Keeping up with the times

[muckefuck]

Why do newscritters keep on referring to Rangoon (that's "Yangon" for you junta symps) as "the capital"? Didn't any of them get the memo? I don't think this is a minor detail either, since the uprising of 1988 (not to mention colour/flower-coded people power revolutions elsewhere) was a major factor in the decision to start afresh in the wilderness, Abuja-style.

Also: suck!

Comments

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

cf. "Constantinople" (which seems to have finally been dropped, even by Russians and Balkan folks, following 1989).

Some British news sources still call the place "Burma." I really want to go see the new capital: one of my side projects is Manufactured Capitals of Late 20th Century Totalitarian States (begun when I visited Ashgabat, though Astana's pretty special, too. cf. Yamoussoukro and its famous Basilica) - everyone does Brasilia and Chandigarh, but these more recent projects seem even more, erm, interesting.

[tortipede.livejournal.com]

Isn't it still Caergystennin (sp?) in Welsh, though? Or is that only if you're desperately old-fashioned?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I've only seen Caergystennin in courtly literature. When the Beeb speaks Welsh, it says "Istanbul". (No idea, however, how that last vowel is pronounced.)

[bunj.livejournal.com]

...everyone does Brasilia and Chandigarh, but these more recent projects seem even more, erm, interesting.

Maybe if they built their cities in the shape of an airplane or had Le Corbusier design them (or had Le Corbusier design them in the shape of an airplane...) they'd get get more press. I mean, Astana could have been made in the shape of an eagle or something. No imagination.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

I think your Corbusier point is the clincher: in the end they're just not made by Westerners (Niemeyer gets a special invitation to the cocktail party because he was involved in CIAM), and therefore not interesting.

...so when Rem Koolhaas knocks down Beijing and rebuilds it in the shape of an iPhone, it'll get some attention.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't the equivalent be moving the whole kit and caboodle to the rolling green hills outside the capital of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, which is mere kilometres from China's geographic center? The city's name, Hezuo, contains the character 合, which means "unite" and would seem to suggest some real architectonic possibilities.

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

Good point, and in some ways not so different from the Brazilian case. But does Hezuo have mountains to the north and water to the south?

Actiually, I was being absent-minded when I mentioned Beijing: there's a fair chance that even the America architectural press might notice stuff happening there right now - I suppose I thought of it because, well I'm here, on your LJ. I think Koolhaas' star might even illuminate benighted Central Africa or Ecuador, should he find himself working there.