Notes on Session Eight

It is rare for me to speak for an hour and a quarter on the subject of one book, but I proved it possible yesterday.
The reasons one might be able to do this include the fact that this novel was 'supposed to be funny' but in actual fact, with further contemplation of it's context, personal and otherwise, becomes immensely serious, even profound. It is essentially a satire on the British way of life, our class system and so on, where the hero, Paul Pennyfeather, is rather a dupe. Paul represents us. But it is also a novel whose core message is that you are trapped in your own skin, it will ever be thus, and thus also most depressing. The only way out, for Paul and well as Evelyn, is religion.
Prof Silenus the modern architect's role is hence particularly interesting, for whilst he enters the story as avant garde, full of machine age enthusiasms, he ends it with his tail between his legs, thinking Greece has lovely goats rather than temples. A soppiness for animals seems very far removed from his original concerns.
Making obvious comparison with Le Corbusier is one thing, but bringing consideration of the fate of modernism in general brings rather startling revelations as to how architecture sits within the famework of 'Britishness'.

Session Nine: Objectivism

In this session we shall watch The Fountainhead. In the final session (Session 10) I shall do a round up of all the texts we've studied, hopefully providing take home messages for each, so if you've missed out, please sure you attend in the last week of term.

It is fitting to end our readings with this film. Author and scriptwriter Ayn Rand has been hugely influential in American thinking to the point where Northern California seemed almost exclusively populated by Anns and Randys as Silicone Valley boomed. Her rejection of any form of altruism has been, to say the least, convenient within Late Capitalism, but it did make her an exceedingly bitter old lady. 

There was a spat during 'I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here' last night between ex-Playboy mansion playmate Kendra and Edwina Currie. Kendra was pleading the virtues of the self, that she came first, in a way that almost came straight out of the Randian world. It was clear she really believed all this stuff, to the point of sobbing and wailing. Meanwhile I was reminded she only ever seemed to provide one meal for the camp in her trials; conceptually enough for herself. It is perhaps the only time in my life that I could be found agreeing with Edwina Currie, who has clearly been scarred by such thinking, and personally I'm rather rooting for 'Foggy', because he not only wins all the stars, but resigned himself to rescuing trapped campmates from the slammer.

It was a happy accident that Rand chose an architect, Howard Roark, to represent her theories. I wrote a 'Reputations' on Roark for the December 2013 issue of AR if you care to dig it out for further reference.

Notes on Session Seven

The first thing to note about Howl is how influential this poem has been. The array of references across the desk included photographer (and maker of the Rolling Stones film Cocksucker Blues) Robert Frank,    William Burrough's inquisition of language; The Job, Archigram originals and museum pieces, even the first Glastonbury album with lots of hippie extras plus plenty more. All presume to question our assumptions on our notion of freedom, in a climate where we might appear to finally have it, but where the enemy is now a the military industrial complex as much as parental conformity. These are challenged by a new sense of sexual freedom and spiritual enlightenment. I pointed out that spiritual enlightenment has consistently filled a supposed vacuum since Nietzsche declared 'God is Dead' in 1882) In our field, in architecture, it meant questioning what architecture actually was, and who was getting in the way of our so called fresh opportunities (we can make steel any length etc; where did the idealism go?...Put 600,000 people in a field for three days.. etc).
Lefebvre's enquiry in to what language means is rather replaced by an emphasis on the restriction of language itself, since that is the vehicle of authority; or the Media is the Message, a concept espoused by Marshall McLuhan and very popular through the sixties. McLuhan saw us entering a newly tactile world (but he was also a devout catholic, so that would suit him). I wonder how this looks to us now given actual corporatization.

Session Eight: Modernism

Remember this book is supposed to be funny. The idea is to read all of it. It's not long.

Meanwhile, if you are stuck for time, then the moment when architect Professor Silenus arrives is Chapter 1 of Part 2 of the book.

Notes on Session Six

The byword here would seem to be subtlety rather than judgement. It is clear that when we read Berman's interpretation of Faust we gain many insights, one tumbling after another, as to our roles in a developing world. By that we mean an industrial world which has broken free of religion as it's only guiding light. We might find echoes of Faust in the defiant romantic artist; in Michelangelo, Velasquez, Goya, or Francis Bacon, as much as we can see it in our scientists. When it comes to architecture we can see the spirit of mobilisation, of organisation alive in L-C; and we can see echoes in our own lives. Berman was endebted to sixties counter-culture (sex and drugs) and we should read that in to his analysis. We will look at those dreams of escape next week.
Today we can see development gone wrong in China and Dubai, or as the Imperial War Museum becomes a shop, and we should recognize the emptiness this can bring.
But development as a personal thing as much as a physical thing, and a great, ongoing, challenge.
Goethe sees the challenge in the fact that development is unstoppable, that it means there will be victims, including those who develop themselves as well as those who are left behind, that speed is of the essence, and this, as a future for everybody, looks excessively exhausting, especially when enough is never enough. To change this notion of a life, even for yourselves, is going to be a hell of an effort.

Session Seven: Counterculture

Thankfully and appropriately, this poem, Howl, is freely available on the web. It will be a relief for you to read a poem rather than a theoretical text. OK it's a longish poem, but it's a highly significant one; you might say that it seeds a counterculture (rather than revolution) that colours the 1960's. We need to revisit this stuff; it will be freaky.

Notes on Session Five

I think the primary take home consideration here is the value of architectural precedent. Clearly Colin Rowe finds it cardinal to the business of architecture, as did the generation of tutors who taught me, and as would most critics when it came to anything else; T.S. Eliot on literature for instance. Certainly Terry Eagleton accused us of amnesia. In the realm of 'digital knowledge' is precedent as applicable as it was?
Whatever the present case, in looking at Rowe's comparison of Palladio to Le Corbusier we noted that Rowe was doing what his tutor Rodolf Wittkower had done with Alberti and Palladio, and it seemed such a solid proposition that it might make ones contemporary efforts feel a bit feeble in backbone; what with references to Wren, Virgil and so on.
However when we looked at Rowe's 1961 essay on La Tourette we spotted something else; that he was missing out large chunks of what would seem critical to the understanding of that building and was instead focused on his experience of it and his personal interpretation. My view is that this is problematic, and I have written my own essay to explain why; published on my blog Architecture and Other Habits- as 'An Essay on La Tourette'. It comes up right at the top of a Google search.
So Rowe thought architecture was like playing chess or shaking hands; rich in structural protocol, but he also enjoys the personal. Nowhere is this more evident that in his descriptions of his academic environment (as presented in his three volume memoires 'As I was Saying') which seem to directly condition his thought processes; Cambridge, Texas & Cornell. Since I do not want to begin my book with 'Well at LSBU it's like this...' I might be a little wary of that.

Session Six: Modernity

You are asked to read Chapter One: Goethe's Faust: The Tragedy of Development, at least as much of it as you can manage, or enough to get to grips with the story. Of course we are not reading Faust in the original, which is a long poem, but through Berman's eyes, and now yours. It will be interesting to see what you bring to the interpretation of this classic tale, with all likelihood that you have not encountered it before. 

The story starts in a Gothic world, and ends in industrial one, the moral may be that in order to make an omelet you have have to break eggs, but it is more sophisticated than that (and note that in the end Faust is blind to 'care'). A particularly good example of the tragedy of development in architectural terms would be Baron Haussmann's Paris, which I'm sure we shall discuss.