The Future Flats

Larry Flynt's Hustler Club:
http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20080609/FREE/379608579/1004/newsletter01

Canal Basin Park:
http://www.gcbl.org/planning/canalway/canal-basin-park

Fritz Haeg Lecture at CIA - Monday, March 31st

Fritz Haeg
Monday, March 31
7pm, Aitken Auditorium
Gund Building
CIA, 11141 East Boulevard

Lecture is free and open to the public

As a part of Cleveland Institute of Art's 2008 Kacalieff Lecture Series "Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow..." Fritz Haeg will be speaking at CIA tomorrow evening at 7pm. As CIA describes: "Like a contemporary Buckminster Fuller, Fritz Haeg is known as an architect, designer, educator, curator, artist ---- visionary. Although he is about to break ground on the Jones High Desert Residence in Joshua Tree, his current preferred architectural clients are animals. Haeg is introducing prototypical regional model homes as dwellings for a variety of animals that have been displaced through loss of natural habitat and other human interventions through his work known as "Animal Estates."

http://www.cia.edu/tomorrow/fritzhaeg.html

www.fritzhaeg.com

Settler's Landing II

Settler's Landing and Heritage Park, Cleveland Flats:

birds' eye today

birds' eye tomorrow

just for kicks.

Pop-Up Storefront Cleveland?

Between April 11th and May 17th, the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York will install their first "Pop-Up Storefront" in Los Angeles, exhibiting "CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed," featuring work by French photographer Frederic Chaubin.

Throughout the year, the Storefront will pop up in cities around the world to host exhibits for a limited time only. As described on their website, they "will avoid the conventional gallery format by temporarily taking over unoccupied spaces in unexpected neighborhoods, to exhibit and discuss pressing topics in art and architecture..."

In April, Pop-up Storefront will make an appearance at the Milan Furniture Fair in Milan, Italy, and in June at the London Festival of Architecture in London, England. Other locations are yet to be announced.

Why not Cleveland?

Of related interest, Storefront's mission statement has some relevence to what emerging Cleveland architects hope to establish in this town through the efforts of Launch Cleveland (website soon to come, in the meantime, visit http://www.clevelanddesigncity.com/):

"Founded in 1982, Storefront for Art and Architecture is a nonprofit organization committed to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture, art and design. Our program of exhibitions, artists talks, film screenings, conferences and publications is intended to generate dialogue and collaboration across geographic, ideological and disciplinary boundaries. As a public forum for emerging voices, Storefront explores vital issues in art and architecture with the intent of increasing awareness of and interest in contemporary design."

Mission Statement for the City of Cleveland

In case the image doesn't load properly, the sign carrying the City of Cleveland seal reads: "THE CITY OF CLEVELAND MISSION STATEMENT: We are committed to improving the quality of life in the City of Cleveland by strengthening our neighborhoods, delivering superior services, embracing the diversity of our citizens, and making Cleveland a desirable, safe city in which to live, work, raise a family, shop, study, play, and grow old."

While I can't say I've noticed this Mission Statement posted in other locations around Cleveland (and I first noticed this one today after unknowingly walking past it daily for the last year), I find humor in the placement of this sign: at the entrance to a city-owned parking lot under the Veterans Memorial Bridge in the Flats - an inconspicuous location at one of the $1 lots in which there is no immediately adjacent housing, shopping, or industry. This location does, however, find itself a few steps away from the poorly maintained Heritage Park I (in which the Lorenzo Carter cabin can be found), where scrub foliage grows around the historic northern outlet of the Ohio-Erie Canal at the river's edge, fencing around the Carter cabin has fallen into disrepair, and a hole in the boardwalk is patched over with a large street sign.

While its location is a bit ironic, I am most interested in the statement's modest and obvious goals (though likely somewhat typical for civic mission statements). We should see this explicit statement placed on the City of Cleveland homepage, outside City Hall, at prominent cultural and entertainment locations, in its neighborhoods, and on City of Cleveland letterhead. While the future of this City may be stronger with the addition of casinos, convention centers, medical marts, and stadiums, there must be a constant reminder of the daily progress of improving the quality of everyday life in the City for Cleveland that has to occur for the City to be a desirable place for anyone to want to live, work, and play.

The City of Cleveland Mission Statement can be found under the Veteran's Memorial Bridge at the entrance to a City-owned parking lot in the Flats (Google Maps link).