Ivan Himanen is an architect, urbanist, and researcher based in New York City.
The first question is: are humans endowed with limits– are we endowed with yokes? The answer is yes, and there is one specific yoke which I wish to highlight, one of a highly fundamental nature. It is horizontality. And it’s getting to be a burden. Our sense of physical reality is shaped almost across the […]
The living rocks cooled,The wriggling fish washed ashore,The birds and lizards fellvictim to a more fiery roar–And so will mankind,being once supreme,be reduced to apesby the machine. Consider this a preamble to an upcoming article on verticality. A couple of cool articles: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/rich-doyle-2 http://spacetimearchitecture.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/morphing-scale-to-imagine-habitation/
Caught a glimpse of a mockingbird singing and grooming on the edge of the High Line one early evening. Beautiful voice.
Yesterday afternoon I left the office for lunch. With my food I walked into the public plaza behind 776 6th Avenue in search for a place to sit. On one side there were stainless steel chairs and tables: elevated, new, and shiny. Across from them were long red granite benches; low, unassuming, and blending with […]
First words, they always do that sexy thinglike the first time I moved on you,their anesthesia makes last light(how many stitches do I need?) But then there are last words,Their breath makes next lightwhich move on the long woundand make you unforgettable.
I’m currently collaborating with The Satellite Collective, headed by Kevin Draper, in a handful of capacities. -Designing their latest online publication: Transmission -Consulting on motion graphics to accompany Manuel Vignoulle’s dance piece which will premiere in mid-May at BAM -Writing a review for my good friend Esme Boyce’s piece, also premiering at that show -Eventually, […]
At the close of the at-once heavy and light hour-long evolution of Once I Was An Eagle by Laura Marling, I feel greatly rewarded with a verse which morphs meaning at least once per line: Thank you naivetyfor failing me againhe was my next verse. A light personification of ‘naivety’, and a word of gratitude, […]
Architects thrive in the jack-of-all-trades role. We fantasize about being great designers, and great builders, and great theoreticians, and great teachers, and great dressers…. But, of course, consummating a union of all aspects of building is difficult to achieve consistently on every single project, particularly the theoretician part, particularly still in the early years when recognition and craft are still developing. Imagine a […]
Every time I’ve caught you, airborne or bedridden, I’ve… Tried to invent a new way of holding you. And while hundreds there were, cradles, clasps, passions, pietas, more often than not my curls and swoons and tenderness forced brought me so close, so deafeningly in that you ended up holding me… You know how: true […]
Lebbeus Woods called Michelangelo’s sketches one step in “the risky task of invention.” The intense precision of his lines and how ahead of their time they are– still fresh to look at, conjuring many associations– bring to my mind the peculiar case of how architecture evolves. Invention is violence. The conflict of ideas against reality. This profession, […]