2008.12.19
Durand plans and New Not There City
I've decided to start placing the to-scale-yet-still-raw Durand plans into "position" within New Not There City [originally IQ], and the new line work will follow from there. The point being to use the data right away creatively. The first things to learn are scale comparisons (like Versailles is turning out to be not so super big, more just extensive). Anyway, with all the more plans, New Not There City [originally IQ] will become much more interesting.
2009.01.29
Lost's ending
I now suspect, after seeing the third episode of Lost season 5 last night, that Lost will end with all of its original cast alive and together. This is how I see the current time traveling coming to a conclusion. It will be like Finnegans Wake and like Il Campo Marzio. Too bad Bloomer didn't make this vital connection.
So now it's exploration of the possibilities of the space-time continuum. Like Proust was a neuroscientist, was Piranesi, with the Ichnographia Campus Martius, a scientist of the fourth dimension? (Here is where I have to review Dixon's "Ichnographia as Uchronia".) IS IQ also a study / experiment of architecture (and urbanism) in the fourth dimension? For IQ the time continuum connection is the Axis of Life/Parkway connection, which comes after Piranesi's own Porticus Neronianus/St. Peters connection.
Are the recombinant, appositional buildings of Quondam studies/experiments of architecture in the space/time continuum? Is that what they always have been? (Here is perhaps where I reread Geometry, Relativity and the Fourth Dimension.)
And what of The Odds of Ottopia? Did it all have a sense that even I did not fully understand? Bilocation was a significant part of the story. A step beyond Theatrics Times Two? What is Bilocation2 or Bilocation3, etc.--the studies of further powers within 2 = odd.
Quondam and Museumpeace as bilocation theaters? And all my posting activity over the last 12 years as writing / existing within the continuum as opposed to just within reality itself. Just looking now at the Virtual Domain collages I again see an architecture within the space-time continuum--the theme is widely present throughout my work, and I can now see on what foundation my further work rests. Is Quondam (and Museumpeace getting there) impenetrable because of its space-time existence? its slippages in and out of various time frames? (Do I write a comment at things.net?)
This is a great note because a breakthrough into understanding my (design) work is abundantly more clear. There is much here for me to elaborate on further, and I could formerly write about what Quondam is all about and indeed explain my work as a further approach to architecture. Does this also explain my further approach to art?
And now, before I go to read Dixon's text (Uchronia), I'll end by mentioning that I now have to think about the relationship of reenactionary architecturism to traveling in the space-time continuum.
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2009.02.02 13:07
Venturi's Lieb (No. 9) House to be moved (or demolished)
...and then/now there's museification
dossier in brief:
(at least) a Philadelphia tradition:
Cedar Grove and contents
Letitia Street House
Hatfield House
Briar Hill library and contents
Period Rooms of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Japanese House
Étant donnés
1977.02 antidote:
"If someone in the museum was truly interested in my work they would let me cut open the building. The desire for exhibiting the leftover pieces hopefully will diminish as time goes by. This may be useful for people whose mentality is oriented toward possession. Amazing, the way people steal stones from the Acropolis."
Gordon Matta-Clark
1993:
Robert Venturi, "Some Agonizing Thoughts about Maintainance and Preservation Concerning Humble Buildings of the Recent Past"
1998:
"Do you know the BASCO sign is now gone?"
"No! Do you know where it is now? We'd like to save it."
1999.10.06
A typed letter signed by Robert Venturi, wherein he laments the demolition of his BASCO 'baby', is currently up for auction at eBay
2000:
"What's the address of the Nurses' Office in Ambler?"
"It's better now if you just look at the pictures."
[found the building and took pictures anyway]
2002.11.23
Monument Hystérique
2004.12.17
"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:
Best Building demolished; flower pattern porcelain enamal panels saved, many now in private and museum collections
2009.01.02
Lieb House; another chapter in the architecture of removement.
2009.02.02 14:37
Venturi's Lieb (No. 9) House to be moved (or demolished)
I'd say that the Lieb House is now a museum peice. That's how the building's context has now changed. Villa Savoye hasn't moved, but its context has changed as well. It hasn't been a residence in many years, and it too is now a museum peice.
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2009.03.08
journal
Started the process of coordinating the Philadelphia model with IQ. Right now the priority is to bring each section up to the level of completeness a la the data existing thus far. This seems to be the right way to go for Quondam because all the various model data of the entire collection will have a three dimensional place. No doubt this will all be a lot of (drone) work, and I hope it will be worth it, as in something worthwhile architecturally will be gained.
