Tropical TO

A certain Vancouverite over at Cwangdom has been graciously photographing the palmtrees of that fair city for this palm tree obsessed northerner. But to my sub tropical surprise I found this lovely grove growing outdoors here in the Tdot at Nathan Philips Square. Part of Mayor David Miller's Beautiful City campaign in which city parks and gardens have been spruced up...many of them with assorted tropicals. Ahhh a bit of the tropics in Ontario! Viva la Global Warming!

Toronto's Bilingual Street Signs

This is for all those certain Vancouverites who did not believe that Tdot has bilingual street signs with a language other than Francais. This pic was taken in Chinatown and I have no idea how you would translate names like this. Is it phonetic?

Xefirotarch / Design Series 4

March 31-September 17 2006

I saw this exhibition at the SFMOMA featuring the work of Hernan Diaz Alonso's Los Angeles firm called Xefirotarch. The show featured the firm's amazingly detailed fibreglass and plastic models wich had a strange organic but also automotive characteristic due to their ultraglossy red paint finishes. If you're in the area go see it! ehem Joe

From the SFMOMA website: Since its founding in 2001, Hernán Díaz Alonso's Los Angeles–based architectural firm, Xefirotarch, has attracted critical praise and global attention for its highly imaginative designs. Characterized by biomorphic forms that meld the organic with the supernatural, Xefirotarch's projects reveal cinematic influences — Díaz Alonso initially considered a career as a filmmaker — and an innovative approach to integrating multipurposed spaces. The exhibition includes architectural models, digital animations, and a specially created sculptural installation entitled Sangre (Spanish for “blood”), a dramatic, undulating construction coated in patented Ferrari Red paint. This is the fourth installment of SFMOMA's design series, devoted to showcasing emerging design talent across an array of disciplines.

oh Mr. Botta...

I recently visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta. It's an interesting building in all its POMO..ehm... glory, complete with patterned exterior brick, rotunda and scarpa'esque stairs. It was a well crafted and detailed building with a decidedly predictable and perhaps uninspiring layout.

I was a little more interested in the contents of the museum than the museum building itself....a first for this perpetual one track mind architourist. More on the gallery shows coming up....

Lesson learned....you can go to a museum to look at exhibits

summer's here!

Thesis is over! Look forward to many a post on Scribbles n'things.

Jane Jacobs 1916-2006

"Being human is itself difficult, and therefore all kinds of settlements (except dream cities) have problems." Jane Jacobs

Thanks Jane Jacobs for helping us get one step closer to our dream cities! Your passion for urbanity will be greatly missed.

Anjali and Company

Anjali and Company is an Ottawa based Classical Indian Dance group lead by internationally acclaimed dancer Anne-Marie Gaston (aka Anjali). Gaston is a Canadian who spent over 20 years in India learning the art of classical temple dancing. Reviews about her have mentioned that her skill in the art is so developed that she is often mistaken for a home grown dancer in India.

I had the opportunity to see Anjali and Company two years ago and I'm looking forward to seeing them again...just my luck...on April 28th and 29th both at 7:30 pm Anjali and company will be performing a mixed-media theatre performance of Indian temple and court dances juxtaposed against images of the architecture and landscapes of India. This show will also feature the premier of the 'Dance of Siva'. Tickets go for $22-$25 at the 'Arts Court', 2 Daily Avenue in Ottawa.

The Face of Tomorrow

Much has been written in discourses of Geography, Sociology, Economics and the Arts about the effects of Globalization and world wide migration on modern societies. One aspect of this are the global, multicultural cities unfolding around us on a daily basis. This globalization affects us in things as mundane as the food we eat to the languages that we speak...why today I was thinking about this when I was cursing in French because I spilled my Japanese curry chicken that I was eating with Lebanese pita bread while watching a television show beamed over from the UK.

This site that I found "The Face of Tomorrow" shows another effect of this very same globalization...what will we look like in the future after everyone intermarriage has completely blurred racial lines resulting in a populace with people who can claim 3 or 4 cultures as their own. This site takes images from 100 people from a particular global city and blends their features into a postulated ethnically hybrid person. The results are interesting, culturally ambiguous features. But it is interesting each city's specific blend and ratios of cultures leads to a different look of its hybrid future citizen. The picture above is of the very multicultural city of Sydney, Australia.

Your city can also be added! The website contains instructions on how to create a composite future person for your city..."all you need is a digital camera, a tripod, and 100 people" ...:P

Lesson learned....blonds might go extinct

Anagrams strike again

Looks like the anagram has struck again... this time in good old O'town. Bayshore is now "Hoser Bay", Stittsville (which already has a funny name) is now "Vilest stilt". Unfortunately OC Transpo doesn't have much of a sense of humour either. Legal actions are now pending on the map creator. Oh Ottawa......

Lesson learned....don't mess with bus drivers...

Absolute Carleton!

Much has been said in the local T.O. media about the international design competition for the Absolute Condominium tower in Mississauga. The winner is Yansong Ma of M.A.D. office, out of the U.S. its a provocatively curvaceous building that has already gotten the nick -name of the "Marilyn Monroe" building. It's a great step in the right direction for the architecture of suburbia...a cause that I believe is very worthy.

