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Located in Garden Valley, Nevada, Michael Heizer’s City is one of the most significant works of art in the United States. Begun by Heizer in 1972, the project is now in its final stage of completion. It will, in the future, be accessible by the public. [...]
To see the land developed into a site for military, energy, or waste purposes, would ruin it forever. After 43 years of work, can it really be destroyed like this?
— unframed.lacma.org
Notable American museums publicly expressed their support on Twitter via #protectCITY. The LACMA petition to protect Michael Heizer's City and the Basin and Range can be reached here.Previously on Archinect: Michael Heizer's massive desert sculpture, "City", will make you cry View full entry
Egypt is in the throes of a severe housing shortage [...]. But one thing the country has an abundance of is lonesome desert, and developers are turning there to construct immense projects that stick out in the emptiness like skyscrapers on Mars.
London-based photographer Manuel Alvarez Diestro has a yen for the monumental [...] naturally he was interested in the colossal structures rising on the outskirts of Egyptian cities.
— citylab.com
“He didn’t like people coming into the studio and seeing the paintings before they were finished,” he said. “This is one of the most ambitious artworks ever envisioned, certainly in the United States.”
Heizer's mammoth masterpiece in the desert is called "City."
“It was in 1994 when I first saw it, unfinished,” Govan said. “You do cry. You think, what an incredibly beautiful ambition.”
— ksl.com
The piece was completed last Friday and it consists of a single, diminutive swimming pool located somewhere in the southern Mojave Desert between Joshua Tree and Apple Valley. The public is allowed to use the pool, but in order to do so visitors need the key that unlocks it (it is kept covered) as well as the GPS coordinates. Only once you have the key, which is kept at the MAK Center, are you given the coordinates. — latimes.com
For the latest edition of the Working out of the Box series, Archinect spoke with Spain-based Brazilian Creative Director/Creative Consultant Gustavo Almeida-Santos of studiogaas. Therein, we learn Mr. Almeida-Santos is currently attending ETSAM in Madrid, where he is enrolled in a... View full entry
"You need to get concrete out of your head and replace it with greenery," Bödeker had thundered at the head of planning at the urban planning authority. The gruff German made such an impression that to this day, Saudi authorities continue to hire and recommend him. Image by Susanne Kölbl / DER SPIEGEL — Der Spiegel
Susanne Koelbl introduces the work of Richard Bödeker, a German landscape architect who has been working in Saudi Arabia for nearly 40 years. Bödeker Partners has played a key role in introducing green spaces to Riyadh and has pushed the limits in terms of making the desert bloom... View full entry
I've read that it's biodegradable, right? I ask Ball.
"It's degradable," he says. "I don't know about bio."
— domusweb.it
Our friend Katya Tylevich covers Ball Nogues Yucca Crater installation in Joshua Tree National Park, CA. You may recall Katya's UpStarts feature on Ball Nogues that we published here a couple years ago. View full entry
Each fall High Desert Test Sites invites artists to create experimental projects adjacent to California's Joshua Tree National Park. This year HDTS invited Ball Nogues Studio to create a structure in a remote region of the Mojave Desert. This presents a unique opportunity to make an intervention upon an unfettered landscape at a grand scale. — unitedstatesartists.org
Chad Oppenheim's competition-winning plan for a new Desert Lodge scheme takes this ersatz upscale canvas and blends it with minimalism, drama and, perhaps most importantly, sustainability. — wallpaper.com