Great Vancouver public art work titled “Nothing Happens in Good Weather” by the Instant Coffee collective, curated by Barbara Cole of Other Sights. Photos by Kate Armstrong and Kelly Lycan via the Goethe Institut’s Goethe Satellite. I hope this is a permanent installation.
Lieselotte Lehman, Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, Jinhan Ko, Sonja Greigoschewski, Barbara Cole, Jenifer Paparao, Kate Armstrong. Photo by Kelly Lycan
Students protests in Montreal, Canada, over Quebec’s plans to raise tuition fees. Photograph: Rogerio Barbosa/AFP/Getty Images
Via The Guardian’s article “Quebec student protests mark ‘Maple spring’ in Canada: A revolt against a government tuition fee hike is growing into Occupy-inspired dissent against austerity and inequality”. The article, unlike many in the Canadian press, actually bothers to analyse what’s happening in Montreal. Even in English Canada many still don’t know that “movement’s main slogan, “Printemps érable,” is a clever play on words that literally means Maple Spring but sounds like Arab Spring.”
The article was followed by this well-written comment:
“For the second half of the 20th century in many countries the ultra rich just quietly got on with it without bothering the rest of us. They’d go to the opera, get inbred, poison each other, and send for someone like Poirot to sort it out.
Now ordinary people are worse off with each generation, in the name of economic growth. And we’ve had enough of being worse off one way or another while the world has sprouted more people than ever before who have more than they could possibly need in a hundred lifetimes. I say good luck to the Canadians.”
Maybe the protest sign will again be, as it was in 2011, 2012′s most newsworthy graphic design object.
The Children’s Safety Village in Ottawa, Canada, closed a few years ago. Due to asbestos. via Reddit.
Pretty hard not to read this as metaphor. For Ottawa in general, for our dilapidated democracy, for our record child poverty, and for our deliberate peddling of asbestos to nations without safety regulations. Take your pick!
I have been looking forward to the publication of Richard Olsen’s book Handmade Houses: A Century of Earth-Friendly Home Design, and it has now been released by Rizzoli. Richard contacted me years ago during the book’s early stages, so it was great to hear from him today and see these pictures. Note that the images are all copyright Richard Olsen/Rizzoli, reprinted here by permission.
Read this great review in Architectural Record, and there’s also been nice coverage in New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time magazine’s Time Style & Design, and the New York Journal of Books. Richard tells me that British Columbia is an important part of his geographic coverage. I am looking forward to my copy.
Buy the book! Handmade Houses: A Century of Earth-Friendly Home Design. And check out this post on Richard’s blog for the book.
For handmade house nerds, some previous posts on handmade houses (one of which triggered Richard’s first email to me) are here:
If I had a hammer? What do you mean “If”?
Handbuilt Houses of the Pacific Coast
At the Lake
Handmade Houses of Christiania
Lloyd Kahn on Tiny Houses
Cosmic dust, on tumblr
All photos copyright HANDMADE HOUSES BY RICHARD OLSEN/RIZZOLI INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATIONS 2012. Reprinted here by permssion of Richard Olsen/Rizzoli.
Lloyd Kahn, Editor in Chief and founder of Shelter Publications, is a North American authority on the handmade house. Visit Shelter for a full list of his book titles on this topic. He has encyclopaedic knowledge of Pacific Northwest and international vernacular architecture and beyond.
He is speaking at Vancouver’s Emily Carr University today on the topic Tiny Houses.
Lloyd started skating at 65; he’s pictured here on a long board. He’s fun, unpredictable, and a wealth of information.
