Hasta La Ideas

If you’ve been on familiar terms with the internet at all over these past few weeks, you’ve undoubtedly seen that “Obama as The Joker” poster popping up here and there, complete with “socialism” written underneath. They’ve been appearing nearly everywhere, apparently, in both lefty and righty parts of the country (first spotted, if memory serves, in Los Angeles). We still struggle to understand what exactly it means and, judging from the type selection in particular, had assumed it was a lazy piece that roughly translated as “If The Joker is bad, then Obama as The Joker must also be bad. Also, socialism is bad and The Joker would like that.” In short: it’s pretty weak. But the real mystery was who was behind the movement and who designed them. Now it’s come out more widely, due to an arrest in Florida, that the mastermind is blogger and radio show host Alex Jones, who had launched a contest with a $1000 prize for whoever can put the most of these posters up in their part of the world (because, we guess, there’s nothing better than getting a whole lot of something up, no matter if it makes any sense or not). Along with the contest, there is a piece on Jones’ site explaining the poster, which, between the incoherent, out-of-touch-from-reality babble, boils down to “Anyone who doesn’t get it has clearly already been brainwashed” which begs the question of what the purpose is then in displaying lots of them, if its very design is only meant to speak to the already-aware and no one else. So what can we draw from this? Well, for one now we know all know who not to hire as a designer for any message we want clearly or intelligently communicated.

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In our time as working professionals, we’ve had to endure that pain of moving offices a few times. It’s a little less painful than moving to a new apartment, because you have less stuff and you’re (hopefully) getting paid to do it, but it’s still a big load of blah. Though that’s likely because we hadn’t worked for the firm Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects who did their office swap right. The Portland-based company had been planning for the big day to arrive when they’d pack up and move to their swanky new digs for the last few years. So when it finally was here, they hired a marching band, told all their 250+ employees to meet at their soon-to-be-old building at 8am, and then launched a half-mile parade through Portland’s downtown, finally arriving triumphantly at their new home. Color us impressed. And the description of their new building is none too shabby either.

It’s all Daniel Burnham all the time here in Chicago right now, with the hundredth anniversary of his plan for the city. Along with Ben van Berkel and Zaha Hadid‘s temporary pavilions and Mayor Daley‘s big city model, it’s been announced that architect David Woodhouse has been selected to design a memorial to Burnham on the south side of the city, near all our famous and scenic museums by the lake (you’ll recall our telling you of the memorial’s shortlist back in April). Here’s a description:

Woodhouse’s design would reshape the grassy, tiered open space of Chicago’s Museum Campus, just north of the Field Museum, with three major elements: a gently sloping lawn; a long, 2-foot-high block of stone that would represent historic stages of Chicago’s growth; and a pair of tall granite walls that would form a ceremonial “corner” honoring Burnham’s influential Plan of Chicago.

Although there’s still some details to be hammered out and bickered over with city officials, you can expect to see the memorial some time in 2011. But if that’s too long for you to wait for yet another Burnham fix, you’ll be pleased to know that the Lookingglass Theater will be putting on a limited run, one man show (a la Give ’em Hell, Harry!) with actor Raymond Fox playing Burnham.

Another quick note on China before this writer finally succumbs to jet lag. Also in Beijing, if you’re ever visiting but have limited time, it comes recommended that you skip all the usual tourist stops like the Great Wall or the Forbidden City and instead hit up the 798 Art District. It’s one of those places you wonder why, in all your time spent looking at art and museum and design stuff, you’ve never heard about. It’s basically the contemporary art capitol of China, with hundreds of galleries spread throughout former factories designed in a Bauhaus style by exiled East Germans in the 1950s. Hot spots include the 798 Space itself, a gigantic airplane hanger-looking gallery, the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (wherein we probably spent too much money on a signed print of Wang Qingsong‘s Follow Me) and the Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery, which had a great blend of work from both cities spread across two galleries in the district. Even if you aren’t interested in buying or in the contemporary art scene in general, it’s one of those areas that you just want to be in because it’s so dang cool. And architecture buffs will go nuts for all the Bauhaus, with each gallery holding some new piece of interesting building both inside and out. In short, we weren’t in Beijing for long, but a good number of us, on our few breaks, made sure we planned multiple trips back to the 798 area. Lots of our photos of the area are here.

If you’re one of those fortunate people who a) still has a job and b) aren’t concerned about lay-offs so you can still do frivolous things like take vacations, we have a recommendation for you. The Guardian‘s Hans Kundnani reports in from Dessau, Germany, where you can stay, at a very reasonable fee, in the rooms once used by students at the Bauhaus architecture school. You can wander wander around halls Walter Gropius designed, visit the classrooms people like Kandinsky and Klee taught in, and take communal showers just like the students in the 1920s would have (the boarding is pretty historically accurate, see?). To us, it sounds like the world’s most perfect get away, and probably to you too — just make sure you clear it with your spouse or significant other first, particularly that communal showering part. Here’s a bit about venturing outside your room:

After breakfast in the canteen where the Bauhaus students used to eat for free (you sit on Breuer stools, of course), I set out to explore the rest of Dessau, which is easily navigable by foot or on bicycles that can be rented from the railway station. The most significant of the other buildings designed by Gropius and the school’s architecture department that are open to the public is the Torten Estate, a housing project consisting of more than 300 terraced one- and two-storey dwellings, which were built cheaply with standardised prefabricated components that could be assembled on site like Lego. Several units are open to the public, including an experimental house made entirely of steel.

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