THE ARCHITECT SHALL DESIGN A FORM
The fundamental task of a designer is to design a form. Before any problem is solved there must be a form. Yet, designers are seen as problem solvers. A client may say, I...
Category: HISTORY
AUTHENTIC ANONYMITY
Rowe makes the point that Mies was concerned with anonymity. In Mies’ view, the idea was superordinant. The fact and the form were secondary. And this anonymity was deeply rooted in classicism. Beaux Arts...
SCORES AND SKETCHES
Architecture is what happens between your ears. The act of form generation has the greatest purity in your mind. Purity is reduced the more that the process moves toward a form that exists. ...
EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS
“Design is everybody’s business because we live in it, we eat in it, we pray and play in it. And still the appreciation of design, good or bad, is considered as the privilege of...
THE CULTURAL DIALOGUE OF FORMS
The forms that you design becomes markers of social order. Our forms, our stuff, our crap, becomes talismans of cultural value. Forms are a cultural road map: they are in direct conversation with the...
GUEST CORRESPONDENT: MICHAEL BERRY
Hi Kurt, In the last few days I have revisited your “entanglement” post and read and researched scientific papers published on the ‘entanglement’ theory… a load of assumptions are revealed, built upon former assumptions,...
ENTANGLEMENT
There is a new concept in science, and it is called entanglement. Objects, or forms, can only exist within a continuum of other forms. This means that there cannot exist simply one form,...
OSKAR SCHLEMMER
Oskar Schlemmer was a German artist and choreographer, working right before WW II. He taught at the Bauhaus, and is known for his acclaimed work, The Triadic Ballet. (The music was by Hindemith!). I...
LE MODULOR POSSIBILITIES
Le Corbusier’s Le Modulor, is iconic. It is referenced in the history books as a milestone. We toss off references to it as if everyone knows how it works. But do you really know...
WRONG UNITY
Unification of the painting has been an important goal for great talents in the West. We laude paintings that seek spatial unification, unification of paint with subject, unification of paint with paint, a oneness...
WORLD LEADERS NEED TO DRAW
That’s my answer. If it were up to me, I would say, yo, all of you! Stop it! You’re not playing nice! You world leaders need to draw! You need to sit down in...
THE ARCHITECTURAL IMAGE
In the seven years that I have been working on Transparent Drawing, I have done everything in my power to include other transparent thinkers. The third chapter of my book does just that. ...
THE ARGUMENT OVER NATURAL FORMS
One of the fundamental precepts of Western art over the eons is that art copies nature. And by nature, I mean any natural form that we knowledge with our senses, from outside the body....
TRANSCENTAL FORM
Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, is focused on what he calls pure, or transcendental form, and how it comes to be. Are the forms that we generate transcendental, and would Kant agree? ...
APODICTIC CERTAINTIES
I just finished reading Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. I can’t believe how closely it tracks with the basic premises of Transparent Drawing. I don’t want to spend any time “telling you what it...
IS ART USELESS?
A couple of pages ago, I wrote that art is useless. I have received two wonderful responses, one sent by Philippe Desfonds, and another by Michael Berry, both longtime readers. These passages are sage...
FRANKENTHALER TRANSPARENCY
Helen Frankenthaler painted transparently. She diluted oil paint with turpentine. This resulted in the paint acting more like a stain on the canvas, as it soaked in. The result was her breakthru into a...
DUCHAMP IS THE ORACLE
I keep coming back to Duchamp. Even as my reading and research continues to widen, Duchamp is the oracle. For example, I was re-skimming Tomkin’s absolutely excellent biography on Duchamp. I opened the book...
DECOLONIZE YOUR MIND
This is a time of profound cultural change. We are coming to grips with our endemic societal repressive and exclusionary practices. Race is one. Art is another. Decolonize your mind. Our adulation of the...
THE PERSPECTIVES
Quick: how many perspective drawing systems are there? You might immediately answer “two…no wait, three.” Ching, for example, lists the one and two point system. If you get adventurous, you might go for a...
AESTHETICS
In our quest for knowledge of form, where does aesthetics fit in? Are aesthetics and holistic form cognition supportive, or mutually exclusive? Goodman, in their book Language of Art, gives their take on the...
TIME AT CREATION
So let’s try looking at this in another way. When you draw, what you really do is create time. We already know that to knowledge form requires time. (See Time Of Seeing.) Your act...
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