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As Moscow’s Zaryadye Park approaches its first birthday next month, the city’s chief architect, Sergei Kuznetsov, is defending the Diller Scofidio + Renfro-designed green space for an unexpected feature: its aphrodisiacal properties. Just a stone’s throw from the Kremlin, the firm’s carefully crafted experiment in “wild urbanism” has lived up to its billing, apparently, becoming something of a hotbed for outdoor lovemaking. — news.artnet.com
Moscow's one year old $245 million public park by Diller Scofidio + Renfro was meant to bring freedom of exploration and a feeling of comfort within the urban setting. The space provides visitors with an amphitheater, flora-covered terraces, green spaces with views of the city, and a 230 foot... View full entry
London-based architect Miguel Bolivar recently released his side project Archisutra, an architecture and design take on the Kama Sutra. This manual gives you all the data with annotated scale drawings and informative descriptions including categorizations of 'Typical Location' and... View full entry
After the Louvre demurred, an art installation many consider to be sexually explicit will instead be displayed outside the Pompidou Center in Paris. — The New York Times
The Louvre might not want it, but the Pompidou will take it! The 40-foot-tall, semi-building, semi-sculpture, "Domestikator," by the Dutch art and design collective Atelier Van Lieshout, was intended to be shown in the Tuileries Gardens, next to the Louvre. But the Museum cancelled the project... View full entry
Officials at the Louvre have been accused of censorship after withdrawing a work from its Tuileries Gardens in Paris for being sexually explicit. The work by the Dutch art and design collective Atelier Van Lieshout, entitled the Domestikator, was due to go on show later this month as part of the Hors les Murs public art programme organised by representatives of the Fiac contemporary art fair (19-22 October). — The Art Newspaper
The Art Newspaper explains: "[...] the erotic nature of the large-scale architectural structure, the outline of which depicts a couple having sex, prompted the Louvre’s decision to bar the work from the gardens which are overseen by the museum." Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez tried to defend... View full entry
Peaking at 236 metres high, One Lansdowne will be taller than any Canary Wharf tower block and only eclipsed by The Shard, which is 95 floors and 310 metres. — The Construction Index
The British are notorious for giving funny nicknames to their buildings. The construction of the One Lansdowne has not yet started, but Londoners have already noticed the tower's resemblance to a Rampant Rabbit sex toy. Platinum Rampant Rabbit VibratorImage CZWG ArchitectsThe asymmetrical... View full entry
The authorities in the Cuban capital, Havana, say they are restoring a network of hotels where rooms are rented by the hour to lovers.
State-run "posadas", or love motels, disappeared during Cuba's economic crisis in the 1990s, when they became hurricane shelters.
Private householders filled the gap in the market, but at exorbitant prices.
Officials say the posadas will be cheaper and will help end the practice of love-making in Havana's open spaces.
— BBC
This week we’re joined by special guest co-host Aaron Betsky, author of Queer Space: Architecture and Same-Sex Desire and Building Sex: Men, Women, Architecture & the Construction of Sexuality. As a strong presence in the architectural discourse of gender and sexuality since the 1990s... View full entry
Elmhurst Art Museum presents the U.S. debut of Playboy Architecture, 1953-1979, featuring an extensive collection of photographs, films, architectural models and more from Playboy magazine’s inception in 1953 through the 1970s.
Curated by Professor Beatriz Colomina and Pep Aviles ... the exhibition showcases how architecture and design played a role in creating the Playboy fantasy as well as how Playboy magazine came to influence the world of architecture and design.
— bustler.net
We no doubt have Hugh Hefner and the Playboy empire to thank, in no minor part, for today's standards of architectural photography, and the preeminent role many midcentury designers, featured in their present day in Playboy, enjoy in today's culture.Got your own take on how sex and sexuality... View full entry
With April comes springtime, and a proliferation of reproduction symbols laden with the sticky pollen of the universal allergen – sex. We're devoting our next editorial issue on Archinect to themes of sex and sexuality in architecture, and we want you to submit (to our open call).Effective... View full entry
Oshin Vartanian and his colleagues slipped a group of people inside a brain-scanning machine and flashed hundreds of interior designs -- some curvy, some angular -- in front of them. They then had the choice of describing each room as either "beautiful" or "not beautiful."
The study found that participants overwhelmingly preferred interior spaces with curving coffee tables, meandering sofas and winding floor patterns to rooms filled with angular furniture and rectilinear design.
— cnn.com
It’s odd how little architects have had to say on the subject of sex. If they’re routinely designing the buildings in which sex happens, then you might expect them to spend more time thinking about it. Buildings frame and house our sexual lives — Aeon
Richard J Williams (Professor of Contemporary Visual Cultures at the University of Edinburgh) is the author of Sex and Buildings: Modern Architecture and the Sexual Revolution (2013). In a recent piece he explores the relationship between sex, communal living and architecture. Mr... View full entry
The showpiece is a staircase smack dab in the middle of the first-floor work room that leads to a second floor with a gaping white void painted red inside. Taranta says it's “reminiscent of a large droplet of water ready to fall from the ceiling.” Uh, yeah. If a “large droplet of water” looks exactly like a vagina. — fastcodesign.com
German newspaper die Welt asked superstar global design machine and Fun Factory sextoy shop designer Karim Rashid to comment on dildos. For the one called Dinky Digger he said, "this is a small animal, huh?" Welt Online View full entry
The Morning News has a great photo gallery of Japanese Love Hotels. Unlike the dank motels where Americans allegedly seek anonymous sex, Japan’s love hotels are playful and unapologetically sexual. Photographer Misty Keasler shows the humor, desire, and even the loneliness of these empty rooms. View full entry
