Category: humor
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To New Horizons
Oh the sick and twisted future… a film from General Motors in 1940 entitled ‘To New Horizons’ talking about the world twenty years later. Yes indeed, “Man continually strives to replace the old, with the new!” Spotted on one of my favorite new sites – Copenhagenize. Check it out.
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Siftings: 01.11.12
““All great art is born of the metropolis.” – Ezra Pound :: image via NY Times A great little snapshot on urban serendipity from the NY Times that looks at the accidental ‘curation’ of spaces that the urban environment yields, such as the framed view from the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge. Perhaps the uniformity…
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Purge Sculpture
Filed under ‘random’ this sculpture was spotted the previous weekend along the waterfront just north of the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle. A pile of vegetated ‘cans’ with the word ‘Purge’ punched into them – alas a web search has yielded little in terms of info beyond this. Anyone have any info? UPDATE (02/12/14): Buster…
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Chutes and Ladders
Hear this transit authorities, we need more of these in the urban realm… the ‘Transfer Accelerator’ is real life chutes and ladders, in this case a slide as a bypass to crowded stairway at the train station of Utrecht Overvecht designed by Utrecht-based firm HIK Ontwerpers. Function and whimsy. Gotta love it. :: image via…
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Kunstler on Landscape Urbanism
James Howard Kunstler joins the LU/NU ‘debate’ with a completely Kunstlerian commentary with some rhertorical tidbids like LU displaying “a complete lack of interest in the basic components of urban design”… “incorporates lots of high tech ‘magic’ infrastructure for directing water flows and requires massive, costly, complex site interventions” and is “…against density and vehemently…
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Tales from Portlandia
As it is always important to laugh at oneself – the 6-part IFC Original short-based comedy series PORTLANDIA, created, written by and starring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein will premiere January 21, 2011 at 10:30 PM ET/PT. Each episode’s character-based shorts draw viewers into “Portlandia,” the creators’ dreamy and absurd rendering of Portland, Oregon. Bloody brilliant… Can’t wait for…
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Black Friday
Let’s make the shopping experience a bit more dangerous… Asphalt Spot in Tokamashi, Japan by R&Sie(n). :: images via Space Invading
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City Turkey
In honor of US Thanksgiving, a snapshot stories about of the urban turkey. As habitat shrinks due to the spreading of cities, urban turkey’s much like their more domesticated brethren, the urban chicken, has begun to move to the cities (many stories such as here, here, and here) and develop a certain air of cosmopolitanism. ::…
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Second-Rate Urbanism
Reading through some old articles, I just had to post this quote from Duany – published in the Atlantic – you know the one with the great title ‘The Man Who Reinvented the City’… 🙂 Asked about a May report from the Brookings Institution on The State of Metropolitan America (also check out the interactive map…
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Alien Urbanism
De-Urbanization as Defense Against Alien Invasion The previews for the new Rogue movie ‘Skyline‘ made me think of a possible benefit from the general dispersion of urban populations. As shown in the film, the prototypical invasion is preceded by.the traditional ‘parking’ of ships above all of the ‘worlds cities’ that has been echoed in sci-fi…