Movin' On Up: Will Smith And Jada Pinkett Smith Show Off Malibu House

Actually, the original Will and Jada had their brains removed and replaced with a pair from a LOVELY white couple from New Canaan, CT

I think the tide is turning for this couple.  It's one thing to be beautiful and rich and happy, but it's something else entirely when you feel the need to shove how beautiful, rich, and happy you are down everyone else's throats.  Especially in this economy (That's my new catch phrase).  If seeing these two on the cover of Architectural Digest (a snooty interior design mag that really has nothing to do with architecture) wasn't bad enough, now we have to hear about how everything is organic and how the house was made entirely of hand-made bricks by Mexicans in the Yucatan or whatever.  I don't want to hear it.  You guys are still rich.  Can you justify why the Mexicans that made the bricks for your house are living in shanties and surviving on tortilla chips and jalapeno peppers while you guys live in a huge house in Malibu making money off of your children's fame (because we know that Willow and Jaden or whatever their names are are raking in more cash than their parents at this point)?  Can't you guys just fade into obscurity like Mia Farrow and Marlon Brando and all those other organic hippies?  There is something insidious about how we have to keep seeing and hearing about you.  Mark my words: The tide is turning.  We (read: Me) are tired of hearing about how perfect you are and how we should all be emulating you.

"Our house was built directly on top of the largest fault-line in California?  Say what now?

A few months ago, the Smiths were in the press going on about how they let their preteen children do whatever they want and they don't give them any rules because children are just small adults or some other bullsh*t like that.  Something about freedom and letting their kids be "free" or whatever.  You just know these two are Libertarians.  What happens when Willow meets the wrong group of people and decides to do a porno like Montana Fishbourne?  When that happens, you'll regret all that freedom.  Most people don't know what to do with freedom, especially not children.  Most kids will just play video games and eat candy and pizza all day if you let them and then next thing you know, you've got two 1400 pound life-size teletubbies sitting in your living room.  Amrite?  Obviously I don't want anything bad to happen to Willow, but I can't be alone in finding these people irritating.  And yes, I am easily irritated, but that's beside the point.

Architecture Update: Notre-Dame Rosary Church in Les Lilas, Seine St. Denis

It has been quite a while since an Architecture Update has appeared on this blog, mostly because the decision had been made to discontinue the feature, but I just had to post about a new church in the Seine St. Denis department outside of Paris, in the commune of Le Lilas.  I am obsessed with modern churches in Europe, primarily because of the nature of public architectural projects in Europe (especially France) and the interplay of this quality with the essential requirement for Catholic churches to be an expression of both centralized church authority and a representation of a modern personalized religious experience.  Whew!  That was a mouthful.  Basically, what I am trying to say is: A modern Catholic Church has to simultaneously represent the power of Catholicism whilst also suggesting individual spirituality (rather different from the arrogance of the Spanish/Italian Baroque during the Counter-Reformation).  Dezeen (the best architecture and design website out there) has posted some incredible pictures of the newly-completed church of Notre Dame in Les Lilas.

Images courtesy Herve Abbadie/Dezeen

The church was designed by ENIA Architects and was constructed of "two contrasting colors of stone".  Because church services had to continue in the 1886 "temporary" Les Lilas church next door, the project needed to be completed in phases in such a way that the original church was not demolished until the worship areas of the new church were completed.  Dezeen described the original church as being of a temporary, wooden construction, but the images that I dug up reveal a rather small concrete structure.  There are various aspects of the new church that are interesting, such as the nave that is entered perpendicularly, but most are beyond the scope of this blog.  In contrast to most Americans, I am very much in favor of civic architecture (commissioned by government bodies) because, frankly, we cannot leave art and architecture preservation (and innovation) to the tacky plebs.  I'm just sayin'.  (via Dezeen)

The original church of Les Lilas.  It appears that the accessory building (to the right of the church) was demolished in order to construct the new Notre Dame Rosary Church

Yves Behar-designed Phone For Aesir

San Francisco artist/designer Yves Behar has designed this cellphone for Danish mobile brand Aesir.  (via Dezeen)

Architecture Update: The Guangzhou Opera House by Zaha Hadid

It's been a while since I posted an architecture update, too long, really.  I sort of was working on another blog and that didn't pan out, so now I'm back with photos of one of the most exciting newly-completed projects of 2011.  It's Zaha Hadid's Opera House in Guangzhou, China.  It is over 700,000 sq. ft of Hadid's usual UFO-style design, featuring a primary auditorium of 1800 seats.  A significant proportion of new projects are going up in East Asia, namely in China and in South Korea (New Songdo City comes to mind).  This is truly an awesome time to be a follower of architecture, at least if you like post-modern futuristic space ship opera houses!  (via Dezeen)

Images courtesy of Christian Richter/Dezeen