STUDIO==
I got into Werner Sobek's advanced studio on lightweight structures. We are designing a small, portable fabric dance theater for the German Expressionist dance style "Tanztheater."
This was my first choice, because it will be very hard, and we get to work with some really brilliant people. Sobek is a highly reputable structural engineer and brilliant innovator when it comes to sustainability. He is the director of ILEK, the renamed Institute for Lightweight Structures initiated by Frei Otto.
I suggest looking at the work of his firms on his website; basically, his vision of sustainability is one that pursues minimal energy through minimal material and structure. His buildings are nearly always recyclable, passive, and somehow beautiful.
----
I am taking a graduate symposium about the Avant-Garde. It is very closely related to the research and reading I've been doing lately for the rewrite of my AA HTS paper; we had one class, and it was fascinating. I think I'm most excited for this course because it is so anti-IIT. It is intellectual, based on reading and discussion, writing and analyzation. It's a pretty small class with an excellent teacher, and I'm excited to see where we end up at the end of the term.
----
My soc class also sounds interesting. We are discussing Technology and Social Change, how society was affected by shifts in thinking. It too is based on reading and writing, discussion and thinking, rather than exams, which is a huge relief to me. Unfortunately, the class is a bit larger and made up mostly of people that don't want to be there, so I'm not sure if the discussions will be very provoking.
----
CNC course is still on for Friday, but things might be changing a bit. Anyways, I can't go to the first class because Sobek is having a mandatory workshop, 10a-6p every day from Thursday - Monday [including Saturday and Sunday!]
It's already a busy start and I'm only 3 days in...
8.26.2009
8.23.2009
Morality in Architecture
The current economic situation is dire; that much is at least obvious, as the architectural profession, so acutely dependent on economic growth and stability, is suffering. It is easy to place the blame on others, to call out the millions of people living beyond their means, the mortgage companies for lending to them, the government for bailing them all out. As architects we do the same, blaming developers for spurring the demand for cheaply built faux-custom homes, the Modernists for the free-plan shells that became cubicle-filled offices, or even Wright for “inventing” suburbia in the first place.
Trained to trust only aesthetics, what else would we do? This sense, made extreme by our happy obsession with overwhelmingly intangible digital realms, has led to an architecture, and more significantly a culture, of shells. The substance, that driving purpose and vision behind the original Great Ideas, was quickly lost to easy-to-copy image.
While the cultural ideal behind Modernism was fresh, the copies may have absorbed some of the original intent, but as the passion for revolutionary change grew stale, the image lingered on, and copy after copy only referenced the thing it could easily grasp at- the Modernist form- until a steel and glass box became the symbol we either loved or hated, referenced or renounced, for nothing more than its own picture.
The same weakening of meaning has happened at the end of every great movement and style, from neo-Gothic ornamentation to Constructivist geometry, and continues to happen today. We’ve inherited an outdated architectural form while making ambitious advances in technology and materials. We are waiting for the next big change.
The furious boom in computing technology and the sudden shift towards a digitally dependent society have not yet been fully realized in built work, but ghosts itself illusively in the dreamscapes of academic discourse. The recession will afford us time to think and digest the flurry of recent technological innovations, much like the War-time and Revolutionary lulls in building aided the Modernists and Constructivists in their conceptual development. We do not know what the new architecture will look like, only that it will be different, and meet the changes in our shifting energy, community, and computing needs. The question now is determining the next step to define our version of Utopia: What is our architectural morality?
This will only be determined (discovered and developed) over time as fledgling architecture students, born after the advent of computers and the internet, merge interests with practicing architects who have grown weary of the profession. “Architect as anything but Architect” is not a new phenomenon; as Gropius writes, “the art of building is contingent on the coordinated team-work of a band of active collaborators whose orchestral cooperation symbolizes the cooperative organism we call society” (57). Utopian designers hell-bent on revolutionizing all forms of media and life (via culture at large) also go hand in hand with great aesthetic shifts; indeed Constructivism, one of the clearest examples of such, was founded in collaboration among writers, artists, and designers dabbling in each other’s disciplines.
