Articles from January 2013

An article of faith for architects and designers schooled since the birth of the Modern is that they should aspire for originality; and a source of great frustration and financial cost to designers is having their original designs copied (see how Apple has trademarked its store design). Not so in China, where piracy is rife in a culture that has a very different view of duplication. …

There have been a lot of art fairs in LA recently, but not a lot of marts celebrating the more affordable companion to art: art and design books. Well, that’s about to change, with a new art book fair taking place this weekend. Maura Lucking tells us more.
It can sometimes feel unnecessary to actually buy physical books in an age where content can be easily found online. In …

In the event you are not at Sundance this weekend. . . come see still instead of moving imagery at Photo LA, the annual showcase of past and present photographic art, being held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. The five-day event opened Thursday night with a party that doubled as a fundraiser for Inner City Arts, the non-profit in downtown LA that provides visual …

I went to a preview event this past weekend for Britweek, and who should be there but the creator, Julian Fellowes, the executive producer, Gareth Neame, and a star, Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary) of everyone’s favorite classy soap opera about class, Downton Abbey.
Amidst the chatter and clatter of lunch, I  managed to get a few minutes with Gareth Neame, and asked him about the characters …

An AR-15 rifle made by Michael Guslick combines a 3D-printed “lower receiver” with commercially produced parts; it sits alongside a paintball gun used by Guslick for testing prototype parts.
The nation is considering measures to contain gun violence, as ongoing design and innovation produce ever more deadly weapons. Barbara Eldredge, Tom Diaz, Larry Zanoff and Michael Guslick discuss the design of guns in an industry whose product is lethality; why MOMA …

25 years ago I was sent to Los Angeles to report for a British architecture magazine on the curious new buildings by a uniquely West Coast species of architect that we were then hearing about in Europe. Those architects were Frank Gehry, also Morphosis, Eric Owen Moss, Craig Hodgetts and Ming Fung, and others, and their work represented a totally refreshing, ad-hoc variant on …