I've read some recent articles including a classic by rowe and slutzky on transparency, and more recently : this one
is there a lack of theory informed practice that is causing a lack in 'good' architecture, and do we need a new version from classic modernism and contextualism?
Aug 29, 08 2:39 am
"Tafuri opposes the notion of operative criticism with that of historical criticism: in his view, criticism and history are identical--in other words, architectural criticism should always be historical criticism; what is more, there is a hiatus between architectural criticism on the one hand and architectural practice on th other. Architectural criticism (architectural criticism, that is) cannot be expected to offer any ready-made solutions for the problems that occur in the practice of the profession. All that history and criticism can do is clarify the context--in the broadest sense of the word--within which architectural production is carried out; they cannot provide any guidelines for its future development."
--the person who drove me back to my hotel after dinner at the Zenghelis/Gigantes residence.
Context used to be more real and is now more virtual.
Transparency used to be more virtual and is now more real.
I find that virtual criticism and virtual history are forward looking and trailblazing.
And it's hard to believe that you hate theory that much. After all, your screen name refers back to a term Peter Eisenman brought into arch theory in the 1970s and that peppered architectural theory for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
But all of this leads to an ironic point: Blogs, like this, ARE architectural theory, right? Most historians of architectural theory agree that modern architectural theory began with a debate (a "quarrel" between Perrault and Blondel in the 17th century) and what is it that we are all doing here on these blogs about theory v. practice--debating, right?
It was more just a call for some discussion. Its interesting that some people say that theory is dead and thats for the better, but it seems to me that a lot of architecture is becoming homogenized. Especially the building type of brick vaneer with a big glass atrium on the front. And this type is viewed as 'modern' even though modernism is so much more. I'm really interested in how modernism, especially abstracted compositions can inform form. Instead of looking at conventions of previous architecture and 'oh that worked I'll just do what he did' it creates a kind of investigation of the arrangement of space. Or at least thats what its claimed to do. It seems like a lot of architects are practicing with disregards to theory, and thus the same old same old comes out. But then again, I don't like a lot of buildings that were based on high modernism. I'm referring to ideas such as transparency a la the Bauhaus. It seems like theory can be very useful for creating interesting and meaningful space, but is modernism still the right thoery or have a place? I think it can, but we have to be careful with how strictly we follow it, but using may help the trend in alot of the muck of 'contemporary' mainly commercial architecture i have seen popping up everywhere.
ss4l what do you mean by:
"I find that virtual criticism and virtual history are forward looking and trailblazing."
though im sure there are many others who might point out that play's disregard must inevitably constitute an abuse here and there (it is its definition, yes?)
i was refering to the hejduk bye house corb tower of shadows hybrid in the above link. just because it is play does not make it good, intelligent, conceptual, valuable, interesting, helpful, informative, hitsorically clarifying, operative, critical, or worthwhile.
some form of free play may be a value in and of itself (lord knows i think it is). that does not mean it makes, unquestioningly, for good architecture.
fku2, judging by your outrage, you sound envious, perhaps upset by the exposition of your own limitations, or maybe covetous of my deterritorialization(s).
"As both the hiding of a secret and the hiding of that hiding, the crypt cannot simply take its place in the topography it preserves. The traditional demarcations between inside and outside, the closure established by the drawing of a line, the division of a space by a wall, is disturbed by the internal fracturing of the walls by the crypt. The crypt organizes the space in which it can never simply be placed, sustaining the very topography it fractures. However, these fractures are not new. They have been present in the topography ever since the original traumatic scene, organizing the self and making the illusion that the scene never occurred possible. The fantasy of incorporation maintains a crypt that was already secreted within a pocket in the topography"
--the other person in the car while I was being driven back to my hotel after dinner at the Zenghelis/Gigantes residence.
The virtual has been an obsession in thought since at least Plato's Ideals.
I understand how youre using the word virtual and actually have no envy for your borrowings or your reading list.
as its been an obsession for 2000 years, the word virtual is not the last word. there will be another.
a powerful feeling of resentment or anger aroused by something perceived as an injury, insult, or injustice
e.g.
the above links ridiculously abuse corb and hejduk
i was refering to the hejduk bye house corb tower of shadows hybrid in the above link. just because it is play does not make it good, intelligent, conceptual, valuable, interesting, helpful, informative, hitsorically clarifying, operative, critical, or worthwhile.
Aug 30, 08 11:27 am ·
·
"We are all mirrors that have to see ourselves regardless."
--the person in the back seat
i find it easier to look on the virtual as that which initially starts of by not being immediately, indexically, related to essential animal sustenance, that is to say not food, oxygen, water, safety-related. a prelusionary definition rather than one dealing with the substance of the virtual. thus, architecural practice, by putting itself beyond the im-mediacy of shelter (therefore incurring mediacy, if there is such a word) , is de facto, virtual.
