Archinect
anchor

Hi, Gorgeous. Haven't I Seen You Somewhere?

118
Elimelech
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/arts/design/28bern.html

What do you guys think? I guess this ties in to that thread of what makes you creative. Many people work in similar styles because of where they went to school, the latest trend, etc....
What is the role of learning from someone else's design, etc...

Is it fair to accuse people of copying designs, unless you are David Childs or Philip Johnson? I mean how many times in science people in different parts of the world have had a similar moment of eureka!

 
Aug 28, 05 12:10 pm

It's just more examples of reenactionary architecturism.

Aug 28, 05 12:17 pm  · 
 · 
Elimelech

Rita sounds interesting can you expand just a bit

Aug 28, 05 12:19 pm  · 
 · 
Kristix You! Black Emperor

:)

Aug 28, 05 12:32 pm  · 
 · 

Reenactionary Architecturism refers to the designs themselves and to the mental design process that is part of the overall design process. This specific process is for the most part always denied, but it exists nonetheless, as the resultant designs themselves prove.

The issue of plagiarism and copyright infringement is related but (legally) distinct from reenactionary architecturism, and even distinct from each other. For example, if Randall Stout had stated that the new building in Roanoke in some ways reenacts Gehry's Guggenheim Bilbao, then there is no plagiarism because a source has been cited. Furthermore, for there to be copyright infringement, the reenacting has to be virtually identical to the source.

Architect's generally don't like to cite or even admit sources because then the myth of originality collapses.

Reenactment in design is largely inescapable because human memory itself is a processed reenactment.

There are myriad other issues within reenactionary architecturism, and maybe a book on the subject will be already available this time next year.

Aug 28, 05 12:43 pm  · 
 · 

I think the wierdness in this case is that if someone at school had copied elements of a David Childs design, he would be congratulated for using precedent- but when David Childs does it (probably unknowingly, if his mind is anything like the dustbin I've got inside my head), he gets sued. I'm not saying it's right to copy other people's designs, but that there's a definite double-standard in the way it's treated in school vs. in practice.

Also, there's the issue of inadvertantly re-inventing the wheel. How many buildings or potential buildings do we all see every year? Hundreds, thousands, millions? It seems to me that it would be quite easy to go through a design process and end up with something, and even if something in your brain goes, "hmmm, that looks kind of familiar... but where have I seen it?" you may never figure out what you've accidentally plagiarized simply because you glanced at something once and mostly forgot about it.

Aug 28, 05 12:52 pm  · 
 · 
vado retro

originality does not exist.

Aug 28, 05 12:55 pm  · 
 · 

In reality there really is no "re-inventing" going on. As rationalist states above--

"It seems to me that it would be quite easy to go through a design process and end up with something, and even if something in your brain goes, "hmmm, that looks kind of familiar... but where have I seen it?" you may never figure out what you've accidentally plagiarized simply because you glanced at something once and mostly forgot about it."

--the reenactment happens whether or not the exact source is remembered or not.

I don't think architects generally have "dustbins inside their heads" (that's actually antithetical to the task of the profession), but they have been brainwashed into thinking that being original is the highest level of their art that all architects can achieve. Originality is relatively rare.

Aug 28, 05 1:04 pm  · 
 · 
joed

I think Liz Diller's quote on the topic is brilliant:

"The only way to avert the problem of plagiarism is to be a moving target. If your work is copied and that upsets you, it means you waited too long to move on."

Aug 28, 05 1:14 pm  · 
 · 

I'll tell you one thing, I think Fred Bernstein has been too stuck on one particular blog that likes to out "copycats."

Aug 28, 05 1:18 pm  · 
 · 

As if Liz Diller is so original herself, and her quote really doesn't make sense in that what she suggests in no way averts being plagiarized.

Maybe the copycats should be outing themselves, then Bernstein wouldn't have anything further to say.

