What do a wedding dress, an opera house, some purses, and a torch have in common?

"Olympic Torch Voted Design of Year Before London’s Games"
Farah Nayeri, Bloomberg (April 24, 2012)

"The Olympic torch was voted Design of the Year in a U.K. contest, as judges chose to reward the sporting emblem in the year of the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Designed by London-based Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, the tapered rod has 8,000 holes representing the 8,000 bearers who will carry it over 8,000 miles (12,874 kilometers). Runners-up in the 'Design of the Year 2012' announced today included Catherine Middleton's wedding gown, a Zaha Hadid opera house in China, and Vivienne Westwood handbags made in Kenya...."

The Bloomberg article doesn't say how folks judged the relative merits of a ventilated torch, a wedding dress, an opera house, and some handbags. Sure, they were looking at 'design' in each case: but design criteria for an opera house and a wedding gown aren't all that similar. Come to think of it, though, the torch and the handbags may be roughly the same size: and both are designed to be carried.

Maybe that odd lot of entrants isn't so unrelated, after all. Still: a wedding dress and an opera house?

Here's a photo of the opera house in question. Looks pretty cool, in the Lemming's opinion.


(Iwan Baan/Design Museum, via Bloomberg, used w/o permission)
"The Guangzhou Opera House, designed by Pritzker Prize winner Zaha Hadid. The building is nominated for the Design of the Year award, organized by the Design Museum in London. Photographer: Iwan Baan/Design Museum via Bloomberg"

The Guangzhou Opera House looks very impressive from this angle, but the photo raises some questions. Is the camera at eye level? If so, why aren't there any handrails on the left side of that - is it a walkway? And if that's a reflecting pool to the right, what does it look like when there's a breeze?

Oh, well: It's still a cool photo.

Related posts:

• "Olympic This, Olympic That, and Chobham Academy"
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• "And Now, For Something Completely Different: Portable Buildings; and an Octopus Cartoon"
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• "Eco-Bridge or Not, This Looks Like a Good Idea"
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• "The 2008 Olympics 'Water Cube:' Looks Cool, Retains Heat, and Keeps Itself Clean"
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• "China's Cool New Buildings: Eco-Aware, Too"
  (October 15, 2007)