Good question. I overnighted my last project to Steve Ross at 1 University Station B7500, Austin TX 78712-0222. I called the school of architecture to make sure that if I sent it to them and addressed it to Steve Ross, that it would be put in his mailbox. The girl confirmed twice. Yesterday, package with me at the post office. Today, package with her at UTSOA.
When I wrote my Independent Architectural Theory course, I had this idea in my head of having this fantastic portfolio at the end of the semester filled with pictures and cool graphic stuff--things that only my best friends/worst enemies photoshop and indesign could do for me. Things changed. Instead, I used the basics, nothing fancy: my two hands (and my mom's), scissors, markers, crayons, glue, and paper.
I submitted something, but not a portfolio. It's my messy collection of words and words, printed, cut, and pasted; it's like a scrapbook/scratchbook/journal. I didn't re-edit my grammar/spelling/word choice or anything like that. When reading through it, I FORGOT TO CAPITALIZE, use the wrong spellings or couldn't spell--faults that smart word processors work to correct and cover up. Somehow, I have too many to handle. They are like spots on a Dalmatian.
I've been learning. This blog has been good. I think I'm going to start a blog about my modeling, the part of my life I left architecture to purse but almost wholly and systematically edited out of this space. So far, all I've got is the name. 'Shoot Me! A Model's Musings...' I think it's cute. It should be interesting.
Bri
p.s. I finally found my camera, so I may or may not decide to post the pictures it's held hostage.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
New World Symphony
designed by Frank Gehry.
Frank Gehry designed the New World Symphony in Miami Beach that is currently under construction located along 17th Avenue across from the Convention Center near Lincoln Road. Gehry won the commission in 2003 and is good friends with the orchestra director, nine-time Grammy winner Michael Tilson Thomas. The building is projected for completion sometime this year.
Unlike his other projects, this one is actually a box (well two, the second is a parking garage). The heart of the program is the 95,000 square-foot concert hall with a 700 person capacity. But office space, rehearsal rooms, and state-of-the-art media and technical facilities are also integral parts of the program as well. (These facilities will be equipped to send/receive coaching sessions, conferences, and even performances over Internet2—a technology so new I’ve never heard of it!) (Westphal).
The exterior is primarily white stucco and glazing. The white stucco is very appropriate because materially, it fits into Miami Beach’s style (stucco art-deco buildings). This material choice also avoids the excessive reflection, glare and heating costs (of neighboring buildings) that have plagued some of Gehry’s other works, like the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Additionally, on the front elevation adjacent to the park, the six-storey plane stucco will be used as a screen where programs and concerts (going on inside) can be projected at night for the public to watch. The glazed portions, namely the front entrance, will allow pedestrians/park-goers outside to see architectural drama of the interior spaces. Class/rehearsal rooms are unevenly stacked, enveloped by “ribbon-like” curves. (James).
There is an idea about containment within the project. It is a simple, white box that contains magic, movement, and music inside. Essentially, what we know to be typical ‘Gehry style’ is mostly contained within. (James).Gehry seeks to translate this magic to the interior architecture of the spaces with large, curving fluid elements that pierce/project outside of the box creating critical moments. One of these moments is on the front façade above the entrance.
West 8 is the architectural design firm in charge of the public park that will be adjacent to the front façade of the building. Gehry had designed the park, but because of the high commission costs, the city eventually chose to switched to another smaller/local/cheaper firm to take over this portion of the proposal. The project was projected to cost about $200 million dollars to construct while the park is projected at $21 million to date.
Some critics praise the building as a pivotal project in Gehry’s body of work because of it’s emphasis on interior and functionality compared to his other projects that are generally ‘objects’ in the landscape, famous for their exteriors. However, many, like me, are somewhat underwhelmed by the construction and renderings, that depict a rather bulky, awkward design in need of refinement (regardless of the architect that designed it). In the project’s defense, both architect and Thomas (the director) emphasize that most important, this building is educational, and it’s shape is therefore the most practical and functional for student needs.
Whatever the reason, all agree that this building is unquestionably better than the two parking garages that sat on the lot before. The bottom line is that having a building by Frank Gehry on Miami Beach will benefit the students who currently practice in a very overcrowded, rundown building and definitely help this tourist island.
Yes, generally all buildings are compromises between the architect’s vision, the users’ needs, and the financer’s wants, but this particular project seems to embody this struggle (not in a good way). It is part-boring/forgettable (so far) and then part just unappealing.
I’ve past this building everyday I’m in Miami Beach (which is a lot). The first few months, I didn’t actually take notice of it and then when I realized that the architect was Frank Gehry, it confused me. As construction continues, I keep thinking, “is that really supposed to be like that?” But after looking at the exterior renderings and building under construction, it does look like it’s supposed to.
---------------------------------------------------
Hegedus-Garcia, Ines. "Frank Gehry vs Miami Beach." Miamism.com. 20 April 2009.
29 April 2010 http://www.playbillarts.com/news/article/6156.html.
James. "New World Symphony Designed by Frank Gehry: A Transitional Piece?" Critque This! US.
18 September 2009. 29 April 2010 <http://www.critiquethis.us/2009/09/18/new-world-symphony- designed-by-frank-gehry-a-transitional-piece/.
Westphal, Matthew. "Photo Journal: Frank Gehry's Design for New World Symphony's New Hall."
Playbill Arts. 13 March 2010. 29 April 2010 http://www.playbillarts.com/news/article/6156.html.
Frank Gehry designed the New World Symphony in Miami Beach that is currently under construction located along 17th Avenue across from the Convention Center near Lincoln Road. Gehry won the commission in 2003 and is good friends with the orchestra director, nine-time Grammy winner Michael Tilson Thomas. The building is projected for completion sometime this year.
Unlike his other projects, this one is actually a box (well two, the second is a parking garage). The heart of the program is the 95,000 square-foot concert hall with a 700 person capacity. But office space, rehearsal rooms, and state-of-the-art media and technical facilities are also integral parts of the program as well. (These facilities will be equipped to send/receive coaching sessions, conferences, and even performances over Internet2—a technology so new I’ve never heard of it!) (Westphal).
The exterior is primarily white stucco and glazing. The white stucco is very appropriate because materially, it fits into Miami Beach’s style (stucco art-deco buildings). This material choice also avoids the excessive reflection, glare and heating costs (of neighboring buildings) that have plagued some of Gehry’s other works, like the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Additionally, on the front elevation adjacent to the park, the six-storey plane stucco will be used as a screen where programs and concerts (going on inside) can be projected at night for the public to watch. The glazed portions, namely the front entrance, will allow pedestrians/park-goers outside to see architectural drama of the interior spaces. Class/rehearsal rooms are unevenly stacked, enveloped by “ribbon-like” curves. (James).
There is an idea about containment within the project. It is a simple, white box that contains magic, movement, and music inside. Essentially, what we know to be typical ‘Gehry style’ is mostly contained within. (James).Gehry seeks to translate this magic to the interior architecture of the spaces with large, curving fluid elements that pierce/project outside of the box creating critical moments. One of these moments is on the front façade above the entrance.
West 8 is the architectural design firm in charge of the public park that will be adjacent to the front façade of the building. Gehry had designed the park, but because of the high commission costs, the city eventually chose to switched to another smaller/local/cheaper firm to take over this portion of the proposal. The project was projected to cost about $200 million dollars to construct while the park is projected at $21 million to date.
Some critics praise the building as a pivotal project in Gehry’s body of work because of it’s emphasis on interior and functionality compared to his other projects that are generally ‘objects’ in the landscape, famous for their exteriors. However, many, like me, are somewhat underwhelmed by the construction and renderings, that depict a rather bulky, awkward design in need of refinement (regardless of the architect that designed it). In the project’s defense, both architect and Thomas (the director) emphasize that most important, this building is educational, and it’s shape is therefore the most practical and functional for student needs.
Whatever the reason, all agree that this building is unquestionably better than the two parking garages that sat on the lot before. The bottom line is that having a building by Frank Gehry on Miami Beach will benefit the students who currently practice in a very overcrowded, rundown building and definitely help this tourist island.
Yes, generally all buildings are compromises between the architect’s vision, the users’ needs, and the financer’s wants, but this particular project seems to embody this struggle (not in a good way). It is part-boring/forgettable (so far) and then part just unappealing.
I’ve past this building everyday I’m in Miami Beach (which is a lot). The first few months, I didn’t actually take notice of it and then when I realized that the architect was Frank Gehry, it confused me. As construction continues, I keep thinking, “is that really supposed to be like that?” But after looking at the exterior renderings and building under construction, it does look like it’s supposed to.
---------------------------------------------------
Hegedus-Garcia, Ines. "Frank Gehry vs Miami Beach." Miamism.com. 20 April 2009.
29 April 2010 http://www.playbillarts.com/news/article/6156.html.
James. "New World Symphony Designed by Frank Gehry: A Transitional Piece?" Critque This! US.
18 September 2009. 29 April 2010 <http://www.critiquethis.us/2009/09/18/new-world-symphony- designed-by-frank-gehry-a-transitional-piece/.
Westphal, Matthew. "Photo Journal: Frank Gehry's Design for New World Symphony's New Hall."
Playbill Arts. 13 March 2010. 29 April 2010 http://www.playbillarts.com/news/article/6156.html.
buried in my head
One part of Dirt made me want to tell William Bryant Logan to read Anastasia and the Ringing Cedar Series, if he hadn’t already. I started to google his name to find some email address, but eventually gave up.
When William Bryant Logan talked about the use of fish heads on soil (properly, by native Americans and improperly, by colonists/settlers) I thought about the fish gut water I sprinkled on the organic garden at my sister’s house.
The part about worms made me think of many little moments. One was when I tried to keep a rolly-polly as a pet at school. I also thought of the earthworms that I’d buy at Devil’s Lake in North Dakota when I’d go fishing with Papa Jim (my grandfather). I fearlessly speared those wiggly things over and over on the hook.
When Logan talked about making soil, and the worms (bugs) would come, I thought about the composting I started on the back deck. I haven’t checked on it in a while, but it definitely had been crawling with critters by the time the bin was almost filled up. For some reason, I thought this was a bad thing, the life…like they were messing up the composting process somehow. And then I pictured myself smashing the eggshells smaller or throwing the avocado and banana peels in the blender to make it easier for breakdown/digestion.
My mind thought about AP Environmental Science with Mrs. Lawson my freshman year in high school. I learned all about the soil horizons, their order, type, color, size, etc. Now, all I have left is that horizons A, B, and R exist.
Rammed-earth architecture. You can sometimes distinguish layers (depending on how the maker wants the wall to look) but they are unlike soil horizons. They don’t breath with life. Water must seep and break them down. I wonder how the bench in the UT courtyard is doing. It’s corners were crumbling before I left. I want to build a space created by walls with horizons. Probably glass or plastic would sandwich it (it’s all I can come up with this second / picture in my head)-- like the jars we fill with layers of colored sand. And maybe a gopher could live in the wall, if it was topless. I could watch him make tunnels, and the dirt mounds he’d create at the top would overflow. Dirt would fall over the glass, making it dirty.
When William Bryant Logan talked about the use of fish heads on soil (properly, by native Americans and improperly, by colonists/settlers) I thought about the fish gut water I sprinkled on the organic garden at my sister’s house.
The part about worms made me think of many little moments. One was when I tried to keep a rolly-polly as a pet at school. I also thought of the earthworms that I’d buy at Devil’s Lake in North Dakota when I’d go fishing with Papa Jim (my grandfather). I fearlessly speared those wiggly things over and over on the hook.
When Logan talked about making soil, and the worms (bugs) would come, I thought about the composting I started on the back deck. I haven’t checked on it in a while, but it definitely had been crawling with critters by the time the bin was almost filled up. For some reason, I thought this was a bad thing, the life…like they were messing up the composting process somehow. And then I pictured myself smashing the eggshells smaller or throwing the avocado and banana peels in the blender to make it easier for breakdown/digestion.
My mind thought about AP Environmental Science with Mrs. Lawson my freshman year in high school. I learned all about the soil horizons, their order, type, color, size, etc. Now, all I have left is that horizons A, B, and R exist.
