Issue 1, November 2001 | |
Wael Houssein Kharkov |
Contemporary problems of Arab
architectural aesthetics |
Natalya Khoroyan Kharkov |
Kharkov at the Frontier of XIX - XX Centuries: Noncritical
Regionalism. Architectural School without Vernakular. In 1805 the Emperors University was opened in Kharkov the second one in
Russia. At the end of 1870-ies the railway line from Moscow to Crimea and Caucasia passed through Kharkov,
thus connecting the economical and political center of Russia with the South. This was
followed by the impetuous socio-economic growth of the town. |
Kharkov |
Architecture as Theatre or Theatre of "Classical" Architecture by Ricardo Bofill Architecture and dramatic art, as two spheres of creativity, exist independently and irrespectively from each other. In article is undertaking the attempt to investigate how the theatrical and architectural ideas interact, penetrate from one area into another, mutually complement and develop each other. There are no precise borders and distinctions in rising their sense. Creativity of Bofill and his studio "Talier de Architecture" it confirms. The work of the foreman builds on a principle polyphonic music, on the attraction and collision different logics, frequently ancient alongside with modern. On the example of French living complexes by R. Bofill we see, that Post-Modernism in it's aspiration to develop it's art language addresses to idea of dialogue with the historical past, which was born long before, and uses for this the means of stage producing and dramatic art. |
Issue 2, February 2000 |
|
Kirsten Wagner Oldenburg |
The Spatial Data-Management System of the Architecture Machine Group
The Spatial Data-Management System was developed from
1976-1978 in MIT´s Architecture Machine Group and has been viewed as one of
the first spatial data management systems. This system is based on the
concept of an interface between user and computer which allows different
media forms such as text, graphic, photography and film to be inputted and
outputted – communicating with the human senses. The system seeks to
establish a clear and functional extension of the computer. One of the
central ideas of this system is the visualisation of information in the form
of graphical and image representations, a concept which eventually replaces
the alpha-numeric command systems of the first generation of computers in
the 70´s. |
Sophie Wolfrum (Stuttgart/Karlsruhe) |
Landschaft als Element des Urbanen |
Issue 1, May 1999 |
|
Andrzej Piotrowski Minneapolis |
Architectural
Structures of Memory This essay outlines
the theoretical premises and the methodology of my research aimed at integrating
photography and computer graphics in architecture. I developed what I call photographic
mapping to represent how a building creates the sequences of interrelated experiences that
structure our perception of this buildings symbolic reality. In this essay, I will
use two particular images as the backdrop for the discussion of their compositions and the
ideas embodied in them. |
Nana Pernod Zurich |
Theory
and Methodology of an Open System. How to Look at Philip Johnsons Architectural
Work: A Learning Process for a General Renewing/ Constructing of a Methodology and
Theory of Contemporary Architectural Criticism The following text shows that Sokals and Bricmonts Fashionalble Nonsense (Picador 1998) is of value in reference to contemporary architectural criticism too, where nowadays someone finds a kind of discussion comparable to a tropic jungle. The example of architectural criticism dealing with the work of the american architect phj shows this fact very clearly. There would be a good medicin herfore: a theoretical and methodological framework to be established especially for architectural criticism as a starting point to have a valuable professional discussion in this area. The following text offers a suggestion for an establishing of such a framework taking the architectural work of Philip Johnson as a showing example. |
Issue 2, June 1998 |
|
Angeli Janhsen-Vukicevic Bochum |
Gottfried
Böhm's Pilgrimage Church in Neviges
Gottfried
Böhm projected his pilgrimage church in Neviges (consecrated 1968) starting from the
buildings he found in the small city. For example he repeated the inclination of the roofs
of the surrounding houses with parallel lines in the roof of the church. The outer shape
of the church then determinates ist inner space. The church building orders binds ans
crystallizes the assemblation of houses that was grown accidentally with repetations of
this kind. |
Anette Sommer Cottbus |
Mega Malls on
Their Way! Shopping Malls, increasingly in combination with Amusement
Parks, are not only a North American phenomenon anymore, but recently became part of the
everyday life in Germany as well. |
Tom Hanchett Cornell |
Talking Shopping Center Most Americans assume that their nation's glut of suburban shopping centers results from "what consumers want". In fact, a considerable amount of construction came as the result of tax breaks offered by the United States government beginning in 1954 and peaking in the early 1980s. That construction has had profound effects on the quality of life for all Americans. |
Elizabeth Birmingham Ames (Iowa) |
Reframing the Ruins: Pruitt-Igoe, Structural Racism, and African American Rhetoric as a Space for Cultural Critique Charles Jencks dates the death of high-modernism
to the moment in July 1972 when the first three buildings of St. Louis´s
infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing complex were dynamited. Pruitt-Igoe´s failure
is since then noted and remembered as an architectural failure
a design flaw, wrought upon the unsophisticated poor by well-meaning intellectuals.
