2007.01.01 21:40
philip johnson was a whore. rem koolhaas is a porn star.
philip johnson was a bore.
rem koolhaas is a car horn.
steven holl has a fetish...
2007.01.05
ideas
6. There is the idea of going very easy recombinant with the Quondam cad collection, and in the process generating a new narrative for Quondam. Ottopia is more or less the context, but so is Quondam itself, and so is reality (filtered through the virtual).
2007.01.09
some progress
[recording] The cad databases are taking time, and it is kind of tedious work. There are some inspirations that occur during the process while seeing the databases, but who knows if I'll ever do anything except just forget that I was ever inspired.
I do like the notion of continuing to use the databases as part of an ongoing architectural narrative at Quondam. Right now I'm not sure what that narrative will be, but I'll probably keep it in the context of Ottopia/Romaphilia. The narrative might also be about Quondam itself.
2007.01.12 14:41
any suggestion about Manual DeLanda courses in Upenn
Don't tell me it boils down to mind candy!
2007.01.15 22:22
Minimalism in Architecture
"less walls is more windows"
or
"less windows is more walls"
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2007.01.16 15:14
Minimalism in Architecture
"In the future, everything will be an advertisement." Even minimalism.
2007.01.24 12:19
for marcel breuer's admirers
... and get that great new book on the workings of inspiration. I'm pretty sure it's called Even You Can Be A Copy Cat.
2007.01.24 12:08
The age of technological revolution is 100 years dead
"In the future, your whole life will be a phone call."
2007.02.07
meaning of labyrinth, etc.
I remembered last night that I recently read a good explanation of labyrinth (vis-à-vis architecture) and then thought how it relates to Piranesi's Campo Marzio plan, or at least how the labyrinth relates to some of the interpretations of the Ichnographia. I now think the passages read was within L.B. Alberti's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.
"Along with incomprehensible epigrams and inscriptions, unknowable animals and humans, the Hypnerotomachia is full of obscure, dark, intractable places: forests, veiled entrances, labyrints. Indeed, the labyrinth--a kind of emblem of hermetic difficulty, the symbol par excellence of search and the abstract model for most kinds of problem-solving activities--marks almost every step of the hero's wanderings as he makes his way through the story. As early as the first chapter, the reader follows the hero through a forest as he exclaims, "I had as my only recourse to implore the pity of the Cretan Ariadne, who gave the thread to Theseus to get out of the difficult labyrinth." Readers are constantly finding themselves within labyrinths: one inside the viscera of the temple at the base of the pyramid; an aquatic one in the form of a circular, maze-like pool; the concentric-patterned garden on the island of Cythera; and the subterranean spaces under a landscape of ruins."
"The book itself is a labyrinth, a series of veils, a cryptic epigram."
Liane Lefaivre, Leon Battista Alberti's
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, pp. 90, 91.
2007.03.10 20:42
...and speaking of random tangents
"In the summer of 1800, when the architect was away on his wedding trip, [John] Barber absconded, taking with him a considerable sum of money and all the most valuable office and personal papers."
--Hamlin
And the John Barber Award for Architectural Deviance goes too...
2007.03.12 17:05
...and speaking of random tangents
"In a sense Asimov, Heinlein, and the masters of American Science Fiction are not really writing of science at all . . . They're writing a kind of fantasy fiction about the future, closer to the Western and the Thriller, but it has nothing really to do with science . . . Freud pointed out that you have to distinguish between analytic activity. which by and large is what the sciences are, and synthetic activities which are what the arts are. The trouble with the Heinlein-Asimov type of Science Fiction is that it's completely synthetic. Freud also said that synthetic activities are a sign of immaturity, and I think that's where classical Science Fiction falls down."
Ballard, Speculation, 1969.
Upon first reading this passage, thoughts of how Piranesi's Il Campo Marzio dell'Antica Roma and particularly the Ichnographia Campi Martii have been largely misinterpreted by 20th century architectural 'scholarship' came to mind. The synthetic quality of Piranesi's archaeology (before archaeology was formalized into a science) is all the critics/theoreticians saw, and they completely discounted the analytical aspect of Piranesi's archaeology. Basically, a non-analytical analysis resulted in a synthetic interpretation.