However, if degrees of virtuality can be assigned, i find an architect copy-pasting historical tropes (and not just historical elements and styles - after all, this latter can effect in a double entendre (virtually connotative composition)) less virtual than an architect riding the crest of a paradigm. That is because, for the copy paste artisan, history has been collapsed into an atemporal stylistics tome, a non-virtual non-context, a catalogue of caves in different guises, an illustrated menu. of course, one can claim that the behind-the-scenes virtual, in such a case, is not the architecture but rather economic classification (and therefore engenderment) of desire ie the desire of a couple to buy history, quaintship, a physical representation of domesticity...etc.
theory is only a textually generated infill (because the domineering cultures of this planet are text-based) in the gap between shelter and architecture.
Aug 30, 08 11:36 am ·
·
And yet, Quondam, a virtual museum of architecture, goes on doing what it does.
Amidst the sporatic droolings of the high mid-summer's night cloud...
No, shift it, then park it.
But you didn't pay me yet. Cough it up!
Lunch in Milano?
No, a lunch of Milanos.
Discriminating palatte.
He defines animality as immediacy or immanence. To explain what he means, he uses as a starting point the scenario of one animal eating another.
Animal crackers?
No, Sociables!
But Mulhall argues that this immediacy and spontaneity could never amount to late night light snack, so he digs into the topic of animality in Heidegger.
The imported beer.
No, the Bataille.
Yes, he suggests that for the animal nothing is given through time.
you say: theory is only a textually generated infill (because the domineering cultures of this planet are text-based) in the gap between shelter and architecture.
I say: kaleidoscopic lacunae
Sep 2, 08 7:25 am ·
·
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Theory needed: contextualism/transparency
I've read some recent articles including a classic by rowe and slutzky on transparency, and more recently : this one
is there a lack of theory informed practice that is causing a lack in 'good' architecture, and do we need a new version from classic modernism and contextualism?
"Tafuri opposes the notion of operative criticism with that of historical criticism: in his view, criticism and history are identical--in other words, architectural criticism should always be historical criticism; what is more, there is a hiatus between architectural criticism on the one hand and architectural practice on th other. Architectural criticism (architectural criticism, that is) cannot be expected to offer any ready-made solutions for the problems that occur in the practice of the profession. All that history and criticism can do is clarify the context--in the broadest sense of the word--within which architectural production is carried out; they cannot provide any guidelines for its future development."
--the person who drove me back to my hotel after dinner at the Zenghelis/Gigantes residence.
Context used to be more real and is now more virtual.
Transparency used to be more virtual and is now more real.
I find that virtual criticism and virtual history are forward looking and trailblazing.
Theory is dead. Let it die.
Trace:
I'm not sure I agree with your theory :).
And it's hard to believe that you hate theory that much. After all, your screen name refers back to a term Peter Eisenman brought into arch theory in the 1970s and that peppered architectural theory for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
But all of this leads to an ironic point: Blogs, like this, ARE architectural theory, right? Most historians of architectural theory agree that modern architectural theory began with a debate (a "quarrel" between Perrault and Blondel in the 17th century) and what is it that we are all doing here on these blogs about theory v. practice--debating, right?
So theory lives here and in many other venues.
Sorry to double post; Archistic, I'm not sure I follow your question. Can you elaborate? thanks
It was more just a call for some discussion. Its interesting that some people say that theory is dead and thats for the better, but it seems to me that a lot of architecture is becoming homogenized. Especially the building type of brick vaneer with a big glass atrium on the front. And this type is viewed as 'modern' even though modernism is so much more. I'm really interested in how modernism, especially abstracted compositions can inform form. Instead of looking at conventions of previous architecture and 'oh that worked I'll just do what he did' it creates a kind of investigation of the arrangement of space. Or at least thats what its claimed to do. It seems like a lot of architects are practicing with disregards to theory, and thus the same old same old comes out. But then again, I don't like a lot of buildings that were based on high modernism. I'm referring to ideas such as transparency a la the Bauhaus. It seems like theory can be very useful for creating interesting and meaningful space, but is modernism still the right thoery or have a place? I think it can, but we have to be careful with how strictly we follow it, but using may help the trend in alot of the muck of 'contemporary' mainly commercial architecture i have seen popping up everywhere.
ss4l what do you mean by:
"I find that virtual criticism and virtual history are forward looking and trailblazing."
Arthur, I really like your last line better, thus:
think of criticism, history, etc.. .all just design tools like Maya, clay, etc...
Keeping the criticism and the history in play keeps them virtual.
Also, Hejduk's oeuvre manifests an example of virtual criticism and virtual history,
Bauhaus and transparency arent the same thing (re-read your rowe as these are used as counter-examples)
historical operative and instrumental criticisms are for historians, if you want to be one
the above links ridiculously abuse corb and hejduk
theory just means "to see."
to quote rem "Fuck context."
keeping something negatively defined, definitely deferred, by keeping it in play is fine, but why obsess over the word virtual?
time to go ridiculously abuse some corb and hejduk myself . . .
