At 07:33 PM 12/9/97 -0500, John wrote:
>To further polish this gem: all materials are vampiric in their
>demands for form. Moreover, forms are vampiric in their
>demands. The planets are vampiric of us, the interplanetary
>bats.
And we of them!
>This is where judgmental conventionalities and the day's
>conveniences of architecture fail, by allowing debates on
>superficial stylistic differences to cloud recognition that virtually
>all forms and materials of architecture are brought about by
>the same means -- technological, legal, financial and political
>means which themselves remain largely uncritiqued and which
>have more to do with the limited availability of forms and materials
>than the designer's aspirations.
Exactly, but also I add that these decisions should be, but are not
sufficiently, impacted by the NEEDS AND DESIRES of owner, user, community,
planet.
>To remain positive about the future of architecture it's a good
>bet to look elsewhere than immediate prospects of form and
>material generated by stylistic predispositions -- modern,
>traditional, and their permutations.
It's the only sure bet, John. The only one on which I'd bet my shirt.
>What might that be?
>
>It would mean to take a long, lingering look at non-architecture,
>as you may choose to define it, that is, at those elements not
>usually considered architecture, as you may choose to define it.
In a way, all life is Architecture. However, the transitive property doesn't
apply here. All architecture is not Life. What if it were? What if all
expression (not just fine arts or allied arts or whatever, but ALL) arose
from the push and pull of Life itself---the give and take, the ME and YOU
and WE and US?
>Randolph has suggested transportation. David Sucher has proposed
>the urban village. Brian Carroll has advocated electricity. Others here
>and elsewhere have proposed a variety of supplements and alternative
>to conventional architecture theory, teaching and practice which do
>not spring from legitimizedstylistic origins, and though some might
>eventually coalesce into a "style" or "trend," they would begin to
>die at that point.
Yes! And we have to keep fighting that all along. As soon as you begin to
recognize what the dish is, feed it to the composter and start again! And if
we begin to like what we make too much, it might be because we're thinking
too much of ourselves and not enough of those who must live with what we do.
>What's of interest to me in every instance is that each present a
>kernel of non-architecture, design in gestation, non-stylar, architecture
>not ready to be built, bow-tied, brochured, magazined, and ready for
>showcasing, awaiting praise or damnation.
>
>Instead: they are the architecture to come, precritical, prejudgmental,
>not yet architecture of conventionality, somewhat inscrutible, and
>certainly not considerable for morbid awards and tombstone prizes.
Maybe this is the criteria for what needs to be?
>For me, for now, distributed non-architecture of digital networks appeals
>for this reason. Not the vaunted "architecture" of the Internet, not the
>digital metropoli, not the virtual sim worlds, but the kernels of possible
>materials and forms in gestation in the domain translations and
>communciation protocols between conventional architecture and
>unconventional non-architecture.
John, you're starting to sound like old Lou Sullivan himself! Kernels of
possibilities, the Architecture of the Present, eternal Potential....
>The prospects of breaks in time and space limitations -- the
>strongest cultural determinants of style as we now know it -- are
>what draw me to the digital honeypot, as once did books, and
>drawings, and art, and politics, and worldly ambition -- all of them,
>it's worth remembering were once (for each of us) non-conventional
>imaginary fabrications of our unfolding time and space, and all of
>them now sclerotic styles of convenience and conventionality.
Ironically, as we transcend space and time through global communication---as
the entire world shrinks to a singualrity, we may need to become more
intimately CONNECTED to time and space itself. What are the implications for
such a mode of building?
Is this too an essntial opposite?
>The best thing going for architecture and design, I venture, is that
>there is digital leakage in the dike of cultural identity and security
>due to ease of network to other platforms we do not communicate
>with quite so easily due to inadequate protocols and translation
>problems.
I think the digital network is both metaphor and tool. It is symbolic of
what must eventually happen, and it may be a mechanism by which we get
there. It will not, however, be the only means.
>>From these peculiar leaks and garbled links we will be required
>to devise workable designs for interplanetary non-architecture,
>an ecology unlike our local projects, or break off relations to return
>to rot in dying ghettoes -- producing niche boutique architecture
>made of diminuitive mementoes of what used to be, desktop-stale.
Yuk. We mustn't forget, either, that those dying ghettoes have people in
them, as well. Relationships between sentient beings, which may be either
enganced or destroyed by global web we speak of (and by) here, are the
greatest Architecture of all.
