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Burning Man and the Metropolis

date added: 13.02.2011

Its not exactly the ideal place to build a city. No water, little vegetation, limited animal life. August temperatures climb to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and drop close to freezing at night. High winds kick up powder-fine dust into blinding storms. The place is, in a word, inhospitable.

But year after year in late summer, a small city rises on this ancient lakebed in the Black Rock Desert, in Pershing County in northwestern Nevada. Its the annual event — or festival, or party — known as Burning Man, an eight-day experiment in self-expression and self-reliance that is now one of the most notorious cultural events in North America. What began as a bonfire attended by 20 friends on a San Francisco beach in 1986 has exploded into a global mega-event with 50,000 participants. They form a sprawling temporary community of tents and trailers that has evolved over a quarter century into a highly planned, intricately organized and fully functioning city.

Read the full article: http://places.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=23848

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