2003.09.04 19:10
Re: CFP: Museums and the Web 2004
... There's nothing fancy about the display, but I like the effect of "going through a museum" on a day by day, as opposed to room by room, basis.
[Thinking just now:] a calendrically mnemonic museum design.
2003.09.25
definition of Quondam
quondam 1 : some incompletely architectural museum 2 : architecture as delivery of content 3 : a practice hypermuseum 4 : the architecture [publishing] domain of Stephen Lauf 5 : a virtual place in architectural history 6 : a premier unbuilding that continually undoes itself 7 : the first virtual museum of architecture online 8 : once, at one time, formerly; at times, sometimes, once in a while; some day, one day (in the future)
2003.10.05 14:47
Re: the McMansion Effect ((space))
..and then there's all the stuff that is now created and stored digitally, which sometimes gets put in digital museums.
Are the large homes and all their contents of today something like subliminal evocations of museums? "A man's home is his castle." And just look at how many actual castles and palaces are now actual museums.
"I want a McMuseum, hypersized."
Take a moment or two to count the 'collections' presently in your home.
2003.10.06 14:11
Re: CongressCATH 2004: Philosophy of Architecture/Architecture of Philosophy
From the call for papers:
In particular the conference will examine contemporary architecture (so-called postmodern or deconstructive architecture), which as a practice seems to perform the insights of postmodern theory, and the architecture of the museum and the museum of architecture and the Architectural Archive. Here the conference would like to explore debates around the creation of museum spaces and the relationship between collections, interpretation, meaning and space.
from the back cover of Lotus International 35 (1982):
The museum of architecture
It's no longer possible for a contemporary architect to resolve the complex thematic of the museum in the typological conception of a building. Museum architecture, on deeper investigation, is transformed into a reflection on the museum-making of architecture itself.
We can find the prototypes of this phenomenon in the first collections, in the house-museum, in the first archaeological excavations, limited phenomenon which gradually spread until they became a program of exhibition organization throughout the world with the great exhibitions of the start of the century.
Today, in fact, they look to us as a colossal project of museum-making, even if with the aim of instructing. But the world which is given back to us like a still life in the museums, all of the works, the image, the production of varied ages and places is only a universe of melange, a metaphor of the living world the disorder of which is brought back to mind in the "magnificent chaos of the museum."
The entire issue of Lotus International 35 is devoted to "the museum of architecture" theme.
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2003.11.14 22:36
Architecture Now! vol.2
I'm presently working on several volumes of Architecture Not Now!
2003.11.21 16:24
Re: Virtual and Real
Quondam - A Virtual Museum of Architecture celebrates its 7th anniversary online today.
The weather in Philadelphia today is gorgeous, and I was going to visit the closest real museum to me--Ryerss Museum and Library--to look at a pieces of the Coliseum and the Great Wall and even the full contents of a Japanese Buddhist Temple. The Ryerss Mansion is a wonderful example of a house that morphed into a museum, and the contents of the museum are all the things that the last residents of the Ryerss Mansion purchased about 100 years ago as they traveled around the world, particularly through the Orient. For a couple of years now I like to refer to the Ryerss Museum as a "Museum of Someone's [Global] Shopping." I didn't make it to Ryerss, though, because my trip to the bank, the post office (sending things to eBay shoppers in New York and Italy), and the supply store took longer than expected. I might go to Ryerss tomorrow or Sunday, however.
2003.11.21 17:00
virtual guggenheim?
The Virtual Guggenheim is so beyond virtual that it's actually not there.
