politics

Geometric mural in the basement of Vancouver City Hall

March 13, 2011

[UPDATE: I was just informed by the artist’s son Guy that this mural is now threatened, after gracing the lowest floor of City Hall for over 40 years! It’s odd that the City now says it will demolish or paint over the mural, having recently asked Guy and his sister for a bio of their father, suggesting that City Hall had intended to preserve his work.

Yikes. They want to put this thing downtown.

February 20, 2011

Above is an artist’s rendering of the new mega-casino planned for Vancouver. Those three towers jammed up against the stadium in that awkward manner are the “entertainment complex” hotel towers, where presumably you can rent by the hour.

Egypt

February 4, 2011

Cairo, February 2011, from Der Spiegel.

Categories: politics, Uncategorised

Tourist, Havana

January 20, 2011

No comment, other than to say I hope this person is not Canadian.

Note the Che cap.

Categories: design, humour, politics, Uncategorised

Hemingway’s villa in Cuba – Finca Vigía

January 3, 2011

This is the Cuban villa where Hemingway lived from 1939-1960 and wrote many of his best known novels. It sits high in the town of San Francisco de Paula about half an hour outside Havana, and from the patio you can actually see Havana in the distance, hence the name Finca Vigía or “Lookout Farm.” The villa was discovered by Hemingway’s wife at the time, Martha Gelhorn, who was seeking somewhere spacious for the two of them to live.

Categories: architecture, design, furniture, interiors, landscaping, politics, Uncategorised

Che by Félix Beltrán

December 31, 2010

This poster of Che by well known Cuban designer Félix Beltrán was commissioned by the Castro government upon news of Che’s 1967 murder in Bolivia. Soon after Che’s body was found, versions of this poster were produced in a number of different languages for all the embassies in Cuba, while the Spanish-language version lined the streets of Havana on the day of his 1967 memorial parade here.

Categories: design, favourite, graphics and signage, politics, Uncategorised

“Around the time of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, Pastafarians celebrate a vaguely defined holiday named “Holiday.””

December 10, 2010

This is my Holiday post, but I’m referring to the Pastafarian holiday known helpfully as “Holiday.” ‘Pastafarians’ for those who don’t know the term are followers of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (or FSM), the spoof religion invented by American physics graduate student Bobby Henderson who launched his own ‘church’ as a challenge to the Kansas School Board’s attempt to teach creationism in schools.

Categories: art, craft, design, DIY, favourite, graphics and signage, humour, politics, Uncategorised

Unlimited Growth Increases the Divide: RIP George Riste

November 28, 2010

This small residential hotel in downtown Vancouver was stubbornly saved from demolition by its amazing owner, the quietly determined George Riste. George resisted numerous attempts by BC Hydro to buy his building, continually asserting the rights of his tenants to remain exactly where they were.

Categories: architecture, art, British Columbia, favourite, politics, Uncategorised, Vancouver

Chuck Davis, 1935-2010

November 20, 2010

Above: the superb book design on Davis’ often-reprinted books from the 1970s.

Chuck Davis died early this morning at age 75. Chuck was arguably Vancouver’s most well-known historian; certainly he was its best-loved historian for anyone who grew up in Vancouver in the 70s or 80s.

Beckwoman’s

November 14, 2010

At Beckwoman’s, an old Vancouver institution on Commercial Drive. DON’T PRAY IN MY SCHOOL AND I WON’T THINK IN YOUR CHURCH. And lots more where that came from, if you want slogans.

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This blog is a long, somewhat messy photo essay on the history and politics of design. Design's socio-historical context—that is, the constraints and influences on the way we make objects, dwellings and cities—seems too often ignored. We no longer know where our styles, tastes or objects really come from, and this damages our creativity and sense of meaning. Historical knowledge is so fugitive in the New World, with everything so decontextualized in the rapid flow of commodities and images. Don't even get me started on tumblr and pinterest. As Fran Lebowitz said, "Designers now, they all have these things called mood boards. I suppose they think a sense of discovery equals invention. It would be as if every writer had a board with paragraphs of other writers—'Oh, I'll take a little bit of this, and that, he was really good.' Yes, he was really good! And that is not a mood board, it is a stealing board." As for the sort of design I'm personally interested in, full disclaimer.....read more ____________________________________

To read about my book project on Vancouver's UN-Habitat Forum event of 1976 concerning just and sustainable urban settlements, click here. Few know that Buckminster Fuller, Margaret Mead, Mother Teresa, Paolo Soleri and Maggie & Pierre Trudeau, along with many thousands of others, came to Vancouver in 1976 to talk about better, safer, fairer and greener cities worldwide. In fact it was the founding conference of UN Habitat, an agency built around a foundational document called The Vancouver Declaration. My book is about what happened that year and is a snapshot not just of Vancouver but of how people around the world began to view cities and themselves differently in the wake of, among other things, the first oil crisis. ____________________________________

politics

Geometric mural in the basement of Vancouver City Hall

Yikes. They want to put this thing downtown.

Egypt

Tourist, Havana

Hemingway’s villa in Cuba – Finca Vigía

Che by Félix Beltrán

“Around the time of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, Pastafarians celebrate a vaguely defined holiday named “Holiday.””

Unlimited Growth Increases the Divide: RIP George Riste

Chuck Davis, 1935-2010

Beckwoman’s

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