My dear Mr. Braagadocio
who said play = abuse ? not me.
though im sure there are many others who might point out that play's disregard must inevitably constitute an abuse here and there (it is its definition, yes?)
i was refering to the hejduk bye house corb tower of shadows hybrid in the above link. just because it is play does not make it good, intelligent, conceptual, valuable, interesting, helpful, informative, hitsorically clarifying, operative, critical, or worthwhile.
some form of free play may be a value in and of itself (lord knows i think it is). that does not mean it makes, unquestioningly, for good architecture.
hitsorically.
word.
fku2, judging by your outrage, you sound envious, perhaps upset by the exposition of your own limitations, or maybe covetous of my deterritorialization(s).
"As both the hiding of a secret and the hiding of that hiding, the crypt cannot simply take its place in the topography it preserves. The traditional demarcations between inside and outside, the closure established by the drawing of a line, the division of a space by a wall, is disturbed by the internal fracturing of the walls by the crypt. The crypt organizes the space in which it can never simply be placed, sustaining the very topography it fractures. However, these fractures are not new. They have been present in the topography ever since the original traumatic scene, organizing the self and making the illusion that the scene never occurred possible. The fantasy of incorporation maintains a crypt that was already secreted within a pocket in the topography"
--the other person in the car while I was being driven back to my hotel after dinner at the Zenghelis/Gigantes residence.
The virtual has been an obsession in thought since at least Plato's Ideals.
Anyway, there are more trails throughout the deterritory.
uh, what outrage?
I just like clipped sentences.
I understand how youre using the word virtual and actually have no envy for your borrowings or your reading list.
as its been an obsession for 2000 years, the word virtual is not the last word. there will be another.
why get caught up in slogans?
why get caught up in denial?
uhh . . .
ok?
a powerful feeling of resentment or anger aroused by something perceived as an injury, insult, or injustice
e.g.
the above links ridiculously abuse corb and hejduk
i was refering to the hejduk bye house corb tower of shadows hybrid in the above link. just because it is play does not make it good, intelligent, conceptual, valuable, interesting, helpful, informative, hitsorically clarifying, operative, critical, or worthwhile.
"We are all mirrors that have to see ourselves regardless."
--the person in the back seat
i find it easier to look on the virtual as that which initially starts of by not being immediately, indexically, related to essential animal sustenance, that is to say not food, oxygen, water, safety-related. a prelusionary definition rather than one dealing with the substance of the virtual. thus, architecural practice, by putting itself beyond the im-mediacy of shelter (therefore incurring mediacy, if there is such a word) , is de facto, virtual.
However, if degrees of virtuality can be assigned, i find an architect copy-pasting historical tropes (and not just historical elements and styles - after all, this latter can effect in a double entendre (virtually connotative composition)) less virtual than an architect riding the crest of a paradigm. That is because, for the copy paste artisan, history has been collapsed into an atemporal stylistics tome, a non-virtual non-context, a catalogue of caves in different guises, an illustrated menu. of course, one can claim that the behind-the-scenes virtual, in such a case, is not the architecture but rather economic classification (and therefore engenderment) of desire ie the desire of a couple to buy history, quaintship, a physical representation of domesticity...etc.
theory is only a textually generated infill (because the domineering cultures of this planet are text-based) in the gap between shelter and architecture.
And yet, Quondam, a virtual museum of architecture, goes on doing what it does.
Archistic: from your post, Frampton's critical regionalism text looks like something you might want to check out.
Amidst the sporatic droolings of the high mid-summer's night cloud...
No, shift it, then park it.
But you didn't pay me yet. Cough it up!
Lunch in Milano?
No, a lunch of Milanos.
Discriminating palatte.
He defines animality as immediacy or immanence. To explain what he means, he uses as a starting point the scenario of one animal eating another.
Animal crackers?
No, Sociables!
But Mulhall argues that this immediacy and spontaneity could never amount to late night light snack, so he digs into the topic of animality in Heidegger.
The imported beer.
No, the Bataille.
Yes, he suggests that for the animal nothing is given through time.
Herr Katzenjammer wo bist du?
Sexy Dubai.
Are we there yet? I'm hungry.
"busy busy, busy scissors"
new designs for The Old School of Thinking
2007.09.22
Cut&Paste Museum
ichnographia non-virtual non-context
3 black holes in the Michelin Misguide
atemporarily under deconstruction
virtue2vicegrip machine to live in
you say: theory is only a textually generated infill (because the domineering cultures of this planet are text-based) in the gap between shelter and architecture.
I say: kaleidoscopic lacunae
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