Estonia has just opened an embassy in second life, being the second country to do it officially behind Sweden. Interestingly Estonia’s official second life embassy is different from Swedens offering in a few subtle ways that seem to me to make it a more thoughtful offering. The Architecture is especially of interest to me, while Sweden plonked down a copy of their real life Embassy in America, Estonia have had a purpose designed building by Scope Cleaver. Aleister Kronos an Avatar in SL has visited it and posted some photos and I quite like it. Check out the Estonian Embassy blog. You can’t really call this building a simulacrum but I think it should be appreciated on its own terms in the context of Second Life, and its tempting to speculate as to whether the next real life Estonian Embassy somewhere in the world might borrow design elements from this one.
Image above by alkronos. (who has a great set of photos covering the building)
2 Comments
Hi.
Thanks for the compliment about the photos of Scope’s build - and for the link.
I was disappointed with this build - even though Scope is one of my favourite architects in Second Life. I don’t know if you are familiar with Scope’s work, but it is well tracking down - particularly the buildings he has made for Princeton.
@ Aleister,
Sorry for the slow reply. I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things and to grips with the new year.
I really like the building because it looks from your photos anyway that it departs significantly from a building that could be executed in the real world. It looms over the overserver from below but presents a kind of flat perspective from above… Designed for the flying residents of second life perhaps? Thats what caught my eye, its something that you couldn’t really build in the real world. Oh and I will check out more of scopes work..thanks.