The Flatiron Building in New York City

Breathtaking… A house built more than a century ago, in a city that is larger than anything you can imagine. Completed in 1902, almost an 1800 house, 87 meters tall (almost 100 meters) with an 22 floor count. Witch gives each floor a total hight of 4 meters!! Thats what i call ceiling hight.

Flatiron in New York City

The Flatiron Building, which when constructed was called the Fuller Building, was one of the tallest buildings in New York City when completed. As you can see on the first photo the detail level on the facade is astonishing, the style is called Beaux Arts and you mainly know it by those high greek columns. But also when you dig deeper into Marvel comics and see all the structural building architecture you’ll notice the Beaux Art style.

I love this house, and i love New York city

This is a post in a series of posts, the first one was “Why i Think i Love New York” a short and simple why. The second one was “Why I Think I love New York part II” a little bit longer and a more big WHY?.
Read them both and read this and let me know why you think you love new york, if you do think you love new york that is.

A “Flatiron” copy found in Chicago

The Flatiron Building is frequently seen on TV in the opening of the The Late Show With David Letterman and it was used as the Daily Bugle building in the Spider Man films. I love the architectural style and find it calming in many ways, i try to find the core value in why i love the style, but can’t seem to know why. It’s just the level of detail and the hugh amount of effort it took Daniel Burnham to sketch and draw this magnificent building. This is another reason Why I think I Love New York, and the little house from Chicago, makes me believe that if you want to build and construct a house like this today, it’s very possible…. Maybe a mansion like that… in an urban environment.

Location: Opole, Poland
Project Architect: Robert Konieczny
Site Area: 10,057 sqm
Constructed Area: 660 sqm

This reminds me of the bat cave, or the Iron Man mansion. And It’s located in Poland, I bet you that it’s some rich bastard that lives there too. Not like the regular swedish house that you see here, made from wood and clay plates on the roof.

The building was situated on the garden level. For the sake of neighboring buildings, typical polish “cube - houses” arisen it 1970’s, the structure of the house results from various transformations of a cube.

The gateway is situated in the highest point of the site sloping to the east side. The 10 metres wide driveway following slope’s declivity, was additionally lowered underneath the ground level, while the garden was partly raised above this level. As a result, the garden is separated from the driveway and the surroundings with a 2.5m high retaining wall.

I’m in this phase where i look at like 100 different houses a day, looking for some structural inspiration. I’m not in a stage where we might be planning to build a house, but i still like to scavenge the internet for inspiration. This house did strike me as very luxurious but still a place that would feel like home.

It’s 260 sq m and has a 950 sq m garden area and located in La Reserva, Chicureo, Colina, Chile. They have planted a tree in the house atrium and also there are some parts of the house that are built into the mountain side that the house sits on.

www.polidura-talhouk.com

This is a house very similar to a house in Varberg, thats a 20 minutes car ride from Falkenberg where i live. This is designed by the Japanese architecture Takao Shiotsuka, you might noticed my style when it comes to architecture, kinda minimalistic and well executed detail levels. For example this house is nothing if you take away that big window. Are you interested see loads of images here at the architects site

Set in the woodlands of Holland, the program of Villa 1 is oriented optimal towards the views on the terrain and the sun. Half of the program is pushed below ground to meet local zoning regulations.

This creates a clear dichotomy in the spatial experience of the house - a glass box ground floor where all mass is concentrated in furniture elements and a ‘medieval’ basement, where the spaces are carved out of the mass.

And then we have the ultra hype modern car park, you drive under the house and an electronic door detects your car via RFID and opens. Then there is a turning plate in the garage that can spin your car so you don’t have to reverse to get out.

If you like your share of books and music why not spend your afternoon in the relaxing woodland surrounded library with a grand piano.

So to end this little covering of a house that i like and another day in the life of We Are Super Famous, head over to powerhouse company and check out the floor plans and other goodies.

No we have winter time in Sweden ( or daylight saving time ) we turned our clocks backwards yesterday so we gained an hour. So with that extra hour i hunted down some nice architecture. Mondays are one of those days that i actually like.