Rammed-earth architecture. You can sometimes distinguish layers (depending on how the maker wants the wall to look) but they are unlike soil horizons. They don’t breath with life. Water must seep and break them down. I wonder how the bench in the UT courtyard is doing. It’s corners were crumbling before I left. I want to build a space created by walls with horizons. Probably glass or plastic would sandwich it (it’s all I can come up with this second / picture in my head)-- like the jars we fill with layers of colored sand. And maybe a gopher could live in the wall, if it was topless. I could watch him make tunnels, and the dirt mounds he’d create at the top would overflow. Dirt would fall over the glass, making it dirty.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Remebrances
SAINT PHOCAS AS FERTILIZER was the section where I began liking Dirt.
It has whimsy tied with science. I was a whimsical little girl with a whimsical childhood. So the legend of the soldiers searching for Phocas and staying with him and all that worked with my mind. But then I love that William Bryant Logan then tells the rest of it, breaking down the break down of Phocas's body scientifically.
"But Phocas led them to the hole he'd dug in the garden, and there, with his consent, they chopped his head off. [...]
"And we must imagine Phocas's simple and hospitable soul, which took such care to return to the garden the body that had taken sustenance from it.
"The fungi colonized it first, hydrolyzing the tissues without disturbing the form. Then the white worms and the maggots and the mites took over, breaking off larger chunks, ingesting these, themselves defecating and dying. And this increasingly diverse pile of remains was attacked by wave after wave of further bacteria and fungi, until at last Phocas's mortal part had been completely oxidized."(Logan, pp.18-19)
Maybe movies have influenced me too much, but I envision those scenes in those movies that show everything, like germination, growth, flowering, erosion, etc. all hyper fast with heavy sound effects, like if you were listening to a stethoscope of the process, and the lighting/contrast is indulgently saturated. The cover of the copy of Dirt I have could be a still frame in one of these movies. (I'm just putting a copy of the cover in this post, but, as soon as I have an available photoshop, will revise the picture still-frame style!)
Just the smooth transition from fantasy to reality resonated with me. Maybe because that paralells transitions in my life. There is a beauty and briskness in how he talks about it. I relish how something rather grotesque, like chopping off this guys head, without real reason or emotion, is beautiful and poetic. Like Pan's Labrynth or Gabriel Gárcia Márquez's lyrics.
“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” --
"If you want to be remembered, give yourself away."
(Márquez and Logan)
It has whimsy tied with science. I was a whimsical little girl with a whimsical childhood. So the legend of the soldiers searching for Phocas and staying with him and all that worked with my mind. But then I love that William Bryant Logan then tells the rest of it, breaking down the break down of Phocas's body scientifically.
"But Phocas led them to the hole he'd dug in the garden, and there, with his consent, they chopped his head off. [...]
"And we must imagine Phocas's simple and hospitable soul, which took such care to return to the garden the body that had taken sustenance from it.
"The fungi colonized it first, hydrolyzing the tissues without disturbing the form. Then the white worms and the maggots and the mites took over, breaking off larger chunks, ingesting these, themselves defecating and dying. And this increasingly diverse pile of remains was attacked by wave after wave of further bacteria and fungi, until at last Phocas's mortal part had been completely oxidized."(Logan, pp.18-19)
Maybe movies have influenced me too much, but I envision those scenes in those movies that show everything, like germination, growth, flowering, erosion, etc. all hyper fast with heavy sound effects, like if you were listening to a stethoscope of the process, and the lighting/contrast is indulgently saturated. The cover of the copy of Dirt I have could be a still frame in one of these movies. (I'm just putting a copy of the cover in this post, but, as soon as I have an available photoshop, will revise the picture still-frame style!)
Just the smooth transition from fantasy to reality resonated with me. Maybe because that paralells transitions in my life. There is a beauty and briskness in how he talks about it. I relish how something rather grotesque, like chopping off this guys head, without real reason or emotion, is beautiful and poetic. Like Pan's Labrynth or Gabriel Gárcia Márquez's lyrics.
“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” --
"If you want to be remembered, give yourself away."
(Márquez and Logan)
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Dirt-y Thoughts
"Were we not so uncomfortable with sexual organs the study of mammalian penises would delight us. [...]
"A human penis is blunt and simple compared to those of other mammals. Of course, the fact that ours are not withdrawn safely into a sheath 'when not in use' (as one dictionary delicately puts it) puts a premium on implicitly and smoothness. An opossum, on the other hand, sports a two-petaled penis that looks like a dolphin's open mouth. [...]" (Logan, p.83)
I, like a middle-schooler, found this little paragraph delightfully scandalous. I even took the time to text it to my boyfriend just now, chuckling to myself about it's validity in a book about Dirt in a course about Architectural Theory. I wasn't going to blog about it for this reason and then decided that if this is what caught my attention and intrigued me, then I should explore it. Screw inappropriateness, awkwardness, and hesitation.
In my middle school, sexual education was taught by my science teacher Mr. Parlier. He sweat profusely and had a disproportionate belly and white, white hair. He had no tolerance for immaturity. So when he thrust his pelvis forward, indicating with sweaty arms where the female fallopian tubes are located on his figure...I, apparently, was immature. I did 'the eyes.' He told me he was giving me a detention and asked if I had knew what I had done. (I had a detention free record, detentions terrified me because they labeled me a 'rebel' and it was proof that I hadn't done everything right.) I said I hadn't known, he told me I did 'the eyes,' and I said I didn't know what 'the eyes' were. With this, he asked fellow sixth-grader Sarah if she could tell me about 'the eyes' and she told him she didn't known either. He looked at me, darted his eyes, raised his eyebrows a couple times at me and nodded his head in satisfaction.
I suppose when he had started the lesson, I had searched for, with my eyes, some sort of camaraderie in the awkwardness and absurdity of the class (him teaching this lesson to us). When you are in middle school and are taught sexual education, there is this crazy emphasis on 'maturity,' something apparently non-existent in someone looking around/giggling/smiling/squirming. As if, ten years later as a 'grown-up,’ after actually using/touching our sexual organs for things like sex and pleasure (not procreation yet!), I've 'matured.' I'd still get a detention.
I go back and forth on my feelings about my body and how I, and others, should treat it and understand it. My body is 'holey.' in the sense that literally, there are holes, and humans, according to Logan, have an immense curiosity/sense of discovery associated with them. The implications and correlations with gardening that he talked about are soooo appropriate...my body is like an erotic garden. My body is also 'holy,' (I couldn't resist!) in the sense that it is sacred and divine. It's a temple, my space of prayer. My body is a perfect tool for everything I want to do, I'm just learning how to wield it most efficiently and appropriately. It is art, science, genius--ahhh, etc. etc. These ideas and feelings about my body constantly rotate and flip-flop, super fast. It is the embodiment of my existence, the threshold between ego/all non-visible worlds and the real/physical world. What happens physically in my life has a profound effect on how I take in and process everything going on, how could it not? And how much control (if any?) do I have over these flip-flops and rotations of feelings?...which brings me to the next Logan quote, a couple paragraphs later in the chapter:
"Indeed, the pull of the moon exerts a far more obvious effect upon a woman than a man. Menstruation provides an exquisitely sensitive organic calendar. [...]"
This doesn't seem far-fetched, it seems true. But for some reason I never really thought about it. My body, beyond my control or understanding, is functioning within the world.
A woman's period is this weird thing because it is like this underground body calendar. I think most women can acknowledge that being around other women adjusts their own cycle. It's like grandfather clocks; if the clocks are all in the same space, eventually the ticks and tocks will be synched.
We've developed crazy precise measurements to ensure that every second, by definition, is the exact same length as every other second; that minutes and hours never change. But this hyper control over our own time we then have to amend and align with solar, planetary, lunar times...because these flex. We understand that despite our controlled and consistent system, the flexible one is more important and more accurate. So we come up with precise and exacting ways to adjust and amend ours. We calculate our own hiccups.
"The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind." - Emerson, from Self-Reliance
I build up this nostalgia for classic and mystical knowledge of the world. I go about accepting things I don't understand or don't make sense to me with as much confidence and assurance as I do with the things that I do understand and do make sense. I accept a large level of mystery or faith. Maybe I think those things are beyond comprehension, or maybe I'm just scared to explore them deeper with my own mind, or, just maybe I let little things get in the way of all the bigger things going on around me because they are more immediate, in my face...it's easier.
"A human penis is blunt and simple compared to those of other mammals. Of course, the fact that ours are not withdrawn safely into a sheath 'when not in use' (as one dictionary delicately puts it) puts a premium on implicitly and smoothness. An opossum, on the other hand, sports a two-petaled penis that looks like a dolphin's open mouth. [...]" (Logan, p.83)
I, like a middle-schooler, found this little paragraph delightfully scandalous. I even took the time to text it to my boyfriend just now, chuckling to myself about it's validity in a book about Dirt in a course about Architectural Theory. I wasn't going to blog about it for this reason and then decided that if this is what caught my attention and intrigued me, then I should explore it. Screw inappropriateness, awkwardness, and hesitation.
In my middle school, sexual education was taught by my science teacher Mr. Parlier. He sweat profusely and had a disproportionate belly and white, white hair. He had no tolerance for immaturity. So when he thrust his pelvis forward, indicating with sweaty arms where the female fallopian tubes are located on his figure...I, apparently, was immature. I did 'the eyes.' He told me he was giving me a detention and asked if I had knew what I had done. (I had a detention free record, detentions terrified me because they labeled me a 'rebel' and it was proof that I hadn't done everything right.) I said I hadn't known, he told me I did 'the eyes,' and I said I didn't know what 'the eyes' were. With this, he asked fellow sixth-grader Sarah if she could tell me about 'the eyes' and she told him she didn't known either. He looked at me, darted his eyes, raised his eyebrows a couple times at me and nodded his head in satisfaction.
I suppose when he had started the lesson, I had searched for, with my eyes, some sort of camaraderie in the awkwardness and absurdity of the class (him teaching this lesson to us). When you are in middle school and are taught sexual education, there is this crazy emphasis on 'maturity,' something apparently non-existent in someone looking around/giggling/smiling/squirming. As if, ten years later as a 'grown-up,’ after actually using/touching our sexual organs for things like sex and pleasure (not procreation yet!), I've 'matured.' I'd still get a detention.
I go back and forth on my feelings about my body and how I, and others, should treat it and understand it. My body is 'holey.' in the sense that literally, there are holes, and humans, according to Logan, have an immense curiosity/sense of discovery associated with them. The implications and correlations with gardening that he talked about are soooo appropriate...my body is like an erotic garden. My body is also 'holy,' (I couldn't resist!) in the sense that it is sacred and divine. It's a temple, my space of prayer. My body is a perfect tool for everything I want to do, I'm just learning how to wield it most efficiently and appropriately. It is art, science, genius--ahhh, etc. etc. These ideas and feelings about my body constantly rotate and flip-flop, super fast. It is the embodiment of my existence, the threshold between ego/all non-visible worlds and the real/physical world. What happens physically in my life has a profound effect on how I take in and process everything going on, how could it not? And how much control (if any?) do I have over these flip-flops and rotations of feelings?...which brings me to the next Logan quote, a couple paragraphs later in the chapter:
"Indeed, the pull of the moon exerts a far more obvious effect upon a woman than a man. Menstruation provides an exquisitely sensitive organic calendar. [...]"
This doesn't seem far-fetched, it seems true. But for some reason I never really thought about it. My body, beyond my control or understanding, is functioning within the world.
A woman's period is this weird thing because it is like this underground body calendar. I think most women can acknowledge that being around other women adjusts their own cycle. It's like grandfather clocks; if the clocks are all in the same space, eventually the ticks and tocks will be synched.
We've developed crazy precise measurements to ensure that every second, by definition, is the exact same length as every other second; that minutes and hours never change. But this hyper control over our own time we then have to amend and align with solar, planetary, lunar times...because these flex. We understand that despite our controlled and consistent system, the flexible one is more important and more accurate. So we come up with precise and exacting ways to adjust and amend ours. We calculate our own hiccups.
"The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind." - Emerson, from Self-Reliance
I build up this nostalgia for classic and mystical knowledge of the world. I go about accepting things I don't understand or don't make sense to me with as much confidence and assurance as I do with the things that I do understand and do make sense. I accept a large level of mystery or faith. Maybe I think those things are beyond comprehension, or maybe I'm just scared to explore them deeper with my own mind, or, just maybe I let little things get in the way of all the bigger things going on around me because they are more immediate, in my face...it's easier.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Holocaust Memorial
The Holocaust Memorial was designed by Kenneth Treister, a Jewish sculptor and architect in Miami Beach. It opened to the public in 1990.
