What am I going to do with you? You're carousing all over New Orleans making a right nuisance of yourself: lurking around the Quarter and the Garden District, all man, all maneuvers and all mustache. Piracy! Smuggling! Bow ties! Unbelievable!
Lucky for me, I'm not the type who gets all googlie-eyed at bad boys. At least not anymore.
Why did you did you do it Thomy? Was the humble charm of designing streets and bath-houses too lowly? Was the making of one of the strangest, most wonderful, most sublime cities in the world not enough to sate your appetites? You, the classicist scholar, you the philanthropist, you the man who saw past race at a time when it was not considered. So ahead of your time, yet stooping to petty lies and criminality. This is a grand and glorious disappointment.
Maybe I'll forget you move back north and flirt with some city folk, or maybe I'll become one of those great New Orleans eccentrics and wander the streets in a veil made of satin, weeping over a good man who was as bad, bad, bad as the darkest secrets on the hottest nights. The war made a lot of men and took a lot of men. I'm sorry to say that it took all the good out of the Barthelemy Lafon, at least the one I used to know.
Farewell,
Retly Corm
Dear Pope Sixtus V,
You know your Eminence, I'd be lying if I said that I'd never written one of these to a Pope before. Mama always told me not to lie to the leader of the Catholics, and I follow that advice. I gotta hand it to you, you're a man who knows marketing. Now I know what you'll say, that this great re-structuring of the Roman streets isn't for profit, it's for the glory of God and typically I'd think that was just lip-service, but I bet you really mean it.
See, your holiness, I've seen Popes before who claim to be holy, but really, they're just in it for the money and the power. *cough Alexander VI cough* What? Oh nothing. Just got some Borgia stuck in my throat.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that you saw a unique opportunity and took advantage of it. All of Europe is engulfed in a cataclysmic war, that is except Rome. So what do you do? You make Rome the #1 go-to site for all Catholics from everywhere. This may be anachronistic, but your Disney-land this town like none-other. It's smart. You make sure that every major church has a relic and that you can get from one to the other without a map. Then you build fountains and obelisks so the faithful, and maybe even the not-so, will gather around and use public spaces, bringing a sense of community. If the Reformationists want a battle of art and ideas, you give them the best you can give. Rome will Baroque the hell heck out of this time period. Bringing it Grottammare style.
Now, if only you could lay off the Inquisition and the whole Spanish Armada thing, we might actually have a decent Renaissance Papacy going.
I am pleased to say that I have not let history repeat itself with this one! I messed up on the vignette the first time when I took this back in February, so they issued me a "FAIL." This time, I practiced my britches off with the vignette, and I have to say come exam time, I was impressed by my own solution!
I barely studied any text for round two. I figured I did not have any problems taking it the first time, and I was getting 90% on the practice exams in preparation for it this time, that what else could/should I study? Well, if I had to go at it a 3rd time, I would have reviewed the contract documents again, and read through all the applicable code sections, specifically ADA.
This time I was able to recall 31 of the 65 questions, which in my experience, is an indication of non-failure.
Next week I have to retake Programming, Planning and Practice. I have already studied more than I did the first go-round, so hopefully that will help me push through!
Currently I am without a working computer so I apologize for my lack of contribution to the blog since all my communication has been done via smart phone. BUT NOT ANYMORE.
For the past three weeks, I've been adjusting to life in London. The most surreal thing about it is how comfortable and familiar it feels. Part of that is the city, part of that is the weather and the other part is returning to life as a full-time student. Let me tell you, it is ridiculously easy to get back into student life. While working, my day started promptly at 6:30 am, at which point I would check my email, inspect reports, escort contractors and review construction progress in addition to any lingering problems all before 9:00am.
This week however, I've been getting up at 11:00 and drinking coffee at the cafe below my building before strolling to campus to read. 6:30 am now sounds like a made up time for crazy people. Before I left, I had it in my head that I would get up at 5:45 (as I had done before) go running then start my day of intense philosophical and mental training. Instead this happens.
