The First Athens Architecture Workshop starts today!

The city of Athens rises to the north of the Acropolis in a vast plain of the Attican peninsula, dotted with low hills and circumscribed by mountains and unfolding to the south towards the sea. To the west of the city stands Mount Egaleo, to the North-West Mount Parnitha, to the North-East Mount Pentelikon and south-east the linear formation of Mount Ymittos. The ancient urban unity of Athens reached its highest level of completeness, Between the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. In this era the polis expanded across the plain from the “sacred rock” of the Acropolis to the sea with the “Great walls” to Piraeus, the port on the Saronic Gulf (Saronikos Kolpos).

WORKSHOP OBJECTIVE

IV century BC - After the Ottoman occupation the city grows beyond its ancient boundaries. Great roads unify the ancient to the new radially towards the North. Actually, the city occupies a vast area, which extends from the aforementioned circumscribing mountains to the sea on the South and from Marathon to Eleusis, east and west respectively. In its contemporary urban form, two images of the city coexist, that of the ancient city integrated with that of the neoclassical period, on one hand and that of the diffused city as a result of the spontaneous growth of the modern metropolis, on the other. Nevertheless, the signs of the ancient city have remained as “indelible” components in the memory of contemporary Athens, which through the years has “rewritten” its history on the ancient traces.

Seven sites have been chosen for the purposes of this workshop, located between the ancient and the 19th century areas of the city centre. These sites, of course, have diverse characteristics due to their location, ranging from residual areas within the consolidated urban fabric, to areas in direct relation with the geological formations in the centre of the urban environment of the city. The objective of the workshop is to attribute an identity and scale to these sites and to inquire through the design process, their hidden potential.

1 • Lycabettus
Between the hill and
surrounding urban tissue
2 • Leoforos Alexandras
Between ‘Pedion tou Areos’ park &
‘Prosfygika’ district
3 • Lykeion park & Liberty park
Cultural garden chain
4 • Plateia Klafthmonos
Between the Neoclassical Triangle & the
Lycabettus district
5 • Plateia Koumoundourou
Between the Neoclassical Triangle & the
Metaxourgeion district
6 • Neoclassical Triangle
Study of its public spaces
7 • Stathmos Larissis
Athens railway complex

Check the program here.

Catwalks : Most Spectacular Fashion Shows

In the beginning, the theatre was the temple of fashion. During the reign of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, whatever was being worn at court was shown at the theatre, on stage, and in the audience. The queen’s dressmaker, Rose Bertin, dressed half-sized wooden mannequins with miniature versions of her latest creations and accessories and had them driven to the various courts of Europe in magnificent coaches. And so the catwalk was born. To this day, great fashion is still theatre and spectacle rolled into one. It is a form of theatrical self-portrayal and a highly charged form of self-dramatisation.

Viktor & Rolf, S/S 08

The Catwalks exhibition will highlight a dozen of the most spectacular shows of the past 30 years: grand performances (Dior), the circus as a theatrical chamber of wonders (Galliano), dramatic performances (Alexander McQueen), or the catwalk as a table set for a celebratory dinner (Dries van Noten). Visitors will themselves become catwalk models. By walking along the catwalk, they will become part of a number of major fashion shows, which will be brought to life and transformed into a 3D spectacle in video projections and multimedia installations.

Alexander McQueen S/S 08

The partners of this exhibition are German Vogue and Alex de Betak, one of the greatest directors in the fashion show business and a man who has worked for highly influential fashion labels such as Viktor and Rolf, Hussein Chalayan, 10 years for Galliano and Dior, and more. The realisation in the hands of Parisian video artists Kai von Ahlefeld and Maria Spahn from "ueberraum".

Chanel S/S 08

When asked to sum up the project, which will include collaboration with some of the world’s most influential designers, Petra Wenzel and Werner Lippert had this to say: ‘We are looking to the future, recording the significance of fashion shows, which for many designers have become more important than the collections themselves.

More information here.

Lanvin S/S 08

Catwalks
27.7-1.11.2009

NRW-Forum Kultur und Wirtschaft
Ehrenhof 2, 40479 Düsseldorf

Opening hours:
Tuesday to Sunday: 11.00 a.m.–8.00 p.m.
Friday: 11.00 a.m.–12 p.m.

