2006.04.01 10:38
Quondam's 10th Anniversary
In the spirit of equinox, all the negative things written by others about Quondam will be collected and ultimately displayed at the museum. Quasi hate mail goes all the way back to 1997. The exhibit will be entitled either "The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same" or "Letters From Pussies Galore".
2006.04.01 10:19
Why does much 'avant-garde' design these days look straight out of the Sixties?
And familiarity and associations are based on memories, either empirical or received via education, and memories are nothing if not reenactments. Add to that that architects are for the most part conservative, and radical only rarely.
2006.04.01 10:08
Complex Iconography and Contradictory Content in Architecture
It's strange to think that the double basilica of Augusta Treverorum [Trier] (circa 326-8 AD) was the first Christian basilica of northern Europe, and for many years the largest Christian church of northern Europe as well. Little remains of the original double basilica, but two large churches are still there side by side today.
My theory as to why there were two joined basilicas, to begin with, is that they were designed to accommodate the distinct Latin and Greek populations of Augusta Treverorum. I also theorize the double basilica of Augusta Treverorum as the primogenitor of the Romanesque. Eutropia was the 'architect'.
While the Shroud of Turin is well known, the Holy Coat of Trier is much lesser known. Perhaps you know the movie The Robe, however. "The Trier tradition affirms that this relic was sent to that city by the Empress St. Helena." If this tradition is true, Helena was already dead when the Holy Coat was brought to Augusta Treverorum. It was Eutropia who executed the translation of the relic.
The head of Helena, empress and saint, is also in one the double churches at Trier.
Did Eutropia ultimately die at Augusta Treverorum? Albeit a Syrian, as a western Roman Empress herself, she certainly was no stranger to the city. It is at least known that Constantine was at Augusta Treverorum 27 September 328 and 29 December 328 while on a campaign on the Rhine. Coincidentally, the end of 328 and the beginning of 329 is exactly when coins depicting Helena Augusta stopped being issued. It has long been my contention that the Helena coins ceased once Eutropia had died.
How come architecture historians have yet to make the very direct connection between Constantine's throne hall at Augusta Treverorum (306 AD) and the first Christian basilica of Rome (312 AD)? Perhaps it is only obvious to Eutropia, Helena and Constantine and those who know them as to where the "basilican" form of the Early Christian Architecture actually came from.
 
Aula Palatina, Trier, c.306 AD.
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2006.04.01 08:55
Why does much 'avant-garde' design these days look straight out of the Sixties?
One more chapter of Reenactionary Architecturism.
2006.03.31 13:11
Lost ! Need help!!
Or maybe it got lost in the Danube flood, maybe even the Danube flood of circa 18 May 1924. Oma told me about that one. "Why are the alarms going off?!" "The Danube is breaking," answered the midwife." "Wow Oma, I guess that explains Mom."
What, only real rats get postcards?
Wait, the postman's at the door. Aha, "The rain in Spain..."
2006.03.31 12:26
I made a concrete turd
I want to do something distracting this afternoon. Do you think a visit to Meyerson Hall to see a concrete turd would be worth the trip?
2006.03.31 12:17
Lost ! Need help!!
Oana S., wo bist du? I always wanted to ask, if a train of boxcars full of 18-45 year old male and female Danube-Schwabians left Apatin, Yugoslavia 1 January 1945 and was headed toward arrival at a Southern Ukraine Soviet labor concentration camp 19 January 1945, what do you think the route through Transylvanian would have been?
2006.03.31 12:02
Thread Central
"Mom, I'm leaving! You promised some really good early Venturi and Gehry architecture, and not this baby shit."
2006.03.31 11:40
Joep Van Lieshout
Ja, ja, das ist der Arkitektur!
Natürlich!
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2006..03.31 10:20
hotrod architecture
You know, if I was living in the Midwest, I'd definitely hotrod my house Lisa Douglas Style...
...with help, of course...
"Look, I can do two things at once. Watch me cut the bread and cut the cheese at the same time."
Regular avant garde just won't do. I have to have extreme avant garde!
Oh, and I'm not exclusive, everyone can enjoy my taste too!
And speaking of taste, there's always caviar and crackers!
"Oh Oliver! Cork floors would ruin everything!"
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2006..03.31 09:21
non-event cities
I love playing so the question, so the answer. Hey, did you hear about the new toilet room theme park that's being designed. The site hasn't been picked yet, but I'm hoping it's Flushings.
pee ess: see this
changingskyline.blogspot.com/2006/03
Potty Policy Protest
As to "When was the last time you saw a picture of a messy home in an architecture book? Or when was the last time you read about an ordinary home in an architecture history book?" all I can say is "Thank God for the virtual realm and it's virtual architecture museum and the virtual and even real architecture books it publishes."
Oops, I'm sorry. The architecture community is still almost completely ignorant of the contents of QBVS1, QBVS2 and QBVS3.
2006..03.31 09:09
Questions about Typography of Architecture
Ah, that explains the chamfered tip of 2H lead I ardently maintained while 'printing'.
Gutenberg, wo bist du?
2006..03.31 08:52
Lost ! Need help!!
I was at Potsdamerplatz in May 1990, not at the concert though. The piece of the Berlin Wall on my front window sill is from Potsdamerplatz, my father picked it up. This was my father's trip, I was merely the driver. In a day or two we were on our way back to the Lauf family farm in Poland. Once the Soviets were in control of Eastern Europe beginning right around now 1945, all the ethnic Germans of Eastern Europe lost everything that was theirs, hence I'm directly related to a lot of people that were in refugee camps more or less exactly 60 years ago, that is, if they weren't shipped to Soviet labor concentration camps in Southern Ukraine to mine coal 1945-50. And as to artists in such situations, the first time my father ever saw my mother she was on a stage in a concentration camp in Southern Ukraine, she was playing Donya and he couldn't take his eyes off her. My father was also 'lucky' in that he was soon transferred to construction rather than mining, but my mother mined for five years, however, she too was 'lucky' in that she did immediately accept the opportunity to learn Russian and hence became the leader of her group of women barracks, and thus weekly went shopping for everyone at the local Bazaar.
You know there's this very overgrown little necropolis in Poland a little east of Konin that no one goes near anymore. Otto Lauf the Eldest is buried there.
Yeah scars, what about them did you want to know? Like I guess it really is true that the child of a mother who once suffered from malnutrition might develop schizophrenia.
2006..03.31 08:20
Questions about Typography of Architecture
look, it's the Duchamp font on the Duchamp font...
otherwise, arial is the font I've been using almost exclusively for the last seven yeas or so.
What's the font of this and all the sentences here?
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