Free Sheep Foundation

The Free Sheep Foundation is a architectural non-profit organization whose mission is to foster specific projects in artistic interventions and architectural spaces.
Free Sheep Foundation seeks for partners, developers, government agencies, architects and arts organizations to identify and occupy buildings without activity.
Opening these spaces to artists as facilities for any cultural production, exhibition, performance space and artist studios. By transforming disused spaces, the foundation helps to integrate artists within the process of development. Through research and investigation, each project will contribute to the continuum of the past and future memories of a site.

JAZZ AGE. Art Deco.

Art Deco was the popular version of the cool sophistication and austerity of early 1930s Modernism. Buildings have the same basically simple cubic forms relying on ? juxtaposition of horizontal and vertical elements to create dramatic effect. The various volumes are usually articulated with 'setback' stepped forms.
Instead of continuing the historicist/modernist debate, Art Deco accepted the new technologies, embraced the Bauhaus philosophy, and employed ? rich variety of machine-inspired geometric decoration. Immensely popular, the style spread to fashion, furniture and graphics and included influences from all areas of popular culture: streamlining inspired by the motor-car, faceted and refracted images from the cinema, and the rhythms of jazz music.
The style, and its name, originated in Paris at the 1925 Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Industries Modernes. Robert Mallet-Stevens (1886 — 1945) was ? founder member of the Union des Artistes Modernes who promoted the style in Europe.
In America, where there was less reluctance to embrace new technologies, the 'jazz' era saw the second wave of skyscrapers that were symbolic of the important new wealthy patrons: the big corporations. Raymond Hood's (1881-1934) McGraw-Hill Building (New York, 1929) and the Empire State Building by Shreve and Lamb (1931) are examples of the new type. The most famous is the Chrysler Building (1929) by William Van Alen (1882 — 1954). With its homage to the motor car — its sparkling beaten metal doors, stainless steel panels and gargoyles modelled on radiator caps — it has become the icon of ?rt Deco style.
Rockefeller Centre introduced significant new urban design ideas. Set back from the streets, in the middle of the
development, which covers three city blocks, the offices are grouped into the slenderest, soaring RCA building. The street level provides, for the first time, public open spaces and ? shopping mall. inside, Radio City Music Hall, home of the famous Rockettes show dancers, is the epitome of 1930s opulence, with its exotic timber veneers, bold patters, reflective mirrors and po1ished metalwork g1ittering in the skilfully subtle lighting.