CHILD'S PLAY

 

The V&A Museum of Childhood at Bethnal Green in East London is a wonderful place for children to vist. The noise alone shows just how excited the children are. It is also an amazing place for adults. Here toys of all ages are on display, simple mechanical pieces of delight, as well as the most elaborate doll houses, puppets and and costumes. The doll houses offer some marvellous images of interior life in the Victorian era that astoinish with their commitment to scale and detail.

 

 

 

 

There is one doll house that stands out from the rest - the model of Gerrit Rietveld's 1924 Schröder House in Utrecht built as a doll house. It is a surprise to see this iconic building as an item of play; but it is interesting to see it as an architectural model too. The house is constructed on a corner block, at the end of a run of typical terrace houses. The image that is usually illustrated is the open corner view that conceals the terrace house context and highlights the clever play of form in this modernist De Stijl delight where, remarkably, space is defined by planes and posts.

 

The doll house allows one to see aspects of the building that are usually concealed, including the building from above. Of particular interest is the blank wall that defines the end of the terrace row. Even though the neighbouring terrace is not modelled here, the blank party wall is. It is this wall that makes the Schröder House an ideal subject for a doll house. Usually doll houses are two dimensional facades fabricated as doors opening up to an artificial array of rooms, like a cross section, to create the tiny play spaces of the home as a cupboard.The Schröder doll house overcomes this ruse, and, being complete and three dimensional, highlights the problem with the selective framing of the photographic image in architecture that, with this home, always conceals the end-of-row traditional terrace location. The doll house clearly shows all of the three beautiful elevations of this still remarkable home, the blank wall and its roof.

Architects must love the doll house; or is it that the doll house is always architectural? The Victorian doll houses emphasise the rich, decorative interiors. There is another interesting doll house at the V&A Museum of Childhood. It is what we might call the ‘Macintosh’ model? Here the exterior is designed with a precise enthusiasm to show the Macintosh-styled swelling bay window and the other 'Glasgow School of Art' squared openings. Still white, it models an example of an earlier architectural style, before De Stijl. Can the doll house tell us something about modernism and the Victorian precedent – exterior and interior importance? Perhaps modern interiors are too simplistic to intrigue: not decorative or different enough for a child’s interest, unlike the new exteriors? Or are doll houses of more interest to adults? At least there is a space for a car in the Macintosh doll house.

The 'Macintosh' facade.

There is one more Rietveld surprise in the museum - yet another play item. It is the car that has been styled on Rietveld's 1917  Red and Blue Chair. This classic piece of modernist furniture, again pure De Stijl, remains as iconic as the house. It is built out of squared timbers lapped three dimensionally to construct a frame for the planes of plywood that form the seat and back. The frame is painted black with the exposed ends painted yellow. The seat is blue and the back is red.

 

The car uses that same concept for the construction of the frame that simillarly holds panels of ply for the seat, sides and back. Wheels have been fitted to make the conversion into car. The frame of the vehicle is whilte with the exposed ends painted black. The primary colours of yellow, blue and red have been used on the seat, sides, back and wheels. It is a real delight - a true homage to Reitveld that overcomes any suggestion of a kitsch joke. One gets the feeling that Gerrit would have been pleased with this transformation.

The 'Reitveld' car on display with other classic wheeled toys.

THE LITTLE COTTAGE

It was an ordinary, small home; a compact gathering of a few rooms clad in framed sheets perforated with crucifixed windows. The roof, a simple, low skillioned gable form with a centreline ridge running its length, had the patina of time - rusty patches and rippled edges fretted by vegetation. The cabin - this hut or cottage - was only small. It sat along the short rear boundary of a large corner block, looking through its’ length at the park beside the river opposite. The block held some mature trees that filled its bright sky and shrouded the little home in heavy shade at different times of the day. The grass was kept as a links - or was unkempt, depending on one’s preference for tidiness and rational explanations. Uncut grass becomes an anathema for one who likes edges to be precise and closely clipped; to others it is a delight.

The trees presented a grand, picturesque authority, with a power somewhat suggestive of that which, one is led to believe, was understood by the Druids. The trees stood large, tall and spread broadly, both as trunks, branches and foliage. They held a quality of a Gainsbrough in Australia: an innocent, naïve grandeur towering over the inadvertent sense of shack in a mess of long grass. The perception was that a painting could be made from this romantic assemblage, such was the impact of the layering and framing of textures and light on the prospect of this tiny worn cottage ensconced in its silent, ancient trees.