Ticket prices include admission and headphone rental
Adults:7 Euro
Concessions: 5 Euro
Friday night, from 6.00 p.m.: 5 Euro
Supplement for free admissions (Art Card, ICOM, etc.): 2 Euro

Visitors enter the exhibition at their own risk.

Prada S/S 08

Installations by: Balmain / Hussein Chalayan / Chanel / Comme des Garçons / Christian Dior / John Galliano / Jean-Paul Gaultier / Givenchy / Marc Jacobs / Martin Margiela / Alexander McQueen / Thierry Mugler / Rodarte / Yves Saint Laurent / Dries Van Noten / Victor & Rolf / Yohji Yamamoto

... and in the Catwalks-Cinema: Balenciaga / Roberto Cavalli / Dolce & Gabbana / Gianfranco Ferré / Lacoste / Lanvin / Issey Miyake / Olivier Theyskens / Rick Owens / Prada / Sonia Rykiel / Valentino / Giambattista Valli / Versace / Diane von Fürstenberg / Vivienne Westwood

Photographs courtesy of Wallpaper magazine.

Update: The Archive Episode 2: First day photos

I attended The Archive: Episode Two opening at the Archive space of Thessaloniki. The set up was brilliant, a single shape running around more than half the space, made of many separate smaller shapes of PVC laser cut and printed with the images and drawings of the three architects that designed the Central Square of the Municipality of Thermi: Dimitris Kontaxakis, Maria-Eleni Kosmidou and Spiros I. Papadimitriou. The last day of the event is today, so anyone who has not seen it yet, it is your last chance (access to Archive members only, but you can still see it from the outside if you are not a member).

A projection was also made on the undulating surface.

On the small digital screens one could see a slideshow of the preparation for the event.

The image that greets passers-by from the shop-window.

Another series of photographs of the square. The little blue LED light strip on top of the exhibition surface was an interesting finishing touch.

Dimitris Kontaxakis, Maria-Eleni Kosmidou, Vassilios P. Bartzokas, Spiros I. Papadimitriou, Korina Filoxenidou and Katerina Kotzia

Lots of architects, designers and people that love design and architecture came to the event.

THE ARCHIVE EPISODE 02: Moving Surfaces, Generate Public Space

Episode 02: “MOVING SURFACES generate public space” is inspired by the redesign of the Central Square of the Municipality of Thermi, one of the most interesting urban design projects realised in Greece.

The dynamic form of the square is the result of the use of specific digital animation techniques. Its form is a new material expression, a result of the dynamic behaviours and actions performed. The informal architecture of the oblique and the imbalance is tempting its users to interact with its folded surfaces and provokes new behaviours and unexpected programs. The project has recently received a Distinction at the Architectural Awards 2008 of the Hellenic Institute of Architecture.

In the hybrid enclosed space of the Archive the architects of the square, Dimitris Kontaxakis, Maria-Eleni Kosmidou and Spiros I. Papadimitriou are going to present an installation, through which they will explore a different way of exhibiting a built architectural project. The installation is a deep surface that embeds the required information for the exhibition and at the same time becomes an exhibit itself by generating a new spatial experience in the interior of Archive.

The opening of the exhibition will give an opportunity to the members of The Archive for another creative meeting. Carteco, the company behind The Archive will regularly renew this appointment through the hosting of interesting architectural events and projects.

The Archive Episodes is a project by Katerina Kotzia and Korina Filoxenidou

EPISODE 02:
MOVING SURFACES
GENERATE PUBLIC SPACE
Opening: Tuesday, 23/06/09 at 20:00 at The Archive, Mitropoleos St. 127, Thessaloniki
24/06/09 – 25/07/09 (access to members only)


Photos: Giorgis Gerolympos

New Acropolis Museum video projections at opening ceremony

Last Saturday the New Acropolis Museum was finally inaugurated in Athens. I have written about the building in 2Modern Talk blog back in 2007 and will write again more when I get a chance to visit it (I have only seen it from the outside so far). I did not see the ceremony but I found an incredible video of the projections that were done on the walls of surrounding buildings and the walls of the museum itself during the celebrations. Called "Reflections", they are large-scale site-specific video projections showing mainly sculptures that are exhibited inside the museum or small clips showing how a temple was built in Ancient Greece for example. The projections will be performed until the evening of the 23rd June. The projections were conceived and directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari. Animations were done by: antidot design studio, HAOS Film, Nomint Motion Design, and Oval Image. Music by Stavros Gasparatos.

