#monade

But, I didn't. No use spending any more time bemoaning 11 lost years without Iko Chérie in my life. Iko Chérie is Marie Merlet (France, but was living in London when this record was made) who joined Laetitia Sadier's (Stereolab) side project band Monade and later Zooey before creating Iko Chérie.

"Nature is not a mother" _ by Paulo Mendes da Rocha "As in Tom Jobim’s song, 'From the window you can see the Corcovado, the Redeemer, how beautiful!', you already pre-suppose an apartment in Copacabana, for example. What window is he talking about? Landscape is only beautiful because behind us there’s a breeze, voices and pans cooking beans, a water tank and washing on the line. This is the place that shelters the abyss from the window through which one can see a landscape and consider it beautiful. Because for someone lost on the beach like a castaway, no bay is beautiful. Or maybe it could be beautiful through the hope that some ship would come and save us from this magnificent landscape that has forsaken and could kill us. […] Therefore, nature is not a mother, but a set of phenomena that must be faced by the human race." "Architecture as a Particular Way of Mobilizing Knowledge" and "Desires, Today" in "Designed Future or Selected Writings by Paulo Mendes da Rocha" / Image: Casa Butantã 1964-1966 ©João Carmo Simões, monade. https://www.monadebooks.com/products/designed-future-selected-writings

Between the 1940s and 1960s (and of course later on too) the city of São Paulo saw a significant increase in population. Although far from today‘s megalopolis São Paulo by 1960 already counted about 3.8 million inhabitants, a number almost trippling compared to 1940. Of course this growth went hand in hand with the need for more buildings to accommodate a growing population, administration, business etc. and offered opportunities for great architects to design significant buildings. Architect João Carmo Simões in „Civitas/São Paulo“, published in 2018 by Monade, collects 19 buildings built between 1951 and 2002 that undoubtedly mark high points in the city‘s architectural history: Lina Bo Bardi‘s MASP and Casa de Vidro, Niemeyer‘s Edificio Copan or Paulo Mendes da Rocha‘s MUBE and Casa Butanta are juxtaposed with lesser-known buildings by Rino Levi or Salvador Candia. All of them are part of the urban fabric of the civitas, the social body of citizens, of São Paulo. Although it is not quite clear what these buildings connect beyond the fact that they are located in Sao Paulo I assume that it has to do with what Paulo Mendes da Rocha in his essay addresses: the will to build something that endeavours as much as possible to be a city, a building that is capable of transforming at least a part of this urban behemoth that has struggled with speculation and growth alike. The author for the book has drawn new plans of each building, written brief but informative texts about them and also photographed every building. Unfortunately these photographs especially in the case of interior shots are often just too dark to really appreciate the interiors in their entirety. Aside from this the book is a valuable collection of well and lesser known buildings covering five decades of São Paulo architecture and a testament to the city’s architectural wealth.

« chaque être doit rester dans sa bulle, et la bulle dans le pays des bulles. » Henri Michaux, Qui je fus. (Photographie : Imago Memoria)

Lovely @arashi.___ and her Monas Hieroglyphica talisman . . . . #underthepyramids #portablemagick #Monade #Monad #HieroglyphicMonad #MonasHieroglyphica #Monas #JohnDee #alchemical #alchemy #alchemicalsymbol #solveetcoagula #hermetism #esotericsymbolism #occultsymbols #esotericjewelry #esotericjewellery #elementalmagic (at Paris, France) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5nKYgXnK7H/?igshid=18t0e6rdfzvz7