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You know him, right? Shiny-suited prog traitor. Ruined Led Zeppelin. Wife ran off with the decorator. All true. But theres way more to the man who nearly joined The Who, once considered suicide and is, in all honesty, a Thoroughly Misunderstood Chap.

Ancient tape machines clutter the upper corridors of Abbey Road Studios. Theyre the clunky old contraptions, with big metal spools, that would have been pressed into service for his first recordings. At the age of 18, in 1969, he was in a rock band that had elaborate songs about the moon landing. A year later he was in a room downstairs in this very building, playing on a George Harrison album.

He started early, Phil Collins, and hes crammed a lot in. When still only 20, he signed up as the denim-dungareed drummer with Genesis. He ended his tenure with them as their satin-jacketed singer, and went on to release the eight solo albums now resurfacing in extended and remastered versions in a reissue project called Take A Look At Me Now. There was also a sideline in production, working with everyone from John Martyn and the Four Tops to Adam Ant and Tears For Fears.

Hes weathered every storm imaginable; one minute the revered godhead of atmospheric popsoul, the next lambasted as a mawkish balladeer, his two-continent appearance at Live Aid pouring petrol on the critical flames. But in the typically cyclical nature of fashion, a raft of American rock and R&B stars are now sampling and loudly applauding the very records that were supposedly over-processed and disagreeable 30 years ago.

Today Phil Collins is in a little side-room that contains only two chairs, a small table, him and his can of Red Bull. He has the thickest, most muscular arms imaginable, and two main emotional gears: when we talk about music and the people hes worked with, he lights up like a pinball machine I havent thought about this for years!; when we touch on that famous critical pasting or the sad recent events of his private life, he seems to shrink in size, so crestfallen and preoccupied that hes like a completely different person.

You ask it, he says, raising his Red Bull, and Ill answer it.

I can remember everything about seeing Genesis at Farnborough Tech on May 29, 1972, including a stupendous version of The Return Of The Giant Hogweed. Can you remember anything about it?

Yeah. It was good times. We played Farnborough quite often. It was always friendly, as some of the guys were from that neck of the woods. We did the Great Western Festival in Lincoln two days later, and I remember meeting the promoter, Stanley Baker, on the Embankment somewhere. He had a lovely penthouse overlooking the river. Hed been in Zulu with Michael Caine, so that was a real star.

Theres an elite club of former child actors who played the Artful Dodger in Oliver! when they were kids and went on to be rock stars: you, Steve Marriott, Davy Jones of The Monkees and Robbie Williams. Do you think you had anything in common?*

My manager once said Robbie Williams was a new version of me, a cheeky chappie. Stevie Marriott and Davy Jones, yes it was a great part if you were a precocious kid.

How did you get to be in The Beatles film A Hard Days Night?

Well I was in it, but not in it. Walter Shenson [the producer] asked me to narrate a Making Of DVD for its 30th anniversary in 1994. And I said: I was in it but they cut me out. And he gave me the outtakes of the concert scene at the end and I went through it frame by frame and I found myself! And on the DVD I circle myself on the screen. I was thirteen. I was also in Ive Got A Horse, a Billy Fury movie which has the Small Faces in it, but I didnt finish up in the film. And I was edited out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. So yes, theres pattern here.

But I did Buster later on. And I played Uncle Ernie in Tommy, which I loved doing though it was very politically incorrect playing a paedophile. But it was great cos I was with The Who. I was working with Townshend just after Moon died, and I said to him: Have you got anybody to play the drums? Cos Id love to do it. Ill leave Genesis. And Pete said: Fuck, weve just asked Kenney Jones. Cos Kenney Jones, unbeknown to most people, played on stuff when Keith was too out of it. He was far too polite for The Who. But I would have done the job. I would have joined them.

The band you joined when you were nineteen, Hickory, made a concept album about the moon landing. You couldnt make it up. How 1969 is that?

Yeah, it was. I remember it all. We were called Hickory, and then became Flaming Youth. Ken Howard and Alan Blakely were the writers they wrote for The Herd and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. And, being a gay couple, theyd taken a shine to our keyboard player, who drank at this club in Warren Street. And they were looking for a band to do this concept album theyd written. I said: Im in a band. And they came to see us at Eel Pie Island, and they liked us so we did it.

How did you get to play on George Harrisons All Things Must Pass?

That was when I was in Flaming Youth. Our manager got a call from Ringo Starrs chauffeur, who said they needed a percussionist, and he suggested me. So I went down to Abbey Road and Harrison was there and Ringo and Billy Preston and Klaus Voormann and Phil Spector, and we started routining the song. No one told me what to play, and every time they started the song, Phil Spector would say: Lets hear guitar and drums, or Lets hear bass and drums. And Im not a conga player, so my hands are starting to bleed. And Im cadging cigarettes off Ringo I dont even smoke, I just felt nervous.

Anyway, after about two hours of this, Phil Spector says: Okay congas, you play this time. And Id had my mic off, so everybody laughed, but my hands were shot. And just after that they all disappeared someone said they were watching TV or something and I was told I could go. A few months later I buy the album from my local record shop, look at the sleeve notes and Im not there. And Im thinking: There must be some mistake! But its a different version of the song, and Im not on it.

Edited out yet again.