Another thing that I think is worthy is a mention of the amazing competition entries by none other than Carleton Architecture kids. The found object skyscraper studio has been a Carleton institution for a number of years now. It's and intensive and soul-breaking studio that has admittedly created some beautiful pieces of design. There were 5 entries by Carleton Students, making them the vast majority of Canadian participants in the competition. Its pretty amazing to see student designs right along side those of renouned international and local firms. What's even more amazing is that one of them (Venk Prabhu's) was a final runner up.

Where were the other Canadian schools of archtiecture in the competition? No where to be seen! hmmm....

Lesson learned....Carleton Architecture ...be proud....

C.R.A.Z.Y. Le film

C.R.A.Z.Y. It's the movie that everyone in English Canada has head so much about but probably have not watched, now available on DVD. I must admit my exposure to Quebecois cinematography has been extremely limited...perhaps to those films featuring "Ananas" the talking pineapple...although I have the distinct feeling he was Franco-Ontarien... just kidding...

This movie basically took home all the movie awards it was offered at the Genie and Jutra awards. It is a really heartwarming coming out/coming of age movie revolving around the main character Zac Beaulieu the second youngest son of a family of 5 boys living in suburban Montreal. The movie documents his life and the life of his family from the 1960's to present day. There's bits of this character that a wide range of people can relate to, his struggles with his family, school life, religion/superstition, confusion with identity/sexuality and the all wholesome teen rebellion.

Set to an amazing soundtrack of classic 60's, 70's, and 80's rock, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones and a hint of Patsy Kline, this movie is a treat for the ears as well as the heart...

...lesson learned...watch Quebecois Film.

Cesaria Evora The Barefoot Diva

Tonight the Capital is graced with the presence of singer Cesaria Evora. Cesaria performed to a sold out audience in the premier event of the Ottawa Jazzfest 2006 season. I unfortunately was not a lucky one in getting tickets...no easy feat considering she is one of the most successful and celebrated latin artist selling more than 4 million albums.

Cesaria Evora is known as the "Barefoot Diva," a because of her preference for performing shoeless as a symbolic reference to her empathy for the poverty of African women. She sings in a genre of music called "Morna" it is described as a "soulful genre sung in Creole-Portuguese that expresses suffering and loss" (Ottawa arts and Entertainment). Her lyrics are often about poverty and harsh life...might sound like bit of a downer but her emotioinal brooding voice makes for some beautiful, smooth music.

...Lesson learned...buy tickets early...

Grupo Corpo!

Intoxicating.....Just went to go see a performance by the famous Brazilian contemporary dance company Grupo Corpo. People in the dance "know" describe the company's style as a "blend of the rigor of classical ballet, the free inventiveness of modern dance and the sinuous complexity of Afro-Brazilian movement combined into a dance language all its own" .....yup that's about it....


If I had to describe the choreography it would be: "modern dance laced with classical ballet and Latin dancing, injected with insect/animalistic anthropomorphic movement with a hint of violent yet elegant epileptic fits." I never thought that dance moves performed on stage could actually induce me to smile and laugh... Beautiful costumes, sets and music... seisurely beautiful...Dance is still new to me...but I think I'm hooked.

Grupo Corpo is performing "Lecuona and Onqoto"(read a review from Seattle) March 31st and April 1st at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. You will not be disappointed.

Queen of Streets

I guess it's a Toronto theme today....this post is about Queen Street that mecca of hipsters and posers and really annoying much music personalities.

Here are a couple of clips that I find interesting:

This one is the now notorious Queen Street man propagating all the stereotypes of the cool Queen Street types...gotta have that drake juice!



And this one I think is really interesting...someone rode a motorcycle from one end of Queen Street in Scarborough all the way to Mississagua and filmed it in time laps....if you ever wondered what it would be like to ride a motor cycle I guess this is a pretty good look

Who doesn't love anagrams?

....Well apparently the TTC!


This anagram map of the Toronto subway was created by robotjonny.com as a part of a series of anagrams of world subway system maps. Instead of having a laugh about it Toronto's finest in maroon decided to take legal action saying it was an unlawful use of the Toronto Transit commission's IP (intellectual property) since the illustration uses the graphics of the system's maps. Oh TTC... someone definitely has their sense of humour strangled in streetcar wires. If only they would realize that riding transit could be more than just an efficient and utilitarian thing and actually be fun.

about a year ago....

Wow I have a lot of backlogged montaging to do...thank goodness for automerge! Here's the Barcelona gang at Park Guell....unfortunately Michelle's face is a little squeezed to the faaar left...

Lotus Lounge/Club Soda

Christine and me visited this interesting little place last Friday. It's a club with a bit of a split personality...different name, clientele and entrances on different nights but basically the same space...designed by none other than the kids from third year Carleton Architecture.
A few installations from this year's Kosmic and the outdoor pavillions have made it to this subterranean establishment at the corner of Slater and Bank Streets including those funny varnished tree stumps used as tables/chairs... one of which was kidnapped after kosmic by some naughty masters students and is now at home behind my desk...tisk tisk
(photos by cwang)