I had high anticipation prior to visiting the The American Heritage Center. Pedock's concept seemed so strong but upon arrival to the building I was dissapointed. It might have been it was the middle of the winter on the wind blown high plains it seemed out of place. It was not like Bear Butte or Devils Tower as they belong in their place.
This was a building out of place and the craftsmanship sucked! Seemed like it was a giant gypsum board box on the inside with nothing really of quality or craft which I something I have come to expect from museums over the years. It kinda had the feeling of one of the road salt gravel storage building buildings associated with the automobile of New England of the 1990's.
I have been enjoying your videos, and I was curious if you found the James Turrell piece at the DAM addition. (Perhaps it was in the original Ponti building?)
Like you, I have been to his Scottsdale skyspace, but the DAM Turrell piece was an unexpected treat and so it leaps to the foreground whenever I recall the visit.
You may have answered this already. But, i was wonderign the main Archinect (theme song) music piece that you use in every episode. Did you create that?
It is especially good and noticeable in this episode....
Nam: Geez, I should be so talented. I arrange (remix?) the constituent instruments coincident with the editing, but a little gnome is the one keeping me free of licensing rights. It helps...but if i could just get him to write me a damned closing credit song, i'd be set. Myriad variations on a theme (the melody) make it much easier to score these short flicks than the hours it would take looking for comparable drop-needle music. It also gives the episodes a kind of consistency i hope.
Chris: I slowly discover Turrell pieces become highlights in every building. What a thing to say about any creatives' work.
AML: Libeskind's lofts are just that: lofts. I suppose it's difficult to reconcile inescapable flambouyancy with the desire for less exterior skin square footage and 10penny vs 6penny nails. Developers, whatchagonnado?
my earlier comments raise an interesting proposal: Archinectors have songs? I'll use 'em. Just send 'em to my email address. And meetups: If ya live in anywhere along my path, make a quick video greeting, a "hello archinect from minneapolis," or "hello from KC, Mo!" and they're on there. Later we meet school blogger Aaron Westre and archinect editor John Jourden, and more archinectors popping up in the vids would be fun. Hey, if these pipe dreams happen: amazing.
As always, I hope everyone's still having a good time with the videos.
Marlin, I wonder - I think the same thing - if the buildings we see and read about in books can ever hold for us the same excitement, that once we "know" what else can remain? When I've been to Wright buildings I am almost always disappointed to find that it does not hold me the way the books did or do. Do you think you/we can ever approach a work without reading about it? I mean can we really get to "know" or have the building hold the enthusiasm, outside of what we read?
it IS better the less you know. some of the best architecture i've experienced has been discovered gems - not that they were unknown, just that i didn't know 'em.
i'm thinking that too, but the question or thought i have is this; how do you do that? i mean when i come across a project i am almost always drawn in to read about it or find out about it - through magazines or books...
beta and steven: i feel it's both, depending on what you expect to gain from the experience. My travel was preceded by research, on states, history, culture, architecture, land use, geology, roadside kitsch, independent coffee roasters, microbrews, massacres and gunfights, regional concretes, bla bla bla. travel benefits from research, certainly so too do visits to buildings, because the genuine article is always "different" than the drawing set and photos. In that sense, visiting a building under the auspices of research means we want to know if what we read applies to the building, if all the hulabaloo, opinions, project write-ups, thick theory books, are true or otherwise, essentially whether or not the building "works." Ultimately, research is good, it's enriching, adds context.
then there's the other side: in conversation with Minneapolis architect Ralph Nelson, i told him the building i enjoyed most were the Deer Valley Rock Art Center and the Recycling Center, because they were buildings i otherwise didn't know about before the trip. Nelson accurately chalked it up to surprise, the newness, absence of expectations. And he was right. So one experience is about assessing the merits of research, one is about cherishing surprise.
nam: mane is a friend. We met few years ago through a commission to design his album cover, and on first sight it was like we knew each other our whole lives. Intelligent friends i have, but I maybe have two or three friends whom i regard as geniuses, and he's one of them.
beta: Frank LLoyd Wright - my only exposure to FLW in LA are his textile block houses, regarded by most scholars as his stylistic low point. Perhaps they're right, because most of his work i saw on my trip in addition to time spent in Wisconsin made the fiber in my body drop into my shoes, while long ago i had dismissed studying Wright per the LA houses. What a pathetic and premature assesment.