It was quaintly quaint. It held all of the mystery that one would associate with a cottage, an old lady and a forest clearing, even without the wolf and a young girl. Sunlight and shade shared a dappling over this place that knitted everything into its moving murmurs with an unpretentious pleasure and innocent pride.

Indeed, an old lady did live in this little place of light and dark below the mass of trees. One would rarely see her, but her presence through remembered nursery stories gave rise to the feeling of myth in her being, and in her being there, and reinforced the powerful wonder that this corner block held. She could be imagined as the small, scarfed figure standing at the open door of her home, waiting patiently to welcome the unknown. It was simply idyllic. It was the place that everyone dreamed of occupying; a place of inner peace and contentment with the prosperity that this modest satisfaction engenders. It seemed to be occupied by the little people too, with its magical dancing light. It stimulated, not greed, but desire: the desire to be a part of it.

Two people had an eye on this property. Each joked that they were waiting for the old lady to die, but they were in serious competition. Both had spoken to her, but not about any sale. It was as if contact might generate a preference for ownership should a decision have to be made between the two. It added an intimate touch. Such interest could illustrate a genuine concern for person and place that might sway another’s opinion when issues had to be separated.

The lady died. The builder/developer was first off the blocks and purchased this one. It was a surprise to the other. It was for his new home, or so he said. Others thought it was for a unit development.

For years the little cottage sat humbly at the rear of the block facing its beautiful tree-covered void. It was satisfied with just being there. Age did not weary it; nor did neglect. The thick bulky trunks became softer, more mellow, heavier, as the grass grew longer and the casual supervision given by the old lady was not replicated. One came to see what the activities - or lack of them; what might be labelled their loving abandon - had been doing for this place. Things stabilized into the numbness of time that lost its immediate welcome, as a ruin does. The developer had other interests. In the same street, he was building two sets of small unit blocks. This was a seaside, retirement location that had controls more modest than some of the larger tourist centres. The builder kept himself busy with others’ projects while his dream was put on hold. This place could wait. It seemed to relish its quiet.

Then one day the site was cleared - gone: all was gone. A construction fence was erected around nothingness. Gone - everything: mystery, love, dancing light, and ancient life: its’ depth. The dream that drove the desire for its being had killed the thing that it loved. Did it understand? One might weep at the loss - weep uncontrollably; inexplicably. Why?

The builder seemed not to notice anything as the bold, blank timber skeleton of his new home confidently filled the whole, now sandy site with stacked gables, boxed voids, and fields of floor levels. The modesty of the old lady’s cottage and its beautiful trees had become the glaring cheek of the new declaration of ownership and presence: I am here. Everything else bowed before this presence, even the Druid mystery and the unconditional welcome. One had to knock now in order to avoid the threat.

Why is man so foolish? Is it this age of quantity that drives the mania for me and my that is blind to everything else, soft, gentle, beautiful and caring? Blind to love? To wonder? Why? Oh, weep; despair in a weary silence. Is it our destiny that such events need to occur? Is loss our future, not love?

Yet each man kills the thing he loves

By each let this be heard,

Some do it with a bitter look,

Some with a flattering word,

The coward does it with a kiss,

The brave man with a sword!

Oscar Wilde  The Ballad of Reading Goal

Why? Why could the little cottage and its mighty trees not remain? Why could man not have adapted to this marvel and live with it - in it; beside it? Is it just too much of a risk that he might be changed by it? The possibilities remain a fuzzy dream.

Note: Top image is the idyllic vision of cottage, trees and place.

The two lower images show the cottage in Google Street View, North Haven, NSW, Australia prior to clearance.

AN ANGEL AND A DEVIL

The discussion between Khrushchev and Neizvestny in the Manège building should not be forgotten. It sets an example for the relationship between the State and art.

