weeks 8 & 9

[ studio ]

post-mid-review called for a shift in focus to more practical matters, like program, programmatic diagrams, sections, and plans ... but not too much. i was fully aware that i would continue to vacillate between the two (are there really just two states to begin with? i find this attitude to be quite arcane. and even if there were two definable states i simply could not discern whether this project occupied both, none, or hundreds of these 'areas' simultaneously. good sign, i suppose) so i was prepared for potential twists and headaches down the road where the conceptual foundation could develop significant weaknesses.

until now the project had remained in a highly conceptual territory, and now that it had become clear the overall conceit of the project was fairly well determined this meant that i needed to look for ways to actually materialize these ideas. the alternative would be a project that, in my eyes, would be a failure. of course, this is where the project started to become exciting. the diagrams were beginning to look more "realistic," which further pushed me to start building physical models.

some images of sketches / models:

01 _ spaces between the space of the fragment were beginning to become more crucial to the arrangement of the fragments than the fragments themselves.

02 _ this idea had a great deal of potential - that there could be a great deal of flexibility between the program (offices, laboratories, meeting areas, and so forth) and the display/storage area for the damaged artwork. in other words, the programmed spaces related to the damaged artwork more directly, and the visual 'bridges' occurred vertically as well as horizontally. in the end, i did not have enough time to develop this provocative strategy further.

03 _ program (colored ribbons) that surrounds and sometimes encompasses the display area (brown bridge).

04 _ the outside boundary was a residual idea that was eventually eliminated because it was no longer necessary and conflicted with the conceptual roots of the project.

05 _ there was not enough time to fully examine the methods of display. this was an idea that involved the potential display of artwork that had been reduced to a cloud or small particles. could they simply be cycled through a circuitous chamber that could display the particles? what does this say about the space the fragments occupy, as well as the spaces between the fragments? what does this say about the display of art itself?

06 _ these were studies that attempted to use a formulaic system of distance to determine the space between the objects. a more comprehensive understanding of parametric software could have turned this idea into something very interesting. it's a shame my knowledge of grasshopper is pretty weak.

07 _ the boxes represent containers for the fragments, and they stack when there is no longer room along the line of the fragment. this creates new and fascinating relationships between the fragments. they become reconstituted not because of the physical and material properties of the original art-piece, but are reorganized based on their new properties and a system of distance. the fragments then acquire a new autonomous identity, liberated from their previous identity.

this became the primary conceptual base of the project - an anti-forensic organization of damaged artwork.

we also had the pleasure of meeting with a representative from AXA Insurance, a company that insures artwork and therefore owns many pieces of damaged art. a few interesting notes from the meeting _

- AXA offers an insurance product. this is a highly conceptual industry.

- a "floater" agreement with the collector that the insured product is protected no matter where it is. this includes the primary physical address, any other location of display, and in transit.

- according to AXA rep, there really is no objective method of assessing the value of a piece of art.

- its easy to see how competitive this industry is, because the insurance companies are willing to put so much on the line to work with these collectors. in other words i could throw my original arshile gorky panting in a suitcase wrapped in bubble wrap and duct tape and send it to california, and when it arrives completely destroyed, it is still covered by my insurance. in other words, AXA covers the stupidity and negligence of their collectors because if they could not exist.

- however, there are five exceptions: inherent vice, failing of drawing and/or photograph, earthquakes, government confiscation, and nuclear war.

- the art world is, in her words, "Driven by commercial interests."

[ metropolis ]

after paris came los angeles and new york. the la discussion obviously hinged on the work of robert venturi & denise scott brown, beginning with complexity & contradiction, and the ny discussion was similarly based upon koolhaas' delirious new york.

what was interesting about these two projects was their respective beginnings, in that each 'examination' or 'brief' as venturi liked to call C&C, could not have occurred if they were not a stranger to the place they were studying. in other words, by taking the role as a curious outsider one then assumes a different position than if they were familiar or even comfortable with the place. in venturi's case, las vegas and los angeles were two cities that he could not come to terms with. because venturi was not 'at ease' with these places and because they were foreign, he felt compelled to examine and document their conditions. koolhaas was similarly fascinated by manhattan and its urban and social conditions that were so foreign to the dutch landscape. enrique also talked at length about the term 'landscape' in the randstad lecture, but that's another discussion.