I know, deep in my heart that this is not to last. Full time classes start up on Wednesday, which means my sleeping bear will turn into a bear of unstoppable architectural ambition and theoretical debate. (This has yet to be proven)
So let's get warmed up by going over a few things that have struck me since going back to Grad School.
Right now there is an ongoing and furious debate regarding whether or not architecture is being discussed properly in the contemporary field. Let's start by looking at this historically. Several years ago, I posted a joke about the catch phrases of the architectural field throughout the years. It went a little something like this:
Gothic: God is above us
Renaissance: God is Man
Baroque: God is infinite
Rococo: God, we have so much money
and so on and so forth.
The original poster is floating somewhere around my old supply closet. I may update it one of these days with whatcha y'all call your fancy 'photomashop'. The point is, for years, centuries even, movements could be defined by a catch phrase based on the drive of an individual or a solidified group. A dogma, if you will. Now though, there are so many different agendas vying for supremacy it makes for a really interesting yet sometimes depthless view on the architectural agenda. What do I mean?
Let's look at what's popular:
Things like Arch Daily and WAN are awesome, eye grabbing websites. Sexy images, sharp focus and high resolution denizens of genius that scream 'look at me!'. White backgrounds in a hermetically sealed world can make almost anything look thoughtful. However, this presents a problem: in formats like this, all you have is the image.*
*and sometimes there is nothing wrong with that. Many sites like this are just a vessel, a 'front page' of information. Therefore the flaw lies not with the monitors but with the up loaders.
Now while I'm sure that there is a deep philosophical meaning for each and every building, table, lamp etc. on these sites (please please PLEASE have meaning!), I don't know what it is. And now I don't care. Why? Because the pictures are pretty and it's shiny and I'm too in love with the object to see anything else. Not to be crass, but its like dating someone just because they're good looking. Deep, deep, DEEP down in the ugly part of your brain, you know you don't respect them, you just want them around so people know that you could afford them. (No hate, we've all done it. If you haven't it's because you are incredibly attractive. Also, do you want to go out?) It's fun and harmless, for a while, but in the end it can't last.
This presents us with the following topics:
1) If there is no defining ethos, can we positively identify the strongest trend in architecture right now?
2) You can't touch an image, how do I know if this actually works?
Options are the following:
The first problem will solve itself. In one scenario, 70 years from now, people will look back at architecture of our time and say 'oh, that looks like it was built in 2012'
'Why?' a Betty-White-style version of Retly Corm will ask from her futuristic Rascal scooter having been kept alive entirely by spite.
'Because' the cyborg replied, 'it's clearly a reflection of the computer derived neo-Baroque championed by the New York 5 and their subset. An obvious evolution from the tools of the age.'
The now whithered Retly Corm won't remember this because she is senile and fights her grandchildren for power of attorney.
OR
This period in architecture will be almost universally hated because there are so many different architects vying for position at the top of the heap. There are no more rules, yet everything starts to look the same with the exception of the 'brand name buildings' trying to out shock one another. Without devotion to a movement, the architect maintains their own name, vision and purpose and by proxy, the money they can make. A generation of Han Solos. If viewed negatively, it's like a never ending spiral of miserable performance art pieces, that are either obvious of or devoid of meaning. A group of people putting all the pressure on the tools used to create the art, not the art itself. This leads a viewer to think that there is an end to innovation.
But we can't really blame the architects, there is just a lack of unity. Which, for some (if viewed positively) means that the field is actually way more interesting. Then why the debate?
I think the problem is not necessarily what is being created, rather how we record what is being created. Does every site, blogger, writer, architect etc. need a chock-a-block manifesto stating their beliefs when creating a building? I mean, come on.
My response is a resounding: It can't hurt.