Yeah but worse theres more! Cut to years later. I bought [former F1 driver] Jackie Stewarts house. And Harrison was a friend of Jackies, and Jackie told me George was remixing All Things Must Pass. And he said: You were on it, werent you? And I said: Well I was there. Two days later a tapes delivered from George Harrison with a note saying: Could this be you?

I rush off and listen to it, and straight away I recognise it. Suddenly the congas come in too loud and just awful. And at the end of the tape you hear George Harrison saying: Hey, Phil, can we try another without the conga player? So now I know, they didnt go off to watch TV, they went somewhere and said: Get rid of him, cos I was playing so badly. And then Jackie rings and says: Ive got someone here to speak to you, and puts George on and he says: Did you get the tape? And I said: I now realise I was fired by a Beatle. And he says: Dont worry, it was a piss-take. I got Ray Cooper to play really badly and we dubbed it on. Thought youd like it! I said: You fucking bastard!

All that effort for one little gag. Wonderful!

It was lovely, wasnt it? [laughs]

On that bill in 1972, Genesis played with Atomic Rooster, Vinegar Joe, Humble Pie and Wishbone Ash. I always imagined the rock underground were all in it together. Was there any sense of rivalry?

We were in it together, yeah. You didnt feel threatened by anybody. It was the days when youd bump into people at Watford Gap [service station on the M1]. We did the Six Bob Tour six shillings to see three bands: us, Lindisfarne and Van der Graaf Generator. We went on first, then Lindisfarne brought the house down every night Newcastle band, singalongs and then Van der Graaf came on and it all went very dark. We shared a coach together and we all got on very well. Its funny to think about [smiles fondly]. I dont often think of those days.

How did it feel to be suddenly out front in Genesis?

I felt exposed. Id lived all my life behind the security blanket of a drum kit, and suddenly there was nothing except a microphone stand. And the band sounds different from out front. You hear a different kind of balance out front, and it isnt comfortable. And I didnt want the job, frankly.

Why not?

I wanted to stay the drummer. We had people down every Monday [auditioning], five or six people, and I would teach them what they had to do. We were writing A Trick Of The Tail and I would teach them some old songs Firth Of Fifth or whatever and I ended up sounding better than anyone else. And this [Genesis] was kind of a family. Do we want this person in our family? Will he fit in with the way we do things? Anyway, we didnt find anybody and ended up with me.

Youd grown up listening to pop music and Motown, but I remember people being surprised when you released In The Air Tonight in 1981: Phil Collins is rock musician, but isnt this a pop ballad with synthesizers?

Face Value had a huge variety of songs on it. I was listening to The Beatles, Count Basie, Weather Report, Earth Wind & Fire, Neil Young They all featured in my life, so I kind of wrote songs like them. I remember doing In The Air Tonight at Live Aid and Townshend saying: Are you going to do that fucking song again? as it was the only one I ever played.

Why did so many people connect with Face Value?

Well, it was a very personal album, and I said it like it was. The romantic songs were heart-on-sleeve. The lyrics of the songs were real. I didnt hide it Youve taken everything else. You know what I mean?

So they identified with the heartbreak, the divorce?

[Theatrical mock-sorrow] Oh please, dont mention that! Yeah, people identified with it.

Did they identify with you playing In The Air Tonight on Top Of The Pops with a paint pot and brush on your drum machine as a message to your wife, whod gone off with your interior decorator?

All these stories come up and theres never enough time to talk about them properly. What happened was I didnt know what to do on Top Of The Pops. I didnt want to just stand there and sing cos of all that insecurity, so I thought: Ill play the keyboard. But I didnt want one of those poncey Duran Duran things on a stand. So I got a Black & Decker Workmate, and a drum machine on a tea chest. So there was a theme there.

So people just assumed it was about the bloke who went off with your wife?

Well she certainly did. I improvised the lyrics to In The Air Tonight and wrote them on a sheet of paper. And when I turned it over, weirdly, it was the letter-headed notepaper from the painter and decorator. She took great umbrage, my ex-wife, at me writing about anything like this. She didnt like the way I was giving people my side of the story. But I didnt colour it any way.

Musicians respected you but the press werent always as kind. One critic said: Phil Collins has been guilty of placing the bullseye on his own forehead a reference to the Concorde caper at Live Aid and after Another Day In Paradise he was a purveyor of tortured romantic ballads for the middle-income world. How did you react to things like that at the time?

I didnt understand it. I know what I meant with Another Day In Paradise, but people took offence to it because I was rich. What I was saying is that we should all be very appreciative of whatever weve got, as were all doing better than that. But they all took offence at it.

With Concorde it looked like I was showing off. Id played on Robert Plants solo records and he said: Are you doing this Live Aid thing? And I said: Yeah. And he said: Can you get me on it? [US promoter] Bill Graham doesnt like me and he doesnt like Zeppelin. Maybe you, me and Jimmy can do something? And I said: Great, yeah. And then Sting called me and said: Can we do something together? [UK promoter] Harvey Goldsmith said: You can get Concorde and play both. I said: Well, okay, if it can be done. I didnt think Id be showing off.

By the time I got there, me and Robert and Jimmy playing together had become The Second Coming Of Led Zeppelin John Paul Jones was there too. Jimmy says: We need to rehearse. And I said: Cant we just go on stage and have a play? So I didnt rehearse when I got there, but I listened to Stairway To Heaven on Concorde. I arrived and went to the caravans, and Robert said: Jimmy Page is belligerent. Page says: Weve been rehearsing! And I said: I saw your first gig in London, I know the stuff! He says: Alright, how does it go, then?