2003.12.30 16:08
Rem Koolhaas and OMA-AMO
At the In Your Face symposium at NYU 29 September 2001, featuring Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Rem Koolhaas and others, I questioned Venturi about his unsureness regarding 'content' when it came to building facades that were also screens that present electronic imagery--Venturi pioneered this idea back in the 1960s with an unexecuted design for the Football Hall of Fame. My point was that if architects design buildings where (some of) the facades are screens, that it might also be the 'job' of the architect to provide the content to be 'screened', or at least provide some sort of direction to how the screen facades might be fully utilized. After a full exchange with both Venturi and Scott Brown, the moderator of the symposium asked Koolhaas if he had any additional thoughts on this topic, to which Koolhaas replied, "I am not interested in discussing 'content'." Koolhaas has since then obviously changed his mind because the whole theme of the Koolhass/OMA/AMO exhibit presently at Berlin, and the title of Koolhaas' forthcoming book, is indeed Content.
It was soon after late September 2001 that Quondam, a virtual museum of architecture, began defining itself as "architecture as the delivery of content."
2004.03.14 10:58
Re: koolhaas on charlie
Museums and libraries, architectures as deliveries of content.
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2004.10.26
Philadelphia model development
First off, place the Mikvah Israel Synagogue redux into the model. This type of redux design is then inspiration for more design interpolation of Center City sites and buildings. For example, Independence Mall, Penn's Landing, Vine Street Corridor, Market East and Kahn's plans could all be "developed". At least the model should be the venue for all kinds of 3d design development, be it trees, paving, facades, new buildings/ideas--always a virtual museum of architecture.
2004.11.23 12:58
does anyone model some famous architect's works?
The point of this thread is learning about building designs via model building, and yes one does learn a great deal about a building's design via building a model of it. Whether constructing a physical model or generating a computer model, both processes force one to look very carefully at the (available) drawings, and that is where the bulk of the learning occurs--trust me, after having done all the models at Quondam I know what I'm talking about. Of course, the learning continues once the model takes shape.
I was a professional (physical) model builder while an architectural student in the 1970s, and a professional computer model builder during the 1980s. Quondam's model collection was generated during the 1990s, and, for the most part, represents building designs that were never built.
2004.11.23 13:29
does anyone model some famous architect's works?
Quondam's collection is the result of a personal project, one of wanting to "experience" buildings that otherwise do not exist.
Quondam's model collection is not exactly consistent: a few buldings are complete inside and out, some buildings are within their immediate context, many are fragmentary. The over-riding goal of virtually all the model building was indeed to continue learning architecture.
2004.11.24 09:50
does anyone model some famous architect's works?
I disagree with the notion that the (only possible) actualization of a computer model is an image. For me (at least) the actualization is the model (and model building) itself, and further actualization occurs each time the model is again utilized and/or manipulated. The (relatively infinite) number/type of images subsequently available because of a computer model are first more a by-product of the model, and potentially an end-product (all its own) as well. Moreover, actualization of computer models comes into play in the incredible ease with which they can be (digitally) replicated, something not at all easy with a physical model. And yet another aspect where actualization of computer models comes into play is the incredible ease with which they can be continually manipulated, where each manipulation manifests the actualization of a whole new/other model (without eliminating the original model).
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2004.11.24 11:45
does anyone model some famous architect's works?
I chose ARRIS in 1987 because it was the only CAD software with fully integrated 2d and 3d drawing on a PC. I still use ARRIS because I can play it like a concert piano. [What can I say, we all have limited talents.]
I understand your point, and yes you more demonstrate the limitations of how computer models are most often used. Misplaced expectations?
When I was doing all the model building in the early 1990s it did occur to me that I was generating a kind-of museum of architecture, but back then I never expected the Internet/www and the eventual 'creation' of Quondam - A Virtual Museum of Architecture online 21 November 1996. And what Quondam displayed in its initial years did have an impact (and the potential for impact still exists).
The difference (for me at least) between a computer model and computer image(s) is that they are distinct actualized data files.
(It seems) digital data is never really an end-product because it so easily generates more and more digital data. Computer models facilitate the production of more and more digital data. Architecturally, perhaps only an actual building is an end-product (of the model/drawing).