I walked over to the Memorial from the Botanical Gardens following the signs through the parking lot. The first thing I came to was a little grid of trees. It reminded me of the entrance to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, only smaller and cleaner because there was pavement on the ground. A woman, very enthusiastic about the memorial, came to me and was excited to explain that the stone was from Jerusalem. She talked and walked me to a group of high schoolers that were listening to a holocaust survivor explain his story, pointing to the images etched into a curving black marble as he went along.
I joined the group and didn’t fit in at all. I had just come from my modeling agency, so I was in a small, tight slip dress and full makeup, feeling fully conscious of my, uh, somewhat suggestive/sexy look. It bothered me that I kept thinking these kids were judging me and forming opinions about me based on what I was wearing. I didn’t quite know how to be, but my discomfort didn’t deter me from listening to the old man talk about his liberation (on my birthday, April 11th).
The procession was a beautiful space. The water reflected on one side and the curving black marble wall on the other. It immediately reminded me of the iconic black marble wall at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. A wooden trellis provided shade and a play of light, sitting overgrown with vines supported between greek-style columns on one side and the wall on the other.
The middle of the path is marked by a circular dome; a choir of children singing in Hebrew reverberates. From this dome, another pathway guides a visitor to the main sculpture, on a sort-of island in the middle of the water. The perspective on this pathway is exaggerated, the walls cut in, ceiling and floors slope down; narrow, angled slits in the stone create sharp, slashes of light.
The main focus of the memorial is a giant bronze hand with people in anguish, pain, hurt, etc. coming out of the base and spilling out onto the ground. This sculpted and sits in the center of a circular space, surrounded by the same reflective black granite. This time, instead of the granite telling a story with photos and facts, the words printed are just names of those who have died. About a little more than half the marble panels are filled with names. (Again, I couldn’t help but think the architect was influenced by the Vietnam Memorial).
You leave the space the same way you came, through the corridor with haunted children singing to the dome, then continue on the original pathway, finishing the circle you had started around the water under the trellis, along the marble wall.
After walking the whole memorial, I decided I’d sit in and watch the DVD on the creation of the memorial with the high schoolers, so I could better blog about the experience. I shouldn’t have bothered. The DVD was so bad, I walked out early and tried to shake it off. The narrator used too many adjectives and it focused only on the sculpture, which I found to be the least creative/intriguing/meaningful part of the entire memorial. It’s just that I think the architect did do some good moves in the space, and then I’m watching the DVD rolling my eyes, second guessing and doubting my good experience, since the film made it sound gimmicky and tacky.
It’s amazing how much influence other people’s thoughts/words/ideas have over my experience and comprehension of a place. In this case, the memorial seemed less powerful when I listened to the architect talk about it. Most of the time however, I buy right into reviews and praise and what places were ‘meant’ to convey; I need to step up my self-trust and gut feelings about places before I let other people form my opinions for me!
“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” – Emerson, 1841 “Self Reliance”
I walked over to the Memorial from the Botanical Gardens following the signs through the parking lot. The first thing I came to was a little grid of trees. It reminded me of the entrance to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, only smaller and cleaner because there was pavement on the ground. A woman, very enthusiastic about the memorial, came to me and was excited to explain that the stone was from Jerusalem. She talked and walked me to a group of high schoolers that were listening to a holocaust survivor explain his story, pointing to the images etched into a curving black marble as he went along.
I joined the group and didn’t fit in at all. I had just come from my modeling agency, so I was in a small, tight slip dress and full makeup, feeling fully conscious of my, uh, somewhat suggestive/sexy look. It bothered me that I kept thinking these kids were judging me and forming opinions about me based on what I was wearing. I didn’t quite know how to be, but my discomfort didn’t deter me from listening to the old man talk about his liberation (on my birthday, April 11th).
The procession was a beautiful space. The water reflected on one side and the curving black marble wall on the other. It immediately reminded me of the iconic black marble wall at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. A wooden trellis provided shade and a play of light, sitting overgrown with vines supported between greek-style columns on one side and the wall on the other.
The middle of the path is marked by a circular dome; a choir of children singing in Hebrew reverberates. From this dome, another pathway guides a visitor to the main sculpture, on a sort-of island in the middle of the water. The perspective on this pathway is exaggerated, the walls cut in, ceiling and floors slope down; narrow, angled slits in the stone create sharp, slashes of light.
The main focus of the memorial is a giant bronze hand with people in anguish, pain, hurt, etc. coming out of the base and spilling out onto the ground. This sculpted and sits in the center of a circular space, surrounded by the same reflective black granite. This time, instead of the granite telling a story with photos and facts, the words printed are just names of those who have died. About a little more than half the marble panels are filled with names. (Again, I couldn’t help but think the architect was influenced by the Vietnam Memorial).
You leave the space the same way you came, through the corridor with haunted children singing to the dome, then continue on the original pathway, finishing the circle you had started around the water under the trellis, along the marble wall.
After walking the whole memorial, I decided I’d sit in and watch the DVD on the creation of the memorial with the high schoolers, so I could better blog about the experience. I shouldn’t have bothered. The DVD was so bad, I walked out early and tried to shake it off. The narrator used too many adjectives and it focused only on the sculpture, which I found to be the least creative/intriguing/meaningful part of the entire memorial. It’s just that I think the architect did do some good moves in the space, and then I’m watching the DVD rolling my eyes, second guessing and doubting my good experience, since the film made it sound gimmicky and tacky.
It’s amazing how much influence other people’s thoughts/words/ideas have over my experience and comprehension of a place. In this case, the memorial seemed less powerful when I listened to the architect talk about it. Most of the time however, I buy right into reviews and praise and what places were ‘meant’ to convey; I need to step up my self-trust and gut feelings about places before I let other people form my opinions for me!
“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” – Emerson, 1841 “Self Reliance”
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Miami Beach Botanical Gardens
It's strange how gardens are staged. I sat in on one of those round table lunch lectures at UT by a professor specializing in historical European landscapes and gardens (I don't remember her name) and all evidence and discussion was about the symmetry and strict organization of them.
“Man is all symmetry,
Full of proportions, one limb to another,
And all to all the world besides.
Each part may call the farthest, brother;
For head with foot hath privat amity,
And both with moons and tides.”
Geroge Herbert, 1633. Stanza 1 of “Man.”
The gardens of vast estates, kept pristine; women would 'take turns' about the garden.
From the patio/porch/terrace space behind the house, one could see the whole garden as a sort of middle ground between civilization (architecture, living indoors) and wilderness. These gardens did not try to mimic nature, that was not their purpose.
I don't remember where I examined Asian gardens however. It may have been at this lunch lecture, but I somehow feel like it was elsewhere. Anyway, these gardens were designed in a different way. Some sought to mimic nature in a way...as if to bring all these small, precious moments and views one experiences in nature into one, idealized perfect view. The end result would be that the explorer would be in awe of natural beauty, perhaps not knowing it had actually been staged that way.
Botanical Gardens are unmistakably staged. I walked in through the gates and met a mounted map that labeled the different lands and physical features. The fountain at this entrance was name for Morris Lapidus; this fact made me smile.
There were big bright heads in small manicured lawns if you took the path to the right. Smallish-women’s figures, made of metal, were posed here and there.
The structure in the middle was a breezeway, with orchid and vegetable green house gardens on one side. The other side had an interior gathering space for weddings and things like that.
This corridor lead straight into another procession, marked by large, stone things that weren’t quite columns. I liked where this was going and wondered where it was taking me. Then bam! On the left, a magnificent stone bench. It was serious, heavy, textury. No sooner did I sit on the bench (with complete disregard to any level of comfort it may or may not have possessed) I spotted another colorful super head. It had a plant coming out of it; it was red. Up close and isolated from the other garden heads, this one had a different, new attitude.
….But wait, I was in a procession, going towards something. So I stepped back into the path and made my way. No more fun distractions. It actually lead to nothing really, just a green field. I could see this from the beginning, but somehow I thought upon arrival there would be more. Something to catch my eye that I couldn’t have seen until I got there. Maybe it was for weddings and things like that.
A Japanese garden was hidden in the botanical gardens too. It including everything a Japanese garden should include: bright red wooden bridge, slate-grey river stones, grated sand, bamboo, and bonsais.
Maybe the garden was trying too hard. So what. It was absolutely lovely and a refreshing break from my painful, tired bike ride. It can pretend to be a place of discovery with its small, meandering pathways and ‘hidden’ moments if it wants to be because I’ll play along.
“Man is all symmetry,
Full of proportions, one limb to another,
And all to all the world besides.
Each part may call the farthest, brother;
For head with foot hath privat amity,
And both with moons and tides.”
Geroge Herbert, 1633. Stanza 1 of “Man.”
The gardens of vast estates, kept pristine; women would 'take turns' about the garden.
From the patio/porch/terrace space behind the house, one could see the whole garden as a sort of middle ground between civilization (architecture, living indoors) and wilderness. These gardens did not try to mimic nature, that was not their purpose.
I don't remember where I examined Asian gardens however. It may have been at this lunch lecture, but I somehow feel like it was elsewhere. Anyway, these gardens were designed in a different way. Some sought to mimic nature in a way...as if to bring all these small, precious moments and views one experiences in nature into one, idealized perfect view. The end result would be that the explorer would be in awe of natural beauty, perhaps not knowing it had actually been staged that way.
Botanical Gardens are unmistakably staged. I walked in through the gates and met a mounted map that labeled the different lands and physical features. The fountain at this entrance was name for Morris Lapidus; this fact made me smile.
There were big bright heads in small manicured lawns if you took the path to the right. Smallish-women’s figures, made of metal, were posed here and there.
The structure in the middle was a breezeway, with orchid and vegetable green house gardens on one side. The other side had an interior gathering space for weddings and things like that.
This corridor lead straight into another procession, marked by large, stone things that weren’t quite columns. I liked where this was going and wondered where it was taking me. Then bam! On the left, a magnificent stone bench. It was serious, heavy, textury. No sooner did I sit on the bench (with complete disregard to any level of comfort it may or may not have possessed) I spotted another colorful super head. It had a plant coming out of it; it was red. Up close and isolated from the other garden heads, this one had a different, new attitude.
….But wait, I was in a procession, going towards something. So I stepped back into the path and made my way. No more fun distractions. It actually lead to nothing really, just a green field. I could see this from the beginning, but somehow I thought upon arrival there would be more. Something to catch my eye that I couldn’t have seen until I got there. Maybe it was for weddings and things like that.
A Japanese garden was hidden in the botanical gardens too. It including everything a Japanese garden should include: bright red wooden bridge, slate-grey river stones, grated sand, bamboo, and bonsais.
Maybe the garden was trying too hard. So what. It was absolutely lovely and a refreshing break from my painful, tired bike ride. It can pretend to be a place of discovery with its small, meandering pathways and ‘hidden’ moments if it wants to be because I’ll play along.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Temple Beth Shmuel
1700 Michigan Avenue, Miami Beach, 33139. (But this facade is off Lenox, the same street as my agency).
Temple Beth Shmuel includes a Montessori School (directly adjacent to the cool facade) and the Cuban Hebrew Congregation in the synagogue. It was built in 1981 by Jewish Cuban architect Oscar Sklar. (enough facts).
I didn't get to go inside; it was dark, locked, and the tinted glass blocked my attempts to peer inside through the front doors. The thing is, I didn't know if I really wanted to go inside anyway, because it seemed really dark in there, and anticlimactic. When I was in Italy, there were some churches that were incredible on the outside but dark and almost boring on the inside. It was as if the outside was meant to awe/impress/draw you in but once inside, the walls don't try to compete with the activity and purpose of the space (praying, gathering, etc). I like to think it's like that; I'm not missing anything (architecturally) by remaining outdoors. Maybe I'm wrong...but I don't think it's Corb's Ronchamp, magic on the inside and outside (from what I've read and seen in pictures).
