mural

Architectural photographs by Vancouver photographer Krista Jahnke

April 7, 2013

A small selection of architectural photographs by Vancouver photographer Krista Jahnke. Trained as an architect at Carleton University, Jahnke also has a BFA in photography from Vancouver’s Emily Carr University of Art and Design.

Nothing happens in good weather

May 3, 2012

Great Vancouver public art work titled “Nothing Happens in Good Weather” by the Instant Coffee collective, curated by Barbara Cole of Other Sights. Photos by Kate Armstrong and Kelly Lycan via the Goethe Institut’s Goethe Satellite.

Tall mural, NYC

September 7, 2011

I love this tall mural in NYC, near NYU. Deceptively simple, fixes a somewhat dreary block, and artful enough that it won’t instantly become tiresome (as many murals do). See also painted buildings here and this mural.

Categories: art, cities, design, graphics and signage, Uncategorised

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.

Wallander

January 25, 2011

Wallander, the Swedish detective of Swedish books, TV and film, has now appeared in a BBC remake starring Kenneth Branagh. Shot in Sweden, the BBC remake has a Bergman-like mute bleakness despite the attractive minimalism of (most of) the interiors.

Categories: architecture, design, furniture, interiors, Uncategorised

Modernist house, Cojimar, Cuba

January 6, 2011

Not far from Havana, this is the fishing village where Hemingway kept his boat during the decades he lived in Cuba. A local told me this house belongs to a fisherman.

Categories: architecture, design, Uncategorised

Mexico City

May 7, 2010

Everywhere you look in Mexico City, you see something well thought out. Then you come home.

Top, outside a mod bar in the Condesa district; brutalist bank building with relief exterior; art nouveau building in the Roma district; doorway in the Coyoacan neighbourhood; benches in Chapultepec Park; minimalist sans serif address lettering is everywhere; the amazing tiled library at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Categories: architecture, art, design, Uncategorised

Free Rain – mural in Edmonton, Alberta

August 28, 2009

It would be nice to have a mural like this in Vancouver. It was designed by B.C. artist James K-M. Information on the mural, and on the collaborative community work of producing it, is here.

Categories: design, Uncategorised

Painted houses

June 10, 2009

Modernist Vancouver house of the painter BC Binning, who painted his own interior and exterior murals. Photo by Arne Haraldsson. See here for more information on this heritage-protected house.

In my neighbourhood there’s a heritage program called True Colours wherein you can receive a pat on the back from heritage types and sometimes free paint if you agree to paint your house in the original house colours circa 1901.

1960s DIY projects – geometric wall treatment, vertical lanterns

January 12, 2009

Here are two quite beautiful DIY projects from the 60s, both found in The Practical Encyclopedia of Good Decorating and Home Improvement, Greystone Press, 1970. Most of what you find in the book is a bit kitschy, but these two ideas seemed brilliant.

Categories: craft, design, DIY, furniture, Uncategorised

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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. ____________________________________

mural

Architectural photographs by Vancouver photographer Krista Jahnke

Nothing happens in good weather

Tall mural, NYC

Geometric mural in the basement of Vancouver City Hall

Wallander

Modernist house, Cojimar, Cuba

Mexico City

Free Rain – mural in Edmonton, Alberta

Painted houses

1960s DIY projects – geometric wall treatment, vertical lanterns

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