The wonderful thing about Il Campo Marzio dell'Antica Roma (including the Ichnographia Campus Martius) is that the distinction between the analytical and the synthetic is never manifest--the work seamlessly embodies both natures.
[note to self: think about an updated republication of "Theatrics Times Two" and "Theatrics Times Two, too".]
"Science now, in fact, is the largest producer of fiction. A hundred years ago, or even fifty years ago even, science took its raw material from nature. A scientist worked out the boiling point of a gas or the distance a star is away from the Earth, whereas nowadays, particularly in the social, psychological sciences, the raw material of science is a fiction invented by the scientists. You know, they work out why people chew gum or something of this kind . . . so the psychological and social sciences are spewing out an enormous amount of fiction. They're the major producers of fiction. It's not the writers anymore."
Ballard, Speculation, 1969.
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2007.03.12 21:46
...and speaking of random tangents
As to "It raced so fast the pulse exited a specially prepared chamber before it even finished entering it," that book may already be written---perhaps either Einstein's General Relativity or Special Relativity. (But don't quote me on that.)
As it stands, to me, the sentence relates the pulse being quickly stretched between the entry and exit points of the chamber.
But the sentence may not even be correctly describing what really happened:
Perhaps it meant to say the pulse completely exited the chamber at a time in the past relative to its entry time.
or
Perhaps it meant to say the pulse bilocated, being at two locations but not at the same time; again, the second space/time occurred before the first space/time.
This is what the whole time warp theory is about. Or at least it's what it used to be all about. Or maybe theories quickly exit before they finish entering.
2007.04.09 23:29
3DH Gallery
The idea of this system was developed in 1637 in two writings by Descartes. In part two of his Discourse on Method Descartes introduces the new idea of specifying the position of a point or object on a surface, using two intersecting axes as measuring guides. In La Géométrie, he further explores the above-mentioned concepts.
--wikipedia
So let me rephrase...
The xyz coordinate system is not necessarily the same thing as Cartesian rationalism.
Interestingly...
The work, La Géométrie, was responsible for introducing the Cartesian coordinate system, which is a mathematical graph in which x is the horizontal line and y is the vertical line, and in which the positive numbers on the x line are on the right and the negative numbers on the left, and the positive numbers on the y line are on the top and the negative numbers are on the bottom, and specifically discussed the representation of points of a plane, via real numbers; and the representation of curves, via equations.
--wikipedia
So the system was not so much a rational cage, rather a method to represent curves?!
2007.04.09 18:54
evolutionary architecture?
No, extinction means extinction, as in evenually not there anymore.
And, one could well say that Stirling practiced architectural design as an ongoing development of architecture's very historical DNA code.
Perhaps the environment and users now-a-days evolve a lot quicker than building ever could.
It seems to me that the more specifically designed a building is (and even buildings specifically designed to change over time), the quicker those building become obsolete.
2007.04.09 20:29
evolutionary architecture?
The interior of the simple loft building can be just as easily changed.
I forget where, but I read how the Theater of Marcellus has been renovated into multi-story apartments like over a thousand years ago.
Obsolete-ness is gauged by time endurance. I'd say any building that lasts over several centuries has a low obsolete factor. And buildings that last less than a half century have a high obsolete factor. (Planned obsolescence is a whole other (artificial) story.)
Also, the obsolescence of a building's function does not necessarily make the building itself also obsolete (as a sheltering structure). That is, of course, unless the building is designed only for a highly specific function. Moreover, buildings with great space(s) and structure(s) to begin with usually last longer too.
I think Vanbrugh is my first favorite English architect (although I'm just now learning of Latrobe's English work).
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2007.04.20 18:27
Featured Discussion: Volume
Because education is today an expensive commodity, and because magazines are at best advertising mediums and because architects are now seeking to commodify their research (abilities), I thought of Leon Krier's "The Consumption of Culture" in Oppositions /14 (1979).
first sentence:
"When the French Revolution ended with the political victory of the bourgeoisie, education, which had been the priviledge of a small class, became compulsory for every member of the new social order.
somewhere in the middle sentence:
"Kitsch must then be identified as the most important cultural phenomenon of the industrial age, as the real Zeitgeist of the machine age.
last sentence:
"In that perspective, the self-destruction of humanity becomes obviously a moment of relief, relief from the urgency, ugliness, and futile agony.
