Souvenir, Souvenir!

Due to work, I haven’t been able to post for over a year! So before 2008 is over, I would like to post something I came across, concerning the probably most discussed building this year: HdeM’s Bejing Olympic stadium.

The Chinese are fast as usual to bring the building in the same line as the Eiffel tower, or the Sphinx in Egypt: By making it an icon, putting it on a bill and producing loads of trashy souvenirs that are somehow resemble the shape and pattern of the birds nest:

In no time, the birds nest has come to the point to be, for the wide mass of tourists (and some architects), the same icon as the sphinx, or the Eiffel tower, being reproduced as all kinds of everyday objects as souvenirs:

BUT: What a relief! I also came across this one, that shows hdeM didn’t just develop some iconic architecture, but also a pattern that can be used in several ways.  Timothy Schreiber designed these birds nest chairs:

Contemporary architecture such as this one  seems to be more than just a stadium, but a brand, an icon, an object to be reproduced in the same way as Neuschwanstein,or pyramids or the Brandenburg gate. On the one hand, one can say ‘Well done, Jacques & Pierre’, on the other, I doubt that this is the way architecture should be heading to.

Do you know of more contemporary architecture being butchered into ashtrays etc., or actually being reproduced as some well-designed object?  Then post them here!

~ by aboutarchitecture on January 3, 2009.