it was also interesting to reflect upon my education and see some of venturi and koolhaas in much of it. for example, venturi celebrates many of the conditions that we often exhaust ourselves resisting, such as programmatic constraints or site parameters, not to mention the basic notion that design can never negotiate the perfect outcome. the idea that we can benefit from highly constrictive paramaters, and that it is useful to invent additional constraints to direct the design process had been suggested intermittently while at ksu. nevertheless, it was an idea that was provocative enough to stick in my mind despite its quiet presence.

learning from las vegas was fascinating because it was essentially borne out of venturi & scott brown's frustration with their current "tools" for examining cities. in other words conventional means of representation - plans, sections, photographs, axons, and so forth - could no longer sufficiently describe the city and how it operates. LLV was their attempt to develop new tools to document and decipher the city. more significant was the possibility that these tools could be exported and use to document another place, and now cities could be used to make architectural arguments.

it was inevitable that postmodernism would be brought up in this discussion, although enrique deliberately avoided saying it himself - he was waiting for one of us to broach the subject. "did you notice i didn't use the word once during the lecture?" he quipped.

enrique chose to avoid the topic for a variety of obvious reasons. for one, the topic is by definition an intellectual trap, one that attempts to acknowledge too much but manages to produces very little. secondly and more importantly, the term did not even exist within the context of architecture until charles jencks popularized the term in his book, the language of post-modern architecture in 1977. since then, the term has been grossly misused and therefore is hardly worth considering (of course, here i am, writing at length about a topic that i cannot come to terms with myself). while jencks description of the style was more accurately rooted in ideas of pluralism, progress and complexity, it was quickly mischaracterized and reshaped into an oversimplified trope used to describe all architecture built post-1972 when pruitt-igoe in st. louis was destroyed. by associating an architectural style with the destruction of one building type, the term took on a new identity and became one that falsely implies that postmodern architecture is easily identified by its clumsy, stout and playful material properties.

there have been so many alarming repercussions of this label. one, it illuminates how the architectural field has allowed itself to be defined, described and sold by architectural critics. of course critics are necessary in some ways, but like most useful things they have limits. this case exposes how we are incapable of existing without the filter of critics and the broad and misleading labels we have allowed to be disseminated. furthermore, it is completely unfortunate that none of these aesthetic reductions go anywhere near the more substantive core of the 'movement,' and because it is described as a shallow and aesthetically unappealing phase, it allows others to dismiss it entirely without acknowledging what these symbols might actually recall or imply.

is this an argument for postmodernism? perhaps, although i suspect that to some this would be a position worthy of nothing short of fierce condemnation, because we have been trained to think that way. pomophobia must be stopped!

[ arguments ]

this section involved a discussion of the architectural pavilion as a means of spreading architectural information, and lecture by andres lepic, who is a german historian and now the architectural curator at moma. the lecture itself was largely a discussion of moma's annual ps1 exhibition in long island city. we prepared for each of these through several readings that were concerned with the role of museums and the influential exhibitions they have curated.

exhibitions that present the history of architecture are a bit of a phenomenon of late-twentieth-century architecture and museological culture, in large part because of the challenge of framing the arguments of historians and scholars as well as the practitioners the exhibition aims to showcase. the discussion hinged on both curatorial strategies and the repercussion, both intentional and accidental, of highlighting an architectural movement. this often runs the risk of reducing the work of a collection of architects to a narrow theme.

on the other side is ps1, which has played a significant role in exposing the work of lesser-known architects. this topic was particularly relevant because this summer's current installation was designed by florian idenberg's office, solid objectives, who is currently teaching here at columbia. while their work has been provocative, and influential, knowledge of their work had not reached a broader audience. i'd like to believe their name has always been worth of more notoriety (pole dance was an amazing idea, with or without the help of moma) the 'ps1 effect' will likely catapult his office into a higher tier within the discipline.

lastly, the architectural pavilion was a topic that was intriguing enough to explore for my final arguments paper. more on that later.

