Tuesday, October 4, 2011

3 Tarps



(The 2010 part of this blog is 4 posts down)





A neat, clean and simple tarp camp by Frank from Orange county



















A la Christo



O.K, by now the stock market has crashed, George Clooney is the new president and you have chosen your next shelter, you may click older posts to see to end of 2011 and the beginning of 2010 (get a refill of energy drinks, it's endless).




2 Personal care


Bravo, this is some serious shower apparatus. Well done.




Some really big shower tank





The largest evaporating pound of BRC?
Do they draw straws to designate the volunteer on the last day to take care of it





Finally, after all these years seeing in every visited porta-potty ads for the pee funnel camp I found it, carport structure, with this self-service box filled with the most famous device on the playa.







It works for men too.


1 The last bar standing



This one looks ready to cross the Sahara





This camp nicely (everything is relative) integrated the ugly prefabs




Here is the counter-example, just an ugly neighborhood of prefabs.
I truly accept them for the hard workers-participants-volunteers of the city (DPW, medics...)
This settlement looks like more week-long packages set up by a tour operator renting these facilities for some tourists (just an intuition without any hard facts).




I still have questions about the strength of these garden shades in case of heavy winds, nevertheless this camp made it through the week.




My very last image on my drive toward the exodus, the last bar standing. Again lucky for them it was a storm-free year






The end, finally!

This was really a journey.







My camp at night which is in the tarps and poles category. One thing i am adamant with, nothing touches the ground except the counterweight in the middle, to minimize the dust gathering process, the less exposed the easiest the breakdown and the storage back home!






Self-portrait by Airstream.






A nice lady stopped me to take my picture before crossing the playa to reach my base.





At the end of the week, exhausted and lighter (4 kg off) but so happy to have made it in one piece, I had met a lot of camp builders, creators, simple burners more than happy to share their knowledge and inputs. Little I knew that to go through the 50 hours of photo-shoot and 2000 images it will take me another 150 hours of editing to upload this images of Black Rock City 2011. 
I really hope that the 5 of you who made it to this post enjoyed the journey.
Philippe Glade 



P.S: don't forget my book "Black Rock City, NV : the ephemeral architecture of Burning Man" is coming out mid-november.





Saturday, October 2, 2010









Welcome to the 2010 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 (or not) 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 down this miles long blog packed with hundreds of images.


If images dating back to 1996 interest you, check my site: http://www.philippeglade.com

Camp or installation misnamed? Feel free to contact me at: burn@philippeglade.com

Usually my blogs are Republicans-free zones but sometimes they are right: the playa is flat, the city is built in 7 days and, yes, Obama was born in Black Rock City.

This is a very SFW blog. Sorry.

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

Super special thanks to Heather Gallagher (camera girl), Patrick Ford and Lady Bee.




Foreword: Weather talk and table of contents

This year the weather was somehow mild, several days without wind, bearable heat, few white-out in the city.
What was a bit unusual was the downpours at the very beginning that took everyone by surprise making the playa unwalkable for several hours combined with a very cold wind.
Beware for next year.








The 2010 This is Black Rock City Table of contents:

  • Best in show 8 entries
  • Structures 8 entries
  • The City 21 entries
  • Art Installations 5 entries
  • Mutant/Art Cars 5 entries
  • BRC Citizens 3 entries
  • Me, myself and my camp 1 entry

Each entry has 5 images

So, Welcome Home! Seat back, relax and enjoy.





Best in show 1

2010 was a year of trends confirmation, insulated hexayurts getting bigger, higher scaffolding structures, more disaster relief domes, hundreds of tan carports, tipi solo or in villages, invasion of R.V's, a growing number of hitchhikers (!!?), perennial camps becoming reassuring landmarks and, sadly, prefabs with private porta-potties.

Because of my intense search for new designs, new concepts, new way to create a neighborhood with shelters I don't feature twice the same camp/shelter unless there is improvement over the previous year (case for this year winner of the Golden Stake Award).

Old timers, landmark camps, I might have your camp in the 09, 08, 07 entries of this blog (lot of scrolling) or the 1996-2006 chapter of my web site.



One more time, the winner in design, persistence and inventiveness category is The Chiton.
Year after year, D'Milo Hallerberg the designer of this shell-like structure is upgrading his concept with this time a several parts collapsible structure.
(a chiton is a primitive marine mollusk in the class Polyplacophora from Wikipedia)

If you want to see the evolution of this shelter take time to visit the 2009, 2008, 2007 entries of this blog.
The early years 1996-2006 here: http://www.philippeglade.com/minigalerieburningman.htm






Vertical Camp or how to use smartly and in style scaffoldings with an architectural flair.
 The Golden Rebar for buildings.




Everything in this camp from the art car, the chairs and the pyramidal structure (look at the wooden connectors for the 2x4) was designed by the artist Gregg Fleishman visit his place you will be impressed
http://www.greggfleishman.com




The winner in the overall camps category.
Extremely well thought and organized.
A main dome for the group with satellites around with a ground sheet throughout to keep dust at a minimum.




This is the natural evolution of the" insulation boards shelters" now available for big standing up party.
Winner of the Golden Rmax award.

Best in show 2

The Spoutnik (if you have the real name contact me) is becoming a landmark





The Gherkin in its second year, built using catenoid (more explanations here: strutsandbolts.com)
An addition to the landmark structures.
The Silver Rebar for building





Almost a tie with Vertical camp.
The Bronze Rebar for building



The underdog that I totally missed. I was aiming for the lighthouse but while editing for this blog I realized that the pink structure was handmade and truly original in the way to assemble the panels, to follow up next year.




Winner in the "Cocoon" category

Best in show 3






Winner in the "Om" category


A retro feeling on this A-frame or maybe it's a Daniel Buren installation


?

Best in show 4

Bagdad@10:00
In France these guys would be deported somewhere bad.



Alternative Energy Zone
An example to follow, they ban the use of generators. BRAVO!



First Camp.
Golden Rebar in Layout






Size really matters

Best in show 5


Plaza 3:00@Jakarta   before the rush



"Déjà view" camp, winner of the Golden Rebar in the category "nothing on the ground but a ground sheet"



When the habitat mimic the environment. Winner in the camo category




Overall winner in the category "old school survival burner"




Sometimes when you arrive very late you can get lucky. Because of the density of population, by the end of the week late comers overspilled beyond the perimeter road, Kyoto, between 8:30 and 10:00

Best in show 6

Malmart at dusk




Village......?
Now these hexayurts are a common sight



European castle




On Kyoto street




One of the many tipi villages