Sorry i missed you in Minneapolis. I didn't contact too many archinectors while this project was still under wraps. Didn't want to jinx it, i guess. It's worth noting, after everything i saw, Minneapolis / St. Paul was by far my favorite city, the only place i traveled to where i would consider living. Loved it. All of it. But then again i saw it at the peak of fall, not the dead of winter. I should research that...
I finally got a chance to watch the latest installment. You got me all excited about Hot Springs, SD and then backtracked to Rocky Mtn Natn'l Park, and a visitors center I've been to but never paid it much more attention than your average highway rest stop. Thoughtful insight, but Hot Springs is still what I'd rather hear about. The black hills are much more mystical to me than the rocky mountains. A place where I've gone to get "lost" many times.
I also must comment about places I would consider living. Especially for work, I'm making multiple trips to places I normally wouldn't travel....Columbus, OH or Dallas, TX or Pittsburg, PA etc. With each addn'l trip I always find new and exciting corners of these otherwise unfamiliar cities. And quite honestly, I can say that given enough time to explore and discover a city, I could consider living almost anywhere. I love my home and will defend it as much as anyone would defend their hometown, but I think largely many people have a very narrow minded view of many cities without taking the proper time to thoroughly develop an opinion. Not a comment about your travels, but a general comment about what I read on archinect daily.
Aqua...
I too fell in love with the Black Hills on a summer trip years ago through them.
I remeber Custer State Park, and cabin gift shop where i bought Blak Elk speaks....
I grew up on the edge of the Black Hills. My grandparents trailed over a hundred head of horses off of high plains of northwestern
South Dakota to their new home on Elk Creek. I have many favorite places in the Hills as I spent a good part you my younger years exploring on foot, on horse back and in automobiles roaming around those parts. I have been away for many years, but still get to head home once and a while to visit family. I also miss wondering around
in the Badlands an on the high plains.
was it me or was this last episode short as shit? You hungover Marlin git back out there and film s'more. Sorry for the distaste but your video series are impeccable and a real source of inspiration for those seemingly nailed to their desks.
architechnophilia: thanks, things been super busy 'round here:
also, the series finally got its own rhythm: every four episodes is a chapter. Thus, eps 1, 5, 9, etc are the intros and thus the shortest.
aqua: perhaps i "fell in love" with an allure i discovered in Minneapolis inspired an immediate desire to move there. Truth is i fell in love with everywhere, would move everywhere i went, but Minneapolis... this was likely aided by an ipod overrun with Prairie Home Companion episodes and Garrison Keillor mythology, wisdom and and tall tales. (the southwest was overrun with Utah Phillips and Tupac. Pour out two sips this evening.)
its funny, there are responses i find myself typing and deleting because i know the anecdotes i want to respond with will turn up in later episodes...so stay tuned aqua.
snook: "exploring the Black Hills on foot, on horse back and in automobiles." I hope your childhood resembles my next vacation.
DAMMIT!!!! I thought a new episode was upon us. Can't wait to see some more. Hope the tile demolition goes well Marlin, the existing stuff and that pattern aren't doing anything for me.
Thanks for the insight to the episodes. I too thought it rather short and was wondering what was up.
Talked to my mom a couple of weeks ago and she at 82 was helping my 80 year old uncle along with her 76 year old brother with Branding the Calves. They are a bunch of hoots!
Marlin,
The time elapsed footage of clouds the sky and Carhenge was
beautiful and moving.
As was the elegiac ending with the firey sunset and thoughts of your father.
Enjoyed #10 Marlin, but really getting anxious for the next one since your originally talked about Hot Springs back in #9.
My memories of Carhenge dates back to a family trip visiting relatives where we noticed something off the highway outside Alliance that wasn't there a few years prior. I would guess 1988 or so. In 1990 my Aunt that lived there passed away and I haven't been back since. The fact that Carhenge was built as tribute to a family member is an irony I hadn't known, since to this day whenever someone mentions Carhenge I think of my long passed Aunt.
aqua: indeed, discovering that facet of carhenge changed my entire visit, likely for the better i suppose. I hope i do you right with episode 11 and 12 on south dakota.
bossman: because we haven't reached Chicago yet...stay tuned!
ps aqua: in am ironic way, i hope that the recontextualization of carhenge changes the experience of someone mentioning it to you. Above all else, i love that the grandiosity of the gesture is indeed a celebration of a life.
marlin - I'm sure the mention of carhenge will be different going forward. However I now have a renewed desire to revisit the site personally, which I'm sure will be much different than it was 20 years ago.