Morality, like economics and taste, fluctuates on a curve. “The creative spirit,” Pick writes in the introduction to Gropius’ text, “is ever resurgent. The tide relentlessly rises over breaking and receding waves. It is the rise of the tide that matters most.” After every great rush in the socio-economic machine, there is decline; a brief respite marked by a significant shift in morality and aesthetic. When a strong, clear Utopian agenda drives the work, architecture may become more than just a shadow of the culture that built it, but the container for a culture’s ideals. Architecture, a time capsule of an era’s political, economic, ethical, and aesthetic emphases, can become symbol of a society’s spirit. Similarly to Modernism’s allusion to a progressive, industrialized Western society, Russian Constructivism was founded upon a powerful social morality and has become the ultimate remaining emblem (or scar) of Communism, despite its ironic condemnation by Stalin in later years.
Architecture as symbol for morality
The origin of cultural morality, or a movement’s ideals, is dual-sided; ebbing with the flow of popular opinion, bristling with the influence of singular individuals. Constructivism as an artistic and architectural movement may be easily attributed to its most prominent members: Tatlin, Rodchenko, Popova, etc, whose strong support of the Communist ideals and drive for progress clearly manifested itself in their Revolutionary work, but was also echoed in the wave of Machine-Age idealists across Europe and America.
At the turn of the century, the Industrial Revolution’s unprecedented speed of change and development left a strong desire for newness; to purge society of the past and start fresh. “The vast majority of architects and artists, though their political stances may have varied, shared a view of the machine as a social liberator, capable of provoking equality between men, not only by relieving them of physical toil but above all by engendering a universal art and a truly collective society” (Eaton, 158). Sharp Futurist manifestos came pouring from Western Europe in a frenzy that mimicked the machines they idolized. Individuals like Tatlin latched onto this flurry, and through experimentation, developed their own movement that focused on redefining all levels of society through rationality, equality, and non-objectivity as a means for pure self expression (Tate Modern).
Rodchenko, Maquette for a trade union poster Trade Union is a Defender of Female Labour’ 1925 (Tate Modern)
These huge aesthetic and ideological advances coincided (not coincidentally) with the Russian Revolution and unabashedly supported Communist principles. Seeking outlets for their outspoken ideals, the early Constructivists turned their creativity to wide-spread forms of media, largely paint and print. With the advent of modern propaganda, the success of the revolution was due largely to the overwhelming saturation of new, exciting, approachable Constructivist imagery that flooded Russian culture.
The movement began as an artistic exploration in material truth, clear and expressive composition, and a desire to bring art to all members of society through painting. Tatlin, Rodchenko, and Popova’s work in abstract art and sculpture was dubbed Constructivist (and at times Productionist) for its simplistic arrangement of non-objective geometric shapes (Frampton).
The form of their artwork, and later the architectural movement, was about rational organization and expression of material honesty from subject matter to production. Advertisement and propaganda, a natural progression for “accessible art” was hugely successful with Russia’s largely illiterate populace. Ever searching for further means of influencing and reshaping society, the Constructivists spread through all forms of art and media, from theater productions (Popova’s set design for The Magnanimous Cuckold, Tatlin’s collaboration on Zangezi) to film and literature (Ginzburg’s Style and Epoch). “Tatlin’s famous expression of ‘Art into Life’ became [the Constructivist’s] rallying cry;” art was to be “as dynamic, functional and essential as the parts of a machine, aiding humankind in the structuring of its new life” (Eaton, 189). Therefore, architecture “held a privileged position” within the movement for its “ultimate means of giving form to the post-revolutionary world” (184).
Rodchenko, Construction 108
Because the Constructivist’s ideals were so strongly Utopian and their desires for social change so broad, the need for a strong, clear building type led to an iconic architecture that absorbed more meaning and political symbolism than it ever truly intended. The architecture, reflecting both individual and cultural ethics, became a lasting symbol for Communist morality.
The late 1920’s saw a campaign “aimed at transforming domestic life” called the ‘new byt’ or ‘new everyday life’ (Tate Modern). They desired to modernize the “backwards” Russian social structure into a new and technologically advanced industrialized society free of perceived social hierarchies, organized around creating socially equitable spaces. Russia before the revolution was still in the throws of serfdom, with an incredible imbalance of wealth “over a vast land where many in the countryside still lived in environments little changed since the Middle Ages” (Moffett).
