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Maya Lin

Architecture

15 Essential Films About Famous Architects

By Claire Cottrell on

There’s been a flurry of activity in the world of film and architecture this week. Notable LA filmmaker and film critic Thom Andersen released his unconventional documentary Reconversão about last year’s Pritzker Prize-winning architect Eduardo Souto de Moura and their mutual fascination — one you know we share — with abandoned spaces, contemporary ruins and the societal conflicts that create them. Add to that an intriguing Kickstarter for Great Spaces, a web series by four young design enthusiasts exploring the world one space at a time, showed up in our inbox and persuaded us to champion their worthy cause.

To celebrate the very best of multidisciplinary mash-ups, we thought we’d take a look at some of the fantastic films about architects that have been made over the years. From one of the most inspiring films you will ever see about husband-wife creative powerhouse Charles and Ray Eames (notably narrated by our favorite art house badboy James Franco) to Academy Award-winning director Sydney Pollack’s look at America’s design darling, Frank Gehry, click through to check out our picks for must-see films focused on one of the most enigmatic and conflicted characters in the world: the architect. … Read More

Architecture

10 Remarkable Models Made by World Famous Architects

By Claire Cottrell on

Albert Pike, poet, Freemason, and Confederate man about town, astutely commented that “one man is equivalent to all Creation. One man is a World in miniature.” If one man represents the world than the roof over his head, and a mini version of that roof surely has some fundamental universal importance.

We love sensible and profound quotes as much as we love micro architecture, and in discovering Pritzker Prize winner Peter Zumthor’s strangely compelling large-scale models, we’ve found a new means to satisfy our obsession with little buildings. A study in micro representation, the model, as Zumthor explains, is the only way to consider the “atmosphere” of a space. Or, what we like to think of as the best way to design good vibes.

We invite you to get out some construction paper, a pair of scissors, and that old crafty standby, Elmer’s Glue, and be inspired to build your own mini proverbial universe. Made out of wacky materials like organic milk cartons, pepto bismol pink styrofoam and paper dinner napkins, click through to check out our roundup of remarkable models made by some of the world’s most important architects. … Read More

Art

Take a Cross-Country Public Art Road Trip

By Rozalia Jovanovic on

With Rob Pruitt’s sleek monument to Andy Warhol recently unveiled in Union Square and Sol Lewitt’s modular structures being installed in City Hall Park (both installations are presented by New York’s Public Art Fund), we’ve been contemplating innovative art that’s accessible outside the traditional context of museums and galleries. In the coming weeks as you take to city streets, benches, park lawns, (and garages!) keep an eye out for what’s going up around you. That skeletal advertising billboard may not be an actual advertising billboard but one of three works by artist Kim Beck. In celebration of Beck, Lewitt, Pruitt and other artists whose work is on public display this spring, take a virtual road trip with us from New York to Seattle to explore some of the most exciting works, both recently unveiled or well-renowned, in some Flavorpill cities. … Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. Watch Thom Yorke perform three new solo songs during a benefit show for the UK’s Green Party last night. [via

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Art

Maya Lin’s New Landscapes: Sculptural, Actual, and Environmental

By Flavorwire Staff on

“The shape is the object,” critic Michael Fried once wrote. “At any rate, what secures the wholeness of the object is the singleness of the shape.” This line evokes Maya Lin’s stunning Vietnam Memorial (she won the commission when she was twenty-one!), the work for which she is best known. There, residing firmly in the shadow of the Daniel Chester French’s iconic Lincoln, Lin’s haunting granite oeuvre singularly alters the landscape and, consequently, highlights visitors’ collective kinesthesia. Its singleness of shape is the anti-obelisk; it makes you want to drop to your knees in contrition rather than stand in… Read More