architecture as catalyst

Architecture is a political act, says Cameron Sinclair during his talk at OCAD, and there's a smattering of applause from the largely student audience. i don't blame them: Sinclair is inspiring--and while he can sound aggravatingly smug, he's got good reason for his smirk: the man's a genius at getting ethical, sustainable projects built all over the map. as co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, he's been involved in strengthening communities through buildings from Sri Lanka to L.A., from the Mississippi to the Amazon. this is a photo from the Biloxi rebuilding project (sponsored by none other than Oprah).

most exciting to me is the fact that, after listening raptly to Sinclair talk for 90 minutes about how architecture today truly has to be about more than just the architect's ego, that buildings affect the lives of whole communities, that architecture is planning, not glamour...there is suddenly an unstoppable stampede of students wanting to talk to him about future projects, about getting a job with his organization, and about architecture as inspiration. i couldn't agree more.

ps. for more info about the Biloxi project, visit this participant's blog

astro-no

noticed this frightening example of astro-turf in action near St. Claire & Bathurst recently. the funny thing about this as a photograph is that it looks okay. the lawn on the top-left looks eerily green & healthy compared to the normal post-slush grass on the right. but let me assure you, in real life, in person, the astroturf does not look okay. it looks really really weird. and don't even think about what the dogs in the neighborhood do to it. true, the owners don't have to mow it...astro-lawn doesn't look "messy" like the real grass in the next yard over...but really...what were they thinking?!?

the mighty car

i haven't got much patience for cars in the urban environment...especially during slush season...but i was delighted by the "mighty cars" in the Tokyo fish market. looking like something from a Doctor Who episode, these are car stripped to the essentials: a smoke-spouting engine at the front, a massive steering wheel on top, a space to stand behind the wheel, and a flatbed to load whatever you might be carrying...generally fish.

taking tea to...

my first day in Tokyo, i woke up at 5 am (thank you, jetlag) and went out for a wander. discovered a lovely little residential neighborhood, listened to Buddhist monks chanting in a shrine complex, and drank several green tea lattes (which are marvellous in Japan--fluffy bitter matcha & warm milk, fantastic! nothing like the weird melon-flavoured Starbucks version over here) . i was waiting for the department stores to open, so i could check out their famous food floors, where there are all kinds of sweets, teas, prepared bento boxes, sushi...you name it. and then, what do i see first when i walk down to the food hall when it opens at 10am? yup...the French tea company Mariage Freres. because they're everywhere in Japan.

now, looking at the photo, you could imagine that's the sign in rue du Bourg-Tibourg in the Marais...only i know that it was taken at the front door of the Seita foodhall in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. thinking about the Marais, though, i wonder how all the Parisians are adjusting to their tea (& coffee) without smoke this morning. no more smoking in a French cafe--i can't imagine what my favourite places will look like, without that thick haze of Gitanes...bizarrely, the Japanese still can smoke in cafes. so those green tea lattes? i drank them with a thick haze of smoke billowing over from the smoking section...

all the best for 2008!

back in the snow after a warm Christmas in Hong Kong overlooking Victoria Harbour. more about that very soon...but in the meantime, here's an atmospheric photograph from Christmas Eve, on the ferry.

holiday lights

i had forgotten that people here decorate their construction sites with holiday lights. i particularly like the lopsided Charlie-Brown Christmas tree that is leaning on the second floor of the Art Gallery of Ontario's site on Dundas here in Toronto. this evening it surprised me nearly as much as my all-time favourite weird tree location: the completely-decorated & illuminated small tree in the tunnel in New York underneath the Hudson River...which you should be able to glimpse on the PATH train between Union Square and Jersey City.

Wychwood

recently, Toronto poet Kevin Irie invited me for a walk through one of Toronto's most exclusive neighbourhoods--the legendary Wychwood. he told me it was a 19th-century artists' enclave--so i wasn't expecting mansions, or private tennis courts. but anyone who has been to Wychwood knows that this place is a very unique take on the artist life, snuck into a woodsy hill near Bathurst and St-Claire. the park was founded by landscape painter Marmaduke Matthews in the 1870s, but most of the houses were built post-1907. many were designed by the architect Eden Smith, who saw himself as an upholder of the William Morris Arts and Crafts tradition. so the houses for the most part are timbered and many-gabled, and though they ought to be unbearably twee, they're actually marvellous. (Smith also built low-cost housing in a similar style...i'd love to see some of those, to compare.)

Marshall McLuhan lived here from 1968 until the end of his life (i wouldn't mind his house, near the pond...) and innumerable Toronto novels have been set here--i just read Russell Smith's very funny Muriella Pent. i hope the park is haunted by all sorts of artistic ghosts, even ones who never lived here...it's certainly the most romantic place in Toronto, and despite its air of private property, anybody at all can wander through these winding streets, admiring the gardens and contemplating the illusive nature of fame.

ROM

no one likes to admit they're wrong...and i'm no exception. i hated the Royal Ontario Museum's crystal. i hated the sketches, i ridiculed the construction delays, i criticized the expense...and now that i've been to see the completed building? i have to admit that i really like it.

what made me change my mind is that just recently i was walking down Bloor. it was raining. it was twilight--that unattractive grey colour that Toronto does all-too-well. and there suddenly was the Crystal, illuminated, dramatic, and yes--really exciting. the sheer exhuberance of the angles made me want to go inside the building, even though i hadn't planned to make a stop at all. isn't that what architecture is supposed to do--make people want to walk into a building?

architect Daniel Libeskind has created someting beautiful and strange. it remains to be seen if the curatorial eye at the ROM can match the excitement of the new building (the current Canada Collects exhibit is fascinating but lacks coherence). but now i'm really looking forward to seeing what develops at the reinvigourated space.

if you haven't been by yet, you might want to schedule your visit for later in the month, when the dinosaur exhibit reopens...