Narkomfin Plan
“The term social condenser was coined to describe their aims, which followed from the ideas of V.I Lenin, who wrote in 1919 that ‘the real emancipation of women and real communism begins with the mass struggle against these petty household chores and the true reforming of the mass into a vast socialist household’” (Social Condenser). As city centres gained populace, severe housing shortages called for the rapid development of residential units and provided the perfect outlet for Constructivists to practice ‘new byt’.
This ideology reflected itself most purely in the Narkomfin building. The public housing project, built in 1928, attempted to address both the fleetingly popular concept of “social condensing” and the severe space issues of the era. The housing crisis was so desperate that any household with multiple rooms or spaces large enough to divide would be partitioned into increasingly smaller units for multiple families. To avoid this, minimally sized living quarters, most often just a single cell for sleeping, omitted all public or open spaces; communal laundry, kitchen, living, and recreation areas were placed every two floors, bordered by the private individual quarters. The complex, originally planned as 4 tower blocks, also contained a recreation center, library, and rooftop garden (Narkomfin Building).
Monument in Soviet Socialist style, converted to outdoor mall. (Private Photo)
Interior of converted Stalinist monument; an ornate monument crammed with temporary stalls and cheap goods. (Private photo)
Ironically, because of the movement’s parallel ideals with the Bolshevik party and the iconic forms that firmly captured the spirit of revolution, the bold Constructivist shape has become more of a symbol for Communism than Stalin’s own nationalized style. Enormous parks and towers in the “Soviet Socialist Realism” style, “proclaimed by Stalin in 1932 as the only acceptable artistic style,” (Eaton, 183) have been well preserved and adopted by society while the Constructivist buildings, reminders of a displeasing past, have been neglected, abandoned, and now targeted for removal. Indeed, a fringe group of international architects and historians has been established, calling themselves the Moscow Architecture Preservation Society [MAPS, for short], and makes pleas to the Moscow Government to curb the systematic destruction of the city’s historical buildings (MAPS).
Modern Repercussions
For a significant and lasting artistic and cultural movement to occur, a widespread collaboration between all design and media fields must take place over a “big event.” The big event, Revolution for the Constructivists, war and depression for the Modernists, has not fully formed in our own society. However, a foreboding sense of the apocalyptic has been coursing through all media veins, from film to architectural studio units (ala Nic Clear’s Unit 15). The beginnings of several radical shifts are apparent, from the techno boom to global warming, but are not sure what to expect. For perhaps the first time in history, it is difficult (near impossible?) to imagine life in 20 years. We are waiting for the world to change; waiting for the Big Event to push policy and whip up frenzy, to give life and meaning to our artistic fantasies.
As the Modern “era of idealists” comes to a close, we find ourselves in a perverse version of the Idealist’s Utopian visions. Machines have, in one sense, “alleviated our toils:” (Gropius) we hardly need to walk or think for ourselves; our sense of wonder has been dulled by blindingly-fast technological innovations, our sense of self responsibility marred by the immediate satisfaction afforded by computers. The Modernist’s dreams of a Machine Age have shifted into a perverse dystopia of Matrix-like landscapes; a dark and inhumane mechanized world feels more real, more believable, and more attainable than a bright and peaceful future.
Perhaps this is the cynicism brought on by darkening difficulties; perhaps it is residual influence of popular sci-fi action flicks. But from a generation noted for its laziness and apathy, we walk a precarious line between waiting and action as contemporary poets and song writers profess wisely that we’re simply “waiting for the world to change.” Sinister, yet ironically true, we architects are waiting for the apocalyptic to provide inspiration, a new problem, and a new set of briefs.
So, in hope and preparation of a significant paradigm shift, and to combat the simplistic “inevitability” of techno-control, we must seek an architecture with humanity and moral integrity: an architecture that supports small communities, sustainable small economies, and the marriage of the natural environment with technology. To abide solely by the rules and development of structural and material advances (like the Modernists, Constructivists, etc) is too steeped in the past; it is time we look beyond the mere physicality of structure, construction, and material, but again consider what the advancements in digital technology and environmental awareness might mean for a new society.
Works Cited
About MAPS. Moscow Architecture Preservation Socitey, 2004..
Eaton, Ruth. Ideal Cities Utopianism and the (Un)Built Environment. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002.
