CR Blog
Despot Birdhouses
Posted by Mark Sinclair, 15 October 2008, 12:54 Permalink Comments (11)

A birdhouse based on Mussolini's Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in King's Wood, Kent in England
Super Kingdom is an art installation with a difference: each of the pieces on show in King's Wood, near Ashford in Kent, is a fully-functioning animal house. They just happen to be based on a selection of infamous dictators' palaces...
Artists Bruce Gilchrist and Jo Joelson (of London Fieldworks) are behind the series of structures. They plan to make a film of the various native and non-native creatures who take up residence in the houses, as a comment on the displacement of animal (and human) communities in the face of urban development.
Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's Palace of Parliament in Bucharest, Romania (the third largest building in the world, no less, and now home to the Romanian government) inspired this one:
While this intricate structure is based on Benito Mussolini's Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana (or Colosseo Quadrato) finished in 1943:
And this upside-down pyramid is based on Joseph Stalin's "gift" to the Polish capital Warsaw in 1952 – the Palace of Culture and Science:
11 Comments
Wow... makes me wish I was a bird.
2008-10-15 16:26:55
How cool is that! What a facinating combination of art history, architecture and fine arts! Keep up the fab work!
2008-10-15 18:49:34
I feel so sorry for my resident birds as the houses I provide are so very humble!
2008-10-15 20:24:00
interesting that there is so much interest in dictator chic. sign 'o the times. u.s. and britain are virtual police states. the ultra-wealthy need a new dictator to stamp down the lumpenproletariat whom may soon waken from their prolonged slumber and be looking round for who sacked their rights and stole their money.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/
2008-10-15 21:40:54
interesting that there is so much interest in dictator chic. sign ‘o the times. u.s. and britain are virtual police states. the ultra-wealthy need a new dictator to stamp down the lumpenproletariat whom may soon waken from their prolonged slumber and be looking round for who sacked their rights and stole their money.
I bet he is an Obama supporter. (one with out a job)
2008-10-16 04:38:39
^^ You mad?
2008-10-16 05:55:43
Very cool!!
2008-10-16 13:39:28
Thanks Gregg and Adam, you pair of berks.
2008-10-16 14:18:24
Go back to sleep, Adams. How little you know, and how much you presume.
2008-10-16 20:19:05
Oh my gosh...I didn't even know people were making houses like these. I can just imagine my neighbors if I had houses like any of these in my front yard. They'd love it!
2009-09-08 18:13:22
I just love this. I want this in my garden!
2010-04-29 22:13:25
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