Arial photography of Nenehatun Esenler in Istanbul Courtesy of Urban Age, London School of Economics

With the deliberately provocative proposition that New York is “almost all right”, the first Urban Age series of conferences on the future of the world’s cities started off with a bang in 2005. In the five years since, the conferences have taken place in nine “megacities” (defined as a city with a population of over 3 million) around the world. In each, the present state, and future, of a city is debated from all angles by scientists, sociologists, urban planners, geographers, and economists, among others.
      Citing surprising and sobering statistics — more than half the world population currently lives in cities; urban areas contribute 75 percent of human carbon dioxide output into the atmosphere — Urban Age posits that the fate of cities in the 21st century will determine not only the fate of human lives but the future of our planet. Urban Age therefore aims to influence the ideas of city policy-makers and planners to create more socially responsible and environmentally sustainable urban practices — to create, in their words, a “grammar of success for metropolitan areas”.
     The amount of information gathered at each conference is staggering. The issues range from the large-scale (investment and economic development, sustainability and energy consumption) to the particulars (public life and urban space, housing and neighborhoods). It’s all beautifully presented online for urban dwellers to access at urban-age.net.

Photography by Hendrik Kerstens via The New York Times

Today is a sad day in the world of fashion. Alexander McQueen, the notorious British designer, passed away at the age of forty, cutting short one of the most illustrious creative careers. He apparently committed suicide just days after his mother passed on. He was supposed to present his next women’s collection in Paris in a month.
     McQueen was a genius. He relentlessly pushed the boundaries of fashion, especially with his phantasmagoric runway presentations, shocking his audience not only by the sheer force of his imagination, but also by his willingness to engage controversial topics in the industry that is immune to seriousness. For the Fall/Winter 1995 collection, titled “Highland Rape” he reflected on the English rule of his native Scotland, sending out models in airy clothes that were shredded at the breast. For the Spring/Summer 2001 collection, McQueen tackled the behind-the-scenes tragedy of the picture-perfect model image, putting models in a reflective-glass house. It was narcissism bordering on insanity. As the finale, another glass box was presented with writer Michelle Olley, naked, her body fat, face hidden by a mask, hooked up to a life support machine and covered with moths. There has never been a more poignant commentary on image obsession in fashion, and there probably never will be.

Maria Cornejo, a Chilean-born designer, has long been an underground fixture in the fashion world. Not exactly famous, not exactly unknown, she has consistently put out beautiful womenswear since her club kid days in London three decades ago. After growing tired of London Cornejo moved to Paris and then Tokyo, finally settling in New York City in 1996, where she opened an atelier in Nolita under the name Zero. She has become known for her unconventional, fluid garments that may look perplexing on the hangers but morph and fall gracefully once on the body.
     This season Cornejo decided to dip her toes into the overheating men’s fashion market by creating a capsule menswear collection, which she showed with her womenswear during the Spring 2010 New York fashion week. With admirable consistency she transferred her design signature into a concave-shaped rain jacket, a seamless one-piece shirt, an oversized sweater with dropped shoulder, and slim bias-cut pants, among other pieces. The resulting silhouette is perfectly laid-back – no easy task to achieve when everyone these days seems to be trying their hardest to look nonchalant. The fabrics echo the comfort of the slightly asymmetric cuts – soft cottons and spring weight wool are predominant. The muted and discreet colors – black, white, and navy – create a gentle quietness around the collection.

Photography courtesy of Ila Beka and Louise Lemoine

There’s something naughty about Living Architectures, a series of four short films by Ila Beka and Louise Lemoine on view now at Storefront for Art and Architecture, through February 27. Sitting in the dimly lit gallery on worn theater seats and watching them unfurl in continuous loops on the wall feels a bit like visiting a peep show. While each film documents an iconic building by a well-known contemporary architect (Rem Koolhaas’ House in Bordeaux, Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Richard Meier’s Jubilee Church, and Herzog and de Meuron’s Pomerol Winery), it also skillfully exposes it.
     The movies open with images celebrating the formal beauty of these structures before honing in on less pretty physical realities. Footage shows water leaking from the ceiling, floor, and walls of the Bordeaux house. Bird’s-eye interior views of the Bilbao museum reveal poorly resolved geometries and a redundant steel frame. In highlighting these flaws Beka and Lemoine challenge the cultural authority of high architecture, a challenge which seems justified. The buildings they’ve chosen to examine have been conceived ideally, without a deep consideration for practicalities.
     The filmmakers also take aim at the discrepancy between the cool, lucid images of these buildings and the prosaic life that unfolds inside of them. A housekeeper struggles carrying a vacuum cleaner up the perilous winding staircase of the Bordeaux house.  