Fazio, Michael, Marian Moffett, and Lawrence Wodehouse. Buildings Across Time: An Introduction to World Architecture. McGraw-Hill, 2004.
Frampton, Kenneth. Labour, work and architecture collected essays on architecture and design. London: Phaidon P, 2002.
Gropius, Walter. The New Architecture and the Bauhaus. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1965.
Hecker, Zvi. "Architecture stripped of its ornate garment." Weblog post. Lebbeus Woods. 19 Mar. 2009.
"Narkomfin Building." Wikipedia. 23 Apr. 2009..
"Social Condenser." Wikipedia. 7 Jan. 2009..
Tate Modern. Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism. Brochure. London: 2009.
Trained to trust only aesthetics, what else would we do? This sense, made extreme by our happy obsession with overwhelmingly intangible digital realms, has led to an architecture, and more significantly a culture, of shells. The substance, that driving purpose and vision behind the original Great Ideas, was quickly lost to easy-to-copy image.
While the cultural ideal behind Modernism was fresh, the copies may have absorbed some of the original intent, but as the passion for revolutionary change grew stale, the image lingered on, and copy after copy only referenced the thing it could easily grasp at- the Modernist form- until a steel and glass box became the symbol we either loved or hated, referenced or renounced, for nothing more than its own picture.
The same weakening of meaning has happened at the end of every great movement and style, from neo-Gothic ornamentation to Constructivist geometry, and continues to happen today. We’ve inherited an outdated architectural form while making ambitious advances in technology and materials. We are waiting for the next big change.
The furious boom in computing technology and the sudden shift towards a digitally dependent society have not yet been fully realized in built work, but ghosts itself illusively in the dreamscapes of academic discourse. The recession will afford us time to think and digest the flurry of recent technological innovations, much like the War-time and Revolutionary lulls in building aided the Modernists and Constructivists in their conceptual development. We do not know what the new architecture will look like, only that it will be different, and meet the changes in our shifting energy, community, and computing needs. The question now is determining the next step to define our version of Utopia: What is our architectural morality?
This will only be determined (discovered and developed) over time as fledgling architecture students, born after the advent of computers and the internet, merge interests with practicing architects who have grown weary of the profession. “Architect as anything but Architect” is not a new phenomenon; as Gropius writes, “the art of building is contingent on the coordinated team-work of a band of active collaborators whose orchestral cooperation symbolizes the cooperative organism we call society” (57). Utopian designers hell-bent on revolutionizing all forms of media and life (via culture at large) also go hand in hand with great aesthetic shifts; indeed Constructivism, one of the clearest examples of such, was founded in collaboration among writers, artists, and designers dabbling in each other’s disciplines.
Morality, like economics and taste, fluctuates on a curve. “The creative spirit,” Pick writes in the introduction to Gropius’ text, “is ever resurgent. The tide relentlessly rises over breaking and receding waves. It is the rise of the tide that matters most.” After every great rush in the socio-economic machine, there is decline; a brief respite marked by a significant shift in morality and aesthetic. When a strong, clear Utopian agenda drives the work, architecture may become more than just a shadow of the culture that built it, but the container for a culture’s ideals. Architecture, a time capsule of an era’s political, economic, ethical, and aesthetic emphases, can become symbol of a society’s spirit. Similarly to Modernism’s allusion to a progressive, industrialized Western society, Russian Constructivism was founded upon a powerful social morality and has become the ultimate remaining emblem (or scar) of Communism, despite its ironic condemnation by Stalin in later years.
Architecture as symbol for morality
The origin of cultural morality, or a movement’s ideals, is dual-sided; ebbing with the flow of popular opinion, bristling with the influence of singular individuals. Constructivism as an artistic and architectural movement may be easily attributed to its most prominent members: Tatlin, Rodchenko, Popova, etc, whose strong support of the Communist ideals and drive for progress clearly manifested itself in their Revolutionary work, but was also echoed in the wave of Machine-Age idealists across Europe and America.
At the turn of the century, the Industrial Revolution’s unprecedented speed of change and development left a strong desire for newness; to purge society of the past and start fresh. “The vast majority of architects and artists, though their political stances may have varied, shared a view of the machine as a social liberator, capable of provoking equality between men, not only by relieving them of physical toil but above all by engendering a universal art and a truly collective society” (Eaton, 158). Sharp Futurist manifestos came pouring from Western Europe in a frenzy that mimicked the machines they idolized. Individuals like Tatlin latched onto this flurry, and through experimentation, developed their own movement that focused on redefining all levels of society through rationality, equality, and non-objectivity as a means for pure self expression (Tate Modern).
