2011.01.13 15:23
minimalism, dead at 38
maximum partisan rhetoric
minimal tolerance
2011.01.13 14:16
"On Criticism" an aggregate thread
...as I already mentioned, the "fruit of this thought" is (hopefully and for me at least) an illumination of the how the creative mind operates.
I'd say an unqualified interpretation is one that isn't based on "research, investigation, thorough observation and even some analysis of the material at hand."
I don't have a PhD, but I do have an architectural license, although I haven't 'practiced' architecture in more than a generation. It was an extremely early mastering of 2D and 3D CAD (1983) that took my career on a very unorthodox trajectory, indeed to the point where I ultimately came to design and direct the first virtual museum of architecture online (1996). Quondam happened because I accrued a sizable collection of CAD models of architectural designs that were never built. I built the CAD models to essentially learn and 'experience' buildings that didn't exist otherwise. I still take Quondam seriously, and I utilize it as a creative, investigatory and critical facility.
Regarding 'illuminating how the creative mind operates' see Quondam's three latest pages:
Architectural Visions of Early Fancy and Dreams in the Evening of Life
Roma Interrotta: Sector IV / Urban Components
International Planning Competition for Berlin
These pages are not so much critical but more curatorial. The overall implication, however, is that Stirling's creative working for his Roma Interrotta design involved a process of seeking precedents and then finding inspiration.
2011.01.12 21:03
"On Criticism" an aggregate thread
Criticism is not a post-rationalization of the processes.
Criticism requires research, investigation, thorough observation and even some analysis of the material at hand. There may be some explaining, but there is likely more a fair dose of qualified interpretation.
There are a nimiety of buildings of good (or bad) design, and that's about all that's worth saying about them. It's the building designs that elicit deeper thought that are worth critiquing.
2011.01.12 17:03
"On Criticism" an aggregate thread
If a building design is built and finished, what's the real use of being critical of it? It's doubtful that any criticism will change a building once it's already built. If the criticism is positive, does that mean the design should thereafter be emulated? Or, conversely, if the criticism is negative, does that mean the design should thereafter be completely avoided? Does it really just boil down to approval or rejection?
Personally, I'm more comfortable being critical of design process, which involves how a building design (built or not) arrives at its finished state. The object of such criticism is to illuminate how the creative mind operates.
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2011.01.08 11:00
"On Criticism" an aggregate thread
...a virtual museum of architecture
collecting
a project
curation
critique
institutional critique, even (perhaps a virtual museum is what a real museum cannot be)
voices
continually reshaped
agendas
globally readable
cado coda
architecture as the delivery of content
In the future, 15 years of hypercritique will be famous.
2011.01.04 21:18
Bilocation Syndrome
It's very strange for Meier to say he was involved with Roma Interrotta when in fact he was not one of the 12 architects involved with Roma Interrotta.
Plus, the Whites vs. Grays 'debate' was a mid-seventies thing. There is even an A+U magazine from 1975 or 1976 with the whole theme of Whites vs. Grays. Not to mention Tafuri's "American Graffiti: Five x Five = Twenty-five" in Oppositions 5 (Summer 1976) -- "Tafuri maintains that, notwithstanding the hermetic polemics of "Grey" versus "White"..."
2011.01.04 07:55
Bilocation Syndrome
I wrote St. Catherine de Ricci's name yesterday within a new web page at Quondam. This in itself is not unusual, but then hearing St. Catherine de Ricci's name last night on the local TV evening news was unusual.
Estate leaves couples in wedding limbo -- This is a fascinating story that involves brides, nuns, and a breathtaking property you may not even know is right in our backyard.
If you watch the above video you'll see some the interior of Elstowe.
This morning I left a comment at the news website:
Look up St Catherine de Ricci. Along with being a stigmatic and a bilocator, she was a "bride of Christ" due to a "ring" placed on Catherine's left index finger on Easter day 1542 reportedly by Christ Himself.
Perhaps it's time to pray to St. Catherine de Ricci.
Perhaps, too, an ironic twist to the story.
The first time I visited Elstowe was back in 2004, purposefully on St. Catherine de Ricci's feast day. That night a 100' to 150' column of fire erupted in the Philadelphia neighborhood between where I lived and Elstowe.
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2011.01.04 07:07
"On Criticism" an aggregate thread
I first read The Architecture of Humanism in high school, back in 1974. Chapter Eight was especially inspiring.
