello (oakland, ca)

***

gathering...dale suttle, so sugita, and ginna nguyen (ny, ny)

all photos © anita aguilar