blog typology

Via Andrew... I just ran this site through the Typealyzer, which claims to analyze a website and categorize the author in terms of right-brain/left-brain dominance. This Progressive Reactionary landed smack-dab in the left-brain camp of the so-called "Mechanics":

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generelly prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.
The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

Not entirely inaccurate... although I'd hate for these pages to become a product merely of the left brain! We must be fair and balanced, as they say. Keep your eyes peeled for future postings on "imagination," "symbols," "spirituality," and other right-brain oddities.

postopolis @ storefront

For those in New York, the Storefront for Art and Architecture is hosting a week-long blog-fest called "Postopolis." Starring BLDGBLOG, City of Sound, Inhabitat, and Subtopia, along with many guest stars, it promises to be an exciting series of presentations and discussions. There seems to be quite a generational range of participants, mixing younger bloggers and practitioners with old-guard characters like Mark Wigley, Michael Sorkin, and Lebbeus Woods -- should be interesting to see how that pans out. Who knows... maybe PR himself will stop by and make an appearance?

MoPo

It's been a while since I've posted - apologies for that. Things are quite busy with the day job, but do not despair - plenty of thoughts, commentary, and critique is brewing...

In the meantime, I'm honored to be included on Michiel van Raajj's "Most Popular Architectural Blogs 2007" along with such great reads as BLDGBLOG, Things Magazine, and Pruned. True - we're ranked #24 out of 25, but regardless: recognition is always a good thing. Thanks Michiel!

PR.

new logo

You may have noticed that I'm testing out a new logo - hopefully the first step in a slow process of redesigning the whole site. Any thoughts?
I'm also hoping to integrate more RSS feeds, Del.icio.us links, tag clouds, etc. in an interesting way - I'm finding that the linking of links has been the most productive means of finding information these days. If anyone has some websites that are worth looking at for this kind of thing- let me know.

PR

one year on.

Today Progressive Reactionary turns one year old. It was exactly a year ago when I sat down and decided to conduct an experiment: to start a blog about architecture, urbanism, and politics, and to see if it would go anywhere. I was (and remain) thoroughly convinced of the political potency of two separate realms -- the blogosphere and architecture -- and I saw this project as an experiment to link the two, with the hope of exploring what such an intersection could produce and how such potential could be further developed. Having recently graduated from architecture school and just beginning to practice professionally, I am (still) deeply committed to the political dimension of architecture, and the fact that the smallest creative act -- whether designed, drawn, or written -- has larger political repercussions that always must be taken into account. The blog was to become a forum to test these assumptions.

It should be said that there were two main factors that initially inspired Progressive Reactionary. The first is a general political ignorance at both the academic and professional levels of architecture culture that, for lack of better words, just drives me crazy. Ignorance breeds inertia, and the unbelievable lack of political engagement on behalf of architects -- practitioners of the most political of arts -- is simply unacceptable and, truly, unsustainable. The second inspiration was the ongoing debate on the role of pragmatism in architecture: specifically, the flurry of articles and theoretical treatises in recent years on the merits and inadequacies of so-called "critical" architecture. What seems to be a perpetual dilemma for architects -- to what extent one should operate within or without the machinery of global capitalism -- seemed to be a logical starting point for a blog on architecture and politics.

So I thought it would be worthwhile to take a moment and look back on this year. A recap, if you will. And maybe a little pre-cap for what's to come. Anyway, without further ado...

Progressive Reactionary began with a simple provocation: could it be possible to have a reaction of progress? In other words, could reactionary strategies pragmatically be applied to progressive causes?

Several themes emerged. Hurricane Katrina and the incredible -- if tragic -- opportunity it offered for some kind of progressive reconstruction of the Gulf region became an obvious topic of discussion, especially as such progressive prospects dwindled and such opportunities were lost. I found myself posting numerous diatribes on New Urbanism and its discontents, an issue that continues to fascinate me and that will surely surface again. Reconstruction at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan became another target: the memorial design, the Freedom Tower , and the entire master plan have all devolved into artifacts of bureaucracy and poor leadership, and collectively they represent another missed opportunity.

Another recurring theme has been the work of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown, and their incredibly prescient embrace of architecture's capacity for social commentary. Apparently there is an obsession with the Venturi's that has been brewing in my subconscious and has been unacknowledged until I realized how many posts I had written about their work. A related obsession is the work of their young British followers, FAT. Stay tuned for more discussion of how garish postmodern architecture can interface with progressive political ambitions.

Some other highlights and random musings include: John Portman (a pseudo-hero, I'm a bit embarrassed to say), Paul Goldberger, Herbert Muschamp, various political postings (and then some), the Baghdad Embassy, the merits of sustainability, SANAA, and Herzog & de Meuron. Quite a grab bag, I know.

As for what's on tap... I have a long list of things that I'm planning, including numerous book reviews, plenty of more architectural criticism, and hopefully more coverage of lectures and events. I have a piece on the Danish architects formerly known as PLOT that I'm working on, as well as a look at the OMA / CCTV exhibition currently on view at MoMA. If only I didn't have a day job... alas. Thanks much to all my readers -- I never expected this experiment to take off so rapidly (I think the latest hit count was somewhere in the thousands, which always surprises me). As always, I appreciate any commentary, criticism, etc... you know where to find me.

