1,721,135 research outputs found
Fischer auf der Reise nach Stonehenge
Full text linkOn 26 July 1721, the Wiener Diarium informs its readers that a new book by the general surveyor of constructions, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, is ready and that the ones who had pre-ordered their copy could go and pick it up at the architect’s place. The book is titled Entwurff einer historischen Architektur2 and is a collection of eighty-six folios promising to illustrate the architecture of the Jews, Egyptians, Syrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Siamese, Chinese and Japanese together with some projects by the author.
The title of the book is curious. Literally translated into English, it would read “Project of a Historical Architecture”. The difficulty here is not only the interpretation of Entwurff – which can be understood as “project” but also as “essay”, “draft” or “sketch” – but also the fact that the semantic realms of “architecture” and “history” are not combined the way we might expect. Fischer does not speak of architectural history; he speaks of historical architecture. If nouns and adjectives mean anything, then the book is not, as Hans Sedlmayr suggested, “the first ever monumental history of architecture in images”. The title does not announce a “history of architecture”. Rather, the Entwurff is a book about “the architecture of history”
Fuck Concepts! Context!
Full text linkContemporary architecture is generally presented with the phrase “My concept is . . . ”, in which the blank is lled in by some sort of no- tion: “My concept is freedom”, “My concept is the iPad”, “My concept is the Big Bang”, “My concept is democracy”, “My concept is panda bears”, “My concept is M&M’s”. This statement is then followed by a PowerPoint presentation that begins with M&M’s and ends with round, pink bungalows on paradisiacal Malaysian beaches.
According to concepts, to design is to nd what buildings are: an ontology for dummies that turns banality into spectacle. Thus, the library is the books, the stadium is the muscles, the promenade is the beach, the aquarium is the sh, the swimming pool is the water and grandmother’s garage is grandmother.
Concepts are a tool used to justify design decisions in the absence of architecture. Concepts originate from a state of self-in icted despair in which design needs to be justi ed point by point, and architecture by de nition has no cultural relevance. Concepts presuppose that nothing speci cally architectural exists in reality: there are no spatial relationships, no territories and no cities, and it is thus impossible to obtain any knowledge about these phenomena. Concepts are the tools used to make architecture in a world of post-atomic barbarians. Conan and Mad Max would dream up a concept for imagining how to erect their own primitive huts
SAN ROCCO 10 - Ecology - editorial
No full textBy 2050, the world’s population will be somewhere between nine and ten billion.
This means that India will have a population of around 1.6 billion; Nigeria, 390 million; Pakistan, 340 million; Indonesia, 290 million; Mexico, 140 million; and Egypt, 120 million. In 1950, India had a population of around 360 million; Nigeria, 30 million; Pakistan, 40 million; Indonesia, 80 million; Mexico, 30 million; and Egypt, 20 million.
And we will not only be more numerous: we will also be richer, making greater demands, occupying more space and producing more trash
The Even Covering of the Field - editorial San Rocco 2
No full textThe eld is where we live. Buildings in cultivable soil – that is the eld. Agriculture and city and the expansion of the city and sprawl and in- frastructure and trash and buildings and favelas and old villages and gated communities and agriculture and some more other buildings. A collection of “organs without a body” (Angélil and Siress, 2008) laid down horizontally as far as geography permits it. In fact, apart from mountains, deserts, jungles and large areas of mechanized agriculture/mining with little human personnel (as in Kansas, Siberia or Rio Grande do Sul), everything is eld: East Java, northern Italy, the valley of Mexico, the Taiheiyo belt, Flanders, greater São Paulo, Guangdong, New Jersey, the Nile valley or Bangladesh.
The eld is the place where William Morris’s scary definition of architecture as “anything but desert” becomes true. It is associated with a Malthusian tone, with the concept of no escape: more people, more capital, more cars, more buildings, more energy, more noise, less soil, less water, less food
Happy Birthday Bramante! - editorial San Rocco 11
No full textBramante is the most important architect in the history of Western architecture.
This fact alone would be a sufficient reason for this issue, but the additional fact that Bramante died 500 years ago merits its own celebration. Most of all, now that globalization has come full circle and we live in an entirely unified market, we must address Bramante’s work as the foundation of universalism in Western architecture. Bramante imagined a single, universal architectural language that could deal with any potential architectural problem. Of course, universalism implies a sort of suspicious generosity, and Bramante’s project is certainly a colonialist project. Still, universalism – at least in the form of the market – won, and now it can only be criticized from within by recognizing the violence it brings with it, as well as by rediscovering the generosity that is equally implicit in a universal project. Bramante was probably the most ruthless intellectual of the Renaissance, for he promoted his cultural project with the haste and cold- blooded brutality of a military campaign, seizing control over classical antiquity in the same manner in which a conquistador lays claim to a luxuriant paradise. And yet Bramante – der Zorn Gottes – is also, together with Machiavelli, the most conscious intellectual of his time with respect to the double-sided nature of the Renaissance. Bramante never underestimated the darker side of his cultural project. Braman- te conquered an empire on behalf of Western architecture that was as splendid as it was fragile and then bequeathed it, with all of its implicit burden of oppression, rage and fear, but also with its unlikely humanity and problematic innocence, to all Western and Westernized architects (including us). The violent generosity of Bramante’s work remains the foundation of any contemporary attempt to imagine a universal architectural language for a globalized world
Indifference - San Rocco 7 - editorial
No full textIndifference is when you do not care or do not listen; it is when you avoid paying attention. Indifference is the art of ignoring, of forgetting, of sparing energy. Indifference is the bear’s response to winter: go to sleep and skip it.