[ digital craft ]

too much time spent on papers, mid-reviews and models meant that something would fall by the wayside. naturally, it was digital craft. still, i managed to complete a physical model of the utrecht university library, despite the fact that there were so many headaches with the small funnel that is the output shop. you can only imagine how messy it is for ninety needy students to be requesting access to only two laser cutters and one cnc machine.

some images _

01 _ building the model in rhino.

02 _ to make the pattern i simply scanned an image of the it from a book published by wiel arets, took the image into illustrator, transformed it into a dwg, and then turned the enclosed areas from a solid hatch into a cross hatch. of course this meant the machine had to etch every single line within the hatch boundary, which ended up igniting the basswood. this required precise calibration of the machine, which required me to jump down to the output shop numerous times, a difficult and arduous task when other people are waiting for you to finish and you have more important work to do in the first place.

03 _ i then applied several coats of a glossy black spray-paint.

04 _ the concrete panel with the pivoting panel.

05 _ the pivoting panel. the system is so well-crafted. the pivoting panels rotate outward, allowing more light to filter inside the building, but to also allow the slots concealed within the system to bring air into the building. basically the building is sheathed by a glass and metal machine, with the 'willow' pattern either cast into the concrete panels or etched into the glass. it's stunning.

images from mid-review _ 07 21

some highlights from the midreview. if the following looks incoherent it's not only because i have excluded several images, but also because we have generated several different schemes and used a variety of design and analysis tactics for each one. luckily things became a bit more coherent towards the end. more on that eventually.

01 _ intro _

02 _ In my examination of the military and it's relationship to damage and damage control i created a series of studies that aimed the diagram a specific event. this operation involved extracting information from the suicide attack on the us military base in khost, afghanistan in december, 2009 _

03 _ image two of three _

04 _ image three of three _

05 _ examination of military operations regarding insurance, and monetary assessment of its assets _

06 _ excerpt from another study that examines military's assessment operations and their determination of value _

07 _ conceptual study examining jeff koons' michael jackson and bubbles. this was an attempt to suspend artistic value through distance and discouragement, as well as a provokation of the art institution and it's role in the application of artistic value _

08 _ part of a series of studies that combined the highly sensitive and value military assets with pieces of art _

09 _ the fragment as a charged object - filled with symbolic content that must be disseminated and understood, but not with the intention of reconstructing its prior state or condition. rather, the fragment seeks to remain autonomous relative to its neighboring fragments _

10 _ the spatialized fragment - it's new condition an invitation for intersections, punctures and inhabitation _

11 _ a study that looks at the potential to inhabit the space between the fragments _

12 _ series of studies that look for ways to create a systematic relationship between the fragments. the operations would be based solely on their spatial relationship to one another. conditions of materiality and damage are not considerations here, but would likely become factors one the fragments were better understood _

13 _ distribution of fragments _

14 _ continued expansion of volumes between fragments. the SAI is a pavilion with multiple entries or 'punctures.' this is an attempt to express the notion that confrontation is a method of understanding _

15 _ part of another study examining the spatial potential of fragments of varying size _

16 _ part of a conceptual study, examining the volumetric qualities of the singular fragments. here, the fragments work as a system to bloat and shape the envelope.

17 _ montage of envelope that encloses the fragments. the envelope expands to accomodate fragments of larger size and shrinks for the smaller particles. conditions of damage, source of damage, material properties, and so forth would require further study by the institute.

weeks 6 & 7

[ studio ]

the core of the project remains the organization of fragments, but this still needs much more development. i know the ideas will reveal themselves, but it's just going to take more exploration. (i should probably stop writing right now and get back to work, no?)

anyway, because they are separate from one another, the conceptual objective is give the fragments autonomy over their new identity. dispersal is useful because it is fundamentally about loss, but loss is also opportunity to insert something new. yes, they will be viewed by different individuals who are likely to project their own meanings onto the objects, but that will occur no matter how the objects are presented and is therefore not a consideration here.

the mid-review was a bit anti-climactic, but that's often the case i suppose. the reviewers provided some decent feedback, but i thought it was telling that some of them had difficulty understanding what i was really challenging by arranging the objects this way. is it too logical? too straightforward? obviously the wrong response is to add complexity for its own sake, but it remains a tempting new path.

