jya,
great post...thanks
rma
>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?
great post...thanks
rma
>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?