Botanical Carpet Petra Blaise in Seattle

With your nose close to the floor you get a great scoop of the iron and nylon carpet with botanical theme that graces the 3rd Level Living Room and Level 10 Reading Room.

Dreaming of Books in the Eulali & Carlo Scandiuzzi Writers' Room in Seattle Central Public Library

OMA - CCTV Completed

Yes, it's finished, China Central Television Headquarters by Ole Scheeren and Rem Koolhaas is a fact.

Check out Iwan Baan's photographs of the Design Exhibit at MOMA, where his giant photos form the backdrop to the architects presentation and his photos of the construction of CCTV.

Read Paul Goldberger's piece of June 2008 Forbidden Cities in the New Yorker and view the accompanying slide show with Iwan's images.

Remembering the devastating fire in February 2009, the delivery of this humongous project is an even bigger feat.

LEAP at Seattle Central Public Library

LEAP at The Seattle Public Library stands for Library Equal Access Program. LEAP allows patrons who are hearing or vision impaired to have access to all items in the library's collection. 

Access is double easy now that LEAP has relocated (a while back) from Level 3, to Level 1 (Fourth Avenue entrance), no more zigzagging to get where you want to be.

Make a B-line from the front door to LEAP.

Still, here are some zigzagging pointers, so you know what to expect.

• To the left you'll have the elevators
• On your right you'll pass the Welcome Desk, the Check-in-and-out counter
• Again to the left is the entrance to the Microsoft Auditorium and the up-and-down escalators

Judith's Feet - Photo Dean Rutz/The Seattle Times

You'll find yourself on top of Public Art, conceptual artist Ann Hamilton's wooden floor, 7200 square feet of computer routed first sentences in eleven languages. This department is called LEW for Learning English as a Second Language and the World Collection.

• To the left a wall with a comfortable chair or two and display cabinets
• To the right stacks with the World Collection
• Reference librarians have their desk amidst the stacks to the right
• Behind their desk are the carrels for patrons who study English as a Second Language

As you continue your B-line to LEAP, you'll find the SirsiDynix Gallery which leads to the Children's Department. It has a polyurethane floor and a stainless steel wall.

• To your left the old-fashioned pay phones and water fountains
• On the right tables to study or read between the stacks of the World Collection

Past the telephone bay the wall continues and you'll find

• Men's Bathroom
• Women's Bathroom
• Entrance to LEAP 

Every fourth year we need a leap year to keep our Gregorian calendar in alignment with the Earth's revolutions around the sun, at the library LEAP is there for you every day!

This post was published on February 29, 2012 on Judith van Praag's blog Hope Filled Jars

This work by Judith van Praag is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

Will Rem Koolhaas Neighbor Frank Gehry in Los Angeles?

A quick note in response to article by Nicolai Ouroussoff in the New York Times. Who's going to win the competition for Eli Broad's personal collection's home?
Just returned from visiting Los Angeles, I can't wait to go back to the vibrant, creative city of angels. Next week Mr. Broad may make his decision about what's to be added to the area that already for a while has not much to do with the downtown of my first acquaintance in the mid-seventies.

OMA and Leigh & Orange Architects in Hong Kong

There's 101 years difference in age between OMA and Leigh & Orange Architects; the former founded in London in 1975, the latter in Hong Kong in 1874. Last year Leigh & Orange celebrated its 135th anniversary, check out the history of the firm on the L&O website, images of projects dating back to 1901 up to and beyond 2008 give a good idea of the firm's versatility.
OMA & L&O won the contest to design the Chu Hai College campus in Hong Kong, see the OMA-site for more information.

OMA at Home in Rotterdam

The Kunsthal, the Cube of Cheese, the Triplet Towers, ever so slowly but steadily Rem Koolhaas has been putting his mark on his home-town. And now OMA, in partnership with ABT Engineers & Co and Werner Sobek is to build the multi-functional StadsKantoor or city-hall & center of Rotterdam.

According to Architectenweb the ANP announced that the People's choice had not been OMA's design but that of SeArch. But Contest Committee members apparently didn't like the prominent "green cones" (I think they resemble cocktail shakers) in that firm's design.

A soundless video on YouTube shows imagery related to the StadsKantoor (City Hall) design, and for a split second the viewer can also detect the three towers OMA is building in the harbor city of Rotterdam.

Does the structure of StadsKantoor remind me of Lego®?
Yes, it does, a Lego® Transformer. Look at those awesome legs that from a certain angle seem to support the whole floating body!

Promised to be the most sustainable building in the Netherlands the complex will catch rainwater, have elevated terraces and homes with gardens, and facades with sandwich panels and lightweight thermal insulators (nanogels).

DOKU ARTS Shows Houselife

Image of the article by Tracy Metz, is from newspaper NRC, photographic image is from the docudrama Houselife.

Guadalupe Acerdo is the cleaning lady of the "Maison a Bordeaux", the "best design of 1998" according to Time magazine.
She's prominently featured in "Houselife", a film by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine.
Acerdo holds her ground in the lift, or on the "movable floor" in the house designed by Rem Koolhaas.

Houselife may be viewed during DOKU.ARTS the Festival of Films on Art
June 11-14, 2009
At the Filmmuseum
Vondelpark 3, Amsterdam

It pays off to buy more than one ticket at the time!

Film tickets
Regular €7,80.
With reduction: €6,50.
Friends of the Filmmuseum €4,50

When buying four tickets at once, you pay only €22,50 (€5,60 per ticket). These tickets can be used by one or more persons.

Ticket reservations:
tel. +31(0)20-5891400
Please pick up reserved tickets at least 30 minutes before the start of the screening.