9.12.2010

flight of the calder







The dashing Pablo León de la Barra has a great series of posts on his latest trip to the homeland at the CFTAR blog.

The latest one features a series of before and afters of the Mexico City Camino Real Hotel (1968), detailing the tragic refitting of the interiors in NAFTA moderne style (paradoxically, by the original architect, Ricardo Legorreta, no less).

It's particularly disheartening to see a once stark and dramatic lobby that was presided over by an electric-orange spider-like Calder turned into a tacky snack bar.


Pablo reports that the sculpture was eventually auctioned at Christie's and sold to some Portuguese fellow with better taste and sense of historical and aesthetic merit than the sad lot of Mexican barons that now handle the hotel.

So goes modernity in Mexico.


9.07.2010

fiberglass ambassadors




Je ne passe jamais devant un fétiche de bois, un Boudha doré, une idole mexicaine sans me dire: C'est peut-être le vrai dieu.


Charles via Walter

9.02.2010

lost





How do you preserve what's already lost?