Rodchenko, Maquette for a trade union poster Trade Union is a Defender of Female Labour’ 1925 (Tate Modern)
These huge aesthetic and ideological advances coincided (not coincidentally) with the Russian Revolution and unabashedly supported Communist principles. Seeking outlets for their outspoken ideals, the early Constructivists turned their creativity to wide-spread forms of media, largely paint and print. With the advent of modern propaganda, the success of the revolution was due largely to the overwhelming saturation of new, exciting, approachable Constructivist imagery that flooded Russian culture.
The movement began as an artistic exploration in material truth, clear and expressive composition, and a desire to bring art to all members of society through painting. Tatlin, Rodchenko, and Popova’s work in abstract art and sculpture was dubbed Constructivist (and at times Productionist) for its simplistic arrangement of non-objective geometric shapes (Frampton).
The form of their artwork, and later the architectural movement, was about rational organization and expression of material honesty from subject matter to production. Advertisement and propaganda, a natural progression for “accessible art” was hugely successful with Russia’s largely illiterate populace. Ever searching for further means of influencing and reshaping society, the Constructivists spread through all forms of art and media, from theater productions (Popova’s set design for The Magnanimous Cuckold, Tatlin’s collaboration on Zangezi) to film and literature (Ginzburg’s Style and Epoch). “Tatlin’s famous expression of ‘Art into Life’ became [the Constructivist’s] rallying cry;” art was to be “as dynamic, functional and essential as the parts of a machine, aiding humankind in the structuring of its new life” (Eaton, 189). Therefore, architecture “held a privileged position” within the movement for its “ultimate means of giving form to the post-revolutionary world” (184).
Rodchenko, Construction 108
Because the Constructivist’s ideals were so strongly Utopian and their desires for social change so broad, the need for a strong, clear building type led to an iconic architecture that absorbed more meaning and political symbolism than it ever truly intended. The architecture, reflecting both individual and cultural ethics, became a lasting symbol for Communist morality.
The late 1920’s saw a campaign “aimed at transforming domestic life” called the ‘new byt’ or ‘new everyday life’ (Tate Modern). They desired to modernize the “backwards” Russian social structure into a new and technologically advanced industrialized society free of perceived social hierarchies, organized around creating socially equitable spaces. Russia before the revolution was still in the throws of serfdom, with an incredible imbalance of wealth “over a vast land where many in the countryside still lived in environments little changed since the Middle Ages” (Moffett).
Narkomfin Plan
“The term social condenser was coined to describe their aims, which followed from the ideas of V.I Lenin, who wrote in 1919 that ‘the real emancipation of women and real communism begins with the mass struggle against these petty household chores and the true reforming of the mass into a vast socialist household’” (Social Condenser). As city centres gained populace, severe housing shortages called for the rapid development of residential units and provided the perfect outlet for Constructivists to practice ‘new byt’.
This ideology reflected itself most purely in the Narkomfin building. The public housing project, built in 1928, attempted to address both the fleetingly popular concept of “social condensing” and the severe space issues of the era. The housing crisis was so desperate that any household with multiple rooms or spaces large enough to divide would be partitioned into increasingly smaller units for multiple families. To avoid this, minimally sized living quarters, most often just a single cell for sleeping, omitted all public or open spaces; communal laundry, kitchen, living, and recreation areas were placed every two floors, bordered by the private individual quarters. The complex, originally planned as 4 tower blocks, also contained a recreation center, library, and rooftop garden (Narkomfin Building).
Monument in Soviet Socialist style, converted to outdoor mall. (Private Photo)
Interior of converted Stalinist monument; an ornate monument crammed with temporary stalls and cheap goods. (Private photo)
Ironically, because of the movement’s parallel ideals with the Bolshevik party and the iconic forms that firmly captured the spirit of revolution, the bold Constructivist shape has become more of a symbol for Communism than Stalin’s own nationalized style. Enormous parks and towers in the “Soviet Socialist Realism” style, “proclaimed by Stalin in 1932 as the only acceptable artistic style,” (Eaton, 183) have been well preserved and adopted by society while the Constructivist buildings, reminders of a displeasing past, have been neglected, abandoned, and now targeted for removal. Indeed, a fringe group of international architects and historians has been established, calling themselves the Moscow Architecture Preservation Society [MAPS, for short], and makes pleas to the Moscow Government to curb the systematic destruction of the city’s historical buildings (MAPS).