The temple's front windows are blobby; they are like lined up amebas or normal-shaped windows that decided to melt in place. Each one has dark stained glass. There are two front doors, I assume one to enter and the other to exit. These doors have overly rounded corners making them a cross between regular rectangle and an archway. These holes/apertures into the stucco facade remind me of Gaudi's stuff, but I don't see how anybody familiar with architecture wouldn't think this, at least for a second.
Another thing I couldn't help but find intriguing and amusing about it was the fact that it was a Cuban Hebrew Temple. There are a lot of Jewish people in Miami Beach I observed very quickly after moving here. And there are a lot of Cubans, something I already knew. But I didn't really think that those two categories overlapped a whole lot. For some reason I didn't think about it. I guess I simply associate Spanish speaking countries with Catholicism so strongly. I should try not to assume things, because if I had given it any thought whatsoever, I would have maybe realized this assumption was wrong, especially with Cubans, who are such a uniquely defined and separate culture and people. Plus, I remember there was a giant temple I passed all the time in Mexico City and I had found that unusual. I shouldn't assume.
This temple is Miami Beach.
...it kind of seems like the triangular retaining walls were added later. The one on the left actually does retain dirt, that is sort of piled up against the church and held in on both sides by triangles, but the one on the right doesn't retain anything. It doesn't seem structural, so I wonder if it is there for symmetry or to help frame/guide you in. (?).
Temple Beth Shmuel includes a Montessori School (directly adjacent to the cool facade) and the Cuban Hebrew Congregation in the synagogue. It was built in 1981 by Jewish Cuban architect Oscar Sklar. (enough facts).
I didn't get to go inside; it was dark, locked, and the tinted glass blocked my attempts to peer inside through the front doors. The thing is, I didn't know if I really wanted to go inside anyway, because it seemed really dark in there, and anticlimactic. When I was in Italy, there were some churches that were incredible on the outside but dark and almost boring on the inside. It was as if the outside was meant to awe/impress/draw you in but once inside, the walls don't try to compete with the activity and purpose of the space (praying, gathering, etc). I like to think it's like that; I'm not missing anything (architecturally) by remaining outdoors. Maybe I'm wrong...but I don't think it's Corb's Ronchamp, magic on the inside and outside (from what I've read and seen in pictures).
The temple's front windows are blobby; they are like lined up amebas or normal-shaped windows that decided to melt in place. Each one has dark stained glass. There are two front doors, I assume one to enter and the other to exit. These doors have overly rounded corners making them a cross between regular rectangle and an archway. These holes/apertures into the stucco facade remind me of Gaudi's stuff, but I don't see how anybody familiar with architecture wouldn't think this, at least for a second.
I really like it; there is something homey about it that I can't quite put my finger on. The building, from what I could see, is pretty standard except for this entrance. It has a front where it acknowledges the street which is the only part I cared to examine. This facade catches my eye at street level and commanded my attention...even more so than the oversized Frank Gehry building being constructed a couple blocks down or the Hertzog and de Meuron parking garage along Lincoln. I didn't even realize the garage was the famous duo's building, and I didn't realize the huge one under construction was by FG until I ran into it on a blog online. This synagogue pulled me in without online critiques and words.
Another thing I couldn't help but find intriguing and amusing about it was the fact that it was a Cuban Hebrew Temple. There are a lot of Jewish people in Miami Beach I observed very quickly after moving here. And there are a lot of Cubans, something I already knew. But I didn't really think that those two categories overlapped a whole lot. For some reason I didn't think about it. I guess I simply associate Spanish speaking countries with Catholicism so strongly. I should try not to assume things, because if I had given it any thought whatsoever, I would have maybe realized this assumption was wrong, especially with Cubans, who are such a uniquely defined and separate culture and people. Plus, I remember there was a giant temple I passed all the time in Mexico City and I had found that unusual. I shouldn't assume.
This temple is Miami Beach.
...it kind of seems like the triangular retaining walls were added later. The one on the left actually does retain dirt, that is sort of piled up against the church and held in on both sides by triangles, but the one on the right doesn't retain anything. It doesn't seem structural, so I wonder if it is there for symmetry or to help frame/guide you in. (?).
Thursday
I had a meandering day. I went to French Bakery and then no sooner did I sit down and start steeping my tea I read my first email that said I needed to go, within the next hour, to my new agency office. I biked home, got ready, and biked to the agency. It took a whole 15 minutes to take the photos I needed and I wasn't in the mood to bike all the way home again already. My crotch hurt and it was super windy. So I wandered up and down Lincoln Road before I finally decided to gingerly ride a new way home, along back roads.
There is this amazing Cuban Jewish Temple I've passed many times that I've been meaning to photograph, so I pulled my bike over and photographed it.
Riding by the convention center, I passed the Miami Botanical Gardens, which was open to the public for free. I propped and locked my bike. Camera in hand, I wandered the garden; it was lovely; I thought about things.
Adjacent to the garden is a Holocaust Memorial. I've actually passed it many times driving and never noticed it. Not that I didn't see it, I just never thought twice about looking at what it was. Now I know. I even listened in on a high school tour, walked through it, and then sat in on a video (for the high school class) on the making of the memorial.
After that, I made my way back through the gardens to my bicycle.
The next place I ran into biking was the Miami Beach Public Library. I had noticed it last time I was in Miami briefly, so I decided to wander in; nothing too special, but I looked up Morris Lapidus and immediately scrawled down the numbers to find books even though I knew I couldn't check them out. I only found one of the books on my paper, and sat down and began reading a long essay on him. I decided I'd come back another time, supplied, to finish the essay.
At home I ate and wrote and watched food network. Then I got into my car (I couldn't bring myself to ride anymore through wind and pain) and drove down to Miami Beach Whole Foods. I read for English and then went down the street to make the pilates class I had wanted to make, the only plan I had started the day with. The online info was tricky, well misleading/wrong. I walked out, exercise-free and decided to go to the fantastic Publix supermarket I had spotted the previous night. It looked like some giant glass bugshell...this big protective curve in the front.
I thought this day was refreshing and riveting. I thought I'd write a lot about it because a lot happened and I took a lot of pictures and I had a lot of thoughts and opinions...but instead I've summarized what happened in this quick, easy read. All it's missing is genuine thought, emotion, time, passion, and pictures. The pictures always come last though, because they mess up how the words fit together and on the page. All that other stuff is missing I think because somewhere in the back of my mind, the amount of detail I wanted to put into this post relating to all those places and things seemed overwhelming. Like this would become SUPER POST!
What will happen is that I'll add pictures and publish this post. Then I'll write, individually, about each of those places. That way, it's organized, chopped-up, and arranged like finger food. Pre-portioned and easy.
There is this amazing Cuban Jewish Temple I've passed many times that I've been meaning to photograph, so I pulled my bike over and photographed it.
Riding by the convention center, I passed the Miami Botanical Gardens, which was open to the public for free. I propped and locked my bike. Camera in hand, I wandered the garden; it was lovely; I thought about things.
Adjacent to the garden is a Holocaust Memorial. I've actually passed it many times driving and never noticed it. Not that I didn't see it, I just never thought twice about looking at what it was. Now I know. I even listened in on a high school tour, walked through it, and then sat in on a video (for the high school class) on the making of the memorial.
The next place I ran into biking was the Miami Beach Public Library. I had noticed it last time I was in Miami briefly, so I decided to wander in; nothing too special, but I looked up Morris Lapidus and immediately scrawled down the numbers to find books even though I knew I couldn't check them out. I only found one of the books on my paper, and sat down and began reading a long essay on him. I decided I'd come back another time, supplied, to finish the essay.
At home I ate and wrote and watched food network. Then I got into my car (I couldn't bring myself to ride anymore through wind and pain) and drove down to Miami Beach Whole Foods. I read for English and then went down the street to make the pilates class I had wanted to make, the only plan I had started the day with. The online info was tricky, well misleading/wrong. I walked out, exercise-free and decided to go to the fantastic Publix supermarket I had spotted the previous night. It looked like some giant glass bugshell...this big protective curve in the front.
I thought this day was refreshing and riveting. I thought I'd write a lot about it because a lot happened and I took a lot of pictures and I had a lot of thoughts and opinions...but instead I've summarized what happened in this quick, easy read. All it's missing is genuine thought, emotion, time, passion, and pictures. The pictures always come last though, because they mess up how the words fit together and on the page. All that other stuff is missing I think because somewhere in the back of my mind, the amount of detail I wanted to put into this post relating to all those places and things seemed overwhelming. Like this would become SUPER POST!
What will happen is that I'll add pictures and publish this post. Then I'll write, individually, about each of those places. That way, it's organized, chopped-up, and arranged like finger food. Pre-portioned and easy.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Morris Lapidus, Miami Beach Architect.
Lapidus was born in 1902 in Eastern Europe but his family immigrated to New York when he was very young. He lived the ‘American dream’ growing up poor but gaining riches and fame through hard work and dedication. He graduated from Columbia’s architecture program and worked as a draftsman (he excelled at drawing) and retail interiors/display windows. This background gave him a different perspective and style when he began designing hotels in Miami Beach. (Gray).
"There were three things--took me years to develop--that created an effect which actually stopped people on the street The stores depend on brilliant light, the use of color, and one other thing I noticed: people do not make a beeline for the thing they want to buy. They meander. So I shaped the walls in unusual forms." - Morris Lapidus (Ringer).
Critics didn’t respect Lapidus for the most part, so while he had commissions pouring in from Miami and all over the country, his work was either omitted from architectural journals and writings or harshly criticized.
"I was ruled out of the architecture profession," said Lapidus. "The Fontainebleau--the high point of my career--was never published. Never." (Ringer).
Fontainebleau is a fantasyland. Lapidus designed the resort to be somewhat like Disneyland for grown-ups, containing everything a vacationer may want all rolled into one. Fontainebleau has pools, spas, restaurants, lounges, a nightclub, department stores, boutiques, and incredible suites—all for the guests to enjoy. It’s been the backdrop for movies such as Scarface and James Bond Goldfinger. One of the most infamous parts of the hotel was the ‘stairway to nowhere,’ which was a grandiose/elaborate staircase that led up to the cloak room. The staircase enabled guests’ to make their grand entrance into the room, so all eyes could be on them while they walked down the staircase. In fact, Fontainebleau was so popular that Lapidus was commissioned by the city to ‘revamp’ Lincoln Road, since the hotel’s popularity killed business on this famous street.
Lapidus proposed to close the street to vehicular traffic, enabling restaurants to bleed out into sidewalks, creating one of the first . He also designed playful concrete fountains and a variety of unique shading devices (utilizing different techniques such as cantilevers, barrel vaults, cut-out slabs) interspersed with large tropical gardens in the center of the road. These elements emphasized the idea of procession for the shopper while simultaneously created dynamic spaces for people to sit, explore, pose, people watch, shop, eat, and relax.
Morris Lapidus retired in 1985 and burned years worth of drawings/sketches/projects. Soon after in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the ideas of postmodernism became popular, which were embodied in much of Lapidus’s work. Architects began to respect, study, and honor his contributions to American architecture. He died in 2001 at the age of 98 in Miami Beach.
The context of Lapidus's work is what I find most intriguing and incredible. It's as if he was an architect before his time. His pop ideas and whimsical designs were created while the profession swooned over the sterile, international style designs and his concepts and ideas about retail/shopping/public spaces has became an exemplar model for later outdoor malls all over the world. Lapidus responded more directly to what his projects were about and who they were for...which were people, in a country that had just come out of World War II. People wanted to relax, have fun, feel special, and escape.
In school we are taught to rigorously question and reason why there is a curve, color, or cut-out, or anything non-essential or not standardized. But what Lapidus recognized and exploited, was the purpose/function of his projects were to entertain, pamper, and awe people...so all those things we were taught to be critical of and rational in our thinking were essential in themselves. You can't escape the everyday, practical world without throwing it's rigorous logic and rules out. Lapidus's buildings were not logical/practical/straight forward aesthetically or economically, but they were incredibly, incredibly successful. Which counts for so much (in both the real world and the fantasy worlds he created), and seemingly not much in the architectural world. Lapidus understood Las Vegas twenty years before Venturi learned from it. After all, what's so wrong with designing something only for the fun of it?