I've heard the argument that the creation of architecture is now, more than ever before, getting closer to the creation of art in its processes. That would be true, except that art does not need to fight gravity. Usually. But more so, I think there is a stereotype in the architectural world that art is created as a pure catharsis of emotion and that no rhyme or reason enters into it and sometimesthatfeelstrue. However, I have yet to meet any artist that did not have a strong philosophical meaning for why their art looks and or feels they way it does. Jasper Johns has oft claimed that:
"I don't think that you can talk about art and get
anywhere. I think you can only look at it."
but what I think he meant was its transference of meaning and not necessarily in its creation. If we follow Tolstoy's definition of art as described in 'What is Art?' we find that good art is a creation of experienced emotion that is then felt and understood by the viewer and bad art is selfish.
aaannnd here is the crux of our problem.
While Tolstoy's examination of art is not (to use my favorite phrase)'exclusively awesome', it does tell us that purely vision based architecture is pretty to look at, but is shallow. The only way to prove its meaning is to experience it in person. Not in a self publishing, self aggrandizing way, but in a way where you go, stop staring and a screen for 5 minutes and just be. Just you and the architect. Figuring out what you mean to one another. This can be increasingly difficult as architectural communication is now world wide. I can't drop everything and visit Vietnam...or can I? *checks bank account* nope, definitely can't.
THIS LEADS TO OUR SECOND POINT.
Art as well as architecture is moving towards one thing. That is, the tactile experience. If you are as drenched in the Internet as we have all become (Which is an incredibly ethnocentric way of observing culture) it is automatically assumed that you can't believe what you see, even in person. Therefore seeing is no longer believing. Spending +6 hours of your day waiting for a rhino screen to load will make you doubt that even the sky has not been photo enhanced and why? Because you don't watch it from start to finish, who has time for that? However, what you can trust is what you can feel.
It's the Doubting Thomas philosophy, even if it's standing right in front of you, you still need to experience it in an undeniable way (the only exception being that eyeball/peeled grapes gag).
This leads to architecture in many ways, from the scale of an entrance, to the material choice used, the feel of a door handle, that's the moment you connect with the architect on a human level. Not on what they were able to contrast out in the post-shoot, not what they were able to bloom out of the picture, just a physical moment. There you are, having a wordless conversation with an architect via an object.
The best example I have ever seen of this is the East Gallery by I.M. Pei, specifically one corner which is so worn down that the sharp, unforgiving edge has bowed in from oiled touch. When Pei designed the work, it was to meant to match the specific rules of the street angle. This is a recognizable moment if you are standing at the site. It frames the area and to be part of that philosophy, you touch a corner. The connection is real. That's what we should record. Not a press junket binder, but a moment where you feel real.
But maybe I'm wrong. Stay tuned for more on the London experience.
I know you are all but fed up with my posts about and theorizing on the ARE's, but I believe the following to be true: You must get roughly 70-75% of the multiple choice questions correct in each content area in order to pass. Why do we care? Well, on an exam with only 65 questions, like Site Planning & Design, and a possibility of 3 to 8 questions in a given content area, that means you could score a 63/65 (97%) and still fail. Why? Because you only got 1 out of 3 correct in the lesser of the 5 content areas. I believe that is what happened to me on PPP, and I am afraid that is what has just happened to me on SPD. I know I didn't get a 97% on PPP, I simply blew off studying the one content area, figuring I'd compensate on the others. Turns out they have you pegged for that!
Luckily, I believe my vignettes for SPD this time were beautiful. I finished early, but so as not to repeat last time's premature sign-off, I triple-checked everything and even made it crisper! I ended up only having 5 trees removed (the max was 6), but decided I needed to get more noon-time sun onto my terrace, so I relocated a sidewalk to delete the tree that was there. Never thought I'd intentionally delete a tree for something like that, but I suspect my neglect of the sunlight requirement was what in part tripped me up the last time. I just hope my indecisive studying this time didn't screw me up on the MC section. I did 90 - 100% on the 3 practice quizzes I did, so I figured what more could I study and just practiced on the vignettes. I wish I had reviewed codes more, but I kinda forgot about them - mostly forgot how specific the questions would be and how much memorizing was necessary in preparation!
Crossing my fingers majorly and hoping for the best!!
