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Globular zoos, air-filtering musicians, and other updates from the architects of Instagram

Instagram Eavesdrop

Globular zoos, air-filtering musicians, and other updates from the architects of Instagram

At The Architect’s Newspaper, we’re plain addicted to Instagram. Sure, we love seeing Brutalist concrete through “Inkwell” or “Ludwig” filters, but there’s also no better place to see where architects are getting their inspiration, how they’re documenting the built environment, and where they’ve traveled of late.

Below, we bring you some of the best Instagrams of this past week! (Also, don’t forget to check out our Instagram account here.)

The Chicago Architecture Biennale kicked off on September 16, and there are lots of costumes. Ana Prvacki and SO-IL collaborated on “L’air pour l’air,” a sculptural performance in which wind musicians wore air-filtering enclosures meant to “clean the air that produces the music” like the plants in the surrounding conservatory.

Meanwhile, at Exhibit Columbus, IKD’s Conversation Plinth plays a central role with its concentric wooden platforms hosting performances, programs, and public dialogue on the plaza outside an I.M. Pei-designed library.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BY-726zH4mD/?taken-by=exhibitcolumbus

Before heading to Chicago for preliminary festivities, renowned architectural photographer Iwan Baan paid a visit to Yale’s Skidmore, Owings & Merrill-designed Beinecke Library (1963), which is covered entirely in panels of translucent marble restored last September.

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@beineckelibrary at @yale by #gordonbunshaft @skidmoreowingsmerrill has been beautifully restored

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Okay, okay. At this point we’ve done too many bouncy castle posts. Instead, here’s another Never Built New York gem over at the Queens Museum, via our friends at Archtober: Samuel Friede’s 1906 proposal for a globular zoo at Coney Island. It contains elephants, a restaurant, and a 50,000 room hotel (#practicalspending).

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The final #NeverBuiltNY image today comes from #Brooklyn. Samuel Friede’s “Coney Island Globe” was meant to showcase a zoo, the world’s largest ballroom, restaurants, and a 50,000 room hotel. In the end, the globe turned out to be a money-making scheme but it would have been a grand addition to Coney Island in 1906! You can see this and many more lofty ideas in the “Never Built New York” book published by @artbook and at the upcoming exhibition. This is the @QueensMuseum signing off, see you at the Fall Exhibitions Opening this Sunday to see plenty more never built plans, models, a bouncy castle, and more! #Archtober #Architecture #Design #ArchtoberTakeover

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Joseph Grima, former director of Storefront for Art and Architecture and founder of Space Caviar, geared up for IdeasCity New York in Sara D. Roosevelt Park – a New Museum initiative that has previously hosted events in Detroit, Athens, and Arles. Musician David Byrne of Talking Heads fame will give the closing keynote.

Landscape architecture dream team SCAPE has been selected as to participate in Resilient By Design’s Bay Area Challenge. Their team, Public Sediment, partners with Arcadis, the Dredge Research Collaborative, TS Studio, the UC Davis Department of Human Ecology and Design, the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, and the Buoyant Ecologies Lab.

One last Chicago Architecture Biennial post and we’re done (for now). Best for last: the long-awaited collaboration between artist Nick Cave and architect Jeanne Gang turned out to be as colorful and wild as expected, entitled Here Hear Chicago. Performers wearing Cave’s well-known “soundsuits” meandered through a Studio Gang-designed set of buoys, scored by composer Kahil El’Zabar. For a video sample, head over to our Instagram.

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