BEAUTY: Photography--Ben Sandler

Inspired by the television show "Mad Men" and films of the original period, Parisian photographer Ben Sandler rented legendary Finnsih architect and designer Alvar Aalto's historic Maison Carré (which was designed and created by Aalto for Frenchart dealer Louis Carreé), and shot a series of photos that reflects the period's fascination with the future. Titled "Tomorrowland," this is retro and the shape of things to come at once. The lighting fixtures are original to the building, which is now an Aalto museum.

http://cargocollective.com/bensandler

Gassho Zikuri

Gassho zikuri is an ancient style of Japanese dwelling known as minka. The steep pitched roofs help snow to slide off, preventing water from getting inside and preventing the thatch from rotting. Gassho zukuri villages were listed as World Heritage sites by UNESCO in 1995 and this example in Shirakawa in Gifu prefecture will be illuminated for tourists until February 16, 2013.

BEAUTY: Photography--Filip Dujardin

Fine art and commercial photographer Filip Dujardin photographs buildings and then takes their components apart to reassemble, via Photoshop, into strange, marvelous new structures that combine Brutalist architecture and Surrealism. Although these are pure architectural flights of fancy and do not actually exist (the artist himself calls them "fictions"), some could--and should--actually be built! In fact, quite a few remind me of both French photographer Frédéric Chaubin's photo project of actual, real-life Soviet-era structures in a similar vein called "CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed" (previously here) and Jan Kempenaers' book of photos of 1960s and 70s war monuments in ex-Yugoslavia titled "Spomenik: The End of History" (previously here).

http://www.filipdujardin.be/

BEAUTY: Architecture--Metro Stations Around The World

The Toledo Station in Naples, Italy is a design marvel. The effect is dazzling but the execution is so simple, achieved with colored mosaic tiles and strategically placed lighting.

It may only be Barcelona, but the Drassanes Metro Station could be in Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" or a set from the 1970s classic TV show "Space: 1999."

Moscow's Komsomolskaya Station captures the grandeur of Tsarist Russia.

The Solna Centrum Station in Stockholm, Sweden is carved out of living rock. The red is actually the sky in a mural that spans the entire station.

Stockholm's Stadion Station is also carved out of rock but this one sports a blue color with a little touch of rainbow.

Jules Verne must have inspired the submarine-textured Arts et Metiers Station in Paris.

Sometimes the design elements greet passengers even before they descend underground. Here, the entrance to the Bockenheimer Warte Station in Frankfurt looks like an antique subway car has poked up out of the ground. It is actually the escalator down!

From The Daily Telegraph, here.

BEAUTY: Architecture

This Venetian-Gothic water tower was built in 1877 by Fowler and Hill, as part of the Lambeth Workhouse and Infirmary, where legendary silent film star Charlie Chaplin lived for a few weeks when he was seven years old.

It sat derelict and unwanted (the tower was listed for £395,000 in 2008) until owners Leigh Osbourne and Graham Voce saw the potential, snapped it up, and converted it into a spectacular luxury home.

The 99 foot tower, which features five foot-thick walls, now houses four bedrooms and a glass elevator shaft alongside the tower, while at the base is a new, modern living space nicknamed the "Cube". The steel water tank at the top is now a lounge with spectacular 360 degree views across London.

BEAUTY: Architecture--Wayfarers Chapel

Designed by Lloyd Wright, son of legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and built in 1951, The Wayfarers Chapel located in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, is a miracle of engineering. Comprised of precious few redwood beams and a tremendous amount of glass, Lloyd Wright called his design a "tree chapel."

When construction was complete, it was just a building on a dusty hill, surrounded by saplings. But Lloyd Wright said, “When the trees that surround the Chapel grow up, they will become the framework, become a part of the tree forms and branches that inevitably arise from the growing trees adjacent to it. I used the glass so that the natural growth, the sky, and sea beyond became the definition of their environment.” Now, the chapel does indeed blend in with the grove of redwoods that surrounds it. It is a stunning sight, and an important part of the lineage of the history of architecture.

Above: Frank Lloyd Wright, left, with his son Lloyd and grandson.

On a personal note, I had a dream some time in 1981, where I walked into a church that looked almost identical to the Wayfarers Chapel to see my grandfather who had died nearly a decade earlier. At the time of this dream, I had never seen the structure and did not know of its existence. I can still see it clearly in my memory of the dream, and it was astonishingly beautiful, even ethereal, because of the part of the church that was not there--the walls--as well as for the seamless link to the surrounding trees and sky.

http://www.wayfarerschapel.org/