the most useful insight i gained was to focus more clearly on the space between the objects. in some ways this is what i was doing from the beginning, and through several diagrams i had previously made (i will post these images eventually) this project was completely about the spacing of the objects. nevertheless, this idea needs to be examined with more intensity and threaded through every scale of the project. in other words, the fragment(s) new identity can be understood vis-a-vis its proximity to its neighboring fragments. an ursula von rydingsvard sculpture is understood a certain way when seen as a solid piece, but at what point does it become mis-read if it is fragmented? how much space is necessary between these objects? how much difference does it make if the fragments are uniform? varying?

one of the reviewers was also concerned about the purpose of the building. he wanted to know whether this display says anything about the study of the objects. in other words, how is the examination of the objects displayed? what does this have to do with value? perhaps i need to be more self-conscious about the institution-ality of the salvage art institute, and its own value.

more questions:

how can the architecture organize itself around the unorganizable?

what can the architecture learn from a broken piece of art?

what can the architecture return to the fragment? meaning? relevancy? greater importance?

do these fragments become the structural grid itself - the framework within which the program lies and is organized? autonomy is claimed vis-a-vis the fragment's location?

perhaps the SAI should aim to generate an organizational system based on a specific taxonomy - size? value? material properties? damage?

[ arguments ]

these two weeks of arguments were centered on photography as a means of spreading architectural information. we had class visits to the gsapp's archive, and had the pleasure of looking at some of ezra stoeller's original photographs in addition to some other rare and original pieces. the class discussion revolved around the work of dan graham and stoeller, and how they have both contrasting styles and objectives. stoeller seems to prefer to create a sense of distance between himself in the architecture, for the purpose of honestly presenting the building and the ideas it contains. that is to say, stoeller was the perfect "architect's photographer," completely aware of his responsibility to both understand and present the ideas the architect intended to convey. graham's work is more critical if not cynical. nevertheless, he was attempting to find the art in ordinary things, and the display of the ordinary things was artful itself.

at some point you begin to wonder if we as architects depend on photographers just as much as clients or contractors. a photographer is often in the position to highlight and present certain ideas the architect is incapable of explaining or clearly describing, a revelatory notion that only reinforces how much architects depend on external forces to exist.

iwan baan was invited to give a lecture, where he displayed his work and discussed his techniques and adventures. baan is primarily focused on the events that occur around the building or space that he is photographing. i suppose it could be broadly described as contextual documentation rather than architectural. the images were also gorgeous. i particularly loved the photograph of maltzan's inner city arts school in LA. in comparison to the endless metropolis bathed in hazy warmth, the school quietly sits amongst its neighbors of nondescript warehouses and concrete. it was accurate, intriguing, and somehow completely sensational. (here)

what troubled me was his reticence (inability?) to articulate the meaning of the images he captured. he would present his photographs of the national stadium in beijing designed by herzog & de meuron - a symbol of opulence, extravagance, and state-mobilized financing and power - juxtaposed with the impoverished workers living in wooden shacks literally in the shadow of the stadium. when asked to comment on this obviously charged image he would either deflect the question or suggest we ask the architect what the meaning was. this occurred several times during the lecture.

in his defense, he hasn't given many lectures and probably doesn't want to engage in an potentially-combative discussion of international politics and social inequality, but images contain quite a bit of information that often requires explanation. moreover, imagery is the language of architecture and he should know that. in other words, i receive a clear idea when i see that image, but i wanted to know what HE thought when he was standing there himself. i don't know if he was surprised by the barrage of questions that implored him to elaborate on his intentions, but it was clear to me that i wasn't the only member of the audience who left hoping for more from someone who has developed relationships with people at the center of these very important issues.

[ metropolis ]

i received some feedback from my TA about my paper about Tschumi's Blue, which was helpful. i got off to a decent start, but the paper still lacked a strong enough position. the building is responding to much more than the neighborhood, so i decided to expand it further and discuss its relationship to the city. i wish i had more room to discuss Tschumi's use of the color blue, simply because he used red so consistently in other projects. evidently his draw to red stems from its neutrality, in the sense that it is not suggestive of any actual material properties. i haven't figured out what blue does that red doesn't, or if it even matters at all. nevertheless, these decisions aren't made without basis, so perhaps i will eventually unlock this mystery.

we also had our lecture on paris, which was predictably unsettling. when you spend the lion's share of the discussion focusing on architects who chose alternative methods of designing and in doing so, deliberately alienated themselves from the elite and wealthy (clients), you tend to see your world being turned upside down. not to say this is a bad thing, but guy dubord and co. basically gave up on social transformation vis-a-vis built work, and even that was difficult to achieve without having the impact distorted and their message re-shaped by the forces they were attempting to subvert. say nothing of the fact that the events of 68 managed to shape the impulses of some of the most important figures in architecture today. (Tschumi, Koolhaas, Ito, etc.) it's completely fascinating how these individuals had visions of re-engineering society, but these ideas were not rooted in cynicism but optimism. it's interesting to imagine how different things would have been if the riots and rebellion had not occurred.

[ digital craft ]

grasshopper tutorials. 3dstudio tutorials. Materials, Lighting. Most of it is new, even though the software isn't. All good things, until we have to begin making out models using the 3d plotter, laser-cutter, and CNC machine. asking 90 students to make elaborate models with such limited resources is a bit audacious. it's quite a bottleneck, and i'm amazed that some people managed to not only finish their model, but make them absolutely gorgeous. if you haven't figured it out by now, i am still working on mine. the laser cutter ignited my concrete panels. the hatch was too dense and the intensity on the machine was too high. alas.

there's still much to see in the city, but i feel as though i've been better lately about managing my time and knowing when to quit. that doesn't mean i'm sleeping any less, but i think i'm seeing more than morningside heights. on the other hand, i've probably just taken more trips to canal to buy acrylic.

week 5.

[ studio ]

the damage discussion continues. i realize this will sound strange, but the projects are slowly becoming more schematic and less abstract. this has actually increased my excitement about the project because it's allowed us to visualize our projects more architecturally, although i still have not figured out how to resolve it. i am hoping that at some point i will accept the fact that there is no right answer to this problem.

we have also been attempting to create our own program for the institute. this isn't programming in the traditional sense, but there is still some consideration of potential spatial relationships between different 'uses' within the institute, and even square footages. the difficulty is avoiding the trap of recreating a conventional art gallery. because we are inventing our own rules for the institute we must be completely aware of what each architectural and art-display gesture means.

at the moment (and it's likely this is the direction i am headed. mid-reviews are next week.) my institute will be an experiment with the density and organization of damaged art. while this was initially borne out of a desire to display the damaged art as a forensic study, i've begun to sense that the project will be more successful if i can conceive of a space(s) considerably more delirious and spatially complex than a display of forensic evidence. the notion of a "delirious" space has stuck with me, and this appears to be a good target to work towards.

ideally, as a spatial, organizational and programmatic experiment this would allow people to view the artwork in a different state, and by changing the density of the space as well as the distance between the fragments, the art would take on a different identity. this becomes even more exciting when one considers the implications of displaying objects that are either enormous or microscopic. are they contained or dispersed within the space? are they simply thrown on the floor? are they in ventilation system? mark is really encouraging me to think more experimentally about the display, which involves using a logic that has been largely absent from the design process that was taught at kansas state and adhered to in the professional world. this has been a tremendous challenge. what's more, i still need to decide how the architecture will respond to the display of the art, if it will at all.

[ arguments ]

this week we had a lively discussion of pavilions, focusing primarily on the barcelona pavilion, the melnikov pavilion, ps1, and SANAA conceptual installation for the barcelona pavilion. we considered the identity of the pavilion, what it means, and whether it is even necessary. because the pavilion is of a temporal nature, it allows the designer to take more risks and display advanced technologies that would otherwise be unknown. the idea is to both be a showcase and display something new. what's more the scale of the pavilion allows the designer to narrow their focus onto a very small idea or technology. it was also interesting to discuss the political implications of pavilions, and how they have effectively served as propaganda or a metaphor for the state that sponsored its construction. the pavilions we discussed seemed to fall into two categories; retrospective and prospective.

[ metropolis ]

this week we wrote the first draft of a paper that examines the argument in a specific building. i chose tschumi's Blue in the lower east side. i chose this building because of it's superficiality, as well as it's obvious response (or dismissal) of the context. his intent was deliberately simplistic - because the sky is blue, the building is blue, and because the neighborhood is vibrant is mixed and diverse the curtain must be pixelated. what's more, it strictly adhered to the zoning regulations and thus the shape and proportion is a direct result of these limitations.

this argument is two things; first, it's a new territory for tschumi because of the lack of theoretical basis, and second it's completely fascinating how earnestly he describes his process. still, the best part about this project is that by acknowledging the forces that shaped the building with complete honesty, the building manages to subvert that context entirely. hopefully i will have some more feedback from my TA about the draft soon, although i'm not sure if was successful in discovering a new argument within the building. i fear i may have stuck to closely to what tschumi's intent was.

[ digital craft ]

the digital craft project that was due this tuesday was to create several images that allow us to understand the details and assembly of a built or unbuilt project. i created a sectional perspective, an exploded axon of the building, and an axon that shows the assembly of the pivoting curtain wall system. i chose the utrecht university library by wiel arets.

we've started to learn grasshopper, which is both exciting and terrifying. it's a shame that i was dead-tired during the lecture, having stayed up until 6.30 finishing my digital craft project, because i want to understand this program. it's both useful and powerful, but is nevertheless still a tool.

weeks three and four.

It looks like I lost track of time and the past two weeks sped by. This is basically just a lenghty memo to myself, so enjoy!

[studio]

The damage diagramming continues, only now we have been weaving insurance into the discussion. I have made several attempts to pinpoint a specific moment, narrowing in on the details of the event. The objective is to formulate a new descriptive vocabulary for the event. Buildings are described by their massing, materiality, proportion, etc. and we are attempting to invent a set of similarly precise and descriptive terms and diagrams.

It has been difficult selecting the right moment. I began examining the US military for its obvious relationship to damage and damage control, as well as its perverse adherence to a system of relentless logic. The tactics used by the military are based upon strict and orderly procedures, and it's completely fascinating how much energy the military mobilizes to anticipate future events and control their outcome. From there I attempted to diagram the December 30, 2009 suicide attack on Khost, Afghanistan. While I initially focused on the damage to diplomatic relationships and the less explosive repercussions of this event, I ended up focusing on the act of conducting an investigation of the scene itself. The explosion and fatalities are only part of the damage, and the breadth of the damage continues to radiate outward, affecting families, intelligence, and regional politics. This involved investigating an investigative process, and using the procedures put forth by forensic scientists, cryptology experts, bomb squads and the prescribed investigative methods created by the US Department of Justice. While the research was interesting, the complexity of the event as well as the lack of precise information made the process both frustrating and difficult.

Damage and insurance are inextricably linked, so its no surprise that our ongoing study of insurance companies and their appraisal methods has been tremendously helpful in this process. As Mark put it, the world of the insurance industry is a world governed by the most ruthless forms of financial gain. This is a world where planes fall from the sky, cars are continually colliding, and homes burn to the ground. But does an insurance policy actually protect you from being affected by these events? What's more, while insurance provides a feeling of security, damage always exposes vulnerability. Applying monetary value then becomes the most precise way to describing the value of things.

Using these guidelines I endeavoured to find any information related to a system of insurance or asset allocation used by the US Military. I found some evidence confirming that the military uses a similarly rigorous framework for estimating its own value, and two particular documents proved to be helpful. The first was a book published by the Bureau of War Risk Insurance (I think it no longer exists) in 1919 that documented the military and naval compensation claims as a result of the first World War. The second was a published study by an individual who created a series of graphs and formulas that apply a monetary value to the military's tangible assets - tanks, helicopters, rifles, etc.

Through the study he argued that capital assessment may actually be the most useful measure of value because it is a means of providing a macro summary of information that can be objectively compared to the assets of other countries. The durable goods and services of the military - equipment, tactical aircrafts, shelters, personnel and material for their maintenance, and research development - all depcreciate over time. Therefore a formula was necessary to consider their peak value as well as the time in which they need replacement.

The value of the infantry is difficult to describe, and all calls to the insurance companies the military uses were dead ends. Still the first book allowed me to create an average value based on a 2.7% inflation rate since 1919. While the results are debatable and vague, I was able to use these two sources as a means of understanding the complex task of determining value. I also need to come up with a way to spatialize this information.

This Friday our studio had our first pin-up, which turned into a nine-hour damage control extravaganza. Each student presented four items: A digital film using footage from our trip to the site (a section of land on the north shore of Staten Island), a container for a piece of damaged art that is related to our research, a container for an actual artwork that has been damaged, and our most current diagram(s) of insurance. For the conceptual damaged object's display I created a hypothetical travelling 'exhibition' of the military's fighter jets that were adorned by famous works of art and carted around the world on a aircraft carrier painted by a jackson pollack. Yes, this is completely absurd and I probably missed the mark, but the idea was to challenge the value of the art object through the meeting of the military asset. By duplicating the artwork, would the original depreciate in value? Is value a function of singularity? I attempted a similarly absurd display by taking Koons' sculpture of Michael Jackson and Bubbles and displaying it in a concrete grave in the middle of a cornfield. This was an attempt to understand what gives the artwork its value. In other words, I wanted to locate the art and then reloate the artwork. The piece is deliberately kitchy, and resembles any ceramic trinket found in a Chinatown market, only larger and contains a tremendous amount of symbolism and social commentary. This seems to suggest that artwork is given its value by the museum and by removing it from the shelter of the museum it ceases to be valuable. Moreover, through the creation of a barrier between the viewer and the object - by submerging the object below the surface and forcing the viewer to descend in a deep concrete cave - the viewer is discouraged from engaging the object, and presumably prevents the viewer from applying any value.

The obvious problem with this technique is that the barrier is not impossible to overcome. What's more, its isolation could actually give the object even more value. Lastly, the object wasn't physically damaged which was sort of the point in the first place - to figure out a way to display an art object that had all value removed from it. Nevertheless, its been helpful in understanding relevance of the artwork's physical properties and how the presentation plays a tremendous role in establishing value.

[digital craft]

Our class is now studying 3dStudio by following several tutorials that involve the modeling and rendering of SANAA's Park Cafe and the Barcelona Chair. The Park Cafe was challenging, but I am lucky to have used this software since third year. The learning curve with 3dS is steeper than Rhino, so the amount of frustration between the rest of my classmates is pretty high.

[metropolis]

Since studying Berlin we've had two lectures. Through Tokyo we discussed a series of urban theories, from Metabolism's creation of the Marine City, the Plan for Tokyo, and other joint-core proposals, to Ito's Tower of Winds and the Sendai Mediateque, to the past and present work of SANAA. This week we looked at London as a testing ground for several related theories created by Archigram and its tangential projects, to the work of James Sterling, Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, and Norman Foster.

I also wrote a paper that questions some of the ideas put forth by Venturi that he thought helped explain the current state of American cities (in 1978 that is) in an article he wrote for A+U. Broadly speaking, it was an attempt to describe the roots of America's western landscape, that America west of the Appalacian mountains developed out of a frontier logic rather than an urban logic. 1,000 words is probably not enough space, but I will soon find out whether I made a convincing argument.

[arguments]

Shohei Shigematsu from OMA gave a lecture on June 15. He talked about the tactical relationship between OMA and AMO, his work on the waist down exhibition, the EU, IBM, and others.

Two things stood out from the lecture: His statements about the role of aesthetics in OMA's work and his suprisingly critical words regarding of the current trend of Japanese reductivism.

Another student asked Sho whether aesthetics played a role in the composition and appearance of the projects, which was coincidentally a topic I've been interested in myself for some time. Without hesitation and much to my surprise, Sho bluntly said the role of aesthetics is VERY strong. Obviously the argument is still the driviing force, but he'd be lying if he were to say otherwise. Interesting.

Regarding the reductivism, his words, while carefully chosen and deliberate, seemed almost resentful of the fact that this movement was simply trend that's borne out of a lack of ambition and creativity. I struggled with this idea, because it's an issue that's more personal to him than to me and it's difficult to argue with an argument that is rooted in a visceral reaction. I find Japan's architectural style and urban logic to be quite fascinating regardless of its symbolic content or lack thereof. Nevertheless it turned my world upside down, for no other reason that it does seem to be a substantive claim given the stagnant Japanese economy that is likely affecting Japan's consciousness.

