Jessica Dimmock via moby.com

Architizer is hosting the world’s definitive architectural awards program, with 50+ categories and 200+ jurors. Alanna Okun, Assistant Editor at BuzzFeed Shift, will be covering relevant stories and news relating to the jury, the categories, and latest updates related to A+. See her previous post on the High Line and Lowline founders here. To learn more about the awards, visit architizerawards.com.

You probably already know Moby’s (neé Richard Melville Hall) most popular songs—”Porcelain” is an especially hard one to shake—as the vegan-activist-electronic-rock-star has sold over 20 million albums in the past thirty years. You probably recognize his distinctive bald head and thick plastic glasses. You may not, however, have known about a significant aspect of Moby’s life: he’s extremely into architecture, about which he runs a popular blog, and has signed on as a juror for Architizer’s upcoming A+ Awards. Continue.

via mobylosangelesarchitecture.com

We live in an age where everyone can, and is arguably expected to, wear a lot of hats. Baristas hand out mixtapes along with lattes and sell organic artisanal pickles at craft fairs on weekends; rock stars keep blogs about buildings. And because of the Internet we’re all able to access these wildly different parts of each others’ lives. It’s shockingly intimate to read passages like this one from Moby’s blog, about the above image (he takes his own photographs):

i’m trying to think of something insightful and/or smart and/or germane about this oddball building.
but all i can come up with is: it’s an oddball modern apartment building that kind of looks like a city skyline and when i drove by it it seemed odd and experimental and i assumed that in most other cities it would either be championed as amazing experimental residential architecture or torn down and replaced with a bank.
and yes, run on sentences. i clearly have some issues with them. like faulkner. except he used them to great effect.

via mobylosangelesarchitecture.com

This kind of thinking raises new questions. Do we add our knowledge of our favorite artists’ personal tastes and aesthetics to what we know and value in their work? Is my impression of the “Porcelain” video enhanced, or detracted from, when I consider its sense of space and location in the context of what I now know about Moby’s interest in those things? A building isn’t just a building, as he shows in his blog; even a public restroom shack isn’t always an afterthought, a backdrop. These are complicated and maybe unanswerable questions, but either way, they demonstrate how inextricably linked all these seemingly separate fields really are. They’re the kind of questions Architizer is looking to engage with the A+ Awards, bringing architecture into the world in real, meaningful ways.

by Alanna Okun

posted in A+ awards

tagged A+ Awards, A+ Awards jury, Architizer A+ Awards, Los angeles, Moby, rock star

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