Hasta La Ideas

From here on out, whenever we refer to Stirling Prize-winning starchitect Will Alsop, we will quite often be including his new nickname, “The Sneak.” Observe: Back in early August, Will “The Sneak” Alsop said that he was hanging up his architecture career in order to concentrate on his painting. Shortly thereafter, he also announced that, so he wouldn’t get bored will all that painting he had planned, he was going to take an occasional teaching job with Ryerson University in Toronto. But when one has the nickname “The Sneak” (even if it’s a nickname created in the future) it’s often wise not to believe all you hear. Case in point, Alsop has now come out to admit that he wasn’t being entirely truthful. He fed everyone that painting stuff while the details were being worked out on his taking a new job — a new job in architecture. And a new job at RMJM no less, the same massive international firm that just got the okay to build Europe’s tallest tower. So how does “The Sneak” defend all this deceit?

Alsop said that he would paint while working at his studio at RMJM and that the abstract designs he created would be incorporated into designs for buildings. “I’m trying to do a beautiful painting, but I’m trying to think what we can do with a project. You can take a photograph of the painting and turn it into a building. There are no rules. It might be a complete failure, but then you can do another one, and you’ve still got a lovely painting.”

Aw shoot. Who can be mad at a fella who says stuff like that?

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Occassional model, underwear designer, and the first Brit Insurance Design Award winner, Yves Behar, has stirred things up by doing a quick bit of generalizing about the whole of Europe. In talking to Design Week before appearing with Alice Rawsthorn at an event in London, he said the following:

“I think designers in Europe too easily take the back seat,” says the Swiss-born industrial designer, based in San Francisco. He adds, “In Europe it is quite static, but it’s great [for a designer] to be creative with the parts you’re expected to be creative with and creative on the business side. People [on the West Coast of the US] believe we can change things.”

We have all sorts of weird feelings about this quote. Was it taken out of context? Does Behar really believe that most of Europe is segmented like that, designers and business people? That’s doesn’t seem to ring true at all. And what’s that bit about only designers on the west coast being business savvy? The whole thing just seems unusual. If it is true that Behar does believe this, we recommend that in the future, maybe he should follow the Jonathan Ive method by just keeping quiet about his European emotions.

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Back in the middle of August, we reported that outspoken activist, designer, artist, and Beijing National Stadium co-designer, Ai Weiwei, had been detained by Chinese officials as he tried to attend the trial of Tan Zuoren, a fellow activist who was attempting to investigate why China’s much-reported earthquake of 2008 had been so deadline. There was talk that Weiwei had been beaten during his forced captivity, but nothing more than “roughed up.” However, it seems as though perhaps it was a bit more forceful, as Weiwei recently went into surgery for a cerebral hemorrhage, a serious head injury presumably associated with said beatings. Here’s a bit:

On Monday, Ai underwent a check-up at the hospital. Sources close to Ai told SPIEGEL on Tuesday that the surgery had gone smoothly. (The artist himself has since posted a photo of himself recovering via Twitter.) However, doctors have ordered the patient to remain in the hospital to recover for the next few days. If the suspicion that the injury was caused by blows to his head by police in August can be backed up with more evidence, Ai says he will consider taking legal action.

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When we last checked in on Annie Leibovitz back in early August, things were looking pretty dim for the famous photographer. She was being sued to the tune of $24 million for loans she had taken out through the Art Capital Group (ACG) and it sounded like bankruptcy was possibly right around the corner. Now that a month has gone by, Leibovitz has been in talks with ACG and things aren’t much better, but she’s bought some time with them, the company deciding to give her a loan extension for another month while they simultaneously take over in possibly selling her archives and her real estate. So it certainly isn’t the most ideal spot to find yourself in and Leibovitz clearly isn’t out of the thick of her financial troubles, but she has at least retained the rights to her work and might have time to work something out with her property now (maybe it’s worth giving Eli Broad a call?). If anything, sometimes just a little breathing room can help, too. Here’s a bit of speculation about the extension from the NY Times:

To win the extension, Ms. Leibovitz might have agreed to sell something valuable quickly, like the rights to some photographs or a home, or to pay more interest.

“The great likelihood is she had to demonstrate to them how she is going to come up with the money and how soon she is going to come up with the money,” [unaffiliated attorney Eliot Zuckerman] said. “Of course there could have been an interest rate increase as well.”

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Some interesting ongoing dramatics at one of the two grave sites for Frank Lloyd Wright. Back in May, at his original resting place, at Taliesin in Wisconsin (his body was later moved to the other Taliesin in Arizona), architect and Wright student John Ottenheimer had secretly snuck in and placed a gravestone for Mamah Borthwick, Wright’s longtime mistress who was murdered in the area. The family found the stone almost immediately and demanded that it be removed. Now Ottenheimer, who also designed Wright’s original grave, is saying that he doesn’t want it back, that the family should hold on to it until the small marker memorializing Borthwick needs to be replaced or they decide to follow his beliefs. Here’s a bit:

“I really think, given time, the cemetery board will figure out something, they will find a place. Another ten or twenty or thirty years, the (existing) stone will be totally unreadable,” he said. “I think the best place for it now would be in the stonework at Taliesin. It’s a memorial of someone, and Taliesin was where she was killed, and people forget Taliesin was built for her.”

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