2007.04.21 13:22
Featured Discussion: Volume
Look up magazine in a good dictionary.
1 a : a place where goods or supplies are stored
2 a : a place to store ammunition
Bouman states Volume's position well. But the whole "kind of de-territorialized" stance is weak, tepid at best.
As an architect, with no practice, a dormant license, no ties to any institution, no real contact with other architects and very little real contact with other people, yet, via the internet, still operating within the architectural realm and even having some effect (big effect even if the full range from negative to positive is considered), I know all about de-territorialization because, as an architect, de-territory is the only place I am. [An interesting twist in this particular discussion (place) is that Mark Wigley is the only person here that has actually met me, and thus he knows just how de-territorialized I actually am.]
Oddly, de-territorialization is what provided me with an architectural comfort zone.
[note to self: how does bilocation relate to de-territorialization? Is bilocation like a hyper inverted de-territorialization??]
2007.04.22 19:59
Featured Discussion: Volume
I referred to my stance as an architect as de-territorialized, but not to Quondam.
My de-territorialized stance may be reflected within the content published at Quondam, but Quondam itself doesn't attempt de-territorialization any more than any other virtual place attempts de-territorialization.
If there is anything I learned via de-territorialization and Quondam it's that limits are not worth reaching for.
2007.04.23 15:41
Featured Discussion: Volume
It seems to make sense that de-territiorialization ultimately registers a re-territorialization, but it is the effect of de-territorialization (on one's thinking) that is the most important aspect here. And I guess you could say that new mode of thinking is what then shapes the new "territory".
I have no idea if this is so, but I wonder if this composition might be an example of de-territorialized architecture.
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2007.04.23 17:08
Featured Discussion: Volume
Firminy church by Le Corbusier
Hurva synagogue by Kahn
composition 1a : the act or action of composing : the formation of a whole especially by different things being put together
To confuse or not to confuse, that is de-territorialization?
The church/synagogue composition came as a result of seeing how the plan of the church fit almost perfectly within the sanctuary(?) of the synagogue. And, since I had a model of both buildings, I just wanted to see the superimposition in 3D. And upon seeing that I thought, "Gosh, that kinda looks like a mosque." Trust me, de-territorialized thinking isn't necessarily brilliant, although for the most part uninhibited.
Anyway, back to Volume....The reporter on the radio just said, "Heavy volume on Passyunk Aveune..." Hey, traffic would make a great theme for a heavy issue. Trafficking in Architecture--I wanna write about stolen goods.
I think Passyunk is an old 'Indian trail'. Wow, Philadelphia's Indian trails, talk about de-territorialization.
2007.04.23 20:46
Featured Discussion: Volume
"It turns out that humpback whales riff off each other, remixing one another's songs, and developing trends and fashions in their singing over time." Who told them about composition?!?
2007.04.25 10:24
Featured Discussion: Volume
"...a 'hard copy' tool that brings in more architectural clients..." -- Was Le Corbusier subliminally advertising? Did the publication of SMLXL coinciding with an exhibit at MoMA bring Koolhaas/OMA more clients? I'll say probably and probably.
(I assume) clients look for someone they can trust, and they probably do that by seeing what architects are already trusted.
But your answer is viable, nonetheless. Just also be aware that the architectural field is repleat with (subliminal) copy-cats.
The client asks:
Are you an architectural brand or are you an architectural knockoff?
The architect responds:
That depends, are you a brand client or are you a knockoff client?
How many clients do you think I'd attract with "hardcopy" entitled Volume and Congestion?
2007.05.10 11:39
your favorite quote
"History has a way of interpolating itself."
-Stephen Lauf 2007.05.10
2007.05.18 14:57
lost endings
What I see in LOST is the same type of convoluted (complicated; intricately involved) storyline filled with clandestine, sort of encyclopedic clues. What seems somewhat unique to LOST though is its way of character development via real time portrayal and flashback. This operation manifests (at least) a double theater, which is a very fecund, indeed baroque, story-telling vehicle that is not often used.
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