Toyo Ito

I am relatively late in discovering the wonders of Toyo Ito the Japanese Architect and Designer, but simply looking at his work you can’t deny his creativity. I found out about this architect when I was investigating the architect behind the VivoCity building in Tokyo (below). This is one of Toyo Ito’s most famous designs.












The more I investigate this building the more that it intrigues me. According to their website “ The name ‘VivoCity’ is derived from the word ‘Vivacity’, evoking a lifestyle experience that is modern stimulating and accessible to everyone”. When you think about this as a type of mission statement for the building, I don’t think they could have selected a better design for the Singapore Construction. From what I can discover without having visited it myself, this building has everything. The 1.5m square foot area that it covers it contains event spaces, promenades, cinemas, shopping and food courts, gyms, a spa, living space etc, the list appears to be endless. The intertwining lines that are both an internal and external design feature make you feel that this is a fun place to live, work and relax, the whole thing screams confidence and playfulness.

This isn’t by any means the first of Ito’s constructions to reach the headlines. The design that drew him into the limelight was Sendai Mediathique. This is another multifunction building but this is done in a different almost more spiritual way. The large open spaces were created to allow a variety of exhibits and events and allow the Mediathique to continually evolve.

Another building I want to mention is his famous ‘Tower of Winds’ which was built in 1986. It’s primary function was to disguise a ventilation tower for an underground shopping centre in Yokohama, Tokyo. Toyo Ito transformed the solely functional construction into a design feature with his innovative ideas. In the day it appears to be an opaque tower (with mirrored plates and aluminium shielding the lights within).


At night this building comes to life, a computer programme controls the ring of neon lights surrounding the tower and allows it to respond to noises and movement from the city above. Technically I am not certain how they accomplished this, but the result is so peculiar and interesting I became less interested in finding out everything about its construction and more interested in finding images of it.


Then there was the Serpentine Pavilion in London, which was constructed in 2002. This is constructed within the grounds of The Serpentine Gallery, the idea of this pavilion was to create a space to be used for anything from film screenings and special programs to a café. It may not be the largest scale of his designs, but I love the lines and spaces that it creates, its hardly what you would call your standard café!

The final design that I want to mention is his design proposal for the Taichung Metropolitan Opera House. Toyo Ito himself said that ““Architecture has to follow the diversity of society, and has to reflect that a simple square or cube can’t contain that diversity.” The building is scheduled for completion in 2009, if the final result comes close to these proposal images, I think it could be a really fascinating place to visit.



I have spent a long time investigating and exploring the work of Toyo Ito. The buildings that I have mentioned are simply some of my favorites, there are many more equally impressive ones around. More than anything I love the creativity that this work shows, you can tell that each design grows from it’s surroundings and is designed to best suit the purpose. I can now understand why this Japanese Artist/Architect is considered “one of the world’s most innovative and influential Architects” (Designboom/Wikipedia)

Tilt-Shift Photography (making reality into a toy town)

I read an article earlier from today’s Telegraph Magazine called “Postcards from Toytown”. The subject of this was the 29 year old Tokio artist Naoki Honjo and the way that he uses the technique ‘Tilt-Shift photography’ to create almost fake looking images from everyday scenes. The article quotes the artist as saying “It’s nothing special in terms of technique, its just a way of controlling the focus” I had never heard of this term before but I have since looked it up on the internet and found that it is not an uncommon or new thing. From what I can gather it requires the image sensor to be moved from the normal right angle with the lens, this alters the perspective and focus of the image, hence creating a toytown effect out of everyday life.

The effect is really unusual, you find yourself studying the images really closely to try and work out if the seemingly lego world your seeing could actually be real. Here are a few scans out of the article, I find this fascinating, I don’t think I have ever fully appreciated the number of different things that can be achieved with a camera and without photoshop.

Peter Blake, A Retrospective

As I went round this exhibition I realised that I had been aware of Peter Blakes work for years. I knew of some of his more obvious works but there were other images here that I recognised. The type of images I liked or disliked when I first saw them, but either way a few years ago I would have been less interested in the artist than their appearance.

His work that’s on display here dates from the 1950’s to the present day. There were some of his most famous pieces displayed alongside ones that I had never seen before. The one that has stuck in my mind was the following image.


It was in the ‘Wrestlers and Pin-up Girls part of the exhibition, I spent ages just looking at it. I guess it’s one of those portraits that although you see the subject’s image itself, I could also a likeness to other people I had seen or knew. I have looked at a couple of portraits so far in my blog, to me this stood out in a different way to those of Mavis Roper, Luciano Bonacini and Henrich Nauen. Nauen’s work all seamed to be about reflecting the person’s character, and Roper’s about capturing the moment. Luciano Bonacini’s work was a display of his ability and opinions, where as this portrait of Peter Blake’s to me shows yet another thing altogether. This seamed to be about the subject’s interaction with the viewer and in a sense it’s seduction of the viewer. The subject is obviously a very beautiful woman, however there is something more captivating than just her looks, this appears to be in the eyes and the way that they hold your attention, it really is a fascinating portrait to look at.