Thessaloniki International Book Fair is opening tomorrow!

A grand celebration... an established meeting place... a unique experience... every May… in Thessaloniki... the 6th Thessaloniki International Book Fair.

The 6th Thessaloniki International Book Fair is awaiting the arrival of thousands of visitors with much and great anticipation. The wealth of books published in Greece… the presence of Greek and foreign writers and professionals… hundreds of events for children and adults… tantamount to a very special event, to be held at HELEXPO’s facilities, which cover an area of 10,000 sq. m. There will be more than 500 publishers from 40 different countries (China and India will be represented at the Fair for the very first time), 70 of the biggest names in writing, and of course, thousands of books for every preference…

Thessaloniki Book Fair (TBF) takes place from the 28th until the 31st of May at HELEXPO Exhibition Centre (Halls 13 and 15). It offers visitors an opportunity to get acquainted with the latest releases of publishers from all over the world.

* Take your time to roam around the publishers’ stands.

* Choose from a varied programme of cultural events.

* Join in discussions with writers from Greece and abroad, and ask them to sign their books for you.

This year’s Fair will have:

1. A thematic exhibition, entitled “Books and History”, featuring books on all the different periods of Greek history (11 units), visual material, rare publications and manuscripts, documentaries, presentations and various events organized by cultural bodies and organizations;

Poster from the Balkan War era.

2. Germany, the guest of honour, with its impressive pavilion and some of the country’s most important cultural figures;

3. A Children’s Corner, for the younger visitors, offering a series of events featuring their beloved writers and illustrators;

4. A Magazine Stand, featuring literary and commentary journals;

5. A Literary Cafe (Hall 13), a meeting point and a place of relaxation for both visitors and professionals, where they can enjoy a free cup of coffee (kindly sponsored by Domingo).

6. A Foreign Language Bookstore

Also, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture has dedicated the year 2009 to the poet Giannis Ritsos (“Giannis Ritsos 2009 – 100 years since his birth”). EKEBI has therefore planned a special ode to Giannis Ritsos, featuring the mobile exhibition on the poet’s life and work, spotlighting both the originals and translations of his work. On Saturday 30 May (20:00), a concert will be held in the main square of the Fair, with a great festive atmosphere and songs by Mikis Theodorakis, Thanos Mikroutsikos, Christos Leontis and Panagiotis Bousalis.

The Fair is organized by the National Book Centre of Greece (ΕΚΕΒΙ), in co-operation with the Greek Ministry of Culture, HELEXPO and the Pan-Hellenic Federation of Publishers and Booksellers (PΟΕΒ). The Fair is a project co-financed by the European Union (ERDF) and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture (EU Culture Program).

The opening ceremony of the Book Fair 2009 will take place on Thursday, 28 May 2009, at 7:00 p.m. (see invitation above)

Admission is free.

Check the program here! (Greek only I'm afraid). EKEBI has a blog too, so check that out as well!

As every year since it began, the company I work for, Tetragon, has designed and built all the stand that are related to EKEBI: their own, the thematic exhibition stand (Books and History), the Children's Corner and the Literary Cafe. Photographs and more on the next days! See you there!

Architecture Workshop in Athens!

The very first Architecture Workshop, titled (what else?) "1st Athens Architecture Workshop", will take place in Athens, with the initiative of architect Nikos Ktenas and the invaluable participation of Vassilios P. Bartzokas, with Carteco as a sponsor and Brainlab as support. The whole thing is under the aegis of the Municipality of Athens.

This international architecture workshop will take place from the 21st of July until the 2nd of August, in Athens. It is aimed at foreign and Greek students of Architecture as well as young architects working abroad. Prominent personalities of European Architecture will be teaching : Aires Mateus, Piere Allain Croset, Antonio Tejedor, Μichel Kagan, Nikos Ktenas and others. During the workshop, lectures open to the public will be given by João Luís Carrilho da Graça (Lisbon), Antonio Citterio (Milan), Aurelio Galfetti (Lugano), Franco Purini (Rome), while an exhibition of the projects will be organized and a special catalogue published.