Aug 28, 05 1:27 pm  · 
 · 
db

interesting that there's so much clammering over these high-design copy-cats, while so many (though few here I imagine) are willing to accept the cookie-cutter stamping out of suburban developments. Frankly, it'd be a godsend to have the world populated by knockoffs of good design rather than the copycat schlock we normally get. Granted, any copying has a degree of schlock to it, but if such things begin to represent the "spirit of our age" then surely we're better off than the lesser examples of the recent past that dot our landscape. I suppose also the problem is that these are meant to be singular designs, and are thus seen as more artistic and integrity-infused than something destined to intentionally be a multiple or variation.

Aug 28, 05 1:37 pm  · 
 · 
ZMYK

I thought it was funny they had a Liz Diller quote because the blog Freddy B. referred to has been all over D+S&R for appropriating aspects of other's work.

Aug 28, 05 1:43 pm  · 
 · 

Yeah, maybe it is time to start training architects to be better at reenactionary architecturism.

Aug 28, 05 1:46 pm  · 
 · 
joed

word, db, on the cookie-cutter call. rita, of course it makes sense. she is acknowledging that plagiarism occurs all of the time, and that, in order to avoid it BEING A PROBLEM, you need to constantly evolve your own work, in which case you wouldn't give a shit if some hack copied what you had already thought of and moved beyond.

Aug 28, 05 1:47 pm  · 
 · 

Diller is merely trying to position her/their work as something that others want to plagiarize, as if whatever D+S&R are presently doing is what everyone else wants to do. It's like reenacting a fairy tale.

Aug 28, 05 1:49 pm  · 
 · 
abracadabra

zaha has her own teapot and i've just blocked liz diller telephone number. no more sweet 'dear abra, let me pick your brain' morning calls from her. as far as i am cocerned she is a moving target from now on..

Aug 28, 05 1:50 pm  · 
 · 

The only problem then that Diller seeks to avert is the one where being plagiarized is a bother to the one being plagiarized. There is nothing in what Diller suggests that averts plagiariam itself.

Aug 28, 05 1:53 pm  · 
 · 
j-turn

liz diller and plagiarism have beed a bid topic at the Gutter - only its not so mouch about people plagiarizer her, but the rather the other way around. Particularily the blur building and some of the rampant rem-ism of Disco's recent building projects. Check it:

http://gutter.curbed.com/archives/2005/08/16/gutter_mailbag_diller_scofidio_the_fog_of_history.php#more

http://gutter.curbed.com/archives/2005/08/10/gutterland_police_blotter_the_miseducatorium_of_elizabeth_diller.php

Aug 28, 05 2:15 pm  · 
 · 

Is the Gutter actually celebrating reenactment season?

Aug 28, 05 2:52 pm  · 
 · 
anotherquestion

rita, what is your source material for reenactionary architecturism?
a friend is in IPL and want to fwd to her.

Aug 28, 05 2:54 pm  · 
 · 

what is IPL? Like a prison or something?

Aug 28, 05 3:02 pm  · 
 · 
abracadabra

minute ago i was looking for something on the net and accidentally saw this which reminded me this thread. do you think LB's words would have a chance today?

"Do not do what I have done, observe what I have seen"
luis barragan

Aug 28, 05 3:03 pm  · 
 · 

I've been writing about "reenactionary architecturism" (a term I also coined) online since 1999. Whateven I have written on reenactment as it relates to architecture is then the source material for reenactionary architecturism, that is, besides the designs that manifest reenactionary architecturism themselves.

You can read about reenactment as it relates to the philosophy of history in (at least) Collingwood's The Idea of History.

The chronosomatic explanation of human imagination also plays an underlying role within reenactionary architectuism.

What is IPL?

Aug 28, 05 3:04 pm  · 
 · 
bRink

reenactionary architecturism sounds like a lazy excuse not to experiment.

Aug 28, 05 3:05 pm  · 
 · 
bRink

or perhaps a cowardly excuse?

Aug 28, 05 3:07 pm  · 
 · 

Ah, another self-contradiction: to observe what Barragan has seen is indeed to do something that Barragan has already done.

In other words, don't reenact my works, reenact how I looked at things.

