1998.03.22
animated gif @ the Altes Museum
...presentation at Quondam of a new virtual animated mural for the porch of the Altes Museum. Along with the animated mural, there will be historical information regarding the original mural, as well as the contemporary commentary on the mural, e.g., from Vidler to Venturi-Scott Brown. There is still the question of the content for the mural. I'm generally thinking of a collage approach using a variety of images and image types. ...the Bauakademie or German architectural history, or ever Schinkel's architecture, are all potential subjects. ...whether to take a slapdash approach or try creating something along the lines of a marquee which could incorporate a narrative. ...decided that the mural will comprise line data (in various colors) of perspective details of the Altes Museum itself.
1998.06.03
Quondam
...an over-riding interest in things that are incomplete (i.e., unbuilt projects)... ...might somehow relate this theme of incompleteness directly to Quondam. ...displays as fragments or even non-sequiturs. There is also the idea of mixing up the collection as per the idea for the period rooms at the PMA.
Does this mean starting a lot of projects and display them incomplete. Of course, I want to see all the projects complete, but there is also much data within models that just never gets recorded. ...the displays at Quondam as ongoing displays of the whole process of putting models together and putting the museum together. This modus operandi might just work.
...also Quondam as a place of architectural inspiration--a place of the muses. ...getting into the habit of always creating new drawings. The real goal with Quondam should be to create an incredible and extremely large collection of architectural drawings. There should be drawings of everything, and each item should be dated.
1998.06.05
virtual place
It is perhaps the pervasive and very reliable archival and repository nature of virtual place that makes it at an advantage over real place. It could be described as an historian's dream come true in that all transactions and data creation and transmittals are recorded in time. Time and its immediate connection to action is one of the supreme (if not the supreme) features of virtual place in cyberspace.
1998.06.15
new work @ Quondam
...slowly build a "virtual place," a kind of Quondam Ichnographia that eventually reflects Quondam's essence and modus operandi.
1998.07.16
Quondam
...upbeat, future oriented, spontaneous, eclectic and hopefully even more architectural, if not more cyber or virtual. The approach will be freer and almost without any discernible hierarchy.
...continually change the entry page... ...never to be an introduction, but a complete non sequitur from the get-go.
...a site that will confuse them...
...a clean slate again, a totally new Quondam with all the old [content] stored away.
5. ...all the crazy stuff that demonstrates the infinite possibilities that CAD and, to some extent, cyberspace afford.
10. ...take more advantage of the expansive web field.
...very stimulating and very Piranesian.
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1998.07.20
new ideas, Quondam
Display the Villa Savoye multicolored and with images (line work) on the walls.
Two Villa Savoyes collaged together - each could be a different color scheme and even a slightly different scale.
Replace the Ionic columns of the Altes Museum with the Parthenon columns (rescaled?). 2120d
Exaggeratingly stretch the Bye House in either direction.
Play with distorting the Dominican Convent.
Distort the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in the z direction.
1998.07.28
ideas
Subtext reenactment - the idea of having an almost secret place "beneath" the Encyclopedia Ichnographica, where the Campo Marzio is being reenacted in 3d using the model collection. Essentially, constructing an "analogous city" a la Canaletto's Capriccio and Aldo Rossi.
Houses Under a Common Roof in place of the Porticus Septa Julia.
Morphing the Altes Museum into a long (linear) porticus.
Replacing the Sepul. Hadriani with a tripod from the Altes Museum roof (or even the layered structure from Stirling's Cologne Museum).
Abstract model of the Villa Savoye: remove the glass wall from the ground floor, make the entire first floor solid except the ramp hall, remove the floor of the kitchen terrace.
Virtual Altes Museum - a scheme for a new program for the Altes Museum involving keeping the building forever as is, and additions to the building should only be virtual.
1998.08.04
distortion of plans, etc.
...spent some time today playing with the Bye House plans (and also the Wagner House). ...uneven scale/rotation distortion, then began to see dramatic results when simply moving various parts of the plan. Essentially, whole new buildings emerged. ...next perform these manipulations on the 3d models.
...pushing the envelope of acceptable design practice. ...a totally new type of design methodology...
...the opportunity to create completely new buildings, which in turn may become whole new virtual environments. ...perhaps the makings of some revolutionary architecture...
1998.08.25
What does it mean to be a virtual museum of architecture?
...address the full potential of a virtual museum of architecture. The main issue is that Quondam's collection is "virtually" an infinite collection, meaning the base model data can be used to generate ever more data, be it new line drawings such as elevations, axonometrics, and perspectives, any number of renderings, and even whole buildings derived from a manipulation of the existing data. It is particularly the possibility of creating whole new buildings to add to the collection that makes a virtual museum of architecture (in this regard at least) completely unprecedented. The closest example of this "manipulative" attitude toward architecture is (ironically) again Hadrian's Villa where the form of remembered places was morphed into another style and an entirely other location.
...the analogous building idea is also a prime candidate for "new" buildings.
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1998.10.03
new exhibit idea for Quondam
...good for Quondam to have some kind of special 1999 theme, i.e., the last year of the 20th century and the last year of the second millennium. ...present "metabolic" buildings--these buildings would be manipulating the data already available. ...an exhibit of [1]999 plans (crazy plans). ...and 99 buildings in 3d.
1999.01.04
ideas
The most modern building of the 20th century (airport cities).
Acropolis architecture.
Documentation of the House for Schinkel projects.
The Roman triumphal arch as symbol of military victories and as symbol of ancient Rome's foremost architectural triumph/achievement.