So I sort of [mimes the Stairway To Heaven drum part], and Page says: No, it doesnt! It doesnt go like that! So I had a word with [co-drummer] Tony Thompson cos Ive played as two drummers a lot and it can be a train wreck and I say: Lets stay out of each others way and play simple.

Thompson, rest his soul, had rehearsed for a week, and Im about to steal his thunder the famous drummers arrived! and he kind of did what he wanted to do. Robert wasnt match-fit. And if I could have walked off, I would have done, cos I wasnt needed and I felt like a spare part.

So you could tell it was going badly?

Yeah, frankly. But wed all have been talking for thirty years about why I walked off stage if Id done it, so I stayed there. Anyway, we came off, and we got interviewed by MTV. And Robert is a diamond, but when those guys get together a black cloud appears. Then Page says: One drummer was halfway across the Atlantic and didnt know the stuff. And I got pissed off. Maybe I didnt know it as well as hed like me to have done, but I became the flagship, and it looked like I was showing off.

Why did you let this kind of criticism affect you so much?

Because you tend to beat yourself up. You start to think you are the things people say you are. Things like that review you just read me of Another Day In Paradise [shakes his head]. I should be over that by now, but it still puts the hackles up occasionally.

Youve worked with such a variety of great people Thin Lizzy, Adam Ant, Tears For Fears, Anni-Frid from ABBA, to name just four. Why did you go for those four?

I kind of knew Phil Lynott. He lived with one of our tour managers, thats how I got the call. Adam Ant funny guy, lovely guy! Tears For Fears just wanted me to do that big drum thing from In The Air Tonight on Woman In Chains We want you to come in here in a big way. Frida flew over to the Genesis studio to meet me its so interesting for me to talk about this sort of stuff! and she was ever so nice.

She thought I was a kindred spirit as she was going through this painful divorce, and she liked Face Value and she thought Id understand her. I picked the songs with her or for her, actually. That whole Somethings Going On album is great.

Only Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson have sold more records than you as a solo artist, so it must have been impossibly hard to choose material. Dont you end up thinking this will sell, rather than this is good as your main concern must be to maintain your success?

You cant help it. You cant help but judge it by what position it gets to. Both Sides fell through the cracks a bit I mean, it still sold eleven million copies. But I was very aware that everyone wanted me to go back to doing You Cant Hurry Love and Sussudio, and here I was being serious and dark. People were saying: Youve lost your sense of humour, Phil. People didnt know what to make of it.

You were deeply unfashionable for a while, so how did it feel when you started getting support from the hippest quarter imaginable Kelis, Ol Dirty Bastard and the Wu-Tang Clan?

I felt good about it my people! Those R&B artists didnt have all that conditioning, they didnt have the rock critic backstory, and its refreshing. Whats written in The Sun goes everywhere; whats written in the Philadelphia Inquirer stays in Philadelphia. So theyre not as aware of it. They dont have the conditioning and the bias.

And Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters wrote you a note

He wrote me a lovely email: Us in the Foo Fighters, we think the world of you. Please dont feel bad about anything. Id done a thing in Rolling Stone which echoed round the world. Id spent three days with this journalist, and we started talking about things They were saying: When three marriages have gone wrong and youre not living with your kids, then sometimes its a dangerous word to use, but have you ever felt suicidal? Yeah, I have.

And people rang me up and said: Dont say that! What are your kids going to say at school? There was a picture of me with Davy Crocketts rifle and an axe. I thought it was lovely that hed taken the time to write.

You said you were going to retire, and did so for a while, and now youre not. What happened?

You say something one day and it goes around the world. I retired so I could be at home with the kids. Then my wife left me and took the kids they moved to Miami so I found myself in a void with no work. But I didnt really want to work, and the kids werent there.

That sounds terrible.

It wasnt particularly nice. I had a big hole in my life and I started drinking. And I wanted to stop so I could be with my kids. I also wanted to stop so that I could maybe do something else I didnt know what though I felt l deserved the right to do nothing. All this stuff happened. The ear thing was in 2000 I lost my hearing in my left ear and then [waves arm painfully] the arm [a spinal injury affected his nerves in 2009, making it impossible for him to play the drums]. I had various operations. I still cant play, but its better than it was.

Did you stop drinking?

Oh yeah. I havent had a drink for over three years. I nearly died from the damage, organs starting to break down. It was a series of things and I just kind of felt I want to be someone else. Im a man of my word but, at the same time, theres a hole where that used to be and I might as well do something.

Any regrets?

Not really. The serious things would be: Would you try a bit harder at a marriage? But things lead to other things. Theres a few people Id love to have worked with Miles Davis would have been nice, Aretha Franklin would have been nice. My daughter told me it was dangerous to stop working Its part of what you are, youre a writer and I realised it was important. Whats nice is I now realise people miss me.

This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock 2017.

See the rest here:
Phil Collins interview: the Live Aid fiasco, going solo, and coping with criticism - Louder

A new life for the Queen's Theatre, now the Sondheim Theatre

Ahead of last night's re-opening of Les Miserables at the newly-redubbed Sondheim Theatre (formerly the Queen's), theatre owner and producer Cameron Mackintosh took members of the press on a quick hurtle around the theatre, from the upper circle to the stalls, accompanied by his long-serving archivist Rosie Runciman who had a collection of "before" photos to hand to remind us what it used to look like.

