I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. I am trapped in studio finishing up my Berlin and China projects, as well as 2 essays and what feels like a million journal / sketchbook entries. And then I have a whole 3-day weekend to prepare for a new semester. Holy shit, I am burning out quickly.

Anyway, the above images are little interludes in my sketchbook. The top one is kinda obvious, but I imagine it to be on the press passes that are given out for the Olympics. A little reminder / warning for journalists to write only nice things. The next two are images of remaining Nazi buildings in Berlin that have been redefined and reused, but how do you really ever take the Hitler association out of the picture. It’s kind of a tough question, if they are perfectly functioning buildings (and in the case of the stadium, quite beautiful) should they just be re-appropriated and reused? I’m sure that was an issue for the Germans after the war, and it is their question to answer. And the final image of the Fonz standing on Karl Marx Allee (the former Stalinallee), shows that the street, and all its socialist grandeur, was really just a television set. The East Germans wanted to impress the worlds TV viewers with their quick, glorious rebuilding of Berlin, but it was all a facade. The fact that it is a cardboard cutout of Henry Winkler as Arthur Fonzarelli is meant to reiterate the layers of “deception / confusion / fantasy / television” within the street.

Once again, Los Angeles, I’m yours.

Alexanderplatz U-Bahn, Multi-Exposure.  Former DDR, Berlin, Germany.  No gas faces for plugs one two and three.

Living at white heat has taken its toll on me.  I have about two more weeks in Berlin and I am struggling to make it.  I am having fun, of course, but I am a bit tired of living out of a suitcase, traveling in a herd, and thinking about architecture / urbanism.  I need some downtime soon.

But, Berlin is a great city.  We have rented bikes for the month and I have ridden more this month than in my entire life.  We rode the entire length of the Berlin Wall a few days ago (well, the part in the city center) and have seen so much here.  Berliners party like no one else in the world; club policy is they shut down “when the last patron has left” which usually happens around noon the next day.  I know this because our studio is on the 10th floor of an office building in East Berlin (off Alexanderplatz) and there is a club called “Weekend” on the 12th-15th floors.  We hear the bass from the club going through the night and into the next afternoon.  Then, Monday morning it returns to being a respectable office building; truly a strange transformation.

I am up to my eyeballs in numbers.  Our project consists of FARS’s, Lot Coverage, Migration trends, trash–>ethanol, Biomass, shrinking populations, growing single population, growing sectors of business, reuse of Plattenbauten, trash, trash and more trash….  all of that must control the design.  It’s very MVRDV, and it’s fun, but it’s a very dogmatic way to make decisions.  My project is, in a nutshell, based on trash generation and renewable energy, and I have titled it Eurotrash: Berlin.  I will upload the cover page soon, it’s pretty funny / good.

So, on August 1st, I fly to Texas for 10 days and then back to LA.  Alles Gut.  I just need a break and a lot more money, I don’t even want to tell you how much I have spent; financially, physically and emotionally.

Say word.

I am counting down the days until Spain. Don’t get me wrong, I love China and I am having a great time. There just happens to be something that I am really looking forward to. More than you know…

We found a really good sushi place at 1912, the place where all of the young people go, full of clubs and restaurants. The sushi is incredible, and compared to pipe-tobacco stuffed turtle marinated in duck blood it is the best fucking thing that has ever been in my mouth. Four of us ate an incredible amount of sushi, the waitresses were laughing at us, and had 6 big bottles of Asahi, and the bill was no more than $15 apiece. It’s really amazing.

We present our project on Saturday. With the cancer scare, communication problems within our group and general orienting (pun totally intended) ourselves to China, we are a little behind. The next few night will be busy, long ones. But I’m having fun, and the work is interesting, so I refuse to stress too much about it.

I will talk to you soon. I am going to try to update as often as possible. I forgot to mention in my last post about the Suzhou Gardens that Natalie Portman was there. I didn’t see her, but some of my friends did. A little celebrity sighting made me feel at home.

Here are some photos:

This is, admittedly, a bad photograph but it has a good story behind it. I needed a panoramic overview of our site so I found a tall apartment building. I asked (well, pointed up and then at my camera) if I could go to the top and shoot some photos. The guy was young and cool and escorted me to the top. He took me to a balcony that had about a 5 foot wall that was hard to shoot over, but was working fine. He motioned for me to follow him and I obliged. He led me to the roof that was surrounded by an 8 foot parapet. He motioned for me to climb an air conditioning unit, and he climbed behind me. I didn’t want to seem like a pussy, so I did it for America. The next thing I know I am kneeling on an 18 inch parapet trying to shoot photos. The security guard had the back of my shirt in his hands to keep me from falling. This Banana Republic shirt is nice, but I don’t think these buttons are going to hold my 175 lbs. from falling 33 stories. My hands were shaking, so the panoramas are a little blurry. I didn’t want to look down, so I just pointed my camera downwards and this is what I got. Keep in mind this is someone who was supposed to be guarding my security. But he was nice enough to allow me on the rooftop.

The obligatory group photo sitting on a giant Buddha. I rubbed his belly for good luck and then immediately Purel-ed my hands for good health. I’m top right in the white T.

This kid kept jumping up and down trying to get in my shot. He would have been annoying if he himself didn’t make such an awesome shot. Old and young Chinese people make for good photographs, but everything in the middle bores me.

The (literal) fabric of the city.

I took this the first day when i was still getting used to my camera. The quality is shit, but the mailbox is great.

Some locks on top of the Purple Mountain. There were hundreds of them and I have no idea why.