Yet, for me, the 'end-product' architecture became a virtual building, specifically a virtual museum of architecture.
2004.12.17 18:58
afternoon field trip
Took pictures of soon to be quondam building, visited museum exhibit without the museum building there yet, entered room that moved from inside one Trumbauer building to inside another Trumbauer building. Where do I get my best ideas?
2005.01.21
intermediate 'to do' list
Start incorporating chronological lists of the architectural designs at Quondam. No single list will be complete in and of itself, nor will any single list be making a specific point, but as the lists multiply, their combined information is the point of the exercise. I could start with dating all the architecture within Seroux.
2005.02.15
ideas
Test Wacko House II as the new Barnes Foundation; see how the design fits (if at all); new/more drawings/dbs for Romaphilia.
The notion of reenacting the acropolis on the various building sites along the Benj. Franklin Parkway may be the new paradigm for "Parkway Interpolation"; the notions of towers and temples raised on a high plinth may be very fecund, (at least virtually).
Test the House in Laguna as the new Calder Museum; see Calder sculptures raised on the grand staircase.
Porticus documentation at Quondam; should be part of Encyclopedia Ichnographica.
Place all the Campo Marzio porticus within Romaphilia and juxtapose with immediate Philadelphia context.
Have a series of City Hall towers marching up the Parkway.
Superimpose Gerusalemme model and the Cathedral wireframe.
Model Love Park; superimpose the intercourse building.
Place the Bye House (model) and the Villa Savoye (model) on the Dominican Convent site.
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2005.03.22 10:26
church and synagogue
Since learning that Le Corbusier's St. Pierre at Firminy-Vert is again under construction and slated for completion 2006, I had been thinking about the 3D CAD model of this building design in Quondam's collection. I was reminded of (a set of 1998 Quondam web pages that exhibited) how the plan of St. Pierre fit very nicely into the sanctuary of Louis Kahn's Hurva Synagogue.
Yesterday, I placed the model of St. Pierre inside the model of Hurva Synagogue, and started rendering images of the results. I thought I was really just playing until I thought about the architectural implications of designing a Roman Catholic Church within a Jewish Synagogue. Would such an architecture speak to how Christianity is more or less wrapped in Judaism? And, given the nature of the Hurva design, there is every evocation of St. Pierre being "wrapped with ruins."
2005.03.23
idea
A new breed of architecture after St. Pierre/Hurva Synagogue merged.
2005.03.24 14:32
Re: Preserving listed buildings - on computers
I probably shouldn't give away too many of my ideas, but what the hell. I few years ago I thought I could offer virtual dream mansions on eBay. The gist of the idea was for me to advertise virtual architectural design services and the prospective client would receive a set of drawings/rendering of a fantastic house design. The client could then frame the drawings and tell all their friends they've had a mansion designed specifically for them. Of course, once a winning bid was had, I'd then further tempt the clients with extras, like a 'royal' bathroom suite or a 5 car garage cum carwash. Every mansion would have a room-size vault though.
(title in 45 letters or less)
WHEN A REAL HOUSE JUST ISNT ENOUGH GO VIRTUAL
I thought Neuschwanstein would look different inside. It looked too new or something.
Linderhof seemed cramped inside due to the overabundance of ornament.
Aalto's Baker House seemed cramped inside too, but that was because it was.
Le Corbusier's Carpenter Center was fun to see, but it also reminded me of a lot of models of student designs I've seen. Does a building up on columns somehow have an instant appeal?
The WWII bunker at Cape May Point actually does it all for me.
Now, there are a whole bunch of buildings that I've constructed in CAD and hence visited virtually which haven't disappointed at all.
To be honest, I hope everyone goes crazy over the prospect of "preserving listed buildings - on computer" because I believe everyone should get what they deserve.
Hey, does anyone else think it would be cool to see a reenactment of the 1939 New York World's Fair Sphere and Pylon at Ground Zero?
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