--------------------------------------------
It's weird: if I had been introduced to Morris Lapidus's stuff with no formal architectural education, I probably would have liked it. If I had read about it in architectural journals or texts, I probably wouldn't have cared for it. But after being in the world's he created (because indeed they are whole new worlds!) I am head over heals for him. After reading about postmodernism and studying Venturi's mom's house or the tower (who's architect I'm blanking out on!) that is like a big piece of furniture, I've always disliked it. It seemed so pointless and fake.
In reading Michael Pollan's book, A Place of My Own, he talks about how he thinks that the Writing House he was building was, in essence, a postmodern hut. I remember reading that part and cringing at the word and thinking how awful it would have been if I had been building a place of my own only to discover it could be labeled 'postmodern.' Eww. Charlie, the architect, didn't seem to love the 'postmodern' label Pollan stamped on the shack either...
But now, after walking along Lincoln Road (tons!) and being in Fontainebleau, purely for the reasons they were designed and built (to escape and have fun!), I love it. His curves, colors, and wit have seduced me. So now am I not only determined to go out of my way to check out the other Lapidus hotels along the strip and read the books he's written (only on reserve at Miami's main library, as opposed to the Miami Beach Branch I visited), but I’m reevaluating my feelings about postmodern architecture. Maybe I need step down off my little architectural pedestal and listen to brain and instincts tell me what I like and how a space makes me feel as opposed to what I’ve read about how I’m supposed to feel.
I've been trying to figure out the best way to put this next thought, but every way sounds kind of stupid so I'm just going to let it be like that: In a girl world, I feel like Lapidus designed the funny guy. It's that guy that becomes more and more attractive the more you are with him, because he makes you feel really good. The one’s you actually fall for and want to spend time with; not the one’s you just want to look at in magazines or from far away.
----------------------------------------
Austin, Tom. "Fontainebleau's Extreme Makeover." Travel + Leisure. March 2009. 16 April 2010 http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/fontainebleau-hotels-extreme-makeover/1.
Gray, Christopher. "An Architect Who Delighted in the Flamboyant." New York Times. 10 April 2005. 15 April 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/realestate/10scap.html?_r=1.
"Miami Beach History: Morris Lapidus Biography." Miami Beach 411. 2009. 16 April 2010 http://www.miamibeach411.com/History/bio_lapidus.html.
Mizrahi, Adam. "Morris Lapidus at Lincoln Road." Urban City Architecture. 5 October 2005. 16 April 2010 http://www.urbancityarch.com/2009/10/morris-lapidus-at-lincoln-road/.
"Morris Lapidus." New York Times. 16 April 2010 http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/l/morris_lapidus/index.html.
Ringer, Jonathan. "Lapidus of Luxury." Metropolis Magazine. 2007. 16 April 2010 http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0101/ml.htm.
http://www.fontainebleau.com/
Sunday, April 11, 2010
mushrooming thoughts
Pollan does this wonderful job of tying in these poetic threads in architectural theory and history into his little building. I particularly savored his thoughts on the sort of place he was building, Writing House. He explored a person's place of their own, a study, and how it evolved out this notion as an oversized, inhabitable desk. A piece of furniture turned room. It's deep woods turned built-in bookshelves. Intimacy and privacy left the lock and key drawer for the room door. It was Man sanctuary; a cozy nook for his thoughts.
His words reminisce and meander and linger and coalesce with Stilgoe's theories and histories. The difference is that sometimes I feel like Stilgoe tries to hammer it into the reader/Explorer. While enabling the reader to look around his/her surroundings in a new way, Stilgoe, at the same time, seems to accuse and resent the reader for his/her blindness and ignorance in the first place. I never get that feeling from Pollan because he never claims that architecture (well, the thoughts he is exploring in the book) are 'his thing.' He never studied or even attempted to study architecture before embarking on building Writing House or writing this particular book, so he doesn't pretend his observations are more than they are and he doesn't write as if the reader should have already been asking the same questions or exploring the same issues. He maintains an innocent stance; the house was always a project/hobby; not proof of his depth and architectural knowledge. I like that.
I went to B&N and read Spring, Summer, Autumn, Fall. A year of Marcovaldo borrowed. (My copy, coincidentally, I left in Miami. My plans keep changing, I keep staying in Naples longer than I planned, so Marcovaldo sits on a marble windowsill in South Beach.) Marcovaldo is fantastically naive, foolish, insecure, petty, whimsical, and real. He makes those mistakes and feels those emotions/feelings that we call 'human.'
The mushroom story is perfect and reminds me of how a lot people, including me, are about music. They like it when it is 'underground' and not a lot of people know about the band/singer...but as soon as the music is played on the radio/tv/movies, it's no longer as good as it used to be (for some reason)and they just stop listening to it because it's too 'mainstream.' It then becomes the music they (I) 'used to listen to, before anyone knew what it was.'
Exclusivity has allure. Fashion (like music) is alluring. I am being seduced by fashion. I walked in my second fashion show today.
His words reminisce and meander and linger and coalesce with Stilgoe's theories and histories. The difference is that sometimes I feel like Stilgoe tries to hammer it into the reader/Explorer. While enabling the reader to look around his/her surroundings in a new way, Stilgoe, at the same time, seems to accuse and resent the reader for his/her blindness and ignorance in the first place. I never get that feeling from Pollan because he never claims that architecture (well, the thoughts he is exploring in the book) are 'his thing.' He never studied or even attempted to study architecture before embarking on building Writing House or writing this particular book, so he doesn't pretend his observations are more than they are and he doesn't write as if the reader should have already been asking the same questions or exploring the same issues. He maintains an innocent stance; the house was always a project/hobby; not proof of his depth and architectural knowledge. I like that.
I went to B&N and read Spring, Summer, Autumn, Fall. A year of Marcovaldo borrowed. (My copy, coincidentally, I left in Miami. My plans keep changing, I keep staying in Naples longer than I planned, so Marcovaldo sits on a marble windowsill in South Beach.) Marcovaldo is fantastically naive, foolish, insecure, petty, whimsical, and real. He makes those mistakes and feels those emotions/feelings that we call 'human.'
The mushroom story is perfect and reminds me of how a lot people, including me, are about music. They like it when it is 'underground' and not a lot of people know about the band/singer...but as soon as the music is played on the radio/tv/movies, it's no longer as good as it used to be (for some reason)and they just stop listening to it because it's too 'mainstream.' It then becomes the music they (I) 'used to listen to, before anyone knew what it was.'
Exclusivity has allure. Fashion (like music) is alluring. I am being seduced by fashion. I walked in my second fashion show today.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Memory Construction
Finally I finished reading A Place of My Own by Michael Pollan. I felt exhilarated, like I just jumped off the top of Nostalgia Falls.
I used to have this morning routine. I would wake up early, start heating up some water for tea and make myself a small bowl of granola, fruit, and yogurt. I would gingerly set the pretty bowl (frosted glass), steeping tea (ceramic 'Grampa' mug), and a glass of water (again, frosted glass) on a barstool next to a corner of our couch in our living room, open the windows (right behind the couch), play our one Nora Jones CD, and read a book. Usually, this was a cookbook. I would read it line-by-line, admiring the vivid photos and absorbing the recipes like they were thoughtful, corky, short-stories. Today, A Place of My Own was my recipe, an ash desk outline was my food photo.
This particular corner of the couch + time of morning + open windows + NJ playing was my own way of building my Writing House. Instead of a house, it was Model Body; instead of Joe (the invaluable carpenter that helped the author, Michael, build Writing House), it was food; instead of weekends, it was mornings.
Sitting there today brought back this feeling of excitement, achievement, purity/cleanness of my body, spirit, and mind...all the things that I associate with my cookbook fairytale mornings. It's strange how I think so highly of these mornings, because everything else going on in my life at the time wasn't all that great. I've almost completely erased and forgotten all the negative stuff from then.
But I think people's brains tend to that; or at least mine does. I tend to exaggerate emotions and feelings when I remember things. If, overall, something good was left behind in my mind, then all the stuff that supports that become magnified; likewise, when I recall an overall feeling of sadness or pain, then all the stuff that made me feel that way becomes exaggerated while the happy moments become downplayed and ring false.
In this case, a cozy feeling of goodness was left behind; these morning memories radiate/project/embody aaammmmazzzzingness. I had been building a place of my own (I just hadn't quite realized it).
I used to have this morning routine. I would wake up early, start heating up some water for tea and make myself a small bowl of granola, fruit, and yogurt. I would gingerly set the pretty bowl (frosted glass), steeping tea (ceramic 'Grampa' mug), and a glass of water (again, frosted glass) on a barstool next to a corner of our couch in our living room, open the windows (right behind the couch), play our one Nora Jones CD, and read a book. Usually, this was a cookbook. I would read it line-by-line, admiring the vivid photos and absorbing the recipes like they were thoughtful, corky, short-stories. Today, A Place of My Own was my recipe, an ash desk outline was my food photo.
This particular corner of the couch + time of morning + open windows + NJ playing was my own way of building my Writing House. Instead of a house, it was Model Body; instead of Joe (the invaluable carpenter that helped the author, Michael, build Writing House), it was food; instead of weekends, it was mornings.
Sitting there today brought back this feeling of excitement, achievement, purity/cleanness of my body, spirit, and mind...all the things that I associate with my cookbook fairytale mornings. It's strange how I think so highly of these mornings, because everything else going on in my life at the time wasn't all that great. I've almost completely erased and forgotten all the negative stuff from then.
But I think people's brains tend to that; or at least mine does. I tend to exaggerate emotions and feelings when I remember things. If, overall, something good was left behind in my mind, then all the stuff that supports that become magnified; likewise, when I recall an overall feeling of sadness or pain, then all the stuff that made me feel that way becomes exaggerated while the happy moments become downplayed and ring false.
In this case, a cozy feeling of goodness was left behind; these morning memories radiate/project/embody aaammmmazzzzingness. I had been building a place of my own (I just hadn't quite realized it).
Sunday, April 4, 2010
1111 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach 33139
Thank you Architectural Theory Blog. I didn’t realize that the Herzog & de Meuron building on Miami Beach under construction I had been anticipating (since I saw the sign when I visited in July) was not only complete (this year), but that I had been inside! Multiple times. After chuckling alone and rolling my eyes, I’ve accepted my ignorance and gotten over it.
The project consists of eight levels at varying heights depending on function. The structure is basically reinforced concrete slabs and columns. The columns taper up and down at varying widths and degrees. I have difficulty out-right praising the project, so I’ll borrow a paragraph from an article last Sunday (March 28, 2010) by Journalist Rowan Moore of The Observer,
“What sets it apart from other car parks is that it is designed as a series of spaces, rather than as a stacking system. Some of the decks have extravagantly high ceilings and some overlook others from mezzanines and balconies. The ramps sweep and splendid views of the city unfurl. Syncopations of high and low decks, and of pillars shaped like Vs, triangles and trapeziums, are set up. There is a nervous energy and, in the thin leading edges of the decks, delicacy.”
The project was designed conjunction with local landscape architects Raymond Jungle who did the pedestrian road/garden adjacent to the building along Lincoln. It consists of three water features, plants, and sculptures all tied together with bold stripes of black and white in the paving. (Mizrahi).
What you don’t read about, but what I have discovered, is that there are essentially two ElevenEleven’s on Lincoln Road. The ‘old’ Suntrust Bank Office Building and the ‘new’ sleek-hip-cool-sexy Herzog & de Meuron multi-use parking garage. They are attached and share the same address, but have separate entrances and styles and insides and outsides. So it’s not crazy that on my hunt for the fifth floor in 1111 Lincoln Road, I found myself in an empty, bright, open-air parking garage instead of low-ceiling 1960’s office building fifth floor next door. (‘Old’ 1111’s entrance is on the north side of the building. You have to pass through an open-air corridor in ‘new’ 1111 to access it.)
The parking garage feels light, airy, and open. What makes it achieve these qualities is change in ceiling heights, like on the second and fifth floors, where the ceilings soar allowing light to pour deep into the building. The high ceilings make it vary un-parking-garage-y since they are a luxury and expense never afforded in this type of economic structure. The other thing that helps make the building so airy is that the railings are thin steel cable wires, that seem to disappear. The frequency and unique shapes of the columns enable the floor slabs to be thinner instead of the more common bulky precast forms characteristic of parking garages.
