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Gehry Residence (plus thoughts on Sketches of Frank Gehry)

Gehry Residence

"We were told there were ghosts in the house. I decided the ghosts were ghosts of cubism." —Frank Gehry

A small update today: a few exterior shots of the Gehry Residence in Santa Monica. I took these after I went to see Eames House in nearby Pacific Palisades.

I finally got around to seeing Sydney Pollack's documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry last night and I remembered I have a few shots of his house which I never posted so here they are.

The documentary is okay, nothing too interesting. It's basically a 80-minute love-fest of Gehry and his work. I understand Gehry is a larger-than-life figure, but can the partners in his firm come off as any more in deference of him? Craig Webb, who by the way is a splitting image of Lyle Lovett, acted more like an awe-struck first-year student assisting his famous professor than a partner in a major architecture firm.

Some Gehry Quotes from the Documentary

On starting a new project: "I'm always scared that I'm not going to know what to do. It's a terrifying moment."

On a model he's working on: "That is so stupid looking, it's great."

On Alvar Aalto: "I would say my work is probably closer to him than any of the other previous generations."

On architecture: "What bugs me are these god damn rules that my profession has as to what fits and what doesn't."

May 20, 2007 | Filed Under: Announcements , Architecture & Design , Photos , Travel |
Tags: architecture, california, figureground, frankgehry, la, movie, photos, santamonica, travel

Egypt (Máṣr)

Egypt

I have put up a selection of photos from my trip to Egypt last month:

  • Egypt [Figure-Ground.com]

The most memorable part of the trip for me was the night spent in the Western Desert. Some of my favorite shots are from there as well.

There is also a photoset on Flickr with some photos of me being a tourist, plus other miscellaneous photos from the trip.

April 17, 2007 | Filed Under: Announcements , Photos , Travel |
Tags: figureground

Big Crowds, Greasy Noses and Rare Chinese Art

Crowd at the National Palace Museum

The National Palace Museum of Taipei holds the world's foremost collection of Chinese art, much of it never exhibited, much less lent to other museums. After a badly needed four year renovation project, the formerly-dowdy museum[1] has reopened with a blockbuster show that displays some of the rarest and most valuable works from its vaults, said to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The crowds are understandably big which is always a challenge for anyone trying to enjoy art but the Taipei show presents an additional obstacle: nose grease. The entire show is presented in darkened rooms and everything is behind glass (owing to the fragile nature of the works). After you fight your way to the front of the throng of people, you discover that every pane of glass protecting the artwork is dotted with nose grease. Yes, Chinese paintings and calligraphy often require closer examinations to see their exquisite details, but still it's not necessary to plaster your greasy face against the glass like so many people were doing. The oily residuals blur the view of the details and all I could do was try to look around them. But there were so many nosey smudges to try to look around that it was distracting, frustrating and kind of disgusting. At one point my eyes just glazed over and all I saw were the nose prints (kind of like when your camera struggles to focus and end up focusing on something in the foreground).

I don't know if the museum wipes down the glass every night (let's hope so), but on the chance that it does, you should plan your visit right as the museum opens in the morning (9am every day).

[1] Less shabby now, but let's just say it's no Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nevertheless, the works on display are indisputably magnificent.

February 17, 2007 | Filed Under: Taipei , Travel |
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Yingge Ceramics Museum

Yingge Ceramics MuseumOver in my Flickr photostream I have posted a set of photos of Yingge Ceramics Museum, located about half an hour outside of Taipei. There's not a lot of great architecture in Taiwan, modern or otherwise. For example, with the exception of a church by I.M. Pei (which I have yet to check out), no notable architect has built here[1]. That said, this is one of the better buildings on this island. It's designed by a local architecture firm 竹間聯合建築師事務所 (Zhujian Architecture Studio). Nevertheless, it's nothing special. That's why it's not being featured on my architecture photography website Figure/Ground; but it's worth seeing what the state of modern architecture is in Taiwan so I've uploaded the set to my Flickr photostream. These are just some quick snaps I took with my dinky pocket digicam when I went to check it out a few months ago.

[1] Well, actually, that's not entirely true. Supposedly some highway rest stop is designed by OMA but from the pictures I've seen of it, it's not close to one of their stronger works.

February 1, 2007 | Filed Under: Announcements , Architecture & Design , Photos , Travel |
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Salk Institute

Salk Institute

Another Kahn masterpiece: Kimbell Art Museum.

PS: I'd like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy new year!

December 31, 2006 | Filed Under: Announcements , Architecture & Design , Photos , Travel |
Tags: figureground

雨笙.com

I wanted to play around with IDNs (internationalized domain names, see Wikipedia for a primer). All of the individual words in my name—廖/Liao, 雨/Yu and 笙/Sheng—have already been registered (damn you domain squatters!), so I took 雨笙.com (in punycode form: xn--zvzm38c.com).

Most registrars (including my usual registrar GoDaddy) are not set up to handle IDNs, so I ended up using DomainSite. It sucks that I have to deal with all these different registrars for the domains I own: one for my IDN (DomainSite), one for my .ca domain (BareMetal) and one for everything else (GoDaddy).

Right now, 雨笙.com is configured to redirect here to liaoyusheng.com. I wonder how useful this IDN will prove to be. In verbal situations, I could see this being a better way to tell a Taiwanese person how to reach me on the web. The average Taiwanese is far more likely to remember 雨笙.com than the pinyin liaoyusheng.com since Taiwanese people don't know the pinyin system.

December 3, 2006 | Filed Under: Announcements , Internet |
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Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

November 27, 2006 | Filed Under: Announcements , Architecture & Design , Photos , Travel |
Tags: figureground

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Disney Hall

I have seen my share of Gehry buildings and this is his most refined and beautiful. Of course, Bilbao remains a more powerful work in historical context (and it is in a much more romantic setting), but in terms of pure forms, I think Disney Hall surpasses it.

Other Gehry buildings on Figure/Ground:
DZ Bank, Experience Music Project, Fisher Center, Guggenheim Bilbao, Stata Center and Vitra Design Museum and Factory.

Other LA-area architecture on Figure/Ground:
Eames House and Caltran District 7 Headquarters.

November 22, 2006 | Filed Under: Announcements , Architecture & Design , Photos |
Tags: figureground

Six Singapore Hainanese Chicken Rice in 60 Hours

Six Singapore Hainanese Chicken Rice in 60 Hours

As Singapore's de facto national dish, Hainanese chicken rice (or, as the locals call it, simply "chicken rice") can be enjoyed from literally hundreds of places—from dedicated chicken rice hawkers to fancy restaurants, and everything in between. I had a little under 3 days to find the best chicken rice in the Lion City. So, with the help of Singapore's famous food bible, Makansutra, I vetted a list of chicken rice places I wanted to try during my short stay.

I ended up eating 6 chicken rice from 5 establishments (one place I went twice) in a span of about 60 hours.

Continue reading "Six Singapore Hainanese Chicken Rice in 60 Hours"

November 17, 2006 | Filed Under: Food & Drink , Travel |
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Two Upcoming Lectures at the Cooper Union

On October 30th, Renzo Piano will give the inaugural presentation of the Frazen Lecture. Admission is $10. As this lecture is co-sponsored by the Architecture League, League members can make reservations by emailing info@archleague.org or calling 212.980.3767.

On November 14th, Thom Mayne of Morphosis will speak. Admission is free.

Both lectures start at 6:30 pm and are held, as usual, at the Great Hall inside Cooper Union's Foundation Building (7 East 7th Street).

See their work I have photographed on Figure/Ground:

October 27, 2006 | Filed Under: Architecture & Design |
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