Arts & Culture

Zaha Hadid: The Lady Gaga of Architecture

Zaha Hadid is having a very good year. Last October she was named the Stirling Prize winner for her design of the Maxxi Art Centre in Rome. And two weeks ago, she won again, this time for the Evelyn Grace Academy in London. Not bad for an architect whose buildings were once dismissed as the work of a fantasist.  In fact, some of her earlier works won competitions, most notably The Cardiff Bay Opera House, but were never built. Some said that her designs worked better in theory than in practice. Others speculated that race or gender might have been factors in the decision not to build.  However, Hadid said,  "...I decided not to meow about it and just carry on."

Born in Iraq and living in London since 1971, she studied under Rem Koolhaas who once described her as " a planet in her own orbit."  She was the first female architect to win the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 2004. And now, she appears to have come full circle and is designing the new headquarters for the central bank in Iraq.

The Evelyn Grace Academy was created to house four separate schools in Brixton. The identity of each school remains unique, but the shared spaces, including a vibrant red track that literally runs right through the academy, connect each school to the others.

 

Hadid's designs do have a reputation for focussing on spectacle rather than on function.  Some of them are, indeed, spectacular.  Below is the railway station in Innsbruck she designed.

 

 

These days she also designs what look to be very uncomfortable furniture, cars and shoes.

 

               

Whatever you think of her work, she's an original.

 

 

Toronto Public Library owns several titles on Hadid's work. Here is a sampling:

             

 

           
            

 

 

On Stage with "Ghosts" -- Performing Arts Theatre Series Fall 2011

Please join us on Monday October 24, from 7-8 pm and hear guest speaker, Paula Wing, Associate Artist, Soulpepper Theatre Company, talk about Ghosts, the play and production.

 

Ghosts, known as Henrik Ibsen's most controversial play, was initially turned down by Scandinavian theatre houses.  Though written in 1881, its first staging was not until a year later in Chicago, at the Aurora Turner Hall, for an audience of Scandinavian immigrants. 

When Ghosts finally enjoyed its European premiere in Sweden in 1883, it scandalised audiences, one critic writing, "Revoltingly suggestive and blasphemous ....Characters either contradictory in themselves, uninteresting or abhorrent."  Perhaps this is not surprising given that the play uses, according to The New Penguin Dictionary of the Theatre, "venereal disease as a symbol of collective guilt in a hypocritical society." 

Despite such press, however, it was well reviewed, and has been translated, adapted, and performed many times, and even parodied by J.M. Barrie in his play, Ibsen's Ghost. 

 

Here are two recent versions of Ghosts we have in our Performing Arts collection, the first by Amelia Bullmore, and the second by Frank McGuinness. 

 

    

 

Morris Panych, author of the current adaptation of Ghosts, is a Canadian playwright well known for plays such as 7 Stories, Trespassers, and most recently, Gordon.  He has also written adaptations of other popular plays, such as Revizor by Nikolai Gogol, LH̉ôtel du libre-échange by Georges Feydeau & Maurice Desvallières, and Anatol by Arthur Schnitzler, which have been published in the collection Still Laughing: three adaptations.

 

 

                         

This is the second in our program on current Toronto theatre - On Stage Performing Arts Theatre Series - six lectures / six theatres.  They are all being held free of charge at the Toronto Reference Library - Beeton Auditorium.

• “The Normal Heart” hear guest speaker Joel Greenberg, Director and Artistic Director, Studio 180 Theatre on Monday, October 3, 7 - 8 pm.

• "Ghosts”  hear guest speaker Paula Wing, Associate Artist, Soulpepper Theatre Company  on Monday, October 24, 7 - 8 pm.

•  “The Children's Republic”  hear guest speaker Hannah Moscovitch, Playwright-in-Residence, Tarragon Theatre on Monday November 7, 7 - 8 pm.

• “Red” hear guest speaker Natasha Mytnowych,  Associate Director of Programming, Canadian Stage  on Monday, November 14, 7 - 8 pm.

• “Topdog/Underdog” hear guest speaker Philip Akin, Director and Artistic Director, Obsidian Theatre Company on Monday, November 28, 7 - 8 pm.

• “The Penelopiad”  hear guest speaker: Kelly Thornton, Artistic Director, Nightwood Theatre on Monday, December 5, 7 - 8 pm.

 

 

 

Did you know the Performing Arts Department at the Toronto Reference Library also had:

• an audition board of current plays and also extensive collection of monologues
• plays from across Canada in English and French and plays from around the world
• theatrical reviews
• clipping files on Canadian performances and organizers
• theatre programs from local theatre companies - both current and historical collections
• index to Canadian theatre productions
• original stage designs by major Canadian artists
• sound recordings of stage dialects, plays and comedies
• music scores - popular, classical, theatre and by instrument
• online literary criticism you can access from home or in a library branch

Relive the Yorkville Sound of the 60s - Hippies, Folk Music and Early Rock & Roll

On Friday, October 21^st, there will be a FREE concert at the Toronto Reference Library. Relive Yorkville’s magical music scene of the ‘60s and come out and enjoy the spirit of the '60s.

