There is one piece of cloth that is driving a lot of people to come to the American Natural History Museum in NYC. We are talking about a magnificent textile made from extremely soft but strong silk fiber that comes from a local spider. Measuring an impressive 11 feet by 4 feet, this one took four long years to be designed and woven.

We are told that this is a one of its kind piece of textile ever exhibited in the world. The silk fiber that has made jaws drop comes from the female orb spider, which is a species famed for its yellow-hued webs. These spiders were collected from telephone wires everyday by a host of people by using long poles. In fact, these giant spiders are also commonly found in Madagascar. So, these were silked and then released back into the wild every day.

Read More

Art lovers, here is an invitation for you! Reserve yourself in 2010 for making a visit to Bentonville, Arkansas. Why? To adore the unveiling of Crystal Bridges, the art museum designed and erected by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton. Photographers you too book your schedule as it is an interesting opportunity to ink a neat deal.

Walton is all focused on creating this national art museum devoted to American artists from the majestic period to the current. In 2005, Walton outshined by over bidding a couple of East Coast museums paying a wealthy amount for the 1849 Asher B. Durand work “Kindred Spirits.” While there is a lot raising eyebrows at this art work but then we others appreciating the project both for the inspiring personality of Walton’s anthology and for her choice of installing the masterpiece in here against the pleasing locations of prominent art museums.

Architect Moshe Safdie have very elegantly arranged this glass and light wood structure around two ponds at the center of the complex, spread over by bridges. The structure is set on about 100 acres of Ozarks forest, bestowed by the Walton family. Visitors will pursue a track throughout the woods to a hummock that overlooks the pavilions. And right from the knoll, glass elevators guide visitors to a patio with a glass foyer offering a view of the water.

The museum will offer 34,000 sq feet of exposition space counting cafe, performance hall, and library and research center. It is being said that crystal bridges would surely witness the presence of almost 250,000 visitors a year, once it’s launched.

Via MSNBC/ Luxist

Featured above is a lately exposed wooden sculpture of Dainichi Nyorai or Buddha carrying religious objects sealed in its torso for almost 800 years. It got sold for $14.3 million (€9.07 million) during Christie’s auction, thereby breaking the earlier record set by a Rakuchu Rakugai screen that fetched $1.76 million in 1990. Enjoying the presence in the sphere of Japanese work of art by making a world record, the figurine is accredited to Unkei, measured as one of the two best sculptors of the early Kamakura period in 1190s, when Buddhist art was actively practiced.

It was sold off on 18 March 2008 by Mitsukoshi Ltd. You would be surprised to know that the presale estimate was $1.5-2 million. Made of Cyprus wood, the Buddha is clad in generous attire and is positioned in a lotus position with a tiara and trinkets, and hair in a topknot.

Its whereabouts were unknown until now when it was sold to a dealer of Buddhist art most recently. The identity of the buyer is not to be disclosed. The knowledge of the owner considering Buddha statue to be hollow underwent an X-ray at Tokyo National Museum and it was identified that it carries three memorial items, representing Buddhist cipher viz. a wood pagoda, a crystal pagoda and a crystal ball on a bronze stand.

Via IHT

Having earned deceiving looks, this red-brick U.K.-based house has made a success story recently. To its non-awareness, this Oxford home was ballooned with gamut of art pieces valued at 4 million pounds! It was news for the proud owner of this villa, Preston, a 77-year-old lady that she is a millionaire. Lately, an auction of all her pricey valuables fetched 4 million pounds, which is almost 20 times of the price value of the her house. A librarian by profession throughout her life, Preston inherited all these possessions from her father who was an enthusiastic collector. Take a peep into her world that was flooded with variety of masterpieces.

Amongst the lot, there were two paintings by Fra Angelico, a 15th century Italian Renaissance master, that generated a sales value of $3.4 million (1.37 million pounds) and are anticipated to be placed back in Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Other highlighting artwork include a hanging watercolor creation by pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti and an electric fire by Sir Edward Burne-Jones both calculating to be $2 million. Both would be exhibited at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. One must-know treasure discovered here was exclusive creation of Chaucer that was “too small” to be placed in a bookshelf and thus was buried in a wardrobe. It got sold for $150,000.

Via Yahoo

Touted as one of the most ambitious building projects globally, Crystal Island to be positioned in Moscow is anticipated to cost $4 billion and would be erected in next 5 years. Spread over 2.5million sq mts, the individual floor region of this giant edifice would be four times the size of Pentagon positioned in Washington DC. It claims to be the self-contained city within city and is 450m tall. It features a blend of structures including museums, theatres and cinemas.

It is being planned that the island would house gamut of civilizing, demonstration and concert services offering 3000 hotel rooms and 900 serviced apartments followed by offices and shops. Each of these accommodation is been calculated to preserve a vibrant and vigorous community sphere all through the day. Active corral panels built into the structural casing allows sunshine to infiltrate deep into the core of the scheme and can be restricted to adjust the interior setting – clogged in winter for spare warmth and unlocked in summer to permit natural aeration.

Gallery: World’s Biggest Building to be Erected in Moscow

Via FosterandPartners

Images: Skyscrapercity

The building above is a Yoda’s creation crafted through RP machine. Architect François Roche of a french architecture firm R&Sie has lately won the contest to build an innovative “museum of ice”- an art museum and alpine ice research station in Évolène, Switzerland. François is going to build it with an ogre 5-axis CNC machine in Lausanne that can work a 5-meter by 40-meter area, like heaping up mooch of bread.

