AWA building, Sydney, 1937-1939

My comrades and I have a new blog about living in cities. It’s called The Patch. Please visit.

The Dailies
Thomas Demand
Commercial Travellers’ Association club, Martin Place, Sydney.
22 March – 22 April 2012.

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Easter eggs painted by Stefan.
Fig grown by a Moreton Bay (tree) at Rushcutters Bay, Sydney.
Table cloth spread by Virginia.

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Coming back to Sydney from Berlin I rediscovered a place full of colour.
Some weaving from Happy Talk House.

Happy Talk House.

B’s new look.

Janet Echelman’s aerial net installation, Tsunami 1.26.

Last of the camellias at Double Bay.

Kino International, Karl-Marx-Allee.

That curve!

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Through the Goethe Institute in Sydney I discovered a magazine called Berlin Haushoch, designed, edited, photographed and largely written by three people: Ana Lessing, Alexandra Bald and Esra Rotthoff.

Each issue covers the people and daily life of one district of Berlin and takes a year to produce.

While all good editors become immersed in their material, the people from Berlin Haushoch go several steps further: they set up their studio in the part of the city they want the issue to cover and work there for a year.

They told me that the name is untranslatable but I haven’t given up yet! House high? Highly? Decisively?..

More—in more depth—on Berlin Haushoch soon.

Issue 3 on Charlottenburg.

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One of the attractions of Chinabrenner is its refreshing elusiveness when it comes to being categorised. Is it art, food or design? Is it an installation or somewhere good to eat? One catalogue calls what they do ‘artistic cooking events’, which is probably the closest I’ve read so far, to a reasonably concise descriptor.

Thomas Wrobel (the one who cooks) and Jo Zarth (the one who designs) spent some (a lot) of time in China researching the idea of  ‘street as kitchen’ then brought their findings back to Germany to become artistic cooking events in Leipzig, Berlin, Essen, Milan —and I suspect more places than this.

In essence what you see, hear, taste, smell, feel—is a traditional Chinese street kitchen, picked up, and transported to you by two people with a deep fascination for a particular culture. In the near future I hope to return to Leipzig and visit Thomas Wrobel’s new but as yet unopened restaurant.

More, in much more depth, on Chinabrenner soon. The ultimate aim is to publish on paper. Blogs don’t do it for some things.

Last 6 photographs courtesy of Chinabrenner and Zarthcore

Thomas Wrobel

Jo Zarth

GDR architecture. The Post building that follows this one is empty.

I was introduced to Jan Hartmann from Studio Hartensteiner who are the organisers for Designers’ Open, 28–30 October 2011. Afterwards I kept seeing these beautiful blue and black posters all over the city, combined in interesting ways.