Forwarding mail by: design-l@[email protected] () on
2/8/95 1:54:38 PM
-------------------
Responding to msg by Subject907@xxxxxxx (Nic Musolino) on
Nic,
Certainly the components of architectural discourse are
elective and we each must bear the responsibility of
deciding what to cover. The critical framework, the
language, the audience, who are our cohorts and opponents -
- none of these are pre-determined. We enjoy learning here
what others propose for the discourse, and their initiation
of threads.
I would note that all architects and designers only produce
documents, no matter how much or how little we hang around
buildings and objects, or try to disparage those who do
only "paper architecture" -- that shoe fits us all. We need
more
discourse on what kind of "paper" is best, content and form.
That is the reason for our interest in new and more
engaging ways of intercommunicating with those in the field
or factory who actually shape the physical world (even as
we may make the transition to the world David Reddy
outlines for direct manipulation of the environment with
electronic devices). After long years we see nothing sacred
about building, nothing that relieves us of the obligation
to
critique, and be critiqued by, those who disagree with us
about
architecture and building and the state of society.
We in Urban Deadline have become somewhat skeptical of
political and social and economic discourse, a black hole
of infinite capacity for guile and evasiveness, and are
searching for more effective ways to implement the ideas
behind the overworked soc/pol/eco language, and to break
our dependence on its comfortable incantations. This is
not to abandon what some of that language once meant, just
that, as you say of CAD and technology, there have been so
many rip-offs of it by charlatans, it no longer galvanizes
action, more often it gates privileged communities of all
persuasions.
What we see in a few of the philo-lits -- Derrida, say,
and American pragmatists like Rorty and Cornel West -- are
ideas and language to address soc/pol/eco issues
differently, to escape the all too predictable disputes and
stalemates and exculpations. We are eagerly getting this
into our practice and into our community service work.
It's working to re-energize folks who have grown stale. We
feel upbeat for the first time in years about architecture
and the prospects for our society.
Professional practice, in all its guises, our firm's
included, has become too complacent with its insular self-
serving pragmatism, bred, we think, by overdependence on
like-minded real estate clients, and fails to abide by the
concomitant moral and ethical dimensions (grab your wallet)
of philosophical pragmatism. Rorty and West have written
of the commonalities, mostly of critical discourse, between
a responsible American pragmatism and the continental
soc/pol/eco philosophers.
Around here we hear far too much cant from single
practitioners and larger firms about the dreamers and
philosophers and architects of notoriety. We wonder how
many have taken the time to study this thoughtful work, to
talk to these folks off stage, to discourse.
We have. Some of them -- Woods, Hadid, Prix, Sorkin,
and I've posted their writings here -- seem to us to be in
advance of the profession, and perhaps the schools, on all
grounds -- political, social, economic and aesthetic.
Their rock-solid paper architecture beats the mushy paper
architecture of
the practitioners by miles, well, let us be modest, it
beats ours by a nose, but we are training hard for the race.
We train by engaging their discourse -- biting, joking,
taunting,
admiring, imitating, like you. Anything to brighten the
shit workday,
or lift the gloom of the cpu-tv evening, eh?
2/8/95 1:54:38 PM
-------------------
Responding to msg by Subject907@xxxxxxx (Nic Musolino) on
Nic,
Certainly the components of architectural discourse are
elective and we each must bear the responsibility of
deciding what to cover. The critical framework, the
language, the audience, who are our cohorts and opponents -
- none of these are pre-determined. We enjoy learning here
what others propose for the discourse, and their initiation
of threads.
I would note that all architects and designers only produce
documents, no matter how much or how little we hang around
buildings and objects, or try to disparage those who do
only "paper architecture" -- that shoe fits us all. We need
more
discourse on what kind of "paper" is best, content and form.
That is the reason for our interest in new and more
engaging ways of intercommunicating with those in the field
or factory who actually shape the physical world (even as
we may make the transition to the world David Reddy
outlines for direct manipulation of the environment with
electronic devices). After long years we see nothing sacred
about building, nothing that relieves us of the obligation
to
critique, and be critiqued by, those who disagree with us
about
architecture and building and the state of society.
We in Urban Deadline have become somewhat skeptical of
political and social and economic discourse, a black hole
of infinite capacity for guile and evasiveness, and are
searching for more effective ways to implement the ideas
behind the overworked soc/pol/eco language, and to break
our dependence on its comfortable incantations. This is
not to abandon what some of that language once meant, just
that, as you say of CAD and technology, there have been so
many rip-offs of it by charlatans, it no longer galvanizes
action, more often it gates privileged communities of all
persuasions.
What we see in a few of the philo-lits -- Derrida, say,
and American pragmatists like Rorty and Cornel West -- are
ideas and language to address soc/pol/eco issues
differently, to escape the all too predictable disputes and
stalemates and exculpations. We are eagerly getting this
into our practice and into our community service work.
It's working to re-energize folks who have grown stale. We
feel upbeat for the first time in years about architecture
and the prospects for our society.
Professional practice, in all its guises, our firm's
included, has become too complacent with its insular self-
serving pragmatism, bred, we think, by overdependence on
like-minded real estate clients, and fails to abide by the
concomitant moral and ethical dimensions (grab your wallet)
of philosophical pragmatism. Rorty and West have written
of the commonalities, mostly of critical discourse, between
a responsible American pragmatism and the continental
soc/pol/eco philosophers.
Around here we hear far too much cant from single
practitioners and larger firms about the dreamers and
philosophers and architects of notoriety. We wonder how
many have taken the time to study this thoughtful work, to
talk to these folks off stage, to discourse.
We have. Some of them -- Woods, Hadid, Prix, Sorkin,
and I've posted their writings here -- seem to us to be in
advance of the profession, and perhaps the schools, on all
grounds -- political, social, economic and aesthetic.
Their rock-solid paper architecture beats the mushy paper
architecture of
the practitioners by miles, well, let us be modest, it
beats ours by a nose, but we are training hard for the race.
We train by engaging their discourse -- biting, joking,
taunting,
admiring, imitating, like you. Anything to brighten the
shit workday,
or lift the gloom of the cpu-tv evening, eh?