Re: gehry's carp
2003.10.24 15:02
I truly like Gehry's architecture, and always have since first learning of it in 1981/82. I also like the imagination his architecture implies. As I stated here before, there is an interesting parallel relationship (for me at least) between the ongoing artistic development of Frank Stella and the architectural development of Frank Gehry. When I am critical, however, it is more of the hype and historical distortion by contemporary media, be it academic or popular or even personal, that often shrouds or overly polishes the designs.
As to personal mythologies regarding earliest inspirations, one has to more or less accept that the artist telling the myth is at least telling some kind of truth. There is nothing wrong with truthful retrospection. When I wonder now what may be the underpinnings of the architecture I design and create today, i.e., virtual museums, there is no doubt that I have since childhood been a collector. I also have a long history of liking display and exhibition. Add to this that I actually believe I was born an architect, and that my father earlier on taught me how to be a do-it-yourselfer (e.g., teaching me how to take off and repair a bicycle flat at seven), I guess virtual museum architecture is as good as I'm ever likely to get. And right now I'm content with that architecture practice.
Childhood lessons, experiments, and epiphanies are not the only instrumental inspirations for creativity, however. In adulthood, the best way to be creative is to actually work hard at being creative. Not until quite late in my life so far did I ever think that I might have some talent at writing, and it wasn't until I really worked at writing down the theory of chronosomatics with the aid of computer word processing in 1995 did I begin to learn how to write. Every sentence and paragraph I wrote back then was put through grammar check, and this process turned out to be an enormous learning (of creativity) technique. And thanks in large part to design-l (a nice place for do-it-yourself publishing), writing, for me, is now close to a vocation.
|