Aug 28, 05 3:08 pm  · 
 · 
bRink

What about turning how you looked at things on its head? or inside out? is that reenaction?

how about serendipitous discovery?

Aug 28, 05 3:15 pm  · 
 · 

Yes, I've heard the reenactionary architecturism sounds too much like predestination argument all before.

"reenactionary architecturism sounds like a lazy excuse not to experiment" is to me just another reenactment of an argument I've heard before.

It so far always turns out that reenactionary architecturism wasn't even understood well enough for the "just an excuse" call to be made in the first place.

Reenactionary architecture is not a prescription, rather an understanding of how a lot of design works.

Aug 28, 05 3:16 pm  · 
 · 

Christianity is a perfect example of Paganism reenacted albeit in an inverted fashion.

Reenactionary architecturism does not deny the existence of experimentation or seredipitous discovery.

Aug 28, 05 3:19 pm  · 
 · 
bRink

how is reenactionary architecture different from reactionary architecture?

Aug 28, 05 3:19 pm  · 
 · 

Probably the same way that reenactment differs from reaction.

What is reactionary architecture? Or is that really another topic?

Aug 28, 05 3:22 pm  · 
 · 
anotherquestion

IPL: intellectual property law

prison?

Aug 28, 05 3:37 pm  · 
 · 
bRink

Reenactionary architecturism sounds a little bit like a "squarish" version of Charles Jenck's "critical modernism"... which constructs an oscilating evolutionary tree of movements in architectural design and architectural history... where both design and design history are critical reactions to moralisms which in turn lay ongoing challenges which push design movements forward / spark new design movements.

The difference between 'reenactionary architecturism' and jencks' 'critical modernism' seems to be that the former implies that design is typically normal, whereas the latter implies that design is always reactionary (against one thing or another).

Aug 28, 05 3:39 pm  · 
 · 

operative words: "little bit"

Thanks for clarifying what reactinary architecture is. Now maybe it's better for you to let someone else define what reenactionary architecturism is.

So, is the Gutter now occassionally reenacting Quondam when there was www.quondam.com/reenactionary back in 2001/2002?

For example: http://mail.architexturez.net/+/Design-L.V1/archive/msg15908.shtml

Or more lately: http://www.quondam.com/09/0846.htm


Aug 28, 05 3:51 pm  · 
 · 
the cellardoor whore

albeit in an inverted fashion?

thats just plain silly, maybe even dumb

(are you here? will you be here?i miss you- ue)

Aug 28, 05 3:55 pm  · 
 · 
vado retro

just sign it rmutt

Aug 28, 05 4:24 pm  · 
 · 
abracadabra

besides the contridiction, there is a layer of hi level self congratulating in barragan's words. they were said to an audiance, carefully chosen to reserve his place in poetics. a demand, from them. to verify and to propose (simulteniously) that his eyes seen things: light, shadow, form, color, beauty, love, nature, and the rest.. and, they are poetic. asking audiance to read and see the immaculate beauty in them. ego-tango, dances with horses.
however, the man tows a well known product.
novel is right.i guess i was cunned in my siesta.
however, LB's words sounds great if you use it in an artsy fartsy party to reenact some one night stand-art, with that ubersexy tone of voice of course,
"Dooo not doo, what I have dohnn, observe observe, wwhat I have raised", the rest is pornographic.

i now know the consequences of big tounge.

margarita rita, she no bullshit..

Aug 28, 05 4:48 pm  · 
 · 
Carl Douglas (agfa8x)

Rita, it seems to me that reenactionary architecturism is so broadly defined as to cover almost anything and simulaneously be informative about nothing.

In asserting one architectual performance is a re-enactment of another, aren't you just constituting the first performance as an original?

Can you be more specific with your Collingwood reference? I am having trouble making the connection.

Aug 28, 05 5:04 pm  · 
 · 
vado retro

the trick is to only rip off dead people. subvert the white what with the red huh? the futurists well i... oh they were fascist sympathizers? oh i had no i...but the motion...saint elia? hmmm i would have never guessed...maison de verre? hmmm never heard of it...


