I will openly admit that the majority of things I have posted about, and most likely will post about in the future, will have been poached in some form from other blogs that I read. Better poached than hard boiled, though, right? (I know, horrible joke, but I'm stickin' with it). I justify it this way: A. Who cares where it comes from, it's still amazing and B. I know that some of you don't read those blogs and will continue thinking I am wholly original and fascinating.
That being said, I came across an animation sequence by Cristóbal Vila, a Swiss born graphic designer currently living in Spain, based on a combination of mathematical sequences and their correlation to nature entitled, appropriately enough, "Nature by Numbers." It explores the concepts of the Fibonacci sequence, the Golden and Angle Ratios, the Delaunay Triangulation and Voronoi Tessellations. I have NO idea what the hell those collection of syllables mean, but the video is shiny, and colorful, and bright and I love it. Basically it's like candy but wrapped in some semblance of education. My only complaint (and it's just me being super picky) is that the video is BEGGING to be accompanied by a piece by Philip Glass. Any piece. However, what he does use is effective in a poppy, semi-minimalist kind of a way, so I'm okay with it.
He makes up for it, though, in his animation tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water complex in Bear Run, Pennsylvania. This gorgeous video not only shows a progressive construction of the complex, but provides a sweeping and view of the property appropriately set to Bedrich Smetana's "The Moldau." It's light, frothy, and flowing... just perfect for Wright's maison de l'eau.
As a bit of a side note, I went to Chicago last year with my mother and we did a tour of both Wright's studio and the Frederick C. Robie house and learned some interesting tid-bits:
Did you know that Wright was so anally specific about how his houses were to be maintained, even after construction ended, that he would design dresses for the women of the house to wear during social engagements? It was also told that months after completing one house he sent the current owners a vase he made with a note attached informing them he thought it would look great on the mantle of the fire place. "What a fabulous gift!!!" they thought. (To be fair, they probably didn't think "fabulous," but who am I to be anti-semantic) It wasn't until several months later when he sent them a bill requesting payment for the non-commissioned work that the owners realized they were expected to pay for it! AND Wright built a house for his mistress quite aways from his Chicago life-- and Chicago wife-- in order to give her some semblance of a family. However, one night she was giving a glamorous dinner party when one of the servants locked all of the doors except for one and proceeded to light the house on fire. When everyone was rushing to escape he hacked them to pieces with an axe. WHAAAATTTTT!!!!????!!!!!
Obsession, passion, intrigue, murder... my god, why isn't there an opera about this?!?!
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Oh my goodness, I was thinking how fabulous the Wright designed dresses sounded and then it all went horribly morbid. Tim Gunn would never toy with my emotions like that!
ReplyDelete... which might explain why he is the host of a wildly successful television show and I am sitting in my apartment eating hummus and watching lost
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