Midcentury Modern embassies and consulates commissioned by the US State Department between the years 1948 and 1962 at the height of the Cold War were not only outposts of ideology, as an interview with historian David B Peterson for an upcoming retrospective on the architecture of democracy, diplomacy and defence reveals but also host to quite extensive outreach programmes and to project culture and the values of progressive and open societies—though considering American’s own practises of apatheid, it’s a rather hollow image. Numerous star architects and luminaries of the day were involved and most compounds had a publicly accessible area for lectures, libraries and exhibition spaces. The chapter on the embassy of New Delhi designed by Edward Durell Stone (the MoMA, Radio City Music Hall and the Kennedy Centre) looks particularly interesting. More from designboom at the link above.
Saturday, 26 August 2023
vernacular architecture (10. 966)
Saturday, 19 August 2023
8x8 (10. 951)
egress: the oldest door in Britain, a side-entrance to Westminister Abbey—via Strange Company
hold on to my fur: another collaboration with the Kiffness—this time with a talkative orange cat from China
isokon estate: Lawn Road Flats housed those displaced by WWII and its share of espionage

meow-practise: a limited-run series in the tradition of American day-time soap opera classics like General Hospital and All My Children but with a feline twist
countdown: both Russia and India have Moon missions next week with the goal of being the first to reach the lunar south pole—via Super Punch
no dark sarcasm in the classroom: impressively, researchers recreate Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” by analysing listeners’ brain scans but we wonder—like in the above duet—there isn’t an element of backmasking and suggestion—via Kottke
ingress: the oldest known cat door at Exeter Cathedra
synchroptica
one year ago: the daguerrotype process is gifted to the world (1839)
two years ago: the Ninety-Five Theses as an email, the Treaty of Rawalpindi (1919) plus the Lithuanian sun goddess
three years ago: the launch of Sputnik 2 (1960) plus the album cover art of Milton Glaser
four years ago: more Brexit omnishambles plus the Pan-European Picnic of 1989
five years ago: assorted links to revisit
Thursday, 27 July 2023
๐ (10. 909)

one year ago: the lochs of Scotland plus assorted links to revisit
two years ago: Stevie Nicks’ solo debut (1981), network bumpers, previously unpublished pictures of David Bowie, beckoning cats, more on the inconsistencies of the English language, Avant Garde magazine plus AI generated Tarot cards
three years ago: one of the fourteen Holy Helpers, a iconic cartoon introduction (1940), a growing collection of non-words plus the GIFs of Katy Daft
four years ago: a funeral for a glacier, bee habitats on bus shelters, more on data breaches and lax consequences for compromising personal information plus more vexing vexillology
five years ago: Madonna Madonna, coral bleaching, a commemorative bee coin plus mapping climate change in Europe
catagories: ⚒, ๐ฎ๐ณ, ๐ , ๐, architecture
Sunday, 18 June 2023
human computer (10. 817)
Despite a posthumous and four-decade late official acknowledgement by the world records authority, Shakuntala Devi (เฒถเฒುಂเฒคเฒฒಾ เฒฆೇเฒตಿ), nonetheless a celebrated author, mental calculator, political opponent to Indira Ganhdi in parliamentary elections after her prime-ministership and astrologer—without any formal education (though born into the Brahmin caste her father was a circus performer, a trapeze artist and lion tamer before taking his prodigious daughter on tour), achieved her record setting calculation on this day in 1980 at Imperial College, London, multiplying two randomly-generated thirteen digit numbers in under half-a-minute, rivalling the processing times of contemporary computers. In addition to authoring several books on arithmetic to teach people some of her methods for simplifying and intuiting solutions, including Figuring: The Joy of Numbers, Devi also wrote several cookbooks, crime novels and a rather controversial though suppressed and not widely and first study on homosexuality in India (which possibly delayed recognition by Guinness), written in order to understand her gay husband and to better understand the community.
Monday, 3 April 2023
9x9 (10. 652)
eieren blazen: egg blowing was all the rage in the Netherlands in the 1950s
autofill: Google search recommendations illustrated

horsell common and the heat ray: the 1978 War of the World’s concept album featuring Yes and Richard Burton
vexing vexillogy: CGP Grey grades US state flags—see previously
airspace: Alex Murrell on the ‘Age of Average’—via Kottke—see also
if the engine jumps the track: another in a series of derailments—thankfully this time with no fatalities—yields some amazing photographs but a few beer or two, via Super Punch
katkhakali: the dance of the ‘speaking hands’ about the myth of Kali and Travancore, a 1981 Soyuzmultfilm short
peepshi: a complete guide to deconstructing Easter candies for festive onigiri
Monday, 17 October 2022
rrr (10. 233)
The epic Telugu drama by S S Rajamouli depicting the revolutionaries who helped overthrow the British Raj has been received with overwhelming enthusiasm and has even given rise to watch-parties with comparable zeal and audience participation as Rocky Horror Picture Show. Below is the number Naatu Naatu (Countryside) from the film’s soundtrack, shot in August 2021 at the Mariinskyi Presidential Palace in Kyiv.
Tuesday, 28 January 2020
crate-digging
catagories: ๐ฎ๐ณ, ๐ถ, networking and blogging
Wednesday, 20 June 2018
india shining
We really appreciated the introduction to photography duo Haubitz+Zoche (EN/DE) by way of a vibrant, polychromatic portfolio of churches of southern India.
Their collection Postcolonial Epiphany (Postkolniale Erleuchtung—sadly Sabine Haubitz passed away in 2014 but Stefanie Zoche maintains the collaborative name), featuring both houses of worship and movie theatres built between the 1950s and 1970s that inform a rather whimsical hybrid of Modernism—dissecting the way that material determines space, is currently being exhibited at a gallery in Mannheim. Learn more at the links up top.
catagories: ๐ฎ๐ณ, ๐, ๐ท, architecture, Hessen