The aim is to give the possibility, through a detached view of prominent architects but of young architects too, to form architectural proposals for particular areas within Athens. Seven locations in the city centre have been chosen for this reason. These locations gather endogenously as well as between them a variety of disparate characteristics, and are spotlighted as study areas so that they can acquire a contemporary identity that will highlight their particularity and character.

This undertaking is a challenge to all, participants and teachers as well as citizens of Athens (who will be able to be the recipients of this projects results - an alternative look on their city's public space reality), as a research on one of the oldest cities of Europe, with its particularity of historical, geographical and cultural elements. In other words, this architecture workshop places contemporary Athens in the place of a city whose public space has to be confronted henceforth with an architectural conscience and sensibility from all, beginning mainly from an academic research level that expects to be extended as a collective conscience.

The workshop is addressed to new architects but also to graduate and postgraduate students of architecture and the attendance costs 350 Euros per individual. Everyone will be dealt with on a first come-first served basis. A bulletin of attendance and more information are available at http://www.aa-w.net

Greek Architecture Awards

The Hellenic Institute of Architecture, in co-operation with the Benaki Museum presents in an exhibition that opened on the 15th of April, the Architecture Awards for 2008. On the eve of the opening, the awards ceremony took place at the museum. The awards gathered a lot of press in Greece, which recently was become a bit more sensitive to architectural issues, prompted in a major part by the discussions about the New Acropolis Museum by Bernard Tschumi.

The purpose of the awards, according to the Institute, is to highlight and promote the contemporary architectural projects whose construction, typology and morphology as well as their environmental conformity compose an architectural proposal with renewal elements in the frame of the existing urban environment. The awards are about realised projects in Greece, they are three and are awarded every four years for three different categories. One is about housing, one is about state or municipal projects and one about projects that do not fit either of the previous categories.

For the third presentation of the awards, the international committee (consisting of professors of Architecture Andreas Giakoumakos and Panos Dragonas together with the award winners of the 2004 nominations C. Deligiani, D. Diamantopoulou and D. Tsagaraki, plus at the final stage the president of the GIA Professor N. Kalogeras and Foulvio Irase, director of Trienalle in Milan) gave the following awards:

For the housing category, "House in Psychico" by Pantelis Nikolakopoulos, below and first photo of this post.

For the Public sector category, "Remodelling ofThessaloniki beach front" by Prodromos Nikiforidis, Bernard Cuomo, Atelier R.Castro, S. Denissof, below and second photo of this post.

For the category of projects not fitting in the above two categories, "The Breeder Gallery" by Office 405 - Aris Zambikos with Pulcheria Giova as collaborator, below and last photo of this post.

The exhibition will showcase all participations, so that one can view the trends developing in Greek Architecture in the last five years. The Hellenic Institute of Architecture believes that the basic purpose of an award is the recognition of the quality of the achievement, which means rewarding not only the result but also the effort of all the contributors to it. The show is curated by Nikos Kalogeras and Marianna Milioni.

Photos of the House at Psychico courtesy of the architect.
Photos of the New Thessaloniki Beech courtesy of Lucretius.
Photos of Breeder Gallery courtesy of Vivianna Athanassopoulou

Originally published by me at 2Modern Design Talk

The concert that never was...

We went to see this:



But instead, all we got was this...

Hugo Awards Logo Contest

You can become a part of Worldcon history by designing the official logo for The Hugo Award. Although the rocket atop the Hugo Award has been one of the most visible signs of excellence in science fiction and fantasy for more than fifty years, there has never been an official logo to designate works as Hugo Award nominees or winners. The World Science Fiction Society now aims to change that by soliciting designs for such a logo, with the winning design to be the official logo suitable for use in the publishing and film/television industries.

Prizes

The designer of the winning entry will receive a $500 cash prize (sponsored by SCIFI), a glass trophy featuring the winning design, a membership to an upcoming Worldcon, signed copies of Neil Gaiman’s Hugo Award-winning novel American Gods and novella Coraline and the collection Fragile Things, including the Hugo Award-winning short story “A Study in Emerald.” The winning designer will also have the right to use the logo and identify him/herself as its creator.

