We built this city...

Concrete Veneer from German design firm Werkform. Soon to be siding an old station wagon. via MoCoLoco

MAKE gives Foster a run for his money. On life with Norman Foster: "...you're not appreciated. I can't stand being shouted at, I have to work all night and no one says thank you, I have to work all weekend and no one says anything." Ken Shuttleworth leaves Foster behind to start a unique, employeed owned firm....and takes a few other people with him.

Instant Penthouse

New Gravestmor post. Worth. The. Wait.
The year is 1984, with an uncanny accuracy, George Orwell had predicted the dark and sinister forces that ruled the globe. Some men, it is true, had been made more equal than others. Pomo was casting a long pastel shadows over the metropolis and the future looked bleak.

However one group of auteurs had something else in mind. They looked to the dark, foreboding future suggested by Bladerunner, Alien and Oversized Novelty Corinthian columns and said: NO. “No thanks, not for me nor my children, life can (must!) be better than this. Our city need not be these dens of deceipt, crime and cheap appropriation of historical motif.” Geometry had for too long ruled the planning departments of the world, it was time for the bastard lovechild of Rhythm and Blues to take centre stage and the vehicle for this anthem was four heavy coiffed youngsters, Starship.

Under the proposed planning legislation put in place by Starship, all new cities and urban growth were to be forced into a position subservient to an irresistible 2-4 beat. Sweet riffs cut swathes through industrial zones, power chords decimated slums. Needless to say such ideas did not wash well with the establishment nor the weed-tokin’ jazz-listening-to beatniks but Starship were unfazed by the backlash, they had youth on their side and big hair to match...(continue reading "The Cities of Rock 'N' Roll")