National Geographic Society

Browsing through photos of Washington, D.C. on Flickr and came across this image of the National Geographic Society's old headquarters.



Now this is a structure that really speaks to the majesty and influence of the Society over the last 120 years; and it conveys in one look the rationality underpinning National Geographic as one of our country's great scientific institutions.

Oops! I guess that's why they've turned it into a museum, now! The current NGS building is this ugly, flattened, anonymous office building in the back. Was this edifice built for the use of the world's premier photojournalists, or the staff in Accounts Receivable?



You know, those squinty windows and that terraced potted plant look reminds me of something else I've seen. Something... oh yeah, I remember, the Federal prison in downtown LA!

Broken Flowers

So I saw the new Bill Murray movie, Broken Flowers, the other day on DVD. Murray plays this burnt out ex-computer entrepreneur who receives an anonymous, detail sparse letter about a son he may or may not have fathered 20 years previously. At the prodding of his (really) enthusiastic, mystery-obsessed neighbor, Murray reluctantly sets off on a quest to find and talk to each of the women he knew at that time. Murray's been creating a lot of great, ambivalent, melancholy characters lately, and this is another solid one in that vein.

But one of the most fascinating things for me, about the movie, was how director Jim Jarmusch uses architecture and design to quickly set up the characters. It starts in the opening pan, which follows a mail carrier on her rounds.

The neighbor's first. Check it out, kids playing, green grass, toys all over the unkempt yard:



And Murray's house, just next door, with its meticulous landscaping, square lines, lame fake rock, absence of any sign of life:



Architecture is a form of cinematic shorthand. Films use it because audiences immediately understand; they intuitively know what it reveals about the characters. Jarmusch uses environments expressionistically, to reveal the interiority of his characters' souls.



This man's dead inside. And look: his complete spiritual anomie is perfectly conveyed in just one glance by his tasteful, clean-lined designer modernist furnishings.



What gave them the idea to make everything that color? Beige, brown, and that slightly bile-y yellow-- everything looks like it's covered in one of those old, transparent vinyl sheets paranoid people put on their couches.



Compare the neighbor's house, though. Every room's a riot of color. Every wall is covered by paintings, posters, photographs, artwork and drawings from the kids



This guy works two jobs and still has the inclination to play amateur sleuth for his neighbor. He's alive.



Look, I'm not saying redecorating is going to make your life worth living. But it has to be better than just sitting there.

Eyesore of the Month

Professional curmudgeon James Howard Kunstler has been running a great feature over at his site for the past few years called, fittingly enough, Eyesore of the Month. He writes frequently funny, often apopleptic, always well-considered illustrated dissections of atrocious architecture and landscaping unlucky enough to cross his path (or sometimes sent his way by readers). Take a look at this July 2004 review of a student housing complex at Harvard Business School:

Welcome to the new student housing complex at Harvard's Business School, designed by cutting edgers Rudolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti. Notice the attempt to make this despotic corporate box sporty and playful with the arbitrary placement of windows. Interestingly the home page of the building's website, doesn't even show a picture of the building. What they're really proud of is the "green space and courtyard." Check it out:



Is that welcoming or what? Just take a seat under a 300-ton slab of concrete and steel and relax. . . like a pill bug under a hiking boot.

His critiques aren't merely aesthetic; his ire is most often directed towards the social dimension of our built environment, and backed up by his belief in an impending oil apocalypse. Then again, sometimes he just does a bit of good old-fashioned bitching. Always a good read.

Design A Room

Via an oldish post on Bruce Sterling's Beyond the Beyond, Design A Room, a Flash-based mini-game presented by the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum, gives you the chance to put together your very own horribly ugly room layouts using classic Modernist tables, lamps, chairs, and other design objects.

Bonuses include a similarly atrocious Arts & Crafts mode, and small, informative blurbs on each item, thoughtfully provided by the game creator, so that when you begin building your soulless formica dream house you know exactly what to ask for at Design Within Reach.