After an astonishingly successful few days, the exhibiton of the work of Bilyutin's students, Neizvestny, and some other young artists recommended by Neizvestny, held under the auspices of the Moscow City Council, was closed down and the artists were told that they must bring their works to the Manège building next to the Kremlin, so that all the problems raised by their work could be considered by the government and the Central Committee. John Berger records the events that followed in Art and Revolution:

Bilyutin suggested to the artists that they should leave their more extreme works behind and only take the more conventional ones. Neizvestny opposed this on the grounds that it would deceive nobody; also because here was an opportunity for having at least the existence of their work officially recognized.

The artists hung their own works in the Manège building. Several of them worked through the night. Then they waited. The building was cordoned off by security men. The gallery was searched. The windows and curtains were checked.

The entourage of about seventy men entered the building. Khrushchev had no sooner reached the top of the stairs than he began to shout. ‘Dog shit! Filth! Disgrace! Who is responsible for this? Who is the leader?’

A man stepped forward.

‘Who are you?’

The voice of the man was scarcely audible. ‘Bilyutin,’ he said.

‘Who?’ shouted Khrushchev.

Somebody in the government ranks said: ‘He’s not the real leader. We don’t want him. That’s the real leader!’ and pointed to Neizvestny.

Khrushchev began to shout again. But this time Neizvestny shouted back: ‘You may be Premier and Chairman but not here in front of my works. Here I am Premier and we shall discuss as equals.’

To many of his friends this reply of Neizvestny’s seemed more dangerous than Khrushchev’s anger.

A minister by the side of Khrushchev: ‘Who are you talking to? This is the Prime Minister. As for you, we are going to have you sent to the uranium mines.’

Two security men seized Neizvestny’s arms. He ignored the minister and spoke straight to Khrushchev. They are both short men of about equal height.

‘You are talking to a man who is perfectly capable of killing himself at any moment. Your threats mean nothing to me.’

The formality of the statement made it entirely convincing.

At a sign from the same person in the entourage who had instructed the security men to seize Neizvestny’s arms, they now released them.

Feeling his arms freed, Neizvestny slowly turned his back and began to walk towards his works. For a moment nobody moved. He knew that for the second time in his life he was very near to being lost. What happened next would be decisive. He continued walking, straining his ears. The artists and onlookers were absolutely silent. At least he heard heavy, slow breathing behind him. Khrushchev was following.

The two men began to argue about the works on view, after raising their voices. Neizvestny was frequently interrupted by those who had now reassembled around the Prime Minister.

The head of the Security Police. ‘Look at the coat you’re wearing - it’s a beatnik coat.’

Neizvestny: ‘I have been working all night preparing this exhibition. Your men wouldn’t allow my wife in this morning to bring me a clean shirt. You should be ashamed of yourself, in a society which honours labour, to make such a remark.’

When Neizvestny referred to the work of his artist friends, he was accused of being a homosexual. He replied by again speaking directly to Khrushchev.

‘In such matters, Nikita Sergeyevich, it is awkward to bear testimony on one’s own behalf. But if you could find a girl here and now - I think I should be able to show you.’

Khrushchev laughed. Then, on the next occasion when Neizvestny contradicted him, he suddenly demanded: ‘Where do you get your bronze from?’

Neizvestny: ‘I steal it.’

A minister: ‘He’s mixed up in the black market and other rackets too.’

Neizvestny: ‘Those are very grave charges made by a government head and I demand the fullest possible investigation. Pending the results of this investigation I should like to say that I do not steal in the way that has been implied. The material I use is scrap. But, in order to go on working at all, I have to come by it legally.’

Gradually the talk between the two men became less tense. And the subject was no longer exclusively the work on view.

Khrushchev: ‘What do you think of the art produced under Stalin?’

Neizvestny:‘I think it was rotten and the same kind of artists are still deceiving you.’

Khrushchev: ‘The methods Stalin used were wrong, but the art itself was not.’

Neizvestny:‘I do not know how, as Marxists, we can think like that. The methods Stalin used served the cult of personality and this became the content of the art he allowed. Therefore the art was rotten too.’

So it went on for about an hour. The room was very hot. Everyone had to remain standing. The tension was high. One or two people had fainted. Yet nobody dared to interrupt Khrushchev. The dialogue could only be brought to a close via Neizvestny. ‘Better wind it up now,’ he heard somebody in the government ranks say from behind his ear. Obediently he held out his hand to Khrushchev and said he thought that perhaps they should stop now.