He last did this when Hamilton re-opened the Victoria Palace in 2017, and it was wonderful to see his palpable enthusiasm for the building and bringing it back to its former glory, completing a project which has now seen every single one of the theatres in his portfolio undergo extensive restorations. From the moment he took on the ownership of the Prince Edward Theatre, which he refurbished lavishly in 1992, he has made it his personal mission to make his theatres the most sought-after and glamorous theatrical addresses in the West End.

It comes, of course, at a cost: it was reported that last year's profits for Delfont Mackintosh Ltd, the operating company of his theatre empire, were down by 57%, falling from 12m to 5m on the previous year across the group, despite turnover increasing 14% to 50m. This was attributed to "the cost of extensive restoration work at the Victoria Palace", on which more than 60m was spent, instead of the originally projected 35m.

But then, as he once told me in an interview, the money that was invested in the Prince Edward has "come back time and time again and paid itself back, so I hope that in my lifetime this money will come back, too...I know that whatever happens, I will leave for my foundation and indeed the enjoyment of future theatregoers, buildings that are in a much better state than when I got them."

True enough. It may turn out to be his most lasting legacy; but it is also a source of great personal pride and enjoyment for him, too. As he also told me, "I get an enormous amount of pleasure out of doing the theatres up, helping to design the carpet and choose the wallpaper. I love old buildings my office and my homes are all classic buildings, so to have these beautiful buildings you could never afford to build now is lovely. But theyre also a big responsibility theyre all a hundred years old, and you know that if you left your own home for a hundred years, you'd soon be cold, miserable and wet, so why should it be any different for them?"

Indeed. His amazing example has also led other theatre owners to follow his example, even if they have less personal wealth than he has, from Nimax (whose co-owner Nica Burns once told me of personally applying a new lick of paint to the foyers in the Duchess Theatre) to Andrew Lloyd Webber, who is currently spending some 45m to refurbish the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, before it reopens late this summer with the British premiere of the stage version of Disney's Frozen. As Lloyd Webber commented, "The auditorium will be completely reconfigured into a comfortable and more intimate space. Producers will have the choice of a traditional proscenium arch or in-the-round configuration. Were reducing the audience capacity by 200 to create wider seats, more legroom and better sight lines. The auditorium will also be reshaped to create a tighter curve, bringing the performer and audience closer together."

There will also be 20 new ladies toilet cubicles added to make a new total of 55. A similar emphasis on increasing ladies loos has occurred at the Sondheim - though it's been matched by a significant reduction in provisions for men, who in the large stalls area have just one toilet now on auditorium left with only a handful of urinals and cubicles.

But it is also the enormous attention to detail that he proudly brings to the work, undertaken -as have all his theatre refurbishments -with the help of veteran interior decorator Clare Ferraby, who is now in her 80s and despite suffering two strokes, now counts the restoration of the Sondheim as the 103rd building she has worked on. As Mackintosh told The Stage, who named her their Unsung Hero in their annual theatre awards in 2018, of her work on the Victoria Palace, "Indomitably, cane in hand, she managed to create an extraordinary colourful and exhilarating temple of theatrical magic and light that will certainly last for another hundred years. The Victoria Palace is arguably her finest achievement and we should all sing from the rafters a hymn of praise and thanks for what shes done for the British theatre."

He was singing them again yesterday as he showed off her latest work, particularly in the theatre bars on each level of the theatre (in the dress circle bar there's a tribute to the studio theatre that was originally intended to be made out of the Ambassadors Theatre when it was scheduled to be re-named the Sondheim). She is that rare person who is apparently able to stand up to him: as she told The Stage, "When I feel strongly about something I will say so, and I dont take no for an answer, even from Cameron." She proves it with his anecdote about the Victoria Palace: "He wanted velvet for the curtains in the new boxes at the rear of the Victoria Palace stalls. I said I wanted to use organza because it gives off a shimmer and hangs better. So weve got organza. Its the Yorkshire in me."

Unfortunately, Stephen Sondheim was not able to be present for a lunchtime event that had been scheduled to mark the renaming of the theatre on Tuesday. In a statement, Mackintosh commented, "Stephen Sondheim suffered a fall a few days ago at his Connecticut home where he tore a ligament which has seriously compromised his immediate mobility... It is likely to be a few months before Stephen will be fit enough to travel to England again to celebrate the new theatre bearing his name." And Sondheim, in turn, said, "I would do nearly anything for Cameron. But to stand side by side with him on a West End stage holding onto a stroller is not something I will let him enjoy teasing me about. From the early reports of friends and the mouth-watering photos I have seen,Les Mizwill have to run another 35 years for him to break even on what he has spent creating such an extravagantly beautiful new theatre out of an old building. As I recover from my tumble, I'm impatient to throw away my cane, grab my hat and head across the Pond as soon as I can to see on which cherub Cameron has tattooed my initials. I am, to put it mildly, chuffed to have my name on a theatre in the West End I have loved visiting ever since my first trip to London almost seventy years ago."

