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Porn and its effect on 21st century architecture

David Cuthbert

Something we all kow about Porn and Architecture lets but um together - what are thoughts about seeing and being seen, aspects of image (shagging) over concept (plot), what other parallels do you see with relavance...personal space (wankers joint), public space (swinger's lounge)...wht are your thoughts?

 
Jun 23, 04 1:47 pm
Manteno_Montenegro

This could be good...

Jun 23, 04 1:53 pm  · 
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David Cuthbert

apologies on the spelling errors -one hand typing?

Jun 23, 04 2:02 pm  · 
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eringobraugh

what about arousal..a man's main arousal stems from more visual/audible VS. women are more emotionally and mentally stimulated, fantasy based
(this was not meant to be sexist in any way, just that the main forms of male arousal are pictures and female forms of arousal are romance novels)

Jun 23, 04 2:39 pm  · 
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mdler

or the idea of 'blob' architecture and the obesity epidemic

Jun 23, 04 2:41 pm  · 
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el jeffe

certainly the "money shot" is considered by many designers.

Jun 23, 04 3:49 pm  · 
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Bryan Finoki

See through walls ... ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3791795.stm

and suburban trends in fishbowl archi-voyeurism...?

http://www.latimes.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept

"The fishbowl home, where it's really easy to look inside, is becoming more common as buttoned-up cottages buffered with frontyards are being replaced by glass-paneled homes that press up to the property line. Meanwhile, the people peering in have become even more curious about what goes on in these houses, say behaviorists who study those on both sides of the window."

Jun 23, 04 4:05 pm  · 
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DJ

Porn, what's porn?

Signed Ron "The Hobbit" Jeremy

Jun 23, 04 7:07 pm  · 
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uneDITed

Aaron Betsky 'Queer Space' was a real let down....I wanted a beautiful analysis of gay saunas..itinarary, time/peak time graphs..orgy trafficing...a scientific abbatoir of sexual apogees...cottaging maps (and a certification of accepted standards of performance) in parallel with neighbouring subway train frequencies and, especially nocturnally, private transportation intercottage maps )linking one toilet to the other... ) de Certeau's car wandering ,ambling, improvising for sweet relief...
It turned out to be quite crap really...and delved into esoterics and ashamed escapism of the homoerotic ..

There was one very nice map...in the graphic essentialism of very architectural buuble diagrams...of the erogenous zones of Hamstead Heath ..like where the S&M people went..between what stone and what tree...where the scat-philes went...some vague age-group preference...etc...but now there are chat rooms...no need for all that tiresom physical exertion and needless embaressment....we can all be secure in the knowledge that we wont waste too much time ...
hah...precastrated procrastination.

Jun 23, 04 9:25 pm  · 
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juan moment

Has anybody seen Larry Sultan's The Valley exhibit at the SF MOMA.
He documents how these ordinary banal suburban houses in the San Fernando Valley become rented and transformed into porn sets. Somehow the photographs make the house interiors seem like unconvicing orchastrated props even though they were left unchanged.

Jun 24, 04 9:00 am  · 
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mauOne™

one effect could be less productivity from the designers, spending hours on the free sample movie reality porn sites when they are not posting in ARCHINECT, not my case of course :op

Jun 24, 04 9:28 am  · 
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juan moment

From Koolhaas in 'Wired'; I think this is also somewhere in SMLXL:

"Tokyo has always been known for its "love hotels", elaborately designed spaces where denizens of one of the most densely populated cities on earth can steal a few moments intimacy in exotic surroundings. Now some of the city's brothels are just as imaginatively kitted out. The imekura or "image-clubs" are imitations of everyday spaces that offer clients an everyday fantasy complete with a woman who plays the part - a secretary in a boardroom, a schoolgirl in a classroom, a commuter on a subway, and so on. For a customer, imekura girl is merely a character who appears in one's internal pornography landscape. In return for that, he happily pays the price of 20,000 yen per "play". With that budget, anyone anywhere in Japan would be able to get an average hard-core prostitution service, but there are some men who rather choose to immerse themselves in a false fantasy world. They make phone calls on weekday mornings, make reservations with their favourite girls, and visit image-clubs."

