Starchitects in Venice

[imomus]

I've been dreaming about Venice recently. In my dreams I'm sitting with a friend in a huge cruise liner which plows down the Grand Canal. We jump out from time to time to see radically refurbished palazzi housing exciting experimental installations. It's clear where my dream comes from: this time last year I was just preparing for two visits to Venice, one to conduct workshops at a conference called Teach Me, the other to perform my first concert in the city.

This September I have no glamorous Mediterranean gigs co-inciding with art conferences -- although October will see a visit to London's Frieze Art Fair and a concert at the Kosmopolis Literary Festival in Barcelona (October 20th). But if you want a culture-rich "fantasy holiday in Venice", come with me to the excellent Venice Super Blog covering the Architecture Biennale currently occupying the national pavilions at the Giardini.



Despite the presence of "starchitects" like Rem Koolhaas talking about his work in the Gulf, or artists like Olafur Eliasson, talking about his contribution to architectural projects in Iceland and Denmark, it's interesting to see how the architects seem to feel overshadowed by the art biennial.

Sarah Ichioka reports her friend Leah asking "Why are all of the architects that I've met at the Biennale embarrassed to say that they are architects? They all introduce themselves as 'curators' or 'installation artists' or 'researchers' or 'critics'". And Shumon Basar laments that "this congregation of A-list architects, curators, and critics—though celebrated widely in the specialist press that also descends upon the carnival—are unlikely to make it to the front page of newspapers or TV headlines. They just don’t quite cut it. This relative lack of populist attention puts that contemporary phrase du jour, ‘The Starchitect’, in a humbling, relativistic perspective. Should this be a cause for dismay or dejection? Or does the lack of a broader attention point to a deeper problem suffered by any desire to exhibit architecture or urbanism on a par with its more glamorous sibling, the art world?"

The British pavilion features a very shelfish presentation of the city of Sheffield. Curator Jeremy Till explains that he's chosen artists rather than architects to give the human feel of Sheffield because architects tend to focus too much on the 1:100 - 1:500 scales; the bird's eye view. Japan has an interactive weave hut (pictured above) and some striped vernacular architecture. The Canadians have the largest sweater in the world and some bicycles powering a Madonna / Pet Shop Boys video. Latvia's pavilion is made of folded cardboard and sits outside the Arsenale. The Belgians are celebrating The Beauty of the Ordinary with mirrors and pebbles. The Germans have installed a red roof and the French have a bunch of "clochard chic" architects living amongst scaffolding, cooking and conversing in their space, which features a sauna on the roof. The French are the clear winners, on cool alone. But most agree that this biennial is about cities, not countries.

I found the ruminations of one Rowan Moore interesting. Reporting a discussion with Saskia Sassen, he summed things up with: "So you have ever more gigantic building projects, inequalities, shocking poverty, astonishing urban inventions, driven by necessity. You have catastrophes... You have the erosion of the public, including public space. What possible connection has all this to do with the decision architects make sat at their computers, when they choose to arrange building materials in this or that configuration? Especially as the beauty of cities is in their messiness, which allows all kinds of histories to be made, whereas most architects that I know of like things orderly and empty."

"The beginnings of the answer go something like this. Architecture is an ultimately measured intervention -- in other words architects whether they like it or not are always going to be a little straight compared to the messy vitality of cities. So the trick is to make sure there's a conversation between the orderly and the messy. And perhaps that intervention could be a more complex smaller scale presence in public space. Perhaps there could be an engagement with street level complexity."

At the Doge's Palace, Moore was asked an "urgent beauty question": "What new word is there that can be used instead of beauty? In other words how do you describe that experience of the world acquiring extra dimensions and perspectives which is what we really want architecture to do?"

Comments

Is-it you Marty?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Marty, is-it you the person behing the journal ? It 's been quite a while I saw you. The last time might be a party in May in Montreal in 2003. I found the link to your journal lately in my mail box. From reading parts, I could recognise you in your art and writting style, it seems like lots happened! Nice evolution. We might be in the same city now, to check. I sent you an email not a long time ago, we could meet soon... Reply to my mail, please. Regards, Claudiane

Re: Is-it you Marty?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm not Marty, I'm Nick, and always have been. No evolution at all!

