Monthly Archive: May 2016

WRITING IS DRAWING 0

WRITING IS DRAWING

In the beginning, it was oral. The vessel of cultural knowledge, in the beginning,  was oracular;  humans communicating with each other with sounds that come from their mouths. The traditions and history of cultures...

SCARPA SYNESTHETICS 0

SCARPA SYNESTHETICS

Carlos Scarpa has always been a hero. So it was with great interest when I came across this passage in Harry Mallgrave’s The Architect’s Brain;  Neuroscience, Creativity and Architecture. This quote is attributed to...

CORB IN THE M’ZAB VALLEY 0

CORB IN THE M’ZAB VALLEY

In the 23 May 2016 issue of  The New Yorker, Julie Belcove writes about a new architectural exhibition that is being constructed in the Guggenheim. The artist is Kader Attia, and he has set...

PLATO ON PERSPECTIVE 1

PLATO ON PERSPECTIVE

In The Republic, it is nice to hear that Plato was skeptical of the linear perspective.  Writing in 380 BC, he states in Book X: “Thus (through perspective) every sort of confusion is revealed...

KNOWLEDGE DRAWING 0

KNOWLEDGE DRAWING

Drawings used to be vessels of knowledge. Yet the trajectory of vision has led to detachment.  Instead of a body centered experience, the distancing, as we have seen, promotes the nihilistic attitude that pervades...

SUPERFICIAL IMAGES 0

SUPERFICIAL IMAGES

Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida have all argued that the dominance of vision in our culture has only served to separate ourselves from the world.  While I don’t agree with this premise, I do understand...

SPECTATOR CULTURE 0

SPECTATOR CULTURE

The other evening, we made a design presentation in front of a municipal board for a new building.  As usual, we brought in an architectural massing model.  And we always work to give the...

WATERCOLOR SET HOT RODDING 0

WATERCOLOR SET HOT RODDING

Black is never included. For just about any of the watercolor sets that I have mentioned as suitable for our purposes, most of them do not contain black. Yet architects certainly have this compulsion...

AMAZING TRANSPARENCY 0

AMAZING TRANSPARENCY

Art  Qlate commented on Facebook about, to use their term, amazing transparency.  They ask which brand of watercolors I use. First of all, thanks to Art for their very kind comments.  The short answer...

SPECTATOR THEORY AND JOHN DEWEY 0

SPECTATOR THEORY AND JOHN DEWEY

We are not spectators. We are dynamic beings.  We move around.  We engage with the world in three dimensions.  Yet our culture conditions us to be spectators. Spectator theory insists that the world is...

OSMOTIC DRAWING 0

OSMOTIC DRAWING

Our critique of the one point perspective, it turns out, has had many supporting voices over the centuries.  One result is osmotic drawing. Maurice Merlaeau-Ponty was intensely critical of the ‘Cartesian perspectivalist scopic regime’. ...

AMSTERDAM, NY 0

AMSTERDAM, NY

I’ve driven thru it more times than I can count.  Typically it was on the way to a regatta at Saratoga.  Or on the way to Montreal.  There was either a boat in tow,...

CREATIVE DETAIL 0

CREATIVE DETAIL

We need to share details of our creative methods and processes. A couple of pages ago, I lamented that we don’t share any of the creative details of how we are inspired.  For example,...