Calling All You Esoteric Archibuffs: Let’s Talk Turkey
Vomitrocious III: Refrigerated Beach to be Built in Dubai
How disturbing to learn that the sand on the beach at the Palazzo Versace Dubai will be chilled. This mondo luxe development will refrigerate its beach using a network of buried pipes. It will also feature a chilled 820 square meter outdoor pool and a simulated marine environment called the “scuba lagoon.” Engineered nature, I suspect, is not an eco-friendly kind of thing. And it’s definitely not halal.
So Many Developments in Bali . . . My Head is Spinning
WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG FOR AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE
Apologies to readers of my blog for the past two weeks’ outpouring on (over)development in Bali. I started out hoping to get a general overview of the state of real estate development on the island, and one thing led to another and to another and to another.
It is not easy to get a clear picture of what is being built on this island, because there are no reliable central sources of information, not even government sources. Nobody knows what anyone else is doing, and many developments are taking place in semi-secrecy. So I began searching sites of property agents, developers, planners, engineers, architects, contractors, landscapers and suppliers to try to find out what really is going on here. And I did find out.
The pace of villa, apartment and hotel development in Bali is astounding, appalling, and alarming. It is almost impossible to quantify, and clearly quite impossible to control. It seems that this is a truth which developers large and small do not want to be known. Why? Because if the media, the general public, and the authorities had any idea what a tsunami of buildings is about to flood Bali, somebody might do something to try to stop it.
So I used non-orthodox means to ferret out information on as many projects as I could. For example, many well-known developments provide lists of the members of their project team. Using these I would then visit the websites of the projects’ engineers, quantity surveyors, landscapers, architects, contractors, subcontractors, and so forth. Those businesses, on their websites, often list projects “on the boards.” Many show masterplans, renderings and other information about those projects, which the developers haven’t yet made public.
Each site I would visit, whether a real estate agent, contractor, or what have you . . . would lead to the discovery of several more developments, planned or under way. And each of those, in turn, would lead directly or indirectly to several more. During the past two weeks I have felt like Alice down the rabbit hole. Utterly bewildered, having tumbled into a world of wonders, horrors and absurdities that defy all logic. That is the state of development in Bali now.
I posted 55 new blog posts about developments large and small, responsible and reckless, in remote and urbanised areas, with designs ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. And I have several hundred files in my computer with masterplans and renderings of hundreds and hundreds of other developments. My head is spinning, and there are still thousands of tunnels in the rabbit hole to explore. The number of developments in Bali is vast, and impossible to count, in just the same way it is impossible to count the number of participants in a riot.
One of the reasons that no one can get a handle on just how much development is going on is because the players are so diverse. There are Korean, Japanese, American, Chinese, Taiwanese, Italian, French, Dutch, British, Australian, German, Malaysian, Singaporean, Thai, Russian and Canadian developers building here. Not to mention the Indonesians, of which there are many, representing mainly very large, and very small projects. And Dubai is playing a significant role in development as well, both here in Bali, and more importantly, on the neighbouring island of Lombok.
Few of these diverse players are talking to each other, and the various authorities who are supposed to oversee and manage development here don’t talk to each other either. Every galaxy in the development universe seems to be trapped in its own gravitational field, to the extent that nobody has any idea what the whole universe is like, how big it is . . . and whether there is any intelligent life out there . . . in the Bali development universe.
My extended metaphor is not an arbitrary one. After weeks of investigating, I feel like I’m channelling Carl Sagan . . . of late, I am often seen standing stock still with a fixed expression of total awe on my face, chanting, “Billions and billions . . . ” My partner Bruno is seriously considering which psychiatric hospital to send me to for evalutaion and treatment.
The Bali development universe is vast and mysterious. On the timeline of this universe, I’m afraid, we stand just a few nanoseconds after the Big Bang. The expansion is fast, the heat is intense, and the outcome is entirely uncertain.
I feel like I did when I was a small child sleeping outdoors in summer, staring up at the stars. I am getting a feeling that things out there are bigger, vaster, colder and stranger than any human could ever grasp. There’s the same enormous hollow feeling in my stomach, and the sense of vertigo, like I might fall off the earth and disappear into space.
Whither Bali? Wither Bali? One feels inclined to actually welcome an economic crisis – - something to slow down the spinning of the galaxies of the Bali development universe – - at least slow it down enough to stop the spinning feeling in my head. Please.
