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.

The Production Of Space - Henri Lefebvre

The Production of Space by Henri Lefebvre, challenging piece to read at first so I read it to my colleagues at work, who where not too happy I was taking up valuable time from there lunch break, but by doing this little task I think I understood a fraction of what Henri was trying to get at, about ten percent of what I read made sense but the other ninety was absolutely a waste of paper.

The bit I did understand was the production of space, who creates these spaces and why? As a product why do we like certain spaces so much?. Well the discussion we had in our seminar went in a different direction to what I thought we were going to discuss, almost a mirror image of the night before watching question time on TV and seeing the leader of the BNP publicise himself on the BBC , this was an incredible advantageous tactic for the Labour party, they almost looked like heroes on the same stage as the BNP party. Yes it was theatre, but not the kind that had a light entertaining feel, it was rather deep, uncomfortable and entertaining.

I commend the Labour for the orchestrated performance, yes they seem to have the power, a very clever power, but ‘silly rabbit tricks are for kids’, lets see you takes the bait.

How did we connect back to the original thought of the day? I don’t seem to recall that moment but we bounced on the Marxism, the exploitation of the class system….right I think we get on top the production of space again here somewhere….the bourgeoisie who create the hallucination of spaces which we all strive to enjoy! I think we are all guilty in that department. How does Marxism and the production fit together? Henri describes that Marxism theory as being “eroded” one of the core values quoted from Wikipedia is “The productive capacity of society is the foundation of society, and as this capacity increases over time the social relations of production, class relations, evolve through this struggle of the classes and pass through definite stages (primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism). The legal, political, ideological and other aspects (ex. art) of society are derived from these production relations as is the consciousness of the individuals of which the society is composed”, so nostalgia allows us to see the pattern of the past, it allows you to think what may come in the future. We have the means but do we know how to apply?. I once heard something similar which came to mind during this discussion ‘we are drowning in information but starved for knowledge’.

I just wanted to post this video as well as I know that we all imagine a reality that is tailor made for us, but as we have not reached that stage yet I like to think that it one day it could be done just like in this video.

http://vimeo.com/3365942

After Theory Terry Eagleton

Terry Eagleton, is he stressed or what! By the pace in which I had read it , knowing that it had probably been written in this manner as well to leads me to concern. He is obviously passionate about his findings on theories, but does he need moments of verbal diarrhoea?.

The several points in the chapter of The Rise and Fall of Theory are as follows, He talks about the bourgeoisie society, and the class systems, he makes a point of the culture we live in today, capitalism, It is very strange the moment in life when you realise that you are in a system of bigger systems, he brought back the memories of when I was about fifteen working in a restaurant and suddenly becoming an angry person, I didn’t like the way customers treated me, I didn’t like my pay and I didn’t like my boss who played favourites with the tips at the end of the evening. Eagleton suddenly brought out this angry memory in me, what was he trying to evoke? Why was he trying to shake the emotions?

His observations of mass society and trends clearly is not his cup of tea, but for a theorist he seems awfully hypocritical to be saying one thing and doing another, I get the sense that he feels the end of capitalism will be a good thing, but will it? My feeling towards it that there are advantages and disadvantages to capitalism and communism!

I almost want to scream at him and say you wannabe anarchist! It is almost inevitable that the future will bring anarchy though some sort of political revolution or another, but it will occur when the masses come together, there are groups which revolt but never make a dent in the system they are trying to demolish. Every day we all come across an event that just isn’t to the same time frame or pattern that we would like to live at, but we do so…..consciously….make decisions that leads us to the next event ‘cause and effect’ Eagleton quotes, I do like this very simple but very truthful quote, it make me feel that I do have somewhat some control over my everyday life, choice is however an Illusion, but a very sane illusion, it makes you feel the control, that you made a decision and you controlled that outcome of you choice.

Eagleton refers to the 60’s and the universities involvement in the shaping of the young, the young however had a long time to ponder and read at these institutes, they had the freedom to read what they wanted and to create a new outcome, the revolutions that occurred in the 60’s saw a new generation of free thinkers emerge into the public eye, the artist became who they wanted to be, they where enlightened, and they where expressive in all manners and forms, sexuality, politics, education, equal rights and religion.