"In a transient modern city where anything seems architecturally possible, the ultimate erotic fantasy is shown to be that of everyday life."

Jun 24, 04 9:57 am  · 
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dimar

..go to see www.jeannouvel.com.there is "the hotel" in Luzern with porn scenes...some kind of people like that,why not let them to do that?!

Jun 24, 04 10:45 am  · 
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note

porn and reenactment and hotel architecture

so turn of the millennium II

I wonder if there is any demand for cigars, Lewinski look-a-likes and rooms like just off the Oval Office--Stained Reenactment 001.

Jun 24, 04 11:47 am  · 
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BOTS

See through walls ... ?

Voyeurism from the suburban streets could be taken to a new level by building your bedroom from concrete infused with glass fibre.

“Thousands of optical glass fibres form a matrix and run parallel to each other between the two main surfaces of every block,” explained its inventor Áron Losonczi. “Shadows on the lighter side will appear with sharp outlines on the darker one. Even the colours remain the same. This special effect creates the general impression that the thickness and weight of a concrete wall will disappear.”

http://optics.org/articles/news/10/3/10/1

For hardcore exposure I would suggest that brothels adopt this construction. The Casa Rosso, on Oudezijds Achterburgwal in Amsterdam would be an excellent refurbishment candidate, so I have been told.

Jun 24, 04 12:42 pm  · 
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le bossman

john hejduk was quite clearly into porno. see the architecture of love. when i see some of the things he has those buildings doing to each other, my palms start sweating as my lips quiver with the anticipation of an ecstasy so erotic it could only be called architecture.

Jun 24, 04 12:45 pm  · 
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Stripped Bride and Étant donnés via see-through walls?
Note bachelors even.

http://www.quondam.com/11/1006.htm

Jun 24, 04 12:57 pm  · 
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David Cuthbert

What about perversion and pornography outside the urban condition..rural, man and beast the spaces inbetween habitation vs insatiable habits...

Jun 24, 04 1:24 pm  · 
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BOTS

Article in Building Design Nov 12.

To The Manor Porn

An Architect has built a barn on his colorado ranch out of 80 tonnes of adult magasines. Doug Eichelberger used the naughty mags as the frame for his barn because a local recycler said the laminated pages meant that they could not be recycled. Luckily, the barn is not a brutalist structure and all naked flesh is hidden away.

Anyone got a pic?

Nov 15, 04 11:27 am  · 
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There's a photo here.

Nov 15, 04 11:42 am  · 
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Gotan

What about the Playboy Mansion
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/157544044X/103-3863080-3418237?v=glance

Japanese Love Hotels
http://www3.tky.3web.ne.jp/~edjacob/hotels.html

Amsterdam's red lights female glass displays
http://www.ignatzmice.com/Adam/framed3.htm

and then again
Roadside Motels with 2-3 hours rest period?
http://homepage.mac.com/dougoutg/PhotoAlbum1.html

Nov 15, 04 11:49 am  · 
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BOTS

ta Paul

Nov 15, 04 11:52 am  · 
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David Cuthbert

gotan thanks now i can plan my mid-western/japan/amsterdam vacation

Nov 15, 04 3:02 pm  · 
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David Cuthbert

Alsoo just wondering if anyone has notice how phallic Bill Clinton's presidential centre is....is a mid erect President Johnson

Nov 15, 04 3:03 pm  · 
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rutger

PHOTOGRAPHY in my eyes is the biggest parallel...

Most pictures in a-magazines are like playboy pictures...it looks naked, but in fact the supposed nakedness is covered in tons of make-up, bathing in artificial light and finally heavily photoshopped to erase every ímperfection...and offcourse they are taken from impossible positions. In short: it's fake as hell!!!

(Playboy is maybe not porn, but I chose the term because everybody knows their polished pictures)

Like the playboy photography shows us a non-existing perfection, archimagazine photography shows us the same fake. And in both cases people sell their soul to reach this perverted form of fake-perfection.

