urbanity

Oh dear reader, we can't tell you how much this writer missed you while he was away, fraternizing for the past couple of weeks with writers both Chinese and American in the flat Iowan landscape. Before we get into our normal two-editor routine again, here are some quick pieces delivered from Iowa. First, if you ever happen to be passing through Solon (a few miles outside of Iowa City), do yourself a favor and try to get over to see self-taught architect Dick Schwab's gigantic, yurt-like barns. They're incredible and the big one smells like fresh cut wood and barbecue sauce (we're not sure why with that one). Second, despite hearing nary a peep of this when we were in China back in May, one night at a bar in Iowa, we were talking about architecture to one of the translators on the project, he himself from Beijing, who flat out said that Rem Koolhaas had built the pants-like CCTV Tower to make fun of the Chinese people. We'd heard of the popularity of this seemingly very misguided belief, and even posted about it back in late August, but it was really strange to hear it in person and find that real people actually believe this. Lastly, during those few moments of quiet downtime we had in Iowa, we were devouring Michael Gross' wonderfully juicy tell-all about the Metropolitan Museum, Rogues Gallery, which comes highly recommended if you like reading about how major museums and/or rich people operate. All that quick recap out of the way, we now return to our regular reporting and, well, whatever else it is that we do around here.

With the downfall of the economy and all the hundreds of projects trimmed or cut this year because of it, there are a lot of empty lots out there, just sitting there reminding us of what could have been. And for those projects that got started and ran out of money, we have that favorite phrase of ours, "accidental architecture." It was both these types of failed architecture that got Irene Cheng and her husband Brett Snyder thinking. Using funding from the Val Alen Institute's New York Prize Fellowship, the duo created an iPhone application called Museum of the Phantom City, which looks at all the various exciting projects that were planned for New York, but were never realized due to funding, contract failures, complete infeasibility, or any of the other million reasons that result in these ideas' disappearances. Using GPS, you can use the app to wander around the streets of NY and absorb a little history about what never was as you come to it, along with some interactive bits surrounding these invisible sights. But besides being just something interesting to play with, the app also has value in realizing the steps a city takes on its road through history:

"If everything that gets proposed is the result of a familiar process, it will produce familiar results," [City University of New York's Michael Sorkin] said on Wednesday. "So radicalizing the discourse is a way to open up the debate.

"In the history of New York, projects that were not built were absolutely formative in the development of the city," he added.

Back in April you might recall that we'd posted about the French edition of Elle publishing an issue of the magazine featuring stars and models with no makeup and no Photoshopping. A stunt for sure, though not nearly as bad as those awful, pandering Dove ads. While it seemed like just a one-off, it apparently had an effect on the consciousness of the French populace, as a potential law has been introduced that would require printed warnings over photographs that had been digitally manipulated to alter/slim a person's body. Its purpose would be to curb anorexia, bulimia, and other illnesses created by the desire to look like the highly airbrushed, ultra-thin models and actors in magazines and on billboards. And should the law pass and the government doesn't see a label? A massive fine that could be as high as "50 per cent of the cost of the publicity campaign." Here's a bit:

Campaigning MP Valerie Boyer, of President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party, said the wording should read:"Retouched photograph aimed at changing a person's physical appearance".

Mrs. Boyer, who has also written a government report on anorexia and obesity, added: "We want to combat the stereotypical image that all women are young and slim.

As we prepare to count down our picks for the top fall collections before the spring 2010 looks take to the New York runways beginning later this week, we stop to tip our Philip Treacy-designed hats to some fashionable chums across the pond. London Fashion Week, which kicks off next Friday, turns 25 this year and ELLE UK is celebrating with a series of chic posters that will be displayed throughout the city's Underground network. The magazine commissioned 25 designers and other fashion figures to contribute artwork for the project. From the always colorful Paul Smith comes a Brice Marden-y whirl of clothes hangers (squint and it becomes a subway map), while Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey offers a shot of classic British wellies during London showers. Gareth Pugh invites Tube riders to ponder his Rorschach blot-like image of a torso (at least that's what we see), makeup legend Pat McGrath contributes a golden kiss, and from Naomi Campbell comes a signed photo of, well, Naomi Campbell. Meanwhile, Henry Holland never tires of text-based cheekiness, filling his poster with a Union Jack and stacked sans-serif capitals that read "25 years of LFW and all you get is this lousy poster."

Oh, dear readers, it seems as though we've been away from you for eons. We know how difficult it is to return to normal after a long break, so you'll probably eager to kill a few minutes reading something of interest while you readjust. So we turn to this great piece by architect and firm founder David Marks in Building, "My Dubai Hell," which talks about his experience working in the country. From the opening, Dubai for Marks is "a sort of surreal version of Las Vegas -- the city that was one vast casino where everybody wins." By then end, his firm hasn't been paid for 15 months and is owed hundreds of thousands of pounds. We've all read about the rise and fall of Dubai, including the most recent report that they still plan to finish the world's tallest building, but it's incredibly fascinating to see how it all looked from the inside, painful as it may be (though, if anything, the country's decline probably means many lives spared now that David Fisher's crackpot building likely won't see the light of day).

