(Cont.)
And the beat goes on in the “modernism is pop” series, as a certain Bollywood hunk flunks his bunk (I have no idea what that means) in front of Gehry, Calatrava, and Moneo.
As I have already explained, I never much cared for Rafael Moneo’s museum of modern art in Stockholm. But I rather like those plain tilted glass boxes of his Kursaal cultural center in San Sebastián (see video clip above, and pics below).
There used to be such a great divide between “what architects like” and ordinary people’s tastes. But if a wacky, tacky movie spectacle such as Sivaji (starring the rather rotund Rajanikanth) gladly and exuberantly makes use of the stark and clean architecture of the Kursaal as backdrop for the zaniest pop music video imaginable, it must be obvious to each and everyone that the gap between elite and pop is closing fast: because apparently it’s not just in the West (as we have already seen in the case of the Alkaholiks video mentioned in an earlier posting) that pop culture is getting to be perfectly in sync with the tastes and preferences of the architectural elites: believe it or not, in 2007 (when Sivaji is made), architectural modernism goes Bollywood!
Thank you, Claes Sörstedt, for sending me this delicious YouTube tip.