2004.05.04 17:19
Re: videologists: a new species ?
Note how you too 'witnessed' the US Iraqi War Memorial, even though you are not even in the USA, and both of us are very far apart, yet both of us experienced the same memorial.
As you also note, this memorial can be further experienced by a replay of the broadcast; this too is part of this memorial's design. The problem of storing this data is not of grave concern, however, since the original data is digital and thus easily duplicated continuously.
Oblivion takes many guises. I can think of five war memorials within a 3.5 mile radius of where I live:
Civil War Memorial of Grubbtown - a small stone obelisk near where Adams Ave. crosses Tacony Creek
World War I Memorial - a small somewhat stylized stone obelisk at the intersection of Rising Sun Ave., Mascher St. and Wyoming Ave.
World War I and World War II Memorial - a brass plaque with names within a classical pedimented stone niche on the side wall of the Olney Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia at 5th St. and Tabor Rd.
Veteran's Memorial - a small stepped brick pyramid where Tookany Creek Parkway crosses Tacony Creek in Cheltenham Village
World War I and World War II Memorial - a medium sized three-sided stone pilaster at the intersection of Rising Sun Ave., Oxford Ave., and Cottmann Ave.
There may even be others that I don't know about, but, of the hundreds, if not thousands of people that pass by these memorials everyday, I feel confident that very few pay any attention to them at all.
Nonetheless, all the above memorials, with the exception of the Civil War Memorial of Grubbtown, receive a wreath on Memorial Day.
2004.07.22 16:26
Re: Virtual Synagogue in Berlin's Fasanenstrasse
...an analytical rendition of Kahn's Mikveh Israel Synagogue (Philadelphia, 1961-70, unexecuted) where the cylinders of light are replace with reduced versions of Venturi & Rauch's Tower for Princeton Memorial Park (New Jersey, 1966, unexecuted).
Gordon [Matta-Clark] sees the PMP Tower design as Venturi & Rauch's consummate homage to Kahn, specifically to the Mikveh Israel Synagogue.
While Gordon studied architecture at Cornell (BA 1968), he well remembers Perspecta 9/10 where Mikveh Israel is featured, as well as the then forthcoming excerpt from Complexity and Contradiction--"Is it a building split in two or two buildings coming together."
And who could forget the "Avant-Garde Anachronist" article on Louis Kahn in Time June 1966--"Carving in Light" indeed.
And remember how everyone was eating up the Progressive Architecture Award Citations January 1967.
2004.08.30 11:35
Re: the building as burkha
I'm curious as to how much thought, if any, has been given to the design of all the security checkpoints that will eventually be a part of all the new buildings and memorial at Ground Zero. Even without research, I imagine none of the proposed buildings and memorial will exist without many security checkpoints. Perhaps Ground Zero could be surrounded by a new and smaller version of the Berlin Wall (creating an island of Freedom Tower), thus potentially narrowing the number of checkpoints down to three--Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. Even Wall Street would have real meaning again!
Or maybe my imagination has run away and Architecture of the Divided States of America is really completely fictitious.
walls = denial = burkha = ?
Did you ever see pictures of how the first manifestation of the Berlin Wall was a continuous line of armed Communist soldiers standing abreast side by side? Remember Hands Across America? "Ich bin ein Ground Zeroed!"
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2005.02.04 11:46
September 3, 1967 = January 30, 2005
And now I wonder what the Iraqi War Memorial in Washington DC is going to look like. Maybe an exact mirror of the Vietnam War Memorial on the other side of the Mall?
Has anyone ever said "One good reenactment deserves another" before now?
2005.06.29 11:47
GZ eyeballed {intermission}
This image, from today's New York Times, is the clearest image I've seen thus far to indicate where the redesign process presently is. Admittedly, I really haven't been (visually) following the process over the last few years, but, for some reason, now I get it, meaning I understand where everything (planned) is. In a strange way, this image is almost like looking down from the top of one of the lost WTC towers itself. It was seeing St. Paul's Church at this angle that reminded me of seeing the church from a similar angle when I was last atop the WTC (early September 1990). Just now I'm thinking of what might be an interesting virtual memorial--utilizing a 3D model of the greater NY/NJ area, a "visitor" would be positioned where the quondam WTC observation deck used to be, and from there he or she could direct their gaze taking in the views that once were.
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2008.04.04 12:36
READING LIST
Currently reading Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media, and got up to p. 84 yesterday morning while waiting for the repair of an automatic car window. There is an unfortunate manuscript error on page 68:
lines 1-4
Benjamin cites a sentence of Theodor Reik... Remembrance is essentially conservative; memory is destructive."
lines 14-15
In these terms, Reik's distinction between conservative memory and destructive remembrance...
As they stand (at least in the 1994 hardback edition), these lines contradict each other, and thus completely confuse the issue. Now checking the source, lines 1-4 correctly recall Reik's distinction.
Staying on page 68, I (personally) use/translate Erfahrung as 'a knowledge of', and Erlebnis as 'an actual experience of', in the sense that Erfahrung is more or less a reenactment of Erlebnis.
2013.09.08 13:00
Obama names critic of Gehry's design to Eisenhower Memorial Commission to oversee DC project
...don't forget that after the Vietnam Memorial was complete, there was still a controversy that Lin's design was too abstract, and eventually a representional statue of three soldiers looking as if cautiously scouting a jungle was added to the 'entry' point of the path to the wall of names.
Does the design 'battle' hinge on abstraction versus representation?
I'm still hoping to find a sketch I drew for a design project from first semester of fifth year (Fall 1980). The project was an omni war memorial for Philadelphia's Independence Mall, the site was where the US Constitution Center now stands. The guest studio critic was Allen Greenberg, who was big on (the design history of) Lutyen's WWI Memorial Cenotaph in London. The sketch is not what I ultimately presented because I just knew it wouldn't go over too well at jury. Anyway, the design was of seven 30' high white marble monoliths, one for each US war up to that time, standing erect in line across the site. Each slab was blank except for a 1' high thin vertical gash somewhere about half way up which acted as a fountain releasing water that would run down the slabs and into a shallow pool connecting all the monoliths. I wanted the water of the fountain dyed deep red to look like blood.
Today, that design could well be a seen as an uncanny composite of abstraction and representation.
2013.09.09 17:53
Obama names critic of Gehry's design to Eisenhower Memorial Commission to oversee DC project
I'm no longer conflicted because this is how I'm going to remember Eisenhower from now on:
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2013.09.09 21:43
Obama names critic of Gehry's design to Eisenhower Memorial Commission to oversee DC project
And here I thought the first complaint was going to be that the scale is completely inappropriate for the context and site.
I'm still hoping no body notices that the design is much more Stalin/Soviet style than US/Patriotic style, though. Talk about completely inappropriate symbolism for the leading cold war president!
Hey, if you're gonna be black-listed, you might as well do it right, right?
2014.08.13 17:07
Eisenhower memorial, politics as usual
“monstrosity”
a novel take on memorialization
I vote
all of the above
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