caravia/architecture

Abandonned town of Balestrino, in Tuscany. All the habitants were evacuated for risk of earthquakes and sismic activity. But the town is stil there, maybe the risk was exagerated. A great tips for squatters!

Frank Gehry's first job in London, a temporary pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery, in Kensington Gardens. Loofty and clear, an outdoors lounge, nice.

Great ideas for future kitchens!!

I have friends living in Dubai, they are Palestinians and they are some of the hundreds of thousands foreigners working in Dubai, a paradise for mad architects and wealthy tycoons. "As Sim City" in the desert, says the critics, a fantasy made reality, say the enthusiastic. Dubai is Blade Runner and Alice in the Land of the Mirrors at the same time...

Rem Koolhas tower in Beijing, amazing...

"Modernism in china

Edward Denison and Guang Yu Ren

Wiley, HB, 336pp, £45

4/5

While we in the west are used to architectural revolutions -- the Neo-palladian movement which changed the face of London, for example -- no word for "modernity" existed in the Chinese language before the 19th century. Tradition was valued, and the unchanging building type consisted of three basic elements: a raised platform, supporting column, and roof. On a visit to Macau in the late 18th century, one Commander Lin was amazed: "The foreigners build their houses with one room on top of another..."

This book, the second by the authors about architecture in China following Building Shanghai two years ago, tackles the complex story of how modernism eventually developed there, a subject which requires an understanding of the architectural background and history of China from the 17th century onwards.

In a sense, modernity was forced on China by the west in a series of key historical events, well summarised in the early chapters. The ceding of the treaty ports in 1842 "signified the scientific and technological superiority of the western world over an anachronistic Chinese empire: modernisation was inevitable." Later, "western knowledge for practical use" became a catchphrase in China."

Design and beauty in the every day objects.