Mark
>To further polish this gem: all materials are vampiric in their
>demands for form. Moreover, forms are vampiric in their
>demands. The planets are vampiric of us, the interplanetary
>bats.
And we of them!
>This is where judgmental conventionalities and the day's
>conveniences of architecture fail, by allowing debates on
>superficial stylistic differences to cloud recognition that virtually
>all forms and materials of architecture are brought about by
>the same means -- technological, legal, financial and political
>means which themselves remain largely uncritiqued and which
>have more to do with the limited availability of forms and materials
>than the designer's aspirations.
Exactly, but also I add that these decisions should be, but are not
sufficiently, impacted by the NEEDS AND DESIRES of owner, user, community,
planet.
>To remain positive about the future of architecture it's a good
>bet to look elsewhere than immediate prospects of form and
>material generated by stylistic predispositions -- modern,
>traditional, and their permutations.
It's the only sure bet, John. The only one on which I'd bet my shirt.
>What might that be?
>
>It would mean to take a long, lingering look at non-architecture,
>as you may choose to define it, that is, at those elements not
>usually considered architecture, as you may choose to define it.
In a way, all life is Architecture. However, the transitive property doesn't
apply here. All architecture is not Life. What if it were? What if all
expression (not just fine arts or allied arts or whatever, but ALL) arose
from the push and pull of Life itself---the give and take, the ME and YOU
and WE and US?
>Randolph has suggested transportation. David Sucher has proposed
>the urban village. Brian Carroll has advocated electricity. Others here
>and elsewhere have proposed a variety of supplements and alternative
>to conventional architecture theory, teaching and practice which do
>not spring from legitimizedstylistic origins, and though some might
>eventually coalesce into a "style" or "trend," they would begin to
>die at that point.
Yes! And we have to keep fighting that all along. As soon as you begin to
recognize what the dish is, feed it to the composter and start again! And if
we begin to like what we make too much, it might be because we're thinking
too much of ourselves and not enough of those who must live with what we do.
>What's of interest to me in every instance is that each present a
>kernel of non-architecture, design in gestation, non-stylar, architecture
>not ready to be built, bow-tied, brochured, magazined, and ready for
>showcasing, awaiting praise or damnation.
>
>Instead: they are the architecture to come, precritical, prejudgmental,
>not yet architecture of conventionality, somewhat inscrutible, and
>certainly not considerable for morbid awards and tombstone prizes.
Maybe this is the criteria for what needs to be?
>For me, for now, distributed non-architecture of digital networks appeals
>for this reason. Not the vaunted "architecture" of the Internet, not the
>digital metropoli, not the virtual sim worlds, but the kernels of possible
>materials and forms in gestation in the domain translations and
>communciation protocols between conventional architecture and
>unconventional non-architecture.
John, you're starting to sound like old Lou Sullivan himself! Kernels of
possibilities, the Architecture of the Present, eternal Potential....
>The prospects of breaks in time and space limitations -- the
>strongest cultural determinants of style as we now know it -- are
>what draw me to the digital honeypot, as once did books, and
>drawings, and art, and politics, and worldly ambition -- all of them,
>it's worth remembering were once (for each of us) non-conventional
>imaginary fabrications of our unfolding time and space, and all of
>them now sclerotic styles of convenience and conventionality.
Ironically, as we transcend space and time through global communication---as
the entire world shrinks to a singualrity, we may need to become more
intimately CONNECTED to time and space itself. What are the implications for
such a mode of building?
Is this too an essntial opposite?
>The best thing going for architecture and design, I venture, is that
>there is digital leakage in the dike of cultural identity and security
>due to ease of network to other platforms we do not communicate
>with quite so easily due to inadequate protocols and translation
>problems.
I think the digital network is both metaphor and tool. It is symbolic of
what must eventually happen, and it may be a mechanism by which we get
there. It will not, however, be the only means.
>>From these peculiar leaks and garbled links we will be required
>to devise workable designs for interplanetary non-architecture,
>an ecology unlike our local projects, or break off relations to return
>to rot in dying ghettoes -- producing niche boutique architecture
>made of diminuitive mementoes of what used to be, desktop-stale.
Yuk. We mustn't forget, either, that those dying ghettoes have people in
them, as well. Relationships between sentient beings, which may be either
enganced or destroyed by global web we speak of (and by) here, are the
greatest Architecture of all.
Mark