2011.01.03 07:19
"On Criticism" an aggregate thread
Perhaps "facelessness" and the possible meaning of "facelessness" is not the real issue, and, rather than looking at the Neue Staatsgalerie from an anthropomorphic viewpoint, a better judgment of the Stuttgart museum and its relationship to the Altes Museum might come from taking an architectonic viewpoint, that is, looking at what actually is there.
I fear that the way you describe Wright's attitude above more aptly describes your attitude... ...But I don't like to see personal opinion or even accepted scholarship get in the way of understanding creativity and the creative process (as opposed to the 'fabrication' of creative genius)... ...I will now get very 'Freudian' here...
lao tsu say, if the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten, and, if the belt fits, the belly is forgotten.
and orbit of solid body (aka Lauf) say, all reality is relative to the vastness of its container.
2011.01.01 11:29
Gehry @ Sydney
Anyone else remember Eisenman's proposal for development around Ground Zero from 2002?
I can't tell if the genetic pool is shrinking or expanding.
Q: Which came first, repetition or difference?
A: A reenactment of a reenactment turned sideways.
The "teen" years = wise-ass architecture.
2010.12.30 18:02
Rome Floor Plans
Leonardo Bufalini's Urbis Ichnographia
2010.12.29 17:02
Good Design - Change Lives
"It is shocking to realize how very limited the language of contemporary architecture has become though, with the passing of High Style MOD, we have the opportunity once more to expand our vocabulary and remember our architectural lineage. The front of Hawksmoor's church at Spitalfields (London) comprises at least a Gothic spire, a French arch-de-triumphe and a Roman basilica, and this free-wheeling construction of elements was something which Schinkel and many other architects could do well; one admires their facility and envies their vocabulary. Never in the past (MOD Architecture excepted) have architects so completely rejected previous architectural forms and now is perhaps the time to acknowledge our continuity and remember our cultural background, wherever we come from, and this must be more important than any attempt at outright historical revivalism.
Schinkel's houses in particular exemplify the transition between Classicism and Romanticism--a time when classical ornament was greatly diminished and Romantic fruitiness had not yet developed. When I visited Glienike in 1964 I was amazed at the small domestic scale and...
James Stirling, "Introduction and Comments" (to the House for K. F. Schinkel Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition) in The Japan Architect, February, 1980, p.50-1.
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2010.12.22 17:14
Predict the new "-ism" for 2011.
Esqueism
as in ism is out and esque is in
Romanesqueesque
Industrialesque
Modernesque
Post-Modernesque
Deconstructionistesque
Boxesque
Blobesque
Furnessesque
LouisIKahnesque
Stirlingesque
Hejdukesque
ScottBrownesque
Eisenmanesque
OMAesque
HdMesque
MVRDVesque
Zahaesque
Whiteesque
Grayesque
Greenesque
2010.12.09 09:57
"On Criticism" an aggregate thread
Yes, Chris, when it comes to posting here, I now definitely have motives, but gaining respect is not one of them. For me to get any respect here would mean an admission that I might just be right about some things, and there's a fear that that would render me too powerful. Ironically, being powerful is my anti-nature.
2010.12.08 11:07
"On Criticism" an aggregate thread
olaf, just over three years and one week ago, I suggested:
Read
From: Stirling's Inheritance
To: Stirling's Legacy
Re: Stirling's Muses
Part I 5605
and
From: Stirling's Inheritance
To: Stirling's Legacy
Re: Stirling's Muses
Part II 5606
to see that reenactment and novelty within architectural design are not mutually exclusive. Nor does reenactment inhibit possibilities, rather, it engenders possibilities--much like a "second chance" where you can choose to do things differently. I wonder, is that what Repetition and Difference is really all about, subsequent chances?
You inferred that you'd read the essays, but you never followed up with any comment or discussion. What you just wrote above, however, strongly suggests that you did read the essays.
I am here now proving your above point in that I better understand what you're saying than even yourself.
ps
You've recently proclaimed 'voice activated cad'. Guess where you got the idea:
I don't have any hands, so I talk to my computer to draw (even sometimes while I actually am taking a bath). And you thought I was old fashioned. Look at yourselves!
2005.12.20 15:53
and/or
I utilize blah-blah-blah. It's this great CAD software I invented where one draws via talking to the computer. It even lets you talk in mixed-up languages!
2008.04.26 11:52
Exactly five years ago today I successfully suggested what Koolhaas's 2006 Serpentine Pavilion would look like. Did Rem even know [what it would look like] at the time?
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