The last countryside

“Growing towers” by Manuel Alvarez Diestro

Parabolic Facade in Log 18

Parabolic Facade after winning the first Log Postcard Competition is now cover of Log 18

PRESS RELEASE

March 10, 2010

Log 18 (Winter 2010) – Includes: Simone Brott on Deleuze’s reception in New York by way of Columbia University in the 1970s and an anarcho-aesthetic bloc within the New York counterculture; Pier Vittorio Aureli on Manfredo Tafuri’s “Intellectual Work”; Alejandro Zaera-Polo’s polemic on “Cheapness” and its pretensions; Marc Angélil and Cary Siress’s survey of garbage and its vicissitudes (including “orgiastic recycling”); plus observations on La Tourette at fifty, Herzog & de Meuron’s parking garage in Miami, and the Burnham Centennial pavilions by Zaha Hadid and Ben van Berkel in Millennium Park, Chicago.

The Log 18 cover/postcard, entitled “Parabolic Facade,” by Manuel Alvarez Diestro, shows a building in the Diar Es Saada (“Land of Happiness”) neighborhood of Algiers clothed with satellite dishes and laundry.

To order, see www.anycorp.com.

through

“window framing tree, towers and hidden river” by Manuel Alvarez Diestro

I was at 600 AM in the North West of Guangzhou.  I was looking for holes on walls where I could see through and discover new vistas of the periphery. On a little street full of marble workshops I found a rusty gate with several openings.  I bended my knees and saw a row of towers in the back perfectly aligned. The written red Chinese characters next to the wholes reminded me I was in China.  Later I would discover that between the towers, the esplanade and tree lied the Pearl River or perhaps one of its many branches.

I left the gate and reached an iron bridge similar to those built by the Eiffel school.  A train passed through and the structure vibrated.  I closed my eyes and wondered I could be in the Colindres iron bridge traversing the Ason River or in the Imbaba bridge traversing the Nile River in Cairo. 

I did not take a photo of the iron structure but I let you imagine that not far from the view that you can see there is a bridge on the left margin and a river between the towers and the tree.

Guangzhou will be coming soon to  www.transitorycities.com

“At this moment” collective exhibition at Del Sol St.

 

“High Densities,  Hong-Kong”  by Manuel Alvarez Diestro

Del Sol St. Art Gallery

Colectiva de Fotografia y Video

from 19th june to 11th july 2009

visit Del Sol St.

parabolic facades

Algiers, a tale of a parabolic city now in polarinertia.com

POLAR INERTIA

Issue 34: summer 2009

Polar Inertia journal is an outlet and a resource for on going research into the networks and patterns that define the contemporary city. The journal began with the idea that the understanding of a culture requires immersion into the instruments of media, technology and infrastructure that have molded its growth.

the end

An advertising add posted in every corner of Sydney streets says “the end”. This time it was somewhere in Redfern.  It seems to follow me all around the city since the moment I arrived.  My three days trip  with this add is pushing me to become twice aware of my short stay in this city and  perhaps the confirmation of another life episode ending in my life at that time.

Once again, as in many other cities before, I wanted to get completely lost through the streets of Sydney.  However, two days after a hidden inertia within me will force me to get to the subway (in Town Hall station which by the way recalls me Maverick Station in the Boston harbor)  and reach the international departures terminal at Sidney International Airport.  It will be  the time to fly back to Johannesburg.  It will be the time to follow the same responsible attitude which will push me to always return to a point of origin.  It will be another failed and short lived perfect escape.

If you want to see more images of Sidney you can go to www.transitorycities.com