“Emporis, the global building database, on Tuesday will name the residential and hotel tower” Aqua, designed by Jeanne Gang and “best known for its spectacularly undulating balconies, its 2009 skyscraper of the year.” The runner-up for the Emporis Skyscraper Award is Dubai’s O-14 high-rise.
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Are Arts Organizations Exploiting Their Interns?
“[W]e should be asking why … 40% of graduates entering the cultural sector do so through working unpaid – not least because it has massive implications in terms of access. It immediately discounts all those who can’t afford to work unpaid, and particularly disadvantages those whose family home doesn’t happen to be near London….”
Thousands, Many Famous, Opt Out Of Google Books
“Authors who did not wish their books to be part of Google’s revised settlement needed to opt out before 28 January, in advance of last week’s [anticipated] ruling from Judge Denny Chin over whether to allow Google to go ahead with its divisive plans to digitise millions of books. … [M]ore than 6,500 authors, publishers and literary agents” did so.
Why Does Giving Up On A Book Fill Us With Dismay?
“We turn off TV shows without a second thought. We walk out of movies on a whim. Concerts and plays? Sometimes, we don’t even wait for intermission. But abandoning a book feels different. It feels shabby and small-minded and short-sighted. Like a character flaw.”
Art Gallery Of Ontario Gets $7.5M To Expand Education
The federal stimulus funding will pay for a “new 35,000-square-foot learning centre [that] will be a substantial upgrade of [the] gallery’s existing educational spaces … and will house new programs. There will be a staff expansion as well, allowing the AGO to host twice as many schoolchildren.”
Artist Finds Her Work Is Off-Limits To Public At Olympics
What Claire Kujundzic “thought was being leased to VANOC as a work of public art isn’t available to the public at all, and won’t be even after the Games. Furthermore, Ms. Kujundzic’s contract to lease the work to VANOC bars her from publicizing it. So the public can’t see it, and the public can’t hear about it directly from her.”
Will iTunes Finally Push Us To A La Carte TV Viewing?
“Apple wants to lower the cost of a single TV episode on iTunes from the current $1.99 to 99 cents. Consumers are beginning to ask why they’re paying so much for cable….”
Werner Herzog Is Anything But A Film Buff
“‘I see maybe three or four films a year. Probably less than the average moviegoer.’ The admission seemed genuine, and one imagines that this approach accounts for how nonderivative Mr. Herzog’s films are. His movie-watching tendencies have also had some unexpected consequences.”
Tim Burton’s Inspiration For The White Queen? Nigella
Burton, the director of “Alice in Wonderland,” said Nigella “Lawson’s domestic goddess routine has an eerie edge to it at times. ‘She’s really beautiful and she does all this cooking, but then there’s this glint in her eye and when you see it you go, “Oh, whoa, she’s like really … nuts.” I mean in a good way. Well, maybe. I don’t know.'”
Gay Drama Comes Of Age (Subtle Politics Only, Please)
“While persecution remains a reality for most of” the gay characters in a batch of new plays and musicals, “the widening acceptance of AIDS as a pandemic rather than a gay disease — and the broadening debate on gay marriage and gay soldiers — have led, and have to some extent freed, writers and producers to use a wider lens to explore a broader landscape.”