What a Jerk!

This was the incredible scene from last Sunday's New York City marathon: Michel Bach, of France (did I really need to say where he was from?), runs a marathon with a 10-foot tall plastic replica of the Eiffel Tower. He actually had to duck under balloons along the race course! This all is strangely similar to an old post we published here at the Mockitecture WebLog about a topic we identified as "Personitecture" (a.k.a. people dressed as buildings, or, building mascots). Bach joins the ranks of people like the architects responsible for some of New York City's greatest buildings, Philip Johnson, and Conan O'Brien. Anyway, I'm waiting for that inevitable retaliatory Statue of Liberty costume to appear on an American cyclist during the Tour de France. Take THAT, France!

I'll leave you with a special image from the infamous 1931 Beaux Arts Ball. Below is architect William Van Allen, in a legendary costume, pictured with his wife (via NYTimes.com).

De-Monumentalization of the Sears Tower and Beyond

IMAGE SOURCE: urbangreenberg.wordpress.com/

The Sears Tower has officially (as of yesterday) been renamed to Willis Tower according to the iconic skyscraper's owners. CNN's story about the name change claims 90,000 angry people have joined the Facebook group, "People Against the Sears Tower Name Change." Note: the group size is currently up to over 93,000 members...probably much larger by the time this post gets to you. Many people are downright refusing to stop calling the building the "Sears Tower."

According to the Facebook group, whoever owns the most square footage in the building has the rights to name the building, which is why a British Insurance Company, Willis Group Holdings is buying out all unused office space!

This simple act of name changing has - in some bizzare way - de-monumentalized Chicago's famous building, reminding architects worldwide that architectural popularity commonly extends beyond the physical design of buildings. Has the Sears...I mean Willis Tower become the world's next Non-ument!? Its tough to tell at this point, but here at Mockitecture we jump on the bandwagon of any and every popular trend. Chicago's recently started trend of de-monumentalization is no different.

I present to you, the NEW Leaning Tower of Pisa, renamed, "An Ordinary Tower":

Next, the Eiffel Tower undergoes a bit of shrinkage:

And finally, in a defiant act of over-monumentalization, or enhancement per-se, I present the new and improved Midwestern city...a river town turned oceanside metropolis (thank you Miami, for the lovely aerial beach imagery):

The Front Lines: S U P E R S I Z E D stuff

Follies From France

I've always been fascinated with questionably large, over-scaled objects in the landscape.  They make me feel so small and unimportant::

Blogging From the Front Lines...

another postcard to share with the eWorld....