www.quondam.com/33/3302h.htm

Quondamopolis

new not there city

2013.03.22 12:13
21 March

1993:

2000
architectural lacunae :
blank architectural spaces : architectural gaps, architectural holes : missing parts of architecture : architectural defects, architectural flaws
OR
architectural blank spaces : gap architecture, hole architecture : architecture's missing parts : defect architecture, flaw architecture
"The professor's lecture on architectural lacunae harbored critical lacunae itself."

2004

The party ends with a bang...
...to witness the implosion of Veteran's Stadium.
If you have a copy of the book Mutations handy, you can see a nice aerial shot of the now quondam Veteran's Stadium on pages 542-3. The caption reads:
In 1999 American cities saw at least 41 new and renovated sports facilities with another 34 such projects slated for the next 3 years.

Long argued by developers and sports executives as boons toward sustainable urban renewal, economics consistently show that stadiums actually slow the growth of cities and cost taxpayers billions of dollars per decade.
"New" stadiums are frequently declared obsolete and are torn down, in favor of yet newer ones, in as little as 7 years. The brutal, perpetual migration of sports teams to ever-newer facilities however can increase their own yearly income by as much as $40 million.
So much for metabolic nature.

2005

2005 yesterday

Name that ignudi.

Michelangelo opposite Jennewein and Duchamp.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Vatican Hill.
Eutropia and Rubens had great fun comparing the Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Life of Constantine tapestries.
How many times overall did Rubens reenact a Sistine ignudi?
And indeed yesterday there was a lot of standing room only in the Great Hall.
Next month's focus is on Julian "willing and" Abele and James Stirling.

2006
What are some examples of buildings that are "designed too specifically for its function"?
What happens when the function still exists, but the community moves away?
Do you know how many original synagogues in Philadelphia are not synagogues anymore? Do you know how many original Roman Catholic Churches in Philadelphia are not Roman Catholic Churches anymore?
My point was that now-a-days communities are just as ephemeral as functions.
I knew factories would come up in terms of functionally specific architecture, mostly because the functional aesthetic in architecture was pretty much inspired by factories.
What a "community" keeps is in large measure contingent on how a building is zoned (or rezoned 'residential'). Here in Philadelphia religious buildings tend to stay religious buildings, and religious buildings "function" mostly because they are tax exempt.
Don't get me wrong though, I'm all for re-use before demolition. I mean, how else could I see a Cambodian Buddhist Temple after I walk out of the Rite-Aid?

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