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Posts Tagged ‘Vernacular’

Vernacular Shantyscrapers: Reimagining Lagos as a Vertical City

08 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

leads

Lagos is the largest city in Nigeria, a fast-growing metropolis that has already spilled over onto adjacent waters but needs to grow up as well as as out.

lagos reenvisioned

Artist and architect Olalekan Jeyifous works in Brooklyn but grew up in Lagos, a place where patchwork urbanism and ramshackle architecture evolve out of necessity, invention and available materials.

lagos futuristic

In this series of imaginative photo collages, Jeyifous combines original photographs and three-dimensional models, envisioning a vertical expression of the same approaches.

lagos new

In part, the imagery is a tribute to ground-up innovation and improvisation, which results in a vernacular often ignored by “serious” architects in favor of conventional design styles.

lagos shanty village

lagos futurology

“The project examines the ways in which the nature of impoverished spaces,” says Jeyifous, “which are not only highly self-organized but also deploy sustainability practices as a matter of necessity, can be applied to cities undergoing massive population growth.”

lagos shantyscrapers

lagos at night

Where some see horizontal slums currently (or vertical ones in this futuristic vision), others can find inspiration to create architecture that reflects all of the demographics and history of a given place.

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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Architectural Cultures Condensed: Vernacular Dwelling Collages

11 Feb

[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

architecture collage 1

Can you distill the architecture of a particular city down to an image of just a single building? Not effectively – unless you’re Sweden-based artist Anastasia Savinova, who scouts and photographs the most distinctive typologies of specific locations and then blends them into a single structure via paper collage. Entitled “Genuis Loci,” the series consists of monstrous, Frankenstein-like cobbled buildings packing in as much visual information as possible.

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“Traveling around cities and countries, I take pictures of buildings, look into windows sneakily, go to local shops, flea markets and bars, watch everyday life – all this helps to build the feeling of the Place. This feeling becomes a foundation for a series of large-scale collages. The Integral Image emerges from visual information and a dozen of associations. While architecture and landscape are visual components of the integral image of the Place, at the same time, this image is inseparably linked with a mentality and a way of life.”

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“It is saturated with ‘an incorporeal something.’ Ancient Romans called it ‘genus loci’ – the protective spirit of a place. In contemporary usage, ‘genus loci’ refers to a location’s distinctive atmosphere. A big house on each collage is composed of many buildings, which are typical for a particular country or city, in their connection with the land and the spirit of the place.”

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Some almost look like they could be real structures, while the rest are pure fantasy, towering dozens or hundreds of feet into the air, sprouting forests from their roofs or balancing precariously on ladders. Can you guess from the images which countries are represented here? If you can’t figure it out, check out Savinova’s website for all the specifics.

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[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

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Vanishing Vernacular: NYC Storefront Gentrification in Action

02 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Photography & Video. ]

store front five boroughs

Overtly a straight-shot photographic compilation, Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York shows the rich vernacular diversity of mom-and-pop shops across all five boroughs. Since publishing the book, however, its creators have revisited their subjects and documented the amazing rate of change as “luxury condos and artisanal cupcake boutiques uproot local delis and dive bars.”

store front bar office

These before-and-after pictures were taken all over the city and reflect the influence of many immigrant cultures, including “Irish, Germans, Jews, Italians, Poles, Eastern Europeans and later Hispanics and Chinese”, but also a more recent trend toward uniformity.

store front deli bank

The images themselves are unpretentious, allowing the streets and stores to speak for themselves. Supplemental maps, histories and interviews, however, help flesh the book out without detracting from the power of the photos throughout.

store front nyc photos

store front photo shoot

The visual story told by the book and followup photographs is hard to put into words, but captures the spirit of neighborhoods around New York. “The variety is immense, from Manhattan’s Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery and Katz’s Delicatessen to the Jackson Heights Florist in Queens, Court Street Pastry in Brooklyn, D. D’Auria and Sons Pork Store in the Bronx and the De Luca General Store on Staten Island … the face of New York is etched in their facades.”

store front then now

storefront street view image

About the photographers and authors, James and Karla Murray, and their work: “Their critically acclaimed books New York Nights and Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York as well as their graffiti publication Broken Windowshave set the standard for urban documentation. New York Nights was the winner of the prestigious New York Society Library’s 2012 New York City Book Award. “

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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Photography & Video. ]

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