2003.02.22 09:14
apostasy is only half the story
Interesting how the Guggenheim circular rotunda with spiral ramp is a reenactment of the Vatican Museum's entrance rotunda with double helix ramps.
Yes, Wright's design (1943-59) essentially reenacts Momo's design (1929-32). Did Wright covertly sense, or did the Guggenheims overtly express a desire for a Jewish Vatican Museum? If you need proof, just look at the skylights of each place.
By the way, Momo's spiral rotunda reenacts Bramante’s earlier Vatican spiral ramp, the one that allowed the pope to travel on horseback to and from the Belvedre Court high up in the Papal Palace (which is now for the most part the Vatican Museum).
So now we have Barney elaborately reenacting the raising and lowering of testicles. Given the corporal territory, Barney no doubt plays a lot with the (chronosomatically defined?) fertile imagination. Greenaway also utilizes the fertile imagination, although much more assimilatingly and metabolically. Is Barney perhaps exhibiting /manifesting a pre-natal fertile imagination? Chronosomatically, that is indeed a possibility. Given the female body and it's role in embryonic development, the present 'plane of the present' slices through a female that is approximately five months pregnant. And given that around now is when a developing fetus reverses position from head up to head down, there might just be some developing testicles within the slice of our time, and maybe that's where Barney is chronosomatically (speaking).
latest chronosomatic note (yet to be numbered):
In terms of the present pregnancy within the female body, there may well be twins developing, one male and one female. Since the ultimate birth of the current pregnancy will correspond with a "second birth" (ref. Eliade), the notion of a forthcoming male/female pair of twins (rightly?) contrasts the primordial male/male (metabolic) twins of creation myths.
A future chronosomatic note may concern itself with the Jewish psyche and it's relationship with reenactment, eg, the contemporary state of Israel. With the Holocaust corresponding to the transverse colon, as do all contemporary genosidal purges, and the forthcoming end of assimilation in 2194, is today's Israel the ur-metabolic state?
2003.02.23 12:30
Re: more on wtc
What really changed architecturally with the early Christian building boom during the reign of Constantine is that the new religious architecture became very internalized. Judging by descriptions of what was inside these places, they were gleaming with gold and silver everywhere, while the exteriors remained relatively sparse. I often wonder if this interiority is due to the fact that a woman, i.e., Helena, planned it that way. Of course, all the new gold and silver was very likely from melted down gold and silver that came from the Pagan temples that were starting to be dismantled (more than destroyed, remember all the columns were also reused within the new Christian structures) during the same time. Very metabolic.
2003.03.14 09:24
Re: www.cremaster.net
Now compare the Cremaster characters' genealogy with the genealogy of the Neo-Flavians [gauge/limits: Constantius I to Julian the Apostate], and keep track of how many blood relatives and in-laws Constantine had killed, and then how many blood relatives and in-laws his sons had killed—easily labeled The Imperial Metabolic Cycle. No doubt Minervina remains the most obscure. Nice paradigm shifting architecture!
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2003.04.02 10:27
Re: The Last Taboo?
It is a sign of the metabolic imagination more than anything else. (It also demonstrates an inversion of the 'trash into art' phenomenon.) While metabolism incorporates a creative /destructive duality, it also manifests a resultant energy. This is what really happens, (whether you (were taught to) appreciate it or not).
2003.04.03 14:32
Biggy
Yes, the Taliban destroyed Buddhist monuments, but they did not create anything in the process. In this case, the Taliban are not utilizing a metabolic imagination.
Metabolism is a major operation of each human life, and not a religion.
2003.04.03 14:38
DuChance
Metabolism comes before money/Capitalism, and Capitalism has been described as creative destruction.
The issue is [the] metabolic [imagination].
2003.04.04 11:01
Re: The Last Taboo?
What the Taliban did was assimilation in the extreme, ie, purge. Just like when our bodies assimilate in the extreme, i.e., purge.