The entourage moved across to the doorway on to the staircase. Khrushchev turned around: ‘You are the kind of man I like. But there’s an angel and a devil in you,’ he said. ‘If the angel wins, we can get along together. If it’s the devil who wins, we shall destroy you.’

Neizvestny left the building expecting to be arrested before he reached the corner of Gorky Street. He was not arrested.

 John Berger, Art and Revolution, Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, London, 1969, p.82 – 85.

Neizvestny at work

ARCHITECTURE & SCULPTURE

War memorial, Dorrigo, NSW

Our era seems to have lost any essential relationship between architecture and scupture as it struggles to make scultpure into architecture. What is this doing to sculpture - to architecture? What is the nexus here? John Berger gives the following overview of the relationship between these two subjects in Art and Revolution:

 ‘Sculpture is essentially an art for crowds.’ Because we are surrounded by thousands of discredited public monuments – mostly hypocritical war memorials – and because the whole bias of our culture is towards the fragmentary and private, we tend to underestimate the civic, social nature of sculpture.

For centuries this was borne out by the special relationship which existed between architecture and sculpture. On an Indian temple or in a Gothic or Romanesque church, sculpture served as the imaginative particularization of the architecture: it is what rendered the general meaning of the building specific to each person. Painting was already different: it was one activity among others which took place within the building or on that site. Painting took advantage of the building being there. Sculpture was part of its being there. Such sculpture gathered, contained and dispensed the contributions of the particular which together constituted the general social act of building the building or of using it.

It is true that architecture, sculpture and societies have all changed profoundly since then. Yet, although they are no longer likely to be part of the same physical structure, there is still a special relationship between architecture and sculpture. Le Corbusier remarked that when you find the acoustic centre of a building or a piazza, the point at which all sounds within the given space can be heard, you have also found the point at which a piece of sculpture should be placed. All architecture worthy of the name pleads to be condensed in this way. And it can only be condensed by another three-dimensional but this time non-functional and purely metaphorical structure – by sculpture.

The special civil and social nature of free-standing sculpture can, however, be deduced without any reference to architecture at all. Why are sculptures monuments? Why did the city of Rhodes commission its colossus?

 John Berger, Art and Revolution, Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative, London, 1969, p. 70-71.

Ernst Neizvestny  Mask of Grief

ARCHITECTURE - THE GOOD LIFE

THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN MAGAZINE ADVERTORIAL  JUNE 30 - JULY 01, 2012

 Architecture is said to relate to its' time; that it is specific to its' era.

After reading the advertorial in The Weekend Australian Magazine,  the thought arises: is this advertorial hype the same fake exaggerated enthusiasm that we see in the new architecture that is morphed and distorted just because it can be done - as if to declare its own cleverness?

Brisbane is a pleasant place, but this text exaggerates just too much. The 'thrilling weekend; Australia's most vibrant; elegant boutiques and simmering nightlife; laneway markets and trendy eateries; survived the pace of progress; will nourish the body and the soul.' The image is of fireworks on the river - one flash in the pan for a short time each year. It is not 'everyday' Brisbane. Things are much grimmer here, as a report in another section of the same paper records. One might see the text as an attempt to attract tourists - see WHO OR WHAT IS A TOURIST? http://springbrooklocale.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/who-or-what-is-tourist.html Tourists need places that can offer opportunities for a different, extreme pleasure.

Cripes! Has the author of The Good Life, (no one has owned up), forgotten that the premier has cancelled the State's literary award; that thousands of public servants have just lost their jobs; that gay relationships can now only be registered like a dog or a cat and cannot be celebrated with anything that looks like a traditional marriage ceremony; that changes in surrogacy laws now make it difficult for those in relationships outside of marraige to have children; that funding for environmental groups is being cancelled; that funding for community support groups that help the disadvantaged is being cancelled; and more, and more . . .? This is Brisbane, capital of Queensland - the state that is 'different.' This is the premier who is happy to spend $45,000 on a video to tell Queenslanders that savings have to be made.

This does not sound like 'The Good Life' being promoted in the advertorial text. It does appear to equate to the extremities of exaggerated hype that we are seeing more and more of in our architecture where whiz-bang forming overrides all, decalring 'how great I art!'  -  MY ART: clever and smart.

