preserving entropy
From the New York Times, the Dia Foundation's oxymoronic, futile, and yet nonetheless commendable effort to preserve Smithson's Spiral Jetty. Gotta love it.
From the New York Times, the Dia Foundation's oxymoronic, futile, and yet nonetheless commendable effort to preserve Smithson's Spiral Jetty. Gotta love it.
promulgated by progressive reactionary on 11/18/2009 08:30:00 PM 36 reactions
Topics: art, preservation
promulgated by progressive reactionary on 6/28/2009 09:27:00 PM 17 reactions
Topics: architecture, new-york, reviews
promulgated by progressive reactionary on 5/07/2009 07:49:00 PM 27 reactions
Topics: architecture, new-york
progressive reactionary can now be found on twitter. better late than never. let's see how long this lasts...
Since 1990 I have been occupied creating new forms of life.Well worth a look:
Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. I make skeletons that are able to walk on the wind, so they don’t have to eat.
Over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storms and water and eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.
- Theo Jansen, Strandbeest.com
Orhan Ayyuce calls this "the day the iconic building died." Should be interesting to see how Koolhaas spins this one.
UPDATE 11:20pm EST: From surreal to the sublime, and back again. More photos, courtesy of fuzheado's flickr site. One wonders if this won't go down as a Pruitt-Igoe moment for the excesses of contemporary architecture.
promulgated by progressive reactionary on 2/09/2009 09:52:00 PM 6 reactions
Topics: architecture, china, koolhaas
From the latest issue of Volume: a decent critique of that ever-elusive term "sustainability." The very word, emptied of meaning through overuse, increasingly dominates architectural design and discourse, and—frankly—it drives me crazy. People use it all the time without really knowing what they are talking about. I always ask: sustainable of what? Too often the word becomes appropriated as a band-aid, cure-all additive that can be applied as environmental/ecological veneer to an architectural project, like icing on a cake. But the word has become such a all-encompassing buzzword, a signifier onto which so many different aspirations and agendas have been projected, that it doesn't really mean anything anymore.
Panayiota Pyla's article in Volume starts to address these concerns and formulate a real critique of sustainability. Pyla focuses on the the historical underpinnings of the contemporary sustainability movement—from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring to the UN environmental conferences of the 1970's—and how these precedents can inform the potential pitfalls that we face by investing such uncritical faith in the S-word.
The crux of Pyla's argument: "Perhaps the key issue here is to be vigilantly aware that as a concept and as a practice sustainability is constantly running the danger of turning into a totalizing doctrine that subsumes critical thinking."
And another key section:
Maybe it is good that sustainability does not have a fixed or coherent definition. Maybe it should never have one! Because if the technical questions of energy efficiency or the technocratic questions of efficient resource use or even the questions of socioeconomic management end up constituting THE definition of sustainability in architecture, this will threaten to reduce design to a series of small decisions (on materials, energy or feasibility) that will ultimately have less to do with design and more with management or with political correctness.Apropos of the flawed LEED rating system, which constitutes the mainstream standard of sustainable design in this country, these are some wise words.
promulgated by progressive reactionary on 1/03/2009 02:21:00 PM 4 reactions
Topics: architecture, criticism, sustainability
It's a difficult thing—in the midst of two wars, a burgeoning economic disaster, an escalating conflict in Gaza, and countless other calamities worldwide—to identify things to look forward to in 2009. But if there's one thing that 2008 taught us, it's that hopes are not always left unfulfilled, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity. We forget this lesson at our peril as this new year unfolds.
At some point over the holidays, in between reading about the Rick Warren nonsense and the impossibly delusional phenomenon that is Rod Blagojevich, I was hit by a simple yet profound realization that the status quo in this country has shifted.
Let me be clear: I do not intend to enter the fray of meaningless arguments over whether we live in a "center-left" or "center-right" country; the center is and remains the center. I dare not speak of a political realignment, for I know how fleeting these moments can truly be (see: Karl Rove, 2004). What I'm talking about is a deeper shift in the cultural psyche of a nation, a shift in people's expectations, tolerances, aspirations, and ambitions for what is possible.
Sure, Obama and the incoming administration—as do all governments, by definition—represent the status quo. But, to put it simply: it's a different—and better—status quo than that which governed us a year ago. And that alone merits quiet celebration, even in these uncertain times.
Here's to a hopeful 2009. And stay tuned to this Progressive Reactionary, as we persist in questioning, challenging, and continuously re-imagining our new status quo.
promulgated by progressive reactionary on 1/02/2009 03:19:00 PM 1 reactions
promulgated by progressive reactionary on 12/21/2008 06:28:00 PM 16 reactions
Topics: architecture, new-york