Assimilation and metabolism are two disticnt corporal physiologies. Assilimation is basically absurption of nutriants and the purge of that which is left after full absorption. Metabolism is a creative/destructive process (catabolism and anabolism) which releases energy. Metabolism is a basic tenant of life itself. Thus creative /destuctive duality is a basic tenant of life itself.
2003.04.04 13:31
Re: The Last Taboo?
….22 metabolized Schinkel prints within The Curatorium.
"Destroying" art to "create" art. Is it really shocking to do something we viscerally do all the time just to live? I thought art was flife now-a-days anyway.
2003.04.07
The Urausstellung
6. because of “The Last Taboo?” many other issues are relavent, such as new dexterity, iconoclasm of computers in creative activities, the metabolic imagination/aesthetic; appositional art.
7. The Metabolic Aesthetic which comprises all my letters and notes re: the metabolic, plus whatever design examples (like Eros et Thanatos) I also have?
2003.04.09 12:38
The Gospel according to SARS?
Oh yes, US history is very different, very metabolic. Destroy one indigenous civilization because Europeans own the land now, and, by the way, are also creative in the process of owning said land.
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2003.04.10 12:37
Re: AFTER GREENBERG :
I read Part I of Design and Crime, and now I'm reading At the End of an Age. Lukacs' focus on the last 500 years coincides with the chronosomatic study of the corporal cross-section comprising the area of peripheral skeletal hiatus between the crest of the hip bones and the lowest tips of the rib cage--the area of the human body where unrestricted expansion occurs most. Chronosomatics agrees with Lukacs that that 'era' is now past (given that circa 2000 AD coincides with the lowest tips of the rib cage, and, conversely, 1543 coincides with the navel, which, in turn coincides with the crest of the hip bones). I'm going to finish At the End of an Age specifically to see how Lukacs' explanation of what 'just' happened compares with the chronosomatic explanation of what 'just' happened, namely that there was unrestricted expansion particularly of European culture/civilization/thinking, and that gross assimilation occurred in the process, that a distinct operational duality--the metabolic--began to be present, and that longer ranging structure was overall always independently in the background.
While reading chapter one, "At The End of An Age," I often wondered if Lukacs is ever going to explain what ended 500 years ago when the 'Modern Age' began. Lukacs may indeed address this issue someplace in the rest of the book. According to chronosomatics, what ended 500 years ago was humanity's long history as planetary nomad, which corresponds to the bones of ambulation that became the past when the plane of the present transcended the crest of the hip bones, while what began was humanity as planetary (and briefly ex-planetary) navigator.
2003.04.16 11:18
Re: Do we live in some virtual Zoos ?
Museums have over time become my favorite type of building, specifically as architecture as delivery of content, even the 'secret' content. Thanks for sharing your research!
I also appreciate your thoughts on the metabolic. My dictionary defines catabolism as destructive metabolism and anabolism as constructive metabolism. Don't forget though the energy that metabolism engenders via its destructive /constructive duality. Oddly, what seems to keep this life system in 'balance' is that catabolism is not in fact completely destructive, but also harbors tiny traces of creativity.
It really is amazing that something that remains basically the same all the time (ie, the design/plan of the human body) nonetheless manifests so many, many differences. I sort of stopped looking at humanity as an animal, and (since 1981) starting looking at humanity (specifically the male/female human body) also as architecture as the delivery of content.
2003.05.15 10:10
Re: The death of the architect ??
Perhaps what is more "audacious" of the architect is to assume that he/she ever had the 'power' to actually destruct or create. Almost always these activities are performed by someone else. It's sad that the architecture profession is reduced to a publicity stunt to call attention to its name being taken in vain.
Get used to metabolic times. Remember when I wrote (here in 1999) of the likelihood of two Baghdads.
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2003.05.15 13:59
Re: Life in a real museum
Metabolism as a physiological function operates via equal measures of destruction and creation, ie, catabolism and anabolism. The metabolic is a visceral destructive/creative human process.
