Ivan Himanen is an architect, urbanist, and researcher based in New York City.
I started with the solstice but I had to measure it out. Not with carbon hair, nor melting ice, nor echoes from a siren’s mouth. So I hung Noah’s pants at dawn up on the cliffs facing south, And set the sun only once they had dried out.
Anyone familiar with painting techniques is familiar with a fundamental principle behind color mixing: not all pigments are created equal. One quickly learns to be very careful mixing dark paint into light paint– even the slightest drop could turn the whole color brown. Conversely, to lighten a dark color, one must add a whole ton […]
I’m going to describe to you a stereotype in the design world. Frequently we encounter characters who are obsessed with the building code. While there isn’t anything wrong with adherence to and knowledge of the law as such, this dude has fallen under a spell. Every increase in floor area, every added faucet, every change […]
It must have been within a couple of years of 2005, but in which direction I cannot remember, because that is the year that I triumphantly completed AP Physics under the illumination of Konstantinos Alexakos, a supergiant of a teacher, around whom lesser life events have dwarfed and realigned. With the sponsorship of an adult […]
This article highlights a new and particularly exciting cinematic lineage, sprouting up in ever-increasing numbers, which some intrepid film student should definitely trace. It encompasses unique, violent, heavily documented acts that blur the line between art and reality. Let’s call this lineage The Leap. Requirements/parameters: This is a refreshing tonic to the locked up starving […]
Frei Otto’s Pritzker Prize win is great news, and a long-deserved recognition. The tensile roof structures for which he is best known are broad and altudinous webs which still knock us on our asses when we see them. Broad, altudinous, and web-like also happens to describe his legacy on the profession fairly well. Here is […]
I love the horizon on a sunday morning. i’ve waited a week for this softest of sights, her cloudy lids rising with silver eyeliner. She partied last night with a newly-made lover earth but there is one thing she created on sunday: coffee– and it was only for me. I love the horizon on a sunday […]
What does it mean for a work of art to be ‘inspired by nature’? What does it mean for a work of art to be ‘organic’? I was stirred to contemplation of these core questions during the Soaking Wet series performance of A Natural History at the West End Theater, led by choreography from Catherine […]
I asked the moon out to promby chugging the oily seas where she skinny dipped,I threaded needles through the smallest stars and sewed a velvet sky…But she just rolled her big white eyes.“I need no more big-belted bastards. You’d better be the bashful guy.”So I slimmed back down, thoroughly lady-whipped…It’s a sarcastic universe, mom.
There’s little to belittle Bjarke Ingels’ approach to architecture. It fires on all cylinders– through his youth, his energy, his charisma, his Scandinavian origins, and most importantly his ability to make design more accessible to the common man. These are all desirable traits, and thus far his ability to steward positive change on a large […]