La Villa Dupli Casa was designed and built back in 2005 with a strong team of Jürgen Mayer, Georg Schmidthals, Thorsten Blatter, Simon Takasaki. I like the futuristic part in this house, normally I’m not so found of biological smooth lines, but more and more of that is lurking it’s way into the parts of my brain that communicates what i like or don’t like.

And as you can see on the photo above, this building and the Charles Eames Lounge Chair has something in common… The timeless design or just that fact that it speaks to you in an unconventional way. They go good hand in hand though and i like em both.

Then you have the big gorgeous swimming pool on the entrance floor, I believe that the pool are is larger than our current apartment by 5 times.

UPDATE:
I’ve now learned that the house itself was first built back in 1984 and then re-architectured a couple of times before landing in the current state.

Sorry it’s been awhile, i’ve been very busy and i think christian has been that way to. We will try our best to keep them good news coming but somedays we just need a break. It’s a very nice autumn weather in Falkenberg today, still a bit to windy for my taste so i dream away to this amazing house in Japan made by Takao Shiotsuka Atelier a real concrete wet dream. So have a look over at his site, there are a bunch of photos and information about the house.

See image large here

If you are a frequent reader you know that I currently are writing about Why I Think I Love New York City part II& part I I thought it was time for a little update but i have some more subjects then New York. And I don’t Love Dubai, i just minor Like it!

One of the facts is that it’s the one and only place that really take the “Nothing is Impossible” and live by that. I love the idea that nothing is impossible, but there are not many places out there that encourage that.

Here is one photo that make all of these words into something you can touch, feel, grasp even though it’s in front of you, you still find it hard the believe. Dubai is not just a pice of land in the dessert, its a monument of mankind, a six sense of durability and creativity. We like to say that well its just a hype, but it’s not Dubai is the metropolitan of tomorrow. The act green think green and build green, they don’t see limits and the reach for the stars, literally the Burj Dubai is the proof.

So what I’m trying to say is that the first fact about Why I Think I Like Dubai has nothing to do with unbelievable architecture skills or the fact that Dubai makes land and thousands of new kilometers of beach front every single day. I like Dubai in the simplest of ways, because they don’t tell you things are impossible, they tell you that nothing is and only you and your imagination sets the rules. Thats why I Like Dubai. Can anyone Second that?! Or I’m a just a stupid guy in a cold land up north…

Good Morning! that feels like a good start and now; The International and Universal Exposition (Expo 67), to get you in the same mood as I’m in lets just start of with the fact that I’m in love with 50’s and 60’s Architecture, Interior Design, Concept Design, Typography, well you get the point. I just love all the great stuff form that era, partly because a lot of it is so space- timeless.

So back to the Expo 67, it was the most successful World Fair of the 20th century, with an astonishing 50 million visitors and over 62 countries contributing. It also sat the world record for single-day attendance at a world fair with over 569 000 visitors on the 3rd day.

This is an example on one of the things that are less timeless and more like what that era was like. This is the Biosphere, the US contribute to the fair. The architecture of this geodesic dome made possible by Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller and just as Lil’C says “Thats Buuuuuck!!”. The building originally formed an enclosed structure of steel and acrylic cells and stood 250 feet or 76 meters tall. It also contained a 37 meter long escalator, the longest in the world by that time.

Due to a renovation in the year 1976 when a fire burst out, the acrylic fixtures burnt away, but the steel exo-skeleton still stands. The site was closed until the year 1990, witch i find very sad but its open now.

Here is a really good example of something that could have been built yesterday in Dubai or in any major Urban city. This is the Habitat 67 and was drawn by the architecture Moshe Safdie this is so spot on timeless that well i can’t find the words to explain what i feel for it. There are parts that makes me feel like it belongs somewhere in Brooklyn and some part of me would love to see it here in Falkenberg. Go and spoil yourself with a great bunch of photos here…

This is the main structure, sadly it does no longer exist but if there are a Fair coming up soon witch i would like to happen please find inspiration from the Expo 67 and do it 10 times better and we might end up with a World Fair worthy to carry the name Expo 11…. Please have a good old look at the Flickr stream of 1967 Expo

To be Continue…

There are one kind of architecture that i really like, and thats this type. I’ve kinda shared similar architecture with you before, but i will keep showing you different houses with this style. So not to bore you guys out with 20 images just hit this link and you will get a 20 or so super nice houses to skim and look at.