Modern Repercussions
For a significant and lasting artistic and cultural movement to occur, a widespread collaboration between all design and media fields must take place over a “big event.” The big event, Revolution for the Constructivists, war and depression for the Modernists, has not fully formed in our own society. However, a foreboding sense of the apocalyptic has been coursing through all media veins, from film to architectural studio units (ala Nic Clear’s Unit 15). The beginnings of several radical shifts are apparent, from the techno boom to global warming, but are not sure what to expect. For perhaps the first time in history, it is difficult (near impossible?) to imagine life in 20 years. We are waiting for the world to change; waiting for the Big Event to push policy and whip up frenzy, to give life and meaning to our artistic fantasies.
As the Modern “era of idealists” comes to a close, we find ourselves in a perverse version of the Idealist’s Utopian visions. Machines have, in one sense, “alleviated our toils:” (Gropius) we hardly need to walk or think for ourselves; our sense of wonder has been dulled by blindingly-fast technological innovations, our sense of self responsibility marred by the immediate satisfaction afforded by computers. The Modernist’s dreams of a Machine Age have shifted into a perverse dystopia of Matrix-like landscapes; a dark and inhumane mechanized world feels more real, more believable, and more attainable than a bright and peaceful future.
Perhaps this is the cynicism brought on by darkening difficulties; perhaps it is residual influence of popular sci-fi action flicks. But from a generation noted for its laziness and apathy, we walk a precarious line between waiting and action as contemporary poets and song writers profess wisely that we’re simply “waiting for the world to change.” Sinister, yet ironically true, we architects are waiting for the apocalyptic to provide inspiration, a new problem, and a new set of briefs.
So, in hope and preparation of a significant paradigm shift, and to combat the simplistic “inevitability” of techno-control, we must seek an architecture with humanity and moral integrity: an architecture that supports small communities, sustainable small economies, and the marriage of the natural environment with technology. To abide solely by the rules and development of structural and material advances (like the Modernists, Constructivists, etc) is too steeped in the past; it is time we look beyond the mere physicality of structure, construction, and material, but again consider what the advancements in digital technology and environmental awareness might mean for a new society.
Works Cited
About MAPS. Moscow Architecture Preservation Socitey, 2004.
Eaton, Ruth. Ideal Cities Utopianism and the (Un)Built Environment. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002.
Fazio, Michael, Marian Moffett, and Lawrence Wodehouse. Buildings Across Time: An Introduction to World Architecture. McGraw-Hill, 2004.
Frampton, Kenneth. Labour, work and architecture collected essays on architecture and design. London: Phaidon P, 2002.
Gropius, Walter. The New Architecture and the Bauhaus. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1965.
Hecker, Zvi. "Architecture stripped of its ornate garment." Weblog post. Lebbeus Woods. 19 Mar. 2009.
"Narkomfin Building." Wikipedia. 23 Apr. 2009.
"Social Condenser." Wikipedia. 7 Jan. 2009.
Tate Modern. Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism. Brochure. London: 2009.
8.20.2009
5 days back in the city, and I have:
finished unpacking
seen nearly all the people I care to
rewritten my HTS paper
finally gotten word from professors about classes this fall
obtained more evidence the bursar's people are retarded: they say my scholarship is not applicable to this year? what part of "5 year scholarship" do they not get? ugh.
finished unpacking
seen nearly all the people I care to
rewritten my HTS paper
finally gotten word from professors about classes this fall
obtained more evidence the bursar's people are retarded: they say my scholarship is not applicable to this year? what part of "5 year scholarship" do they not get? ugh.
8.12.2009
Exhibition Party
The party was great. About 30 people showed up, we had enough food for 60, and everything (surprisingly) got done. It was a bit close, and a bit stressful as guests arrived, but it's the land, and they are friends, so it didn't matter if the tables weren't set up or the work wasn't up yet. Miller came to rescue again, as did Grandma and Grandpa Downs. The food was taken care of, and we all had a chance to catch up with people we hadn't seen in a while.
