CUPtopia’s staff had a wonderful stay and restful night’s sleep among the many ghosts of the Peterson cottage & grounds.

Lesson / Koan : Respect all spirits.

More image & text tomorrow of the Seth Peterson cottage…CUPtopia is still on the road

Lesson / Koan : Something is in the air.

Lesson / Koan : Surprise yourself.

The surprise involves Frank Lloyd Wright.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s utopian vision for urban living was never realized.

Lesson / Koan : unreal is real enough.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s utopian vision is realized daily for the following reason.

Is there a single school of architecture on Spaceship Earth that doesn’t mention his name everyday?

Point being, if you’re a Frank Lloyd Wright fan or not, his body of work is undeniably worthy of notice & discussion.

BTW,

In 1956, Frank Lloyd Wright proposed a Chicago project called Mile High Illinois, Illinois Sky-City, or The Illinois. The renderings above were presented in the 2009 Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum.

Frank Lloyd Wright during construction of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, ca. 1959.

NOTE :

The below animation may be the best thing CUPtopia’s staff has every seen from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD), considering they didn’t have to design anything, thank goodness!

please use full screen mode for the video. 

Lesson / Koan : Some fairies live forever.

Illustrator and former New York Times Op-Ed art director Steven Guarnaccia reinvents a childhood classic with his recent architecture-inspired version of “The Three Little Pigs.”

BTW,

The Three Little Pigs are (above, from left) Le Corbusier, Frank Gehry and Frank Lloyd Wright.

The tale of The three little pigs is set by Steven Guarnaccia among houses by great architects of the XXth century. Corbusier, Gehry and Wright are in fact the main protagonists of this contemporary tale with other renowned architects in their houses of scraps, of glass and of stone and mortar.

In their famous buildings they live among objects designed by some of the most internationally representative architects and designers. But one day the wolf pays a visit to them…

And the house before which the Big Bad Wolf hopelessly huffs and puffs is none other than Fallingwater.

NOTE :

Pigs have always lived in Utopia…but, Architects depicted as pigs, guess Mr. Guarnaccia knows something more?

Steven Guarnaccia is an illustrator and a designer. He lives and works in New York. His works appear in many newspapers, such as The New York Times, where he worked for three years as art director of the Op-Ed page. He has worked with MoMA and has designed jewelry, watches, rugs and wall paintings for firms such as Acme, Swatch and Disney Cruise Lines. He has published many collections of illustrated palindromes, books for children and pop-up books. He has been a long-time collaborator with Abitare and publishes books with Edizioni Corraini. He is now in charge of the Illustration Department of Parsons The New School for Design.

Lesson / Koan : Etching is making a comeback.

On Monday (March 28), The Mies van der Rohe Society celebrates the 125th anniversary of the  Mies’s birth with a bash at his Crown Hall, 3360 S. State Street, Chicago, Illinois.

Mies’s birthday is March 27, 1886.

BTW,

10. Drinks by Lulu B. and ice wine cocktails by Equifera Icewine of Canada.

9. Pre-party! Our members-only reception starts at 5:15pm and features judging of our annual Mess With Mies sculpture competition.

8. The chance to purchase unique items like these gorgeous coasters and Mies van der Roast coffee.

7. Free parking! Also, easy access to CTA Green and Red Lines.

6. Awesome people-watching. Rub shoulders with Chicago’s architecture cognescenti, design illuminati, and future starchitects.

5. Custom-designed birthday cake from Tipsycake.

4. Insights from Wright auction’s Michael Jefferson. You’ll know how to score the good stuff and how to spy the fakes.

3. The chance to roam Crown Hall. When was the last time you hung out in one of the masterpieces of modern architecture?

2. Tickets are only 50 bucks. Or spring for our special-offer $125 ticket, and you’ll enjoy a one-year membership to the Mies Society at the Concrete level.

1. Every ticket purchased supports the exquisite restoration of Mies’ masterpieces on the IIT campus, including Carr Memorial Chapel.

Here is one more idea for a gift to give a friend for Mies’s 125th birthday.

Utopian Skateboard Decks by Chris Adamick & Piotr Woronkowicz.

Chris Adamick & Piotr Woronkowicz have produced Skateboard decks with architectural forms etched into them.

Series of three skateboard decks. The design was achieved by scripting digits to create a halftone effect of famous images of utopian skyscrapers designed in the beginning of the century. The boards are made of 100% Bamboo.

The skateboard decks in the series are utopian Sky Scrapers that were never built by (1) Ralph Rudolph, (2) Mies Van der Roche, (3) Frank Lloyd Wright.

Mies would have been a skateboarder in his youth, right?

NOTE :

The Mies project etched into skateboard#2 is the following :

Friedrichstrasse Office Building

1921 - 1921

Utopian Vision: Usonia, by Steven Millar, 2007.

Lesson / Koan :

Wright’s original circular plots for Usonia were rejected by town administrators, and his ideal forms gave way to irregular and at times awkward compromises.

Utopian Vision: Usonia - detail, by Steven Millar, 2007.

Utopian Vision distills this history into a fragmented vision of layered planes. The white surfaces seem almost to levitate and suggest a quiet sense of longing. With light streaming through the circular voids, the landscape seems permeable, shifting, and above all human.

BTW,

Utopian Vision: Usonia - detail, by Steven Millar, 2007.

In 1936, when the United States was in the depths of an economic depression, American architect Frank Lloyd Wright developed a series of homes he called Usonian. Designed to control costs, Wright’s Usonian houses had no attics, no basements, and little ornamentation.

Frank Lloyd Wright built more than a hundred Usonian houses.

A few of the most famous Usonian houses are:

• First Herbert Jacobs House, Madison, WI, 1936
• Bernard Schwartz House, Two Rivers, WI, 1938
• Curtis Meyer House, Galesburn, MI, 1948
• Zimmerman House, Manchester, NH, 1950
• Hagan House (Kentuck Knob), Chalk Hill, PA, 1954
• Toufic L. Kalil House, Manchester, NH, 1955

NOTE :

The word Usonia is an abbreviation for United States of North America. Frank Lloyd Wright aspired to create a democratic, distinctly American style that was affordable for the “common people.”

Lesson / Koan : Awards or Rewards.

Eye Over Prague

The international premiere of a documentary dedicated to the late Czech architect Jan Kaplický, co-founder of London based internationally acclaimed practice Future Systems followed by a debate chaired by Deyan Sudjic, with Eva Jiřičná and other guests.
The film featuring Brian Clarke, Eva Jiřičná, Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Václav Havel and the team Future Systems tells the story of Kaplický’s last grand design. The project for the National Library in Prague called the Eye over Prague is radical, exciting and far enough ahead of its time to provoke a fair degree of controversy. For Kaplický, a Czech-born émigré, it also represents a triumphant return to his homeland, a vindication of his uncompromisingly forward-looking philosophy and, eventually, a tragically poetic ending to his remarkable career. After winning the international competition chaired by Zaha Hadid, the popular and much supported design met opposition from the Czech government and the local administration and the fierce battle began.
(Olga Spátová, Czech Republic, 2010, 90′).

A following debate, chaired by Deyan Sudjic with Eva Jiřičná and other guests will focus not only on Jan Kaplicky’s work, but also on the process and struggles of architects to have their visionary and bold designs approved and built.

See Full Film Here: http://vod.journeyman.tv/store?p=4436