As culture continues to evolve into other shapes and forms, we will inevitable see the cycle start over again to bring new ideas so that it can shape the future of society.

Fear and Money in Dubai

I wasn't too thrilled on Wednesday this week, just as I had sneakily printed this article out at work I had place it on my desk to await my return from a Sainsbury quick walk lunch break with my Covent garden soup, as I came into the office, one of my colleagues told me just had a visitor round, not flinching as to why they where telling me this, did they soon say I turned you piece of paper over on your desk! Did something just click in my starved brain, let me set the office scene for you, I sit next to a big sectional model of a stadium we are designing in Abu Dhabi it’s a glass box that greats the visiting guests and on the other side of the glass is me, so I can only imagine what had happened, the visitor coming up to the model admiring the great feet of design only to look to the other side and see the title of the article ‘Fear and Money in Dubai’. I know I better do my cheeky doings after hours.

All the isms in this article for one gave me an ism to deal with myself, it seems from the description of Mike Davies that they really like it large out there, and why not! There is an ego competition out there in the Gulf and only one family gets it all. The city of sin, or was that Vegas?. Vegas was the original, the one, this is just an imitation that thinks it may do better, maybe it will? I don’t think I could survive in Dubai, not just because it’s hot all the time but also my political view would defiantly conflict with there laws.

This global cash well is doing well for it economy maybe not for the people who live there, the slaves who work for the big construction companies work long hours for poor pay and poor conditions, the oil it sells is the big money and the relationship between the neighbouring countries is….well. Dubai cam into a huge boom with palm island and the high risers, the country saw an increase in popularity for properties, celebrities came to buy houses that they never used, it was so tacky but everybody loved it. The description Mike uses in the opening to the article is quite clear to describe his uncomfortable state on the inside and oddly his sublime comfort on the outside.

Dubai just seems to be in world of it’s own, its like candy its really nice and sweet but soon it will root your teeth.

Zaha (moreintelligentlife.com)

At first the author of this article Jonathan Meades takes notice of Zaha’s office, he mentions ‘there is little sound other then the click of keyboards and the low murmur of from earphones’ sound a little like my office when the bosses are away, this sort of etiquette is quite normal in offices, while live streaming you can listen to your favorites while clicking the mouse like a monkey….I mean like an architectural assistant, but what I have learnt about this office tool the earphones is that it can work to your advantage, at the moment you are at the peak of high deadlines I use them as a deterrence to other to not disturb my intense staring at the screen and click of the mouse, but also I use it as a way do not get distracted by the other goings on around me, I almost feel sorry for the employees of Zaha’s office, I’m sure that they are getting the best experience in life but I also know some who want to run a mile.

It can be said that the computer is a tool and in Zaha’s case she describes the relationship between the computer an fabrication as ‘exciting’, as a strong believer in the digital world we have developed our minds into a tool as well for processing, it can sometimes be a matter of draw the line and it is done, but there are times when you have to process as much as a computer has to.

The language of the architects, oh what a mystery, when Meads says that Zaha cannot describe the style of her designs, does it mean that if its indefinable the theory of her work can never be learnt, that’s a shame, Zaha’s legacy should live on in the future.

http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/zaha-hadid

Theory2 The Beggining

To be frank I was displeased to say the least by the idea of writing a blog, for my PG Dip Arch theory 2 course, I thought don’t I do enough on the internet already, with facebook, twitter, myspace and whatnot, I have enough trouble remembering the login for all theses things plus your user accounts for your mail plus on top of that I have two for work as well, I really need to start writing theses things down…., but I thought I better stop moaning because that wrinkle inset on my forehead is getting longer and deeper the more ponder over it, so hey lets get to it.

What is it? It’s a blog about my thoughts on theory 2 lectures with Paul Davies, you know the one who writes about Vegas! So thinking about this article in moreintelligentlife.com about Zaha Hadid, and the points Mr. Vegas wants me to think about I suddenly realized that going though the points I faced about ninety percent of the points on a day to day basis so how hard could this be?