1999.07.17 11:41
Re: The Dialectizer
what might be more interesting is a program that turns Eisenman-speak or Tschumi-speak or Corporate-Architect speak into the perfectly common sensical.
1999.07.17 12:53
Re: The Dialectizer
I can't tell if your serious about this or not. the humor is definitely there, however.
In any case, the notion of 'playing' with texts is something I've enjoyed doing ever since I started working full time with computers in 1983. I am
now particularly interested in the auto-translation capabilities because the resultant texts make sense and make non-sense at the same time (and thereby even shed some unflattering(?) light upon current architectural -philosophical-theoretical texts). I plan to use the auto-translation program often, mostly just to find more 'accidents'.
btw, I just started reading Homo Ludens - a study of the play element in culture by Johan Huizinga. Only read the forward and first chapter so far, but already enjoy it immensely. have you ever read it?
1999.07.21 20:11
texts for architexturez.com?
As quondam grows steadily older, I'm realizing just how challenging it is to foster the notion of a virtual building. I honestly believe that it is something that the vast majority of architects just do not want to accept. therefore, if I branch out into anything, it will be to design other virtual places, because in a very true sense, not only do I believe that some 'buildings' can be totally virtual, but that some buildings actually should be virtual because our planet already has too many buildings.
This whole virtual approach for me is something entirely unexpected, and is purely an outcome of my starting quondam. Thus, I want to see for myself how it evolves in me. It's like watching a 'philosophy' grow inside of me, and that too is very rewarding. I can't remember if I said so in our interview, but my main goal in life has been since the early 1980s to become a part of history...
1999.07.28 17:37
texts for architexturez.com?
sgp describes a good interface as: "always being added to by the users input. meaning is gained through continual use and adjustment, a kind of tweaking or tuning. one begins to gain an understanding of the internal constraints of the instrument only by its continual inflections imposed by the user. this interface between internal constraints and external influences can have infinite character. it is this character that the architect must address."
personally, I believe if you agree with this definition, then you'd also have to agree that design-l itself fits the definition perfectly.
lauf-s
ps
I actually love it when something I'm ardently searching for has been right in front of me all along.
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1999.07.29 11:34
interface, truman, etc
I'm trying to think of a simple way to explain my work in order to help you understand where I see myself coming from. What makes this difficult is that there can be no blanket statements to cover what I do because I've developed (through lots of practice) a versatility of dexterity that enables me to easily jump from one way of doing something to another way of doing something (else)--a kind of multi MB random access dexterity. I learned how to 'play' this way right after I first learned CAD, essentially I could begin playing because the computer supplemented my dexterity of hand and mind tremendously. So much of what I had to take seriously, like precision drafting, was now being done for me. This left a brand new (large) gap in the area of what things I could do myself. Rather than lament the computer taking away my skill, I consciously decided to celebrate my new freedom, and I did that first by going to the furthest extreme from precision, to the scribble, the slapdash, the accident. That was in the early 1980s, and I'm happy to say that my celebration (through art) then has generated a large and growing legacy as well as a (unique?) work ethic. For example, part of being good at being metabolic is knowing precisely where to break the rules (i.e., within the confines of the rules themselves)--legal loopholes are very metabolic.
1999.08.22
(new) Quondam - a “playground”
In reviewing the first chapter of omo Ludens for “Inside the Density...,” there are passages that relate well to the nature of virtual place, and I now want to incorporate the play concept into Quondam's philosophy. The notion of play is part of the virtual-web-digital ethos already (i.e., role playing) but it hasn't (so far as I know) been applied to the notion of virtual buildings or virtual institutions (like a museum). I'm thinking that play fits perfectly with what I want to do with the collection.
On a much broader level, it occurred to me that Quondam should begin to shed its museum metaphor, i.e., Quondam should henceforth be something that a real museum isn't or couldn't be. There is a long footnote re: muse in Homo Ludens that is very inspiring as to what a virtual museum could be. This is now going to be an interesting design problem, and one I'd like to give serious thought to.
