Greetings and welcome back to another sweltering Thursday. Here’s what you need to know:
Guitarist Nate Mercereau’s latest album is a jamming collaboration with the Golden Gate Bridge
After a safety railing retrofit last year caused wind rushing through the Golden Gate Bridge to emit a loud, ghostly ringing sound, one musician took the opportunity to create a duet with the San Francisco landmark. In July, Nate Mercereau released Duets / Golden Gate Bridge, an album recorded in the Marin Headlands that plays off the bridge’s low whistling.
H/t to NPR
KAWS unveils an 18-foot-tall statue at Rockefeller Center
Street artist KAWS, not content with flying his “dead Mickey Mouse” character Companion over cities around the world, has installed a smaller version in Manhattan. The 18-foot-tall bronze sculpture of two of KAWS’s figures holding hands, titled SHARE, is on display at Rockefeller Center in Center Plaza through October 29. SHARE’s public run is timed to coincide with the ongoing KAWS retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, KAWS: WHAT PARTY, which ends next month.
H/t to 6sqft
Construction of New York City’s public pools slowed to a crawl while private pools boomed
Why did public pool construction in NYC boom during the first half of the 20th century, and die off in modern times? Why did it coincide with the rise of private and indoor pools for the wealthy? As Heather McGhee writes in her new book, The Sum of Us, the shift occurred around the time public pools began to desegregate; when those facilities truly became “public,” those who could afford to built their own private facilities. Now, despite the cost (or perhaps because of it), indoor pools in luxury towers have become a coveted amenity.
H/t to Urban Omnibus
Online home commerce site 1stDibs launches an NFT platform
It had to happen eventually—hot off of its IPO in June, online furniture, art, and décor platform 1stDibs has launched a platform for selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Despite the well-publicized environmental impacts that cryptocurrency transactions have, 1stDibs is currently selling 22 pieces of digital art on the Etherium blockchain, ranging in price from 1 Ether all the way up to 19 Ether (about $3,107 to $57,300 at the time of writing).
Visitors to Super Nintendo World in Osaka avoided getting crushed by a falling Goomba statue
Guests on the Yoshi’s Adventure ride at Super Nintendo World in Osaka, Japan, found their ride a little too realistic, after a stack of four Goombas—iconic Mario enemies shaped like waddling mushrooms—toppled over on Monday and landed on a section of track inaccessible to guests. Footage later shared on Twitter showed four park employees struggling to move the statue, suggesting it was quite heavy. While Typhoon Lupit had been buffeting Japan with high-speed winds at the time (and similarly toppled Yayoi Kusama’s original Pumpkin), the park hasn’t yet determined what caused the Goombas to break loose. It’s a good thing park designers were conservative with their Goomba stacking; some of the towers in newer games can reach the stratosphere.
H/t to VGC
Architects are up in arms over the demolition of London’s French Railways House
A 1960s-era modernist office block in central London is slated for demolition, and architects and preservationists are railing against its proposed replacement. The eight-story French Railways House at 180 Piccadilly will be razed for a similarly-sized office block from Make. Commentators have pointed out how demolishing the existing block instead of retrofitting it is a terrible option from a climate change and emissions standpoint, but Make fired back, claiming the French Railways House’s narrow floor plates and short floor-to-ceiling heights made it less-than-ideal to convert into modern offices. The sleek, arch-heavy replacement design (topped with a double-height mansard roof) also drew derision, accusing Make of designing a generic replacement.
Shit shit shit shit shit, MAKE are replacing the absolutely delightful French Railways House opposite the RA with this pig pic.twitter.com/nOo5rsxtVe
— Adam Nathaniel Furman (@Furmadamadam) August 9, 2021
H/t to Dezeen
