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REHAUL OF MY WEBSITES
19 des. 2008 - 08:06
Those who look at this site notice that I have been slow in blogging for a while. This not because there is nothing to write about, lots is happening all over. But we are doing an overhaul of our portals, and the site NORDICDOGS will be the new opening for all our projects in the coming years. During this process I will probably put less in, but later, and especially when I have relocated in Africa I will write more.
VISIT ICELAND IN CRISIS
10 nóv. 2008 - 22:50
Visit Iceland. Last weekend I was invited to visit Iceland to give a lecture in the fantastic NORDIC HOUSE, designed by Alvar Aalto. The building was constructed while I was wondering what to do with my life in the 60's. The building had a profound effect on me and my choice of career. It was interesting for me to visit my country (of course meeting family and friends) after the financial crash. As PETER SELLARS said so beautifully last week in the ELIA conference: "I have been trying to kill capitalism all my life and then it just did it on its own!" I guess no one has missed the news that Iceland had become a single large HEDGE FUND not through the choice of the people, but by default of some Icelanders taking too much risk.
At this time in the blog I want to inform people that I have not been overly happy about the development of Icelandic society during the recent years. This can be seen in some of my previous blogs. Politicians and business have been taking Iceland on a course of major destruction of the nature and environment in the aim to gain fast profit from weapons producers like ALCOA . This has been done by drowning large areas of unique nature for hydro-power-plants, aluminium smelting, alloy production etc. There are many links about this and I recommend the last letter written by BJORK in TIMESONLINE and a book by ANDRI SNAER MAGNASON , named DREAMLAND.
All this is relevant in this blog because what lifted my spirit in this Icelandic crisis is that my friends that I sat down with, were upbeat about the future. My group of friends are mostly designers, musicians, architects; i.e. of the creative community. Those that I met have not lost much in the crunch, since everyone knows that creative designers do not own much other than their work, capability for dialogue and creative potential. We are used to make do with little to realize dreams. I sat with my friend BÁRA, the designer behind the label AFTUR last Friday and she told me how her lasting policy to use only material that is local (reuse) providing designs that are fully sustainable means that she has no problems continuing with her work. What is more, she is having a new crowd of customers looking in: ladies in overbranded outfits from the commercial haute couture labels and foreign tourists coming because the country has suddenly become affordable. An other friend Roshildur (a product designer) told me that they have just started up a business that is based on the ethical norms that the Icelandic Sweet Generation have become accustomed to during the last years without the bankers and politicians noticing. Now is the time to act they say. The term Sweet Generation is a term that has been used about the current artsy design and music generation with the queen BJORK the mother of them all. They have been my students in the ICELAND ACADEMY OF THE ARTS and have become a force to deal with. One noticed their attitude first when Bush invaded Iraq, they had been sweet children of the Icelandic middle classes, but started to have clearer attitutes and became angry. Now they are even more angry and demand a new society in Iceland.
I am of course not pretending that everything is sweet in Iceland, the nation is in deep trouble because of the hedge fund behaviour of the banks that went bankrupt and the incapability of the regulating bodies to control the cowboy Vikings. There are members of my family that have lost some of their savings, and the interest rate is negative. But I must admit that I did not like the style of living that one saw in the streets of Reykjavik, idiotic expensive cars, label clothing, stupid parties in the media where international entertainers were bought to sing. The same has been going on here in Oslo, but they can better afford it. This way of living is totally opposite to how one likes to live, ethically, socially and environmentally, and I am proud to say that almost all my colleagues in both Iceland and Norway have no interest in this 'yuppy' lifestyle. We know that it does not bring contentment.
My experience has been that designers, and especially young designers (my students) have been focusing much of their work during the last years on finding a new order, new solutions, looking at social issues that design could address. Now is the time to make way for those young people with the aim to create a better world. Like the design theorist JOHN THACKARA says in his book IN THE BUBBLE : We know the world has been designed this way and that means we can make it an other way. This the creative people know while the bankers and unimaginative politicians want to restore the world order and economy of yesterday. I hope they will not manage it and we have to make sure they will not.
COPENHAGEN NEW THEATRE
04 okt. 2008 - 12:51
I guess Castrup Airport is the busyest flight hub in Scandinavia. Icelanders and Norwegians have to change planes in Castrup, and that has been my destiny the last decades. The airport is comfortable, simple and relaxed. One does not really see any design there, it is unobtrusive and what has surprised me: there is almost never anything to buy there. This is difficult when one has kids at home that expect something small after dad has been away. Similarly, clothes, there are no noticable clothes there, everything is bland, middle class and middle age. I guess this is the right strategy for maximum turnover from shifting middle class and middle age people, a large group on a business trip.
I guess therefore that this ranting of mine of a boring middle class, middle age man who wants something more out of life than blandness. Usually when one falls in love with something, it is because of the ideosychrazies, the querks, the little bits that do not fit the picture, the exotic maybes, the strange othernesses, the wows! None of this is present in Castrup.
I went to look at the New Theatre in Copenhagen recently. Had been told that it is a must see. Walked the New-Harbour (actually quite old), turned the corner and saw a box type building on the edge of the sea canal, with the new Copenhagen Opera House on the other side (The Copenhagen Opera House looks like an airport terminal). I must admit, this new theatre reminded me of Castrup airport. Everything seemed to work, simple and clean. But a theatre is an envelope about the spectacle! The other, the momet to forget, the time to be taken away to somwhere for a short moment, to socialize with friends in the potential of the story of the other world. This is not what this theatre building did to me. Oh, yes, it is possible to say that the guests should be the spectacle, the event, and I can agree to that. This is managed in the new Opera and Ballet building in Oslo, (a city with otherwise rather middle class, middle age builidings).
The bottom picture shows the theatre with the opera house in the background.
Liz Diller says in a recent Tedtalk that 'aside from keeping the rain out and providing space, arcitecture is nothing but a special effects machine'. It amazes me that even those two buildings in Copenhagen that should be at the forefront of architecture and experience, a theatre and an opera house should remind me of the local airport.
ANDRE'S MASTER PROJECT
15 sep. 2008 - 18:43
There are as many master projects as there are students. Andre is creating a system for small construction as part of his product/situations design project. This reminds me of my old teacher Barry Russell and Christopher Alexander. The 60's are returning, but this time around with less socialism and more formal or artistic exploration.
Andre builds his shed in the parking lot behind the master-studios.