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

nick, refering to your story "seven lies about holger hiller", which i read late at night but still conscious enough to experience some other-word-ly excitation.
it reminded me somehow of austrian writer h. c. artmann (also member of the "wiener gruppe" with gerhard ruehm, oswald wiener, etc), who had, sadly, almost no recognition in the english-speaking parts of the world (or any non-german speaking, for that matter), although he himself mastered an enormous amount of languages, translating from many of them - sometimes poetry that doesn't even exist, like his "translation" of ancient religious celtic poetry "der schluessel des heiligen patrick" ("the key of st. patrick") from gaelic (?), where it was later revealed he also wrote the "original" himself.
(h. c. once was interviewd by a college radio in st. louis, though. but he was cut off the air right after he began to answer the first question with "i am an anarchist ...")
master of the imago, in his work, he has enormous layers of always wordplayful references, happily linking fairy tale figures like "frau holle" to heinz edelmanns "yellow submarine". his command of the german language, unsurpassed in my, erh, book, makes him quite hard to translate.
anyway, your story made me really hope you will write that book you announced on the lifes of fictional composers. it made me extremely happy (ok: "thanky you, ch. k. for making n. c. write it" - with pressed lips)

(just checked at amazon.com: there's at least a translation of his only, short, but as usual poetically dense novel "The Quest for Dr. U: Or a Solitary Mirror in Which the Day Reflects")

Something I too have pondered for a very long time...

[svenskasfinx.livejournal.com]

At the Doge's Palace, Moore was asked an "urgent beauty question": "What new word is there that can be used instead of beauty? In other words how do you describe that experience of the world acquiring extra dimensions and perspectives which is what we really want architecture to do?"

I've, I guess from the rebirth of my internet experience, put a similar question to most I have thought that were too limited in the word "Beauty"; to simply ask an artist or archetict "what is beauty?" is not simple, or even relevant.. but to pose the question, "What new word is there that can be used instead of beauty?" is actually going in that direction, as it must hold some quality of the definition I seek.

I mean we can say so many things are beautiful, but can we find a word that can actually replace this word and still hold the same "strength"?

When it comes to architecture, geometry, appealing proportions, and an "atmosphere", brush softly across the surface of the idea, and yet when we look to beauty, as a whole experience we barely scratch the surface of the true weight this word has the potential of holding.

With that in mind, I am reminded of your essays on beauty.. but still find no way to replace the idea of the word "beauty" in some contexts with anything strong enough to stand in its place.

In having to reverse engineer the concept of beauty I am left holding many words, sentences, definintions and paragraphs, and yet still nothing other than the equivalent synonyms come near..

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of Artmann, but he sounds intriguing.

I also thought this short story, which I really hadn't reread since writing it, might be the key to "Lives of the Composers", which I've been rather blocked with.

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

in fact, already while reading the first few parts of the story, i was convinced your idea for the book was based on that story.
i wish to read a whole book like that from you.

artmann is amongst my literary idols, he also created himself as a fascinating and humorous persona.
here's his sparse english wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._C._Artmann
and here are four poems translated in english:
http://www.jbeilharz.de/artmann/artmann-e.html

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ah, through the Wiener Gruppe he must have collaborated quite closely with Ernst Jandl, which recommends him already to me!

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

i'd say, artmann and jandl are two of the most elevating poets of the german language after ww II in austria, and they developped new approaches at the same time, like "lautgedichte" ("soundpoems"), working with abstracted language used for its sound - close to onomatopoeia. artmann was also famous for a series of poems in his artificial verison of the viennese dialect, and wrote much prose and short scenes for theatre, though always with a poets approach to language, and thus extremely dense.
they were contemporaries, but i don't think they worked together, since jandl was not part of the wiener gruppe.
(my favorite jandl poem might be his shortest, in which he treated his war experiences:
"schtzngrm"
it's the pressed pronounciation of "schuetzengraeben" = "trenches")

The ethical function of architecture

[reflejos.livejournal.com]

I've been reading lately this book (The ethical function of architecture) by Karsten Harries and have felt that it touches so many key issues, and I have also found it responds to so many of the themes you mention here in your blog. I've been totaly absorved by reading it, somehow it gives back sense to philosophy for me.
[I kept waiting to see something of your lecture about Howl's...]

[antisyzygy.livejournal.com]

That was an interesting quote from Rowan Moore. He is or was editor of Blueprint, and seems to be a generally pro-modernist critic. I've just done a quick Wikipedia article on him.

[telephoneface.livejournal.com]

it seems to me that the relationship between architects and conceptualist public space designers is somewhat like that between mathematicians and theorists in the physics world. they are both sort of existing in different dimensions of the same realm - without the cold perfection-striving of the former the latter's ideas would occasionally fall to pieces. its a yin-yang and we have to be careful that this evolution doesn't overlook the best qualities of either side..

[umungo.livejournal.com]

i found the most relevant contribution this year gregor eichinger’s network project in the austrian combo. most of what I saw else was a rather lame reiteration of old demeanours in the field.

[fishwithissues.livejournal.com]

and it goes unsaid by questioner and questionee that there's something inherently problematic with applying the word "beauty" to architecture... this idea shows up earlier in your entry, when you're talking about the separation between art and architecture, and the need for architecture to be presented on a human scale (made more art-like?), or else there's the fear of being dwarfed, consumed by the work, i.e. "the sublime." Maybe that's a good word.

