Desperation

Ok so it has been a while since I blogged but I have reached a point where I feel I have to blog again, so far all has been going well since last year October, work was great I had the pleasure of working on a project in Abu Dhabi then a bid in Abu Dhabi with Zaha Hadid architects. In short it was going well, after I finished that I was sent back to the Interchange it was going to be a new challenge but all it has been so far is a reason to jump off a bridge! I am point break with this project and the people, I have reached another level of boredom and slipped into a coma!.

CA has a terrible sense of communication and I am getting tired of asking why? the thought of doing more then one task at a time is beyond CA's capability. The rest of em MF can all do one to...I mean self obsessed materialist shits. I not sure how long my threshold can stretch anymore but my choices are limited, how do I move on when I still have to finish my ptII pt. I feel this invisible ball and chain that is getting heavier every day.

Oh well for now, the diss is going well, its progress not as quick as I would like to have been but I have been suffering from low blood apparently, them whatcha ma call em doctors took my blood and tested it, so the fatigue has not been from "over working" not a likely possibility or even the gym (to work out the frustration of the day) but more a hemoglobin thing. I think I will be back again to vent again so I'll catch up with you soon.

U.S.A - John Dos Passos

The trilogy which spans the first several of the decades about the US and the culture along his life he has encountered. The book is very disconnected in the sense that the many characters Passos reveals through the camera eye and the newsreel are – static – they don’t have a relationship with each other and it is like reading many articles. His writing was experimental at it’s time so this is one reason why it almost feels like a work in progress for a bigger outcome.

Overall the culture of the American dream is totally flipped on its side through the detailed captured moments of history of people’s lives, again the static feeling that is not going anywhere…..and just informing you. The experience of the American Dream is the underlying issue for most of the newsreels. The dream is unsuccessful through the depiction of the characters normal everyday life the sadness, tragedy and happiness, they were maybe full of ideas which never really emulated to anything neither did they for fill the ideology of the American Dream.

All that is solid melts into air - Marshall Berman

For Marshell Berman, the degree of analysis into the modernity the experience of modernization has a forever alluring taste to it, as we as humans progress to what is labelled as modernism we always strive for the better. Collectively our environment is forever changing and developing, “To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world – and at the same time threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.” This quote stood out to me because it is something that I can get passionate about, are we really on the path to self destruction?.

As I delve deeper into Berman’s words I’m getting lost and I have to keep the distinction of modernity, modernism and modernization clear, While talking about modernity one should be specific about the difference of the terms ‘modernization’, ‘modernity’ and ‘modernism’.Modernization refers to the process of innovation. Modernity is the experience of modernization, it is the condition arising from technical and socio-economic innovation. Modernism refers to the artistic and intellectual reflection on modernity.

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

The novel begins as Howard Roark is expelled from Stanton and Peter Keating graduates. They both go to New York City to begin their careers - Keating to a firm with a good reputation, Francon & Heyer, and Roark to work with a man that he knows understands his mission, Henry Cameron. At first, Keating is the successful one; he climbs high in his firm by pushing out those whose positions he wants, and gains commissions for his firm such as the Cosmo-Slotnik Building. He makes his buildings for no other purpose than to please his clients and gain prestige, which he does completely, because not one of his clients is interested in quality. They are just interested in impressing their friends or the public. Ellsworth Toohey, a journalist who seems to be in charge unofficially of many organizations in the city, praises Keating highly. Roark, on the other hand, cannot get work because he refuses to compromise and put useless features on his buildings. His goal is tostick with his own design and strives to make structures more efficient. Broke, he must get a job in a quarry owned by Guy Francon, doing manual labor. There he meets Dominique Francon, his female equivalent, and starts a love affair with her that is painful for both of them; she wishes to destroy him because he represents her "ideal" and no one deserves to have him in their world. Roark cannot ask her to stop. Not only does she get jobs for Peter Keating that might have gone to Roark, she marries Keating, Roark's competitor, and later marries Gail Wynand, and joins his plot to destroy Roark, although their motivations are quite different.

Peter Keating begins to feel empty even though he is very successful.

Toohey assures him that to be truly happy, one must do away with the desire to be happy. One must be completely selfless. Dominique meets with Gail Wynand, the owner of a very powerful chain of newspapers, to discuss a building he is planning. She gets the commission for Keating, and in the process marries Wynand, because he is even more an enemy to Roark. However, Wynand is not as shallow as Keating; he knows what is right, but has taken another road for the purpose of gaining power over people. When he decides to build a home for himself and Dominique, he asks Roark to be the architect and finds the one person he could not and would not want to corrupt. The two become friends. Dominique watches from a distance, not allowing herself to get close to Roark, knowing that nothing can change how they feel about each other.

Keating has lost his sense of how to design anything. He asks Roark to design the Cortlandt Homes project for him, and he accepts on the condition that he will have complete control over design and construction. However, the homes are not built as Roark wanted, so Roark dynamites the project as it is being completed. He stands trial and is found not guilty; he and Dominique come together and leave Wynand, giving Wynand a moral issue which he can use to boost circulation of his New York Banner, which has all but gone under. He closes the paper anyway, and asks Roark to build the Wynand Building, as they had discussed when they were friends. Howard Roark, the hero of the Fountainhead, triumphs.