You are very welcome, vado and ana! Consider it my pleasure, and i'm glad to hear you are both still enjoying the series.
Vado actually gave me the greatest advice before i arrived in Chicago: go to Prairie avenue books, pick up a copy of the AIA Guide to Chicago. Simple yet effective...and his advice also placed me in a very, very dangerous situation: wandering around starry-eyed inside a new/used bookstore devoted to the arts. Dangerous!
Yes, Marlin.... As usual the best. Nice contemplative lead in to the new batch of videos. And then a nice amped up ending to get me even more excited about the upcoming.
Man i need to go back to South Dakota. It is so beautiful.
Did you make it to Custer State Park? I have fond memories of camping their..
Archinect Travels
also, ever since this thread, i can only picture danny as the guy from something about mary.
I had high anticipation prior to visiting the The American Heritage Center. Pedock's concept seemed so strong but upon arrival to the building I was dissapointed. It might have been it was the middle of the winter on the wind blown high plains it seemed out of place. It was not like Bear Butte or Devils Tower as they belong in their place.
This was a building out of place and the craftsmanship sucked! Seemed like it was a giant gypsum board box on the inside with nothing really of quality or craft which I something I have come to expect from museums over the years. It kinda had the feeling of one of the road salt gravel storage building buildings associated with the automobile of New England of the 1990's.
Hi Marlin:
I have been enjoying your videos, and I was curious if you found the James Turrell piece at the DAM addition. (Perhaps it was in the original Ponti building?)
Like you, I have been to his Scottsdale skyspace, but the DAM Turrell piece was an unexpected treat and so it leaps to the foreground whenever I recall the visit.
Warm regards,
Chris
Episode 8, from Denver to Boulder, now online.
Marlin.....
You may have answered this already. But, i was wonderign the main Archinect (theme song) music piece that you use in every episode. Did you create that?
It is especially good and noticeable in this episode....
I would call for a Boulder Meet up , in celebration, but i don;t know of any nectuers from Boulder?
Nice episode....
Nam: Geez, I should be so talented. I arrange (remix?) the constituent instruments coincident with the editing, but a little gnome is the one keeping me free of licensing rights. It helps...but if i could just get him to write me a damned closing credit song, i'd be set. Myriad variations on a theme (the melody) make it much easier to score these short flicks than the hours it would take looking for comparable drop-needle music. It also gives the episodes a kind of consistency i hope.
Chris: I slowly discover Turrell pieces become highlights in every building. What a thing to say about any creatives' work.
AML: Libeskind's lofts are just that: lofts. I suppose it's difficult to reconcile inescapable flambouyancy with the desire for less exterior skin square footage and 10penny vs 6penny nails. Developers, whatchagonnado?
my earlier comments raise an interesting proposal: Archinectors have songs? I'll use 'em. Just send 'em to my email address. And meetups: If ya live in anywhere along my path, make a quick video greeting, a "hello archinect from minneapolis," or "hello from KC, Mo!" and they're on there. Later we meet school blogger Aaron Westre and archinect editor John Jourden, and more archinectors popping up in the vids would be fun. Hey, if these pipe dreams happen: amazing.
As always, I hope everyone's still having a good time with the videos.
*bump*
Will Episode 9 be arriving anytime soon? It's been over a month and I'm itching for more.
Yes i agree....
Pretty please.?
Also Marlin,
I just checked out Mane Azeem's page.
Friend of yours? Some dope MCing...
We've been wondering the same thing!
Maybe he got a flat tire... ;)
Maybe he didn't get the news that the writers strike is over.
Anxious for another one!
Carhenge, woohoo!
Those storefront doors on the visitor's center are really jarring. Eek.
so Marlin you came to the Twin Cities?
