21 June
virtual museum of architecture--Rossi
architectural drawings
1996.06.21
email [interview]
1999.06.21
postscript: interview lauf-s
1999.06.21 11:43
Re: Response: to lauf-s (i/ii)
1999.06.21 21:24
tragic.1
1999.06.21
tragic.2
1999.06.21 19:36
positionings, June 21
what to do next
"Inside the Density..."
1999.06.21
"Critical Manipulation"
2001.06.21
Re: genetic architecture
2002.06.21 11:55
2002.06.21 14:59
Re: Götterdämmerung?
2003.06.21 08:16
Re: acronyms: 20th c. i be lazy thinker syndrome becomes commerce
2003.06.21 08:32
Re: Contemporary Aboriginal Art
2003.06.21 08:58
another one bites the dust
2003.06.21 13:53
Alarm Clock?
2004.06.21 18:13
who did you want to be?
2005.06 21 08:27
21 June 2002, and today
2005.06.21 15:38
Abortion Policy?
2005.06.21 16:06
2005.06.21 16:32
what's your sign?
2005.06.21 16:56
quondam quondam ideas
2006.06.21 10:10
Sammlung Architektonischer Entwürfe
2006.06.21 11:29
My Complements to the Chef
Ephemeral Conceptual Art 001
2006.06.21
Make every meal a work of art
2006.06.21 16:38
let's get physical
2006.06.21 17:28
Galleri Silver Screen
2006.06.21 19:30
Anti-Starchitecture Chic
2007.06.21 22:50
Symphonatic
2007.06.21 23:31
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another museum of architecture reference
1996.06.21
Another reference to a "virtual museum of architecture" came from some reading in Rossi's The Architecture of the City. In the introduction to the 2nd Italian edition, Rossi makes reference to the Canaletto painting Capriccio.
After I wrote this book and from the concepts I postulated in it, I outlined the hypothesis of the analogous city, in which I attempted to deal with theoretical questions concerning design in architecture. In particular I elaborated a compositional procedure that is based on certain fundamental artifacts in the urban reality around which other artifacts are constituted within the framework of an analogous system. To illustrate this concept I gave the example of Canaletto's fantasy view of Venice, a capriccio in which Palladio's project for the Ponti di Rialto, the Basilica of Vicenza, and the Palazzo Chiericate are set next to each other and described as if the painter were rendering an urban scene he had actually observed. These three Palladian monuments, none of which are actually in Venice (one is a project; the other two are in Vicenza), nevertheless constitute an analogous Venice formed of specific elements associated with the history of both architecture and the city. The geographic transposition of the monuments within the painting constitutes a city that we recognize, even though it is a place of purely architectural reference. This example enables me to demonstrate how a logical-formal operation could be translated into a design method and then into a hypothesis for a theory of architectural design in which the elements were preestablished and formally defined, but where the significance that sprung forth at the end of the operation was the authentic, unforeseen, and original meaning of the work.
The Palais des Congrès / Museum for Nordrhine-Westfalen / Hurva Synagogue composite building immediately came to mind, and I would like to sometime in the future elaborate on how this composition is perhaps an analogous building. Furthermore, Rossi's point provides great fuel for future manipulation of my models, and Canaletto's painting in particular provides inspiration and a grounding in terms of a plan for the "virtual museum" itself.
Overall, the analogous city concept works in tandem with the "virtual museum of architecture" idea, and, at this point, there is also interest in adding the collage city idea/methodology to the "museum" idea. Thus, there are three historical ideas comprising the foundation upon which to build a "virtual museum of architecture".
From: Anand Bhatt
1999.06.21
Just trying to understand, because I was looking at your site today.
Will you describe your perception of architecture as tragic? (I mean it in the classical Greek sense, of course).
Or am I asking a bad question?
tragic.1
1999.06.21
I never thought of my view of architecture as classically tragic. Since Quondam is extensive, I might be able to better answer your question if you provide a specific context(s).
Thinking about your question as it stands, however, perhaps my delivery is better described as sometimes a reflection of self evidences, be they about the built enviroment, current events, history, my own life. There is indeed a lot of "tragedy" within my family and within my neighborhood, and within the larger world 'theater'. With tragedy comes comedy, however, and the truth about me is that I find humor in many things, especially in those things that take themselves too seriously.
