30 March

1796 Marie Alexandre Lenoir's collection received the official title Musée des Antiquités et Monuments français

war design (shameful architecture)
1999.03.30 11:51     3716c 3784d

architects/philosophers?
1999.03.30 12:50     3713c 3792c

The City of Collective Memory
2000.03.30     e2800b e2675b e2844

Re: quaestio abstrusa
2001.03.30 11:24     3142b 3730e 3789b 5319f

Questions about Typography of Architecture
2006.03.30 08:10     3337f 3747h

Lost ! Need help!!
2006.03.30 12:11     3337f 3711 4706
2006.03.30 12:28     3337f
2006.03.30 15:22     3337f
2006.03.30 15:39     3337f

non-event cities
2006.03.30 14:57     3337f

boo to rendering... yay to games
2006.03.30 15:32     3337f

Jeff Kipnis - My Thoughts on Architectural Education
2007.03.30 20:14     3335w

Re: Traditional Architecture
2012.03.30 15:33     3330v 3747k 3754i 3760c

Call for Denise Scott Brown to be given Pritzker recognition
2013.03.30 13:51     4013h

The Architect as Totalitarian
2015.03.30 09:57     3310n 3720h 3747p 3775x
2015.03.30 13:24     3310n 3720h 3775x
2015.03.30 16:01     3310n 3775y

/32
2018.03.30     3200

BOMP   eVolo Skyscraper Competition  

Herzog & de Meuron   One Park Drive   London



1999.03.30 12:50
architects/philosophers?
I spent the better part of this last weekend reading extensively from three books: Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture (1996), The Architect: Reconstructing Her Practice (1996), and Architecture of the Everyday (1997). Each book is an anthology, and, in the process, I read (so far) the texts of almost 20 architects/authors: Venturi, Scott Brown, Eisenman, Tschumi, Koolhaas, Rossi, Tafuri, Rowe, as well as Ingraham, Fausch, Ruddick, McLeod, Bennett and others. For the most part, I'd say that none of what I read was philosophy, but a lot of it was theory. Moreover, I feel secure believing the notion that architects (at least those that write) are very capable of relating theory through text (and here I want to distinguish that relating theory through the practice of designing and building is a whole other situation beyond what I am writing about here).
The primary reason for my doing all this reading is to come out of it with a greater understanding. So far, I fortunately understand most of what I've read, but, of course, that does not mean that I agree with all the theories. In fact, my agreeing or disagreeing with a theory is secondary to my thorough understanding of a theory. Overall, I want to be careful not to (pre)judge a given theory until I understand the theory--a practice, I fear, many architects do not engage in. For example, G. adds Holl, Tschumi, Hejduk, and Koolhaas as architects whose works intertwine heavily with philosophy. For me, this is not an accurate assessment because: Holl (in text and building) is not particularly theoretical or philosophical -- a good look at Le Corbusier's Ronchamp clarifies much of Holl's work; Tschumi is (ironically) a decent theorist especially when he writes about pleasure and its decadence relative to architecture; Hejduk is above all a poetic and artistic architect; and Koolhaas in his writings (which are very readable and easily comprehended) is insightfully observant in his scope of the current (global) situation of the built environment, and his buildings/designs well reflect "modernism" at one of its furthest points of evolution thus far.
If I were to offer any advise to architects regarding theory (and/or philosophy) it is that open-mindedness and understanding presents an extremely broad path of exploration and discovery, whereas close-mindedness is often a sign of small-mindedness. That said, I found the essays/theories within Architecture of the Everyday the most refreshing (and insightful and meaningful) of my recent readings. The essays within The Architect: Reconstructing Her Practice were also poignant, however, I must admit I am not yet in total understanding of all that is related therein. Finally, I found much within Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture faded with age--many of the architectural theories from the latter part of the 20th century appear to be of their time, but not much beyond it.