[uberdionysus.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with "beauty"? In common usage, we all know what it means.

Great post. I love what Rowan Moore had to say. On a related note, Jane Jacobs is one of my figureheads.

Re: Is-it you Marty?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Marty-Nick (Martinique),

You know that if you want to come to Venice, you are always welcome,

cheers,

Davide

[svenskasfinx.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with "beauty"? In common usage, we all know what it means.

I think the problem I have with the word "beauty" is that it often gets watered down in its meaning depending upon who is using it, you have to always take into account the philosophic point of view of the user of the word.. sure any "layman" can say "it was a beautiful [fill in the blank]" but the culture we all collectively and indivitually come from, as well as our own perspective contaminate the meaning of what we are trying to say.

When the idea of beautiful architecture comes up, I like the idea of reverse engineering the word "beauty" just to get at the true understanding of what sort of things have come together to make it "beautiful" and if I had been in front of a group of professors from my school trying to access exactly why they should give me the scholarship or the time of day, I know that to say one's own work is "beautiful" would not exactly be strong enough on its own, one must always be ready to defend the reason why something is beautiful when one is in the place of critque, ie, an artist, designer, musician, performer, or someone who lives in a house... one has to "sell the idea" of what is beautiful, but in order to do that, one must really understand their own definition of it. If not you are a passive observer who is just taking in other people's ideas without it really sitting inside of your head and actually effecting your own standards.

You can just keep using the word "beauty" without guilt or feeling that you have to strive for more if you are ready to let other people tell you exactly what is "beautiful"...I think that's possibly why when it comes to the idea of beauty, it feels more like a "political struggle" rather than something pleasing and something that effects me or others passively.

I know this question was directed at Momus and not at me, but I had to make a point..

The use of the word beauty

[(Anonymous)]

is a problem that concerns only critics.

Re: The use of the word beauty

[(Anonymous)]

(Or those who think like them.)

Re: The use of the word beauty

[(Anonymous)]

Which, arguably, is anyone who thinks seriously about anything.

Re: The use of the word beauty

[svenskasfinx.livejournal.com]

My point EXACTLY-

Plus sometimes I feel that people are so limited that they only percieve "beauty" as a purely VISUAL experience- this in itself is a reason to seriously examine exactly what it means, personally or collectively.

[uberdionysus.livejournal.com]

Most people use 'beauty' as a term that encompasses "experiencing the world acquiring extra dimensions and perspectives"; that is, I agree with Wittgenstein: the use of the term 'beauty' is roughly akin to saying "Wow!" It's more than that, but more like that first quote, or as a term that describes a quickening of the heart and a brief loss of self and breath.

The question with beauty is manifold, but not what I was talking about. Part of the question is what we consider worthwhile and what, exactly, constitutes beauty for a particular person (which incorporates socio-economic class, culture, education, etc.). You can't reverse engineer the term in a Derridian way, only the cultural (and perhaps the biological) predispositions that come into play in the usage of the term and its make-up in the larger 'language game.'

Secondly, beauty is an individual effect on a person, but in larger social discourse it automatically becomes a political struggle, and claiming that something is "beautiful" is never enough to claim the worth of the object to others. But that also has nothing to do with my comment.

My question is why replace a word that functions perfectly as is. I'm not saying we shouldn't question why and what we and others find beautiful. I'm only saying that there is a perfectly functional word and no reason for replacing it with a perfectly un-functional new academic term.

Beauty means "experiencing the world acquiring extra dimensions and perspectives." There is plenty of reasons for questioning why we experience that, and what, exactly, that experience is, but I see no reason to create a new term.

[uberdionysus.livejournal.com]

"Beauty" is encapsulated in corporeal and sensual pleasure, even when experiencing beauty through reading, even when experiencing beauty through solving a mathematical puzzle.

Further, I would say it's commonly attached to the visual simply because the sense of sight dominates the other senses, and simply because beauty typically is derived from sensual experiences.

The examination of beauty requires a look past the singular phenomenological experience, and a look toward individual and cultural experiences that constitute the phenomenological, but I still don't see why we need to adopt a new term.

[svenskasfinx.livejournal.com]

I see this encapsulation of the sensual as an inviting defence, yes. But because our collective cultures continually "upgrade" or even "downgrade" what beauty is, I feel that the word itself is culturally contaminated with the LCD type of thought, that is where it is certainly all "visual" and often deals with "the male gaze" (the image of Paris Hilton comes to mind): although I wouldn't see why that kind of "beauty" should stand above someone who is a litterary genius, someone who touches the innermind with the perceptions they write about.

Which is more "beautiful"? Something that is in the mind, making contact and inspiring imagination, or something like an icon of empty culture with a sensual vapid smile?

