The 85,000-square-meter Dongdaemun Design Plaza & Park, expected to open in 2010 on the site of a former municipal stadium in north central Seoul, will “include a multi-purpose park, a design museum, a library, and other educational facilities. The impressive 30,000 square meter park will both give homage to and re-interpret traditional Korean gardening design with reflecting pools, lotus ponds, pebble beds and bamboo grooves.”
Tag: 06.09.09
Zaha, Queen Of The Nile: Hadid Wins Two Major Cairo Commissions
Cairo Expo City will include twin office towers (31 and 33 stories) and major conference and exhibition spaces under roofs designed to resemble wind-sculpted sand dunes. The Stone Towers office/hotel complex will have façades with “a vocabulary of alternating protrusions, recesses and voids” as well as a sunken landscaped plaza called the Delta.
Daniele Gatti Succeeds Franz Welser-Möst At Zurich Opera House
The conductor has already held “the posts of music director of the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna and guest conductor of the Royal Opera House … He is also music director of L’Orchestre National de France and, until this year, principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.” He begins his three-year term next January.
Milwaukee Rep Names Dawn Helsing Managing Director
“The Milwaukee Repertory Theater has chosen Dawn J. Helsing, most recently the executive director of Chicago’s Court Theatre, to be its managing director. She replaces Timothy J. Shields, who left in December after 10 years in the position.” Helsing “was executive director of the Court Theatre for nearly four years before resigning in January to work as a consultant with Chicago’s smaller theaters.”
New York City Opera Signs Contract With Musicians
“In a rare bit of good news for the New York City Opera, the company and its musicians have signed a two-year contract agreement. The American Guild of Musical Artists contract is still in play, but it has been previously reported that AGMA members would follow the musician’s lead.”
Memorial Murals: The Graffiti (Almost) No One Objects To
“Over the decades, an artistic refuge enabling dispossessed communities to express their anger and grief has even turned into a focus of commerce. Not only can a new retail store claim neighborhood legitimacy by allowing a mural to remain, as in the case of Gainesville’s American Apparel, but other businesses are starting to offer mural painting for a fee.”
Blagojevich To Make A Cameo At Revue That Skewers Him
Illinois’ disgraced and indicted former governor, Rod Blagojevich, isn’t exactly a stay-at-home kind of guy. This weekend, for example, he’ll attend a performance of the Second City spoof, “Rod Blagojevich Superstar,” where he “has been contracted to show up” to announce its extension and to participate in the post-show improv. The revue’s producer “wouldn’t discuss on the record what financial deal had been made with Blagojevich.”
First Family Makes Arts Look Like — What’s This? — Fun
“The first family has spoken frequently of championing the arts, and so far, it appears that it is leading by example. Fresh off a Parisian tour de culture, the Obamas jumped the English Channel and made a visit today to London’s West End theater district, where first lady Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia attended a performance of Disney’s ‘The Lion King’ at the Lyceum Theatre.”
Flaw In Series-Writing Emmy: Rules Ignore How TV Works
“Maybe some TV writers don’t care about winning an Emmy, but it’s hard to ignore the attraction: the intrinsic pride and glory, plus an express train to better pay, visibility, hireability or all of the above. Still, there’s an unspoken glitch in the Emmy writing categories for scripted series. Each year, awards go to individual writers or writing teams from a given episode. But many episodes aren’t written by individuals or duos — they’re written by entire staffs.”
In The Digital Domain, What Belongs To Whom?
“The World Copyright Summit on Tuesday was a unifying effort as the entertainment industry grapples with an uncertain future, but it also highlighted just how polarizing the whole notion of copyright has become in the digital age. A series of panels saw back-and-forth sniping and other disagreement — and, indeed, one expert lamented the very nature of copyright itself.”