WE NOW RESUME OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING
. . . art, architecture, interiors, design, and textiles. Beautiful things. Not horrifying ones.
Lost Weekend
Friday night was the “Shhh! Speakeasy” dinner fundraiser for the Balinale Taksu Film Festival at the Ritz-Carlton in Jimbaran. What with the illicit teacup martinis on arrival, and brown-bagged bottles of hooch (excellent New Zealand red wine) handed out to every attendee, not to mention the fine works of literature on the tables hiding bottles of vodka . . . we were absolutely reeling drunk. Ooops. When referring to ladies (and I am purported to be one), the correct and polite term is “tired and emotional”. So I was “tired and emotional.” After winning the best-headdress contest and being Charleston-wrestled by Taksu Film Festival mascot, Kadek Krishna, I was fit to be tied.
Kunzru: The Expensive Search for What Money Can Never Buy
“Self-fashioning through shopping is a perfect pastime for the modern control society – non-threatening and solipsistic.” (Hari Kunzru for The Guardian)
Kunzru just wrote a piece for The Drawbridge (also excerpted in The Guardian) on the vacuousness of “luxury”. This is not an earth-shaking article and most of its points are self-evident to the aware. Nevertheless, it bears reading as a succinct essay on obvious truths that too many have somehow managed to overlook, look over, and choose not to look at. Also, it is by an author whose first novel I enjoyed tremendously, and whose subsequent ones I also enjoyed.
Vomitrocious No. 1: Gold Pet Mattresses
I am starting a series of posts called Vomitrocious. That is the only word I can come up with that fits the grotesque sort of “luxury” products that are being produced and marketed now. So here is Vomitrocious No. 1. I shall inaugurate this series with 22K gold mattresses for dogs and cats. As seen on Luxist. The Luxist blogger even admitted “I have a Maltese, but she does NOT have a Gold Pet Mattress. And that’s okay with me.” I certainly hope so.
John Hardy, Eco-Celeb: Make Up! Hair! Get this Man a Face Blotter!
How did we miss this? John Hardy, who is adored for his earnest eccentricity, wacky warm heart, and acute eye for great Indonesian textiles, was featured in Destinasian way back in February in an article entitled “Much Ado About Bamboo”. And we missed it. How?
The article delved into some of the true grit of what John does, which is utterly organic, earthy, muddy and valourous. Good for that, I say. John is a likely chap, with plenty of grit under his fingernails. A real hands-on kind of guy who never shirks a good wallow in the rice paddy. But I must say, with all that soil-tilling, the man needs a manicure, frankly. There should be a charity to support nail care for this eco-warrior who doesn’t give a toss what people think, he just gets on with what he believes in, which is grassroots greening of everything he sees. But nails are not the only grooming issue exposed in the aforementioned Destinasian article.
Picture Paradise : Early Photography in the Asia Pacific Region
Frankly, there aren’t a lot of reasons to visit Canberra in the middle of winter, which is now. Here’s one: to see an exhibition of 100 years of Asia-Pacific photography, “Picture Paradise” at the National Gallery of Australia. This is the first exhibition to survey the history of Asia-Pacific photography, showing the work of pioneering local photographers, and Europeans working in the region. Included are images which have never before been exhibited, and a total of over 400 photographs culled from seventeen public and private collections on three continents. If you can’t bring yourself to travel to Canberra before the exhibition closes on 8 November, then definitely buy the exhibition catalog.
Just Say: Go Get Yourself Luxed
For those of us who have found ourselves living in interesting places, there is a price to pay. Many prices, actually. One of them is handling the deluge of enquiries from friends-of-friends who get in touch for information on places to stay, what to do, where to shop, and all manner of other likely and unlikely questions.
Here is the answer. Tell them, “Go get yourself Luxed.” Refer all enquiries to the LUXE GUIDES and they will thank you profusely ever after. This series of breast-pocket-sized, drool-proof, accordion-folded guides answer all the questions worth asking.
Intermission – The Congo
We interrupt this show to share with you the story of a remarkable woman, my sister, Emily Johnston. She just arrived back in America after a stint in the Congo, passing through Rwanda, working as a doctor (that’s her team above). The faces say it all.
Here on my little blog, we are involved with design, art, antiquities, architecture and all of those beautiful things. Honourable, yes. Meanwhile, others are on the frontline, at the raw edge of the human condition. Like Emily.