Fact-checking isn’t what it used to be: Emperor Hadrian’s architecture

This week’s print edition of the Economist left the printing presses with an astonishing typo: Emperor Hadrian “commissioned the Parthenon”. In the online edition of the article, mercifully, “Parthenon” has been corrected into “Pantheon”.

Journalism is a tough job, of course, and corrections are sometimes needed: but this is the biggest blunder I’ve seen in print in a long time. (Photo credit: Thomas Schlijper)

Shanghai cool

I have slept in hotel rooms decorated with Venetian views, English landscapes, Roman ruins, Balinese rice paddies and Arizona skies. I had never slept, until last week, in a hotel room where the decorators had chosen to take their (loosely Warholian) inspiration from tin cans. Here are a blown-up syruped fruit label in the living room of our suite, and a pattern with fried fish and beans above the bed.

When we returned to our room in the afternoon of Dec. 31st, we found a tongue-in-cheek surprise from the management: on the immaculately made-up bed were two aspirins and two pairs of cheap sunglasses, a men’s RayBan Aviator-type and a huge women’s white-framed 1970’s-looking model. We had no choice but to wear them when we went downstairs for breakfast on Jan. 1st. Overall, we loved the hotel (although I am sure this was in part because we chose a spacious corner suite) and felt quite at home there – the intended effect, as Jia, we are told, is a Mandarin word meaning “home”. Here is their site.

Shanghai was a discovery. As Norman Foster reportedly said, the process of urbanization that took 200 years in Western Europe is taking about 20 years in China. Futurologists have argued for some years that contemporary Chinese development is one of the most impactful trends in our lifetimes (see, for example, Peter Schwartz’s Inevitable Surprises). There is a palpable sense of things happening.

Notwithstanding the Chinese middle class fascination for Western brands, I tried to shop for cool local stuff and was able to take home some Shanghai finds. It’s way too cold now, but this summer I will be wearing a few nifty designs by SQY-T:

Finally, there’s stuff that’s not cool about China. You do hear about censorship, but you do not realize its full extent until it hits you in the face, to the extent that you wonder whether your browser is truly having a technical problem. From the hotel’s WiFi connection I could check the weather, set up an order of groceries for my return home, catch up on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and so on; but I got a server timeout if I wanted to access either of my blogs – I have to think, because both have posts tagged with alarming labels such as “politics” and “politica” respectively. Readers, if you are better versed than I am in Chinese Internet policy, please enlighten me. Subjectively, it was a fairly spooky experience. And, as much as I loved Shanghai, I was reminded of a few freedoms we have over here, and we should never give up.

Gerhard Richter and his amazing stained glass window for the Cologne cathedral

This is the stunning glass window commissioned by the authorities of the 13th-century Cologne cathedral to artist Gerhard Richter (read more about the technical background on Wired, also the source for the image; more pictures in the photo gallery on Der Spiegel). The original window had been destroyed in World War II and replaced in the 1950s by a nearly transparent piece of glass.

Cardinal Joachim Meisner has been critical of this work, and reportedly would have preferred a more traditionally figurative subject, for example with representations of saints or 20th century martyrs. He also apparently told a local newspaper that Richter’s window seemed more fit for a mosque. He did not show up for the unveiling of the work.

In centuries past, the church has always been a very smart investor in two commodities: real estate and art. The Catholic church in particular is one of the largest real estate owners worldwide – and, like it or not, the steward of a large chunk of the West’s artistic heritage. And the point is that, before it becomes heritage, all art is contemporary. The Sistine Chapel was scandalously weird too, once upon a time.

Smart mosque builders will be sure to follow the Cardinal’s advice and commission contemporary artists and architects to contribute their work. (A non-religious building, the Parisian Institut du Monde Arabe, designed by Jean Nouvel and Architecture-studio and opened in 1987, comes to mind as a trailblazer among academic and scientific institutions).

Christian churches have long entrenched themselves into their well-defended corner of contemporary cultural discourse, mounting their periodic attacks on the spectrum of modernity from scientific evidence (Creation Museums? please) to reproductive rights (see the nonsensical law governing IVF in Italy). If they can re-engage in a wider discussion with society mediated by contemporary art, which they have not done in a long time (except for the occasional private chapel by a modern master and a flurry of work by second-rate artists), that is not a bad step.

Museum restaurants: The Modern, MoMA, New York

 

I was running a bit behind in my museum restaurant review series, so here you go with some pictures from The Modern, the ground-floor restaurant at the MoMA in New York.

First, make a reservation: the place is crowded and you may have to wait half an hour or more even to grab a quick lunch in the Bar Room. The food, by Alsatian chef Gabriel Kreuther, is truly excellent; liverwurst, foie gras, country sausage, goat cheese and duck are well balanced by tuna tartare, scallops and oysters.

 

 

 

Yet, after the crowd-pleasing Sol LeWitt mural panels at the entrance, the interior of the restaurant is largely uninspiring – a puzzle, given that the rest of the museum is an architectural marvel, with many surprising vistas enlivening even the casual visitor’s walk.

And while I’m a fan of creative flower arrangements (the best I’ve ever seen? those at the Hotel Arts in Barcelona, a few years ago), I couldn’t care much for the bamboo-topped constructions in the dining room at the Modern.

More museum restaurants: Bistrot Bovisa, Milano

Here’s an interesting new museum restaurant, Bistrot Bovisa, in the old industrial ouskirts of Milan. The somewhat minimalist food is designed by chef Moreno Cedroni, and while not all the restaurant design choices make sense (I can’t help foreseeing a short lifespan for those chain mail placemats), the place is pleasant enough for a lunch or dinner break after visiting the exhibition next door.

Three restaurants in Paris

Parisian restaurants aren’t as boring as they used to be. The French are even mastering the art of the museum restaurant that seems to keep evading us Italians. Here are my pictures from Les Ombres, at the Musée du Quai Branly; L’Atelier de Joel Rebuchon, on the Rive Gauche; and Georges at the Beaubourg.