Quondamopolis

In the Zeitgeist, everything will be the future


2015.01.26 19:15
Aaron Betsky To Lead Taliesin West
"In the Zeitgeist, everything will be the future."


2015.01.26 22:03
Quo vadis, Charleston architecture?
It's not just modern style that's a problem. I wanted to redo my Charleston house in the Chinese style, and they said that's not allowed either!

I was very upset, and told them I was taking all my money and moving to China!


2015.01.27 09:56
Aaron Betsky To Lead Taliesin West
I'm deeply obsessed with the big, fat columns of the Ralph Jester House (1938). How can you not be?!

"Such a pattern of curves is wholly new in Wright's architecture and suggests all sorts of possibilities for the future."
Hitchcock, In the Nature of Materials--actually read it sometime.


2015.01.27 10:06
Quo vadis, Charleston architecture?
Thayer-D, please name for me a half dozen of the "so many wonderful places" that we've lost. I want to see for sure that we've lost them because of buildings designed by architects like Holl, Hadid and Gehry.


2015.01.27 11:25
Quo vadis, Charleston architecture?
Well then please name for me a half dozen historical contexts that have been abnegated by "modernists." Again, I want to see for sure that we've lost them because of buildings designed by those that Holl, Zahid and Gehry are stand-ins for.


2015.01.27 12:06
Quo vadis, Charleston architecture?
So, instead of naming a half dozen historical contexts that have been abnegated by "modernists," you're asking me to look at Le Corbusier's Villa Radieuse, a project that exists only in images? I think you're right that we're not seeing the same thing when we're looking at the city. I was asking for examples of actual historical contexts that have been abnegated by "modernists," not some drawings. Are you perhaps having a hard time naming a half dozen historical contexts that have been abnegated by "modernists" because they do not actually exist?


2015.01.27 13:14
Zaha Hadid and New York Review of Books/Martin Filler resolve legal dispute
Since it is Hadid that is "pleased to announce" the donation, I suspect that Hadid dropped the suit on the condition that the New York Review of Books and Mr. Martin Filler make a donation to a charitable organization that protects and champions labor rights.


2015.01.27 13:34
Playing with climate at BIG's "Hot to Cold", now open at the National Building Museum
I once lived on 13th Street just south of Q Street. Logan Circle was like the back yard. Used to fall asleep at night hearing hooker's high heels walking up and down the street outside my window. Of course, that was all 35 years ago now. The National Building Museum was still called the Pension Building back then--the home office of the federal agency I worked for was there even. Alas, didn't spend much time there as I was stationed out "in the field," a Virginian colonial mansion whose land behind the formal garden extended all the way to the Potomac. All the Paul Revere silver was robbed from the dining room one night that summer, and I'm pretty sure I know who did it, and I think they even got away with it.


2015.01.27 13:49
Quo vadis, Charleston architecture?
Did Albany's Empire Plaza abnegate an existing historical context? The plaza was the idea of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who was inspired to create the new government complex after Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands visited Albany for a celebration of the area's Dutch history. Riding with the princess through a section of the city known colloquially as "the Gut", Rockefeller was embarrassed. He later said, "there's no question that the city did not look as I think the Princess thought it was going to."
Did Prora Resort abnegate a existing historical context?
“The postmodern reply to the modern consists of recognizing that the past, since it cannot really be destroyed, because its destruction leads to silence, must be revisited: but with irony, not innocently. I think of the postmodern attitude as that of a man who loves a very cultivated woman and knows that he cannot say to her ‘I love you madly’, because he knows that she knows (and that she knows he knows) that these words have already been written by Barbara Cartland. Still, there is a solution. He can say ‘As Barbara Cartland would put it, I love you madly’. At this point, having avoided false innocence, having said clearly that it is no longer possible to speak innocently, he will nevertheless have said what he wanted to say to the woman: that he loves her in an age of lost innocence. If the woman goes along with this, she will have received a declaration of love all the same. Neither of the two speakers will feel innocent, both will have accepted the challenge of the past, of the already said, which cannot be eliminated; both will consciously and with pleasure play the game of irony… But both will have succeeded, once again, in speaking of love.”
--Burnt Umber's Echo


2015.01.27 14:36
Quo vadis, Charleston architecture?
Thayer-D, that last part is completely ironic (if not hilarious) since it is you who erects arbitrary barricades between periods of time to justify their ideology.


2015.01.27 15:03
Playing with climate at BIG's "Hot to Cold", now open at the National Building Museum
I suspect it was the retired "Captain" and his wife who lived in one of the houses on the grounds. He was something like the figurative head of the place. The police dog that was let into the historic mansion (where no one lived) to sniff out a trail of recent activity went through the rooms on the main floor and then went upstairs and ran up and down the long corridor (like someone might do if they were being a look-out), and then the dog ran outside and darted straight to the Captain's house. Of course, the Captain was above suspicion, so the police ignored the dog's 'evidence'. The one time I spoke at length with the Captain's wife (before the robbery), she went on and on about the Faberge collection at the Richmond Museum of Art with this almost wildly gleeful look in her eyes. Granted, if you'd ever had any Faberge objects in your own hands and carefully examined all the jewels and overwhelming intricacies of the designs (and here I'm speaking from personal experience), then yes, one's eyes indeed do go from wildly gleeful to utter astonishment. Anyway, I have a vague memory of hearing that the stolen silverware turned up somewhere like Arizona, (or was it New Mexico?).


2015.01.27 15:20
Quo vadis, Charleston architecture?
For something entirely traditional, I'd be just your man! I'm not all that fond of Terry's or Stern's interpretations, however. I find something heavy-handed about the ultimate execution. I'm more inclined to be inspired by William Jay or even his contemporary Soane. The construction of Jay's interior moldings is a real education in making the most out of limited means. I admit it, I'm a real sucker for the American Regency style. (Or Biedermeier if you're in Central Europe.)


2015.01.27 18:07
Quo vadis, Charleston architecture?
It seems that Charleston is now more involved with setting an agenda then it is with being sensitive to its built environment. With guidelines/restrictions comes a loss of sensitivity. It was a mistake to reject the new Clemson design because it truly exhibited a whole range of sensitivity/sensibility. Were the design actually built, I strongly suspect it would have been a real positive asset to its environment. Guidelines and restrictions, by default, engender a packaged sensitivity, which soon enough boils down to boredom, if not all out kitsch.


2015.01.28 10:53
Quo vadis, Charleston architecture?
EKE, the Clemson design itself exhibits a whole range of sensitivity/sensibility. It readily shows that the architects took great care in putting it together to achieve (an institutional) quality. A building of quality is invariably an asset to its environment, more so than a building whose first (and perhaps only) priority is to "fit in."
In a traditional setting it is indeed traditional for an institution to stand out. Charleston should embody a mature sensitivity rather than come to rely on some kind of stage-set notions of "character."


2015.01.28 11:58
Quo vadis, Charleston architecture?
"All the world's a next stage."

2015.01.28 12:09
favorite artists who paint architecture...?

fof 2015.01.14


fof 2015.01.14


2015.01.28 15:01
favorite artists who paint architecture...?

2015.01.14


2015.01.14

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