#movingcities

Este precioso proyecto audiovisual, creado por el artista y cineasta Jevan Chowdhury explora el ritmo de las ciudades a través de la danza. Moving cities retrata con sus bailarines ese púlsometro de la ciudad que muchas veces ignoramos. Londres, París, Bruselas son algunos de los ejemplos. Los bailarines canalizan la energía y el ritmo de estas urbes, en una composición armónica e intensa.

Moving Cities: Paris from Jevan Chowdhury on Vimeo.

About four days ago I moved cities for the first time in my life. They weren't lying when they said how disgustingly stressful it is. In a way it feels like I turned my life off at the tap and as of yet i haven't reconnected the pipes somewhere new. 

I didn't have many friends in my old city and now just being physically further away makes me feel even more isolated. I have no idea how to make friends, and I'm concerned the friendships I did have are just going to fall by the way side now that I'm less convenient.

(Shanghai 2010 World Expo - April 2014 | MovingCities Instagram)

Making architecture in China is not easy; occupying it is even more difficult. In recent years, amazing stories have appeared in various media about China’s shoddy construction culture, copycat designs, empty icons, and building projects apparently doomed to remain unfinished forever. These are projects designed not only by local amateurs but also by global dealers in iconic architecture. The bad detailing of Zaha Hadid’s Guangzhou Opera House, the lacuna that is Herzog & de Meuron’s Bird’s Nest, and the ongoing almost-finished status of Rem Koolhaas’s CCTV headquarters could give the impression that China has been constructing mainly empty shells over the past few years.

China also seems to be building too much, as exemplified by the overly discussed ghost city of Ordos 鄂尔多斯 (and the phantom villas of the Ordos 100 project) or, for that matter, any suburb of any large Chinese city. It’s often hard to find architectural pearls in China’s gigantic opaque pool of building blandness while scouting for Mark magazine. Hard but not impossible, as evidenced by the many Chinese projects that have appeared in the first 50 issues of the magazine.

Wondering how some of these buildings are holding up today, now that the media clamour aroused by their initial publication has died down, I ventured out in Shanghai 上海 to revisit three of them: the Himalayas Centre by Arata Isozaki (Mark 38), the 2010 Shanghai World Expo site (Mark 27) and the Giant Interactive Group’s headquarters by Morphosis (Mark 30).

It's late

and I'm proud of myself,

not giving in to glassy eyes

and vacant stares.

This room expands

around

my tiny body

situated upright

on one eighth of 

my bed.

My things around me,

I have no possessions,

this was supposed to 

feel good.

And it does-

I couldn't possess you anyway.

The wee hours I usually pass

in dreams,

but tonight, I notice

the lack