1999.08.26 09:53
empire of light
brad wrote:
perhaps, its a matter of scale: as power is 'stepped-down' at various stages/locations on its way to various implements/functions, so to is the architecture...
steve replies:
brad raises a very important point re:scale, which today often goes unrecognized and/or assessed (however, Koolhass via SMLXL has certainly brought the scale issue to contemporary attention, and, of course, Venturi et al have paid close attention to the often overlooked obviousness of comparative architecture scale earlier). we are more used to thinking of scale in terms of physical magnitude/size, and indeed comparative analysis of such scale in architecture (e.g. seeing varieties of building plans at the same scale) is most times revealing of a architectural "dimension" not normally taken notice of. scale can be a good theme to follow when comparing architecture, and, as brad's post suggests, a comparative look at the scales of ae is probably a very worthwhile endeavor as well.
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1999.09.07
what I'm suppossed to do
schizophenia + architectures may indeed be Quondam's new model in terms of delivery and connectivity.
1999.09.10 09:53
survey
I find cyberspace sometimes analogous to physical space, but fundamentally as a "place" altogether different than physical space. The two can easily be compared, but they are distinct and separate.
Cyberspace begins with pure virtuality, i.e., the potential to be something, then becomes a "place" when people participate, and ends, after the participation, to be again pure virtuality. For example, this survey question lay dormant, yet full of potential, for several days without participation, and with my reply it's potential is starting to be filled -- the potential always remains because more and more participation can fill the potential more and more.
I like cyberspace because of its otherness. The more I participate in cyberspace, the more I realize that I now inhabit two realms, the real world and the world of cyberspace. Moreover, I plainly see that the cyberspace world will never be the same as or replace the real world, nor do I wish cyberspace to be "physical" in the real world sense.
Cyberspace as a place completely other is its greatest attribute. Those that view or want to make cyberspace and the real world the same are really only defeating the "real" nature of cyberspace. [Could it be that we as humans just can't easily deal with a parallel(?), other reality in addition to the reality we already have?]
1999.09.11 14:18
architecture in cyberspace?
One of cyberspace's more wonderful attributes is that it affords "architectural" experimentation without the usual physical consequences. If an architect (like yourself) is not sure whether his or her skills transfer into cyberspace, there really isn't that much which prevents him or her from finding out. Personally, I prefer to make judgments based on knowledge and experience rather than from ignorance, meaning, I'll never say that something can't be done just because I don't know how to do it or haven't done it myself.
I posted the following quotations yesterday at electricity-l: "I find cyberspace sometimes analogous to physical space, but fundamentally as a "place" altogether different than physical space. The two can easily be compared, but they are distinct and separate." and "I like cyberspace because of its otherness. The more I participate in cyberspace, the more I realize that I now inhabit two realms, the real world and the world of cyberspace. Moreover, I plainly see that the cyberspace world will never be the same as or replace the real world, nor do I wish cyberspace to be "physical" in the real world sense." and "Cyberspace as a place completely other is its greatest attribute. Those that view or want to make cyberspace and the real world the same are really only defeating the "real" nature of cyberspace. [Could it be that we as humans just can't easily deal with a parallel(?), other reality in addition to the reality we already have?]"
I suspect architects are capable of contributing a nimiety of special sensitivities and experiences to cyberspace, and certainly not just one special sensitivity or just one expertise. At the very least, cyberspace is where any and all architects can contribute their own individuality and/or unique creativity. You would think that architects more than anyone would recognize the (utopian?) joy of a "place" where one can design whatever one wants in whichever way one wants. [Or have we successfully trained ourselves into believing that freedom of design is a bad thing?]
1999.09.12 11:34
architecture in cyberspace?