Marlin, I wonder - I think the same thing - if the buildings we see and read about in books can ever hold for us the same excitement, that once we "know" what else can remain? When I've been to Wright buildings I am almost always disappointed to find that it does not hold me the way the books did or do. Do you think you/we can ever approach a work without reading about it? I mean can we really get to "know" or have the building hold the enthusiasm, outside of what we read?
Does that make sense?
it IS better the less you know. some of the best architecture i've experienced has been discovered gems - not that they were unknown, just that i didn't know 'em.
i'm thinking that too, but the question or thought i have is this; how do you do that? i mean when i come across a project i am almost always drawn in to read about it or find out about it - through magazines or books...
beta and steven: i feel it's both, depending on what you expect to gain from the experience. My travel was preceded by research, on states, history, culture, architecture, land use, geology, roadside kitsch, independent coffee roasters, microbrews, massacres and gunfights, regional concretes, bla bla bla. travel benefits from research, certainly so too do visits to buildings, because the genuine article is always "different" than the drawing set and photos. In that sense, visiting a building under the auspices of research means we want to know if what we read applies to the building, if all the hulabaloo, opinions, project write-ups, thick theory books, are true or otherwise, essentially whether or not the building "works." Ultimately, research is good, it's enriching, adds context.
then there's the other side: in conversation with Minneapolis architect Ralph Nelson, i told him the building i enjoyed most were the Deer Valley Rock Art Center and the Recycling Center, because they were buildings i otherwise didn't know about before the trip. Nelson accurately chalked it up to surprise, the newness, absence of expectations. And he was right. So one experience is about assessing the merits of research, one is about cherishing surprise.
nam: mane is a friend. We met few years ago through a commission to design his album cover, and on first sight it was like we knew each other our whole lives. Intelligent friends i have, but I maybe have two or three friends whom i regard as geniuses, and he's one of them.
beta: Frank LLoyd Wright - my only exposure to FLW in LA are his textile block houses, regarded by most scholars as his stylistic low point. Perhaps they're right, because most of his work i saw on my trip in addition to time spent in Wisconsin made the fiber in my body drop into my shoes, while long ago i had dismissed studying Wright per the LA houses. What a pathetic and premature assesment.
Sorry i missed you in Minneapolis. I didn't contact too many archinectors while this project was still under wraps. Didn't want to jinx it, i guess. It's worth noting, after everything i saw, Minneapolis / St. Paul was by far my favorite city, the only place i traveled to where i would consider living. Loved it. All of it. But then again i saw it at the peak of fall, not the dead of winter. I should research that...
I finally got a chance to watch the latest installment. You got me all excited about Hot Springs, SD and then backtracked to Rocky Mtn Natn'l Park, and a visitors center I've been to but never paid it much more attention than your average highway rest stop. Thoughtful insight, but Hot Springs is still what I'd rather hear about. The black hills are much more mystical to me than the rocky mountains. A place where I've gone to get "lost" many times.
I also must comment about places I would consider living. Especially for work, I'm making multiple trips to places I normally wouldn't travel....Columbus, OH or Dallas, TX or Pittsburg, PA etc. With each addn'l trip I always find new and exciting corners of these otherwise unfamiliar cities. And quite honestly, I can say that given enough time to explore and discover a city, I could consider living almost anywhere. I love my home and will defend it as much as anyone would defend their hometown, but I think largely many people have a very narrow minded view of many cities without taking the proper time to thoroughly develop an opinion. Not a comment about your travels, but a general comment about what I read on archinect daily.
Aqua...
I too fell in love with the Black Hills on a summer trip years ago through them.
I remeber Custer State Park, and cabin gift shop where i bought Blak Elk speaks....
I grew up on the edge of the Black Hills. My grandparents trailed over a hundred head of horses off of high plains of northwestern
South Dakota to their new home on Elk Creek. I have many favorite places in the Hills as I spent a good part you my younger years exploring on foot, on horse back and in automobiles roaming around those parts. I have been away for many years, but still get to head home once and a while to visit family. I also miss wondering around
in the Badlands an on the high plains.
