John Menick

It took me a while to notice, but this winter the indefatigable CLUI added an entry to their site on the sale of the natural and manmade Johnston Atoll. (Also note their entry on the Dixie Mall.) Discovered in the early 19th century and converted to a nuclear test site in the ’50s and ’60s, it seems that the military has gotten all of the their mileage out of the concrete slabs and are putting up for sale. The islands are unbelievable in a JG Ballard sort of way, sporting a ruined golf course, airstrips and acres of radioactive concrete. How could anyone turn down the offer? Some choice quotes and photos from CLUI:

In 1962, Johnston was used for a series of nuclear tests as part of Operation Dominic, which included the only U.S. test of an operational ballistic missile with a live warhead. For this test a Polaris missile was launched from a submarine, and traveled 1200 miles through space and the atmosphere, until detonating 11,000 feet above the ocean near Johnston…

…Also that year, the newly constructed rocket launch pad at Johnston was used for a number of extremely high altitude nuclear tests. On June 20, during “Starfish,” the Thor rocket engine cut out a minute after launch, and the missile was intentionally destroyed, at 30,000 feet. Large pieces of the rocket, including some plutonium–contaminated wreckage, rained down on the atoll….

… The test was repeated in July, and the rocket successfully flew to the highest elevation ever for a nuclear detonation (248 miles above the earth). Impressive light displays of the “artificial aurora borealis” lasted for several minutes, and were visible from the military outpost at Kwajalein Atoll, 1,600 miles away. The electromagnetic pulse from the blast knocked out street lighting in Oahu.

Other projects have taken place on the island in the last 50 years, the details of which are only partially known to us. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Johnston was the site for the government’s first operational anti-satellite program, which involved nuclear rockets ready to launch from Johnston to knock out enemy satellites. Also, beginning in 1964, a series of open-air biological weapon tests was conducted at Johnston Atoll. The American strategic bio-weapon program tests involved a number of ships positioned around the island, upwind from barges loaded with rhesus monkey test subjects that were exposed to agents dispensed from aircraft.

(Via BLDGBLOG.)

The video mentions the protests at the fair, but not all of them.

Since finishing The Disappearance three years ago, I’ve been casually collecting all things related to the city of Nuremberg. Also a fan of Google Earth, two interests intersected today with this bizarre post from Google Earth Hacks. It seems that there is a massive model car racetrack near the rally fields that is so large it’s visible 1373 feet. An essay on architectural scale waiting to happen.

While reviewing the exhibition “Future City” at the Barbican, London, Jonathan Glancey chooses to look at the effect visionary filmmakers have had on how we view the architecture of the future. He argues that although Archigram and Superstudio may have wowed those in the know, it’s designers, f/x artists, and architects like Lawrence G Paul (Blade Runner), Harry Lange (2001), and Eugen Schüfftan (Metropolis) who have given the public its sense of what’s to come.

As part of it’s special issue on architecture, the New York Times Magazine has a short article on the designers Constantin and Laurene Leon Boym’s “Buildings of Disaster” series. “Buildings of Disaster”…

…is a line of tiny replicas of buildings that have become symbols through association with catastrophe, tragedy or scandal — like the Unabomber’s cabin, the Federal Building in Oklahoma City and a Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Each is just a few inches high and made of bonded nickel, in editions of 500; the retail price is $95… The idea, Boym says, was both an “alternative history of architecture” (buildings famous by way of emotional involvement, not aesthetics) and an examination of what souvenirs are all about. While he clearly anticipated a certain amount of controversy, he does not seem to have anticipated the series’ durability. But that can be explained in a straightforward way: market demand.

Also mentioned in the article is a group that belongs on any list of obscure interest societies: the Souvenir Building Collectors Society.