You can read my review of the re-opening of Les Miserables at the Sondheim Theatre, but in the building, abeautiful painted portrait of Sondheim in the stalls bar will have to suffice. Sondheim's own connection to this theatre is that it is where Passionreceived its London premiere in 1996, with a cast led by Michael Ball and Maria Friedman.

As for Mackintosh himself, it was also a theatre where one of his earliest original musicals The Card played briefly in 1973, choreographed by the late Gillian Lynne (who just eighteen months ago had her own West End theatre named after her, the former New London Theatre. Aweek before she died, aged 92; she became the first non-royal woman to have a theatre named after her in the West End).

A fourth leading lady for Waitress

Last weekend there was an extraordinary run of bad luck at the Adelphi Theatre, where according to a press release issued on Monday, "All 3 of the Waitress company who play the role of Jenna (Lucie Jones and understudies Olivia Moore and Sarah OConnor) were struck down ill. It was too late to do anything about the matinee and sadly the producers had to take the difficult decision to cancel the show altogether. It was decided that the evening show would not be possible either... The company worked hard in the afternoon to put together a presentation of songs from the show that the remaining company members could perform to audiences members who turned up... The company performed, I Didnt Plan It, When He Sees Me, Never Getting Rid and the finale version of Opening Up. It was an incredibly warm reaction from those people who stayed, and David Hunter introduced it all very humorously and warmly."

And to enable the show to go on, as scheduled, from Monday, the producers madefast plans to fly in Desi Oakley, who has played the role of Jenna in the US tour of the show, to take over. She duly did; and a friend of mine who read my tweet of this account took himself to the Adelphi to make sure he caught her.

He reported back, "And thank goodness Ive seen this. She is phenomenal. Ive seen five Jennas now (in 6 performances) and shes my favourite. Its not just the voice. Desi is a terrific actress. So thank goodness you keep me in the loop."

See the article here:
Friday Briefing: Transformation of the Sondheim Theatre and intercontinental cast mates - LondonTheatre.co.uk

Lair: Radical Homes and Hideouts of Movie VillainsBy Chad Oppenheim / Andrea GollinTra Publishing$75.00

Bad people dont always have good taste, but when they do, their homes are the stuff of architecture history. Curzio Malaparte was attending fascist rallies in between stays at his cliffside retreat, the various owners of Lloyd Wrights Sowden Housecommitted unspeakable crimes behind its stony facade, andPhilip Johnsons sordid past all but eclipses his career as one of the most accomplished architects of the 20th century.

Lair: Radical Homes and Hideouts of Movie Villains (Courtesy Tra Publishing)

While most of us may not be able to tour the homes of these baddies or live in anything remotely like them ourselves, the homes of movie villains are at our disposal however many times we wish to visit them. Chad Oppenheim of Miami-basedOppenheim Architecture and writer Andrea Gollin have come together to shine a spotlight on the homes of the silver screen that lurk in the shadows to draw an undeniable connection between low morale and high design. Their book, Lair: Radical Homes and Hideouts of Movie Villains, pries open 15 of the most diabolical abodes and renders them in silk-silver linework over depthless black paper, all of which were exquisitely illustrated by Carlos Fueyo, a VFX and CG supervisor behind some of the most visually sumptuous blockbusters of the last decade.

Carlos Fueyos perspective cutaway of the Death Star reveals more of the structure than can was ever depicted in the original Star Wars series. (Courtesy Tra Publishing)

Lairmakes evident that the average movies art production team is at its most creative when given theopportunity to imagine homes as sinister and calculated as the villains that would commission them with dark money. An eye-opening interview between Oppenheim andStar Wars set decorator Roger Christian uncovers the inspiration behind the Death Star, arguably the most famous evil lair in cinema, albeit one that doubles as a weapon capable of obliterating planets many times its size. When it came to the Death Star, Christian explained, that was inspired by the Reich architecture of Albert Speer, obviously. When you look at Nazi architecture, its very black with red on it. Very simple and very dauntingand strangely beautiful.

Fueyos illustrations render the highly articulate surface of the Death Star with all the wonderfully arbitrary detailing of the original and managed to produce a perspective cutaway that offers a glimpse into the orderly, clock-like work of its scaleless interior. The divergent paths of the light and dark sides of the force are as apparent in the contrasting austerity between the Empires home base and the humble desert residences of the Jedi as they are in any of the other cinematic choices made in the production of the blockbuster film series.

John Lautners Elrod House in Palm Springs played the evil lair in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). (Courtesy Tra Publishing)

About a third of the 15 lairs are owned by various Bond villains, from Ernst Stavro Blofelds sub-volcanic hideaway in You Only Live Twice (1967) to Karl Strombergs spider-like marine research laboratory in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). While Bond trots around the world as a stylish nomad, his enemies stay put in increasingly eccentric abodes that speak to their character just as effectively as their words or actions. The sensuous architecture of Los Angeles-architect John Lautner makes more than a few cameos and is otherwise the unsubtle inspiration for a number of the evil lairs throughout the movie series. A rarely-seen interview between Lautner and Marlene Laskey on the Elrod House, a home the architect designed in 1968 that was extensively featured inDiamonds are Forever (1971), reveals that the home was built with surprisingly few restraints, thus imbuing the structure with a number of eccentricities suited to the fictional supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Good design often comes at a price, either through its exchange with ones soul or a sum of money that no one person should reasonably have. While real-life crooks reveal little of themselves to the public by trade, the homes featured inLairgrants its readers a more-than-generous look into the lives lived by a fictional class of villains.