PR

eikongraphia

Michielangelo recently has re-launched his blog as Eikongraphia, an updated version of his ongoing investigations into the role of iconography in architecture. I've definitely enjoyed Michiel van Raaij's thoughts and speculations as to how a building's iconography relates to its form and meaning -- his commentary is hard to categorize but easy to appreciate. The basic premise consists of short vignettes that take on a building strictly on iconographic terms (some of my favorites include the Penis and Vagina entries), thereby attempting to reconcile traditional formal concerns with a building's actual lasting effect -- essentially, how it is consumed by its observers. Read van Raaij's "Narrative" for a more detailed description of his methodology. While I do have some concerns with reading a building simply as an object for consumption, I am intrigued by the notion of "iconicity" (a term I presume coined by van Raaij? I've never come across it before) as an architectural quality to be pursued, or even perfected. It potentially offers a new, post-Venturi Scott-Brown way of understanding architectural form, and I'm curious to see how it plays out -- and if the politics of form/iconography will come into play.

link: Eikongraphia

artkrush 41 / boeri

Check out the new issue of Artkrush (their third architecture issue) - there's an interesting interview with Stefano Boeri (of Boeri Studio, Multiplicity, and editor of Domus) in which the Italian architect talks about some of his myriad research endeavors throughout the globe. I've always had a few misgivings about Boeri's methodology -- which essentially consists of obsessive and exhaustive documentation of super-local conditions -- as it walks the fine line between studied observation and sensationalist exploitation (dare I say exoticization). While I know that Boeri's intentions are of course not to exoticize or exploit, and I appreciate his rigorous explorations of emergent urban conditions, there is always a certain ambiguity in my mind about who is actually benefitting or profiting from the research.

Regardless -- the interview is pretty interesting. In relation to my own concerns, I found this excerpt on Boeri's intentions particularly compelling:

I believe that the act of observing, describing, and interpreting the built environment helps us understand the community we inhabit. And I believe that the landscape — the territory continually defined by our movements, reinvented by our desires, punctuated by what we build — is an excellent metaphor for our society. The local is a treasure chest rich in details and clues that tell us about the forces that permeate our daily lives, forces that at times are manifest in the space that surrounds us, perhaps just for a few instants, like footsteps in the snow. Architecture's political dimension is not to be found in the labels we attach to our projects, nor in our magniloquent political declarations; rather, it lies in the production of useful and critical knowledge about the world that surrounds us — knowledge that is useful because it is critical.

I also am intrigued by Boeri's interpretation of borders and boundaries as potential sites for intervention and action: "I try to conceive of boundaries as the sensors of contemporary world dynamics — dynamic 'devices,' which vibrate with the energy and resistance that drive current history." Since it seems that the world we live in is increasingly defined by different degrees of boundaries and "devices" of separation, it makes sense to pursue architectural strategies that subvert and redirect these divisive phenomena towards a more productive purpose. The question is: how?

blog radar :: 6 september

A quick post to mention two noteworthy blogs that I recently came across:

• Exquisite Struggle , Andrew Faulkner's periodic ruminations and "reflections and Radical Critique on Architecture, Urbanism, Philosophy, and Daily Life." What hooked me was today's post on Paris Hilton. A must-read.
• Tenuous Resilience, an endeavor by Evan Chakroff, an architecture student at Ohio State. The latest post is a thoughtful reflection on building codes and other architectural (and non-architectural) manifestations of the "illusion of safety." As Chakroff laments such illusions for limiting the thrill and dynamism produced by the threat of danger, he touches on (but never actually mentions) an age-old architectural preoccupation: the sublime. What seems most provocative to me is how he links this notion of the supressed sublime to a larger political imperative -- and by doing so, shows quite clearly that the aesthetic experience (or its repressions) is always fundamentally political.

At first glance, these two bloggers both seem to promise plenty of polemical commentary and critique... I look forward to future provocations!

bldgblog: interview with kazys varnelis

BLDGBLOG continues its recent string of fantastic posts with Geoff Manaugh's interview with Kazys Varnelis, of AUDC and the newly formed Network Architecture Lab at Columbia's GSAPP. Check it out. I was lucky enough to see Varnelis's talk at the Philip Johnson symposium in Yale back in February, which reframed Johnson's career as a series of powerful social and professional networks, and which used Johnson's AT&T Building project from the 80s as a narrative framework for the critique (read the paper here). Varnelis's new position at the GSAPP represents one of Mark Wigley's first new major hires for the history/theory curriculum since his accession to the deanship two years ago, and I think it's definitely a smart pick-up for the school... Varnelis will join the likes of Frampton, McLeod, Ockman, and Reinhold Martin -- already quite a strong bunch -- and hopefully his addition to the faculty represents a renewed commitment to the critical approach espoused by these folks over the years. If nothing else, the NetLab is evidence of Wigley's ever-so-slight shift away from the digital form-obsessed Tschumi years towards a more politically, socially, and ethically conscious form of architectural education. Can't wait to see how it all plays out...

link: "The Logistics of Distance: An Interview with Kazys Varnelis", at BLDGBLOG

"dead serious" indeed.

PROGRESSIVE REACTIONARY IS HONORED to be recognized in the latest issue of Artkrush as a member of the crop of "sleek, minimal, and intelligent" design sites that has recently emerged throughout the blogosphere. Here's to a happy future of "dead serious" commentary and criticism!

link: Artkrush 26