Night lights
Checking out the photo slideshow and other work
Jennie and Gavin arrived a little early, but just in time. They were awesome, and threw down their bags to help us finish last minute stuff the moment they arrived. It was a bit disappointing to not have time in the morning with them.
Candice flew in from DC and it was amazing to get to spend a few hours with her. Blake and I got up at 5:30 the day after the party so that we could pick her up and drive her to the airport. We got to stop in Ft Worth for a little while, stare up into Vortex and split scrambled eggs at Corner Bakery. I like being around her. She makes dreams feel beautiful and possible.
We spent the afternoon with his mom, then came back to Abilene to watch shooting stars on the hood of his car at the base of a mesa.
Philip, Angela, and Connie also came into town; Blake and I spent yesterday with them: at the museum, waiting for AAA to come fix their car, eating the best steak and hamburger in Texas.
We stayed out at the land again last night. It was calm, a little warm, and unfortunately marred by ants and mosquitoes that insisted we were food. I woke up to watch the sunrise from the deck and visit the fruit trees wearing Blake's shoes. We had prickly pears for breakfast.
Night lights
Checking out the photo slideshow and other work
Jennie and Gavin arrived a little early, but just in time. They were awesome, and threw down their bags to help us finish last minute stuff the moment they arrived. It was a bit disappointing to not have time in the morning with them.
Candice flew in from DC and it was amazing to get to spend a few hours with her. Blake and I got up at 5:30 the day after the party so that we could pick her up and drive her to the airport. We got to stop in Ft Worth for a little while, stare up into Vortex and split scrambled eggs at Corner Bakery. I like being around her. She makes dreams feel beautiful and possible.
We spent the afternoon with his mom, then came back to Abilene to watch shooting stars on the hood of his car at the base of a mesa.
Philip, Angela, and Connie also came into town; Blake and I spent yesterday with them: at the museum, waiting for AAA to come fix their car, eating the best steak and hamburger in Texas.
We stayed out at the land again last night. It was calm, a little warm, and unfortunately marred by ants and mosquitoes that insisted we were food. I woke up to watch the sunrise from the deck and visit the fruit trees wearing Blake's shoes. We had prickly pears for breakfast.
8.09.2009
42
What are we searchign for? peace and fulfillment.A life of friendship and love, a place where we feel we fit both as an individual in a community.
We live in a monochramitic culture, but there is no one answer. No single answer can satisfy our diversity of people and landscape, experience and dreams.
How do we find our place to fit when there is only one option for living?
The ubiquity of middle-class America, poor-America, wealthy-America stifling individual needs and creativity. The standard line up of Tarets, Walmarts, department stores and strip malls display the same goods continent-wide.
Connected by facebook, RPGs, & youtube, sub-communities of virtual reality take shape. But true happiness is found in the comfort of friends, life satisfacation in sharing with others; a depth of relationship only found in close face-to-face encounters.
So we dream of small communities of networks of people, catering to the needs of each group. Similar to interconnected self-sufficient retirement communities, we establish a variety of cultures celebrated for their differences.
As the Hitchhiker's super-computer suggested, is the answer to all of life's questions really 42? Are their 42 answers to life's demands?
Veterans, elderly, nomads, farmers: 42 lifestyle choices; 42 cultures; 42 building typologies.
A spectrum of choices instead of just one.
We live in a monochramitic culture, but there is no one answer. No single answer can satisfy our diversity of people and landscape, experience and dreams.
How do we find our place to fit when there is only one option for living?
The ubiquity of middle-class America, poor-America, wealthy-America stifling individual needs and creativity. The standard line up of Tarets, Walmarts, department stores and strip malls display the same goods continent-wide.
Connected by facebook, RPGs, & youtube, sub-communities of virtual reality take shape. But true happiness is found in the comfort of friends, life satisfacation in sharing with others; a depth of relationship only found in close face-to-face encounters.
So we dream of small communities of networks of people, catering to the needs of each group. Similar to interconnected self-sufficient retirement communities, we establish a variety of cultures celebrated for their differences.
As the Hitchhiker's super-computer suggested, is the answer to all of life's questions really 42? Are their 42 answers to life's demands?