Continued here:
Lair puts a spotlight on the homes of famous movie villains - The Architect's Newspaper

The structural technique also allows for fewer interior columns, affording even larger layouts to the half-floor and full-floor apartments that stack up inside. Juxtaposing the sweeping supports, the floor plans are perfectly square. However, in the amenities areas, those signature curves are omnipresent (Hadid abhorred right angles, once saying the world is not a rectangle). The lobbys ceiling is formed by a series of rounded-edge panels also reflected in the reception desk; on the spa level, a tornado-like spiral stair does double duty as a welcome desk; and the interior pool on level 60 features a waterfall shear wall with a feathered pattern. Also in this top of tower, which is billed as a sort of luxury club/event space with incredible views, the exterior structural supports from each edge come together in the ceiling. Its a seemingly simple solution to an intricate facade and all part of the plan, says Lepine. The building answers the question, How do you achieve visual dynamism or visual complexity with very simple underlying rules?

A bar area.

Where this visual complexity doesnt apply is One Thousand Museums color palette, which focuses solely on contrast between light and dark. Because the white facade, excess of glass, and bright Florida sunlight all contribute to the risk of blinding reflections, the firm chose dark stone floors throughout the lobby and amenities spaces. Dark wood lines the walls and all soft seating is black or gray. Architecturally, the strategy gives the buildings white-colored features more of a visual standout, highlighting its, at times, futuristic lines.

A curvilinear stair in the top of tower alludes to the exoskeleton in Hadids signature design style.

Link:
First Look Inside Zaha Hadid Architects One Thousand Museum in Miami - Architectural Digest

Thomas Jefferson was many things politician and diplomat, naturalist and scientist. Revered as America's third president, he was also the main author of the Declaration of Independence. What's less well-known is his role as an architect who helped shape the look of early America.

That side of Jefferson is getting special attention at the moment with an exhibition at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia. It illustrates both the brilliance of his vision and what, to many, is an unforgivable blind spot.

The title of the show is "Thomas Jefferson, Architect." Though not a professional architect, he was, said curator and museum director Erik Neil, "one of the most advanced architectural thinkers of his time."

Neil said evidence of Jefferson's influence is how familiar his designs now look. Examining one architectural model, correspondent Brook Silva-Braga said, "This is almost like a clich of a government building now."

"It wasn't then," said Neil. "Jefferson was saying, 'We want to do, like, what the Ancient Romans and what the Ancient Greeks did, because they had the highest form of government and the legislators acted with wisdom.'"

The architecture, he felt, should convey that.

Jefferson's plantation home, Monticello, carried those principles; so did his anonymous submission to a design competition for the White House, which featured a large dome.

"This dome was to have glass windows," said Neil. "It was the most innovative. It was the most advanced. I'm not sure if it actually could've been built."

These models first appeared at an Italian retrospective on Jefferson's architecture. Neil saw that show and wanted to bring it home to Virginia, but realized that was a complicated idea.

Silva-Braga asked, "Would it be going too far to say that you thought that exhibition wouldn't be well-received here?"

"It wouldn't be enough," Neil replied. "If I had presented that exhibition, I would have rightly been criticized."

Jefferson's designs, after all, were made into buildings by slaves.

As a politician he helped end the Atlantic slave trade, but at Monticello and elsewhere, Jefferson owned more than 600 human beings, including his mistress, Sally Hemings.

So, Neil enlisted a diverse group of advisors to make a new kind of exhibit, highlighting the otherwise anonymous people who built things, like a paneled door made at Monticello.

"They've been able to analyze the grain and the grooves, and the details of the door, and connect that to a set of tools that are known to have been John Hemmings'," said Neil.

John Hemmings was Sally Hemings' brother

There is a brick under glass, next to a handful of handmade nails as a tribute to Isaac Granger, one of the men who made Jefferson's nails. In a daguerreotype taken c. 1847, Granger is pictured wearing his workman's apron.

Love it or hate it, the exhibit is a profoundly different way to present Jefferson.

Silva-Braga asked, "I could see people saying, 'This is an American hero; why are you trying to bring him down?' I could see people saying, 'This is a slaveholder; why are you still building him up?'"

"I've gotten a couple letters: 'How could you do this to Thomas Jefferson? Why would you tarnish the image of this great man?'" said Neil. "And I've had other people say, 'Really? We want to give praise to this man who really had a concubine, who had a slave mistress?'"

The reassessment of Jefferson the architect will continue this spring at the University of Virginia, a campus he designed, when UVA dedicates a "memorial to enslaved laborers."

Columbia University professor Mabel Wilson worked on the UVA memorial and the Chrysler Museum exhibit. She studies architecture and race, and says one of Jefferson's hallmarks was hiding the places where slaves lived and worked.

"I think this is what makes him an architect," she said, "that he understands that the buildings make relationships between people. So, he is very shrewd at using architecture to make invisible something that he completely understood was morally reprehensible and against the values of freedom and equality."

This is all part of a larger reckoning in Virginia.

Janice Underwood is Virginia's first-ever director of diversity, equity and inclusion, hired by Governor Ralph Northam after a photo of a man in blackface was found on Northam's yearbook page. [Virginia's second governor was Thomas Jefferson, who designed the Capitol building where Underwood now works.]

