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Pashing Perth: Lusting after Iwan Iwanoff

This post is part of my 'Speed-Dating Cities' series...

Marsala House, Dianella, 1977
Source: here and here.

Iwan Iwanoff's (1919 - 1986) meticulous assemblage of concrete blocks appear, at first glance, mathematical, but the whimsy that encompasses (and, perhaps, distinguishes) his body of work has me chasing down a different description...

... I could say they remind me of the music video for Royksopp's "Happy Up Here":

that his blockwork could've been a precursor to Tomohiro Nichikado's "Space Invaders" arcade video game.

Roberts House, City Beach, 1967.
Source: here

But I think I'll go with this:
Iwanoff's houses are a parliament of blockwork - complex and formed of aligned candidates fielded by their respective little, blocky, caucuses. Each, certain of its place ,and comfortable in the public glare; each, vocal in contributing to the party's voice. Mies van der Rohe once said that "architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space". Unapologetic, these acervation of blocks sing with a material-led optimism that persists from the 60's and 70's, a quality that is unfortunately lacking in buildings of the current age.

Kessel House, Dianella, 1977.
Source: here and here.

Let's Bridge The Gap, Potenza

This post is from my 'Speed-Dating Cities'...

Look here, Potenza: even though Sergio Musmeci's viaduct at Potenza with it's fancy-schmancy mathematics makes me shudder at memory of having to learn hyperbolic functions in Complex Maths class (go away, cosh and sinh!)... let's just bury the hatchet and move on.

When can I see you again?

Sure, I am suspicious of neoprene models artfully arranged by professors to demonstrate how their structure uses minimal material for maximum performance...

But I'll be honest here, the way your viaduct was constructed and the end results:

Makes me want to go for dinner with you and your mamma so I can see how you'll age over the years.
I bet you'll look amazing.

One small thing though: I don't get how you can get away with not having protection over your electrified railway lines.

If this were Australia, there'd be all sorts of barriers and wire mesh - partly to keep our wonderful citizens from accidentally touching the wires, but mostly to "spray" the pee - our young men have been thought to suffer from this strange condition where they climb up bridges and pee over them onto electrified lines.... causing massive electrocution. in all the wrong places.

I take it the men you have with you... don't have the same problems?

Images sourced from here and here and here and here.

Aunt Adelaide - A zooming zoo date

Part of the 'Speed-Dating Cities' series.

I don't have that much connection with my distant Aunt Adelaide, but my parents have been nagging me for ages to go out with her for "just a meal", they say.

"She's changed!" My mum vehemently declares.

"In what way?" I venture...

"She's had some work done on her recently... you won't be embarrassed to be seen with her in public." My sister adds helpfully.

"Take one for the team," my dad says, finally. I roll my eyes, so the real story here is that no one wants to go out with Aunt Adelaide, and I'm the sucker with my hand still up.

What my sister 'neglected' to tell me was that the work Adelaide had done was on her zoo. I'm sorry, if your zoo is sweeping up all the architectural awards in your city, there is a huge problem with the architectural work you're encouraging. Sure, they might have an architectural visionary as patron of zoo-keeping, but that's no excuse. Trying to make yourself beautiful via your zoo is just like.... rhino-plasty... you're not doing it for Adelaide, you're doing it to panda to others (sorry - yes, those puns were bad).

Still, the architectural intervention is probably my favourite in Adelaide - particularly the Entry Precinct and the Panda enclosure. Hassell did an absolutely breathtaking job in contributing to this emergent trend of Australian Architects producing gripping urban spaces for zoos (Think Werribee Free Range Zoo, Healesville Sanctuary etc). It's almost as if architects here are only able to successfully think about the interaction of landscape - as habitat for the host city and guesting animals; as places of respite, recreation and reproduction - and how a building touches this manufactured environmental 'truce' when they're having a knee-jerk reaction to having to justify or prove that they're competent in giving animals a home away from home. And they do a damn good job at convincing themselves and others. Sad, but true. And if only they would apply it to the actual city itself.

Oh Aunt Adelaide, you're almost hot enough for me to introduce to my single mates.
Almost.

Pictures sourced from here, here, here, here, and here.

A really good example of the success our architects are having in this area is Iredale Pedersen Hook's Orangutan Enclosure in Perth. I could go into details about how the poles are recycled concrete posts provided by Western Power, and how the shape of the roof forms came out of Finn Pedersen's little half-sober play with a paper coaster... but anyone visiting would see the successful interaction of animal in play with its adoptive home.

Pictures sourced from here.

Smooching Sydney: hot hot incinerator love

Part of the 'Speed-Dating Cities' series.

Sources: here and here.

Given that my current series this fortnight is on my favourite buildings in Australia, I'd be lying if I said any building in Australia (and the world) came even a remote second to the Sydney Opera House. I think its effect on me can be summed up with this particular bit trivia: I basically decided to enter the world of construction at the age of 6 because of photos I had seen on my old man's office walls of the Opera House being built. Of course my old man wanted me to be a whizz-bang engineer like the incredible Peter Rice and Ove Arup... but I ended up chasing down quite a different path to get here.

But since I will most likely dedicate an entire series of posts just to the Opera House, I figured I'd go back in time a little and have a little fantasy date with another gem from Sydney - and yes, it's hot, hot, hot...

Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin's
Pyrmont Incinerator.

In use from 1937 to 1971, the incinerator seared itself into the architectural heritage of the Pyrmont peninsula (largely industrial at the time), a strategically modern cubist design that was embellished with Aztec / Mayan-inspired ornamentation. The Griffins had been inspired by the ongoing work of scientists in the '30s to "smash the atom", and employed the geometric reliefs to capture the idea of energy being released - a rather naive sentiment when seen from today. Envisaged as a beacon of 20th century architecture, the incinerator fell to ruin over the next two decades after decommissioning, resembling more and more the Central American ruins that had impressed themselves on the Griffins. In 1992, after numerous protracted attempts to save it, the remaining structure was demolished.