It brings me to another point, comparisions, as beauty is "measured" by a standard.. wether personal or cultural, in this, it doesn't make sense to use the word without defining in which sense one is using it.

I like this conversation...

[uberdionysus.livejournal.com]

There are two uses of the term 'beauty.' One simply means warm contentedness, either sexually or sensually. The other means "experiencing the world acquiring extra dimensions and perspectives."

Burke and Kant called one 'beauty' and one 'the sublime' but they also engendered the terms along a false masculine/feminine axis and denigrated the other as 'girl stuff.'

I say we don't need a second term. Almost no one really cares about the first type of 'beauty.' People don't run around and tell their friends about the contentedness they felt while looking at a flower on the street, or a picture of Paris Hilton. What people do talk about when they talk about beauty is the things that caused immense sensual pleasure. When people talk about beauty, they are talking about the things that re-organized their corporeal experience.

And denigrating the visual is silly, IMO. It's the mark of intellectuals who fear the power of the visual over the power of the text. It is not necessarily LCD and it is not necessarily connected with vapidities like Paris Hilton. And why shouldn't an amazing visual experience rival an amazing reading experience? Why would you have one over the other? Why should an amazing reading experience be of more importance than an amazing musical experience?

Beauty is ALWAYS measured by a standard. But to denegrate the standard as LCD, or as 'merely visual,' carte blanche, without analyzing it before-hand, as reductive and dismissive of The Other.

Again, I think most people of all points in our shared society, use the word in similar ways. What is necessary is to analyze what we find beautiful and why. Perhaps we need to distinguish between the use of the word that is about contentedness and the use of the word that is about re-organizing corporeal sensual experience. But I doubt even that. I think we all know when someone is using one term vs. the other.

Re: I like this conversation...

[svenskasfinx.livejournal.com]

There are two uses of the term 'beauty.' One simply means warm contentedness, either sexually or sensually. The other means "experiencing the world acquiring extra dimensions and perspectives."

I really find hope in the second definition. Thanks for sharing that.


And denigrating the visual is silly, IMO. It's the mark of intellectuals who fear the power of the visual over the power of the text. It is not necessarily LCD and it is not necessarily connected with vapidities like Paris Hilton. And why shouldn't an amazing visual experience rival an amazing reading experience? Why would you have one over the other? Why should an amazing reading experience be of more importance than an amazing musical experience?

I only mentioned the visual perception angle due to the fact that not all have the gift of eye-sight, and not all who have eye-sight have the gift of actually clearly understanding what it is they are seeing. (that is for the most part ALL of us since we only have so much brain to processes our "perception"-

I would like to mention, I'm hardly what anyone would consider "intellectual", however I'm thoughtful and understand that there is great power from the visual over that of the written word.

I usually will set text up, in theory, against the visual only because I consider it such a neutral ground...(territory of the outter works of "The Other" against what searches out their "exprience" or texts inside of the mind, an unmeasurable place we certainly keep to ourselves, much like that world of dreams some of us still have..

A musical experience is what I almost got at, but then thought of what Hellen Keller (blind and deaf)and yet must certainly have felt the warmth of sun against her skin, and the hand of a friend and knew it to be "beautiful", and I catch myself being so "correct" about labling perception I have to remind myself of that question everyone in the arts or music has always been asked one night when with a group of friends or strangers playing truth games;The Question:

"...if you could choose over the two, which one would you keep, your eye sight or your hearing?"

Its like asking someone, "would you choose the function of your hands over the function of your legs" or visa versa.. but people do ask these questions.

Still, you can "read" without eyes- understand experience and the perception of people from inside out by reading words on a page, experience an archetectural space, via the perception of space, atmosphere, and how the ground feels around you when you put your foot down, or even by the scent of the matterials, in a whole world full of senses totally without sight nor of sound..but would we without those filters still come to the same conclusions about "beauty"?

I guess when it comes to these things, "beauty" "love" "art" and what it is exactly to be human, when we ask "what is beauty?" we are really answering the underlying question "who am I?".

I'm ranting like this because I posed this question on a forum dedicated mostly to dreams and dream interpretation.

It was a very active forum as well, so you got ALL types the (LCD mystics lol).. and I got alot of responces to this question, which confirmed to me that there were just so many versions of beauty as there are people; no "correct" no "wrong" just perceptions...perceptions and strong points of view on the topic as well as of the basic functionality perspective in the human/biological-psycho-sexual agenda and naturally VALUE, as beauty is something people are willing to "pay a price for".. to aquire it, or to become, or even as an visual artist/musician/craftsperson: to MAKE it. Then once again, caught in a loop, I submit my not so last thought on the topic: "You have to define it to create a value system for it".

Thank you for this conversation :)

Dorian