How to Enter

Submit entries by email to logocontest@thehugoawards.org . Submit all entries as a scalable vector graphic in EPS format, and also as a JPG. See the Submission Guidelines for detailed instructions. Include in your submission e-mail the name, age, postal address, phone number and email address of the Entrant. There is no fee to enter the Contest; however, there is a maximum of 3 Entries per Entrant. Read the Official Rules before submitting entries; in case of any confusion or discrepancies, the Official Rules govern the contest.

Entry Deadline

The deadline for Entries is midnight (one minute after 23:59) on May 31st, 2009, Pacific Standard Time. All entries should be acknowledged within one week of receipt; however, the organizers cannot be responsible for entries or responses lost in e-mail.

Judging

Entries will be evaluated by a panel of judges consisting of:

Irene Gallo (Art Director at Tor Books and Tor.com)
Neil Gaiman (3 time Hugo Award winning writer)
Chip Kidd (Graphic Designer/Writer/Editor)
Geri Sullivan (Fan & Graphic Design pro)

The judges have been appointed by the World Science Fiction Society’s Hugo Awards Marketing Committee, and the final decision on a winning logo design will be made by the Committee after consultation with the Judging Panel.

Official Rules

See the full list of Official Rules for all conditions and disclaimers.

Questions?

If you have questions about the rules or other aspects of the contest, leave them as comments below or write to logocontest@thehugoawards.org. Although all questions should be answered, no reply is guaranteed.

Photo courtesy of Hugo Awards.

Domestic appliances for the next 90 years: what will they do?

Electrolux is organizing an International competition Design Lab 2009 for undergraduate and graduate industrial design students around the world.

The theme for this year is: «Domestic appliances for the next 90 years»

The brief for the competition’s 7th edition is to create thoughtfully-designed home appliances that will shape how people prepare and store food, wash clothes, and do dishes over the next nine decades. The design ideas should address key consumer insights such as being adaptive to time and space, provide learning and allow for individualization.

2008 1st prize winner, Flatshare refrigerator by Stefan Buchberger

For more information, rules and registration visit Electrolux Designlab.

A jury will select 3 winning entries that will receive cash prize awards. The Design Lab has a First Prize of 5,000 Euro and a six-month paid internship at one of Electrolux’s global design centers. Second prize: 3,000 Euro. Third prize: 2,000 Euro. All cash prize awards include VAT.

2008 2nd prize winner, iBasket by Guopeng Liang

A selected number of students (students are persons who are officially registered as undergraduate or graduate—Bachelor’s or Master’s degree—students with a university at the time of submission of the design idea), will have their idea developed into a 1:1 full scale model of their design. The finalists will be invited to London, England for the finals and be available September 23 & 24, 2009 for this purpose. An exhibition of the finalists’ entries will be shown during a press event in London. Afterwards, the exhibition will travel around the world.

2008 3rd prize winner, Coox, by Antoine Lebrun

Applicant registration and submissions will be accepted through May 31, 2009.

Photos from the 2008 contest courtesy of Electrolux.

My article in Design Magazine from South Africa!

Some of you might have read my post about Lhiangzhu Cultural Centre in China in 2Modern Design Talk. Now there is an article from me about it published in the on-line edition of Design Magazine from South Africa! You can subscribe for free and read the magazine issue on-line, even download it - or part of it - as a pdf file.

Photograph: Christian Richters

Oh Vienna!!! Day Three

One of the best days in Vienna! After finishing with work - and with the temperature firmly around zero AND snowing, I headed towards the Secession building. Of course I walked to get to it, which is something one does easily in Vienna - but get dressed well! So below are some things I saw on the way to the Secession (I did visit Stefansdom first but that merits a separate post under my Pillars Of The Earth series).

More Christmas decorations! Don't they look surreal in daylight?

This is the best deli in Vienna: Meinl Am Graben.

The building next to Meinl looks extraordinary too - notice those statues!

Gorgeous entrance!
.
Gucci anyone?


Chanel ma belle! I dare anyone to go out in Vienna with those shorts!


The Adolf Loos building in daylight.


