Did you know? LEGO Used to Make Special Bricks for Architects.
When Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, son of the LEGO founder, tried to make a Lego model of the house he was building, it didn’t come out to scale, because Lego bricks have a 5:6 width-to-height ratio. This led to the creation of Modulex, a much smaller brick that was based on perfect cubes, in 1963. Unfortunately, the bricks were discontinued in the 1970s.
Did you know? “The Sims” Was Originally Designed as an Architecture Simulator.
The Sims, which debuted in 2000, is one of the most popular video games around. But before it became a life simulator, the original concept had the game working more like SimCity: players would design a house, and autonomous characters would test the design’s success.
Did you know? Surrealist painter Salvador Dali described Le Corbusier’s buildings as “the ugliest and most unacceptable buildings in the world.”
After the latter’s death in 1965. Dali continued his ‘mourning’ by saying that Le Corbusier’s death filled him with an “immense joy” and calling him a “pitiable creature working in reinforced concrete.” However, that never stopped Dali from placing flowers on the late architect’s grave: “on the one hand I detested him but on the other hand I am an absolute coward.”
Did you know? The “Metabolism” architecture movement was inspired by biology.
Today in Tokyo you’ll see a number of sci-fi-looking structures that are reminiscent of a post-war architecture movement called Metabolism. In the most simple of scientific definitions, metabolism is the process of maintaining living cells. Many Tokyo architects, as well as architects throughout Japan, believed that buildings should be able to change and evolve over time, much like living things. On the whole, the concept failed, but there are still buildings that remain, including Nakagin Capsule Tower and the Hillside Terrace.
Did you know? A group of Modern artists signed a letter protesting Wright’s design of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Wright produced more than 700 drawings and a total of six sets of plans for the museum before settling upon its inverted ziggurat design. But artists like Milton Avery, Will Barnet and Henry Botkin balked at Wright’s proposal, arguing in a 1956 letter to the museum’s director that the curvilinear slope indicated “a callous disregard for the fundamental rectilinear frame of reference necessary for the adequate visual contemplation of works of art.” Today the museum is recognized as a masterpiece and an architectural icon. In 2008, it was designated a National Historic Landmark and it was nominated to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2015.
Feeling fully-informed? Right?
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