January 8, 2009
January 1, 2009
My friend Barbara asks:
“How would you archive mobile buildings? Buildings that (dis)assemble like Legos…”
She is referring to the work of Alberto Mozó, an architect based in Santiago, Chile.
Mozó has the idea that pre-fab mobile architecture–buildings which can be assembled and disassembled with ease, or the parts re-purposed at will–has great value for Architecture and Urbanism today. The architect’s statement about the office building pictured above introduces the theme of “Transitividad” or transitivity to describe the quality of in-betweeness, or openness to disassembly, that the building embodies.
To get back to Barbara’s question, if the building embodies transitivity then how could it be archived? Well my first suggestion is that the method of archiving, the archival practice, must also have a transitive quality.
December 31, 2008
I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria during the oil boom of the 1970′s and 80′s. Fashion reflected the city’s exuberant modernism and futurism. There were great hairstyles, which all the fancy ladies wore. The city was changing and growing fast. New structures seemed to be going up everyday. The new hairstles were intended to simulate the forms of the urban structures they were named after. Like the hairstyle pictured above was called “Eko Bridge,” after the new bridges built to link the city’s islands. There were also styles like the skyscraper, the stadium, etc.
As you can probably tell, hair for Lagosians, and many other Africans, is a big deal. Look here for more about the significance of hair and the head in West Africa.
I think hair done like this could be a way of archiving the city, don’t you?