2003.05.18 12:53
Re: logical software
There was also a time when I considered composing THE BODY, THE IMAGINATION, AND ARCHITECTURE were the physiological operations of the body (fertility, assimilation, metabolism, osmosis, electro-magnetism, ultra-frequent synapses) are explored as also engendering 'physiologies' of human imaginations (fertile imagination, assimilating imagination, metabolic imagination, osmotic imagination, electromagnetic imagination, ultra-frequent synaptic imagination) which were then explored as further engendering physiologically categorized architectures (fertile architecture, assimilating architecture, metabolic architecture, osmotic architecture, osmotic architecture, electromagnetic architecture, ultra-frequent synaptic architecture). There are many unpublished notes and some drawings pertaining to this project.
2003.05.18 14:02
Re: This month’s WIRED – Koolhaas
I consume magazines, I assimilated/purge magazines, I metabolize magazines.
2003.06.05 13:43
Re: Anthony Vidler on Gordon Matta-Clark
What is still missing from the ongoing evaluation/analysis of Matta-Clark's work is the realization that he often manifest a/the metabolic imagination, i.e., an oeuvre comprising creative/destructive dualities.
2003.06.20 11:54
Re: WTC & Real Estate Development
Brian wrote: it seems as if a city is a process which churns this stuff to keep its growth/decay (metabolism?) in movement.
Steve adds: Cities have always been centers/engenderers of vitality. The word vitality relates directly to life, as does (the word) metabolism. Are cities always metabolic then? To many degrees, such as the day to day goings on, the answer is yes. But what of cities and their processes in the long term? Are cities metabolic over time as well? A safe answer if that many (if not most) large cities throughout the 20th century have manifest enormous creative/destructive dualities, i.e., metabolic natures. Berlin is a perfect 20th century example, and Baghdad is well on it way to being a perfect turn-of-the-millennium example. Even (North) Philadelphia has gone from one of the largest manufacturing (creative) centers of the world in the late 19th and early 20th century to now being a large urban area where huge factory complexes are long abandoned and 'decaying' and even 'disappearing' (ultimately destroyed) month to month. Given that capitalism has itself been described as "creative destruction" (or really destructive creativity as well), any city that is likewise a center of capitalism is by default metabolic--and here the mega-cities of so-called Communist China cannot really deny their capitalist natures because of their undeniable creative/destructive natures. All this also makes me wonder what the USA will be like when so-called 'urban sprawl' begins to age/show its ongoing metabolic nature over time--perhaps therein lies a forthcoming perfect example of real estate development's undeniable metabolism.
On another note, last night I pondered how the NYC WTC site still manifests itself as (so far) still the world's foremost terrorism site. For example, Nina Libeskind's recent 'threat' to go public with Studio Libeskind grievances is nothing less than a 'soft' form of terrorism. I'm still in the mulling-over-the-options phase of how to transform the Daniel Libeskind Audi ad image into a (Lauf, metabolic even) work of art, e.g., simply scribbling "T.N.T" on the sides of the box while giving him a hat in the shape of the 1776 tower, etc.
Terrorism and sacredness might just be very extreme manifestations of metabolism's duality. Remember the Basilica of the Nativity at Bethlehem just over a year ago?
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2003.06.21 08:32
Re: acronyms: 20th c. i be lazy thinker syndrome becomes commerce
How come the central characters of creation myths are often brothers metabolic?
The Brothers Metabolic composed schizophrenia + architectures in 1999 at Quondam, and even the Chapmans practice more and more as brothers metabolic.
2003.08.14 13:59
Re: biggest construction project in the world
I'm thinking metabolic. I'm thinking reenactionary architecturism.
I'm wondering how long this "Israel Wall" is going to remain standing. Will it stand almost 30 years like the Berlin Wall? Will pieces of the Israel Wall someday sit on coffee tables around the world?
