A fantastic reminder!
'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Author' Robert Pirsig : NPR
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had a huge influence on me during my second year of college. The book caused me to consider quality in technology and in art and introduced me to an approach to perceiving both. I highly look forward to a re-read.
A Brief History of Architecture Fiction: Implausible Futures for Unpopular Places
Stephen Duncombe: “There is no duplicity, no selling the people a false bill of goods. It’s a dream that people are aware is just a dream. Yet at the same time these impossible dreams open up spaces to imagine new possibilities. … [their] impossible solutions are means to imagine new ones.”
Lebbeus Woods: an explanation of War and Architecture
Lebbeus Woods, who wrote “War and Architecture” in 1993, explains three principles for reconstructing war-torn cities. These principles continue to be of profound importance.
The Death and Life of Great American Criticism
“What (Lewis) Mumford also did, though — and what few architecture critics have done since — was to enlarge the scope of the endeavor; he saw architecture not simply as the art of building but more broadly as a lens through which we can view and understand our culture and ourselves.”
The essayist, Thomas Fisher, extracts qualities exhibitted by Lewis Mumford, Ada Louise Huxtable, and Jane Jacobs that are urgently needed in architectural criticism. Chuck Close’s portraiture is used as an anology for architectural criticism.
Steven Van Zandt: There Is Only One Issue In America
“The corporation has but one obligation, which is to increase profits for it’s shareholders by any legal means necessary by the next fiscal quarter.
They have no moral, patriotic, social, environmental, generational or even sustainable responsibility. They have only a short-term economic mandate and their only responsibility to society is to stay within the law to accomplish it.”
Steven Van Zandt claims that the freedom of corporations to finance a political campaign (apparently donating money is a form of free speech?!) corrupts and undermines the electoral system. Such a dysfunctional political system ultimately causes countless social problems. I agree with the basic argument though I’m skeptical that eliminating campaign financing is realistic and the single answer.
“Knowing that our time in the sun is limited, sometimes we try to capture time and light with images. Albrecht Durer’s etching, “Melancholia I” associates light with order and darkness with chaos. The composition places the products of the imagination – geometry, mathematics, tools, and architecture – within the timeframe of an hourglass running out.
In this picture, the imagination succeeds in creating a mental zone that overrides both astrophysics and religion – it holds together past, present and future with rays of perpetual sunlight – messengers of time etched in metal.”
good:
From cardboard to Photoshop: Occupy Design brings infographics to the aid of the 99 Percent.
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
—Bertrand Russell
David Smith is interviewed about the eviction and subsequent demolition of Tarlabasi, an historic neighborhood in Istanbul. Staying at a flat in this neighborhood some years ago was a powerful experience that left me with fantastic memories. It is devastating to imagine its imminent destruction.
(Source: tarlabasiistanbul.com)