On a more personal note, Quondam for me has become an experimental domain that of late sometimes directs me more than I direct it. I like that it now and then has this ability because I also like spontaneous creation/creativity, and thus Quondam on occassion inspires me to even take directions that hadn't occurred to me beforehand. I never expected quondam to become this, but I'm glad that it has. I very much like that presently there is no set agenda for Quondam except to complete schizophrenia + architecture with 2000 webpages by 1.1.2000. If it is within s+a that the notion of a tragic view came to you, I think that actually explains itself.
[The long postscript regarding 'draughtsmanship' will be published sometime later.]
tragic.2
1999.06.21
I just looked up 'tragedy' in Abram's A Glossary of Literary Terms, and i was particularly struck by the following passage:
Aristotle defined tragedy as "the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself," in the medium of poetic language, and in the manner of dramatic rather than narrative presentation, incorporating "incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish catharsis of such emotions." Precisely how to interpret Aristotle's catharsis--which in Greek signifies "purgation," or purification," or both--is much disputed. On two matters, however, a number of modern commentators agree. Aristotle in the first place sets out to account for the undeniable, if extraordinary, fact that many tragic representations of suffering and defeat leave an audience feeling not depressed, but relieved, or even exalted. ... In the second place, Aristotle uses this distinctive effect, "the pleasure of pity and fear," as the basic way to distinguish the tragic from comic or other forms, and he regards the dramatist's aim to produce and maximize this effect as the principle which determines both the choice of the tragic protagonist and the organization of the tragic plot.
Without having prior knowledge of the above ideas, they nonetheless very much describe what the 'production' of schizophrenia + architectures has been and still is. Being now thus informed may indeed have a noticeable effect on the second half of schizophrenia + architecture, and if that happens, your inspiring email is largely responsible.
Thanks to you, I can now ask whether the tragic hero of schizophrenia + architecture is indeed architecture itself. Is architecture to be a victim of schizophrenia? Or are both schizophrenia and architecture now victims of each other. Even though I did not think along these lines before, I have nonetheless already planned to design the stage where such a drama can be played--a major portion of s+a's second half will be OTTOPIA.
[The long postscript regarding the promenade architecturale is published within QBVS1.]
selected readings from the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
2008.06.21
October 1973
Suzanne Lewis, "San Lorenzo Revisited: A Theodosian Palace Church at Milan"
Spiro Kostof, "The Third Rome: The Polemics of Architectural History"
Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas, revewed by Gary Wolf
March 1974
Gregory T. Armstrong, "Constantine's Churches: Symbols and Structure"
William Hauptman, "Lucet Lux Vestra coram Hominibus: A New Source for the Spire of Borromini's S. Ivo"
Thomas Mathews, The Early Churches of Constantinople, reviewed by Urs Peschlow
May 1983
Elisabeth Blair MacDougall, "A Circus, a Wild Man and a Dragon: Family History and the Villa Mattei"
October 1983
Allan Braham, The Architecture of the French Enlightenment, reviewed by Christopher Tadgall
October 1984
Susan G. Feinberg, The Genesis of Sir John Soane's Museum Idea: 1801-1810
Virgilio C. Corbo, Il Santo Sepolcro di Gerusalemme. Aspettti archeologici dalle origine al periodo crociato, reviewed by Robert Ousterhout
George L. Hersey, Architecture, Poetry and Number in the Royal Palace at Caserta, reviewed by Christopher Tadgell
December 1984
David Cast, "Seeing Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor"
Ellen Annette Plummer, "Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome: A Drawing and Attribution"
March 1986
Carol Willis, "Zoning and Zeitgeist: The Skyscraper City in the 1920s"
Alan Hess, "The origins of McDonald's Golden Arches"
Dorothy Stroud, Sir John Soane, Architect, reviewed by Pierre de la Ruffinière du Prey
December 1986
Werner Szambien, J.N.L. Durand 1760-1834, De l'imitation à la norme, reviewed by Alberto Pérez-Gómez
March 1988
Robert R. Taylor, Hohenzollern Berlin: Construction and Reconstruction, reviewed by Rand Carter
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