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Rem Koolhaas' theories on Junkspace are the inspiration for this Synth-pop album (and music video!)

2019-02-02T21:29:00-05:00

Seventeen years after publishing his thoughts on 'Junkspace' in October Journal, Rem Koolhaas is seeing his theories reprised through an unexpected medium. The Tempers, the New York-based Synth-pop band, dedicated their latest album to Koolhaas' cynical paper in which he defined much of contemporary architectural production and consumption as Junkspace, the "residue mankind leaves on the planet."

Screenshot from Love at the Mall, by the Tempers.

The music video for The Tempers' song, Love at the Mall, begins with a clip of Koolhaas speaking in an interview about the text: "The essence of shopping is to eliminate reality as much as possible." It then follows the loose narratives of CGI mannequins, plastic flamingoes and synthetic palm trees in a sparse mall setting, adopting several of the themes of Koolhaas' text, such as alienation, conspicuous consumption and artificiality.

Other songs on the album, including Air Conditioner, Desire and All That is Solid Melts into Air dive deepe...

Famed Bradbury Building stars in Justin Timberlake's new video for "Say Something"

2018-02-06T13:49:00-05:00

Justin Timberlake may have just completed his halftime performance at the Super Bowl, but before that, he was busy roaming around the historic Bradbury Building in Los Angeles with his good friend and country star, Chris Stapleton. The duo have a song together on Timberlake's new album Man of the Woods, released over the weekend. Titled "Say Something," the music video for the pop-country duet features the two playing on acoustic guitars while they tour the historic structure; seventeen musicians and a sixty-person choir also showed up to lend their help.

Shot by the Paris-based collection of filmmakers known as La Blogothéque, the music video, including the audio, was recorded live, rather remarkably, in a single take. Though the team rehearsed a few times, they had only a 10-minute window in which the lighting through the windows was just right. Additionally, Arturo Perez Jr., who directed the video, told Esquire that the whole thing "was a reverb challenge. The building was all ...

Lloyd Wright's Sowden House gets a cameo in The xx's new music video

2017-07-05T15:29:00-04:00

Lloyd Wright's concrete-block John Sowden House in Los Angeles makes a special appearance in “I Dare You”, the latest music video from British indie-pop band The xx as their “love letter to Los Angeles”.

Directed by fashion photographer Alasdair McLellan in collaboration with Raf Simons, the saccharine music video playfully alludes to the infamous Black Dahlia murder that took place at the house in the 1940s. In the video, a group of mischievous, lovey-dovey teenagers — featuring “Moonlight” actor Ashton Sanders, actress Millie Bobby Brown from “Stranger Things”, and Michael Jackson's daughter Paris, among others — dare each other to enter the haunted Wrightian home.

What ensues when the teenagers step foot into the house? Watch the full video below to find out.

h/t Phaidon

Beyoncé filmed her NOLA-themed "Formation" video at this historic Pasadena mansion

2016-02-10T20:16:00-05:00

Despite the themes of the video, nothing was shot in New Orleans...The concept and quick turnaround required Tobman and the rest of the crew to convert [the Fenyes Mansion in Pasadena into a] fitting Southern Gothic set...A Beaux Arts mansion commissioned by and built for Dr. Adalbert Fenyes and his wife Eva Scott Muse Fenyes in 1905, there was nothing really Southern about architect Robert D. Farquhar's design

If you're still bumpin' the Queen Bey's latest hard-hitting single, get a glimpse of the history behind the Fenyes Mansion in Pasadena, where parts of the song's impressive music video were filmed.

More music-related goodness on Archinect:

The Empire State Building Makes Its Music Video Debut With the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

2013-06-26T09:12:00-04:00

The Empire State Building starred in first-ever music video over the weekend as the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s released their latest single, “Despair.” High atop the observation deck from 2 a.m. to sunrise (the only hours that the tourists are at bay), the quintessential New York band rocked the quintessential New York building