2007.07.17 10:08
Verb: Featured Discussion
Is architecture perhaps really more adverb than verb?
: any member of a class of words that in many languages are distinguished in form, as partly-/i] in English by the ending -[i]ly, or by functioning as modifiers of verbs or clauses, and in some languages, as Latin and English, also as modifiers of adjectives or other adverbs or adverbial phrases, as very, well, quickly. Adverbs typically express some relation of place, time, manner, attendant circumstance, degree, cause, inference, result, condition, exception, concession, purpose, or means.
Arabic: ظَرْف مَكَان أو زَمَان، حَال
Chinese (Simplified): 副词
Chinese (Traditional): 副詞
Czech: příslovce
Danish: adverbium; biord
Dutch: bijwoord
Estonian: adverb
Finnish: adverbi
French: adverbe
German: das Adverb
Greek: επίρρημα (γραμμ.)
Hungarian: határozó(szó)
Icelandic: atviksorð
Indonesian: adverbia
Italian: avverbio
Japanese: 副詞
Korean: 부사
Latvian: apstākļa vārds
Lithuanian: prieveiksmis
Norwegian: adverb
Polish: przysłówek
Portuguese (Brazil): advérbio
Portuguese (Portugal): advérbio
Romanian: adverb
Russian: наречие
Slovak: príslovka
Slovenian: prislov
Spanish: adverbio
Swedish: adverb
Turkish: zarf
2007.07.13 12:29
Sarcastic Architecture
I agree that 'sarcasm' does not fitly describe the work of VSB&I and Koolhaas/OMA. What I've found within the "ugly and ordinary" texts thus far are instances of the literary use of slight sarcasm usually at the end of a paragraph that culminates the point of a particular argument--like adding a bit of 'zing' at the end, a little akin to a punchline. Like I already said, the overall tone of the "ugly and ordinary" texts is not sarcastic.
As to the negativity of the text, yes it is there, but that is only to be expected in a polemic aimed at an orthodoxy.
Tagging Koolhaas/OMA as sarcastic is also hyperbolic, yet done with the intention to provoke further investigation, like Quilian's example of exaggerated program combinations above. While reading "ugly and ordinary" last night I too thought of 'cynicism'. I also thought I should next re-read Koolhaas's Junkspace.
One of things I'm getting out of all this is that solid criticism does (have to?) employ literary elements like cynicism, wit, satire and even some sarcasm. Sure, it comes off as negative, but it's really more metabolic, destructive and creative at the same time.
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2007.07.13 11:58
Quakers take green building to the Capitol
Venturi, not entirely sure, actually. I'm pretty sure his mother was a Quaker however. Part of his early education was for sure Quaker.
2007.07.13 11:08
Quakers take green building to the Capitol
Famous architectural Quakers:
Edmund Bacon
Robert Venturi
2007.07.13 11:02
Quakers take green building to the Capitol
Interestingly, the first room designed to house the U.S. House of Representatives, in Congress Hall (1787-1793), Philadelphia, is very similar in design to the Friends Meetinghouse (1803-11) on Arch Street, Philadelphia. I remain curious as to whether both designs follow an older Quaker Meeting precedent.
2007.07.13 08:40
Sarcastic Architecture
Found what may be the most sarcastic (but also the most critical) passage within the "ugly and ordinary" texts of Learning from Las Vegas:
"The Boston City Hall and its urban complex are the archetype of enlightened urban renewal. The profusion of symbolic forms, which recall the extravagances of the General Grant period, and the revival of the medieval piazza and its palazzo pubblico are in the end a bore. It is too architectural. A conventional loft would accomodate a bureaucracy better, perhaps with a blinking sign on top saying I AM A MONUMENT."
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2007.07.12 22:52
Verb: Featured Discussion
I think BOOGAZINE would make a great title for a TV show.
Look out MODE, your competition has arrived!
2007.07.12 22:33
Sarcastic Architecture
Pig City
In 2000, pork was the most consumed form of meat at 80 billion kg per year. Recent animal diseases such as Swine Fever and Foot and Mouth disease are raising serious questions about pork production and consumption.
Two opposing reactions can be imagined. Either we change our consumption pattern and become instant vegetarians or we change the production methods and demand biological farming.
Let us assume that we remain pork-eaters. Do we then have enough space for biological pig farming?
With a production of 16,5 million tons of pork, The Netherlands is the chief exporter of pork within the European Union. In the case of organic farming, pigs would be fed with 100% grain, leading to a required 130% more field surface due to the reduced grain production. This would mean that 75 % of the Netherlands would be dedicated to pigs.
Pig City studies the combination of organic farming with a further concentration of the meat production area, avoiding unnecessary transportation and distribution, and thereby reducing the spread of diseases.
--MVRDV website
So the (sarcastic?) conclusion is that organic pig farming is not a real option?
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MVRDV have an interesting way of taking things/concepts to an extreme. Have they maybe learned from "Exodux, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture"? I like their imagination nonetheless. A breed of Dutch sarcasm utilized when most useful?
"Holy Stations of the Cross, Batman!"
Mid 21st Century Archinect/Forum Reunion, Kool Jets, Uranus
"Hey, anybody here read a novel lately?"
top:
MVRDV, Costa Iberica: Upbeat to the Leisure City (Actar, 2000.10.01), p. 188. (The city is Benidorm, "the most effective mass-tourism machine in Spain.")
bottom:
MVRDV, Costa Iberica: Upbeat to the Leisure City (Actar, 2000.10.01), p. 211. ("The Elderly Rock").
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2007.07.12 13:10
Sarcastic Architecture
I'm simply reading the text and I'm not finding the sarcasm.
2007.07.12 13:04
Sarcastic Architecture
...also, you can't really pin on an author someone's interpretation of the author. You can really only pin the interpretation on the interpreter.
2007.07.12 12:54
Sarcastic Architecture
...sure there is the ability to read into something beyond it's face value, but that does not at all discount the primacy of the face value itself. Look at the architecture (designs) themselves, read the primary sources themselves.
2007.07.12 12:49
Sarcastic Architecture
...yes, 'iconography and electronics' is an entirely different set of texts (like almost 30 years after Learning from Las Vegas), and the bitterness therein may well stem from the aftermath of Learning from Las Vegas. Again, this "venturi's always seemed to be interested in playing the under-estimated/under-recognized/uncredited outsider" is completely subjective. Seriously, how can you even really know that?
But the issue here is sarcastic architecture. I'm not interested in defending Venturi et al. What I'm interested in is a sharper reading of sarcastic architecture.
2007.07.12 12:41
Sarcastic Architecture
sarcasm 1 : a keen or bitter taunt : a cutting gibe or rebuke often delivered in a tone of contempt or disgust
The overall tone of Part II of Learning from Las Vegas is not one of contempt or disgust.
For example:
"Many people like suburia. This is a compelling reason for learning from Levittown. The ultimate irony is that although Modern architecture from the start has claimed a strong social basis for its philosophy, Modern architects have worked to keep formal and social concerns separate rather than together. In dismissing Levittown, Modern architects, who have characteristically promoted the role of the social sciences in architecture, reject whole sets of dominant social patterns because they do not like the architectural consequences of these patterns."
--p. 154, 2nd edition
This sounds to me like solid critique rather than contempt or disgust. And the whole texts reads more of solid architectural (because the text really is so rich with just talking about architecture) critique then some sort of sarcastically based evil plot.
2007.07.12 12:03
Sarcastic Architecture
"Snarky and smarmy"--go read the essays because here you're being completely subjective. I'm more interested in what is actually written, and not so much in what people think they see behind the writing.
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