XL Recordings

Mythical, mystical-sounding albums always seem to demand larger-than-life tales of their own. So we were hardly surprised to encounter the provocative back-story to Holly Miranda’s spellbinding new record. According to the accompanying promotional literature, Miranda grew up in Tennessee and Michigan, where she attended church five times per week and was not allowed to indulge in “secular music”. She escaped to New York at the age of sixteen in pursuit of singing stardom and was soon offered a record deal, only it was with a label linked to the mafia. Miranda quickly sought refuge with family in Detroit before eventually returning to New York and succeeding (relatively) with the Jealous Girlfriends, a band that happened to rehearse next to the studio space of one Dave Sitek, a veritable deity in the Brooklyn music scene. Five years later, the now 27-year-old Miranda is releasing her solo debut, an album produced by Sitek and reportedly recorded over a three-week span between the ungodly hours of 7 p.m. and 9 a.m.

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Buy this at Other Music or iTunes.

In his three decades of designing, Paul Smith has teamed up with everyone from Oakley and Burton to Triumph Motorcycles. Now the British designer has released a collaborative partnership with Apple. The Paul Smith for Apple “luggage and accessory “ capsule collection includes leather iPhone and iPod cases; Mini Cooper Macbook sleeves and shoulder bags; and knit iPod socks with Smith’s signature multistripe pattern. The bags, cases, and sleeves are available in different sizes to accommodate different kinds of Macbooks and iPods, and sturdy materials and stitching keep your valuable electronics safe. Impressively, the menswear icon has found another way to keep his designs relevant for a new generation. Smith stays true to form with this small line, utilizing classic shapes and simple leathers, and injecting his own personality with bright colors. 

Marisa Olson is one of PLANET’s longtime art writers, having written major features on Matthew Barney, Olafur Eliason, Terence Koh, and many others. She’s also a pretty amazing artist herself. She’s got a performance piece running this weekend at P.S. 122 in Manhattan.

There’s a distinctive project in the works to bring sustainable development to developing countries, and it combines two things rarely found in the same sentence: bamboo and bicycles. The Bamboo Bike Project aims to help people in impoverished countries by teaching them how to make their own bikes out of — that’s righ t— bamboo.
     Bamboo is the largest member of the grass family and the fastest growing plant on earth (shoots can grow more than two feet per day). The self-replenishing speed with which it grows makes it an ideal and sustainable construction material in impoverished, tropical countries. Or anywhere for that matter. It’s also exceptionally strong, and makes a surprisingly lightweight bicycle. Co-founders John Mutter and David Ho initially learned to make the bikes from a man who wanted to sell the bikes as a boutique item to wealthy customers. Rather than keep the bamboo bikes a niche item, Mutter says, “Our objective is to make them in large numbers and sell them for as little as possible.”
     “I’ve been to Africa and some other poor places,” continues Mutter, “and if you’ve ever been to a place like that you realize that while bicycles [in rich countries] are just sort of personal transportation and a means of getting exercise, anywhere where incomes are low they represent a lot more than that.”

Photography courtesy of Viesso

Los Angeles has always had a knack for turning one man’s trash into another man’s table. Fortunately, custom furniture gurus, Viesso, know how to make it look great too. Constructed entirely out of reclaimed wood beams salvaged from rundown LA buildings, Viesso’s new Koper table is an eco-savvy cross between Jenga and a Rubik’s Cube. Fun, earthy, and versatile, the Koper has a certain charm not typically attributed to home furnishings. Viesso is something of a pioneer in furniture design, reconstructing the entire shopping process by encouraging individuality, efficiency, and smart innovation. Far from sifting through a showcase full of generic furniture, each table, sofa, and bed is customizable, offering earth-friendly options and materials. To further reiterate Viesso’s commitment to the planet, all products are manufactured locally. True to Viesso form, the Koper table ranges in sizes from 16” X 16” to 36” X 36”, with the option of a marble top. Custom tables start at $244.

All images courtesy of Danziger Projects unless otherwise noted.

Economically, 2009 could be viewed a debacle. Fortunately gallery owner and photography enthusiast James Danziger does not measure achievement in terms of the Dow. Validating 2009 with The Year in Pictures, now on view at Danziger Projects through February 27, Danziger displays sublime photography from his personal blog. The exhibition, aimed to provide exposure to contemporary artists, allocates three walls to “photographers who would otherwise not be known to New York gallery going audiences” and one for legends in the medium. Resulting from a selection process boiling down to two criteria — quality and originality — the show is a highly satisfying group of images spanning decades, nationalities, and aesthetics.
     Featuring work by fifteen photographers — Jowhara AlSaud, Chan Hyo Bae, Thomas Bangsted, Mandy Corrado, Stephen Gill, Joseph Holmes, Alejandra Laviada, Greg Miller, David Schoerner, Patrick Smith, Tommy Ton, Scout Tufankjian, Oliver Warden, Katherine Wolkoff and Tsukasa Yokozawa — representing nine countries — Saudi Arabia, Korea, Denmark, Britain, Mexico, Japan, France, Canada, and the US — The Year in Pictures is a compendium of rich artistic perspectives. United solely by the element of color — a mode of photography almost taken for granted now — works were chosen at Danziger’s discretion to encompass a myriad of subjects and techniques.