Michaelertor: Hofburg main entrance

Michaelertor - Hercules statues


Entrance to Imperial Apartments - that's Empress Sissy's silhouette


In Der Burg courtyard - monument to emperor Franz



The back of the Burgkapelle (13th century) in the Sweizerhof (oldest part of the Hofburg, 13th century)


Josefsplatz with the monument of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (1795-1806, by sculptor Franz Anton Zauner). At the back is the Prunksaal, part of the Austrian National Library

The Spanish Riding School entrance.


Twin museums(yes it is snow): The Naturhistorisches Museum opposite of...


...the Kunsthistorisches Museum!


Horse statue at Maria-Theresien Platz


Maria-Theresien statue


The Museumsquartier, which includes...

...the white Leopold (by architects Ortner & Ortner)...


...and the black monolithic MUMOK made of lava blocks(also by architects Ortner & Ortner).
A lovely Renaissance style building.


A brick-clad building, used as an auditorium for the University. Check the metallic details.

Secession then! This exhibition space, designed by architect and designer Joseph M. Olbrich to house artworks and exhibitions from the Secession artists in Vienna: Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffman and many more.The building is a far cry from the rest of the Ringstrasse, simple, small and elegant, with only a golden leaf dome on the top a sign of restrained extravagance (if one can say that). one of the reasons it is called "golden cabbage" by some locals.


The entrance is impressive, with ivy leaves designed around it and golden details - I shivered thinking about the artists that had crossed this very threshold to enter. I had come mainly to see the Beethoven frieze, one of the biggest and most impressive works of Gustaf Klimt, which is now permanently displayed here. No photos were allowed, so I will post below some taken from the official website.

First wall of the frieze - the Golden Knight (Armoured Strength with Ambition and Sympathy)

Second wall: The Hostile Forces

Third wall - part one: Poetry

Third wall part two: the Arts, Choir of Angels and Embracing Couple (Kiss of the World).

The exhibition space of the frieze - remember it was inspired by Beethoven's 9th symphony

The Beethoven Frieze was originally intended as an ephemeral work of art and, like the other decorative paintings, it was to be removed after the close of the exhibition. It was only owing to fortunate circumstances, that the frieze was not destroyed as planned: the Secession was to present the following year a major Klimt retrospective (XVIIIth exhibition, 1903), and it was decided to leave the work of art in place. After passing through a couple of owners, in 1973 the Beethoven Frieze was purchased by the Republic of Austria and restored over the course of ten years. Finally, in the course of the general renovation of the Secession in 1985, a room was created in the basement for the Beethoven Frieze. The dimensions of this room exactly correspond to the climate controlled space required for the frieze for reasons of conservation, and here the frieze can be shown separately from ongoing exhibitions. Since 1986 the wall cycle has again been made permanently accessible to the public at the Secession as a loan from the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere. It is a sight not to be missed, along with the accompanying sketches exhibited there and the history of the building in the antechamber.

Entrance of the Secession building

The building keeps seving its original purpose as an exhibition space - the one I saw there was by US artist Sharon Lockhart, called Lunch Break. Over the last 15 years she has made films and photographs that frame moments of everyday life while exploring the subtle relationships between the two mediums. Shown for the first time at the Secession, Lockhart’s latest films and accompanying photographic series describe a specific place and time: Maine’s Bath Iron Works at the start of the 21st century. Lockhart spent the last year looking at the lives of workers in the historic shipyard and each of the five projects included in the exhibition examines a different element of their everyday experience. A very interesting show indeed - especially the lunch box portraits (below) and the projected film.

Moving on, I passed in front of the famous Musikverein (above), one of the most famous concert halls of the world, seat of the Vienna Philharmonic, (with the famous New Year's Concert) ,the Wiener Symphoniker and the Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Otto Wagner is the architect most linked to Vienna: he transformed the whole city in the 19th century, with his master plan for everything: building, transportations, amenities. His Metropolitan stations, elegantly designed in Jugendstil (or Art Nouveau) are scattered in the city, some still in use (like the one below) and some turned into something else, like the Karlplatz Pavillion cafe above.

Under the Karsplatz there is a huge underground passage, where there is an amazing work of art installed, using mirrors and led numbers that give you "useless" statistical information, like for example the number π, seen below. The information that the numbers give you though may lead to interesting thoughts while one passes by (I immediately thought of Kate Bush and her π song!).