There were various other of Peter Blake’s work which caught my eye, a couple of which I have shown bellow. I particularly liked his use of 3D sculpted objects, combined with 2D painted areas, it served to emphasize certain areas and make everything more exciting to look at.












There were several other pieces within this exhibition I could spend ages commenting on. Although I may not have personally liked them all, they were undoubtedly full of attention and detail. The bit of the whole exhibition that interested me the most was one that I nearly missed. We were about to leave when we noticed a sign saying ‘From this moment on’. This section was far more separated than the rest of the exhibition had been. Peter Blake himself described it as something that is ‘beyond the show and beyond the catalogue... the start of the next bit of my life’. These were paintings that are yet to be completed and are therefore still taking shape.


Apart from the fact that it enabled you to see how he built up and actually constructed his paintings, it lets you imagine what is yet to come. There was obviously a plan for each of these canvases, quite how detailed this will have been I don’t know, but I would love to see these again in a few years time to see what they have become or even if they have progressed at all.

New Walk Museum & Art Gallery, Leicester

The thing that I liked about this museum/art gallery was that it was just that, two normally separate buildings in one. I can understand that this means it can’t dedicate as much space to one exhibit as some customers would like; but on the other hand it does encourage you to explore things you may not otherwise gone to see. Whilst I enjoyed the Liverpool Museum I am very aware that I was only able to see a small amount of what it had to offer due to the size of the place. Here however, I was able to visit the entire thing my lunch break from work.


I had initially gone to see the museum’s current flagship exhibit ‘Picasso Ceramics, The Attenborough Collection’ but as undoubtedly is the intention I found myself wandering through the rest of the building as well. Firstly I aught to mention that whilst I enjoyed walking through the Picasso works, I actually didn’t find them as interesting as the other areas. There were some pieces that you could clearly tell were done by the world famous artist, (one of which is shown in the extract from the guide booklet above) but others were less impressive. There were some there that wouldn’t have been singled out at all if it weren’t for the painter that had created them. I did like looking round but it was probably my lack of total enthusiasm that made me explore the other exhibits.

There were things on view ranging from dinosaurs to ancient Egyptians and also on the local rocks and landscape. It was quite odd to suddenly walk from looking at skeletons and interactive models of dinosaurs to twentieth centaury German art. I think that the result of this as I have said is that visitors, children in particular are given a far more rounded experience than they may otherwise have had.

My favourite exhibit in this whole gallery was actually a small section that had been displayed the workshops such as ‘Inspired by Picasso- make a sculpture’ and ‘Screen-printing with a Picasso flavour’ earlier in the month. Here you got to see the work through a child’s eyes, which was a completely new way of viewing it. Some of the work here was done as a detailed study where the child had obviously taken ages to study and imitate what looking at as accurately as possible. Others had been far more imaginative trying instead to use his style to draw something that they wanted. Theses were quite refreshing to see especially when you compared the two styles. I think you often loose your imagination as you get older. Now I have a tendency to worry too much about getting marks and what the final outcome will look like, and forget to enjoy myself in the process; as some of these children had obviously enjoyed doing this artwork.

Luciano Bonacini's Photography Exhibition

I came across this small art exhibition whilst on wandering round a local town on holiday. It was held in what would otherwise been a small shop in Malcesine, Italy, this itself was at first something that really surprised me. I have been to quite a few photography exhibitions in the past, this one appeared to be held in quite unassuming place and with only little publication that I am aware of. The thing that surprised me was not that an art exhibition would be held here, but more that the quality of the artist’s photographs that were there.

Luciano Bonacini’s photographs were fascinating to look at both technically and yet also in a way that made you realise that the artist had real talent. I spent ages just looking at the composition and trying to guess what settings the photographer would have used to capture the mood he did.


Unfortunately its quite hard to see the detail in the small prints that I was able to bring back with me, however hopefully they give some kind of indication to the original images. The majority of his subjects were naked women, shot in various positions and situations, (I overheard one visitor saying “one man’s art is another’s pornography). Having said that, apart from a handful of shots that I didn’t want to spend to long studying, most of these didn’t look out of place amongst the other still life shots.

Luciano Bonacini’s decision to photograph in black and white is one that I found particularly interesting. I am sure that I have said before when commenting on someone’s blog that the decision to put a photo into colour or Black and White can either detract from, or make the photo, this largely depends on the individual image itself. Although it doesn’t surprise me that the artist decided to shoot the entire 50 photos of “A Retrospective” in black and white, it has left me wondering if individually these some photos would not have had more impact in colour. Having said that the photos as a collective work do have a great impact and therefore I suppose that this was the right choice to make.

Since coming back from Italy I have tried to find out a bit more about this artist and how successful he has been. Sadly as my Italian is very poor I haven’t been able to work out much more than I could when at the exhibition itself, apart from the fact that the majority of the books around about this artist appear to be self published.

