workbooks
diagraphics and the metaphysics
of the imagination
Je juge cette longue querelle de la tradition et de l'invention
De l'Ordre de l'Aventure
Vous dont la bouche est faite á l'image de celle de Dieu
Bouche qui est l'ordre même
Soyez indulgents quad vous nous comparez
A ceux qui furent la perfection de l'ordre
Nous qui quêtons partout l'aventureNous ne sommes pas vos ennemis
Nous voulons vous donner de vastes et d'étranges domaines
Où le mystère en fleurs s'offre à qui veut le cueillir
Il y a là des feux mouveaux des couleurs jamais vues
Milles phantasmes impondérables
Auxquels il faut donner de la réalité
Nous voulons explorer la bonté contrée énorme où tout se tait
Il y a aussi le temps qu'on peut chasser ou faire revenir
Pitié pour nous qui combattons toujours aux frontières
De l'illimité et de l'avenir
Pitié pour nos erreurs pitié pour nos péchés.
-- Guillaume Apollinaire from "La Jolie Rousse"
We intend to use this medium for exchanging and sharing creative interests with collegues and others and not as a promotional vehicle to convince how well we have performed the architectural dance to date; rather than bore with displays of past works now holding their place as objects in the "real", it is more compelling to present the artistic methodologies employed while ideas are still subjects in the smithy of our imagination. Dwelling on our achievements is to become the object of the objects we create and in so being, lose the position of "adventure" (Georg Simmel) that creative thinkers must maintain -- to be one step ahead of the real and not foils for its tyranny towards those who court the unknown.
"... chalepon de tade zôoisin horasthai.
messôi gar megaloi potamoi kai deina rheethra,
Ôkeanos men prôta, ton ou pôs esti perêsai
pezon eont', ên mê tis echêi euergea nêa.""...Hard is it for those that live to behold these realms,
for between are great rivers and dread streams;
Oceanus first, which one may in no wise cross on foot,
but only if one have a well-built ship."
--Homer, Odyssey, 11.155.
Ogni luogo deve essere eccellente per noi per lavorare e tutto deve essere materia di creazione non esteriore e narrativa, ma interiore e interpretativa.
Transl: Every place has to be excellent for us to work (in) and all (in it) has to be not exterior and narrating but interior and interpreting stuff of creation.
-- Umberto Boccioni, 1914
Through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose. (No ideas but in things.) Invent!
Wiliam Carlos Wiliams
It is not the rationalization that was wrong in the first (and now past) period of modernArchitecture; the wrongness lies in the fact
that the rationalization has not gone deep enough . . . The newest phase of architecture tries to project rational methods from the
technical field out to human and psychological fields.'
Alvar Aalto: 1940Man has a prejudice against himself; anything which is a product of his mind seems to be unreal or comparatively insignificant. We are satisfied only when we fancy ourselves surrounded by objects and laws independent of our nature.
--GEORGE SANTAYANA, as quoted in "Collage City" by Colin Rowe & Fred Coetter, 1978' But suddenly you touch my heart . . .'
Le Corbusier
rhyzomes
deontology
theoretical speculations
history of practice
e-dialogues
(what)
next
diachronic proclivities(is)
__ a2l0w0a0ys__
(was)
prochronic
heterogeneities
(what)
... Louis Khan
NOTE: Navigation buttons found in the following pages sometime use images which are not the work of our office, and that have been included because their thematic content was influential in our design thought process. There are instances where we have taken the liberty of including them without first asking permission from their respective authors In such cases, their names have been attatched under them.