The central staircase/space is great too. It doesn’t make me loose my breath or thank god I’m there, but it does help open up the few low-ceiling levels and visually tie all the levels together, like monumental, grande central staircases do often do as a gesture found in a lot of public buildings (like the headquarters public Library in Austin features stairs). The thin floor slabs are cut in different ways at different points to engage and invite people to take the stairs and experience the building from different, changing views on the inside.
Something I found interesting with this particular building is the fact that it didn’t scream Herzog & de Meuron at me like many of their other buildings do. I feel like cool ‘skins’ are something that defines their work, like the Dominus Winery, De Young Museum, Walker Art Center (which I suspected was them before knowing it indeed was), or infamous Bird’s Nest of the Olympics. They wrap everything up—except this garage. The architects say they took clues from Miami Beach’s unique style and attitude, so the building is “all muscle without cloth.” (1111).
Frankly, I think it’s more of a skeleton than muscle (not that that’s a bad thing). I also like the building, but don’t love it. It’s one of those things that even though I may not love it, I’m appreciative that it exists and is there because it does make the Beach more interesting/intriguing/vibrant/chic. I like that it seeks to elevate expectations and change perceptions of space and program. It’s noticeable and makes people look twice. I like that it’s there.
And as for the pedestrian part of the new construction, the Raymond Jungle contribution, I like parts of it. I like what they did with the paving: the little pieces of black and white stone laid in fat, uneven stripes perpendicular to the walker. But I think the water features are underwhelming; they seem dirty. And it isn’t green enough (maybe this criticism is pre-emptive because all the plants need time to grow up and get green!) but it seems a little barren. Compared to the rest of Lincoln Road, this space seems a little lost, scale-wise. It’s grappling with huge buildings on all sides, less plant life in the middle, and dominant paving—but with some use and time and adaptations, I think it’ll grow into its own and fit into the rest of Lincoln Road Mall.
---------------------------------------
Works Cited:
1111 Lincoln Road. http://www.1111lincolnroad.com/flash.html.
Mizrahi, Adam. "Herzog & DeMeuron Building Nearing Completion in Miami Beach."
Urban City Architecture. 6 October 2009. 4 April 2010
http://www.urbancityarch.com/2009/10/herzog-near-completion/.
Rainey, Tiffany. "Robert Wennett: A Miami Beach Developer Looks to Switzerland
With an Eye Toward Architecture, and Art." Art Basel Miami 2006.
http://www.miamisunpost.com/2006%20Art%20Basel/robertwennett.htm.
So this building, at the corner of Lincoln Road and Alton Drive, is a huge addition to the Suntrust Bank Building on the east side of the block. It’s a mixed use program of primarily a parking garage, with retail on the ground floor, a couple residences, and a restaurant on the top floor.
Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron were commissioned by local Miami Beach resident Robert Wennett, a developer focused on urban development through progressive design whose projects can be found all over the US from NY’s meat packing district to Alexandria, Virginia. (Rainey).
What you don’t read about, but what I have discovered, is that there are essentially two ElevenEleven’s on Lincoln Road. The ‘old’ Suntrust Bank Office Building and the ‘new’ sleek-hip-cool-sexy Herzog & de Meuron multi-use parking garage. They are attached and share the same address, but have separate entrances and styles and insides and outsides. So it’s not crazy that on my hunt for the fifth floor in 1111 Lincoln Road, I found myself in an empty, bright, open-air parking garage instead of low-ceiling 1960’s office building fifth floor next door. (‘Old’ 1111’s entrance is on the north side of the building. You have to pass through an open-air corridor in ‘new’ 1111 to access it.)
The central staircase/space is great too. It doesn’t make me loose my breath or thank god I’m there, but it does help open up the few low-ceiling levels and visually tie all the levels together, like monumental, grande central staircases do often do as a gesture found in a lot of public buildings (like the headquarters public Library in Austin features stairs). The thin floor slabs are cut in different ways at different points to engage and invite people to take the stairs and experience the building from different, changing views on the inside.
Something I found interesting with this particular building is the fact that it didn’t scream Herzog & de Meuron at me like many of their other buildings do. I feel like cool ‘skins’ are something that defines their work, like the Dominus Winery, De Young Museum, Walker Art Center (which I suspected was them before knowing it indeed was), or infamous Bird’s Nest of the Olympics. They wrap everything up—except this garage. The architects say they took clues from Miami Beach’s unique style and attitude, so the building is “all muscle without cloth.” (1111).
Frankly, I think it’s more of a skeleton than muscle (not that that’s a bad thing). I also like the building, but don’t love it. It’s one of those things that even though I may not love it, I’m appreciative that it exists and is there because it does make the Beach more interesting/intriguing/vibrant/chic. I like that it seeks to elevate expectations and change perceptions of space and program. It’s noticeable and makes people look twice. I like that it’s there.
---------------------------------------
Works Cited:
1111 Lincoln Road. http://www.1111lincolnroad.com/flash.html.
Mizrahi, Adam. "Herzog & DeMeuron Building Nearing Completion in Miami Beach."
Urban City Architecture. 6 October 2009. 4 April 2010
http://www.urbancityarch.com/2009/10/herzog-near-completion/.
Rainey, Tiffany. "Robert Wennett: A Miami Beach Developer Looks to Switzerland
With an Eye Toward Architecture, and Art." Art Basel Miami 2006.
http://www.miamisunpost.com/2006%20Art%20Basel/robertwennett.htm.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Beetle Juice
I drive a volkswagon bug. These are some thoughts that come out when I'm squished.
Naples-Miami goes as follows (from memory, if you didn't know):
1. I leave my house and turn left, going south along US41.
3 lanes
2. Turn onto (usually) Golden Gate Parkway. Two overpasses.
4 lanes
3. Take the ramp onto I-75 S, a.k.a. Alligator Alley 'towards Miami.' Car Toll: $2.50. No overpasses till you get the toll booth on the Miami side, then overpasses become blurred...because the whole road picks up and floats a lot, pretty seamless slopes. Hm.
2 lanes (ramp) > 1 lane (merge) > 3 lanes > 2 lanes > 3 lanes > 4 lanes
4. Take ramp onto I-595 E towards 'Fort Lauderdale.' Overpass question still applies. It's as if, part of the time you aren't actually driving on land but on some huge concrete platform thing.
2 lanes (ramp) > 1 lane (merge) > 5 lanes + 'Fast Lane:' HOV/Carpool/Sunpass lane
5. Take ramp onto I-95 S 'towards Miami'
3 lanes (ramp) > 2 lanes (ramp) > 7 lanes (merger) > 6 lanes (5+fast lane setup)
6. Take (super!) ramp onto I-195 E 'towars Miami Beach' (the ramp is super because it feels like I'm driving a go-cart through the air or something on this one. It's really fun, if you accelerate the curve right.) This road floats over downtown Miami, then touches ground, then goes up and down in two huge overpass/bridges to Miami Beach then forks and there is another little bridge you go over where the speed limit goes down to 35mph (as opposed to 65 mph at the start and 55 mph over the other bridges) This is where the road slows down and becomes 41st Street. You go over another bridge over Indian Creek after a little ways.
1 lane (super ramp) > 2 lanes > 3 lanes > 2 lanes
7. Turn right onto Indian Creek Drive.
3 lanes > 1 lane (it's a one-way road and there is construction which narrows it down to 1 lane. Otherwise, from what I can see, it would be 2 lanes + 1 row of parrallel parking along the left side.)
Arrive at my apartment building, block 31.
I just read about the history and reasoning of the interstate highway system. Multi-lane flat roads enabled the military to travel and transport large things from base to base, taking over rest stops when necessary and closing down stretches for emergency aircraft landings. How it was sold to the public, popularized, and changed the American landscape by cutting across farms, grazing fields, through hills and deserts. How it popularized fences. How these roads weren't designed for people.
----------------------------------------
In the car gliding across the penninsula, I listened to some form of NPR that was interviewing an author of a book called Why We Make Mistakes. Josh, the author, talked about how people on cellphones basically get tunnel vision and that is why talking on a cell phone while driving is dangerous. He discussed an example where this obscure clown on a unicycle rode through a university campus and then went back and interviewed the people he rode by to see if they had noticed him or not. Sixty percent of people that were walking and talking noticed. Eight percent talking on cell phones noticed.
He also talked about the over-confidence of men and how that worked with the military. He again, discussed examples of how men and women played war games when they were given different scenarios.
----------------------------------------------------------
I guess why I brought this up was that I feel like everyone just gets trapped in this sort of tunnel vision. Not just on a cell phone. (I just liked that because it rang so true with me!) And maybe it's a little bit of that, paired with the innate over-confidence/aggression of our military men, that brought our huge interstate highway system into fruition.
What I mean by this is that the whole system seems short sited (perhaps merely the light at the end of the tunnel). Like car companies (and all those related, like tires) spearheaded and sold this road system on the idea of linking places and people riding on the romance of independence, speed, and the automobile. And the military wanted it too for protection, to help defend our nation. But why are we restructuring/hurting our landscape and way of life for this defence? As an outsider, it seems like there is this giant rat race in the military going nowhere. To just keep our imaginary lines the way they are?
One of the things that bothers me and I keep thinking about is that the companies / military isn't really the end all, because they are made up of people. You know? It's always people, breathing, living, thinking, that continue to make these decisions that aren't really healthy, benefitial, or good to us. When did the interest of a group/nation not have the same interest the individuals that make it up? (Aaahhh....these thoughts lead me to so many other tangents! Posts to come I suppose.)
I can't imagine what it would be like if I got places by trains and schedules and days were organized and worked around that. Or that the post system was still super good and simple and everywhere, so the thought of mailing something didn't seem so annoying and inneficient. ...These notions extend into food and practically everything. At what point does speed (and 'efficiency') become null and illogical?
----------------------------------------
Naples-Miami goes as follows (from memory, if you didn't know):
1. I leave my house and turn left, going south along US41.
3 lanes
2. Turn onto (usually) Golden Gate Parkway. Two overpasses.
4 lanes
3. Take the ramp onto I-75 S, a.k.a. Alligator Alley 'towards Miami.' Car Toll: $2.50. No overpasses till you get the toll booth on the Miami side, then overpasses become blurred...because the whole road picks up and floats a lot, pretty seamless slopes. Hm.
2 lanes (ramp) > 1 lane (merge) > 3 lanes > 2 lanes > 3 lanes > 4 lanes
4. Take ramp onto I-595 E towards 'Fort Lauderdale.' Overpass question still applies. It's as if, part of the time you aren't actually driving on land but on some huge concrete platform thing.
2 lanes (ramp) > 1 lane (merge) > 5 lanes + 'Fast Lane:' HOV/Carpool/Sunpass lane
5. Take ramp onto I-95 S 'towards Miami'
3 lanes (ramp) > 2 lanes (ramp) > 7 lanes (merger) > 6 lanes (5+fast lane setup)
6. Take (super!) ramp onto I-195 E 'towars Miami Beach' (the ramp is super because it feels like I'm driving a go-cart through the air or something on this one. It's really fun, if you accelerate the curve right.) This road floats over downtown Miami, then touches ground, then goes up and down in two huge overpass/bridges to Miami Beach then forks and there is another little bridge you go over where the speed limit goes down to 35mph (as opposed to 65 mph at the start and 55 mph over the other bridges) This is where the road slows down and becomes 41st Street. You go over another bridge over Indian Creek after a little ways.
1 lane (super ramp) > 2 lanes > 3 lanes > 2 lanes
7. Turn right onto Indian Creek Drive.
3 lanes > 1 lane (it's a one-way road and there is construction which narrows it down to 1 lane. Otherwise, from what I can see, it would be 2 lanes + 1 row of parrallel parking along the left side.)
Arrive at my apartment building, block 31.
I just read about the history and reasoning of the interstate highway system. Multi-lane flat roads enabled the military to travel and transport large things from base to base, taking over rest stops when necessary and closing down stretches for emergency aircraft landings. How it was sold to the public, popularized, and changed the American landscape by cutting across farms, grazing fields, through hills and deserts. How it popularized fences. How these roads weren't designed for people.
