Old woman blissfully on her one-stone stoop; contemplates. Architecture facilitating pure ontological being, a raison d’être for one moment.
More to come.
SCI-Arc student, studying architecture. Architorture. Architrave. Arch. Texture.
Nothing can be real, but nothing can be false. Abiding by this, nothing could ever become anything wherein everything is everything to everything.
Outside Boston, Los Angeles, wherever. • Ask something.
Connor Gravelle
Nothing can be real, but nothing can be false. Abiding by this, nothing could ever become anything wherein everything is everything to everything.
Outside Boston, Los Angeles, wherever. • Ask something.
Connor Gravelle
The Architecture of Everything, Nothing and Anything in Between
Architecture might stand to learn a great deal from the Hipster.
To understand this hedonistic advantage which might forefront architecture with both the means and the methods for appropriation of the next styles, we must adequately inspect the identity of the hipster whom we wish to interrogate.
The Hipster is the prefect cultural leach. He ventures from one subgroup to another, plucking what he feels at any whim into his bucket of multicultural trickery. While a postmodern environment in which such an action could occur might predestine that he take into full account the societal ontologies of these newly found identities which he has accumulated, the sheer might of the Hipster’s will dictates that no such prior judgment should transpire. Delicate backgrounds, historical contextualities and sensitive narratives alike find themselves off the table of usual discussion when under the reappropriation of the Hipster.
Such should be architecture. (But perhaps we might just interpose a slight amount more judgment in our discrepancies towards the strawberries we choose to pluck from the architectural bushes.)
That having been said, what I propose here is a distinctly different definition than that of Venturi’s postmodernism. The specific historical context behind the architectural or otherwise cultural referential offered to us must be ignored in a method specifically catered to pillage what we will of any connotations. Geometry might better stand to remain pure geometry, and critical weight might well just wait at the door. The architectural party, fueled by a heavy dose of X and Rhinoceros, has begun.
These referenced elements should be employed for the inherent value that they offer the subconscious connection the cultures to which they originally belong. Though this might preclude the appreciation of their formalities by the outsider, it does two things which insulate it from the fires of Postmodernism.
Thing 1. These gathered ontologies of both cultural and architectural features can appeal at both subconscious and conscious levels to differing constituencies. While the local embraces the familiarity of the object before him, the tourist might immerse herself in a world worthy of appraisal on a purely formal level. Both, in turn, can carefully escape to the level of flaneur within this novel geometric mood.
Thing 2. The direct employment of the architectural feature or cultural contextuality predoomed architecture to overarching specificity and ultimate loss. That is to say, any architecture designed so intrinsically to one existence could never attain any other. It existed in banal boredom within the confines of its only declaration. Should we introduce the possibility of a multiplicity of identities into this conglomeration, we ought therein to encounter a more basal integration of architecture within sociopolitical circumstances. After all, a bipolar building is quite more fantastic than its calmer little brother. More years of family-driven subjugation and parental abuse leave it to be of greater entertainment to us, the onlookers to this mighty disaster. Times will change, and the building will be eroded slowly into their sands. As we stalk this architecture through its puberty and early adulthood, we should not fear to imagine it to be a fading Hollywood princess. Her slow demise before us across the innumerable covers of tabloids and papers only invigorates us to invest ourselves equally, if not more, in her soon-to-come replacement.
Perhaps the ultimate salvation for this proposal lies in the effective abstraction of the symbol. This is not to predetermine that recognizable character of the reference is of no importance, but rather it only attempts to widen the boundaries within which the building itself may exist. The reference, that is to say the icon, must not always take its intrinsic form before our eyes. Rather, it is an illusive spirit of the Olympian mountains. As it descends onto our mortal realms, it takes whichever form it will from a myriad smörgåsbord of options. The abstracted icon as both specific and universal.
Back to the Hipster. This shameless salvation of subgroup-based references effectively summates in the creation of a super-culture. The Hipster cares only about his immediate reward as the most ranged accumulation of a swatch of culturalities as omnipotent as the ancient Silk Road. In so doing, he is bound to alienate a variety of peoples. This is unimportant. We must remember that each individual culture simply represents a non-amalgamated potential for a more inclusive society. The Hipster, by his very behavior, does even without his personal knowledge an act of miracle by which he leads a procession slowly welcoming into the mainstream a slew of otherwise ignored fringe slices of society. Should they choose to resist, so be it. His is simply the invitation to join something more prolific than the individual. It is the sheer propensity to define the very culture itself.
Architecture might do that same. By incorporating this bank of potential styles, the architecture itself gains the keen power of blissful nostalgia. The many cultures of the world could, in this case, flock behind a piece of built form simply for the reasons of subconscious connection. The building as the drug of the masses. To ignite in their minds the subtle connections into whichever history they themselves are an exogenesis of is to harness the ultimate power over their inclusion in an architectural commonality. Without excluding one member of their respective casts, these pieces of omniarchitecture employ every nacent note within the tonal toolbox to produce songs which might enchant the newcomer and reignite the longtime fan. They sit atop the cliffs and hum to the passing sailors before. Instead of beaconing towards the rocks, they guide around the bend into a luscious cornucopia of abundant möglichkeit.
This is a built ontology which surmises the complete extinction and utter proliferation of the milieus of mankind simultaneously. By convection and convention alike, we are drawn forth into a new whole. There we stand, triumphant for our personal inoculation against boredom. In the formal moment we so choose, this architecture enchants us by the way of the subconscious. It partakes in us the equal investment which we divulge in it by way of purely existing within its confines.
This is an architecture which reinterprets the parameter as a methodology of incorporating more than simple vectoral geometry into the production of form. It proposes a radically different agenda in the age of the computer. Like the Internet itself, it places on the table a stance of negotiation to and fro between distinct form and nostalgic retroactivism.