"true beauty could not be so outward, one ought to sense it and love it through an infinity of shadows, like a soul, rather than grasp it as matter-so directly, so perfectly, that one could indeed make tantamount counterfeits of it." m proust -on taste

Aug 28, 05 5:17 pm  · 
 · 

Maybe you want to understand it all right now, but maybe I don't want you to understand it all right now.

Aug 28, 05 5:21 pm  · 
 · 
Josh Emig

I think reenactionism as a theory, which I've mastered over the course of reading this thread, is just a reenactment of the dialectic, with a flourish of performativity thrown in, and a gesture of literary allusion (Eliot had it down), and a colloquialism about history repeating itself farce and/or tragedy.

Aug 28, 05 5:55 pm  · 
 · 
j-turn

rita - this link (http://www.quondam.com/09/0846.htm) - what are you trying to say? That Kahn did SPL before OMA?

That's a pretty shallow comparison - the two building have radically different attitudes towards structure and skin. It seems like the Kahn project is supported by a field of diagonal structural memebers throughout its interior that produce the repeated triangle effect in section, but at SPL the structure is based on a core and exterior tube system, which allows the interior to be column free - a structural system that has its precedents in mid-century skyscraper designs such as the sears tower and the world trade center.

Also, the geometry of Kahn's project, is regularized and rationalized relative to the triangular grid, but at SPL, the geometry is deformed relative to site derrived contigencies, and doesn't follow an a-priori gridding system.

In the end your comparison of the two projects doesn't sustain deep analysis, and ultimately is not interesting.

Aug 28, 05 6:18 pm  · 
 · 
j-turn

another question - how is your reenaction arguement different from analysis such as that done by Colin Rowe? Or historic comparisons between ... say... schinkel and mies?

We know that things happen and then themes reemerge ... etc.

what's that quote ... i history events happen twice, the first time as a comedy, and again as a tragedy ....?

something to that effect.

Aug 28, 05 6:24 pm  · 
 · 
joed

first interesting thread on archinect in a long time.

neither reenactionary nor architecturism is a word. there is a reason they are not words, as hinted at by brink: words already exist to say what you mean, only more elegantly: "reactionary architecture."

i would say, "don't be that guy that not only speaks constantly in archibabble, but makes up his own words to fill in the gaps where his vocabulary and comprehension fall short," but you seem quite content to play this role.

Aug 28, 05 9:02 pm  · 
 · 

I agree in regards to 'architecturism', but the sum of the parts of 'reenactionary' does not mean the same thing as 'reactionary' does. 'Rectionary' indicates that something is simply a reaction to something else, whereas 'reenactionary' would mean that something is a re-enactment of something else. Very different things.

Rita- the bit about reinventing the wheel was in reference to the times when you truly haven't seen the thing you're supposedly plagiarising. If David Childs had never been to that school and seen that critique, but gone through his design process and come up with the same design he did, it would still be just as akin to the student's design, only I would call this re-invention, not re-enactment. To me, the awareness (even if limited) of the precedent makes all the difference. Of course it is possible that without the awareness of the precedent the reinvention would never occur, but we'll never know... at least not in this example.

Aug 28, 05 9:33 pm  · 
 · 

grrr, damn my quick typing.

'Reactionary,' not 'Rectionary.'

Aug 28, 05 9:35 pm  · 
 · 
MysteryMan

Why can't architects wait a generation or two to plaigerize?

Aug 28, 05 9:37 pm  · 
 · 
vado retro

i am reacting to the reenactment and then reenacting my reaction...

Aug 28, 05 9:48 pm  · 
 · 
Carl Douglas (agfa8x)

Oh, that's great, Rita. You're allowed to be the Delphic Oracle, but we aren't actually allowed to [i]understand[/] any of your pronouncements.

Why is that? Is it because you're concerned that about your ideas getting out before your book? Worried that someone might reenact you?

Aug 28, 05 10:07 pm  · 
 · 

massacre at the two pines


death of theory?


Aug 28, 05 10:20 pm  · 
 · 

Block this user


Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?

Archinect


This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.

  • ×Search in: