Architect Louis Kahn (1901-1974) used to ask “What does the building want to be?” In talking about light, shadow and silence he’s also reported as saying, “Everything you make is already too thick. I would even think that a thought is also too thick.” I assume the kind of thick thinking to which Kahn refers is where…More
Tag Archives: architecture
Panoptic man
Panoramic photography, of the kind now common on digital cameras and smart phones, allows you to sweep your camera from a fixed point around 360 degrees (or part thereof) to produce a composite image to present either as a flat plane or to be revisited as an immersive simulacrum. What happens when bodies get in…More
Le Corbusier’s error
We all make mistakes. Take comfort though from the advice of cybernetician Ranulph Glanville: “error is, in itself, neither bad nor good, but endemic — it cannot be eliminated. . . . it is error that drives the system!” (p.1181)More
The opposite of architecture
If the universe requires antimatter as well as matter then surely anything is entitled to an opposite. With architecture it’s easy to identify candidates for the role. “Anarchitecture” could be a kind of anarchic practice against orderliness. If architecture is building something then its opposite probably involves pulling it down. If people think architecture produces iconic,…More
The reception of architecture
Meryl Streep’s embarrassing acceptance speech at the Golden Globe awards reception this week didn’t go down all that well, but the pistachio-crusted pistou ravioli was very well received. (She acknowledged everyone except the Iron Lady herself, and only apologised for “trampling over England’s history.”) Reception is a major issue in the arts. Talented artists receive awards, lavish events…More
Arboreal architecture gets wrong end of the stick
What is neuroarchitecture?[1] In a recent New York Times article author Sarah Williams Goldhagen claims that developments in cognitive neuroscience are having an effect on architecture. Cognitive neuroscience derives evidence about how the mind works from heavy duty brain imaging technologies such as EEG (electroencephalography), CAT (computed axial tomography), and NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) imaging. Neurotechnologies are getting cleverer,…More
Inconspicuous architecture
Are first impressions important? Architect Peter Zumthor thinks so. I enter a building, see a room, and — in a fraction of a second — have this feeling about it. Buildings inevitably impress us in some way. Many buildings stand out immediately. People make snap judgements on their beauty or lack of it, their functionality…More
Why ask?
Cambridge University has launched a campaign to celebrate the physicist Stephen Hawking’s 70th birthday in January 2012. You can Tweet (or email) questions to #AskHawking. The questions appearing so far are a mix of the extremely clever, sensible, predictable, witty, sarcastic and vulgar. Hawking is here serving as an oracle, a role often expected of…More
What has science got to do with it?
According to an article by Frank van der Hoeven in the Architectural Research Quarterly (ARQ), the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research thinks architecture is not being scientific enough, or at least architectural research suffers from not getting ‘the basics of its own scientific foundations right.’ What follows is an abstract from my response to this…More
Reality re-structured
Mass media entertainment gives the word “reality” a real hammering. Hammering provides a useful metaphor. One of the ways the empirically minded commonly assert the incontrovertible reality of the world is to thump on something solid. Catching up with just 15 minutes of the BAFTA winning “structured reality” tv show The Only Way is Essex…More