Wonder what would happen if Palestinians started to constantly play trumpets at the wall.
2003.08.30
Re: FW Evolutionary theory and architecture
In response to Alex's posting:
1. I discovered the other printing of Piranesi's Ichnographia Campi Martii, something undetected by architectural theorists and historians for close to two and a half centuries. 2. I wonder how many brain cells it took to figure out the latest legend of St. Helena. 3. Alex, I too can list my credentials (and put down others) as a form of evading questions.
How much does architectural history have to henceforth change/evolve because there are now known to be two Ichnographia Campi Martii? Certainly, Wilton-Eli's and Ficacci' "Complete" Piranesi publications are actually not complete. Likewise, what Tafuri, Allen, Bloomer, Aitkens, and Eisenman wrote about Piranesi's Campo Marzio was done without knowledge of two Ichnographias--what good are theories if they are not based on correct history, ie, reality?
Alex, you started this thread with the statement, "In my continuing research into the history of architecture I am continually surprised by the lack of an adequate theory of change to explain the shift from style to style." It was my ongoing research of Piranesi's Ichnographia Campi Martii that unexpectedly led me to, and via Helena I found that architectural history so far lacked recognition of her predominant role in the empire-wide spread of Christian (church) architecture. Helena's 'building' activities coincided with Constantine's legalization of Christianity, and after Helena's death (c. 28 July 326), Constantine began a selective, but ongoing, outlawing/destruction of Pagan cults/temples--here architectural 'style' changed because of a very intentional metabolic, ie, simultaneous creative/destructive, process.
Aside from strictly religious (temple and church) architecture, the case can be made that classical Roman architecture, in general, reached its climax during the reign of Maxentius, and ended 28 October 312, when Maxentius lost his life in battle with Constantine at the Milvian Bridge--Maxentius became (usurpative) emperor of Italy and North Africa 28 October 306, and Constantine attributes his Christian conversion to events that occurred the eve of 28 October 312. The architecture built in Rome under Maxentius is of the utmost refinement, eg, the Circus of Maxentius manifests the most precisely designed of all Roman circuses. [Incidentally, the Circus of Maxentius plays a key role in the manifestation of two Ichnographia Campi Martii.] Records indicate that it may have been only a month after Constantine's triumph at the Milvian Bridge that the first Christian Basilica in Rome, first named after Constantine and today St. John Lateran, began construction. The architecture of Rome executed under Constantine (312-330) further includes (at least), St. Peter's at the Vatican, separate Basilicas of St. Lawrence, Agnes, and Peter et Marcellius, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (which is all that remains today of Elegabalus' Sessorian Palace, where Helena took up subsequent residence in Rome), the Arch of Constantine (which reused pieces of the Arch of Trajan), the Baths of Constantine, the Baths of Helena, and the Mausoleum of Helena (whose ruins exhibit construction very similar to the ruins of the great Constantinian Bath of Treves (Trier, 306-312), which were the largest Roman Baths outside Rome).
It is important to remember that during Constantine's 31 years as first partial and then sole ruler of the Roman Empire, the amount of time he actually stayed in the city of Rome amounts to only several months. [I'll have to check, but it appears that, when Emperor, Constantine spent the most time at Constantinople, and the second most time at Treves.] Nonetheless, the architecture of Rome (the city) began to change dramatically under his rule, and this is due to Helena's sustained presence in Rome. Moreover, Constantine can be credited with beginning the Byzantine 'style' when he ultimately moved the capital of the Roman Empire to a whole new and Christian city, Constantinople (founded 324 and dedicated 330).
By the end of the 4th century, Paganism was completely outlawed under Theodosius, and thus Pagan temples were no longer to be built.
The 'paradigm shift' from Pagan architecture to Christian architecture does not need a "theory of change" for it to be "coherently" explained. What it requires is a full knowledge of the history of the time when the change occurred.
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