I did enjoy the Fountain head very much I enjoy films a lot and I’m wondering why I have never seen this one before? The portrayal of the dominant male architect who strives to be seen as a man who creates the new, the arrogance within is enough to put you off but somewhere I have found a little connection to this man, he struggles to be seen as an individual modern architect who rejects the neo-classicism of the rest of the world, he sees no need for the decoration, a little like Corbusier and wants to create a modernist society, he does not do very well as his arrogance knocks him backwards, but he never gives up the fight, the fight for his designs. His narcissistic character attracts the attention of the main actress, the damsel in distress, the lady who needs the dominate male in her life, she knows the world would eat him alive if he continues on the same over confident path. She is brave and I really admired her strength to pull away from the very thing that drew her to him.

Roark has a very methodical attitude, somewhat scary for an architect living in organisation, some thrive in the disorientation of the world and others like to organise it. I really admired the strength of the character, it opened up the passion I have for architecture which is slowly being beaten out of me by the machine age of delivery, oh yes it’s all about the delivery. I have to share this with you as I find myself in a stitch cramped over my desk, a friend of mine always likes to ask me if I have “Delivered yet?” it may not sound to funny to you but I find myself giggling at the thought of delivering again and again, it may be equally as difficult as child birth, or maybe not, but the organised machine has got me “DELIVERING” rather then designing…when will it end? .

Decline and fall - Evelyn Waugh

The name Silenus suggests something in itself, Otto Silenus was from Hamburg an architect who was not renowned for his work but more for the presence and impact he left on people. He was sought out by Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde to level Kings Thursday and rebuild it with a box like structure. Silenus was passionate about on thing really he was fascinated by the machines which he held in a higher place then human mankind. He says in the a quote to a journalist

“The problem of architecture as I see it is the problem of all art—the elimination of the human element from the consideration of form. The only perfect building must be the factory, because that is built to house machines, not men. I do not think it is possible for domestic architecture to be beautiful, but I am doing my best. All ill comes from man”.

There is something quite eerie and familiar about that, I’ve seen it through the works of Le Corbusier, his fascination with the modern world and the need to create a different world through technology can be scary at first, the need to be different by thinking it is progress and development may not necessarily be a good thing. The similarity between Otto Silenus and Le Corbusier is the obsession towards the machine, and just like Otto quotes “Man is never beautiful; he is never happy except when he becomes the channel for the distribution of mechanical forces.”

I’m not sure if the future will be beautiful, it just depends on what you think is beautiful! we have a need to change and evolve all around constantly through means such as technology, economics, culture and many other things, the pace at which we do so can sometimes leave us feeling left behind.

Howl - Allen Ginsburg

I had quite a bit of fun reading Allen’s work, It bought me back to my last trip to Berlin where I had been taken to this poetry event, I was not sure what it was about or even the type of poetry, I just went with the flow. I remember the reading to be somewhat like the style of Allen Ginsburg, very passionate, and hard but soft.

Howl by Allen Ginsburg is about America and the systems, he reveals the truth of life of living in a system and being told what to so, he uncovers the ugly truth of the machine. He challenges you to think in different manner and out of the box, why can’t you do certain thing and why can we only read certain books.

I felt a little inspired but also sad after reading Howl, I was suddenly infused by the enthusiastic words but also sadden by the awful truth behind it all, the drugs alcohol, the life that just passes by you, always having to live out of your means, and never being able to do anything about it., the sadness.

The language is like no other typical poem, its beat and rhythm it whatever the reader wants it to be, I read it fast then slow. Allen Ginsburg was part of a group called the beat poets,

“The Beat Generation is a term used to describe a group of American writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, and the cultural phenomena that they wrote about and inspired (later sometimes called "beatniks"). Central elements of "Beat" culture include a rejection of mainstream American values, experimentation with drugs and alternate forms of sexuality, and an interest in Eastern spirituality”.

Sourced from Wikipedia.

Las Vegas - Tom Wolfe

I’ve always been fascinated by Las Vegas, it sound so tempting when someone tells you of there adventures over there, I always thought that when I go there not if, I would emerge a different person, I haven’t thought about if that person would be good or bad yet, that just depends on my experience there. As I can’t tell you from first hand experience let me tell you what I do know. I love movies and every now and again I come across one that come close to the description people describe it as. I fell in love with Oceans Eleven, I know it’s not a mad classic of anything but for me it’s a taste of what might be, It a tornado of bright colours, a place where you can do anything at what ever time of the day and get whatever, whatever any time of the day. The sex the drugs and the music, it always sounds beautiful when you hear it from someone else.

Besides from the chaos, how does the state of Nevada cope with it’s naughty child of a city? It’s the naughtiness that entices us in the first place, we seek pleasure from a place who’s reputation has always been to please. The enlightenment project, the very first, the guilty pleasure city, the gambling, alcohol, drugs, sex, all of the pleasures under one county ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ . The project was a big success, it reminds me of another movie I saw which was the funniest this year so far, ‘The Hangover’ four friends go to Las Vegas for one of the guys stag do, they end up on the other side with the biggest hangovers but they don’t know what happened throughout the night, they lost one of there friends and have to retrace there steps to find him and so they tell the story of the events which are side splitting but yet really honest of what can or could go on there.

The celebrity appeal to the city of sins gives me good reason to believe that is ‘magical’ pulling powers are addictive, I suppose once you get a taste for the good life for the right price you never want anything else, or until your money runs out. As long as you have money Vegas will always welcome you with open arms. The darker side to Vegas is that if you don’t have the funds for the pleasure you will be cast into the ‘broke’ bin and forced to rely on the underworld Las Vegas also offers, which you never see in any travel brochures. The slum town of the city, I suppose every city in the world has one it’s just in Las Vegas everything is multiplied one hundred times. I can’t wait till I get there myself. Viva Las Vegas.