2000.11.21
Domestic
While I agree with Alex about there really being no 'perfect' shapes in actual existence, I nonetheless can't help but believe that the real 'inspiration' for the perfect circle comes from the pupils of our very own eyes. Who knows, it might even be the physical 'perfection' of our sight perception organ that somehow makes our brains/minds think ideals exist in the first place. Kind-of like the medium being the message.
2000.11.23
Domestic
Put all my 3D house models into one database and just start generating (scale comparison) images and also start "playing" and recording.
Design some S,M,L,XL houses; Living +.
Redesign the Francisville Housing competition.
2000.12.09
continued idea list, etc.
Palais des Congres scale changed into mega hotel proportions plus collaged with other Le Corbusier models (that are scale distorted as well).
2000.12.14
Language & Voice
A "perceptually effective sequence" is something that an architect can intentionally design. Le Corbusier did it at the Villa Savoye, which is "understandable" without referencing any literary source. Le Corbusier also did it within the Palais des Congres (1964), Terragni did it within the Danteum (1936?), and James Stirling did it within the Museum for Nordrhine-Westfalen (1977) and within the Wallraf-Richartz Museum (1977). Sadly, none of these buildings was ever executed, hence their designs are not prominant examples within architectural history. It was precisely because of the sequences within these designs however, that prompted me to create computer models of these buildings (in the early 1990s). I also wrote several articles and essay on the "promenade architecturale" which were published at www.quondam.com (but are no longer online). My point now is that had these buildings been built, just maybe there might now be a far better understanding (and hence better teaching) of just how effective a deliberately designed architectural sequence can be.
Granted, any architect designed "preferred route" can be misunderstood or even ignored by a building's user, but that shouldn't prevent architects from at least trying to add "architectural language" to how a building is moved through.
What I find most interesting about designing architectural sequence is that the sequence itself is not actual form, rather the gaps between actual forms. For me, it's another example of learning from lacunae.
2000.12.16
Movement, action, verbs
Perhaps more to the point is that no architecture [language] is complete without users.
Mostly architecture is the object rather than being the subject, except in the case of prisons where the architecture is the subject and the 'user' is the object.
2000.12.16
Movement, action, verbs
Steve again says and adds:
"Perhaps the 'missing' verbs in 'architectural language' are the actions that go on in architectures. For example, the narrative of the Danteum manifests itself as one proceeds through the building. This is to suggest that promenade or circulation through a design (is one of the elements that) provides the link between architectural subject and architectural object."
Note that the architectural subject is the user and the architectural object is the building.
2000.12.17
a virtual place in architectural history
a list of those things by which I would like to be remembered in architectural history:
The circle-square diagram of the Vila Rotunda and the Goldenberg House.
The Timepiece of Humanity man (the new "Vitruvian" man).
Author of the theory of Chronosomatics.
Piranesi's inversion of St. Peter's into the Area Martis.
The "architecture" of Helena (and Eutropia).
The two states of the Ichnographia Campus Martius.
Interpretation of the Baroque.
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2000.12.28
Quondam Wavelengths -- more on
Play with and display the latest collection of mesh surfaces.
A further investigation if Ichnographia Quondam...
Start developing the Otto Houses.
Transform the Villa d'Ava.
Put Firminy inside of Hurva (as per the DAS exhibit).
2001.01.11
Architectural Predispostions
Might 'good architecture' and 'bad architecture' actually share a significant common ground in that neither architectures are easily defined? (That is, unless someone (here) can easily answer "what is bad architecture?")
Personally, I see neither good or bad architectures as being a problem, rather it is the global nimiety of mediocre architecture that I wish were extinct.
Perhaps the education of an architect should revolve around the teaching and learning of what is mediocre since the mediocre is probably the easiest to identify (given there's so much of it).
Then again, this conviction that 'the good' (and bad?) cannot be readily defined or identified might just be unwittingly producing an end result of abundant mediocrity.
Could the best architecture be the architecture that quietly disappears once it starts becoming mediocre?
2001.01.14
More Tedious Stuff (Design Process Type)
I don't see Paul's capsulization of Kahn's notion of "serverd" and "servant" spaces as altogether correct. Rather, it is more of a (convenient) pedagogical interpolation based on a hybridization of "served and servant" (Kahn) with "figure/ground" (Rowe). Two of Kahn's buildings that most manifest the "served" and "servant" notions are the Richards Medical Research Building (Philadelphia, 1957-60) and the Salk Institute (La Jolla, 1959-65). In both designs the "served" and the "servant" are each clearly articulated, and one could go so far as to say that it is more the articulation of the "servant" spaces that manifest the "served" spaces. Neither of these two buildings employs what might be described as poche.
I now wonder whether Paul's interpolation exemplifies a wider ranging interpolation throughout architectural academia since Kahn's practice, hence a not necessarily true interpretation /proliferation of Kahn's true message /meaning vis-a-vis "served" and "servant". The notions of "served" and servant" are first to be applied to the program, ie, the building program is divided into those spaces that serve and those spaces that are served. The form of the building then arises out of the articulation of both the "served" and the "servant", and the ultimate design is the integration and/or inter-relation of the two types of "spaces".
Perhaps the only slanted aspect of Kahn's notion of "served" and "servant" spaces is the underlying notion that some spaces are priviledged while the other spaces are not priviledged. And perhaps this is precisely where the misinterpretation of "served" and "servant" actually comes from. In reality, however, Kahn somehow managed to "priviledge" virtually all the spaces of his buildings. [And perhaps it can be said that Kahn was therefore very good at working the mediocre.]
Just now I'm wondering whether the grammatical terms of "active" and "passive" might be an interesting extension of the served and servant notions, ie, with served being the passive and the servant being the active. It might be interesting to sometimes analyze buildings by identifying those parts/spaces that are active (doing the acting) and those parts that are passive (being acted upon). This point of view might help alleviate the "priviledge" factor.
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2001.01.15
ideas - catching up
Quondam as a hypermuseum - this is my latest project idea and it involves turning Quondam into a place that takes the notion of (architectural) museum a step beyond. I see the very real possibility to use Quondam in the generation of something other, i.e., not just a virtual museum that reenacts the museum typology, rather a museum that generates its own unique (original) collection, and indeed its own existence.
This idea then quickly turned into the exhibit idea: "What to do with museums." This exhibit was going to focus on the whole notion of museums in cyberspace as well as take full advantage of Quondam's own museum model collection. I see the distinct possibility of using the various museums as "actual" sites for exhibits.
I can exploit all things museum, which includes collecting, displaying, exhibiting, curating, but also creating "museumpieces" that are altogether new.
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