The proposed mechanized process is quite enthralling and it would be installed on-site, slice by slice. Around 1000 locally harvested trees are anticipated to be used as a raw material for this installation. Trees are then turned into plywood in fragments of 2.5 meters (w) X 7 meters (L). These perpendicular “segments,” each 90 centimeters deep serves as an installed system holding perfunctory services within their depth. Presently, it is just a computerized developed model.

Via Treehugger

National Museum of Natural History in Paris has recently opened an exhibition to celebrate the collection of historical pearls. Known as “Perles, une histoire naturelle” (Pearls a natural history), the exhibition would run from 25 October to 10 March 2008. The highlights of the exhibition are:

A mussel shell of the Biwa Lake festooned with cultured pearls blister.

“The Marie-Antoinette pearls” Necklace:

Featured below is a brooch offered by Prince Albert to Queen Victoria (Great-Britain 1843) on their heir 3rd wedding anniversary. The brooch is decorated with pearls, amethysts, garnet, chrysoberyls.

The “Kuweit pearl” with a rose shaped diamond

The biggest soft water pearl “Hope Pearl” with diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, rubis, enamel and gold:

Boots in nacre, deer and goat hair

I doubt if they are for sale.

Lately unveiled piece of architecture in Munich has created a buzz but its worthiness is under scanning. Also, this is seen as another highlighting feature in Munich besides ongoing October fest. BMW is busy celebrating its gala opening their BMW World (BMW Welt). The theatrical structural design of the BMW World is supported by two curved glass cones.

Located near the vicinity of the headquarters of the German luxury carmaker BMW in the southern German city of Munich, the “BMW World” is gleaming with style. Publicly, the doors of the BMW Welt got opened yesterday only (21 October).

Spread over 73,000-square-meter, this shrine is designed by Viennese architects Coop Himmelb(l)au and is catching eyeballs due to its pouncing roof and twisted-glass tower. It seems to offer a sleek testimony to BMW’s early-20th-century origins as an aircraft-engine maker. With an aim to convey the emotions of the brand, the building known as “car delivery and experience center,” is the latest creation in the array of existing showrooms, cathedrals and concert halls modeled till date. It is gaining the reputation of being the luxury symbol in the history of brand.

Why luxury residences for the upcoming models?

With the increasing number of foreign-based luxury car-makers entering into the market, designing an elite experience for the brands is seen as their USP.

Your much-awaited car comes on a glass elevator and is placed on a rotating platform. It takes almost 40-mins to introduce your new car before you can drive it out of the BMW World onto the gushy roads. The new BMW edifice also offers bistros, shops, fairs and space for events. According to the architects, the building is sustainable through innovative climatic concepts which result in an estimated 30% energy savings.

The new building will be frequently used for the delivery of cars and for other exhibitions. Initially, the estimated price placed by BMW for its new project was “€100 million,” but its structural engineers on the project, Frankfurt-based Bollinger and Grohmann claims the building is worth €250 million. Apparently, the BMW welt paid around 200 million Euros ($286,258,482) for this revolutionary car minster and is available for public for counted 11 hours i.e. from 9am to 8pm.

Designed by Viennese architects Delugan Meissl, the next trend settling creation after this would be the Porsche Museum scheduled to open in 2008. Various players who have recognized the worth of the architectural designs are Volkswagen, with Autostadt with its successor being the Europa-Park theme park near Freiburg.

About 200,000 people a year visit the complex, but BMW is expecting that to quadruple with the new building, with about 45,000 visitors taking home a car.Going against the thought of the picking up the car from the factory kills the delivery cost, the BMW creation charges additional €475 as a fee. With this it is very clear that only elite buyers are invited who have he heart to pay the fee also.

Jump further for more pics:

Via WSJ

Days back when the news of Jail turning into a Hotel was unusual and invited eyeballs, today the very mention of Hotel Everland, one-room hotel has overshadowed its significance. Offering picturesque views, the hotel is parked on the roof of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris from November 2007-December 2008. This inventive creation is the result of the witty efforts delivered by Swiss artist-duo Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann. The hotel is equipped with a single-room along with a king-size bed with attached bathroom and lounge.

This pricey single-room cost equivalent to three-night and four-day stay in any ordianary hotel. To your much-amaze, the per night charges of the hotel are 333 euros ($475) during the week, 444 euros ($634) at weekends. But to compensate the luxury deal or rather a lame excuse to yourself, you can always steal the golden embroidered bath towels as a memento.

This acts as more of an installed masterpiece offering 1970s-style glamour, artistic cachet and an elegant scenic beauty of the Eiffel Tower. This multi-functional edifice works both as a museum exhibit and also as a room offering you a chivalrous night-stay.

Historical Background:

Developed for the Swiss National Exhibition Expo.02, Hotel Everland was first located on the lake of Yverdon, followed by the mobile pavilion factory roof at L/B’s studio. After that from June 2006 till August 2007 Hotel Everland was placed on the roof of the Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig, Germany. During the daytime, the room is a medium to rejoice and entertaining medium for the museum visitors. So, if you have the heart to feel this luxury then rush now as the booking is complete for the coming two-months.

How about a virtual stroll into the room without any cost? Jump further to enjoy one with artists Sabina Lang (L) and Daniel Baumann walking across the room:

Read