What issues are not discussed in this myth are issues of race the
over 10 000 residents of Pruitt- Igoe were 98% African American
and issues of poverty these residents wetre the poorest of the
poor. |
Anders Linde-Laursen Lund |
Solvang: A Historical Anthropological Illumination of an Ethnicized Space In this paper, I discuss relations between place and access to identity formation. I do so from research carried out in Solvang, California (called "The Danish Capital of America"). In 1911, the founders of Solvang deliberately tried to insert Danish social institutions into an American context. While Danish language and institutions after the Second World War faded, public space was completely re-organized. Today, Solvang is a tourist town, which center consists of presumed architectural signifiers of Denmark. I discuss how social relations form space in Solvang and how space form social relations for three groups: white town-dwellers, visitors from the region, and local "Mexicans". In particular, I discuss the last group. While a growing local population of "Mexicans" working on the backstage is crucial to the local tourist economy, it is, at the same time, excluded twofold from local place. "Mexicans" are not allowed any representation in the dominating narrative about the town's history, nor do they possess any visibility in public space. |
Issue 1, May 1998 |
|
Jurij Nikitin Sankt
|
From
Leningrad to St. Petersburg. 30 Years of City Development. This
article mainly deals with the reconstruction of the historically valuable city ensemble of
St. Petersburg and its important buildings as well as with the construction of modern
architecture. |
Michael Haerdter Berlin |
The Myth of the Centre A retrospective on 200 years of Modernism, documented by the example of one of its capital cities: Berlin. Modern times start off with the Enlightenment toward the end of the eighteenth century, meaning a radical rupture with the past. In a conservative view it stands for "a gigantic inner catastrophe" (Hans Sedlmayr). This provokes numerous countermovements. The modern trend toward permanent change is opposed by holding on to conventinal values. The dissolving of genuine traditions is answered by artificial reconstructions. The real loss of the centre, of a binding measure, is countered by its invention: the legend, the myth of the centre. This essay analyzes and documents Modernism torn by inner and outer conflicts by a number of examples, not least by the ups and downs of the unusual german capital city. Will Berlin find its way out of the dead-end of the modern "either-or" into a new humane, urban dimension of the "and", of openness and synthesis? |
Ilse Helbrecht München |
The
Creative Metropolis Services, Symbols and Spaces Creative services (i.e. graphic design, advertising, interior design) are a specific subsegment of producer services. They operate at the center of the symbolic economy and take on the role of cultural mediators and tastemakers for trends, lifestyles, and identities of the new middle class. Thus, creative services play a crucial role in the construction and transmission of messages about the meaning of consumption. The geography of creative services is clearly linked to metropolitan areas and herein concentrated in inner city locations. This paper looks at the relationship between the cultural/economic production of images and signs, and the urban imaginary of the image-producers. The meaning of an inner city location for creative service firms is often constructed around the myth of the inner city as a cradle of creativity. Based on in-depth interviews in Vancouver I would like to discuss how the focus on images, signs, and creativity at the workplace intermingles with the production of a distinct urban imaginary: the creative metropolis". |
Petra Stojanik Stuttgart |
Eileen Gray or Unconstrained LivingEileen Gray is one of the few women representatives of
classical Modernism. Above all she caused a sensation with her extravagant furniture and
interior designs. Despite apparant affinities to "new spirit" furniture and
fittings, originality characterizes her designs. What makes Gray's concepts for living
different from those of her avant-garde colleagues? What was the role of the user of her
spaces? |
Issue 2, November 1997 |
|
Hans Friesen Cottbus |
From
Modernity to Postmodernity A Genealogic Approach to 20th Century Architecture This article is based on a talk, given in October 1997 at the State
University for Architecture and Civil Engineering in |
Pavel
I. Loshakov Sankt
|
Pulsating
Architectural Environment - Philosophy and Form. We can discover the presence of pulsating components - objects and
associations of objects, that are changeing their functional and spatial parameters (e.g.
according to the season, etc.) - in the architectural environment of different
historical ages. Such kind of changes are reversible: pulsating objects are returning
cyclically to the initial state after a range of phases of transformation. It compels us
to elaborate adequate means (medias) of their formal expression - a scenario of mutable
composition, that signifies an expansion of our conception of the language of
architecture. |
Alexander
|
Thinking against TraditionFrom 20th Century thought emerged the central ideology in
all modernist architectural schools. Thought was taken in its scientized (e.g.
naturalistic, experimental and engineering orientated) forms. Thus, just the Soviet
innovators Dokuchayev with Ladovsky, as well as Ginzburg, were inclined to
go up to the Pillars of Hercules, subordinating all creative processes to science-like
methods and driving back the odd corners of creative intuition and professional tradition,
with all their art experience and cultural symbols. |
Thomas Y. Levin Princeton |
Geopolitics
of Hibernation |
Issue 1, May 1997 |
|
Klaus Kornwachs Cottbus |
Building ProgrammingThis contribution can be seen as an offer to put forward discussions with my fellow colleagues in the field of architecture. Having suffered myself from certain buildings and from carrying out reconstructions on my own house, I consider myself one of the ideal naive users of architectural space. |
Issue 1, October 1996 |
|
Cottbus
|
Autonomy
and Public in Fine Arts
The artist of modernity has freed himself from tradition, which expresses itself in the picture of the world. Visual representation serves no longer as representative goals, but reaches autonomous significance. Thus the artist of modernity has become increasingly isolated. The artist of the 1980s though turns once more to the traditions. (Text available in Russian) |
Bernburg |
On Pragmatics of Dwelling This essay follows the thesis, that the reality of dwelling is captured in concepts of language, that refer to actual social situations. Since the wall no longer exists, people experience changes in their lives from the familiar to the unfamiliar. This can be revealed in the use of familiar words in an unfamiliar manner. This unfamiliar use also indicates changes in the organization of life, in the sense that social routine relationships are being replaced by non-routine relationships. (Text available in German) |
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