----------------------------------------
In the car gliding across the penninsula, I listened to some form of NPR that was interviewing an author of a book called Why We Make Mistakes. Josh, the author, talked about how people on cellphones basically get tunnel vision and that is why talking on a cell phone while driving is dangerous. He discussed an example where this obscure clown on a unicycle rode through a university campus and then went back and interviewed the people he rode by to see if they had noticed him or not. Sixty percent of people that were walking and talking noticed. Eight percent talking on cell phones noticed.
He also talked about the over-confidence of men and how that worked with the military. He again, discussed examples of how men and women played war games when they were given different scenarios.
----------------------------------------------------------
I guess why I brought this up was that I feel like everyone just gets trapped in this sort of tunnel vision. Not just on a cell phone. (I just liked that because it rang so true with me!) And maybe it's a little bit of that, paired with the innate over-confidence/aggression of our military men, that brought our huge interstate highway system into fruition.
What I mean by this is that the whole system seems short sited (perhaps merely the light at the end of the tunnel). Like car companies (and all those related, like tires) spearheaded and sold this road system on the idea of linking places and people riding on the romance of independence, speed, and the automobile. And the military wanted it too for protection, to help defend our nation. But why are we restructuring/hurting our landscape and way of life for this defence? As an outsider, it seems like there is this giant rat race in the military going nowhere. To just keep our imaginary lines the way they are?
One of the things that bothers me and I keep thinking about is that the companies / military isn't really the end all, because they are made up of people. You know? It's always people, breathing, living, thinking, that continue to make these decisions that aren't really healthy, benefitial, or good to us. When did the interest of a group/nation not have the same interest the individuals that make it up? (Aaahhh....these thoughts lead me to so many other tangents! Posts to come I suppose.)
I can't imagine what it would be like if I got places by trains and schedules and days were organized and worked around that. Or that the post system was still super good and simple and everywhere, so the thought of mailing something didn't seem so annoying and inneficient. ...These notions extend into food and practically everything. At what point does speed (and 'efficiency') become null and illogical?
----------------------------------------
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
I study at Starbucks.
I’m reading a book about a guy who built a space to think and write and work. I walked into Starbucks, ordered my tea, and sat down at a small duce to do just that.
There was this older, blonde woman saying goodbye to a couple. She stayed seated. They were loud, and were wrapping up a commiseration conversation about Obama and poor immigrants stealing their hard-earned money. As I got my computer ready, the woman looked my way and sort-of stated a general statement, to know one in particular but for anyone to respond, about the same thing. I didn’t respond. This young guy did. ‘What can you do? It doesn’t help to complain about it if it doesn’t do anything.’ I looked at him sympathetically as he sat down. What was he thinking?
This young guy and this old woman argued, mildly, about politics. They moved on to her cancer history and his recent-grad status. They talked about plans and lack of friends. (His because he just moved here, hers, well, I’d assume because of the way she is). She said she had a beautiful boat. Once, some people she took out on her boat later wrote her a letter afterwards saying that had been the best day of their lives. She asked for his cell number and told him she’d take him out on her boat. They walked out together.
I couldn’t work with while listening. I couldn’t not listen.
Then a little girl and her mom walked in. She climbed in the loud woman’s seat. She wore a hoodie with a magic pocket. I wouldn’t have guessed it was magic but she told me it was. And sure enough, she pulled a zoo out: A lion, a tiger, a rhino, an antelope, three elephants, and a giant horse. Definitely magic. The lion was the leader. The antelope had to ride on the horse’s back because it was too weak.
She went on to tell me that she went to the circus that day, but that there were no animals! (Maybe because she had them all). Her favorite part was at the end, there were two magic brothers that did all these tricks together. She buried her head in the chair while saying she thought they were handsome. She giggled. She blushed. Her mom blushed too.
Coffee shops are weird. I never sat in them till college when I started to go to them as a change of scenery to work and study. I began drinking tea as an adaptation to pay for my space. What happens is I bring my headphones and all my study stuff to go isolate myself in a public place. And everyone practically did that in Austin, a whole coffee shop full of people where you no one talks. A room full of loners. Privacy in public.
Here, that isn’t the case. Which is a relief. People go to them to talk. Politics, cancer, boats, animals, magic. The stuff spills out when people open their mouths for more than a sip.
It’s not the idealized, picturesque, hyper-isolated space in ‘A Place of My Own.’ But it does provoke thought (in me). Nothing in this post is particularly poignant or inspirational, but for some reason, it stuck with me and inspired something in me.
There was this older, blonde woman saying goodbye to a couple. She stayed seated. They were loud, and were wrapping up a commiseration conversation about Obama and poor immigrants stealing their hard-earned money. As I got my computer ready, the woman looked my way and sort-of stated a general statement, to know one in particular but for anyone to respond, about the same thing. I didn’t respond. This young guy did. ‘What can you do? It doesn’t help to complain about it if it doesn’t do anything.’ I looked at him sympathetically as he sat down. What was he thinking?
This young guy and this old woman argued, mildly, about politics. They moved on to her cancer history and his recent-grad status. They talked about plans and lack of friends. (His because he just moved here, hers, well, I’d assume because of the way she is). She said she had a beautiful boat. Once, some people she took out on her boat later wrote her a letter afterwards saying that had been the best day of their lives. She asked for his cell number and told him she’d take him out on her boat. They walked out together.
I couldn’t work with while listening. I couldn’t not listen.
Then a little girl and her mom walked in. She climbed in the loud woman’s seat. She wore a hoodie with a magic pocket. I wouldn’t have guessed it was magic but she told me it was. And sure enough, she pulled a zoo out: A lion, a tiger, a rhino, an antelope, three elephants, and a giant horse. Definitely magic. The lion was the leader. The antelope had to ride on the horse’s back because it was too weak.
She went on to tell me that she went to the circus that day, but that there were no animals! (Maybe because she had them all). Her favorite part was at the end, there were two magic brothers that did all these tricks together. She buried her head in the chair while saying she thought they were handsome. She giggled. She blushed. Her mom blushed too.
Coffee shops are weird. I never sat in them till college when I started to go to them as a change of scenery to work and study. I began drinking tea as an adaptation to pay for my space. What happens is I bring my headphones and all my study stuff to go isolate myself in a public place. And everyone practically did that in Austin, a whole coffee shop full of people where you no one talks. A room full of loners. Privacy in public.
Here, that isn’t the case. Which is a relief. People go to them to talk. Politics, cancer, boats, animals, magic. The stuff spills out when people open their mouths for more than a sip.
It’s not the idealized, picturesque, hyper-isolated space in ‘A Place of My Own.’ But it does provoke thought (in me). Nothing in this post is particularly poignant or inspirational, but for some reason, it stuck with me and inspired something in me.
Friday, March 26, 2010
More Webs.
I marked this part of Outside Lies Magic a while ago:
"[...] trolley companies erected mazes of supply support, and pull-off wires, the whole arrangement that made up what everyone knew as overhead electric catenary and threw weblike shadows over dirt roads and brick streets." (Stilgoe, p.27)
It reminded me of a sketch I did in Milan.
The trolley lines, in big intersections, were the silk threads of giant spiders. (sketch.)
But the silk was unsilky and the spiders were always in hiding. (reality).
"[...] trolley companies erected mazes of supply support, and pull-off wires, the whole arrangement that made up what everyone knew as overhead electric catenary and threw weblike shadows over dirt roads and brick streets." (Stilgoe, p.27)
It reminded me of a sketch I did in Milan.
But the silk was unsilky and the spiders were always in hiding. (reality).
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Bacardi Building, Downtown Miami
I was disoriented in downtown Miami, trying to make my way back to the highway, familiar territory. I passed this building and passed it again, parked, got out of my car, explored, photographed, and admired. There was someone else that was doing the exact same thing. This was probably two months ago. It's been on my mind.
So the Bacardi Building is actually two buildings and a public plaza. It is an example of Miami Modern, a combination of international style and Latin/Caribbean/tropical design. It's located at the corner of Biscayne Boulevard and 21st Street. (Mizrahi). Now I actually know how to find my way back!
The first building was a tower built in 1963 by Puerto Rican architect Enrique Gutierrez of Sacmag International. It's an eight story tower housing the Bacardi Museum on the first level, a dining room on the top level, and office space on the floors in between. Twenty-eight thousand white and blue hand-painted 6" x 6" ceramic tiles cover the north and south facades in a Spanish style mural by Brazilian artist Francisco Brennand. The west and east facades are made up of thermopane, smoke-tinted glazing and are articulated by vertical white marble tiles and exposed structural concrete. (Kunkel).
The second building is a two-storey square cantilevered 24 feet on all sides off a central core, 47 feet off the ground. It was designed by architect Ignacio Carrera-Justiz from Coral Gables, Florida and built in 1973 to house the finance and accounting offices. Constructed to withstand hurricane force winds, the walls are made of one inch thick hammered glass tiles composed in beautiful tapestries designed by French manufacturers/artists Gabriel and Jacques Loire after an original painting by German artist Johannes M. Dietz.
Each floor is hung from the roof by 28 tensor rods, supported at the center by the concrete-reinforced central core. The load on each tensor is transferred to the roof in which a crisscross system of post tension beams carry the load from the tensor rods through the central core, plaza and garage, to the foundation. (Kunkel).
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The cantilevered building is originally what caught my attention, but then when I began to explore the entire site, I really became interested to know more. The online sites do a fine job of giving enough practical details, but there are so many little things that make this particular site wonderful. I think they don't give the plinth enough credit. Yes, practically, a garage sits under it; but raising the entire site up gives everything a completely different feeling, a sense of serenity and proof that yes, it holds something more valuable than the surroundings almost. I immediately think of the plinth at the Taj Mahal, it makes a great building into something sacred.
Also, the floating, symmetrical stair cases that lead to the first level in the tower seem to weigh nothing, as if someone would glide up them into the building.
I'm unfamiliar with 'MIMO,' (Miami Modern design) because I've only thought of Miami as an ode to art deco. But this building is distinctly Miami: which is kind of incredible when you think about it's international style skeleton by American and Puerto Rican architects covered in tiled surfaces by French and Brazilian designers based on German and Spanish art.
Pretty cool, huh?
................................................
These buildings seemed to be unoccupied when I found them. The stairs leading up to the elevated plaza were blocked off with chains and small signs warning against trespassing. I called an online number provided to inquire about public tours. The woman on the other end of the line told me that they no longer hold tours because Bacardi headquarters relocated in November 2009 to a new site in Coral Gables. There is only a security guard and maintenance.
...It makes sense that the Bacardi's would have such wonderful USA headquarters when I read that the other Bacardi buildings in Mexico and Bermuda were commissioned by Mies van der Rohe. Obviously, this family valued good architecture and supported international design. (Kunkel).
_____________________________________
Works Cited:
Kunkel, Joe. "A Proud Symbol of Latin Modernism." Jetset - Designs for Modern Living. 2000. 23 March 2010 http://www.jetsetmodern.com/bacardi.htm.
Mizrahi, Adam. "Historic Bacardi Building." Urban City Architecture. 7 May 2009. 23 March 2010 http://www.urbancityarch.com/2009/05/historic-bacardi-building/.
So the Bacardi Building is actually two buildings and a public plaza. It is an example of Miami Modern, a combination of international style and Latin/Caribbean/tropical design. It's located at the corner of Biscayne Boulevard and 21st Street. (Mizrahi). Now I actually know how to find my way back!
The first building was a tower built in 1963 by Puerto Rican architect Enrique Gutierrez of Sacmag International. It's an eight story tower housing the Bacardi Museum on the first level, a dining room on the top level, and office space on the floors in between. Twenty-eight thousand white and blue hand-painted 6" x 6" ceramic tiles cover the north and south facades in a Spanish style mural by Brazilian artist Francisco Brennand. The west and east facades are made up of thermopane, smoke-tinted glazing and are articulated by vertical white marble tiles and exposed structural concrete. (Kunkel).
....................................................
Also, the floating, symmetrical stair cases that lead to the first level in the tower seem to weigh nothing, as if someone would glide up them into the building.
I'm unfamiliar with 'MIMO,' (Miami Modern design) because I've only thought of Miami as an ode to art deco. But this building is distinctly Miami: which is kind of incredible when you think about it's international style skeleton by American and Puerto Rican architects covered in tiled surfaces by French and Brazilian designers based on German and Spanish art.
Pretty cool, huh?
................................................
