Mike Nelson

http://www.creativetime.org/programs/archive/2007/nelson/

"This fall, artist Mike Nelson transforms the disused interior of the Essex Street Market in NYC’s Lower East Side, taking audiences on an unexpected journey through reconstructed rooms, passageways, and meticulously assembled environments. Inspired by the building’s history, the surrounding neighborhood, the artist’s literary and cultural references, and the current social climate in the United States, the installation comes to life via materials gleaned from local salvage yards and debris from the market’s heyday. This site-specific project, the London-based artist’s first major installation in the U.S., will offer audiences an opportunity to explore a forgotten building, once a bustling part of the Lower East Side, which has been inaccessible to the public for the past thirteen years."

Maryland

Photo: Darren Higgins for The New York Times

NYTimes: Gale and T. J. Johnson live rent free in an 1815 farmhouse in Annapolis, Md., that they have spent 16 years restoring. The house, which was abandoned in the 1940s, had fallen into disrepair and was completely overgrown by the following decade.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/garden/30curators.html?8dpc

"Better late than never." John Edwards

Galicia, Spain

Photo: Matias Costa for The New York Times

Greece

Photo: Louisa Gouliamaki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A burned firetruck and burned cars could be seen in the Greek village of Artemida.

Paris

Photo: François Halard
via NYTimes:
The glass-block facade of the Maison de Verre, which has attained cult status in the last decades. (From “La Maison de Verre” published by Thames & Hudson.)

Pia Wallens

http://www.sparkability.net/index.html

Jeffrey Milstein

http://www.jeffreymilstein.com/Portfolios.html

Raf Simons

Photo: David Slijper/NYTimes
Raf Simons double-breasted trench coat, about $1,550, pants, $950, and gloves. At Barneys New York.

Signage

via NYTimes:

As the number of signs and sign types has increased in the last 50 years, the layout of sign-making has become outdated. The project team realized that a systematic sign format would make the entire system more effective and developed the proportion-based grid system, which uses clean math and common relationships for similar sign types while accommodating standard panel sizes.

Image: Courtesy of Don Meeker

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/magazine/12fonts-t.html

Jordan

Photo: Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times
Hassan Jabr left his elegant home and garden and his job as a Spanish teacher in Baghdad after one of his sons was kidnapped and killed last year.

Well-Off Fleeing Iraq Find Poverty and Pain in Jordan
via NYTimes:

It is a painful new reality for an important part of Iraq’s population, the educated, secular center. They refused to take sides as the violence got worse. And their suffering augurs something larger for Iraq. The poorer they grow and the longer they stay away, the more crippled Iraq becomes. “The binding section of the population does not exist anymore,” said Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister, who now spends most of his time in Jordan. “The middle class has left Iraq.”

www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/world/middleeast/10refugees.html

Lower Manhattan

Photo: James Estrin/The New York Times
A trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange today.

NYTimes:
By VIKAS BAJAJ
Published: August 9, 2007

Stocks on Wall Street today suffered their biggest one-day decline since February after the turmoil in the home-loan market caused renewed concerns about tightening credit worldwide.

The decline began at the opening bell after a French bank, BNP Paribas, suspended operations of three of its funds in the wake of turmoil in the American market for home loans. The European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve injected cash into the financial system because of tightening credit markets.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 13,270.68, down 387.18 points, or 2.8 percent. It was the biggest one-day decline since the Dow lost 416.02 points on Feb. 27, another day of a worldwide sell-off.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was off nearly 3 percent, at 1,453.10, and the Nasdaq composite index was down 2.2 percent, at 2,556.49.

After the Dow dropped 200 points within minutes of the start of trading, the session was volatile, with stocks recovering much of their early losses, then declining anew.

Prices of Treasury bonds jumped as investors fled to the safety of government paper.

Chris Jordan

Photo from In Katrina's Wake: Portraits of Loss From an Unnatural Disaster. Princeton Architectural Press. 2006.

http://www.chrisjordan.com/

Jean-Louis Domecq

via NYTimes

Designed in 1950 by a French machinist named Jean-Louis Domecq, the Jieldé lamp — long considered a classic — is getting an update. Last year, the company introduced a smaller, desk-friendly version of the multijointed metal lamp, which is still assembled by hand. And in September, all the Jieldé lamps — both small and standard-size — will be available in three new eye-popping colors: fluorescent pink, red and orange. (Jieldé lamps sell for $250 to $1,100; the Loft series fixtures shown at left are $902 each.) Those who can’t wait until September can order now, by sending an e-mail to jielde@notonqueen.com. A list of retailers who will carry the lamps in the fall is at notonqueen.com. MILENA DAMJANOV