Indifference might seem easy or apathetic, but in reality it requires talent and precision. Indeed, like anything else, indifference cannot be universal, so it has to be selective. Indifference is a way of separating what matters from what does not, a way of protecting reason by avoiding suicidal missions: “For those seeking an explanation of all things, destroy explanation” (Theophrastus of Eresus, Metaphysics, VIII.5)
The Stanley Cup: An Enquiry into the Essence of Monumentality
No full textThe Stanley Cup is the trophy assigned annually to the winner of the National Hockey League (aka the NHL). The cup is a small silver bowl measuring 18.5 centimetres in height and 29 in diameter. The bowl rests on a gigantic stepped, cylindrical base with a lower diameter of 43.8 centimetres. Altogether the cup is 89.5 centimetres high and weighs 15.5 kilograms.
The Stanley Cup is by far the best trophy design in contemporary sports. It is certainly much more interesting than the simply adequate UEFA Champions League Cup; impossible to compare with the provincial wannabe-classicism of the Copa Libertadores; totally opposed to the sad modernism of the FIFA World Cup or the UEFA Europa League Cup; entirely free from the naivety of the FIFA Club’s World Cup and the NBA’s Larry O’Brien trophy; miles away from the souvenir-like irrelevance of the MLB Commissioner’s Trophy or the Invasion of the Body Snatchers aesthetic of the NFL’s Lombardi Trophy. Among today’s trophies, only the Venus Rosewater Dish (a silver dish measuring 48 centimetres in diameter and decorated with figures from mythology which is given to the Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles champion) possesses a comparable quality, but its beauty is definitely of another kind. The dish is elegant, polite, literally subtle, whereas the Stanley Cup is symmetrical, heavy, outspoken, monumental
Giotto, or Beauty in Space
Full text linkGiotto painted facts. This was immediately clear to his contemporaries. Filippo Villani wrote that the figures in Giotto’s paintings perform
actions “with such precision that they actually seem to be talking, crying, rejoicing”.
This observation needs to be considered in its proper context.
First of all, to paint “facts” means to capture human actions in a fixed instant – because, of course, painting movements is simply impossible: in painting, “you cannot paint even the shaking of the head we use in the West for ‘no’”.
Secondly, Giotto had to paint facts that in most cases do not follow what we, broadly speaking, call the “laws of nature”. Giotto had to paint mostly sacred history,6 so prophetic dreams, miracles, apparitions, resurrections, ascensions. These “facts” are, for the most part, not facts at all; they are not part of “reality” as we consider it, or even as Giotto’s contemporaries considered it. More than anything, these “facts” are a suspension of reality. So, Giotto painted facts that happened, and happened in reality, even though they happened in reality as a suspension of reality.
Third, the facts painted by Giotto are ones known to everybody. Giotto’s clients as well as his audience knew – of course, to various degrees – the stories of Isaac, Joachim, the Virgin Mary, Christ and St Francis. Giotto’s paintings are certainly part of a narration (in Assisi there is even text below the paintings that explains the stories), but the informative content of these paintings is non-existent. Giotto’s paintings do not communicate any new information; rather, they just repeat what is already known. The presupposition of all of this art is that everyone already knows everything
The European Parliament
No full textThe Berlage Survey, inspired by the Institute’s twentieth anniversary, chronicles both the Berlage’s last two decades of exemplary educational practice and offers a select history of the Dutch tradition in architecture and urbanism in relation to its international context. The book consists of a dynamic assortment of essays, manifestos, interviews, research, conversations, projects and images. It provides a select survey of the Berlage’s production and attempts to define a period of discourse within architecture. The selection of projects suggests the diversity and rich quality of Berlage design research and the value of its contributions to discussions about the built environment
Che lavoro fa Stefano Boeri?
Full text linkStefano Boeri dirige una rivista, coordina ricerche, modera dibattiti, collabora con artisti, progetta edifici, interviene sui giornali, collabora con fotografi, organizza eventi, interviene alla televisione. Che lavoro fa Stefano Boeri?
Boeri ha sinteticamente esposto il suo programma di lavoro nell’editoriale del primo numero di “Domus” da lui diretto (Domus 866, gennaio 2004). L’editoriale è dedicato alla XIV Triennale, curata da Giancarlo De Carlo nel 1968, e alla sua occupazione e distruzione da parte degli studenti, che la contestavano in quanto istituzione borghese. Nella grande foto in bianco e nero che accompagna il testo, De Carlo (anarchico ed eroe borghese in cravatta stretta di lana) affronta gli studenti in un dialogo concitato e troppo presto interrotto. Nel testo, Boeri rivendica gli obiettivi di quella sfortunata mostra e reclama la possibilità di intendere l’architettura come strumento capace di riconoscere, interpretare e suggerire modi di appropriazione dello spazio urbano. Il fallimento della XIV Triennale è dovuto alla sua pretesa di sollevare idee e aspirazioni che non confluiscano unicamente nelle pratiche del progettare. Al suo tentativo di leggere lo spazio come un sensore di fenomeni altrimenti invisibili, come una straordinaria metafora delle nostre società. Ad andare in pezzi con la XIV Triennale è l’idea, ancor oggi viva, di un’architettura che non sia solo un magazzino di prototipi, ma anche un modo -uno dei più efficaci- per capire il mondo e per raccontarlo
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