“It wasn’t until the 21st Century that a residential building exceeded the height of the Eiffel Tower on the planet earth. We looked up to towers until their biggest selling point became looking down on us… While the towers of old were about creating powerful religious, civic or commercial symbols, the residential ones show what people are willing to pay to live above the rest of us.”
Tag: 06.18.13
The Art Of Dismantling Skyscrapers
“Here in Tokyo, a cheek-by-jowl city with many outdated high-rises and tough recycling and environmental restrictions, Japanese companies are perfecting what might be called stealth demolition. Some tall buildings are dismantled from the top down, the work hidden by a moving scaffold, others from the bottom up, the entire structure being slowly jacked down.”
Pianist Jeremy Denk Gets A Book Contract
“Random House has signed him to transform the New Yorker piece into a book, also called “Every Good Boy Does Fine” – a phrase that anyone who has taken piano lessons will recognize as a mnemonic children use to memorize the notes on the musical staff when it bears a treble clef.”
O’Neill Center Launches New Musical Theatre Institute
“In the age of ‘Glee’ and ‘Smash’ and where 80 percent Broadway shows are musicals, this is an untapped market. This new program reinvigorates the O’Neill and will benefit the American theater for years to come.”
All This Excitement About Neuroscience? Let’s Get Real, People!
“The brain is not the mind. It is probably impossible to look at a map of brain activity and predict or even understand the emotions, reactions, hopes and desires of the mind.”
Meet The Top General In Egypt’s Culture Wars
“To his opponents,” culture minister Alaa Abdel Aziz “is an artistic nobody, a know-nothing pawn of the [Muslim] Brotherhood, bent on an Islamic morality campaign that threatens a cosmopolitan cultural scene.” But he “styles himself an outsider fighting to break the hold of a privileged elite over spending on the arts … and see that cultural spending reflects how democratic revolution has changed Egyptian society.”
Arts And Culture Is America’s Fastest-Growing Philanthropic Cause
“In terms of donations, arts and culture was Americans’ fastest-growing charitable cause in 2012, rising an estimated 7.8% to $14.44 billion, according to a leading annual research report on charitable giving.”
Netflix And DreamWorks Make Deal For Original Programming
“DreamWorks Animation, trying to lessen its dependence on the volatile movie business by aggressively expanding into TV programming, has decided to forgo cable television in favor of Netflix. In a multiyear deal announced early Monday, DreamWorks Animation will supply a flood of new episodic TV programs to the Internet streaming service.”
Can Experimental Art Rescue Flint, Michigan?
“As cities go, hollowed-out Flint might have the worst reputation in America. But the Flint Public Art Project wants to change that.”
But Dim Lighting Can Spark Creativity (Say Two Researchers)
“‘Darkness increases freedom from constraints, which in turn promotes creativity,’ report Anna Steidle of the University of Stuttgart and Lioba Werth of the University of Hohenheim. A dimly lit environment, they explain … ‘elicits a feeling of freedom, self-determination, and reduced inhibition,’ all of which encourage innovative thinking.”