design*kung-fu

In early January 2011, the Musuem of Old and New Art – Mona, opened its doors to the public in Tasmania’s capital Hobart. Situated in Hobarts down to earth northern suburb of Barriedale, the new building shares its little peninsula with the local “Moo Brew” brewery and a very odoursome waste water treatment plant – a strange combination and a little troublesome to think about while enjoying one of their great tasting beers! Yet quite suiting the diverse aura around MoNa’s founder and art collector David Walsh, who describes the museum as a “subversive adult Disneyland”.

Designed by Fender Katsalidis architects, the exterior of the building becomes most apparent when approached via the Derwent river. From a distance the red brown corten steel facade elements alongside complementing grey surfaces of structural concrete used to stabilize hillside slopes create the impression of a brutalistic medieval keep rising up from the Derwent river.

Approaching the building from the land leaves a very different impression. After following the road through rows of vines, the building gradually rises out towards the water, leading the visitor past a corten steel concrete truck and over a tennis court to the reflecting stainless steel surface of the main entrance. Inside the complex a minimalistic seaside residence welcomes the visitor with great floor to ceiling windows, framing the river scenery of the Derwent, a warming fire blazing in its hearth. From here, the real Mona experience starts. Descending through the circular glass cylinder into the jaw-dropping guts of the raw space beneath, ten meter high bare cut sandstone walls give way to free flowing space with a cathedral like atmosphere. No daylight, just bare rock, concrete and raw art.

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Australia’s architectural capital Melbourne has borne a new gem. Situated on the north-western edge of the CBD, the newly built Design Hub for the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology – RMIT by Sean Godsell Architects boasts research and accommodation facilities for the universities design initiatives, design research groups and postgraduate programs. Situated at the northern end of the cities civic axis, Swanson Street (crn. of Victoria Street) the buildings facade consists of 16.000 sandblasted semi-translucent glass cells that form the outer shell of the building, shielding it from solar impact. The inner shell is dominated by floor to ceiling double glazed low emission curtain wall.

The facade gives the building a distinctive appearance which changes immensely throughout the day. From solid deep green at dawn over a fine silky blanket of silvery blue to a gleaming gold at dusk. I have yet to see and photograph the building light up at night, at its most translucent state. Below are some of the images I took of the building over a period of some weeks, with potentially more to follow to complete the circle once the building is fully finished.

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Having worked through a lot of old raw files whilst constantly accumulating more data on the built environment in Australia – be it the common everyday structures or the sophisticated buildings of contemporary architecture – I have updated my website with fresh images of some of Melbourne’s most iconic buildings. The projects range from the million-times-published Webb Bridge over the Australian Center of Contemporary Art to random 88° views of true blue – steel and glass curtain wall facades.

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There is lots more to come as I am still working my way through. From Australian Suburbia to Sean Godsell Architects new RMIT Design Hub building in the Central Business District of Melbourne. Stay tuned.

I started off thinking about this post as a sort of apology or explanation for my six month lasting absence from this blog. Keep it simple. Find an easy way back. Okay, so… Fail.

Here I am, turning it into an epic sort of self conversational brain ejaculation. Enjoy.

Time is, as we are well aware of, a relative matter. Great minds like Newton and Einstein have contributed greatly to our understanding of the rather abstract concept of time.

Take the common tortoise. It leads a happy life, taking one thing at a time. “Wow, look at the sheer size of that juicy dandelion leaf!” – might take an hour to actually reach the depth of the little tortoise brain. The triggered action to set things in motion to see if the dandelion leaf is, oh so juicy indeed, could take another few hours. And off it goes into happy days of chewing and resting in the sun. So, for the tortoise itself, things are moving at a genuine pace. Yet its surroundings would somehow seem blurred an strangely hastily. Never quite in its reach to grasp what is going on around it.

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Trainride

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I wouldn’t say I am like a tortoise. But I do things in my own time.

I’ve had too many things to do in the last six month. Time, and my concept of it, did not allow me to reach this mind frame.

I worked for a large architecture company in Melbourne, Australia. Being responsible for communications, graphics, pr. Very busy place. Good people. Time is whole different concept in a work related environment – whatever you do, time just seems to be running through your fingers and uups, 6pm again, see you tomorrow! There you go, its relative. And, you could ask yourself, am I just now wasting my own and your time as the same instant?

I like time. It interests me, amazes me, confuses and inspires me. And yet, I feel I never have enough of the stuff! Sometimes I find myself contemplating what I would do if I could randomly stop time. Or capture it and release a few moments when ever I need them.

Unsurprisingly, time often shows up in my private photographic work. Be it as a stylistic device or as the subject itself. Taking long time exposures, especially at night is something mystical. You never quite know what you end up with an the result is always unique.

A great inspiration to me is the work of a fellow Teuton, Hans-Christian Schink. Next to sharing his interest in the relationship between landscape and built environment, his black and white series “1h”, which makes the passing of time somewhat abstractly visible, encourages me to further experiment.

Stay tuned.

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Check this one out. Time lapse of the evening led light concert of the Rectangular Square Stadium at AAMI Park in Melbourne, Australia. Lighting design by Artists Alexander Knox and Bruce Ramus. Building design and construction by Cox Architects. Stills of the Rectangular Square Stadium on my website.