He, the Hipster, picks at his will in a purely selfish brush with connection. He grasps for the sweet nectar of inclusion but feigns from the disagreeable aftertaste of commitment. Rather, he has learnt how to mitigate the wills of so many into the collective progression into the tomorrow. It is by this blended reality that he overlooks the sea of choices before him and closely approximates the most average point while exclusively avoiding the trenches of boredom and mundanity. He is an architecture and a non-encroaching perspective.
Liberated from the connotations and consequential conversations of specificity inherent to the choice of replication within existing geometry, this architecture seeks a new vocabulary for the formation of geometrical relationships and copulation of spatial intricacies.
This is the proposed architecture of everything, nothing and anything in between.
“Bastions of the antinatural, skyscrapers … announce the imminent segregation of mankind into two tribes: one of Metropolitanites — literally self-made — who used the full potential of the apparatus of Modernity to reach unique levels of perfection, the second simply the remainder of the traditional human race.”
— Rem Koolhaas, Delirious New York
I love this project. The thing that exist because of another thing is undoubtedly unlike both things in that it rejects their thing-ly ontologies for a wholly other thing entirely. In it emerges something new and unexplored — the juxtaposition of that which is, that which is beyond and, finally, that which might be.
(via w4tters)
The Lolz as a Cultural Communality
The meme is an interesting thing. Not only is it the conglomeration of a massive participants reflecting upon their social conditions on the level communal, but in it we find an expression almost entirely without regards to author or origin. Instead, the individual feelings become communal. The singular concerns, by that definition, become multiple. Of particular interest to us might be the cultural regurgitation within the meme. It effectively performs a catharsis of the media, images and social trends which encompass society.
I think every city might use a Your Rainbow Panorama by Olafur Eliasson.
Architecture and a Rising Knight
The fascinating thing about Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises” is its architectural subtext. While the viewer may at first see the mishmash of Chicago, Los Angeles and New York used to compose Gotham as broken observation to detail on Nolan’s and his crew’s parts, it is indeed quite intentional. In fact, this is proven by the flashing of “Sachs Fifth Avenue” in one shot, as well as the clear views of both the US Bank Tower and the new World Trade Center in others. These architecturally significant cultural icons establish an identity of the fictional Gotham as a verity-laden representation of America per her cities. It calls to our collective subconscious by infiltrating our formal memories as a nation. Because it does this, the film is nearly universal in its basic verity and architectural poignancy when applied across the diverse cultural identities of the United States.
Just a little thing I’ve been working on. Actually 14,870 circles. Here is a high resolution version.
Beauty
Sometimes, I see something beautiful in an accidental situation – a reflection of a staircase against a wall or the gentle wake below a bird swooping across water. Though not intentional, this beauty can sometimes be the best kind, but is it really beauty if its entire conception was beyond Our control? If its entire purpose is meaningless and without context?
Anonymous asked: opinion on richard serra?
I don’t know too much about him, but I think his work is interesting in just how fluid it can be. I think for art, it’s perfect, while it falls short when viewed architecturally, because it fails to function efficiently, though that’s really not important when it’s built specifically for an aesthetic, artistic appeal. For something that I believe interfaces better with humans’ everyday interactions, Zaha Hadid has some amazing creations. They meld perfectly into life and truly show us something about ourselves. Pfew essay…sorry about that one! Brevity is not my quality. :)
My friend had three cats. I had two arms. That equation works out fine in my mind…
Mexican Border Memorial
Regardless of political stance, one can accept the fact that too many have died trying to cross the border from Mexico. This memorial is designed for those who drowned in the rivers, starved in the deserts or otherwise perished in the pursuit of a better life. As our brethren, it is vital that we honor them and continue their memories in some form, so many of whom were forever forgotten in their passage.
The design is abstract but follows a model. The two walls each comprise the shape of the border itself (the taller being the span from El Paso to Tijuana and the shorter being Brownsville to El Paso). By overlaying these two shapes, three distinct spaces are created. A large enclosed space (furthermost right) offers room for enclosed activities and meditation. A special middle area, open to the environment, consumes the majority of the inner portion of the monument, dubbed the Hall of Remembrance (detailed further in other attached images). A final small, open area at the far side offers an intimate space for reflection.
The memorial is raised on a platform. This is to create the feeling that visitors are leaving their lives behind, while ascending to the memorial. It also significantly slices the memorial away from all other buildings.
A grid of grass areas encompass the outsides of the memorial, which itself is recessed into the ground within the foundation, where it is lit from below. These ease the mind with a continuous pattern, something predictable, but this is only an illusion, something soon doomed to deconstruction by the abstract form of the memorial’s walls. This dichotomy is intentionally employed to conjure discomfort, to emotionally break down the visitors, preparing them for their own personal ‘journeys’ of sorts.The Hall of Remembrance offers a place of honor to those who have died in the passage from south of the border into the United States. The floor is made to appear as a single slate of glass on which float two separate paths. Neither path reaches the other, but both lie in a close vicinity. This represents the relationship between the United States of America and Mexico. There is nothing in the room, forcing the occupants to ponder its reason. No passage from one side to the other is possible without crossing the ‘void’ created by the illuminated glass, a symbolic journey like that undertaken by those to whom the memorial is dedicated. From above, the Hall of Remembrance is simply meant to glow. It is meant to be a symbolic mystery in a way - neither the function nor the structural shape are readily known to the visitors. It is their job to interpret what they will from its existence. At its simplest, it is simply a void of sorts between the two prominent walls, though, as intended, it is a place for deep reflection. Seen better from above, each path heads in an opposite direction. Neither touches the other. There is intentionally no connection between the two, forcing those who cross to step from the conformity of the pathways over the glass ‘abyss’ which comprises most of the ‘void’.
