Log 41 Review

RAY WU (M.ARCH I, ’19)

The millennial pink of Log 41 registers immediately (the past several issues were rose-colored). Apart from the usual interview, another take at Eisenman and Rowe, and talks of shape and fiction (all worthwhile reads), the issue dedicates 100+ pages to a special section titled Working Queer, guest-edited by architect Jaffer Kolb. The sixteen articles and one drawing fold upon each other to critically engage the meaning of queer, not only as a label, but as an action (queering), and a method or a process (queerness):

Kolb outlines the queer’s tendency to react against and transgress the cultural construct of heteronormativity. (Read if you think you know queer.)

Ellie Abrons of T+E+A+M looks to Susan Sontag’s “Camp” to blur the distinction between digital and physical in her Postdigital Materiality manifesto. (Less about queer, more about rocks.)

Andrés Jaque reports on Grindr, as a cause for displacing queer spaces and as a politicized, spatial utility for LGBTQ refugees. (If you like Liwei’s piece, here’s more.)

Kolb skypes Aaron Betsky to discuss queer spaces such as clubs — their disappearance and virtualization. (Check out Betsky’s lecture from 1995 on youtube.)

Stratton Coffman surveys the squeeze: from squeeze machine to tenement housing to silver pods of BIG’s proposal for a zoo. (Named Zootopia but à la Jurassic World.)

Andreas Angelidakis describes his project of endlessly reconfigurable, concrete (Demos) and camouflage textured, soft, lightweight blocks (Polemos). (Politicized toy blocks for adults.)

Ivan L. Munuera recounts queers’ embrace of Arata Isozaki designed high-tech New York dance club in the 80-90s. (Japanese postmodern, amphetamines, cocktails, video array and Andy Warhol.)

Nicholas Gamso unravels homo-fascist representations and Philip Johnson’s Nazi past. (“I am a whore,” Johnson.)

Ang Li plays with alchemy, demystifies ornaments, and conjures material metamorphosis. (She likes rocks too, especially MOS’s Rock No. 5.)

Caitlin Blanchfield & Farzin Lotfi-Jam instagram domestic interiors to foreground  phantasmagoric background objects. (@isthiscaitlin is private but there’s @farzinfarzin.)

Michael Wang queers the system with stem cells, species, and merchandised knit athletic shoes. (One millionth of one percent of total shares per pair sold.)

Annie Barrett de-categorizes architecture through queer t-shirts and nonconforming forms. (Someone please explain noncon forms.)

Our very own Joel Sanders details inclusive designs of gender nonconforming restrooms and the shift from queer to trans theory. (More in Exhibitionism: Politics of Display, Monday mornings at 9.)

Andrew Holder recovers principles from Andy Warhol’s short film Mario Banana No. 1, 1964, and declares five points to queer architecture. (Indulge yourself with four minutes of Mario Montez eating a banana.)

Rosalyne Shieh, our studio critic, teaches the practice of fine, and tells us: “It’s fine.” (I now practice the fine.)

“Michael Meredith produces 2,497 words on the provincial,” of which 427 words are in parentheses.

Available from Hull’s or the Anyone Corporation, $15.