Veterans, elderly, nomads, farmers: 42 lifestyle choices; 42 cultures; 42 building typologies.
A spectrum of choices instead of just one.
8.08.2009
The last Hurrah!
torn between wanting to stay & wanting to go & worried it will be the wrong decision either way
-StoryPeople
I've been dreaming about London lately, even including fellow VSPers. I get all achy when I think about the UK; I suppose it's because I'm not particularly looking forward to going back to Chicago and IIT.
But chin up because today is the party!
Candice is in town, we have food to feed an army lined up in the kitchen, and all major projects for the land are done.
Our day's To-Do list is something like this:
-order photos
-cut hole in bath house roof for exhaust
-put dirt in bath house pot
-set up tables
-place tealight lanterns in pleasing locations
-sit around and drink margaritas.
Really looking forward to that last one. =)
-StoryPeople
I've been dreaming about London lately, even including fellow VSPers. I get all achy when I think about the UK; I suppose it's because I'm not particularly looking forward to going back to Chicago and IIT.
But chin up because today is the party!
Candice is in town, we have food to feed an army lined up in the kitchen, and all major projects for the land are done.
Our day's To-Do list is something like this:
-order photos
-cut hole in bath house roof for exhaust
-put dirt in bath house pot
-set up tables
-place tealight lanterns in pleasing locations
-sit around and drink margaritas.
Really looking forward to that last one. =)
8.05.2009
8.02.2009
At long last... we have internet!
The internet has been a bit dodgy recently, but seems to be working again.
The last week at the land has been very busy, including one overnight stay, one 12-hour work day, and a few days of extra help.
The studio:
-all walls, floors, trimming done
-canvases installed
-rainwater harvesting put in place
-all solar panel things bought and waiting for install
-drystack stone steps finished
The bath house:
-framed
-juniper posts cut and notched
-foundation holes dug
-roof assembled
-interior decoration / hardware purchased
-gallon of NO VOC "environmentally friendly" paint found and purchased for $20
The woodshed:
-hoisted into place and secured
-all lumber organized underneath
The land:
-cleaned and beautified by a team of highly skilled men with clippers
-brush piles consolidated and some burned
-a few new plants installed
-cut down a few choice trees
Relaxation:
-went to San Antonio after a particularly hard few days of work last weekend; spent time with Blake's extended family
-watched Shrek 3, Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Slumdog Millionaire
-camped out in the shelter after a bonfire and watching a storm pass by
-visited the Langfords for a short evening
It has rained consistently for the last week.. every night and morning. This keeps it a fair bit cooler throughout the day, temperature wise, but the humidity is SO much higher that the benefit is nullified.
I left my sketchbook out in the flash-flood rain yesterday, and spent the better part of an hour drying each page with a blowdryer. It swelled like a sponge and came out of its binding, but the pages are still legible.
There are finally new pictures up at my Picassa page.
The last week at the land has been very busy, including one overnight stay, one 12-hour work day, and a few days of extra help.
The studio:
-all walls, floors, trimming done
-canvases installed
-rainwater harvesting put in place
-all solar panel things bought and waiting for install
-drystack stone steps finished
The bath house:
-framed
-juniper posts cut and notched
-foundation holes dug
-roof assembled
-interior decoration / hardware purchased
-gallon of NO VOC "environmentally friendly" paint found and purchased for $20
The woodshed:
-hoisted into place and secured
-all lumber organized underneath
The land:
-cleaned and beautified by a team of highly skilled men with clippers
-brush piles consolidated and some burned
-a few new plants installed
-cut down a few choice trees
Relaxation:
-went to San Antonio after a particularly hard few days of work last weekend; spent time with Blake's extended family
-watched Shrek 3, Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Slumdog Millionaire
-camped out in the shelter after a bonfire and watching a storm pass by
-visited the Langfords for a short evening
It has rained consistently for the last week.. every night and morning. This keeps it a fair bit cooler throughout the day, temperature wise, but the humidity is SO much higher that the benefit is nullified.
I left my sketchbook out in the flash-flood rain yesterday, and spent the better part of an hour drying each page with a blowdryer. It swelled like a sponge and came out of its binding, but the pages are still legible.
There are finally new pictures up at my Picassa page.
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