Artists, students, tourists and the simply curious flocked to its narrow boulevards to take in a poetry reading, check out an art gallery or listen to the music of future stars like Ian & Sylvia, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot.  The CBC did many live interviews at the time and they really give one the authentic flavor of the period - and in the actual voices of the people at that time.

For one night, on Friday, October 21st, 7-10 pm, the Toronto Reference Library will take you back to a time when Yorkville was the hub of Canada’s bohemian scene, Toronto’s equivalent of New York’s Greenwich Village or San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district.  There will be with free performances by:

 

• Klaas Von Graft and Judith Orban
• Chick Roberts, Harvey Kotler and Eddie Sokoloff of The Sinners, a Toronto band which released two albums in 1968 including one named "Go Go Trudeau"
  
• Tony Quarrington a guitarist and songwriter who collaborated with Chick Roberts on his album Blue Turning Gray
•  Performer Dede Higgins, a regular at the popular Yorkville club and coffeehouse
  
• Keith McKie, lead singer and guitarist of Kensington Market (one of Canada's most stylistically innovative early rock groups)  with John Jackson and Scott Kennedy
• Stan Endersby guitarist with The Tripp,  Livingston’s Journey and many other bands
  
• Rick Fruchtman bassist with The Passing Fancy, a rock band which had many regional hits throughout Canada
  
• Juno Award winner, songwriter and guitarist  Cathy Young
  
•  George Olliver vocalist with The Rogues and Mandala, a popular early R & B group which opened for The Byrds and The Rolling Stones.
  
• And much more!

 

The Yorkville Sound
Friday, October 21, 7-10 PM
Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St.

 

 

Interested in the early history of Yorkville - please see Yorkville in Pictures 1853-1883:

 

 If you're interested in knowing more about the 60s era or hippies why not try ?

                 

 

• The Yorkville subculture; a study of life styles and interactions of hippies and non-hippies.

 

 

Louis Comfort Tiffany and Colour

Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) was a painter, designer and businessman. Building on his father's business, he revolutionized the manufacture of glass with his creating of Favrile glass, an iridescent type of glass. He founded his own company, Tiffany Studios, and produced a line of glass objects for interior decoration, including mosaics, glass windows and decorative objects.  He is best known for his lamps.

Of the many books on Tiffany in the library system, these caught my eye.

 

             

In The Lamps of Louis Comfort Tiffany, this quotation stands out.  "When first I had a chance to travel in the East and to paint where the people and buildings also are clad in beautiful hues, the prememinence of color in the world was brought forcibly to my attention.  I returned to New York wondering why we made so little use of our eyes, why we refrained so obstinately from taking advantage of colour in our architecture and our clothing when nature indicates its mastership."

Tiffany's country estate, Laurelton Hall, at Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, was a showcase of his work.  The extensive gardens there inspired many of his designs.  

 

                     
The decorative remains of Laurelton Hall form part of the collection of Tiffany's work at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art in Winter Park, Florida.  Visit their website for an introduction to the many facets of his contribution to the decorative arts.

An artist whose work has provided beautiful objects for many cultural institutes and people's homes.

On Stage with "The Normal Heart" - Performing Arts Theatre Series Fall 2011

Please join us on Monday October 3, from 7-8 pm and hear guest speaker Joel Greenberg, Artistic Director Studio 180 Theatre, and director of The Normal Heart (in association with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre), talk about the play and the production.

 

The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer was selected as one of the 100 greatest plays of the twentieth century by the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain.

 

Larry Kramer, the author of Normal Heart, is a well known gay rights and AIDs advocate as well as author/playwright.

 

 

                         

This is the first in our program on current Toronto theatre - On Stage Performing Arts Theatre Series - six lectures / six theatres.  They are all being held free of charge at the Toronto Reference Library - Beeton Auditorium.

• “The Normal Heart” hear guest speaker Joel Greenberg, Director and Artistic Director, Studio 180 Theatre on Monday, October 3, 7 - 8 pm.

• "Ghosts”  hear guest speaker Paula Wing, Associate Artist, Soulpepper Theatre Company  on Monday, October 24, 7 - 8 pm.

•  “The Children's Republic”  hear guest speaker Hannah Moscovitch, Playwright-in-Residence, Tarragon Theatre on Monday November 7, 7 - 8 pm.

• “Red” hear guest speaker Natasha Mytnowych,  Associate Director of Programming, Canadian Stage  on Monday, November 14, 7 - 8 pm.

• “Topdog/Underdog” hear guest speaker Philip Akin, Director and Artistic Director, Obsidian Theatre Company on Monday, November 28, 7 - 8 pm.

• “The Penelopiad”  hear guest speaker: Kelly Thornton, Artistic Director, Nightwood Theatre on Monday, December 5, 7 - 8 pm.

 

 

Did you know the Performing Arts Department at the Toronto Reference Library also had:

• an audition board of current plays and also extensive collection of monologues
• plays from across Canada in English and French and plays from around the world
• theatrical reviews
• clipping files on Canadian performances and organizers
• theatre programs from local theatre companies - both current and historical collections
• index to Canadian theatre productions
• original stage designs by major Canadian artists
• sound recordings of stage dialects, plays and comedies
• music scores - popular, classical, theatre and by instrument
• online literary criticism you can access from home or in a library branch