For what it's worth, what John just said, "Which is why some argue that reason is too slow to be useful any more. Intuition and insight are speedier, but not as fast as illogic and madness." describes perfectly my position regarding design, and even more so art. Moreover, I began to think this way back in 1983, within the first month of my working as a computer-aided architect eight hour a day, five days a week. I never expected it, but I rather quickly saw that cad (and here I must mention that I was using Intergraph, which was phenomenally superb even by most of today's standards) would be incredibly fast if the user/designer too was incredibly fast, however, the speed of the designer coming close to the speed of the computer meant a shift into spontaneous mode, a design mode rarely taught, and indeed most often severely denounced. Of course, I was not in a position to change the design mode of the firm I worked for, where they, like Brian now, continued to apply the existing drafting and design standards to this gigantic and very much revolutionary tool of dexterity. It was then that I became an artist as well as an architect, because the realm of art provided a place for spontaneity which architecture [then] did not. [as an aside, I find it extremely ironic that those architects presently investigating and now building topological architectures with the aid of computers STILL do not use cad in full spontaneous design mode, whereas, Frank Gehry, who was already in spontaneous design mode well before his office began employing cad, is, for me at least, a better example of design matching cad's, computer aided design's, potential.
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1999.09.15 12:37
architecture in cyberspace?
First, I said, "I'd hate to see the virtual merely become a reflection of the real." This means I'd hate to see architects/designers/theorists neglect an investigation of the inherent qualities of the virtual/cyber realm, where they can find virtual/cyber's own "natural" order. For example, one huge difference between architecture in the real world and architecture in cyberspace is that in cyberspace actual buildings are redundant, indeed a real auction house that does what ebay does couldn't even be built. Another difference between real architecture and cyber architecture is that one goes to real architecture whereas cyber architecture comes to you. It may simply be that "real" architects have to begin also thinking about what it means to design architectures that go to people. [Is this what John Young means by "distribution" architecture? Is this what Marcos Novak means by "transarchitecture"?]
On a personal level, I like that www.quondam.com is a museum of architecture that is not a building, and, moreover, a museum of architecture that goes all over our planet. Yet, I also like that Quondam originates from a modest rowhome in a borderline poverty neighborhood of Philadelphia.
Perhaps the purest architectures of cyberspace are precisely those architectures that can't be built [except in cyberspace].
1999.09.29 18:35
the formula in words
I want to begin finalizing the "letter from/to India," and, to that extent, I will attempt to write out the promenade architecturale formula I believe Le Corbusier followed.
Both the Villa Savoye and the Palais des Congres are essentially boxes raised on pilotis with a continuous ramp connecting three distinct levels. All three levels in each building and their relationship to the ongoing ascent of the ramp are part of the promenade formula. The lowest level, under the raised box, is symbolically the most mundane, and here Le Corbusier enacts a forest of pilotis within which the perimeter of the building is recessed -- significantly, the entry point and the beginning point of ascent (ramp) are nearly synonymous. As one begins moving through the buildings, one is also ascending. The second level, the box, symbolizes the realm of limbo, the in-between, part inside and part outside. For Le Corbusier, this is realm where we live (Savoye) and where we gather (Congres). Ultimately, the ramp in both buildings raises us to the garden on the roof in the realm of the sky. For Le Corbusier, this is architecture's goal, this is where architecture should deliver us.
What makes this formula even more interesting is that it is evident in other building, by architects other than Le Corbusier, and both after and before Le Corbusier's time. First I found the very same formula implemented in Stirling/Wilford's Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, 1977. Just as Le Corbusier elaborates and distorts the formula late in his life within the design of the Palais des Congres, Stirling too further distorts the promenade route at Cologne (an unbuilt design within Quondam's collection). Then, after several years, I found the same promenade architectural formula with Terragni's Danteum, and here the formula is even more clear, both symbolically and formally -- first the forest, then the dark concentrated interior of the Inferno, then the inside-outside realm of Purgatory (limbo), and finally Heaven with its invisible columns and invisible roof. Again, an ongoing passage of ascent leading to an ultimate goal. Form here I now see the promenade architectural formula present in Schinkel's Altes Museum, Berlin, the Pantheon in Rome, and even along the via Triumphalis as delineated by Piranesi within the Ichnographia Campi Martii.
In one of our latest correspondence, you said you climbed a mountain, and the day after I received your message I realized that you may well have achieved the promenade architecturale goal before I have.
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