Category: design
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Tomas Koolhaas’s Film about his Father, Rem
On the poshest stretch of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, couture boutiques line up in a solid row of glass, concrete and metal, each towering doorway guarded by a sharply dressed greeter. Occupying the middle of the block is Prada’s Epicenter store, designed by Rem Koolhaas in 2004. While the facade has been altered significantly…
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Llano del Rio
“Squaring the Circle” was a celebration of the centennial of the socialist colony Llano del Rio in the Antelope Valley, founded in 1914 by Job Harriman. Harriman ran for mayor of Los Angeles on the Socialist ticket, but an ill-timed bombing by labor activists destroyed his chances. Fed up with local politics, he decided to create…
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Cell Phone Trees
Perhaps you’ve noticed them in your neighborhood – tall, oddly stiff trees that appear seemingly overnight, with a ring of mysterious metal rectangles visible through the branches. Depending on the surrounding landscape, they might resemble pines, oaks, palms, elms, cypresses or cacti. Their bark can be textured or mottled, and their leaves are appropriately spiky,…
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Nostalgia for the Future/Future of Nostalgia
The Future of the Past: The World Trade Center Memorial and the Politics of Memory, surveys monuments to major political and national events, tracing their arc from triumphant and chauvinistic to melancholic and contrite. It sits unpublished on my bookshelf in severe black hardcover binding. Above is Deborah Aschheim’s lovely drawing of the Theme Building at…
Lyra Kilston 