cecil balmond

cecil balmond is a structural engineer. he has pushed some of the world's most amazing architects and artists (rem koolhaas, toyo ito, anish kapoor, etc) to create projects nobody would have thought possible. they're gorgeous. one of my favorite things about balmond's projects is how giant pieces of material are made to look so light and friendly while still being completely perplexing structures. his projects look physically impossible. also, he knew fela kuti!
read more about him here, here and here.

david altmejd

i <3 david altmejd's work. i <3 his references to modernist design, architecture, subversion of art history tropes (sol lewitt, joseph beuys, dan flavin, bruce nauman), his references to '80s opulence, a dario argento wet dream.
i also love that he can create environments, as opposed to just installations. his 'installations' are immersive, a world apart. they're cinematic because cinema could easily happen in them. they beg for narrative and a sense of confused linear time.

narcotecture in afghanistan

MONOCLE has a really interesting slideshow about "narcotecture" in afghanistan. if you're not sure what they mean by that, the short story is that all these buildings have been bankrolled by the heroin trade. now that afghanistan is a little less awful and it has been "liberated," tacky nouveau riche motherfuckers can build themselves palaces shaped like wedding cakes and lit with colored neons.
one of the most amazing things about the slideshow is hearing the narrator describe the way in which her and her photographer were perceived: because they were europeans taking pictures in ruins that serve as schools, they automatically become arms of the "liberators" and are therefore harrassed for taking pictures instead of rebuilding.
it's also itneresting that the narrator seems to place a fair amount of the blame on the male heads of households for such tacky displays of poor taste, as if including the also-nouveau-riche wives in the process would somehow have tempered the need for stuffed kitten table arrangements.
here is the link to the slideshow.