1998.12.02 20:54
Re: def: AutoCAD Architecture
I am a big fan of Le Corbusier's late work, especially the unbuilt projects. Although he hasn't stated as much (as far as I know), Koolhaas is very much inspired by Le Corbusier's late work, in particular the Palais des Congrès, 1964.
1999.02.06 12:12
electromagnetism in the body
The human heart is effectively an electromagnet, and thus the area of concentrated electromagnetism within the body.
We all know that the heart is a pump of blood, but rarely is it stated that what the heart pumps is precisely what makes the heart pump. For this reason alone the heart is the most perfect of all (electrical) machines.
Compare the definitions of the heart and the definition of electromagnet in Webster's Third International Dictionary and you will be struck by the fundamental sameness.
So where exactly is the electricity and the magnetism within the heart? Where else but in the blood, the pumps fuel.
Blood contains sodium chloride (salt) which is composed of sodium and chloride ions, electrically charges atoms.
Blood contains iron, a ferrous material whose properties include the ability to spontaneously magnetize.
No doubt, we each contain nature at its best.
Three practical examples:
Strenuous labor, especially work under heated conditions, can cause (so-called) sun stroke. The remedy for sun stroke is salt tablets, which work simply because they replenish the electricity that pours from the body when we sweat.
People with high blood pressure are advised to refrain from salt in their diets. Essentially it is dangerous to increase the corporal "charge" when the pressure is already high.
Women, through their menstrual periods, lose quantities of blood. Women are advised to take iron supplements as part of their diet. It is during their periods that women lose a measurable (but still necessary) portion of their magnetism.
1999.04.17 07:44
test (poem?) by whomever
...buildings constantly move, doors can be windows, windows can be doors, stairs to Pilate are climbed annually on knees, walls may soon all talk, floors will mostly remain flat, ceilings with sprinklers are virtual skies that harbor emergency rain, roofs probably more than anything manifest architecture's shape, lights, camera, Africa, machines to create architecture with, furniture and painting as one, utilities that never fail (sic), plants, of course, grass gets high, sidewalk, siderun, sidecrawl, sidesit, sideroll-over, driveway complete with Jeep, garage sale as museum...
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1999.05.26 16:07
interview 2.1a
The notion of mentors and heroes doesn't apply to the way I work. There are other factors that take precedents. My mind works in terms of specific projects. The projects themselves become the mentors, especially the longer I work at something. For example, in redrawing the Campo Marzio, I was (am) trying to get as close to what Piranesi did himself in order to learn as best as possible. I dare say that after a couple years of concentrated work, i.e., after I became intimately aware of every aspect of the large plan, many factors started to gel. The plan is now well embedded in my mind. I don't think anyone else other than Piranesi himself knew (knows) the plan as well as I do now. In that sense, I succeeded in getting closer to Piranesi's mind than most.
1999.06.26 05:33
monadology
Limbo is another name that Catholic teaching gives to purgatory.
In Catholic theology, purgatory is where some souls go before they are allowed to enter heaven--the souls there do not deserve hell/inferno, but they don't exactly deserve heaven/paradiso yet either, hence they are in limbo.
Some other dictionary definitions:
...the souls of unbaptized infants are in limbo
a place or state of restraint or confinement
a place or state of neglect or oblivion
an intermediate or transitional place or state; a middle ground
In Terragni's Danteum, purgatory is designed as a "room" that is both (equally?) inside and outside--the transitional place. Supposedly, this is to have an uneasy effect, being neither inside or outside, but I think you can look at it positively as well, being both inside and outside--the center of the Villa Savoye is a perfect (positive) example.
Using this analogy re: the architectural promenade, when one is at this point in the path, then (I assume) one can experience/learn from/take advantage of both (heaven/hell inside/outside) realms.
1999.08.29 12:28
empire of light
There is an inter-relationship between magnitude and scale in that scale is used to measure/gauge magnitudes. The most interesting aspect of scale is that it automatically implies at least two entities, namely, the entity being measured and the entity being measured with.
1999.11.29 07:42
n'urbanism
Judging from the above excerpt and the rest of M's post, it seems that African-American neighborhoods are still largely thought of as inner-city poverty level neighborhoods. My point was that there are now many, many thriving middle-class African-American neighborhoods within city limits, and moreover that these neighborhoods are mostly ignored by the architecture and urban field at large. Nevertheless, these urban communities are very integrated in terms of land-use and density, but not integrated in terms of race.
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2000.01.18 11:48
recalling virt. mus.
...the truth about directing ones own virtual museum of architecture is that one can do whatever one wants to do. In reality there is absolutely nothing that makes Quondam have to have a teleology, and it is just that reality of absolutely no imperatives, no rules, no obligations, and no need of approval that I hope Quondam begins to reflect.