How time flies. It seems like just yesterday we were engaged in the middle of Who Will Be the US' Olympic Bid City: Los Angeles vs. Chicago, an all-out war that almost destroyed the very fabric of UnBeige. But more than two years have passed now since this writer's fair city won the battle and we're just over a month away from hearing out if we'll land the games. For those of you not living here, so you can get back up to speed in a hurry, here's a semi-recently released video the 2016 Chicago organization has put out, showing you either a) how the city will be beautifully transformed or b) will be raping all that is good and pure about it, depending on your opinion of the Olympics potentially coming here:

It's a Friday at the tail end of summer and everyone we know is on vacation, including probably you (why are you reading blogs?!), so we turn to something fun. David Pierson from the LA Times has filed this report from Beijing on the IKEA (or "Yi Jia") store located there. While the store has been incredibly popular since its opening a decade ago, which is no surprise given how all of their big boxes always seemed swamped, this location has become something of a destination that only happens to offer shopping. People sleep in the beds, kids jump on couches, and families come to spend the whole day (which, if you're anything like us, that last one sounds like the worst form of torture ever devised). The store's management doesn't seem concerned at all, hoping that the people who treat the shop as a theme park will return to buy, as China's per-household income continues to rise. It's a great, very odd story, and perfect for a lazy morning such as this. We're just full of regret that we hadn't read the piece earlier, when we were in Beijing back in May. We did go to a Wal-Mart over there, but that was as dull as any of them over here. Next time.

Remember a couple of weeks back when we wrote a post that included some talk about Cintra Wilson's NY Times piece about the opening of a JC Penney in Manhattan? Personally, we loved it, picking on both the ego of the city and the company's general identity with equal, very funny-yet-mean digs. But apparently our opinion wasn't shared by the masses, as since its publication, the Times has received loads of mail about the piece, forcing editor Clark Hoyt to profusely apologize and even Wilson bowing to appease the angry crowd forming at the gates. In one of the more painful sections of Hoyt's apology, he even went to JC Penney's PR person to ask them what they thought (surprise: they weren't pleased). In this writer's opinion, the whole thing is just brutal, this backing down for what we thought was a smartly-written, even-handed opinion piece (most of the reader quotes Hoyt includes in his piece seem to be from people who only read the first half of Wilson's story). What's next? Apologies for movie reviews? Or telling Nicolai Ouroussoff to stop getting people all worked up? We figured the banner Wilson was writing under, "Critical Shopper," was a good indication that you'd be reading the opinions of a critic. Fortunately for us, there was this brilliant response by blogger Lewis Grossberger: "Clark Hoyt, Go Soak Your Head" Its central argument is that the editor is apologizing for making the paper interesting and readable. It's a fantastic counter and brilliantly written, far better articulating our distaste after reading Hoyt's piece. But that's just this writer's opinion. Apologies in advance if this has upset anyone at all, for any reason, ever.

If you've been on familiar terms with the internet at all over these past few weeks, you've undoubtedly seen that "Obama as The Joker" poster popping up here and there, complete with "socialism" written underneath. They've been appearing nearly everywhere, apparently, in both lefty and righty parts of the country (first spotted, if memory serves, in Los Angeles). We still struggle to understand what exactly it means and, judging from the type selection in particular, had assumed it was a lazy piece that roughly translated as "If The Joker is bad, then Obama as The Joker must also be bad. Also, socialism is bad and The Joker would like that." In short: it's pretty weak. But the real mystery was who was behind the movement and who designed them. Now it's come out more widely, due to an arrest in Florida, that the mastermind is blogger and radio show host Alex Jones, who had launched a contest with a $1000 prize for whoever can put the most of these posters up in their part of the world (because, we guess, there's nothing better than getting a whole lot of something up, no matter if it makes any sense or not). Along with the contest, there is a piece on Jones' site explaining the poster, which, between the incoherent, out-of-touch-from-reality babble, boils down to "Anyone who doesn't get it has clearly already been brainwashed" which begs the question of what the purpose is then in displaying lots of them, if its very design is only meant to speak to the already-aware and no one else. So what can we draw from this? Well, for one now we know all know who not to hire as a designer for any message we want clearly or intelligently communicated.

Update: We had one name wrong in the post above. Alex Jones, it turns out, was the figure who brought the poster into wider circulation and most likely designed the layout. The original creator of the image itself was Firas Alkhateeb, a student in Illinois who, while not a supporter of Obama's, created the image more as a joke. He has also said, "It really doesn't make any sense to me at all," he said about the addition of the "socialism" text underneath: "To accuse him of being a socialist is really...immature. First of all, who said being a socialist is evil?"

This writer heads out of town for a few days and suddenly it's total bedlam out there. First, there was the incident in Paris which found a woman throwing a ceramic cup at the Mona Lisa, we assume because she was missing this writer's lazy, hastily-written stories and that was the direction her anger took her in. Fortunately, the Mona Lisa (standing in for yours truly) was not damaged, thanks to the protective glass separating the world from its delicate canvas. Second, the NY Times apparently noticed the world's lack of hurtful snark while this writer was away and decided to pounce with Cintra Wilson's review of the new J.C. Penney store in Manhattan. The piece alternates between sarcastic-mean and pitying-mean and is a really funny joy to read, assuming you like snark. But now we can put the world at ease, with no more tea cup throwing or poisoning the gray lady with vileness, and say onto you, "Relax dear readers. We are back at full strength."