1999.01.10 19:45
Re: Quondam's agenda
4. Quondam's began because of a substantial collection of computer models of significant architectural designs that were never built. Quondam is thus primarily a museum that is "not there" about architecture that is "not there", and the key to its "existence" is precisely the Internet/world wide web. Quondam is well aware of the technological and electronic medium within which it builds and designs, and, almost ironically, chooses to remain fairly "low-tech" in its web page designs for the very reason of sustainability. Simply put, Quondam is concerned with uncovering those natures of architecture that already exist but are nonetheless mostly unseen.
1999.01.10
Maison Millennium(????)
...collaged models gone crazy.
1999.01.19
infringement complex
...a significant leap regarding the composing of metabolic buildings by collaging existing models. ...used Capital Park West... ...the resultant collage is fine, it was actually the process of creation/design that is more significant.
...underlayed the Palais des Congrès site plan to create a context. ...needed more underlay so then copy enlarged and rotated the site plan, and in cleaning up that plan real design possibilities came to the fore... There is every potential of creating Ottopia in this manner. ...immediately wanted to create a 3D base model for the collage complex.
...changing the elevations--just apply any number of other building elevations, or any other designs, e.g., the patterns.
1999.01.28
infringement complex 2, etc.
...incorporate the same model but change the scale of each building (which may involve moving the buildings around as well). ...also altering the elevations using a number of techniques including ri patterning, applying perspectives from infringement complex 1, applying elevations from the group elevations. A third complex could have Campo Marzio plans as the elevations.
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1999.04.14
an alter-ego for Quondam
...utilizes the same collection and themes as Quondam, but nonetheless affords Quondam a "place" to be much more liberal, uninhibited...
1999.06.12 12:45
interview 2.6
The CAD work, or at least the 'expanding, stretching, compacting, morphing, collage (citying), schizo-analyzing' CAD work is a manifestation of the new dexterity engendered by the capabilities of CAD specifically and digital media in general. In simple terms, the unorthodox manipulation of CAD data reflects the many new ways of "drawing" that CAD allows. On a "theoretical" level, the manipulation(s) present new drawing/designing paradigms that for the most part did not exist before CAD/digital media.
1999.06.14 12:21
interview 2.6
When I began constructing 3D CAD models of unbuilt architectural designs in the mid 1980s, I inaugurated a whole new way of studying architecture, specifically the study of built or buildable form through 3-dimensional drawing. In creating the models I was simultaneously enacting an architectural self-education, and since I was specifically constructing buildings that were never built, I was (self) learning lessons that did not even exist in the real world, yet, nonetheless, the lessons were purely about architecture. So besides all the buildings I've looked at and all the books I've read, I've also been influenced by some buildings that do not even exist. At this point, Quondam in all that it offers is probably the best overall reflection of my "architectural" mind, i.e., Quondam discloses a large portion of my architectural dispositions. Quondam is not a complete reflection of my architectural mind/brain, however.
1999.06.14 12:26
interview 2.6
I suppose what is most evident in my manipulative cad work is that virtually anything can be rendered graphically, and my personal inclination is to explore manipulations whose potentials are overlooked only because of traditional design (training and) conditioning. I also like (and therefore practice) the notion that it is easier to design by breaking "rules" than it is to design by following "rules".
1999.07.02
ideas
...additions to Venturi has “domino” effect--redux of the Gooding House [plus Wall House 2].
Ur-Ottopia House 2303
1999.07.27 11:34
interface, Truman Show, etc.
It is now confirmed that the main reason I occasionally write to you is because I then look forward to your response. Nonetheless, I found your response this time somewhat provocative, but mostly disturbing. The cautionary advise to not go crazy, the psychological advise, the worry about too much belief as a trap, the tone down the volume of ego--it took me a while to figure out where all that was coming from. Some I can connect and some I can't. For what it's worth, I take my work seriously as projects, however projects executed to the full extent of homo ludens, as human being (seriously) playing.
I'm trying to think of a simple way to explain my work in order to help you understand where I see myself coming from. What makes this difficult is that there can be no blanket statements to cover what I do because I've developed (through lots of practice) a versatility of dexterity that enables me to easily jump from one way of doing something to another way of doing something (else)--a kind of multi megabyte random access dexterity. I learned how to 'play' this way right after I first learned CAD, essentially I could begin playing because the computer supplemented my dexterity of hand and mind tremendously. So much of what I had to take seriously, like precision drafting, was now being done for me. This left a brand new (large) gap in the area of what things I could do myself. Rather than lament the computer taking away my skill, I consciously decided to celebrate my new freedom, and I did that first by going to the furthest extreme from precision, to the scribble, the slapdash, the accident. That was in the early 1980s, and I'm happy to say that my celebration (through art) then has generated a large and growing legacy as well as a (unique?) work ethic. For example, part of being good at being metabolic is knowing precisely where to break the rules (i.e., within the confines of the rules themselves)--legal loopholes are very metabolic.
I find it intriguing that within the context of my work you focus on belief. To me that means I am then well within the rather narrow territory where belief is indeed the central issue--there are not many people that inhabit that territory freely or easily, mostly because other people will go so far as to kill you if your beliefs are threatening to their beliefs. For some sad reason, beliefs often come with battles.
Of course, I believe in what I do and say/write, and in so doing I have seen many of my former beliefs abandoned. The world I see now is very different from the world I saw more or less the first 35 years of my life, and I'm glad for it. People often say that life is too short, but it is probably more true that most of us are here for what is actually a long time. I am now at the point of creating my life--Truman producing his own Truman Show? Or is Quondam my virtual "Glass House"?
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