2003.01.01 13:04
Trading Cities 3
The following is from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities:
Trading Cities 3
When he enters the territory of which Eutropia is the capital, the traveler sees not one city but many, of equal size and not unlike one another, scattered over a vast, rolling plateau. Eutropia is not one, but all these cities together; only one is inhabited at a time, the others are empty; and this process is carried out in rotation. Now I shall tell you how. On the day when Eutropia's inhabitants feel the grip of weariness and no one can bear any longer his job, his relatives, his house and his life, debts, the people he must greet or who greet him, then the whole citizenry decides to move to the next city, which is there waiting for them, empty and good as new; there each will take up a new job, a different wife, will see another landscape on opening his window, and will spend his time with different pastimes, friends, gossip. So their life is renewed from move to move, among cities whose exposure or declivity or streams or winds make each site somehow different from the others. Since their society is ordered without great distinctions of wealth or authority, the passage from one function to another takes place almost without jolts; variety is guaranteed by the multiple assignments, so that in the span of a lifetime a man rarely returns to a job that has already been his.
Thus the city repeats its life, identical, shifting up and down on its empty chessboard. The inhabitants repeat the same scenes, with the actors changed; they repeat the same speeches with variously combined accents; they open alternative mouths in identical yawns. Alone, among all the cities of the empire, Eutropia remains always the same. Mercury, god of the fickle, to whom the city is sacred, worked this ambiguous miracle.
2003.01.01 13:24
site of first circumcisions
It seems that Mamre, the place of settlement and burial of Abraham, within today's Hebron, is also the site of the Abraham's and Ishmael's circumcision.
[1 January is the Christian feast of Christ's circumcision.]
At the east side of the Herodian enclosure are the foundations of the Basilica of the Terebinth of Mamre from the time of Constantine (4th-century AD), attributed to Constantine's mother-in-law, Eutropia. According to one source, when Eutropia visited the site, she found it defiled by idols and heathen sacrifices. When she informed Constantine of the situation the emperor wrote a letter (preserved in Eusebius' "Life of Constantine") to Macarius, the bishop of Jerusalem, and other bishops in Palestine, expressing his desire that the pagan altar be demolished and replaced by a church. This church was so important that it was depicted on the famous 6th century AD Madaba map. It was probably destroyed during the Persian invasion in 614 A.D.
--some results of a web search of eutropia hebron
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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...
2007.01.01 22.23
philip johnson was a whore. rem koolhaas is a porn star.
You mean the reenactment fetish that is almost always denied?
2011.01.01 11:29
Gehry @ Sydney
Anyone else remember Eisenman's proposal for development around Ground Zero from 2002?
I can't tell if the genetic pool is shrinking or expanding.
Q: Which came first, repetition or difference?
A: A reenactment of a reenactment turned sideways.
The "teen" years = wise-ass architecture.
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2014.01.01 12:30
Constructing Modernity (KSA Japan Wrap-Up)
Last week I read the following passage:
"When they came to build the west front of St.-Pierre at Corbie, in the first decade of the eighteenth century [begun c. 1706], they submitted a design in the Gothic mode for the proposed classical facade that was submitted earlier, a decision parallel to that made at the same time for the west front Orleans cathedral, where the king, possibly under the influence of the Maurist scholar Bernard de Montfaucon, demended that "l'ordre gothique" be adhered to. These, though, may all be interpreted as examples of Gothic survival."
Of course, I have long known the term 'Gothic revival,' but this was my first introduction to the term 'Gothic survival.'
...you write, "Kuma continues to work in a subtle postmodern mode – an indication to me that a PoMo revival is in the works." Perhaps Kuma's continued work falls within the category of PoMo survival. Just a thought.
When you wrote, "Though there is a slight break in my understanding of the history of Japanese architecture between the 70s and 80s," I right away thought of Arata Isozaki's work. Thinking now about Isozaki's continuum of work, there is a certain (very high quality but nonetheless) chameleon aspect to it all, not too dissimilar than the practice of Philip Johnson.
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2014.01.01 13:03
SHENZHEN
Not sure why, but, while reading this post, I thought about the possibility of a virtual architectural biennale, some kind of online extravaganza. Webpages as venue for exhibits, lectures, discussions, touring. If I was the curator of the first such virtual architectural biennale the theme would be "How would you curate a virtual architectural biennale?"
Perhaps I should just start a forum thread "How would you curate a virtual architectural biennale?" every two years and see what happens.
2014.01.01 13:32
We need to talk about TED
Thirty odd years ago when I was one of the few architects in the world using CAD everyday at work, there was a lot of resistance to CAD in the architectural community at large. I wonder how prevalent parametricism will be 25-30 years from now? It wouldn't surprise me if parametricism and CAD come to share a similar history.
On a personal level, I still from time to time find myself (finally) acting on an idea I had 10 or 15 or even 20 years ago. The thing is though, the resultant executions of the years-old-ideas still manage to manifest a quality of innovation. Perhaps it can then be said that innovative ideas may take time to become a 'reality', but the innovation itself does not become old.
2014.01.01 20:26
SHENZHEN
...in thinking more about it, the idea of a virtual biennale kind of came to me because I realized that your last two posts about the Bi-City Biennale are being written (I assume) from Los Angeles. That got me thinking about how my virtual experience of the Bi-City Biennale through your posts is even more virtual than I first imagined. Eric (above) wrote your "essay has an overall Wish You Were Here feel," but you weren't even still there yourself. I don't know, it just seemed very inverted, paradoxical even.
Regarding a virtual biennale, I realize that it could never have the live event-ness of a real biennale, nor in any way be a 'machine' to bolster a local economy, but that lack of real place/time and economic drive might just be the underlying theme of any virtual biennale. Also, inversion. Instead of "Wish you were here," it would be more like: let me (virtually) show you what's special about where I'm at, but, to be honest, I'm glad you're not here because if too many people came here, then the special-ness would be lost.
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15010101 GAUA working base plan 3392ui01
15010102 GAUA site plan 1100x550 2429i00
15010103 GAUA site plan 4765x4765 2177i30
15010101 Lee Kim Kim House of Fairy Tales
15010102 Office9 House of Fairy Tales
16010101 Courthouse Plus Ultra site plan 1100x550 Campo Rovine
3392vi04
16010102 Courthouse Plus Ultra model site plan 1100x550 Campo Rovine
2399i09
3392vi05
16010103 Villa + 15 model site plan Campo Rovine
2409i05
3392vi06
16010104 Villa + 15 site plan 1100x550 Campo Rovine
2409i06
21010101 Il Redentore plan section 2083i02
21010102 House 10: Museum model opaque off 2197i24
21010103 House 10: Museum model opaque off Il Redentore floor pattern 2197i25
21010104 House 10: Museum plan Il Redentore floor pattern 2197i26
21010106 House in Old Westbury plans sections elevations 221di02
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Lee Kim Kim House of Fairy Tales
Office9 House of Fairy Tales