But what is the artwork? The media installation Pi by the Canadian artist Ken Lum. A team experienced in art production developed, over a period of several months, the individual details together with the artist and the architect overseeing construction on site. A group of social scientists from the SORA Institute did the groundwork for the digital programming of statistic data sets which are now permanently shown on LED displays. This process initiated in a dialogue with the internationally active artist Ken Lum (who also spends a lot of time travelling) and the curators thus requiring a trans-disciplinary communication over an extended period of time within a large, constantly growing production team. Both in this respect and on the technical level as well as in terms of the scientific work done, the media installation Pi can be seen as an extraordinary example of contemporary art production, well suited for setting standards for art in public space. Oh, and there is a club at the underground passages too, named (what else?) Club U. Walking further to reach the Untere Belvedere, I saw the Akademietheater (which now hosts part of the repertoire of the Burgtheater) from afar:


After seeing the frieze earlier in the day, I had decided to see more Klimt - I knew there was a show centered around him currently in Vienna, so I headed towards the Unteres Belvedere to see it. Schloss Belvedere is considered one of the world's finest Baroque palaces, designed by a master of the kind, Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt for Prince Uegene of Savoy, the man who masterminded the victory against the Turks in 1718, becoming a hero for Vienna. The Unteres (lower) Belvedere was built first, as a summer residence, and a long garden rivalling the Versailles connects it with the Oberes (upper) Belvedere, the main palace. Both now serve as museums, with extraordinary collections, which include works by Klimt.

Entrance of Unteres Belvedere

The Unteres Belvedere main building

Around the time of my visit, a magnificent show was under way: the recreation of the 1908 Kunstschau due to its 100th anniversary. Part of the original exhibits - which were partly presented in replicas of the former exhibition rooms and additional works by artists that were presented at the Kunstschau 1908 as well as documentary photographs, models, original plans, and a film, illustrated the details and dimensions of this extraordinary event. An architectural model made of wood demonstrated in amazing detail the location of the Kunstschau premises within their urban context. Of course the main attraction of the original show, as well as it's re-incarnation, was “Room 22” which was designed by Koloman Moser using major works by Gustav Klimt.

The recreated Klimt room.

Among other works, Gustav Klimt presented:

Fritza Riedler (1906)

Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907)
(a black and white copy was presented as the original is in New York in a private gallery)

The Three Ages of Woman (1905)

Danaë (1907/08)

Wasserschlangen I (1904/07)

The Medezin mural
(1900/07, depicted in black and white since the original was destroyed by the Nazis - here a detail showing Health)

Judith I (1901)

and his most famous work The Kiss (1908), which was acquired for the collection now housed in the Belvedere while the exhibition was still running. I cannot describe in words the feeling that overwhelmed me when finally facing the Kiss for the first time. It is one of these rare works of art that defy any description and make you stand there humble and helpless to grasp their full extend, but at the same time pulling you inside them and help you rise to higher levels. Amazing experience indeed. I did not want to leave the room. Unfortunately no photos allowed again (and the Kiss had a guard positioned right next to it) so the photo below is not mine.


Having enjoyed both the exhibition and the walk to and from the Belvedere, I had a good walk around the downtown shops of Vienna. I had a coffe at Sacher, along with a piece of the famous Sacher torte, but did not sit at the stuffy old cafe, but at it's younger sibling, Sacher Eck: no tourists, much more modern and quiet, same excellent coffe and desserts. Shopping turned out good: sales were still on, and soon I found myself with a gorgeous pair of Hugo Boss black shoes (a steal under 100 Euros at the Humanic), a Benetton turtleneck (unfortunately not the orange one I coveted) and the most gorgeous piece of all: a plaid shirt in green and yellow at an amazing little shop called Dick And Jane. This is a relatively new clothing brand in Austria which merits its own post.

Walking past the Viennese Opera!

Some Christmas decoration left-overs...

After a quick shower and change (plaid shirt and new shoes on!) I headed towards my date with the Taylor couple and their friends Chris and Denise, for dinner at Schnitzelwirt (Neubaugasse 52) to eat, what else, schnitzel! The portions are incredible (two huge schnitzels), the cooking excellent, the place is very traditional and cozy (the narrowness of it helps I guess) and the company was great - all elements of a perfect dinner! We headed next to a lovely Turkish bar for drinks, ending the night in the best possible way.