An example:
Did you ever actually visit koolhaas'/OMA Educatorium in Utrecht?
On the pictures it looks all so perfect... but in real there's a river of rusty watermarks over the roundings in the concrete, the (ugly)surroundings are not on the pictures, there are people in the building...and so on...

In short: both in porn and architecture photograpy is used to show a polished fake-reality and people tend to believe it's the real world.

Nov 15, 04 3:07 pm  · 
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Suture

The goal is always capture the mone$hot on film!

Nov 15, 04 3:13 pm  · 
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Maybe architecture porn is a biproduct of what some of us are really after.

We use words like sexy, seductive, sensuous, etc. when decribing good characteristics of design and we love the tactile, we promote the qualities perceived through experience: texture, curves, rhythm, drama, balance. We love the idea of temptation, if we interpret that to mean that we whet the appetite and tempt someone to explore further. (Bolero = architectural promenade?)

Ideally these qualities might be achieved subtly and would be appreciated over time, but it's so hard to communicate the value of such a phenomenal design approach to a lay public that those who want to be recognized err toward the spectacle in order to get the users' attention. This is the quest for the 'money shot', as someone mentioned earlier. The more impatient designers end up producing the in-your-face loud jangly stuff that we hope they regret later, maybe vowing to control themselves next time.

I'd posit that the John Pawsons, Alvaro Sizas, and Rafael Moneos are after the more sensuous, subtle qualities of design.

Nouvel thinks he can associate with the porn without committing to making it integral to his architecture. A few slides on the wall...it's nothing. Maybe a little disingenuous.

The Gehrys and Alsops, on the other hand, have embraced the porn.

Nov 15, 04 3:37 pm  · 
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trace™

mdler : "or the idea of 'blob' architecture and the obesity epidemic"

everyone has their fetish, I guess

Nov 15, 04 5:49 pm  · 
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Dazed and Confused

Internet porn has made buildings boxier and easier to draw.

Nov 15, 04 5:49 pm  · 
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alphanumericcha

Um - is this really architecture?



A pic from one of the "love" hotels...

or how about this for example >

Reviews:
“Deluxe publisher extraordinaire TASCHEN is still top of its game when it comes to keeping up with the fast-paced world of architecture by continually producing guides to the world's best designers and projects. For the third volume of the Architecture Now series expect more stunning."
Attitude, London
United Kingdom

I find porn mostly in the graphics produced for some of the shallow illusions of architecture. It’s fun to look at but not really going to make you happy in the long run.

Nov 15, 04 9:08 pm  · 
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droog
Nov 15, 04 11:46 pm  · 
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worm

jam arch-

any reason for the one handed typing earlier?

archinect or porn...joke joke

i was thinking of a thesis "THE BROTHEL BOAT & CASINO" its like red light all night and on water too

you get all your elation and money in one place and don't have to pay for a water bed...

Nov 16, 04 2:09 am  · 
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Suture

#1 effect:

Damaged keyboards

Nov 16, 04 8:58 am  · 
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duke19_98

Worm, I suggest you venture away from moose a little bit. He's rotting your brain. haha

Nov 16, 04 9:27 am  · 
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Cameron

this may have been mentioned but I remember a book in the late 90's called "STUD: Architectures of Masculinity."

Nov 16, 04 12:10 pm  · 
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BOTS

With its Princeton Architectural Press imprimatur, punning title and racy cover illustration--a square-jawed young architect braced against the sky, his white shirt open to the waist--Stud seems at first glance ready to resolve a timely issue: the mysterious correlation between machismo and tectonics, between (as the subtitle puts it) architectures and masculinity.



http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1568980760.01._SCTZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Nov 16, 04 12:15 pm  · 
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rydesign

Read :
Reefer Madness : Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
by Eric Schlosser

same author of Fast Food Nation.....puts together an interesting collection of ideas of how " darker industrys" support our financial nation.......