These buildings seemed to be unoccupied when I found them. The stairs leading up to the elevated plaza were blocked off with chains and small signs warning against trespassing. I called an online number provided to inquire about public tours. The woman on the other end of the line told me that they no longer hold tours because Bacardi headquarters relocated in November 2009 to a new site in Coral Gables. There is only a security guard and maintenance.
...It makes sense that the Bacardi's would have such wonderful USA headquarters when I read that the other Bacardi buildings in Mexico and Bermuda were commissioned by Mies van der Rohe. Obviously, this family valued good architecture and supported international design. (Kunkel).
_____________________________________
Works Cited:
Kunkel, Joe. "A Proud Symbol of Latin Modernism." Jetset - Designs for Modern Living. 2000. 23 March 2010 http://www.jetsetmodern.com/bacardi.htm.
Mizrahi, Adam. "Historic Bacardi Building." Urban City Architecture. 7 May 2009. 23 March 2010 http://www.urbancityarch.com/2009/05/historic-bacardi-building/.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Sabrinaland! Ah, the joy of Thought!
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by A. Square whisked me away. I want to think outside the box about everything. This book just makes me think that everything I know, on some level, is a box. So as much as I want to escape my box, there is perhaps only a bigger box or a different derivative of a box-based thing that I'd escape into. If that makes sense. There are so many overlapping and reoccurring themes and ideas in these shapes that I can't help but savor them and hopefully continue to understand, and apply them to Sabrinaland.
There is Flatland, from the perspective of A. Square that has experienced Spaceland. He dreamt of Lineland and witnessed Pointland and yearned for a fourth dimension...a more spacious Spaceland.
Soliloquy from Pointland, the Abyss of No Dimensions:
"Infinite beatitude of existence! It is; and there is none else beside It. [...] It fills all space, and that It fills, It is. what It thinks, that It utters; and what It utters, that It hears; and It itself is Thinker, Utterer, Hearer Thought, Word, Audition; it is the One, and yet the All in All. Ah, the happiness, ah, the happiness of Being!"
[A. Square attempted to enlighten the little point that other worlds existed. He spoke to him and said two points make a line.]
"Ah, the joy, and the joy of Thought! What can It not achieve by thinking! Its own Thought coming to Itself, suggestive of Its disparagement, thereby to enhance Its happiness! Sweet rebellion stirred up to result in triumph! Ah, the divine creative power of the All in One! Ah, the joy, the joy of Being!"
God of Pointland cannot conceive plurality, so therefore he understands A.Square's words for his own thought.
This passage, like so many other parts and details and ideas in Flatland are super intriguing to me. I finished the book and find myself recalling all these details in it, analogies and critiques upon society. One of the underlying notions is how to convince people of something that is not within their relm of thought, or limits. I definitely consider myself open, but open within reason is probably more accurate. It's like A. Square crystallizes his concept by literally pointing out the pointlessness of it all, when he introduces Pointland/God of Pointland.
.............................................................
Academically, I am open to changing my mind and being convinced of ideas/concepts/thoughts because I understand myself to be a student, one who is constantly open to learning more. I have an acknowledgement that I am not an authority in these things, so to speak. This actually kind of applies to all concrete, 'learnable' things like sports or cooking or accounting. That's it.
But when it comes to feelings and emotions and perspectives on situations, I am realizing I am a lot more closed than I thought. I don't really grant authority to others in this matter and find that I do always have to be right in a situation, especially one that I'm involved in. Doesn't everyone think they are right, or what's the point?
Stuff is grey. Often times there is no explicit winning, but just an acknowledgement that you communicated your 'point' and it is understood as that, 'a point.' You have 'a point.' And then I read Flatland, and wonder how often, in how many ways, I am a Point. God of Pointland, the abyss of no dimensions, incapable of really comprehending and getting someone else's 'point,' being able to escape isolation and make a line from my point to theirs.
If it's all about making points, (or that is simply the level I'm at..which is the very bottom/basic/foundation/elementary), how can I start to connect the dots? Points to Lines to Shapes to Volumes to ?...How does this work in Thoughtland, so I can just begin to comprehend the infinite potential of all the 'points' we make?
There is Flatland, from the perspective of A. Square that has experienced Spaceland. He dreamt of Lineland and witnessed Pointland and yearned for a fourth dimension...a more spacious Spaceland.
Soliloquy from Pointland, the Abyss of No Dimensions:
"Infinite beatitude of existence! It is; and there is none else beside It. [...] It fills all space, and that It fills, It is. what It thinks, that It utters; and what It utters, that It hears; and It itself is Thinker, Utterer, Hearer Thought, Word, Audition; it is the One, and yet the All in All. Ah, the happiness, ah, the happiness of Being!"
[A. Square attempted to enlighten the little point that other worlds existed. He spoke to him and said two points make a line.]
"Ah, the joy, and the joy of Thought! What can It not achieve by thinking! Its own Thought coming to Itself, suggestive of Its disparagement, thereby to enhance Its happiness! Sweet rebellion stirred up to result in triumph! Ah, the divine creative power of the All in One! Ah, the joy, the joy of Being!"
God of Pointland cannot conceive plurality, so therefore he understands A.Square's words for his own thought.
This passage, like so many other parts and details and ideas in Flatland are super intriguing to me. I finished the book and find myself recalling all these details in it, analogies and critiques upon society. One of the underlying notions is how to convince people of something that is not within their relm of thought, or limits. I definitely consider myself open, but open within reason is probably more accurate. It's like A. Square crystallizes his concept by literally pointing out the pointlessness of it all, when he introduces Pointland/God of Pointland.
.............................................................
Academically, I am open to changing my mind and being convinced of ideas/concepts/thoughts because I understand myself to be a student, one who is constantly open to learning more. I have an acknowledgement that I am not an authority in these things, so to speak. This actually kind of applies to all concrete, 'learnable' things like sports or cooking or accounting. That's it.
But when it comes to feelings and emotions and perspectives on situations, I am realizing I am a lot more closed than I thought. I don't really grant authority to others in this matter and find that I do always have to be right in a situation, especially one that I'm involved in. Doesn't everyone think they are right, or what's the point?
Stuff is grey. Often times there is no explicit winning, but just an acknowledgement that you communicated your 'point' and it is understood as that, 'a point.' You have 'a point.' And then I read Flatland, and wonder how often, in how many ways, I am a Point. God of Pointland, the abyss of no dimensions, incapable of really comprehending and getting someone else's 'point,' being able to escape isolation and make a line from my point to theirs.
If it's all about making points, (or that is simply the level I'm at..which is the very bottom/basic/foundation/elementary), how can I start to connect the dots? Points to Lines to Shapes to Volumes to ?...How does this work in Thoughtland, so I can just begin to comprehend the infinite potential of all the 'points' we make?
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
lines find alcoves
“ ‘Alcoves’: ‘To give a group a chance to be together, as a group, a room must also give them the chance to be alone, in one’s and two’s in the same space.’ […] The pattern of an alcove off a communal space (which also shows up in libraries, restaurants, and public squares) is as natural and right and self-sustaining as the patter of ripples in a patchwork of windblown sand.”
Pollan goes a little whimsical with the ‘windblown sand’ reference in A Place of My Own, but the alcoveness stuck in my head as I sit here waiting. I’m in a large convention-center-like space waiting to audition for yet another fashion show. The room is a big open space when you walk in, and there is a check-in desk to your right. After you check in though, the place is free-reign to settle wherever you’d like until you’re up to walk for the 20 glorious seconds of acceptance or rejection. This is my third day coming, I haven’t been cast (yet). Model settling patterns have been different each time. Things keep being added to the room each time too.
Day 1:
Rows of chairs were lined up ready for a runway down the middle (but empty at this point) and by the time I got here, models were in the chairs. The space where we auditioned though was parallel to this, behind one of the rows of chairs. I’ll post my sketch.
Day 2:
Way more people. It was guys too. This time, it was just a clusterfuck of everyone right at the end of the ‘runway’ space to the right of the door when you come in. (I’ll post my sketch). The chairs were randomly clustered and people stood, sat in them, and sat on the floor. A couple people chose a spot on the wall, but most stayed close to the group. Where we sat yesterday, a runway was being built. Chairs were still lined up, but no one occupied them.
Day 3:
Most girls took a seat on the floor along the wall where the door was and along the sides of the column. If there was no wall spot, they sat on the floor nearby. One small group sat by a column further off. It’s red-carpet style roped off. (Runway almost done, just the background missing.)
…………………………………………
I feel like more of an observer than participator. Modeling is all about being looked at, and I’m a looker right now. Girls meander in, sign in, and find a familiar face. There are elitist groups, the girls that act almost as if this process is a waste of their time because they know that they are going to be cast. They laugh and joke, it’s something light. There are the nervous groups. The girls that are intimidated and encourage each other, practicing off on the side, excited to have the opportunity to audition, but not truly anticipating being cast.
I’m in between, a loner. I feel like I should be here and should be cast, but fuck up at the last minute for one reason or another. I blame my lack of experience and cited that I need to just get used to the walk and what a good walk feels like. Carlitos, my roommate, nodded his head side to side with this. “No no Sabrina, (still shaking) no one ever gets used to it.” Shaking his finger. I receded said I need to get over personal excuses.
Women are lines in Flatland. The upper class women can curve their line smoothly. In my head, I picture a swimming sperm tail, or an eel or snake. There is fluidity to their movements. The lower cast women aren’t smooth, they jerk back and forth. They create corners and angles, not curves and slopes.
We are all lines here. The longer, more curvable line, the more desirable. I’m obviously missing something, I just don’t quite know what it is. So much consistent, blatant rejection is exhausting. It makes you over analyze, draw parallels, align, connect dots.
Pollan goes a little whimsical with the ‘windblown sand’ reference in A Place of My Own, but the alcoveness stuck in my head as I sit here waiting. I’m in a large convention-center-like space waiting to audition for yet another fashion show. The room is a big open space when you walk in, and there is a check-in desk to your right. After you check in though, the place is free-reign to settle wherever you’d like until you’re up to walk for the 20 glorious seconds of acceptance or rejection. This is my third day coming, I haven’t been cast (yet). Model settling patterns have been different each time. Things keep being added to the room each time too.
Day 1:
Rows of chairs were lined up ready for a runway down the middle (but empty at this point) and by the time I got here, models were in the chairs. The space where we auditioned though was parallel to this, behind one of the rows of chairs. I’ll post my sketch.
Day 2:
Way more people. It was guys too. This time, it was just a clusterfuck of everyone right at the end of the ‘runway’ space to the right of the door when you come in. (I’ll post my sketch). The chairs were randomly clustered and people stood, sat in them, and sat on the floor. A couple people chose a spot on the wall, but most stayed close to the group. Where we sat yesterday, a runway was being built. Chairs were still lined up, but no one occupied them.
Day 3:
Most girls took a seat on the floor along the wall where the door was and along the sides of the column. If there was no wall spot, they sat on the floor nearby. One small group sat by a column further off. It’s red-carpet style roped off. (Runway almost done, just the background missing.)
…………………………………………
I feel like more of an observer than participator. Modeling is all about being looked at, and I’m a looker right now. Girls meander in, sign in, and find a familiar face. There are elitist groups, the girls that act almost as if this process is a waste of their time because they know that they are going to be cast. They laugh and joke, it’s something light. There are the nervous groups. The girls that are intimidated and encourage each other, practicing off on the side, excited to have the opportunity to audition, but not truly anticipating being cast.
I’m in between, a loner. I feel like I should be here and should be cast, but fuck up at the last minute for one reason or another. I blame my lack of experience and cited that I need to just get used to the walk and what a good walk feels like. Carlitos, my roommate, nodded his head side to side with this. “No no Sabrina, (still shaking) no one ever gets used to it.” Shaking his finger. I receded said I need to get over personal excuses.
Women are lines in Flatland. The upper class women can curve their line smoothly. In my head, I picture a swimming sperm tail, or an eel or snake. There is fluidity to their movements. The lower cast women aren’t smooth, they jerk back and forth. They create corners and angles, not curves and slopes.
We are all lines here. The longer, more curvable line, the more desirable. I’m obviously missing something, I just don’t quite know what it is. So much consistent, blatant rejection is exhausting. It makes you over analyze, draw parallels, align, connect dots.
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