"He said that all men are created equal," Underwood said. "And while I know that to be true, he would not have included me in that. He would not have included Sally Hemings in that, or any of his children with Sally Hemings."

Underwood says she isn't sure if the statue of Jefferson just behind the Capitol should even stay up.

"I don't know, we're reckoning with those questions now," she said. "For so long, we've only told one side of the story."

A handful of other museums across the country are making a similar shift, in some cases changing the labels next to paintings to explain that the person in the portrait was involved in the slave trade.

In its way, the Chrysler Museum is attempting answers to the questions that surround Jefferson, by teaching new names, and attaching new meaning to old ones.

Silva-Braga asked, "Do you want them to come away with the idea that Thomas Jefferson was a great American, or maybe just an important American?"

"I would say he's a great American," Neil replied. "I would say the idea that we have a president who has ideals that we still aspire to, is really something I want people to take away with them. To recognize he fell short of his aspirations, I hope they come away with that as well."

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Thomas Jefferson, architect: An exhibition at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Va., illustrates both the brilliance of the Founding Father's...

Architects React to Trumps New Architect of the Capitol | 2020-01-17 | Architectural Record This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more. This Website Uses CookiesBy closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Learn MoreThis website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.

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Architects React to Trump's New 'Architect' of the Capitol - Architectural Record

Aoa Architects has clad the stepped gables of a playful apartment block in South Korea with glossy red and white tiles in a reference to the video game Minecraft.

The building, called Cascade House on account of its symmetrical stepped form, is located in Seoul's Mangwon-dong area.

Along with Minecraft, Aoa Architects also cited colourful Lego bricks and the stepped gables of traditional Belgian houses as inspiration for the form and facade.

Cascade house has apartments for five families placed atop a ground-floor shop.

The design was also chosen as a counterpoint to the area's more bland, regulations-driven architecture.

"Most family houses in the neighbourhood are the result of the auto-generative form [caused] by building regulations, such as solar setback requirements and the economic inevitability to accommodate as many units as possible," explained the practice.

Instead, the unusually-shaped block conceals five apartments, arranged in a symmetrically.

The block's line of symmetry cuts through a central staircase, which has been finished in exposed concrete and thin steel balustrades.

Access to this stair is via an open undercroft supported by concrete pillars which sits alongside the shop unit, providing parking space and also a semi-private area next to the street.

This undercroft gives a lightness to the bold stepped gables above.

Cascade House's corners are accented by contrasting rough stone panels that also mark the top of each window.

"The design was settled with partial decorations that could be easily done without causing trouble for the contractors," project architect Uk Sunwoo told Dezeen.

Four single-bedroom apartments occupy each half of the first and second floors as they step upwards.

A larger, two-bedroom apartment occupies the third floor, which opens onto two terraces and features an attic space above.

The symmetrical layout continues in the individual apartments.

A central stair opens into the living room, where a marble pillar sits at the centre of two sliding wooden doors leading to the kitchen or bedroom, separated by a glass-brick partition.

"Split around the marble pillar in the living room, the spatial juxtaposition of the kitchen and the bedroom becomes somewhat surrealistic, like a drama set," said the practice.

Wood, exposed concrete and white plaster dominate the interiors.

The pixel-like red tiles that cover the exterior have been used to create bright splashbacks in the kitchens.

Aoa Architects was founded by Jaewon Suh and Euihaing Lee in 2013.

Another original take on South Korea's building regulations was created by practice STMPJ, which designed a skinny red house in Seoul.

Architect Bjarke Ingels is also a fan of Minecraft, and has said he thinks architects should adopt the videogame's world building principles. The United Nations have used the game to get communities in developing countries to design their own public spaces.

Photography is by Hyosook Chin.

Project credit:

Architect: Aoa ArchitectsProject team: Jaewon Suh, Euihaing Lee, Uk SunwooContractor: Coworkers construction

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Blocky Minecraft-themed apartment building in Seoul clad with pixel-like tiles - Dezeen

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CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA DECEMBER 15: Carolina Panthers helmets are seen prior to the game against Seattle Seahawks at Bank of America Stadium on December 15, 2019 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

On Tuesday January fourteenth, 2020 at approximately 8:30 p.m. EST Panthers middle linebacker, Luke Kuechly, officially announced his retirement. Then on Thursday January sixteenth, 2020 at approximately 9:17 a.m. the Panthers officially hired former LSU passing game coordinator, Joe Brady, as their offensive coordinator.

A proven legendary defensive mastermind of the last decade exits the organization as the first proven offensive mastermind of the current decade enters. The void left behind by Kuechly will be hard to fill, but Matt Rhule has reportedly been hard at work putting together a squad of defensive architects for his new team.

While the hires havent been officially announced yet, Rhule is expected to addBaylors defensive coordinatorPhil Snow, Colts defensive line coachMike Phair, and Browns linebackers coach and run game coordinatorAl Holcomb.

The theme of the projected coaching staff is familiarity, experience, and proven success. The Panthers organization (especially Tepper) prided themselves on acquiring someone like Rhule who turned the Baylor program into one of admirable talent. The new hires will enable Rhule to do the same in Charlotte.

The new defensive coaches will be working with a relatively fresh mold of players seeking to replace the bevy of talent thats left over the last couple of years. Additionally, theyll be doing it with the assistance of someone who served as an offensive assistant to the Panthers divisional arch rival Saints. Now, lets see how all the pieces fit together.

