Postopolis: The Latest Architecture and News

Another interview conducted live at the rooftop of The Standard during Postopolis! LA.

This is the first interview recorded live at Postopolis! LA at the rooftop of The Standard. This time we present Yo-ichiro Hakomori from whY Architecture.

Postopolis! LA has come to an end (at least for 2009). Postopolis! was discussion, debate and reflection around Architecture and a great variety of related topics: Art, City, Technology, Geography, Visualization, etc., which merged into a multidisciplinary conversation broadcasted live by seven different blogs. It’s impossible to resume in a couple of paragraphs what this days in LA were without thinking we suffered a big overdose of information that we need to take the proper time to digest.

Trying to sort out some ideas, I think at least five topics defined these days for us.

The event for itself, that concentrated expositions and discussions about some very interesting and diverse topics. From talks about the city and security with people from the LA Police Department to understand how some cities are reformulating the relation between cities and their citizens through technology, thanks to Ben Cerveny’s exposition. Complete list of everyone who participated can be found here.

In these five days we had the opportunity to interview some of the best exposers of Contemporary Architecture based in LA. Yo-Ichiro Hakomori (wHY Architecture), Dwayne Oyler & Jenny Wu (Oyler Wu Collaborative), Whitney Sander (Sander Architects), Sarah Johnston & Mark Lee (Johnston MarkLee) and Austin Kelly (XTEN Architecture), Eric Oweb Moss (Eric Owen Moss Architects), and some others we will introduce soon.

Of course, being in LA, we were forced to travel through the city and it’s renowned highways. We realized how hard it is to move without owning a vehicle. But we also got to know a friendly side of the city, with many interesting and different central places to visit.

Finally, a special mention for the place where Postopolis! was carried out: The Standard Hotel in Downtown LA, a great renovation of a 13 floor building by Konig Eizenberg Architecture, where it seems that everything was specially design for the hotel which has one of the most interesting rooftops of LA.

At the same time, Postopolis! was part of the LA Art Week, organized by the For Your Art foundation, so we were immersed in a great cultural environment. Finally, our most sincere thanks to everyone who made Postopolis! possible, specially to everyone who works at The Storefront for Art and Architecture (Joseph, Gaia, Cesar, José, Faris), For Your Art (Bettina, Devin, Julia, Melissa), to the folks at the Standard Hotel, each one of the curators: BLDGBLOG (Geoff), City of Sound (Dan), SubTopia (Bryan), Mudd Up! (Jayce a.k.a. dj/Rupture), We Make Money Not Art (Regina) and of course, every guest who gave life to the event. Thanks to all!

Images that try to resume these 5 days in LA, after the break.

For those of you in LA (or nearby), ForYourArt has organized the 2nd Annual Los Angeles Art Weekend, a four-day event highlighting the city’s vast array of art, architecture, design and performance… which actually started yesterday but there are still lots of events to attend today, saturday and sunday:

Well, this has been one of the most intense weeks I´ve had in quite so time. Postopolis! LA has turned to be an amazing event: An incredible venue at the rooftop of The Standard Hotel in downtown, a very interesting group of speakers, very proactive attendants, networking and drinks. And of course, the presence of our friends from BLDGBLOG (Geoff), City of Sound (Dan), Subtopia (Bryan), Mudd Up! (Jayce, a.k.a. dj/Rupture), We Make Money Not Art (Regina), The Storefront Gallery (Joseph, Cesar) and ForYouArt (Bettina, Devin).

During these days we had the chance to conduct live interviews with wHY Architectura (Yo Hakomori), Oyler Wu Collective (Dwayne Oyler, Jenny Wu), Sander Architects (Whitney Sander) and JohnstonMarkLee (Sharon Johnston, Mark Lee). These have turned to be very interesting, as you saw on the live streaming. Also, the audience has been participating making questions to the architects. And i have good news for this, as we got a new microphone and the audio recording is great! So expect the edited interviews to be posted soon.

Today we are going to interview Austin Kelly from XTEN Architecture, so if you´ve got any questions write a comment and i´ll try to get him to answer them. You can see the interview via Ustream at 5PM Pacific time.

As for the rest of the speakers, I´ve been impressed for the variety of architecture related topics discussed… urbanism, communes, sustainability… i really liked the presentations by Jeffrey Inaba (Inaba Projects), Patrick Keller (Fabric) and Stephanie Smith (Ecoshack, check her awesome project Wanna Start a Commune?). And there´s more to come, so be sure to check the full schedule. The quality of the Ustream feed is very good, so be sure to check it out.

Be sure to follow @Postopolis on Twitter (and also @archdaily) for live updates. There´s also a Flickr group, with very good photos.

We thank the StoreFront Gallery, ForYourArt and The Standard Hotel LA for making this event possible, one of the best by far.

And please remember that we have a closing party on Saturday!

p.s.: The hotel charges for going to the rooftop after 7PM on Friday, so be sure to arrive a bit earlier.

Check some photos of the event by David Assael after the break: