Gigantic steel, concrete and wire trees rise from manicured serpentine gardens, human-blessed symmetry reaching skyward. At the bay’s edge, two sustainably-designed domes invite visitors to explore world biomes and horticultural paradises. A public amusement park, ecological urbanism designed to invite the populace to rediscover the earth, a visit to Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay evokes a green wonderland, human-designed, artistically crafted, growing “wild” and sort-of-natural.
Landscape
An expanse of earth, adorned, improved, contoured, designed, and experienced. Architecture, travel, design, culture.
Santa Ana Mountains: Vestige of Wild Coastal Southern California
Swimming into Xibalba: Secrets of the Maya Underworld
The BBC documentary swims deep into the mythological underwater world of the “cenote sagrada” of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
Idaho: Wolves and Wilderness Persist in the Bitterroot Mountains
Since the time of the Louisiana Purchase, the people of the United States have worked to tame the Bitteroot Mountains of Idaho and Montana, but the rushing rivers and wandering wolves still retain the air of the wild.
Diego Rivera and the Fall and Rise of Detroit
Viewed today, Rivera’s “Detroit Industry” murals might have prefigured Detroit’s downfall, but also envision a renaissance. It harkens to the earth, the races living and working in harmony, where sections of the city have been cleared of distressed neighborhoods and allowed to regrow with food crops, grasses and trees.
Alan Kirby: Technology and Consumer Fanaticism Killed Postmodernism
Alan Kirby says postmodernism is dead and buried. Sophisticated technology, globalized market economics, consumer fanaticism, fatalistic anxiety, and conformism have created a new paradigm he calls pseudo-modernism.
Suburban Sprawl: Serpentine Sameness from the Skies
Helicopter photos by Christoph Gielen reveal the beautifully-designed patterns and shapes of our auto-dependent homes on the range, walking not preferred, neighbors as yet uncontacted, wildlife unwelcome, sustainable future in question.