Personally I think that the work of this photographer is very different to that of the artist Mavis Roper that I mentioned previously in my blog. Mavis Roper’s work shows you so much about the subject and you feel that you are almost witnessing the scene itself through her lens. Luciano Bonacini’s work on the other hand somehow feels more detached and you are aware that you are seeing the scene through another person’s eyes. This is largely due to the staged shots of one in comparison to the more spontaneous photography of the other.

I don’t prefer one style over another by any means, but it has made me more aware that the viewer can tell the difference. i.e if you are creating a campaign where part of it’s appeal is to be seeing ‘real life’ situations then these should be as close to spontaneous as possible as staged photos have the tendency to look exactly that.

Henrich Nauen

Henrich Nauen was a German painter who lived from 1880-1941. This image was a portrait of his friend Dr Walter Kaesbach. The image that I have included is unfortunately a poor quality as I took it on my phone, but the actual print is one of the most gripping portraits that I have come across. I have always been interested in this area of art, as being not particularly talented when it comes to drawing peoples faces, I have been curious as to how other people do this. I haven’t been able to find many other images of the subject to compare it to, so I don’t know if it is a true likeness or not. However, in my opinion, the portrait is so expressive it probably wouldn’t reflect any more of Dr Kaesbach’s personality if it were a photograph.

I can’t quite determine what it is about the facial expression that I love. I saw this in a local gallery, and every time I walked past the portrait I saw something different reflected within it. At first I thought that it was quite a sad, reflective and vulnerable piece. It almost appeared that this was done as tribute to Henrich Nauen’s friend instead of a portrait for him to display in his house. However, the more I looked at it the more I felt that this was also about this man’s power. There are many strong dominant lines in the portrait which give me the feeling of strength and determination.

I have looked into the other works of Henrich Nauen, but haven’t seen anything that I admire quite as much as this portrait. It was that when I first looked at it I felt like I was looking at a person not a piece of art, this was what I really liked about it.

The need for good photography

As soon as I saw these photos, they reminded me of Martin Delin's post 'Photos to die for'.

Here he was basically questioning what it is that makes some photos so much more captivating than others? When I saw Mavis Ropers photos, it made me wonder this same thing. I would really love to be able to take photos like these, so often the photography used in Graphic Design can make the difference between people paying attention to and ignoring an idea. (look at the marks and spencer tv adverts and premium brand food packaging that both use delicious looking images to tempt customers.)

I guess a lot can be put down to the technical knowledge of the photographer such as the exposure and focus of both shots, but the rest has to be down to her tallent of capturing the moment and seeing the photo oportunity in the first place.

Philippe Chancel DPRK

Philippe Chancel’s exhibition DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) is one of the most impressive and powerful sequences that I have seen. The French born artist uses his work to explore art, documentary and photographic journalism; the result is a striking set of images with one very distinct style. In 2005 he was allowed to access and photograph within North Korea’s public sphere, DPRK is a selection of what he saw in his time out there and gives an insight into life in an otherwise very secretive culture.


I first saw this exhibition in a Liverpool last year; the photo that I still remember now is the one that I have shown above. They had a large-scale print of ‘Reunification Avenue’ on a wall by itself and looking back at it I can see why. This one image says so much about the communist country that he was in. The first thing I picked up on was its uniformity and cleanliness; it looks such a surreal image I first thought it might have been doctored. All the buildings here are constructed in the same style, with each side of the road being a virtual reflection of the other even down to the lampposts and road markings. Everything is so uniform, which is as much reflective of the country’s culture as the single street Philippe Chancel is photographing.

The next thing that struck me was the proportion within the photo. The eight-lane road is obviously being photographed in day light, yet it looks deserted and unnecessarily wide. This is especially true when you look at the amount of land, or in this case area in the photo that has been dedicated to what I assume is public housing. Everything here is done for the benefit of the whole not the individual, and when you look at this photo even those who like me know very little about communist regimes can interpret that.


The next two images included I have been unable to find the titles of, but are equally as expressive without. The Image above is shocking for an obvious reason. Even in today’s society where we are used to seeing images designed to challenge us, seeing a photo where child carries a gun is still haunting.

One thing I really want to mention here is that it is not only the subject that makes these photographs so powerful. Philippe Chancel would probably have had a split second opportunity to take this photo in which the smaller of the two boys is looking directly into the lens. This timing alongside the overall composition is equally key to the photo’s success. It shows the younger boy’s look of suspicion and almost fear at a photographer being there, this in turn draws the contrast between what is considered the norm in both western and Korean culture


The final photo that I have included is so dramatic not only due to the building in the centre but also the seemingly deserted place all bar one figure. I read a review of this exhibition that concluded “Although I admire this work, I also find it quite disturbing, which is a reflection of the power of the photography rather than a criticism”. This is how I feel when I look at this image. Although architecturally I am sure that this building is truly unique, its not this that you look at, it’s the implication in the sculpture and the way it towers over the solitary figure. It reflects true power and uniformity, but overall I can’t find a better word to sum it up than disturbing.