[ Lost in the Landscape ]

the big install

I’ve been post­ing on the progress on the Fallen Star piece that Do ho Suh has designed for the Stu­art Col­lec­tion at UC San Diego. Novem­ber 15 was the big day for it to get hoisted from the ground, where it was being built, to the rooftop, where it’ll spend the next many decades. Here are some pic­tures from before, dur­ing and after. Unfor­tu­nately life intruded and I was hav­ing to attend a meet­ing dur­ing the most dra­matic part of the process, when the house first left the ground. But I at least got a few shots of the house dan­gling over its even­tual perch.

And here’s a Youtube video of the big hoist from the Jacobs School of Engi­neer­ing, the school that is housed in the struc­ture that the house landed on:

And another from a dif­fer­ent view­point, more dra­matic than the first. The first two min­utes are the best:

And for you total junkies, yet another van­tage point. Once again the first part is the most dramatic.

The piece a cou­ple morn­ings later, after the removal of the cranes…

There’s still more work to do before the grand unveil­ing, a TV and fire­place to install inside, a gar­den to plant out­side. But this was def­i­nitely a big mile­stone. I’ll post more once I get up on the roof and have some closeup views.

December 03 2011 | Categories: art • places | Tags: art installations • Do Ho Suh • Fallen Star • Stuart Collection • UCSD | 4 Comments »

there was a crooked house

Here a few ran­dom con­struc­tion pho­tos that show the devel­op­ment of part of Do Ho Suh’s Fallen Star instal­la­tion that I posted on a few weeks ago [ here ]. I’m sure there are prac­ti­cal rea­sons for build­ing the lit­tle house on the ground before hoist­ing it seven sto­ries into the air to its perch on the side. But hav­ing it take shape at eye level has been inter­est­ing and excit­ing, and it’s a great way to involve future view­ers of the art­work in the piece as it evolves from yards of con­crete and stacks of steel beams.

As I view the piece come into being I can’t help but imag­ine being the con­struc­tion firm approached to con­struct this lit­tle one-room build­ing: “We want you to build us a house. Only much of it’s going to can­tilevered over the edge of a tall build­ing. And the house itself has to be built with a strong rake to the foun­da­tion, mak­ing the whole house slant at a seri­ous angle…” A project like this doesn’t come along every day, and I’m sure some­body had some seri­ous fun get­ting to work on it.

 

At this point the project has pro­gressed to where stuff is hap­pen­ing on the inside, but it’s a mys­tery to out­side view­ers. The next big mile­stone will be when the exte­rior sheath­ing with its bouncy blue color shows up. Stay tuned.

I touched base with the Stu­art Col­lec­tion folks about the “gar­den” around the house. Yes, it’s going to be live plants. The intent is to make the gar­den look a bit like the house, as if house and gar­den are lit­tle slice of Province­town that have flown and and been wedged into the Cal­i­for­nia fabric.

There are prob­a­bly thou­sands of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia houses with clap­board sid­ing and gar­dens with hydrangeas and roses that would be good mod­els for what the artist is try­ing to achieve. As much as these gar­dens require lots of added water and atten­tion to get them to thrive, the real stunt will be to try to pull off the effect when the house and gar­den will be ele­vated seven sto­ries into the air. The col­lec­tion is work­ing with a land­scape archi­tect to come up with a mix of plants that will rep­re­sent the botan­i­cal dis­place­ment but also be plants that will sur­vive life on the edge, exposed to the elements.

It shouldn’t be that much longer before this house gets lifted into place. I sus­pect they’ll be using cranes and not a giant flock of bal­loons, even though sev­eral of you have com­mented on how much the plans for the house make it out to be a dead-ringer for the fly­ing house in Up. More pic­tures to fol­low…

November 07 2011 | Categories: art • gardening | Tags: art installations • Do Ho Suh • Fallen Star • Stuart Collection • UCSD | 5 Comments »

garden on the edge

Here’s the artist’s ren­der­ing for a new project that’s going up on the way to my week­day office. In this view things look pretty nor­mal: a clap­board house, lawn, shrub­beries, foun­da­tion plant­i­ngs, patio fur­ni­ture, shade umbrella–nostalgic Amer­i­cana, tidy, idyllic.

But here’s an alter­nate view of the entire project. In this piece, “Fallen Star,” by artist Do Ho Suh, this lit­tle blue house hangs over the edge of one of the cam­pus build­ings, seven sto­ries above the quad below.

The project descrip­tion on the Stu­art Collection’s page for the project pro­vides some back­ground, includ­ing this:

For the Stu­art Col­lec­tion, Suh has pro­posed Fallen Star, a small house that has been picked up by some mys­te­ri­ous force, (per­haps a tor­nado) and “landed” on a build­ing, seven sto­ries up. A roof gar­den is part of Suh’s design and will be a place with panoramic views for small groups to gather. This can be seen as a “home” for the vast num­bers of stu­dents who have left their homes to come to this huge insti­tu­tion, the uni­ver­sity, which has noth­ing even resem­bling a home. It is an unfor­get­table image and will be a truly amaz­ing expe­ri­ence sure to stay in the minds and mem­ory of stu­dents and vis­i­tors for years to come.”

Some projects you can look at and tell imme­di­ately that they’re going to be pop­u­lar. This is one of them.

Count me in to stand in line to get a chance to visit the instal­la­tion after it’s com­pleted and open, cur­rently pro­jected to be Jan­u­ary 2012. It should be a cool mix of fun and unnerv­ing, look­ing for home on the edge in a fad­ing empire.

August 21 2011 | Categories: art • gardening • places | Tags: art installations • Do Ho Suh • public art • sculpture • Stuart Collection • UCSD | 17 Comments »