Archive for the ‘AMNP’ tag

Giant Binoculars Everywhere!

We can only wish.

Yesterday a coworker sent me a link to this New York Observer article describing mayor Bloomber’s desire for 10 additional buildings by Frank Gehry by the end of his term. Bloomberg is out of office in two years.

By the mayor’s own estimation, that means Gehry has 70 days to crank out each project – which we know isn’t really how things work, but is still a crazy thing to think about. But even crazier, I’d argue, is the idea of 10 more buildings by America’s favorite “hey, I know that guy” starchitect, pseudo-commissioned by the mayor. It’s strange.

Now it would be easy to take the hater route and complain about how NYC would look like a pile of misshapen, curvy metal panels – but that’s getting tired. Besides, Gehry seems increasingly interesting when given some room to move now that the 2000’s are done and people aren’t throwing absurd amounts of cash at him while demanding another Bilbao. You could complain – and I’d agree to some extent on this – that Gehry is famous for being famous at this point, like a Kardashian of architecture. “Oh, I don’t know jack shit about architecture – but to sound cultured I’ll say I just loooove Frankie G.” His popularity has diminished his popularity – which is both kind of meta, and kind of stupid. But none of the typical complaints about Gehry are important this time around, because we have an incredible opportunity here.

We could get more giant binoculars.

Let’s face it – Gehry recycles ideas, just like everyone else. I’m not criticizing – I’m saying I hope he’s finally done rehashing the ideas of the last decade and jumps in the way-back machine to the late 80’s and brings back Oldenburg and van Bruggen for some more oversized optics. I’m thinking a giant telescope-shaped building of some sort. It’s a slight shift from the binoculars, but is pretty much the same – like Bilbao and Disney! – while also being slightly phallic shaped, thus referencing NYC’s most famous architectural element. Boom -and that’s how architecture gets made people.

There’s no time for debate – he’s only got 699 days to go.

 

Posted: February 3rd, 2012
at 12:18am by orangemenace

Tagged with , , , , ,


Categories: architecture,my ninja, please,news,starchitects

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I Ain’t Dead Yet…

April 12th… that was my last post here at AMNP, a fact that I’m not particularly proud of. I really wish I could say I had a good reason – like I had been on retreat in the woods, meditating and honing my ninja & architectural skills – but that’s not the case. Unfortunately, I’ve just been lazy [in terms of AMNP, anyways]. Oddly enough, when you’re out of work for a prolonged time getting back to the grind leaves you feeling much busier than you had before the layoff – or at least that’s what happened in my case. Having recently received some comments & emails asking what exactly the deal is, I’ve decided to get my act together.

Point is – AMNP ain’t dead yet, #*%$#@!!

Without going too far down the ‘what is a blog’s purpose’ rabbit hole [in this post], I’ve found myself wondering what function AMNP actually plays in the wider architectural interwebs. I feel as if since this site was founded (end of 2006) the architecture blogosphere has exploded in size, only to shrink back down a bit as some of the larger sites have settled in and mastered a model of multiple posts a day that seemed hard to compete with. I was thinking about this fact, wondering why I’d bother continuing AMNP when someone like Arch Daily rocks 10 articles a day – only to stop, slap myself, and realize that I was a ninja, dammit [the HNIC also recently suggested I was being a b!tch, which was motivational].

I’m not sure exactly where I’ll take the site from here, but I’ll feel it out – and I’m pretty confident you’ll let me know if I’m doing it wrong. Only thing I’m sure of is that architecture and blogs need ninjas, and if Archi-Ninja can’t pick up the slack while I’m on hiatus then I need to make a comeback [yes, Linda, I just called you out like that].

Sorry, but this self-indulgent post is all you’re getting for today. We’ll be back with the realness tomorrow, my ninjas.

Peace.

~ your friendly neighborhood orangemenace

Posted: August 1st, 2010
at 11:35pm by orangemenace

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Categories: MNP

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