This stealthy undertaking was not an act of robbery or espionage but rather a crucial operation in what would become an association called UX, for “Urban eXperiment.” UX is sort of like an artist’s collective, but far from being avant-garde—confronting audiences by pushing the boundaries of the new—its only audience is itself. More surprising still, its work is often radically conservative, intemperate in its devotion to the old. Through meticulous infiltration, UX members have carried out shocking acts of cultural preservation and repair, with an ethos of “restoring those invisible parts of our patrimony that the government has abandoned or doesn’t have the means to maintain.” The group claims to have conducted 15 such covert restorations, often in centuries-old spaces, all over Paris. - Wired.com
"The New French Hacker-Artist Underground"
posted by The Whelk
on Jan 24, 2012 -
20 comments
As time has gone by, though, Touch of Evil has acquired a large cult following, and it now regularly appears on lists of the best films of the century. What is not generally known is that the film never accurately reflected Welles's intentions for it. In July 1957, the studio took over the editing of the film and prevented him from participating in its completion. In an odd turn of events, however, a 58-page memo that Welles wrote in 1957 was recently rediscovered, and a small team on which I was film editor and sound mixer has used that remarkable document to bring Touch of Evil
as close as possible to Welles's original concept. - Walter Murch, 1998
posted by Trurl
on Jun 14, 2011 -
37 comments
In 2006 in the Fitzwilliam Museum three enormous porcelain vases from seventeenth or eighteenth century China were smashed by a museum visitor who fell down the stairs. This
presentation "follows the vases' progress from scattered fragments to their redisplay in the Fitzwilliam Museum. The site includes slideshows, film clips of the conservation process and a timelapse of one of the vases under reconstruction".
[more inside]
posted by paduasoy
on May 5, 2008 -
20 comments
One day, a vintage motorcycle restorer gets an idea in his head to tackle a new project, restoring an old-timey
"board-tracker" bike. In and of itself, that's not such a big deal; over the past century, vehicle restoration has become equal parts
hobby,
business, and
spectator sport. The catch with this particular project, however, is that there are no existing examples of the bike he wants to rebuild, the last known extant part remaining is a corroded engine case, and there are only 5 known photographs - all of which happen to show just the right side of the bike.
This is the story (so far) of Paul Brodie's Excelsior OHC. [via]
posted by the painkiller
on Jan 26, 2007 -
14 comments
The Mesopotamian Marshlands have been
inhabited for so long that some consider them to be
the Garden of Eden. If this is true, then
paradise is mostly lost. The marshlands have been shrinking since the
1970s, catastrophically so between
1990 and
1997. The Marsh Arabs have a
pastoral lifestyle, relying on fishing and farming. They traditionally live in floating thatched huts, and build
grand mudhifs, which serve as public spaces, but as the marshes have receded, the villages have moved ashore. As dire as it seems,
restoration efforts are underway. But is it
too little, too late?
posted by owhydididoit
on Sep 3, 2006 -
4 comments
"The K-Metal from Krypton" is one of the most important "lost" stories by the original creators of
Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Written and drawn in 1940, but never published, the story would have vastly altered much of the Superman mythos for the next 65 years. Aside from the early introduction of
Kryptonite, the issue would have disclosed Superman's secret identity to Lois Lane, leading to a completely different relationship in which the two worked together as a team. Thanks to the work of readers and fans, including writer Mark Waid and artist Alex Ross, original art and scripts are slowly being recovered, and
the entire issue is being reproduced online, with full color treatment and missing pages being replicated in Shuster's original drawing style.
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Aug 9, 2006 -
19 comments
The most modern home built in the world. "From the outside it looks
like a spaceship you cannot enter. But if you go inside, it feels very cozy… very Zen and calming. Maybe because you are
floating above the city, in the sky".
John Lautner's
Chemosphere residence is the product of a
fortuitous union of architect, client, time and place.
Leonard Malin was a young aerospace engineer in late-1950s L.A. whose father-in-law had just given him a plot north of Mulholland Drive, near Laurel Canyon. The only catch: at roughly 45 degrees, the slope was all but unbuildable. Lautner sketched a bold vertical line, a cross, and a curve above it. "Draw it up," he told his assistant.
Now publisher
Benedikt Taschen owns Chemosphere (NSFW), and after 20 years of neglect the house has been beautifully
restored (.pdf) by
Frank Escher.
posted by matteo
on Apr 7, 2005 -
24 comments
The Aurora (mostly pictures, slightly more info
here). One car, two men, three decades of rust. Guy buys truly hideous 1957 prototype car from junkyard, restores it to gleaming unsightliness. Conne_ticut?
posted by planetkyoto
on Mar 30, 2005 -
28 comments
Don't call her frigid. After ten years and almost four millions dollars,
Glacier Girl, a P-38F ditched on the ice of Greenland, flies again in Middlesboro, Kentucky. While the restoration and recovery of any old craft is interesting,
Glacier Girl was pulled out from under
almost 270 feet of ice. Her story, in
words and pictures. (and oddball html.)
posted by eriko
on Oct 28, 2002 -
6 comments
Kalakala.org: World-famous art-deco Seattle ferry (most recently an abandoned Alaskan shrimp factory) rescued from rusty oblivion.
Gutenberg's earlier
post about "ghost pictures" on the old ferry Kalakala sent me looking for more info on the vessel, which I now know was once the second most photographed object in the world, next to the Eiffel tower. Volunteers are now slowly restoring it near Gas Works Park. Cool.
posted by Tubes
on Apr 4, 2002 -
12 comments