Nov 16, 04 12:29 pm  · 
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David Cuthbert

worm - yes masturbation joke, but isn't that what designing has become? Locked away alone, churning out ....stuff? Hmmm collaboration or design oh now that good, just like that - good sex!

Nov 16, 04 1:50 pm  · 
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e909
female forms of arousal are romance novels

arousal?? like, piqued clit arousal?

Feb 10, 05 1:38 pm  · 
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e909
laminated pages meant that they could not be recycled.

sement is pretty tuff stuff

Feb 10, 05 1:53 pm  · 
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Oana S.

in this context, who is the jenna jameson of architecture ?

Feb 11, 05 4:34 pm  · 
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vado retro

marcel duchamp mixed his seminal fluid in some of his work. maybe we should try it guys!!!

Feb 12, 05 12:11 am  · 
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b3tadine[sutures]

who is the jenna of architecture? he just died, PJ.

Feb 12, 05 12:42 am  · 
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stephanie

i've never read a romance novel.
but i have looked at porn.

Feb 12, 05 4:23 am  · 
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e909

porn perfection vs reality,

Like the playboy photography shows us a non-existing perfection, archimagazine photography shows us the same fake. And in both cases people sell their soul to reach this perverted form of fake-perfection.

An example:
Did you ever actually visit koolhaas'/OMA Educatorium in Utrecht?
On the pictures it looks all so perfect... but in real there's a river of rusty watermarks over the roundings in the concrete, the (ugly)surroundings are not on the pictures,


her in-laws

there are people in the building...and so on...



crabs in "the building". :)

Feb 12, 05 11:59 pm  · 
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i spent the afternoon detailing a laundry drop for a operating theatre, I mirrored it to complete the section and realised I had drawn a vulva and labia, and my text above it formed the clit - Of course as soon as i noticed what happened so did someone else - go figure.

Maybe its time i go to the ATL and visit my girlfriend...hmm

i have something on the brain asside from architecture for once ;)

Jul 7, 05 6:42 pm  · 
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MysteryMan

One time a car dealer pissed me off so roayally that I designed a parking island in the shape of a limp ding-a-ling. Got his sorry-axx!!


Clients beware.

Jul 7, 05 8:17 pm  · 
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RSD

UMMM.. FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK..

WAS WORKING WITH THE CONSTRUCTION CREW OVER SEEING, THIS OLD MEXICAN GUY SAID SOMETHING AND EVERYONE CRACKED UP... SO I ASKED WHAT HE SAID AND THEY REPLIED, "IT LOOKS LIKE A BIG VAGINA!!"

I GOT A GOOD LAUGH OUT OF THAT ONE.. HE'S KINDA RIGHT
http://homepage.mac.com/ryanhsinger/PhotoAlbum109.html

Jul 7, 05 8:42 pm  · 
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driftwood

Find some images (find this book if you can) of Ricardo Porro's Plastic Arts pavilion for the National Art School built just outside of Havana, Cuba.

It's based on the female anatomy and is by far, one of the most sensual and exotic spaces I've ever been in. And the papaya...





Oh the papaya!

Jul 8, 05 2:52 am  · 
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brickhouse

i designed a pavilion based on the female anotomy once. i made it so humid and balmy inside no one could go in without rubber yellow rain capes and hats.......and i used maya!

Jul 8, 05 4:50 pm  · 
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nathaniel

I know of a couple of 1960's building's, don't ask how I found this out, that are designed for public sex. The exterior form wraps in places creating exterior nooks sized for two not visible from street or window, but exposed enough you could hear someone approaching. The prime concern for someone inclined to indulge in outdoor sex is being seen, parks are really no good, alleys are dirty, streets are way to public, car parks are ok but you risk setting off alarms…. in takes an architect with this passion to carve appropriate spaces out of the city.

This is an alternate to Koolhaas’s “image-club”, no $$$, actress or subway platform stage set required. Cities are EROTIC… possibilities, people, coincidences, clubs etc are all there, the built fabric should reflect it! Coates - ‘Guide to Ecstacity’ is along these lines.

Jul 8, 05 6:35 pm  · 
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