natural advice (you can trust)

when a critic hands you negative criticism...

(link)

possibilities

perhaps your project can be a "book"?

is it a ship?

will your presentation look like this?

maybe it will win a presidents medal...?

so you need some drawing suggestions...?

how about some of these...?

(here is a bigger version of c&h)

some things never change

san angel inn (1960s)

and the solution is...

when you are looking for a solution to what you are told is an architectural problem – remember it may not be a building.

– peter cook and ron herron, “maxims to aa students”

("exactitude isn't truth"... henri matisse)

three dimensional line drawing

one of the canons of the futuristic painters, as propounded by modigliani, was that objects behind other objects should not be lost to view, but should be shown through the others by making the latter transparent. the wire sculpture accomplishes this in a most decided manner.

- alexander calder, statement on wire sculpture (1929)

calder, goldfish bowl, 1929

cw roelle, ahh, there you are. ready to go?
[more here...]

(between) transparency and invisibility

la línea como concepto humano expresa la relación

entre puntos. algo que es enteramente abstracto

en el sentido de: que físicamente

no existe en la naturaleza.

la línea como medio indica

materialmente la relación

entre puntos en el espacio, expresando

visualmente el pensamiento

humano descriptivo

la línea como objecto para jugar.

line as human

means to express

the relation between

points, something

that is entirely abstract

in the sense: of not

existing materially

in nature.

line as medium

indicates materially

the relation between

points in space,

expressing visually

human descriptive thought.

line as an object to play with.

- gego, sabidura 4

axon - model

eisenman, house x... front.

side...

so you've been to mexico city, eh...?

the "building" (aka UNAM Central Library)

at juan o'gorman's 1933 technical school:

(photo: liz lessig)

outside mathias goeritz's el eco experimental museum:

at the office of nuevo espiritu (fernando vasconcelos):

(photo: liz lessig)

the "traditional" photograph with don quijote and sancho panza (at our hotel)

at cafe de tacuba

(trying to make sure that everyone was well fed...)

our one "fancy" meal at san angel inn

(after the diego rivera/frida kahlo studio):

(photo: liz lessig)

if only...

architectural projects could be like pop-up books.

... like this:

[the rest of the images are here]

beginnings...

it was noted earlier that adding to the unam library was akin to reproducing a great painting...

and, since we don't do that anymore, we think about it differently...

adding to o'gorman, martinez, and saavedra's library should be considered as the "equivalent of sinking the painting" in order to create an "other" that is radically different but, simultaneously, based on the original: a minor production within the parameters of the first.

interactions

the building that is most precious to a nation is undoubtedly one which houses all acquired knowledge.

- etienne-louis boullée

projected entry to boullée's library

socratic dialogue around the book in boullée's library

searching for books in seattle

so you want to go to mexico city...

citambulos

(on the artificiality of the real): manifesto

we live today in the age of partial objects, bricks that have been shattered to bits, and leftovers. we no longer believe in the myth of the existence of fragments that, like pieces of an antique statue, are merely waiting for the last one to be turned up, so that they may all be glued back together to create a unity that is precisely the same as the original unity. we no longer believe in a primordial totality that once existed, or in a final totality that awaits us at some future date. we no longer believe in the dull gray outlines of a dreary, colorless dialectic of evolution, aimed at forming a harmonious whole out of heterogeneous bits by rounding off their rough edges. we believe only in totalities that are peripheral.

deleuze and guattari, anti-oedipus

our house...

i keep finding interesting books having to do with architecture (although i saw this at the moma a few years back)...

this intrigued me:

sitting in the stacks amid the smell of dusty paper and buckram, she began to envision a kind of parallel library, as if the society’s could somehow dream itself a new existence...

i also found this amazing... how could it be...? a book locked in a vault for 23 years...?

its description [this is a story about a nearly 100-year-old book, bound in red leather, which has spent the last quarter century secreted away in a bank vault in switzerland. the book is big and heavy and its spine is etched with gold letters that say “liber novus,” which is latin for “new book.” its pages are made from thick cream-colored parchment and filled with paintings of otherworldly creatures and handwritten dialogues with gods and devils] reminded me of the prospero's books ones. you can read all about it [here]

and, finally, proof that books are, indeed, dangerous tools (as i claimed at some moment or other): "according to the consumer product safety commission, some 10,433 injuries were caused by books, magazines, albums, and scrapbooks - which sounds bad until you consider that another 9,081 were caused by toothpicks or hors d'oeuvres picks." (ny times, 9.20.09)

some (other) things about maps

i forgot how much i like petra kempf's maps...

or guy debord's...

[more re. his mappings can be found here]

or these, which i just found... about fm stations in london

some things about maps

like guns and crosses, maps can be good or bad, depending on who’s holding them, who they’re aimed at, how they’re used, and why. here are some examples... or this one about why the terminator is the terminator...

here is an old one of mexico city...

[dated 1720, this map was produced by the government of mexico city in order to improve urban sanitation through the collection of garbage. it shows the central part of the city in detail, including names of streets, plazas, hospitals, hospices, columns, small squares, arches, and other places. (from the world digital library)].

some specifics on the library (and its surrounds)

the campus

the library

panorama

library at miniworld