But what is this all really about? It does have to do with "using" the museum, and also using history, specifically architectural history.
Other things going on are:
1. reading A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake and seeing how it actually does relate to the ICM, (at least to my interpretation of the ICM). I may ultimately have to read all of Bloomer's Architecture and the Text to make sure I just didn't get her point back them just because I just didn't know any better (about Finnegans Wake).
The other interest in Finnegans Wake is because of the labyrinthine "design" and how I now want to understand and manipulate Quondam as a labyrinthine design. My feeling is that Quondam already is a labyrinth and now I just want to understand and design it better.
2. I want to also employ Quondam as an outlet for architectural fiction, and, right now, the theme of Quondam's architecture fiction is Quondam itself and the buildings in its collection are the novel characters. For what it's worth, I just thought of the Houses for Otto as "ancient" ruins where there are foundational remains but nothing else--we don't even really know if they are/were even houses. (And now I'm seeing how this is very much how Piranesi operated within the ICM and the earlier plans.) In any case, the narrative at Quondam derives from the stories that each building or buildings present.
2009.04.07
museum collecting
...have yet to compile all the museum plans within Quondam's collection, meaning adding Museum Annex, Calder Museum, Working Title Museum, Haus der Kunst, Cut & Paste Museum (and just as an aside, the latest REX museum seems to relate to the Cut & Paste Museum), Acropolis Q, Venue, Gallery Berwin, Circle Squared Museum, Domestic Museum, 5233, Villa Savoye(?), Palace of Versailles, and all the superimposed museum plans.
2009.06.06 20:18
how about thom mayne?
Quondam is my site. It's the first virtual museum of architecture, online since 21 November 1996. Earlier this year thingsmagazine.net described Quondam as "Stephen Lauf's epically impenetrable 'online collage', a real labyrinth of a website," and that suits me just fine.
Yes, Quondam is dense, and even I don't know where everything is, so I utilize site-specific google searches to find things.
The numbering system has no meaningful significance beyond its sequentiality; file names, that's all.
The specific image you ask about also has no intended significance in terms of how Thom Mayne may see things, but, as you've now demonstrated, it is capable of inspiring a significance. And that's more or less the point...
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2009.08.03 18:19
Archinect hates Architecture
I've been using CAD architecturally since 1983. For almost 13 years now most of my work is networked.
"Generative architecture" is still in its virtual stage.
I'm currently working on a virtual museum of architects (within the museum of a virtual architecture).
2009.09.21
what's going on
Ongoing work on the "museum of architects"--once all the texts are formatted add all the date data to the calendar and start to compile a new chronological list of events. The alphabetical list will also be completely linked to the decade lists (via the 'name' tag).
...the history of Quondam; ...early sketch of the morph from Court Gardener's House to Museum of Architecture...
... hints about writing/compiling a "novel" text composed of the earlier archin posts--all of them and somehow filling them out.
2009.09.30 21:33
Information Architects Talking About Architects and Architecture
Presently, I like to design delivery of content in the enfilade slash labyrinth style.
Perhaps, someday, I'll design some delivery of content following the architecturale promenade formula.
Actually, I've been struggling with a big design/renovation brief, the solution to which has been eluding me for well over a month now. Alas, today, while just stepping out of the shower, it finally dawned on me--delivery of content in the enfilade slash labyrinth style via bilocation.
Is subtext actually text bilocated?
2009.11.19 17:32
The current state of Architecture Theory
Computers are not competing with thinking.
For the sake of the argument here, computers greatly augment/assist instinctive/intuitive design thinking. Designing instinctually/intuitively (for example, Villa Savoye derivatives) doesn't mean you're designing without thinking.
2010.09.29
Le Corbusier turning recombinant
There is the idea of documenting (@ Quondam) the examples where Le Corbusier reuses past building design projects for new projects. For example, the Berlin Rehab project; the Chandigarh Secretariate at Olivetti Milan; the spiral museum; the Maison l'Homme; the stage set at Strasbourg...
Chronology of Maison de l'Homme
1949 226 x 226 x 226 Roq & Rob a Cap Martin 5/57
1950 Project "Porte Muillot 50" 5/70-71
1956 at Tokyo Museum 6/169-73 (also 1957-59 7/182)
1962 Exhibition Hall in Stockholm 7/178-81
1963 Museum of the 20th Century 7/169
1963 Art Center near Frankfurt am Main 7/175-77
1965 Exhibition Pavilion at Zürich 7/22-31
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