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Carolina Panthers: The architects of a new defense - Cat Crave

The two psychologists responsible for designing and implementing the CIAs enhanced interrogation techniques will testify in pre-trial hearings in the September 11 case at Guantnamo Bay next week. Amnesty International experts will be there to observe their testimony.

The contract psychologists, James E. Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen, are responsible for developing interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, confinement in small boxes, beatings, and sleep deprivation, which amounted to torture. Many detainees suffered such abuse in secret sites around the globe, including in Europe, with the complicity of a number of European governments. Julia Hall, Amnesty Internationals leading expert on counter-terrorism, who will be attending the hearings, said:

The perverse work of these psychologists has dramatically set back the global fight against torture. The interrogation methods they championed have had a rippling effect around the world.

Rather than being held to account, the people responsible for the US torture program including Mitchell and Jessen have been protected and, in some cases, promoted. The fact that they are testifying at this high-profile hearing shows the CIAs failure to root out the human rights abuses at the heart of its counter-terror program. Such impunity is a stain on US history. Torture is never justified and anyone who uses it must be held to account.

WHAT:

Briefing during pre-trial hearings at Guantnamo Bay naval base

WHO:

Julia Hall is a human rights lawyer and Amnesty Internationals expert on criminal justice, counter-terrorism and human rights

Zeke Johnson is senior director of programs at Amnesty International USA. He leads a team of issue experts working to end urgent human rights abuses in the U.S.

WHEN:

January 18-February 1

HOW:

For further information, or to schedule an interview with Julia Hall or Zeke Johnson, contact Mariya Parodi at [emailprotected]

Background

Mitchell and Jessen are expected to testify beginning on January 20 in the pre-trial hearings against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men charged with helping to plan and assist in the 9/11 attacks.

Amnesty International is one of the few NGOs that have priority for The Gallery, where hearings that are not classified can be observed.

Julia Hall was one of the first persons to be granted permission by the United States Department of Defense to monitor military commissions proceedings. She observed the first trial at Guantnamo in 2008 in the case of Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Ladens driver. She is an expert on European complicity in CIA secret sites, including those in Poland, Romania and Lithuania, and has been personally involved in the resettlement of three former detainees (to Ireland and Sweden).

Zeke Johnson has represented the organization before the United Nations Committee Against Torture and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; testified before members of Congress about U.S. drone strikes; and served as a trial monitor of the military commissions at Guantnamo Bay.

Amnesty International has long advocated that government officials who were involved in the torture and ill-treatment of detainees in the course of the U.S.s global war on terror be held accountable, and that detainees at Guantnamo should either be released or tried promptly in U.S. federal court.

Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the U.S. government to close the detention facility and put an end to years of human rights violations.

Amnesty has called attention to the fact that the governments program of torture and ill-treatment and repeated delays of fair trial of alleged suspects of the September 11 attacks have directly contributed to the absence of real justice and remedy for the victims of September 11 and their family members.

Whether torture-tainted statements should be excluded from evidence in the September 11 trial is the question at the core of the hearings at Guantnamo Bay this January. All five co-defendants could face the death penalty if found guilty by the military commissions, whose proceedings do not meet international fair trial standards. The use of this punishment in these cases would be the ultimate denial of basic human rights.

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Architects of CIA torture program to testify at Guantanamo for first time - Amnesty International USA

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Image courtesy of Architects Assist.

The massive brushfires in Australia have damaged a large portion of the country's landscape.As of today, according to BBC News, "more than 100 fires are still burning in the states of New South Wales and Victoria." Many have lost their homes and family members in addition to the amount of wildlife impacted by the fires. However, as with previous large-scale tragedies such as this, people have started to come together to provide aid to those impacted.

On January 4, 2020, architect Jiri Lev of, Atelier Jiri Lev, established Architects Assist, an initiative that aims to provide planning and design assistance to those who have lost their homes during the fire.According to the Architects Assist website, the initiative "acts as a simple referral service between clients and registered architects (it does not itself provide architectural services)." An initiative run under mantle of the Australian Institutes of Architects,Architects Assists has rallied to provide support for current and future natural disaster victims in Australia.

With the media drawing much attention to the country's response to climate change, celebrities using their influence to assist, and news of the country's coal export-fueled economic growth threatened by the fires, Lev aims to provide another voice to the mix of disaster coverage.

Excerpt fromArchitects Assist:

"AA currently represents about500practices from across Australia, willing to dedicate some of their resources to pro bono work and1000students and graduates of architecture prepared to help if any opportunity becomes available to involve them in the AA program.

We aim to enable those affected by the present and future disasters to rebuild their lives, either by themselves or with help from the community, at once or in stages, with minimum amount of money.

Small businesses or communities which are finding it difficult to replace their lost assets, such as shops, halls, churches, or theaters, may also apply for assistance."

Community support and collaboration across disciplines is needed during times of disaster. The role of architects and their response to issues such as these has grown over the years. Lev alongside architects, students, and graduate students alike have joined forces to create a movement that may provide a catalyst for increased action. With the aim of growing the initiative toward positive architectural impacts, Lev and his team have created the Architects Assist: Global Directory for other architects around the world to help provide pro bono services during times of crisis.

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Pro bono architecture initiative, Architects Assist, connects architects with people in need - Archinect