I’m this confused everyday.

24, 23, 22, 21……..

I had a very coastal weekend. Yesterday we went sailing, well, kind of. There was no wind whatsoever so we just motored out and sailed around slowly for a bit before dropping the jib and just floating and swimming in the Pacific. But, fun to be on a boat with friends regardless.

Today we rode bikes to Craigs and walked to the beach in Venice. I don’t think I have been to the ocean two days in a row since I have lived in LA.

On the bike ride home I stopped at a corner to wait for Powers and the Captain and I saw a hippy lady with jewelry for sale. I walked over and noticed that she had a few pins and I asked her how much they were before I looked at the selection. Long story short, I bought a Smiths “The Queen is Dead” pin for fifty cents.

Now I am at hime sunburned and exhausted. I am going to try to fall asleep watching the Godfather. Ciao.

On my way to Lake Mead I was taken by some of the beautiful landscapes that we were driving through at 70 MPH.  RP and I began to discuss the fact that there is hardly anywhere that you look that you don’t see power lines and towers.

Which made me remember the image that you see here.  I have been spending more time reading in my garden (by Hollywood standards it counts as a garden) and the a few weeks ago I noticed this electrical eyesore.  I realize that we need power, but c’mon, that is hideous to look at.  I didn’t notice it for two years because I am adjusted and used to seeing things like that.  But the other day I realized that these lines are criss-crossing throughout my property just a few feet above my head.  It seems like there has to be a better way.  Can’t we bury these things?  Would it cost a stellar amount of money to rework our infrastructure?  Have we built ourselves into aesthetic doom?

Anyway, the NYT ran an article about it today.

Tragedy does not usually happen in front of you. Tragedy is a television show. Tragedy is usually a section of the nightly news sandwiched between the arrested athlete and the pictures of people fighting on the other side of the world. Tragedy is usually about as real as the Reality TV in the timeslot following the news. I had never seen tragedy in three dimensions. Until today.

I have seen dead bodies before. Three times in car wrecks and then at the normal places like funerals. I didn’t expect to see several of them today.

I was returning to my office on a sunny Santa Monica afternoon with $200 worth of blueprints in my hand. I was walking towards Arizona Avenue on 2nd Street, the same walk that I make 10 times a week from my parking lot to my desk. I saw and heard commotion that was about 50 ft in front of me. I couldn’t tell exactly what was going on because there is construction next door to my building and because there are tents on Arizona, as there is every Wednesday for the Farmers Market. The screaming grew louder and louder, and then there was kind of a blur that crossed 2nd Street on Arizona. I now know that this was a speeding car, bowling over bodies and killing many people in its path.

I saw a mob of people running after the car, no doubt to take revenge on the driver of the car. Thankfully, they realized it was a disoriented old man and held back their urges to pummel the life out of him. Chaos. Cell phones don’t work. Network busy. Everyone is calling everyone. I didn’t know what to do. How do you help someone who is dying, what do you do? This is the scariest, and last moment of their lives. They were buying fruit and now they are surrounded by strangers who have absolutely no idea what to do. I looked around and saw several people dead and dying. Children. Overturned baby strollers. There was debris everywhere. The sunny day literally and figuratively turned cloudy and about 5 minutes after the car had taken the lives from these people the rain came hard. It was odd, a heavenly metaphor of sorts. Raining. Crying. Screaming. Running. Bleeding. Dying.

Police and paramedics were there in what seemed like seconds, but I don’t have any clue how long it really was. I don’t know how they do it. How is this their job? How can these people stay under control in the midst of real madness? My hat is off to them. They had the injured to hospitals quickly and undoubtedly saved their lives. It is comforting to know that there is such a quick response when you need it most.

I stood on the corner for over an hour; watching, wanting to help, but knowing there was nothing that I could do. I saw where the car had finally stopped. It was totaled. Imagine how fast it would have to be going to get that beat up from hitting just bodies. Two of these bodies were lifeless on the ground in front of it. The windshield was busted, it was covered in blood and I think I remember there being a shoe on the roof.

Shock. Everyone was in shock. The first thought on everyone’s mind was that this was a malicious action. How could it not be? How could you drive from 4th to 2nd during a Farmers Market where there are hundreds of people on accident? It is looking now like it is an accident, though that is still hard to believe.

The driver of the car was 86-year-old Russell Weller, by all accounts a sweet old man. He was on no medicine, not drunk, didn’t have a seizure, stroke or heart attack. How did this happen? 4th to 2nd is further than it sounds. It’s reported that he may have pressed the gas instead of the brake; for 2 1/2 blocks? If this is the case, then there needs to be better regulation of the driving elderly. Eight people are dead because someone with declining motor skills made a mistake. I feel bad for the sweet old man, if this truly was an accident. He will live with the memory of killing a three-year-old girl for the rest of his life. He shouldn’t have been driving… He fucking shouldn’t have been driving.

At about 4:30 it dawned on me that I had been carrying $200 blueprints around in the rain for two hours. I took them into my office sat down at my desk and noticed white peaches and a loaf of bread on my desk. I had bought them from one of the stands at the Farmers Market just a few hours earlier.

I truly feel for anyone who lost a loved one today. Get well soon to all of those who are injured. People throw the word “hero” around a lot, but today I saw the nice construction workers who work next door lift the car off of a critically injured woman and pull her to safety. I know that a lot more people would be dead had it not been for the police and paramedics who do the job that most of us could never handle. This was the most terrible thing I have ever seen.