Tokyo Iconic Modern Micros to be Demolished

Nakagin Capsule Tower - Photo by Jergen SpechtOh man, Kisho Kurokawa’s timeless (in my opinion) 140 unit capsule apartment complex in the Ginza of  Tokyo is going to be knocked down and replaced with a new 14 story building. This is sad day in modern architecture if you ask me. The towers were very innovative back in 1972 and still are. The building has a core utility and access towers and the apartment capsules plug into them like cords on a power strip. Kurokawa came up with a clever renovation solution:

"For his part, Kurokawa has pleaded to let the Capsule Tower express one of its original design qualities: flexibility. He suggested “unplugging” each box and replacing it with an updated unit, letting the base towers —which he calls “timeless”—remain untouched. Japan’s four major architectural organizations, including the Japan Institute of Architects, support this scheme. But the building’s management remained unconvinced and raised concerns regarding the towers’ ability to withstand earthquakes, as well as its inefficient use of valuable land. The new building will increase floor area by 60 percent."

Now I regret even more that fact that I was not able to visit this historic building on my trip to Japan. However, if the owners of the capsules are looking into cashing in on the amazingly high land prices in Tokyo there is little to stop them. I hope that the modules can be removed and relocated to different places, maybe even to museums so the design can be enjoyed but the masses of the world.

[via inhabitat]
Icon of Modern Prefab to be Demolished

Memories of Japan

Japan 2002 Flickr photo set After years of thinking about it I have decided that it is high time that I post my Japan 2002 trip photos to Flickr. I had all of them on my old gallery page on TeamDroid but after this last move I have decided not to install the software again. It breaks every time I have to move my files and that has been quite a bit lately.
Getting everything right in Flickr is very time consuming. Each photo has key information that I need to enter into the meta data fields. Things like title and description are somewhat simple. Just a basic name of the subject of the photo and some thought about the image. The tags are a bit harder as I am attempting to use Japanese text on some of them. Things like ‘??‘ (Japan) and "??" (Tokyo) are easy but it’s a little harder with ‘???‘ (vending machine). I still have to add the images to groups but that will be much later. I’m not looking forward to that part of the project.
In reviewing these photos I’m amazed at just how poorly my Nikon 950 did while I was there. I think it’s mostly the 180 degree fish eye lens that I used on a lot of my images. I love the effect but the edge focus and fringing goes to hell if the aperture isn’t stopped way down. Oh well, I still got some pretty good photos. I’m looking forward to my next trip where I can use newer equipment and get a chance to take some film cameras with me (actually I did have one film camera on this trip. I had my stereo Realist format camera with me but the shutter broke on the second day)
Not all of these are ‘award winners’ by any stretch of the word. These are just vacation snaps, memories of fantastic journey.
So, once this lengthy process is finished my Japan 2002 set will be done. Then it will be time for my trips to Oregon, Fargo, South Dakota, and a bunch of other places.

Japan 2002 set

Flash Gordon to Hit SciFi in August

Flash Gordon, WikipediaAll I can say is that it has got to be better than ‘Buck Rogers’ was in the ’70s. I remember my father showing my copies of the comic strip from the 1930’s and was quite looking forward to the TV series. What showed up on the family TV was not what I had expected. Ok, I liked it but I was only seven. What did I know back then.
I do remember the Flash Gordon cartoon series that was in the Saturday morning line up. That was pretty good, I liked the idea of the the planet Mongo marauding around the galaxy plundering and conquering as they went. It stared off well but started to take on the suckage as they dumbed it down and tried to make it funny.

The 22-hour series, a contemporary take on the popular comic strip franchise, is slated for an August premiere. It will feature Johnson (Smallvill) as space traveler Flash Gordon embarking on all-new adventures.

Info about the series has been a bit thin. I found a press release about the production and a tiny remark that the sets for the planet Mongo are going to be redressed sets from the upcoming TV series ‘Tin Man’. ‘Tin Man‘ is a re-imagining of the ‘Wizard of Oz’. I’m not even going to go there, I never fully recovered from a bout of ‘The Wiz‘.

Johnson rockets with Sci Fi ‘Flash’

Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci

Drawings by Leonardo da VinciHere is a little Saturday afternoon time killer. I found this web page that has a bunch of drawings by one of the most well known classic artists Leonardo da Vinci. Nothing super spectacular about these scans other than the fact that they were drawn over 500 years ago. His insight into ho objects and humans worked is still amazing after all these years. Go browse through them yourself and see if you don’t agree.

the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci
(original page in German)