So last weekend I made a quick trip to Philadelphia to visit Jo Feb and marvel at the size and comfort of her Doylestown farm house apartment. When you live in the downtown area of a city, sometimes you can forget that something more than 300 square feet exists as actual living space. For more on the improvement work Jo Feb has done to her place, check out our earlier posts.
On the way back, I ran into some trouble at the bus station. Which was unusual (said no one ever) and I had to take a later one. Fortunately, this allowed for a walk with some friends to the new Barnes museum. I should be clear that in this analysis, we did not actually go in, as it was past 6:00 pm on a Sunday. Therefore I will limit thoughts and observations to the exterior.
Many moons ago, when I was actually a pottery major at St. Joseph's University and looked roughly like this:
I had been to the original Barnes to help a friend escape from the French Club that she had conned for a free trip from Chestertown, MD to Philadelphia. I have to be honest, it was not love at first sight.
The original Barnes had been set in a back area of a quiet neighborhood known as 'Lower Merion' in the suburbs of Philadelphia, near the intersection of the affluent 'Main Line' and the nice, but not as fancy 'City Ave'. It was not particularly easy to find, and the force was strong with the Neighborhood Association, meaning that there were strict rules for buses, tourists, loitering, etc. in the general area. Additionally tickets had to be bought in advance and were not always easy to obtain.
The first time around, something seemed so, I'm not sure... miserly, I guess about the whole transaction. As if they were doing me some great favor, that I should be down on my hackie-sack playing, save-the-whale-protesting, cafeteria-cake-stealing knees, thanking them for the opportunity to take what little money I had.
I think part of this was the natural snobbery which comes from being a college freshman, especially an art major. Additionally, let's be honest, in those days my number one concern was where you could get a cheese-steak at 2 in the morning.
Then, a little while later, my parents visited me at school and we went back. The second time around, I stopped being offended by the process and actually looked at the art and the space which enclosed it.
It. was. phenomenal. It was clearly the work of someone who not only had an eye for a particular style, but an eye for excellence and eclecticism within that style. Someone who loved and guarded their collection with pride and ferocity.
I would have classified it as the love child of the Villa Borghese in Rome and the Walters in Baltimore. From the Borgheses, it gets the privacy, privilege and clarity, from the Walters it gets the excellence in detail, the overwhelming size of the collection and the sense of self-accomplishment. It was tucked away, a solitary as an oyster but a gem to be discovered. I didn't understand that the first time: that you didn't get to just 'have' the collection, you had to earn it.
"The Barnes Foundation is the only sane place to see art in America" - Henri Matisse
Many have debated whether this is actually true or not. For my part, once I got over my sense of naive moral outrage, the gallery was nothing if not logical...and beautiful for that matter.
So if this gallery was SO GREAT, why move it at all? There in lies one of the most intriguing political questions in the world of art and architecture today. Similar to Sex, Politics and Religion, it seems the Barnes is not a topic you bring up at a cocktail party if you want to be polite (that is if Momma raised you right). Everyone has a differing opinion and if you want to look at it from a balanced perspective, neither side is totally wrong.
On the one side there are the believers that this fabulous collection was going to waste in a neighborhood that didn't appreciate it. They already have so much, good schools, beautiful homes, money: Why take this too? Plus all they do is complain about people coming to see it, you think they'd be happy to see it go. This collection should be seen by the whole world, not some uppity suburbanites.
On the other hand, you have those who wanted it to stay in Merion because it was not only a deeply rooted part of the culture, the pride of the area, but
also the will of the man who had bought the collection with his own
hard-earned money. Why should the intent of his will be stripped away by a bunch of money grubbing bureaucrats who only care about profiting from the art? They don't love the paintings, they love the prestige.
There's also the famous question of what the intent of Dr. Barnes actually was: did he really want to create a quality experience that had to be earned, or was he just trying to stick it to the snobs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art who looked down at him and his 'new money' ways?
You see the problem here.
This debate spawned two, really interesting media works. One was a play called 'Permanent Collection' by Thomas Gibbons. Read more about that here.