2000.02.16 06:03
Re: DL:metabolic (modern revolution)
Metabolism is on a higher level than revolution because revolution reenactsmetabolism. A simple case of first things first.
For the record, identifying Hegel's notion of synthesis as a reenactment of metabolism came from Steve's head.
The real point is that Hegel, seemingly without his knowing it, had a very clear understanding of metabolism and how it operates. For the theory of chronosomatics then,Hegel's philosophy (as much as has been touched upon here) is just one morecase example demonstrating the notion that human imagination reenactscorporal physiology and morphology.
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2000.03.16 12:50
Re: Architectural theories, again
In researching Piranesi's Ichnographia Campus Martius, I've had to do much reading of classic texts. Piranesi cites the works of many ancient/classical authors, wherein there are references to structures within ancient Rome, many structure, moreover, that now exist only as textual descriptions in the cited texts. In reading Seutonius' Live of Augustus Caesar, there is a reference to a delegation from India that visited Rome during Augustus' reign. Foreigners (i.e., non Roman citizens) were not allowed within Rome's sacred boundary (within Rome's walls), thus they stayed in the Campo Marzio. When "history" tells us that Augustus left Rome a city of marble, it by and large means all the new Roman construction (a true building boom) that occurred within the Campo Marzio during the time of Augustus. The "greatest" new building was (at least for politican/symbolic reasons) the new tomb of Augustus--a huge perfect circular masonry mound clad in marble, accented with obelisks, sculptures, and trees.
Around the same time that I read The Life of Augustus, I "browsed" through a recent historical survey book on architecture, and it was there that I came across a photo and plan of the Great Stupa in India. The Great Stupa and the Mausoleum of Augustus are extremely similar in both plan, figure, and scale, and, furthermore, the date of the Great Stupa is c.100 AD or CE, just after the reign of Augustus in Rome.
Although the "evidence" is only one circumstantial textual reference plus two very large similar, coeval, but distant from each other buildings, I nonetheless immediately wondered if the tomb of Augustus in Rome actually influenced the design of the Great Stupa in India.
When I say that I believe that the Great Stupa may indeed have been influenced by the tomb of Augustus, I am expressing an architectural theory
that carries implications about architectural inspiration and cross-cultural influences, as well as (deconstructive?) criticism regarding current architectural historiography.
I think we all know that there will probably never be defacto proof to my theory, except perhaps if we rely upon what the objectness (and history) of the two buildings indicate for us themselves.
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2000.03.22 10:52
Re: Aesthetic Intentions
Ludwig II of Bavaria well understood the potential of absolute monarchy, and it seems architecturally evident that he intended to fulfill that potential. I doubt it escaped Ludwig's cognition that monarchs are rare, absolute monarchs even more rare, and mid-nineteenth century monarchs (like himself), absolute or otherwise, were an endangered species.
Ludwig II took the notion of (European) absolute monarchy to its final extreme, and each of his major buildings, Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, and Herrenchimsee, are Gesamptkunstwerks (architecture, decorative arts, music, theater, mythology) that reenact absolute monarchy, as much as they represent a race against time (specifically, the race of European monarchy against time). Ludwig and his younger brother Otto (the real mentally ill member of his immediate family) were literally the end of their family's line. Ludwig was an extreme European monarch in every sense, and his architecture is also extreme European royal architecture in every sense--consummate examples of Zeitgeist and its effects.
I believe Ludwig II achieved his intentions as far as he could take them. But I doubt even he was aware of manifesting an architecture that will forever spark architectural imaginations.
2000.03.28
Re: Osmosis /Electromagnatism /(An)Architecture
The definition of osmosis you supplied is indeed the first definition of osmosis, but there are several others:
a process of absorption, interaction, or diffusion suggestive of the flow of osmotic action: as an interaction or interchange (as of cultural groups of traits) by mutual penetration esp. through a separating medium : a usually effortless often unconscious absorption or assimilation (as of ideas or influences) by seemingly general permeation<
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These subsequent definitions of osmosis relate rather well to architecture, as I've already mentioned, particularly to the architectural notions of transition from outside to inside and vice versa. I see the Pantheon in Rome and Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum as extremely fine examples of osmotic architecture. Furthermore, the Pantheon and the Kimbell are also extremely fine examples of electromagnetic architecture because they are both consummate examples of an architecture of light (i.e., electromagnetic radiation).
I am not here proposing that the above interpretations are the only correct interpretations of these buildings and the definitions under discussion, but I'm rather making connections between corporal physiological processes and architectures that for the most part haven't been made before.
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