2012.03.30 15:33
Re: Traditional Architecture
Coincidently read these two paragraphs a few hours ago while sitting next to a person in (temporary) isolation hooked up to an oxygen machine:
Having no faith in the efficacy of any single, universal, world transforming principle, Whitehead's obsevation that there is no reason to suppose order more fundamental than chaos would seem to appoximate his [ie, a famous architect] view; and this feeling for the empirical multiplicity of any given situation rather for any cosmic vision of a millennium also carries over into what seems to be anxiety to emancipate architecture from the grip of historicism--meaning not from the styles but from the very Germanic supposition that history, irrespective of persons, is an irresistible force, that obedience to it a moral imperative, that to deny the Zeitgeist is to invite catastrophe, and that the architect's most elevated role is to act as no more than the agent of necessity, as midwife for the delivery of historically significant form.
Given the arguments of reasoned disbelief, the procedure via collage and innuendo is, in principle, not to be faulted, but, if it is a procedure which can produce the most enviable results and also a genuinely Twentieth-Century discovery, the idea of the ironical juxtaposition of things taken out of context has, in general, been profoundly antipathetic to the conscience of the so-called Modern Movement; and, even though Le Corbusier was himself a great master of the architectural collage, the general bias of the contemporary architect's "morality" has contrived to inhibit the use of any technique so obvious and so rewarding.

2013.03.30 13:51
Call for Denise Scott Brown to be given Pritzker recognition
Scott Brown collaborates with the then brand new firm Venturi and Rauch on the Monumental Fountain on the Benj. Franklin Parkway Competition in 1964.
Scott Brown invited Venturi to a four day trip to Las Vegas in 1966.
Museum of Modern Art published Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture in 1966, but actual distribution did not occur until March 1967. [In a conversation I had with Mark Wigley late November 1999, Mark was convinced that Scott Brown was very much responsible for the sudden change of tone in the last chapter of Complexity and Contradiction, saying there was even evidence of this within the Complexity and Contradiction manuscripts in the MoMA archives.]
Venturi and Scott Brown marry 23 July 1967.
Venturi and Scott Brown teach at Yale 1967-70, including the architectural design and research studio Las Vegas 1968.
Venturi and Scott Brown jointly write "A Significance for A & P Parking Lots, or Learning from Las Vegas" published in Architectural Forum, March 1968.
Scott Brown becomes a partner of Venturi and Rauch in 1969.
So where is John Rauch in all this? Perhaps the Pritzker feels if Scott Brown gets the award, then Rauch should get the reward as well. But then a third of the prize money would have to be given over to Rauch. Just wondering.

15033001   atypical architecture plans 11060802   3392ui06


15033001   BOMP   eVolo Skyscraper Competition


17033001 Working Title Museum 005 @ Pantheon Paradigm model work   2379i22


17033001   Herzog & de Meuron   One Park Drive   London


18033001 Maison Millennium 003 roof plan model opaque color fixed elevations raw   2318i08
18033001 Maison Millennium 003 roof plan model   2318i09   b
18033003 IQ63s16 Surface Building 01 model   2470i01
18033004 World Trade Center Towers World Financial Center North Neighborhood Master Plan models @ IQ55   2218i03
18033005 Breslauer Platz model @ IQ55   2228i04


19033001   Berlin 1958 repositioned @ IQQ14 15 18 19 plans work data 3072   217ii10
19033002   Berlin 1958 @ IQQ14 15 18 19 plans work data 3072   217ii11
19033003   Berlin 1958 @ IQQ14 15 18 19 plans base data 3072   217ii12
19033004   Berlin 1958 IQQ14 plan work 3072   217ii13
19033005   Berlin 1958 IQQ15 plan work 3072   217ii14
19033006   Berlin 1958 IQQ18 plan work 3072   217ii15
19033007   Berlin 1958 IQQ19 plan work 3072   217ii16
19033008   IQQ19 Philadelphia Altes Museum Berlin 1958 Parkway Interpolation plans 3074   2468i44
19033009   IQQ22 Versailles Park Philadelphia Mount Pleasant Whitemarsh Hall Girard Collage plans   2468i48
19033010   IQQ28 GAUA plans   2468i49
19033011   IQQ24 GAUA plans   2468i50
19033012   IQQ20 Philadelphia Mikveh Israel Synagogue Urban Components Clayworkers Co-op Market Street East Development Gallery B Salustiani/Hadriani Mall plans   2468i51
19033013   IQQ16 Philadelphia Salustiani/Hadriani Mall ASouq Neighborhoods M4NRWF@Franklin Court plans   2468i52


21033001   novel architecturale iqq19 plus ultra pregerson interchange plans   2481i12
21033002   novel architecturale iqq19 roma interrotta iqq19 plans off register   2481i13



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