The Museo Xul Solar is devoted to the artist’s extensive work spanning several decades and various media. The building is an architectural masterpiece that connects various old structures, including Solar’s flat at the top, with cast concrete staircases, mezzanine floors and open spaces.
With Testa, Argentina lost one of its most famous architects last year. Two of his landmark buildings are among the more successful examples of Brutalism globally. I visited the Banco de Londres and the Biblioteca Nacional while in Buenos Aires last week.
Banco de Londres (1959-1966)
We checked out two modern art museums in San Telmo, Buenos Aires the other day. The Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Buenos Aires (MACBA) and the neighbouring Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (MAMBA) were, while almost completely empty, really worth the visit.
Super-slender residential skyscrapers are taking to the skies south of Central Park. They are an increasingly brazen display of economic inequalities and a seizing of one of the world’s most distinctive skylines by the super-rich.
Midtown zoning plans on display at the Skyscraper Museum, New York
Two Americans with a base in Harlem have made their lasting imprint on modern Japan. Townsend Harris, the US’s first consul to Japan, single-handedly created bilateral relations between both countries after he had founded today’s City College of New York. Alexander Hamilton, long after his untimely death, inspired Meiji-era reformers in how to design economic policy. His house up in Hamilton Heights today serves as a great museum commemorating the man’s myriad achievements.
Commemorative plaque for Townsend Harris at City College of New York
It’s been a while since I last posted anything. There is really no sole reason to blame for this hiatus – just a variety of things coming together. To make use of the diary aspect of blogging and to bridge the time until my focus returns, herewith some personal updates and thoughts just ahead of the holidays.
Zooming along the Den-en-toshi Line
Japan is any rail buff’s heaven. The punctuality and efficiency of the trains is one thing, the sheer scale of the network another: 82 out of the world’s 100 busiest train stations are in Japan. The role private rail lines played in the post-war urbanisation of Tokyo is explored in the post below, using Tokyu’s Den-en-toshi Line as an example.
Den-en-toshi Line signage. Thanks to kawawa for taking the shot!
The 1980s are often described as the “lost decade” for much of the second and third world. East Germany was partly able to avoid economic malaise. That was partly the case because Japanese banks kept the tabs open while relations between the GDR and the East Asian miracle nation blossomed. Some further historical anecdotes after the jump.
Two icons of the 1980s GDR – Semperoper in Dresden and Mazda 323 parked to the far left next to more common vehicles Trabant, Lada, Skoda, and Wartburg; by Flickr user Felix O (creative commons)
Japan’s post-war rise is often mentioned in the same breath with Germany’s spectacular economic miracle – the “Wirtschaftswunder”. For someone born on the other side of the wall in East Berlin, it is interesting to read about the less-documented relationship between economic superstar Japan and socialist East Germany during the decades of the cold war. The first installment in a set of some anecdotes is about Kajima Corporation’s export of Japanese construction practices to Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden.
Hotel Merkur Leipzig model presentation by Kajima Corporation in 1978
While in Tokyo we lived in a serviced apartment in Ark Hills, right next to Roppongi-itchome station. We could see the 1983 US embassy residences opposite Roppongi Dori from our windows. I found some pictures from before they were built. They illustrate how the area has changed since the war and bring back to life two historic buildings that occupied the site before. 30 Nov: Update at bottom of the post
September 1953 – Perry Apartments, left, with Harris Apartments on the right (Antonin Raymond), photograph from Gerald & Rella Warner Japan Slide Collection, reproduced with permission.
