From After Habermas: New perspectives on the public sphere:
"This blurring of state and society has been amplified by a second change. Much of the argument and activity constitutive of the public sphere, having once taken place in society between private individuals, now takes place within the confines of the state between professionalized politicians. More to the point, although this may maintain something of the appearance of a public debate, argumentation and debate are now subordinated to the logic of the competition for power between parties. The effect of party based organization, Habermas argues, is that views tend to be stuck to or strategically manipulated rather than genuinely argued over. Furthermore, the function of argument at the intreface between politicians and their voters is to win votes rather than engage the thoughts of voters and, by this means, educating and cultivating them - as the earlier publics had done for their participants. Politics becomes a stage show."
Republican or Democrat?
06 October 2009
14 July 2009
Thesis, Summer Semester
Following is a short description of my thesis project as it stands currently:
Working title:
"Work-space Leisure"
Working subtitle:
"Manhattanism relearned through tall building deconstruction"
It is essentially a two-tiered project, where a tall building is deconstructed piecemeal (tier one), and its pieces (primarily steel) are reassembled in the same urban context into a new, opportunistic architecture (tier two).
The first half of this semester involved detailed research of deconstruction as well as identifying the ultimate goals. The second half of the semester I am researching precedents involved with large-scale, urban, leisure projects, as well as identifying a building to deconstruct and taking a "material inventory" of that building.
So far, I believe I have narrowed my building search down to one of the three XYZ Buildings, located in the Rockefeller Center halfway between Times Square and Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan.
The developing idea is to throw two "contradictory" programmatic elements at each other, work-space and leisure. The architecture will stretch from the Rockefeller Plaza to Times Square, all the while providing programs of both work and leisure. Also involved is a reflection on the leisure architecture of the Fun Palace (1960's, unbuilt) and New Babylon (1950's, unbuilt), which hypothesized that in the future automation would liberate us from work, and we could spend all our time in leisure activities. My adaption, obviously, will need to incorprate (and monopolize on) the fact that this has not happened, and that in actuality, work time is growing in the face of automation, and increasingly being merged with leisure time.
Current list of precedents:
High Line, Diller, Scofidio + Renfro
Fun Palace, Cedric Price
New Babylon, Constant Nieuwenhuys
Parc de la Villette, Bernard Tschumi
Current list of research topics/books:
Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas
S M L XL, Rem Koolhaas
KM3 Excursions on Capacities, MVRDV
Landscape Urbanism Reader, Charles Waldheim
Opportunistic Architecture, LTL
Tower and Office, Iñaki Abalos and Juan Herreros
Readings on Metabolism
Readings on Constructivism
Working title:
"Work-space Leisure"
Working subtitle:
"Manhattanism relearned through tall building deconstruction"
It is essentially a two-tiered project, where a tall building is deconstructed piecemeal (tier one), and its pieces (primarily steel) are reassembled in the same urban context into a new, opportunistic architecture (tier two).
The first half of this semester involved detailed research of deconstruction as well as identifying the ultimate goals. The second half of the semester I am researching precedents involved with large-scale, urban, leisure projects, as well as identifying a building to deconstruct and taking a "material inventory" of that building.
So far, I believe I have narrowed my building search down to one of the three XYZ Buildings, located in the Rockefeller Center halfway between Times Square and Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan.
The developing idea is to throw two "contradictory" programmatic elements at each other, work-space and leisure. The architecture will stretch from the Rockefeller Plaza to Times Square, all the while providing programs of both work and leisure. Also involved is a reflection on the leisure architecture of the Fun Palace (1960's, unbuilt) and New Babylon (1950's, unbuilt), which hypothesized that in the future automation would liberate us from work, and we could spend all our time in leisure activities. My adaption, obviously, will need to incorprate (and monopolize on) the fact that this has not happened, and that in actuality, work time is growing in the face of automation, and increasingly being merged with leisure time.
Current list of precedents:
High Line, Diller, Scofidio + Renfro
Fun Palace, Cedric Price
New Babylon, Constant Nieuwenhuys
Parc de la Villette, Bernard Tschumi
Current list of research topics/books:
Delirious New York, Rem Koolhaas
S M L XL, Rem Koolhaas
KM3 Excursions on Capacities, MVRDV
Landscape Urbanism Reader, Charles Waldheim
Opportunistic Architecture, LTL
Tower and Office, Iñaki Abalos and Juan Herreros
Readings on Metabolism
Readings on Constructivism
27 June 2009
25 June 2009
GRAD PLUS loan
An application for a GRAD PLUS loan, for which I am not applying. I am graduating in December with a burdensome debt that I wish to escape quickly. Sometimes I feel that loans, borrowing money, is a device used to ensnare the working class. A trap to keep them working, cyclically, endlessly, until their resting days, their youth spent and their spirits nearly broken. Oh but the hope and the relief of burden that borrowed money offers! And that is the beauty of the system. The GLAMOUR society feeding their indulgences on the backs of the envious, the lonely, the disparately desperate. They cannot steal joy from me. I will not let them.
17 June 2009
23 November 2008
12 November 2008
Why is the cork on the fork?
He's the one writing his life away. Disecting years for the moments that have more meaning. Stringing them together so that one day, they may be impressionable. Memorable.
Image: High-wire stunts
Video:
Image: High-wire stunts
Video:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
