After making an impromptu debut as a two-year-old reciting religious verse on her father's music hall stage, it seems almost inevitable that Loie (then Louise) Fuller would become the toast of the Paris stage by the turn of the century. In her dances, she transformed herself into flowers, birds, flam

Elegant, Ethereal, Organic, Sensual

The name of the architectural offices of Vastu-Shilpa Consultants, "Sangath," translates into "moving together through participation." The workspace's appellation is telling, as is the title of the group itself; Vastu Shilpa means "design of environment." In case it's not already painfully obvious, t

Environmental architecture, Functional, Modernist architecture, Organic, Political, Pristine, Sincere

Kenzo Tange's career began with a rather daunting task: the rebuilding of Hiroshima after World War II. His country had seen the greatest single destruction of the twentieth century with the dropping of the atomic bomb. Tange seized upon this tragic event, transforming it into one of his greatest cre

Contemplative, Metabolism and the japanese new wave, Organic, Pioneering, Urban

During the climactic battle scene in Kurosawa's "Ran," the camera gazes on soldiers pierced with arrows or thrust against burning battlements. In the castle tower, a patriarch searches in vain for a sword with which to commit hara-kiri. As our eyes take in the tragedy, we hear neither the cries of me

20th-century music, Contemplative, Ethereal, Moody, Organic, Silence