The play touched not only on the political aspect, but also on how the topic of race may have had its hand in the cookie jar as well. The Morris Museum that is discussed in the play is a thinly veiled Barnes with Sterling North as a convincingly torn Richard H. Glanton, the former president of the foundation.
The other piece is 'The Art of the Steal', now streaming on Netflix.
In the end, the city of Philadelphia won. The Barnes was moved to center city and the design of the new Barnes Foundation was under the care of the architectural duo of Billie Tsien and Tod Williams.
There's no way to win this fight if you're the architect who is asked to design such a building. What do you do? Whatever you design, at least 50% of the viewers are going to hate it based on the fact that it's been (in their opinion) stripped from its rightful home.
The only people who could truly understand the predicament would either be Jorn Utzon (now deceased...also, check out the story behind the Sydney Opera House, riveting) or those who have to deal with the Elgin Marbles. (British Museum vs. Bernard Tschumi. New Acropolis Museum, look it up.)
But nevertheless they took the commission. See below for their concept:
Like the original Barnes building, I didn't love this one right away. I saw the parti in the paper and thought 'Oh God, here we go: another pressed flat panel almost-like-but-not-quite-as-good-as-the-Getty design." But I was wrong.
In walking the exterior you see what Billie and Tod are up to. They want to make a garden in the city: something like but not quite the Lower Merion location. Let's be honest: it's not...yet.
Eventually the trees will grow in and the area will retreat back from the street, maybe by then the controversy will have relaxed. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Walking into the area, there is something to be said for the attention to detail. You can see that each aspect is considered, from the ramps onto the grassy areas to the finishes and the materiality, everything is deeply, deeply thought through. There is also the strong attention paid to the entry path. Like the original Merion design, they want you to earn the art. Walking up slowly makes you feel as if you're seeing somthing special. It's a ceremony, an honor.
However, on the other end, there's the big light sandwich that flirts with the parkway. Drawing you closer, seducing the viewer, making it something just out of reach.
This firm clearly knew what they were doing.
BT and TW couldn't just go rogue with any wild design, but neither could they submit entirely to the original Merion structure, it just wasn't big enough. Plus, what person wants to just copy the same thing over again? William Levitt
I had the opportunity one time of hearing Billie Tsien speak at Penn about architecture, specifically the firms previous work at the Folk Art Museum in New York. The lecture was thought provoking: particularly her views on the accessibility of education, which I won't paraphrase here for lack of a better memory. However, what I gathered from that lecture, is that everything about their work is considered as a piece of the whole concept. The anti-decorated shed approach.
To their credit, when I saw the Folk Art museum I thought they had made the most beautiful fire exit I had ever seen.
Now it is time for New Barnes pictures.
The new Barnes will never be the original Barnes. That's true. Whether or not the location of the institution is suitable, fair or even legal is a matter of debate. Was the original Barnes building beautiful? Yes. Is the new one beautiful? Yes.
I deeply regret not being able to have seen the interior. Someday soon I will return. Until then I recommend you check it out. If nothing else you can have controversial opinions at a cocktail party.
This post is a response or follow-up to my "conundrum" as described in this post.
I believe it was last Friday that my supervisor approved my IDP experience reports. This time I opted to stand behind him as he did it so I could witness the experience should I need to report a malfunction or mishap to NCARB again.
As it turned out, when my supervisor followed the link that came up in his email alerting him to the new report needing approval, he logged in and saw BOTH experience reports. I guess the one that was "hidden" or "missing" from last time somehow magically returned? Or perhaps when they were updating the interface/reporting system, the file got lost and has since been restored?
Either way, my supervisor was able to approve both experience reports without a problem. And consequently, I received in my email yesterday a notification that my IDP has been completed! Now just to wrap up those "loose ends...."
See, your holiness, I've seen Popes before who claim to be holy, but really, they're just in it for the money and the power. *cough Alexander VI cough* What? Oh nothing. Just got some Borgia stuck in my throat.
