Fame in Turkey

A magazine published in Istanbul, Turkey, called BetonArt, has published several articles about contemporary concrete design. Unfortunately I don't speak Turkish, but the pictures are worth looking at. I've uploaded a PDF file (1 MB) to the GoogleGroups ArtConcrete web site if anyone wants to take a look. (You have to join the group before you can look, but maybe it's a group you'd be interested in joining?)

They used some of my concrete jewellery in one article: page 57 images 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7. The magazine's mandate is about promoting concrete to the architecture community. The articles cover such topics as furniture, Litracon, bowls, jewellery.

Here's a quick link: http://groups.google.com/group/ArtConcrete/files then click on Betanart23.pdf. If you're not a member of ArtConcrete you'll have to subscribe.

Veijo Rönkkönen Concrete Figures

Photo: Veli Granö, from the book Self-Made Man, by Veli Granö

Veijo Rönkkönen is a Finnish artist who lives near the Russian border. On his small farm near Parikkala he has created almost 500 life-sized human figures in concrete, many of them exercising and stretching. His sculpture park is apparently open to the public.

There are two good sets of images to look through on Flickr:
http://tinyurl.com/ktjxhc
http://tinyurl.com/mcpyne

Mountainous Molding Project

MuseumRock Products from Louisville KY have made what may very well be the largest molded concrete object ever made. They made the mold in California, shipped it to Hawaii, and poured in hundreds of thousands of pounds of colored grout over a matrix of steel rebar. The finished "rock" measures 136 feet long and 22 feet high. It is part of an educational and interpretive Navajo Indian Memorial located in Na Aina Kai Botanical Garden and Sculpture Park which is slated to be open to the public in 2010.



The mold was made of rubber coated EPS styrofoam. 17,000 pounds of pigment was used to colour the concrete.

http://museumrock.com/most_outrageous_project.htm

Forest Boone of MuseumRock says: "My mix was just a standard grout mix 4,500 psi... one part course manufactured sand and two parts dune sand from Asia mixing in an auger mixer. I poured it in about 20 different lifts, changing colors each lift."

Photo credits: MuseumRock