 A sign of our times? At least one could argue that there is a consistency here where qualities of each aspect might help us undertsand what we are and what we are doing. I say 'might' because the mind that generates these outcomes appears blind to any self-assessment / criticism. As one 'Gen X' teacher wrote in a recent article, 'This is generation I' - me and my are all that matters. Has social media changed us?

Life, and architecture, is more than this hype - more complex and rigourous - even though this selective exaggeration might appear brilliantly picturesque and desirable for a just few seconds. Once the fireworks have fizzed, only waste and smoke remain. These, metaphorically, are an important part of life, and architecture too, that we neglect at our peril.

ARCHITECT OF

REPORT IN THE AUSTRALIAN, THURSDAY 5TH JULY, 2012

Further to the piece, WHO OR WHAT IS AN ARCHITECT? - see http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/who-or-what-is-architect.html - this headline of an article in The Australian is offered as an example of how the use of the word 'architect' has changed - see above.

While we might like to consider it to be otherwise, language is always changing, changing meanings and references over time, almost playfully. This circumstance does highlight the dilemma of the Board of Architects that takes on the role of managing the use of the word 'architect.' It leaves one wondering if the 'architect of media' has to accumulate the required Compulsory Professional Development points that a traditional architect is now obliged to record. Perhaps the solution is to create a new type of architect - the 'architect of' - that is exempt from all Board requirements: or maybe the Board has outgrown its usefulness?

8 JULY 2014
See also:

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/the-architecture-of-architecture.html  

 and

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/cell-architecture.html  

25 MARCH 2017

ARCHITECTURE OF

Under the headline,

Republican repeal of Obamacare fails as healthcare bill pulled from House vote, the text reads:

Conservatives also objected to the legislation for keeping too much of the architecture of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), frequently referred to as Obamacare.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/24/republican-healthcare-plan-bill-vote-pulled-obamacare-trump

Is the understanding of 'architecture' demeaned, confused, by the use of the word in the context above? The sense, if any, in the use of the word in this manner seems to come from the interpretation, the transformation of metaphor into fact. It is similar to the situation in Murcutt's mosque where he sought to make the goings-on within the mosque 'more transparent,’ so the naive, almost too obvious solution was to design a glass wall on the street-side of the prayer hall: see - http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2017/01/murcutts-mosque-meanings-sources.html

It is the same idea as the Forum Area in the Abedian School of Architecture at Bond University that seemed to want to be ‘open’ to ideas and opportunities, an ‘avant-garde’ educational learning place, so it was made a part of an open space leading off from the entry foyer and into three levels of studio spaces, with full height glass walls framing vistas of the adjacent road and circulation areas: see - http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/the-art-of-many-danish-biennale-in-brief.html

Both examples appear to negate the very intention that generated the idea for the solution; both approaches have transferred a notional concept, an idea, into a physical reality, as if the descriptive words held sense, relevance, and meaning in the intention as well as the solution. Experience is more complex and subtle than this blatant approach to language.

In the article on the pulling of Trump’s healthcare bill, ‘architecture’ seems to be used in the association that sees such legal items being ‘designed,’ ‘structured,’ ‘developed,’and ‘built’ - all phrases that can also relate to architecture. Is this why the word ‘architecture’ finds its way into this text, almost as a summary of these collected items? Is it taking the same silly, simplistic path as the mosque and the school designs have? 'Build,' for example, can be an idea as well as a physical act that has nothing to do with architecture. What other relation can there be in this bill and its so-called 'architecture' beyond some broad sense of preconceived, organisational management of the document, which is what architects do when they design and construct?

There also seems to be something prestigious, ‘creatively’ different, 'slick and smart,' 'bespoke,' in the use of this word, in the same manner as ‘segue’ has been adopted today : see – JARGON in sidebar. One thing is certain: the use of the word ‘architecture’ in this way will not only confuse visions of matters architectural, but it will also reinforce every cliché anybody might have on what ‘architecture’ is or might be. The association is certainly not helpful, as here it links architecture with failure, a notion that lingers in the broad, fuzzy idea of dilettantes indulging personal ideas and design ambitions while playing carelessly with other people’s time and money.

