A round-up and an announcement

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, a criticism blog with claws. Vicious reviews are always so much more fun to read / related, Reasoning with Vampires, a tumblr-powered takedown of the Twilight series / another book, clearly pitched at the tech-savvy, post-ironic generation of new parents: Go the fuck to sleep / Tales of Future Past (via Ask MeFi. See also, ‘Where in the world can I find the most high-tech and futuristic locations? / beautiful prints, drawings and books by Leonie Lachlan.

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The world’s most powerful mobile crane / Human’s Scribbles, a design and architecture-based weblog, with a good post on literalist architecture in China / Logo Evolution: we hadn’t realised the abstraction behind the MIT Press logo / …etc, a tumblr. They’ve stayed at the Rosa Muerta, it seems / end of the world notification service. Helpful / interactive toothpick sculpture of San Francisco.

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Architecture: “Public Library: An American Commons,” photographs by Robert Dawson / Post War Buildings, a resource for the UK / exploring under London: the Mail Rail, conquered (via MeFi / Invincible Cities, America’s changing urban landscape, photographed by Camilo Jose Vergara (via kottke. See also MeFi) / editorial in Architectural Record: ‘Some of our readers call our annual Record Houses issue the “Swimsuit Issue.”‘

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What Courtney Wore Today. Strangely compelling. The advent of blur-free camera phones will kill the mystique for this sort of thing / Black, White and Gray, a tumblr looking at classic photography / The Temporary Blog, an object-focused weblog / Scandinavian for Value, exploring the wilder aisles of value supermarket shopping / Conflict History, interactive maps / culture videos at Crane TV / running up the Eiger.

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Is Cereal a Soup? / Chernobyl, 25 years later / Casio F-91W: The strangely ubiquitous watch / Drawger, an illustration site / a few TV history sites, focusing on hardware, not programmes: the South West England Vintage Television Museum, the The British Vintage Wireless and Television Museum and the Museum of early consumer electronics and 1st achievements. Gems abound.

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Chernobyl Sarcophagus Mk2, a 20,000 tonne concrete dome which will be slid into place on rails. See also A brief history of moving buildings at Architizer / a set of sound sculptures at Zimoun, which use cardboard boxes and dc motors to make rattling, kinetic architectural spaces. More at their Vimeo channel.

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We’re doing this rather quietly, but it’s time to announce a new issue of things. 19/20 has been a few years in the making, it’s true, but it’s available for order from our archive page.