This week we looked at the photography of Ezra Stoller and Dan Graham. Each invented very distinct styles that were an extension of their general artistic impulses and professional objectives. Despite their stylistic differences their photography was united by the desire to create a visual manifesto. They used their work as a rhetorical device that highlights the prevailing notions of culture, technology, and art.

What has stuck with me since this discussion was the idea that my work can be an editorial strategy. This further triggers a variety of other topics worth considering, specifically the fundamental purpose of built architecture and whether it is even necessary. Tschumi and Eisenman talked at length about architecture's relevancy and its limits. I'm looking forward to exploring these ideas further, despite the fact that they will likely stifle some progress in other areas.

--

That's it for now. Now it's time for a break and then tutorials and more diagramming for studio.

week two.

[studio]

The topic of damage control is deliberately broad. My instructor is Mark Wasiuta, and we will eventually work with an artist who is the author of the Salvage Art Institute. Initially we scrutinized the basic notions of damage and tested our preconceived ideas of damage and its meaning. From there we moved to an exploration of the images of value, to our collective role in the creation of value to how we can represent the values that are being damaged/protected. At the root of these discussions is the intention to broaden our design vocabulary and invent individual design and critique tools that will presumably guide our work for the rest of the semester.

The greatest collective challenge for our studio has been narrowing our focus to one event or moment where damage occurs. Beyond the specificity issue, I have had a difficult time trusting my instincts and simply allowing the process to take its own shape. Obviously, five years of undergrad and four years of professional work that has been generally rooted in answers and not questions are difficult to un-learn.

Still, I did not come to Columbia to learn what I already knew. Reminding myself of this is surprisingly helpful, and provides a necessary amount of rationality in an otherwise irrational and unstructured environment.

The idea of a weapon serving as a means of damage control continues to fascinate me, in large part because of it's paradoxical implications and surrealistic imagery that often comes to my mind when I think of the military and defense. Furthermore, an opportunity to further understand the military's "relentless logic" as Mark puts it is one I intend to explore. Nevertheless, a reliable means of testing these ideas continues to elude me. This is an investigation, and like Mark suggested, we must reject what is not useful and specify what the issues of value are.

[digital craft]

We are first learning Rhino 4.0 in conjunction with Illustrator. Eventually we'll move into Grasshopper and Maya. Everyone is familiar with the Adobe Suite but there is a surprisingly large number of students who have NO background with either Rhino or 3dStudio. It's crazy! Obviously this is not accidental. I am familiar with Rhino but by no means proficient with it. So far it's been very good.

What's funny is our first assignment is to model Mies' Barcelona Pavilion in Rhino and then play around with line-weights in Illustrator, which is suspiciously similar to our tutorial sessions back in third year with Knox, not to mention our courtyard prototype work with him fifth year. Next we are modeling the Panton chair, and then we move into our analysis of a building with some sort of tectonic element or detail, either built or unbuilt. I will probably choose to examine the University Library by Wiel Arets in Utrect. I also like Piano's New York Times building, but it's not quite as interesting. Both are an exploration of transparency and identity and the Piano building is very elegant, but Arets work is a little more daring. It was one of the many projects I was fortunate to visit while in Europe, and remains one of my favorite buildings on the planet.

[arguments]

We had our first discussion yesterday, in which we are broken into sections and we simply have a topic planned ahead of time. Our first topic was a thrill - a roundtable about OMA / AMO. The discussion was at its best when people were challenging their relevancy, rather than simply recording their history and influence. Obviously Rem's work is well known but I am only familiar with AMO through a few website visits and a few cursory glances at Contents. I think I have also looked at S,M,L,XL two, maybe ... three times? Still, I find their work to be remarkable, for no other reason that they seem to be the most active group in this general collective mission to create a new territory for the architectural discipline. How come they have been more successful than others?

[metropolis]

This lecture aims to understand cities through other media besides textbooks, most notably through film. Matt Knox exposed our class to a new level of understanding and appreciation of architecture with film, and Enrique will do much of the same. Last week we watched The Naked City by Jules Dassin, an appropriate way to introduce our diverse class to New York and the root of it's chaotic atmosphere and dystopian imagery. Tomorrow we will watch Germania Anno Zero by Roberto Rossellini, which will coincide with our lecture on Berlin.