Language and its usage is a difficult matter to control. Perhaps, in this usage, it embodies an expression of the understanding of a culture that appears to place architects and their efforts at the bottom of the heap, dismissively transferring any relevance and sense that the word might hold into describing other concerns, anything but architecture.

16 MARCH 2019

Also see: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47585336

The article is titled:

Celebrity parents and the bizarre 'cheating' scandal

A whole section has been given over to:

The architect

Rick Singer, a Californian life coach in his late 50s, presented himself as an expert in the university admissions process.

The individual who has admitted manipulating admissions has been labelled 'the architect' of the scheme. Littler wonder that architects are dismissed as irrelevant when they are promoted as being anything - anything but an 'architect.'

 19 MARCH 2019

It just does not stop: see -

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-19/the-small-town-doctor-taking-on-the-sackler-family/10910916

The small-town doctor taking on the billionaire family blamed for America’s opioid crisis

If it can be proved individual Sacklers were the architects, he wants them jailed.

The concern is that no only does the use of the word architect in this way manage to confuse general perceptions, but its repeated association with negative issues might only colour this muddle further in a way that is not helpful for any profession, especially one that is seen to be elitist and self-serving.

28 MARCH 2019

 On ABC RN, 27 March 2019, at 8:38am – Pat Turner, talking on the aboriginal representation in ‘Close the Gap’ meetings where strategies were to be discussed with other members, spoke of the situation where there might be some disagreement, a difference in opinion. The response spoke of “the architecture, not the detail.”

The “not the detail” qualification gives some definition to the understanding of how architecture is generally perceived – as a broad, overall structure, certainly not the detail, as if there might be a difference. The sense in the use of the word seems to suggest an understanding of a general, comprehensive schematic organisation, its arrangement; the ‘big’ picture as it were, rather than the intimate pieces that hold the substance – “the detail.”

Does this say something about the general understanding of architecture – perhaps seen as a broad, superimposed aesthetic applied to an aggregation of small things, the real issues? Is architecture seen as a diagrammatic, emotional matter, not the facts or reality, layered onto life and its living? Does this structural idea define architecture’s irrelevance, with the perception of architecture being ‘an unnecessary extra’ - an aesthetic, something merely artistically creative? Life and its living can apparently continue quite satisfactorily without ‘architecture’ and its ‘organisation’ : or is it that anyone can organise things, making architects’ claims to this professional skills, a nonsense??

The concern is that, given this usage of the word ‘architecture’ in popular, everyday language, in this context, how can perceptions ever be changed? The Board of Architects of Queensland can work as hard as it likes to control the use of the classification ‘architect’ in order to ‘protect the public,’ but when ordinary language takes control, the meaning of ‘architect’ and ‘architecture’ can be turned to anything, as it is, leaving architects and architecture mired in a confusing mess of references that is impossible to discard, to isolate. Indeed, the effort to segregate meaning is seen only as a confirmation of the elitist role given to architects and architecture by the general, everyday use of the words, willy-nilly, leaving everything in an abstracted spin.

29 MARCH 2019
It simply never stops; and it seems to be coming more frequent. The use of the word 'architect' in any context but architecture, is now heard nearly every day. On ABCTV, on The Drum today, we are told about "The architect of the living wage." It seems that there is no hope that this muddling will ever change when grammatical and other basic errors have become embedded everyday speech all without complaint. In the same way, and for the same reason, there appears to be little hope that architects can do anything about the manner in which society views them. Language, in what seems to be a naive attempt by some to sound meaningfully classy and academically intelligent, burdens our profession with innuendo with strange and varied references and associations in the way it chooses to use 'architect' and 'architecture.' Language is not becoming more expressive; it is being dumbed down with carelessness.

PAIRS 4 - CORNER DETAILING

quai Branly museum, Paris  Jean Nouvel

 

New ABC Headquarters, Brisbane  Richard Kirk

Links to other PAIRS:

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/pairs-1.html

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/pairs-2.html

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/pairs-3.html

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/pairs-5-1956-2012-olympic-pools.html

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/pairs-6-villette-victoria.html

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/pairs-5-call-them-cactus.html

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/pairs-8-conventional-inspiration.html

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/pairs-9-archigram-inspiration.html

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/pairs-10-art-culture.html

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/pairs-11-invisible-houses.html