Toluu

WebUrbanist

We bring you the latest in urban art, travel, architecture, abandonments and other amazing stuff from around the world. Subscribe and enjoy!

Art on Wheels: The Magnificent Truck Art of PakistanToday

(Images via Abro on Flickr, Saudi Aramco World, and Pakistani Truck Art.)

The under-appreciated, indigenous Pakistani tradition of truck painting has an extraordinary history, starting in the days of the Raj. As early as the 1920’s, competing transportation companies would hire craftsmen to adorn their buses in the hopes that these moving canvases would attract more passengers. The technique worked so well that pretty soon you couldn’t purchase a ticket without seeing dozens of beautifully painted trucks waiting to take you to your destination. While the art doesn’t serve the same purpose anymore, it is still as prevalent as ever and has become more intricate and developed a deeper cultural significance over time.

Even though truck art isn’t unique to Pakistan anymore, nowhere else in the world is the practice so pervasive. In a country where the per capita income is barely north of $2,000, it is surprising to see fleet owners (the trucks aren’t owner-operated) spend $3,000-$5,000 per truck for structural modifications that convert these gas-guzzling, smoke-spewing, road-dominating monstrosities into beautiful moving canvases covered in poetry, folk tales, and ‘…religious, sentimental and emotional worldviews of the individuals employed in the truck industry,’ making it one of the biggest forms of representational art in the country.

Organic Architecture: 12 Beautifully Curved BuildingsYesterday

Organic: shapes, methods and patterns modeled after those found in living systems. When applied to architecture, the results can be interesting at least, mesmerizing at best and are always a challenge for designers and builders alike. These 12 examples of organic architecture showcase some of the ways designers transform a lot by learning to bend a little.

(image via: Eikongraphia)

Architect and visionary Robert Bruno has been building his organic, fantastic, metallic Steel House since 1974. Overlooking a cliff near Lubbock, Texas, the huge structure has grown from a spindly metal tripod of beams to a massive accumulation of rusted steel - 110 tons at last word! Much like an actual living being, Bruno’s house continues to grow and evolve.

21 Cleverly Mirrored Images & Reflected PhotosYesterday

Photographers know countless methods to add interest to to their images through tricks of light, angle, color and more.  One of the oldest ones in the book is to double the image with a reflection - to create a kind of mirror image of the original within the same frame.  A well-planned reflection can display perfect symmetry or a uniquely distorted one that can be captured only a single time before it shimmers away.

Bridges

(images via: BBC and Travel Adventures)

Bridges over water are a favorite subject of photographers.  Caught at

7 Awesome Abandoned Factories, Mills and MinesNovember 20

As the world moves away from the Industrial Age and deeper into the Information Age, the relics of our former industries can been seen aging and abandoned.  Often, older industrial buildings and sites are so polluted with the materials once used or made there that the locations can’t be used for much else.  Since they can’t be used, they simply sit and gather the layers of time that make them fascinating until they are demolished, repurposed, or completely forgotten about.  These abandoned factories, mills and mines have served their useful lives and now stand silent.

Port Mulgrave Mine, United Kingdom

13 Thrilling Ways Steampunk Art Hijacks Hi-techNovember 19

Steampunk art, fashion, design and mods are seen by some as a reaction to today’s generic, plastic gadgets that all look the same until one gets very, very close - practical yes, pleasing no. So polish up that monocle, bring on the brass and banish cookie-cutter clutter as Steampunk artists find thirteen more ingenious ways to redesign and refashion the world by hijacking hi-tech back to the future (past)!

(image via: Geekologie)

How to take a keyboard from ergonomic to phantasmagoric? Start with an IBM M-15 Ergo Keyboard (shown below), drink one bottle of Absinthe and retire to the laboratory. The result may look a lot like this