Ahhh,
Me no can spell!
was it me or was this last episode short as shit? You hungover Marlin git back out there and film s'more. Sorry for the distaste but your video series are impeccable and a real source of inspiration for those seemingly nailed to their desks.
architechnophilia: thanks, things been super busy 'round here:
also, the series finally got its own rhythm: every four episodes is a chapter. Thus, eps 1, 5, 9, etc are the intros and thus the shortest.
aqua: perhaps i "fell in love" with an allure i discovered in Minneapolis inspired an immediate desire to move there. Truth is i fell in love with everywhere, would move everywhere i went, but Minneapolis... this was likely aided by an ipod overrun with Prairie Home Companion episodes and Garrison Keillor mythology, wisdom and and tall tales. (the southwest was overrun with Utah Phillips and Tupac. Pour out two sips this evening.)
its funny, there are responses i find myself typing and deleting because i know the anecdotes i want to respond with will turn up in later episodes...so stay tuned aqua.
snook: "exploring the Black Hills on foot, on horse back and in automobiles." I hope your childhood resembles my next vacation.
marlin, wait, so are you a resident holmes?
DAMMIT!!!! I thought a new episode was upon us. Can't wait to see some more. Hope the tile demolition goes well Marlin, the existing stuff and that pattern aren't doing anything for me.
Thanks for the insight to the episodes. I too thought it rather short and was wondering what was up.
Marlin,
Talked to my mom a couple of weeks ago and she at 82 was helping my 80 year old uncle along with her 76 year old brother with Branding the Calves. They are a bunch of hoots!
***Bump***
Getting anxious.
***Poke***
Me, too.
can somebody at archinect confirm if archinect travels is still going or is it dead?
still going. Just busy, busy, busy.
...miss me, huh? Check back later today, tuesday 7/15
yayyy!
Marlin,
The time elapsed footage of clouds the sky and Carhenge was
beautiful and moving.
As was the elegiac ending with the firey sunset and thoughts of your father.
Belated bump, and thank you Nam:
Episode 10 , hope the length satisfies, philia; I think this episode's a goodie.
...cosmetic reno just about done. (Same floor, note the door is the same as the one pictured above...)
Marlin,
the house look snice, even if only minimally renovated at this point..
Yep. Took out a tiny wall, that was all it needed, or all my gal and i could afford.
Paint and trim: like sauce for the chef.
Love that dark floor with the different shades of blue on the walls. Looks great, Marlin.
Cute doggies btw.
Enjoyed #10 Marlin, but really getting anxious for the next one since your originally talked about Hot Springs back in #9.
My memories of Carhenge dates back to a family trip visiting relatives where we noticed something off the highway outside Alliance that wasn't there a few years prior. I would guess 1988 or so. In 1990 my Aunt that lived there passed away and I haven't been back since. The fact that Carhenge was built as tribute to a family member is an irony I hadn't known, since to this day whenever someone mentions Carhenge I think of my long passed Aunt.
why are all the travels just in the mountain west?
aqua: indeed, discovering that facet of carhenge changed my entire visit, likely for the better i suppose. I hope i do you right with episode 11 and 12 on south dakota.
bossman: because we haven't reached Chicago yet...stay tuned!
ps aqua: in am ironic way, i hope that the recontextualization of carhenge changes the experience of someone mentioning it to you. Above all else, i love that the grandiosity of the gesture is indeed a celebration of a life.
definitely for the better, good job!!!
marlin - I'm sure the mention of carhenge will be different going forward. However I now have a renewed desire to revisit the site personally, which I'm sure will be much different than it was 20 years ago.
thanks again marlin. i am craving the west.
You are very welcome, vado and ana! Consider it my pleasure, and i'm glad to hear you are both still enjoying the series.
Vado actually gave me the greatest advice before i arrived in Chicago: go to Prairie avenue books, pick up a copy of the AIA Guide to Chicago. Simple yet effective...and his advice also placed me in a very, very dangerous situation: wandering around starry-eyed inside a new/used bookstore devoted to the arts. Dangerous!
is now up!
Alliance, NB to Hot Springs, SD
Watch
thanks again marlin. you're the kerouac of archinect!
Huzzah!
Yes, Marlin.... As usual the best. Nice contemplative lead in to the new batch of videos. And then a nice amped up ending to get me even more excited about the upcoming.
Man i need to go back to South Dakota. It is so beautiful.
Did you make it to Custer State Park? I have fond memories of camping their..
has anyone noticed Marlin's voice? Its raspy cross between Charlton Heston and James Bond...excellent narration
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