Beyond the Brick - wordimagemedia

LEGO ARCHITECTURE:Building Asia Brick by Brickby Tylene Levesque, 08/12/07ArtAsiaPacific magazine and People’sArchitecture Foundation proudly announcetheir collaboration on the two year-long travelingexhibition and workshop Building AsiaBrick by Brick, a landmark cultural and educationalexperience that will travel the People’sRepublic of China in 2007 before culminatingin New York City in 2008.Working together, ArtAsiaPacific andPeople’s Architecture have invited leadingAsian and Pacific architects to create originalarchitectural models from custom kits of whiteLEGO ® bricks with the intent that themodels should be exhibited and auctioned toraise awareness about architectural preservationin Asia. Additionally, conceptual artist AiWeiwei, also an architect, is contributing a specialmodel that will reflect both aspects of hiscreative practice. The project engages conceptsof creativity through play and issues of urbanism,new design and heritage awareness that affectarchitects in a region undergoing dramaticchange and development.In China, Building Asia Brick by Brickwill begin in June with broad public exposureas part of the touring Get It Louder! (GIL) festival,on display at major shopping centers locatedin the urban hubs of Guangzhou, Shanghai,Beijing and Chengdu. GIL engages China’sdynamic, intelligent and trend-conscious youthpopulation by bringing together cutting-edgeinternational

and Chinese creative talent in the art, designand architecture fields, and continues throughSeptember.In December, Building Asia Brick byBrick will travel to Shenzhen as part of the2nd Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism & Architecture.It will then exhibit in Spring 2008as a stand-alone display at the governmentsponsorededucation center Soong Ching LingFoundation Children’s Science & TechnologyPavilion in Beijing, incorporating innovativechildren’s educational programs and workshopslead by participating architects. ‘Building AsiaBrick by Brick’ tours to New York in 2008 withan exhibition, youth educational programs andan auction of the LEGO’ models.Building Asia Brick by Brick originatesfrom a special feature in ArtAsiaPacific no. 49(June, 2006) for which nine leading Asia andPacific architectural firms created original modelsfrom custom kits of white LEGO’ bricks.The touring exhibition will include the originalmodels and additional models that ArtAsiaPacificand People’s Architecture have commissionedfrom China’s most exciting architects.The Building Asia Brick by Brick (BABB)website will be updated frequently. Checkwww.peoplesarchitecture.org for the launch ofthe BABB blog featuring Wei Wei Shannon andAndrew Gluckman from People’s Architectureand participating architects as well as exclusivepreviews of models, exhibition sites and documentationof the design process!Experimental architecture practicesciSKEW Collaborative melds architecture,installation and design into anthropologicallycharged works spread between New York,Shanghai and Singapore, where it has studios.Begun in 1999 as a partnership between EuniceSeng and Koon Wee, the collective took itspresent form with the 2003 entry of third principalChow I-Shin, and has gained recognitionfor its non-profit design work in the guise of the7+1 initiative formed in response to the 2004Indian Ocean Tsunami as well as more daringventures, such as the architectural installationinhabitations NYC-SIN (2004), staged in collaborationwith fashion designer Miggy Cheng.In these projects, as with client-commissionedconstruction, sciSKEW seeks to create anarchitecture that can bridge, critique and translatebetween systems and societies.For Art AsiaPacific LEGO architecturechallenge, sciSKEW has designed and constructeda viewing device intended for a galleryor museum setting. Inviting the audience toview the viewing process, the model periscopeform connects the height of an adult to that ofa child. A single red LEGO brick, clearly visiblefrom the child -eye-view, appears only as afaint, reddish fuzz in the adult viewing portal.

In its statement, sciSKEW notes thatLEGO connotes play. The child view of playcan simply be in the purity of the brick itselfand what it can become. A child can see a brickfor itself and the potential it contains, but mayalso begin to use it to make things that conformto our figural surroundings. This conformingprocess is perhaps the baggage of becoming anadult, and it can be argued that an adult maynever see the brick for what it was. The periscopeserves as a conceptual hinge betweenchildhood and adulthood, through a viewingof the same LEGO object the dialogue is betweenthe abstract and the figural, and perhapsbetween the scale-less and the scaled. Two formalstrategies serve to mediate between twoperceptions – where a nebulous formgradually morphs into a rectilinear one.Megablocks Not so MegaBy Guy ChildishRud tisi. Equam alis nos alis eugue faccumvolorperat ipsum velis augait prat prationulla feugiam, quipsummy nonsed te et,sit, volestin ut iureet wis dolobore conse minhenibh ercilla conse facin hent num incipisimqui er iliquipis nibh et lobore exer in hent vullaadit ut alit, coreet praese magnim nonsed tiscipiscipent lorper sim iusto con ex exerill amconsequipisim endre mod tem dolorpe raesse mingeum alis aut ex eu facipsustie ex euisci bla at.Im augiatu eratet eum do commolum nonsectetlobore dunt ullan volor ipsummy nos er ipsustood magna core dolobore dionum qui ex erat, conet am niat utpat amconum am quam alissismoddolut luptat laore dolore mod dolore vel dipsusciduntnis ad dunt utpatie tie te vulla faciliquat,consequam, vullandrem ad modolessent loboremagna cor se velis aliquipit adio eros autatemagnis alis eugue conum dolutatem zzriusciliscil ullaor adio eum quam dolendio doloremat, consed duismod oloreet, quat, sed del duisat, con velessequat nibh ex ex ex exeros nullumnullaore essed tiscil dunt am incipit, sequis nullafeugait, suscili quismolobor aliquat, sequamconullut atuerci te esse faci enim ilit loborerosaugiat luptate commy nonsequate vel essi.Tie ming erat ad ming enim nos numsan eritvolore delenim doloreet nulputatisis dolut autvelit exerilisis diam, sisi.Min hendre magna facin ex exer sent praestocon henim dunt wisi blandreet in vero dolestrudmagnisim dignit iurem quat ullum duip erilit,velendio consequam irit ipit laorperci tie esenimip el esed dolore tion henismod dunt nisacidunt duis nostinci blametuer sum velit alitdolent iusto eugait irit non ulputpat veliquam,con esse dit lum quametum in ulluptat nim zzrit,consenibh euisit la conse velesequis nostietat. Ut praesecte ming eugait lutpat adiat irillaorpersim iusto do odigna feugait adio do.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inabilityof the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on aplacid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity,and it was not meant that we should voyage far. Thesciences, each straining in its own direction, have hithertoharmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociatedknowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality,and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either gomad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peaceand safety of a new dark age. And it can be yours! For $99.99 +S&HPh’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn..