16.6.15

Another contentious bridge proposal in London, this time from 1963



The Crystal Span was proposed for Vauxhall Bridge in the 60s by the Glass Age Development Committee. I first came across it here. Looking like a Cruise Liner it is a proposal for a living bridge with shops houses hotels and so on. The Glass Age Development Committee was established in 1937 by Pilkington to promote the use of glass as a building material in the United Kingdom. It commissioned designs for many large-scale schemes, none of which were ever built (including Jellicoe's Motopia and a colossal redevelopment of Soho. There is a very good article about the group from Architectural Review here. It prompted a trip for me to RIBA to look at the original issues, but alas the adverts are removed from them.
If anyone reads this and knows of somewhere I can see the adverts I would love to see them.

While looking for Tradescants museum I found this...


 So around the Civil wars in the 1640s (my knowledge of history is not great, sorry) London was surrounded by Forts. Lithgow walked them all (around 18 miles apparently) in one day and described them. This is a drawing by Captain John Eyre of the Quadrant Fort at Vauxhall, with possibly John Tradescants Ark behind it? This image is taken from Strange Blooms by Jennifer Potter.

Here is a map showing the position of all the forts (From http://www.fortified-places.com/london)


The First Museum: Tradescants Ark at South Lambeth Road



While researching the history of the Museum I discovered that the very first museum was just around the corner from my house in Vauxhall/Stockwell. Dubbed ‘Tradescant’s Ark’, the gardener John Tradescant's unsorted and unclassified collection was a microcosm of the entire world. There is little visual material to show what it loooked like, it was on a site beginning around what is now Tradescant Road. John Tradescant is now buried in the Garden Museum in Lambeth. It is possible to take out the book listing his collection from the library in Lambeth near Myatts Field. The collection eventually moved to Oxford and it became the foundation for the Ashmolean Museum's Collection.


26.3.15

PROJEKTIL: model based projection map

Taking an architectural scale model as their canvas, Zurich-based art collective PROJEKTIL use five projectors to create an augmented reality installation that demonstrates you don’t need large buildings to make an impressive projection mapped display. In fact, it’s turned the projection mapping trend on its head and, in a neat reversal of the trajectory, has used the opposite of a finished building—the genesis of it—by projecting on a showroom model. Not the first time its been done but a very good example.

23.2.15

Kinetic Sculpture, BMW Museum | Art+Com

Ballet de Plastique | Daniel Wurtzel

Maya Lin | Waterline


Maya Lin, Waterline, 2006, aluminum tubes.

Water Line is a spatial/sculptural line drawing of a particular underwater location on ocean floor along the Mid Atlantic Ridge. The site rises a few miles from the sea floor and is visible on the surface as Bouvet Island, one of the most remote islands in the world. Working with scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Lin and members of her studio, developed a topographic rendering of the seascape. The rendering was translated into a metal drawing suspended above the viewers.

More of Maya Lins work can be found here

4.2.15

James Nizam | lightforms



Inspiring Lightworks by James Nizam

Station to Staion | Eliasson

A very good example of a drawing machine being used to record and event. This one is by Elafur Eliasson, its called 'kinetic drawing machine for station to station' there is an article with images and video here in Designboom