You all know who Vado Retro is; He is the essential 'nector who, when necessary, prefers to make his comments a little more than a whistle while driving. I have ran into another one i liked, this one on PE's 6 finger plan. Read here. Or, full text after the jump | news item responded | sixth finger | previous SCABS
May 19, 2008
Response to Eisenman's six point plan by Vado Retro

Regarding Point 1:

Go outside today and it seems that everyone is shouting into a cell phone or listening to their ipod. Who are they talking to and what are they listening to that is so important that they must detach themselves from the physical world that surrounds them? Don’t feel slighted Peter. These automatons are merely talking to their family or friends or listening to the music they pefer as opposed to maybe being stuck in an elevator or on the subway with borish old men who insist on complaining about society nowadays. (insert Andy Rooney eyebrows here…)

Perhaps the real issue is that by not being “ tuned in” (a phrase from the 60’s) is that you are faced with your own marginalization. For example, you Peter, are “somewhat” famous and may occasionally be noticed while out bowtie shopping, but if those around you are actually involved in their own reality (provided by the virtual) your true meaningless is reinforced. By not being in tune with the available technology you become the other and your only recourse to become meaningful to yourself is through criticizing those who do not act in a manner you prefer. Or perhaps they are texting their friends about you. You can always hope.

As the other, the outsider, in this scenario you are unseen. Before the advent of all this digital escapism, people were forced to communicate and interact; whether they wanted to or not.Think of all those attractive young women on the train who can simply ignore the advances of those greasy haired acne scarred cocommuters, just by turning up the volume. So, everyone is involved in their own world and talk on their phones rather than (fill in the blank) does it matter? Really our physical environment is so violated why should anyone spend anymore time in it that is necessary. If I'm having a phone conversation, or surfing the net, or texting I have an extra oar to help me in my upstream swim through the mediocrity and experiental banality that is modern america. Two things are at play here. The issue of privacy in a public realm and the battle against insignificance. You see those who are tied to their phones, ipods, laptops etc are fighting their own battle against insignificance and you by judging them are fighting your own battle as well. Except the battle they wage against insignificance actually serves to underscore your own feeling of insignificance.
The virtual is real Peter and you can’t ignore the techno..


Regarding Point 2:

I can’t disagree with you here. I mean who else but passive lemmings would sit still for ThIsShIt! Back in ’68 (the revolution is on Youtube!) we would have bitch slapped your ass.




Point 3:

Why settle on Palladio why not draw Ricchino? Or if one is to draw Palladio couldn’t one just read Palladio and react to “ beauty will result from the beautiful and from the correspondence of the whole to the parts, of the parts amongst themselves, and of these again to the whole; so that the structures may appear an entire and complete body, wherein each member agrees with the other and all members are necessary for the accomplishment of the building.” However how does one resolve that 500 year old sentiment with the reality of today? And if one cannot why draw like Palladio? In an attempt to understand what exactly? Geometry, Mathematics, Virtue? And if one is to draw like Palladio should one also use period drawing instruments, ink and parchment? You complain that students argue “if it won’t get me a job, I don’t want to do it.” This is, I think, an unintended irony, as no Renaissance artist, architect, saddlemaker, etc would have done a god damned thing without being paid.

Point 4:

The Instant Shiny Icon With A Hole In It Artistically Considered. The spectacle is the Decorated Duck. Buildings need not carry any more meaning than getting one’s picture taken in front of it. If it is shiny enough, If it is big enough, If it has a hole in it then it has instant cultural meaning. The ISIWAH (Instant Shiny Icon With A Hole) building is transferable to any location, any culture, any climate, any use. Therefore, this is the most effective method of architectural thinking available in the marketplace today!

Point 5 and 6:


Peter, please stop mixing architectural interpretations of Postmodernism/Deconstruction with those found in Literary Criticism. They are two different beasts and by mixing and matching you will continue to confuse your passive students. The easiest way to tell the difference is that the Literary Critics are unreadable. The architectural theorists are just as unreadable; however, they do break the monotony with an occasional picture or two. Edward Said was talking about late style in terms of a new idiom in later life; whether this is the late life of the individual (i.e. You) or of a movement. The paradigm of course does not shift for the individual or the movement. The existing paradigm is just exhausted. And the exhausted seldom sees the new.

As for the autonomy of the social act of architecture, perhaps this is your Late Style. But, while on one hand you argue that buildings today so often lack meaning, you use a post structuralist (hear you go again mixing and matching) idea as a provider of meaning. When in fact anyone who has ever been to a Godard film festival can attest, it was the structuralists who were interested in the idea of coexistence within the “structure.” And really isn’t all the figure depends on the ground the ground the figure. The inside depends on the outside the outside on the inside become obvious and ingrained after say third year Architecture studio? Of course, one can become obsessed and spend his/her entire Late Style engaged in figure/ground gymnastics. Talk about non-meaning.