This is Black Rock City

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

One-of-a-kind place on Earth

2009

Welcome to the 2009 chapter of This is Black Rock City.

This blog is dedicated to the ephemeral architecture of the desert.

It showcases the different solutions that the black rock citizens have to come up with in order to survive in style (not always) the scorching sun and most of all, the almighty fierce winds.

Every year new designs come up , old ones are refined, same mistakes are made and next year, promise, it will not fly away.

Burning Man is an overwhelming experience, so to keep up with the visual overload that one might feel on the playa, I invite you to scroll this mile long blog packed with hundreds of images.

Any order of high resolution print has to be sent to: burn@philippeglade.com

If images dating back to 96 interest you, check my site: http://www.philippeglade.com

The 2009 chapter has several parts:

Best in show
Camps
Installations
Mutant cars
Night vision

Feel free to contact me at: burn@philippeglade.com if a camp or an installation is misnamed.

I would like to thank all the burners for their terrific creations and constructions that make Black Rock City a unique place on earth.

Namaste.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Black Rock City 2009

It's there, I think.

Welcome.

It cannot stay because it's a leave no trace event.

I forgot, Black Rock City is the location of The Burning Man.

A native.

Best in show 1

A great homage to the Fosters' s Gherkin in London.

The Space Mountain Camp by Shawn B.

An interesting system that is good under the wind and welcomes a queen size mattress.

I am looking for next year to see a bigger version of it.

This is not hand made but this sun shade was a big hit this year, the discounted price had may be something to do with its success. Easy to put up, welcomes several people and sherry on top

it sustains the fierce winds of the playa.

If you look carefully you will see three of them

This type of shelter made with insulating material after years of being in small size (see the 2008 part of this blog) is now in adult size. Note that the owner had the A.C plus a smaller version attached.

Winner of the overall aesthetic prize, great spatial territory defined with the balloons. Everybody has seen this camp.

Superb structural design in the 3:00 plaza.

with the magic carpet.

Best in show 3

The best design for a dance camp somewhere at 10:00 made of pallets, great music, great people.

Year after year, The Relaxomatic Plushitorium is improving. This use of stretch fabric is gaining a lot of afficionados. Plus they have a fleet of bikes with their plates.

Best in Show 4

Inside The relaxomatic. Cosy.

Camp at 3:00 and jurassic.

Clash of design.

Tipis, centuries old solution, were everywhere.

Best in show 5

Just love these perspectives

Kuddos to Eric, from Mount Shasta, is first burn, came up with an altered version of a tipi and it worked well. Nice humble fellow.

The Red Lightning camp with, on a bigger scale, an altered version of tipi.

Best in show 6

Check out the structure.

Is it a mutant car/shelter or a shelter/mutant car?

Decided to put it in best in show because it looks like a Victorian San Francisco house, love this type of architecture.

This said, you should see that you see nothing at the intersection corner which is a road hazard.

I am not picking on this one in particular, it's just to illustrate the fact that too many big structures at the corners make the traffic sometimes tricky.