Friday, July 23, 2010

National connection


Parliament Hill in Ottawa is alive every evening at 9:30 this summer featuring Mosaica, a sound and light show. It takes the audience on a journey of sound and light exploring and learning about Canadian landscapes, history, achievements, values and people.

A great way to bring society together and encourage local and national pride and identity.




Monday, July 19, 2010

Civic Experience

Millennium Park, Chicago
"The Bean"


Often times I think that with all this rapid development going on in our ever expanding cities public space is forgotten. Public art and more appropriately civic art in my opinion is imperative in a successful and thriving civilization and culture. Public art can be understood as an openly accessible piece of art in the public domain. However public art can be exclusive, evanescent, temporary like a gallery exhibition. What I am discussing is a type of public art that can maybe be understood better as civic art, inclusive and accessible to all as well as timeless.

Civic art should have the desired outcomes of shaping people, binding them together through memory and connection and creating character in them. It should be celebratory, value adding and play a pivotal role in civilization. It should be timeless and enduring.

A current example of successful civic art is in Chicago's Millennium Park, it is known by locals as "The Bean". A massive sculpture in the shape of a jelly bean, described as an object of its time, which most great pieces of art or architecture in public spaces or squares are known to be. It has proven to be a great piece of civic art through its ability to access an entire population, people of any age, educational background, nationality etc. and its success can be measured by the masses of people that are drawn to it, the amount of time they spend engaging with it and its transcendence.

Some people would ask why public squares and the experience of art in public space is necessary. It is in hopes of with either not much thought or more interestingly a lot of thought, discussion and curiosity that these pieces of art in partnership with society create a strong sense of place and connection as well as enhance culture and character within people.


Sunday, July 18, 2010

Monocle


The current issue 35 2010 of Monocle features their annual quality of life survey, highlighting the tope 25 most liveable cities. Munich tops the list with european cities making up most of it in addition to a few Canadian, Japanese and Australian cities thrown in too.

Have a look, Monocle is a great read that updates on business, global affairs, culture and design. They often focus on urban related issues and life.

http://www.monocle.com/