1999.11.28
(in) reality
1. "no design ever proved something (anything?)"
2. Charlotte Geldof's "sacred and profane" tour.
3. depth - archaeology, underground street, crypt, sinking.
4. German (-American) artists and architects.
5. NeTHCA @ quondam?
6. immediately meeting two Elenis.
7. auto-eroticism - "Where did that orchestra come from?"
8. credentials: a PhD in reënactment from the Institutes of Ottopia.
9. Tom Avermaete - look at the promenade architecturale and "letter to/from India"
10. an instant click with Bernard Kormoss.
11. finding Romulus and Remus in Brussels
12. Eleni Kostika asks: "What is schizophrenia + architectures about?" - part of it is about breaking rules and rules already broken.
13. the extremes of Taipei - Li Mei Tsien.
14. digital cameras may put people in architecture.
15. David Vanderburgh is an American.
16. joining NeTHCA?
17. meeting Elia Zenghelis - the Greek island villas.
18. breakfast with Winka Dubbeldam.
19. new capitals: once Philadelphia, now Brussels.
20. dinner conversation with Annemie.
21. a brief chat with Eric - virtual infrastructures.
22. driving with Hilde Heynen and Mark Wigley.
23. Jackson Pollock's paintings relative to Piranesi's Campo Marzio - Olivier Mathieu.
24. redemption via the group symposium.
25. Martine drives a Mercedes!?!
26. lunch conversation with Mark Wigley.
27. Oskar rolls me a cigarette and we then discuss the virtual nature of Quondam.
28. "How does one gauge young?"
29. Joe: the devil in Orlando cracks the whip?
30. Pollock spontaneity
31. atomized dinner.
32. doing it to ourselves.
33. "Tafuri didn't translate Piranesi's Latin text."
34. walking home with Leslie.
35. Sarah Whiting: "Who are you?"
36. the Andy Warhol fame police
37. the Pollock museum.
38. breakfast with Leslie, and then Winka too.
39. there is no laughing in the VSBA office.
40. Peter Nys visited Quondam.
41. no camera - "using your own lenses."
42. Peter Zellner - Christian inversion of Rome
43. out of the virtual.
44. saw that (many times) before
45. my presentation.
46. getting it or not getting it.
47. thanks, thanks, reenactment, thanks (dinners)
48. Hitler's/Speer's Triumphal Arch.
49. fight on the street.
50. the SOM building detail - like at Ferko.
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1999.12.30 11:47
Re: as dense as architecture can get?
Mark asks:
Where is that [the Grossbelastungskörper] in current Berlin? I don't recall seeing or hearing of it.
Steve replies:
Mark, I don't know where the "Gross-ding" is myself. My guess is that if you overlay Speer's plan of Berlin and today's Berlin, where ever Speer's proposed triumphal arch was to be, I assume the Gross-ding is somewhere in that area.
The ironic thing about the Grossbelastungskörper (and how about its dense name as well) and Kai Vöckler's presentation of it in Brussels is that pretty much everyone at Inside Density had never heard of or seen this thing before either, and, according to Bernard Kormoss (who works for Eisenman and was part of the "Thinking Density" session), even Peter Eisenman didn't know about it.
Essentially, it seems like this enormous thing, despite its very real density, has been 'largely' ignored. For sure, a lot of the blind eye is due to not really wanting to look at the remnants of the Third Reich directly, let alone write about them as still present and relevant.
So Mark, I wouldn't worry too much about where the Grossbelastungskörper actually is, because the next time you're in Berlin, I'm sure it will still be there.
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