Having grown up in St. Louis and now living in Minneapolis I rarely get the opportunity to spend much time in my old stomping grounds. When I do here are four places I always like to visit for both their architectural intrigue as well as the memories they hold.

St. Louis Planetarium

Architect: Gyo Obata of Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum

Completed: 1963

Obata studied under Eero Saarinen at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Oh and the bow is temporarily on the building for the holiday season.

The Gateway Arch

Architect: Eero Saarinen

Completed: 1968

Many people don’t know about this architectural gem . . . It’s kind of hidden. The exhibition Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future will be opening at the Walker and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in September of 2008.

Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

Architect: Tadao Ando

Completed: 2001

Commissions for the building include Ellsworth Kelly’s wall sculpture Blue Black, and Richard Serra’s torqued spiral sculpture Joe.

Climatron

Architect: Murphy and Mackey, Architects

Completed: 1960

A Geodesic dome structure which incorporates the principles of R. Buckminster Fuller, the inventor of the geodesic system. The Climatron is located on the grounds of the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

Coudal links up More Party Animals, which is playful design with a bit of a point:

More Party Animals is an apolitically-political idea born out of a heartfelt disenchantment with the status quo. As the current system continues to polarize this country, we strongly believe America is in need of a wider selection of political parties.

We say our idea is apolitical because More Party Animals is steadfastly devoted to being policy-free. Our animals represent a potential symbol for new beliefs, not the beliefs themselves. That, we leave up to you.

Our purpose is to encourage and help people start their own party, promote their own ideas and create a genuine alternative that might actually catch on. More choices leads to better results…it’s the American way.

Are red white and blue so engrained in the design palette of the American political system? Apparently so. At least the quixotic usage of the elephant and donkey provide some fodder to build upon for political design fun. And the animal logos look good on t-shirts, too.

This entry also posted at The UnConvention.

Uta Eisenreich, Network (Teamwork), 2002

Kyle’s post at Arkitip about Maurice Scheltens triggered a happy memory of seeing photographer Uta Eisenreich’s work for the first time. Since the last time I checked she’s apparently designed a sweet website that’s structured like a pin-up board. Uta sets up conceptual situations often based on meticulously contrived (though loosely executed) human interaction, and then photographs the results. Her projects include kidnapping a group of foreign business travelers in a small bus with darkened windows, creating a spatial representation of a computer desktop, directing incoming cars to park chromatically, and participating in breakdancing duels where instead of breakdancing, she and her opponent get in the circle and create towering arrangements of ordinary objects, trying to outdo each other in height and beauty. That performance is called Close to the Edge.

Some of my favorite photographs of hers are from a series called Network (Teamwork) in which she creates physical sociograms by asking kids questions about each other and mapping the connections. Which 3 kids would you invite to your birthday? Who do you know least well in your class? These and other “schoolyard mandalas” the kids created are an interesting take on the visual language of education and schools. I imagine Steven Willats would enjoy them too.