More Initiation than Introduction
While the notion of reenactment as it relates to architecture and design is one of my ongoing areas of research and analysis, the idea to reenact Learning from Las Vegas by way of writing and publishing "Learning from Girard Avenue" did not occur to me until the eve of 1 February 2002. Although planned and executed as an independent document, "Learning from Girard Avenue" is nonetheless a part of the larger EPICENTRAL, of which "Learning from Girard Avenue" is the third chapter. From its very beginnings, EPICENTRAL was an open-ended project, with no particular outline except to somehow complete the thesis that St. Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine I, was, in today's terminology, the first master planner of Christianity, and to publish this thesis online at www.quondam.com between 18 August 2001 and the autumnal equinox, 22 September 2001. If there was any discernible sub-theme to EPICENTRAL thus far, it was calendrical coincidence.
Steven Izenour died of a heart attack late at night on 21 August 2001. I will always remember this date because my maternal grandmother, Franciska Brenner, died late at night on 21 August 1988. The death of Steven Izenour did not immediately become part of EPICENTRAL, nor did the 21 August coincidence.
The tragic events of 11 September 2001, like for virtually everyone and everything on this planet, changed EPICENTRAL. Suddenly, two-thirds into the projected time-frame of EPICENTRAL there was now a truly historic epicentral event. By 22 September 2001 EPICENTRAL was far from complete, rather the real meaning and message of EPICENTRAL was just beginning to unfold. I was at Ground Zero, site of the quondam World Trade Center towers, around noon 29 September 2001, and that evening I attended the In Your Face symposium at the City University of New York, which featured Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Rem Koolhaas. The events of 11 September also changed In Your Face.
Since I was with the same people at both In Your Face and the Venturi and Scott Brown tribute at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on 14 July 2001, I started to view these two events as potentially the new calendrical extremes of EPICENTRAL's time-frame. When I calculated that the midpoint between 14 July 2001 and 29 September 2001 was 21 August 2001, the day Steven Izenour died, it was then only too apparent that the work of Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour was indeed somehow an integral part of EPICENTRAL.
The EPICENTRAL chapter dealing with the work of Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour was to be entitled "Via Philadelphians," as in "Learning from Las Vegas Via Philadelphians." "Via Philadelphians" was going to closely consider the many built works in the Philadelphia area by Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, as well as the Doo-Wop architecture of Wildwood, New Jersey, which Izenour was, since 1996, bringing to the attention of the world architecture scene. There was also going to be an analysis of present day Atlantic City, New Jersey as a true reenactment of Las Vegas itself. All these plans changed, however, when I began to focus on the Girard Avenue house that is presently much admired by Robert Venturi.
Thus is how the idea of "Learning from Girard Avenue" came to be.
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