Author of the highly provocative and controversial novels ‘Crash’ and ‘Empire of the Sun’, JG Ballard succumbed to prostate cancer this past Sunday. Although he will most likely be remembered as a science fiction author with a passion for dystopic modernity, self-destruction and apocalyptic imagery, he is a true visionary. His influence was pervasive throughout the arts world, resulting a cultural phenomenon headlined by the adjective ‘Ballardian’.

Rest in peace. The fight is over.

I remember being blown away by Chuck Palahniuk’s 1996 novel (and the movie adaptation) ‘Fight Club’. I have to admit that I have only read two of novels, but he is certainly a novelist that I hold in high regard, with his cynical and dark humour, minimalist writing style and subversive demeanour. I am, therefore, highly anticipating his forthcoming novel - Pygmy.

Pygmy is “about terrorism and racism. The lead character is a 13-year-old foreign exchange student sent to live with a suburban, white, middle-class [Christian] family… The visit is for six months, and he’s one of a dozen similar kids, all shipped to America to live with typical families. The secret truth is that Pygmy is a terrorist, trained since infancy in martial arts, chemistry and radical hatred of the United States. He has six months to build a prize-winning project for the National Science Fair. If he succeeds, he and his project will go to Washington, D.C. for the finals competition - where the project will explode, killing millions.”

Here is the awesome cover designed by Rodrigo Corral:

The book will be out in May 2009. Preorder it here.

Norton & Sons is a Savile Row bespoke tailor established in 1821 by English tailor Walter Charles Norton to make clothes for the young gentlemen of the City of London. Its long list of loyal clients include Winston Churchill, Fred Astaire, Cary Grant amongst other prominent figures. While it is many a designer’s dream to make over such a historically rich and culturally relevant brand, what must the designer do to appropriate the brand to contemporary tastes? I think Moving Brands did an amazing job adapting the label’s old-world appeal to modern aesthetics:

With 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games to be hosted in Vancouver, there is, unsurprisingly, a building frenzy. The majority of the work is located at the last stretches of undeveloped waterfront land near downtown Vancouver. It is dubbed the Olympic Village. Of the developments, one is complete - Vancouver Convention Centre.

It is a thing of beauty set against our breathtaking Vancouver backdrop. “Built over land and water, with floor-to-ceiling glass throughout that treats guests to phenomenal harbour and mountain views, [the] new West Building is a masterpiece of design, inspiration and sustainability. [The] commitment to green technology can be found in every corner: the ‘living roof,’ seawater heating and cooling, on-site water treatment and even fish habitat built into the foundation.”

“With [the] expansion complete, [Vancouver Convention Centre has] tripled [in] size to cover 1.1 million square feet (or four city blocks) for a combined total of 473,523 square feet of pre-function, meeting, exhibition, and ballroom space. The Vancouver Convention Centre now offers the ability to hold multiple simultaneous events, each with their own separate access and function spaces.”

This is an exciting time in Vancouver. I am proud to be a Vancouverite and I cannot wait till 2010!

The Bouroullec brothers have cooked up yet another amazing piece of furniture. Dubbed the Vegetal Chair, it is (very clearly) inspired by plant life:

“Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec are interested in… nature’s growing process. Their first drawings and models for Vegetal show a structure that grows from four branches into a network of twigs, which create a basket. The twigs support the body of the user and the openings among them allow transparency and space for the legs of a second chair to be stacked on top.”

“The front legs became part of the seating ‘basket’, while the back legs had to be inserted. The voids of the ‘basket’ are not set in an ornamental way as for decoration, they are the free spaces that remain after the construction of the reduced network of twigs needed for the support and comfort of the user. As the twigs became flat, so they needed ribs or nerves on the underside to provide strength: another construction principle borrowed from nature, like the structure of a leaf.”

Of the crop of new films coming out, I am most excited about Brothers Bloom. Offbeat and light-hearted, it should make for a great summer flick. I cannot wait, especially when teased with alternate posters like Zach Johnson’s masterpiece below:

“We endeavored to create a good old-fashioned Hollywood poster, like how they made them before Photoshop came along. The poster took me three months to complete, involved several ill-conceived iterations, and provided me with the I-shit-you-not Job Description of having to look at lots of pictures of the beautiful and talented Rachel Weisz day in and day out, since I kept on fucking up capturing her likeness.”

Michel Gondry’s visual work is unforgettable, as evident in each and every one of the music videos he directs. He has got a second compilation of his more recent works coming up, so mosey over to his official website, fire up your PayPal account, and get yourself a copy!

Damien Hirst has got to be one of the most important contemporary artists to emerge in the London arts scene. Known for his passionate exploration of themes around death and life, this enfant terrible has created works that is visually captivating and intellectually stimulating. Here is one of his spectacular paintings:

Recently, Damien Hirst collaborated with The Hours to create their new album cover. The album will be out 19th April. Along with the launch, 20 autographed litho prints of the album cover will be given away, and one luck winner will get the painting itself, worth £125,000. Register here for a chance to win all those prizes.

It should come as no surprise to those who know me personally that architecture is one of my favourite design arenas. Since the exterior of a building alters our landscapes and its interior determine how we experience and use the space, architecture is a realm that profoundly influences our way of life. This is why architecture is so fascinating.

Today, I learnt that Peter Zumthor was awarded the 2009 Pritzker Architecture Prize. It is truly well-deserved, particularly for his views and ideas on architecture:

“To me, buildings can have a beautiful silence that I associate with attributes such as composure, self-evidence, durability, presence, and integrity, and with warmth and sensuousness as well; a building that is being itself, being a building, not representing anything, just being.”

“Thinking about daylight and artificial light I have to admit that daylight, the light on things, is so moving to me that I feel almost a spiritual quality. When the sun comes up in the morning - which I always find so marvellous, absolutely fantastic the way it comes back every morning - and casts its light on things, it doesn’t feel as if it quite belongs in this world.”

“The idea of things that have nothing to do with me as an architect taking their place in a building, their rightful place - it’s a thought that gives me an insight into the future of my buildings: a future that happens without me. That does me a lot of good. It’s a great help to me to imagine the future of rooms in a house I am building, to imagine them actually in use.”

Photographs are of Bruder Klaus Chapel, from Danda.