The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand - King Vidor

Finally managed to watch this last night, brilliant movie, really enjoyed it in many respects, especially as it is relevant to my dissertation.

So first of all the story (and I havent read the book even though I've been meaning to for years) is interesting because it not only represents the attitude of the time but also romanticizes the architect and his profession. The character Howard Roark is obviously based on Frank Lloyd Wright and whilst the societal attitude conveyed in the movie is one of anti modernity it is clearly pro modernism or at least change and progression as our hero Roark wins in the end despite ridiculously getting away with blowing up a huge development. What is interesting is that the way this romantisization brings the game into the public forum. Hollywood was just getting into full flow at the time and tried and tested narrative constructs were being established.



I would say that The Fountainhead falls into the genre of Film Noir, which interestingly enough was a particularly architecturaly relevant genre. Film Noir was a movement between the early forties and late fifties and was generally hollywood crime dramas, but not specifically and the style drew alot from German Expressionism. Expressionism wasnt solely film based, we all know Munch's The Scream, do I need to mention that this was about distorting reality in order to induce emotional reaction? Anyway the movement gained alot of strength in the film industry with the likes of Lang (Metropolis video in earlier post) whos films used alot of mise on scene and narrative based around the dark fringes of society to create more engaging and moody films as they didnt have the resources of Hollywood. Filmakers like Lang and Siodmak later moved to Hollywood where these techniques and styles went on to form the foundations of Film Noir.





I could go on, but the point is that these movies, Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, numerous others and even Blade Runner(a sort of NeoNoir) are the most architecturally relevant movies around. This is not neccessarily because they are about cities or buildings, but because they are about modernism and the societal shift towards modernity. This is why The Fountainhead is an important film and relevant to this course, because it is a statement on these things, Modernity and The Machine, albeit with a little more Hollywood sheen than its Noir contemporaries.

Evelyn Waugh - Decline and Fall

I cant pretend to know enough about literature to say that Waugh was a modernist, but if you read up about him you'll find out that he was. However reading this book wouldnt necessarily make you think that. It was his first book and is entirely, except for a few cockney sort ere an there, written in the most terribly old school tie manner. I think thats the the point though, that hes taking the piss, and it is funny. Im not finished yet, but right now Paul Pennyfeather is in Jail for prostitute trafficking, although for Paul this is not the real Fall (which was his expulsion from Oxford), and hes being punished for being an introvert and enjoying solitary confinement! His punishment is to spend time chatting to other prisoners in the yard, one of whom thinks he is the Lion of the Lord and was sent to kill all the philistines!

I laughed out loud on the tube earlier while reading this, which was a bit embarassing.

The relevance to the course though? I think its firstly relevant in that it is about the decline of the bourgouisie and the interwar period - we talked about this when we looked at Lefebvre and Marxism. Secondly it pokes of fun at Corbusier and modernism with his brilliantly named characters Professor Silenus and Lord Tangent Circumference. My favorite names however, and only because theyre ridiculous, are Beste-Chetwynde and Digby-Vaine-Trumpington!



I had to scan these in, theyre such a good representation of the book and the times and I think Waugh drew them.

Howl by Allen Ginsberg

More beatnik, love it. I have of course read On the Road, which actually I liked alot, but that was about ten years ago. Ive also read Queer and Naked Lunch by Burroughs. Naked Lunch is supposed to be the classic but I found it pretty much unintelligable, I think most of the stuff in that book is written while Burroughs is out of his tree on smack. However Queer is a great book, better than any other beatnik stuff Ive read. I must read Junkie, which is also supposed to be very good.

Before this Id never read any Ginsberg and Ive got to say its brilliant. I dont know much about poetry at all and cant say Ive read much, but this just unfolds, its dynamic and you feel yourself rolling along with it.

The discussion about industrialisation and the machine (society) is I think why the beat generation became so famous, not just because of that initself but because of the liberative reaction to it, which I guess in no small part brought about the social changes in the sixties.

I was interested to read that Ginsberg studied in great detail early classical writers and from that was able to create his style, for example using parataxis to engage the reader or listener.

Anyway so I guess the link to Archigram is the MACHINE, weve been talking about the societal machine, but something that the world has been obsessed with ever since the industrial revolution is technology, the future and the machine. Archigram heavily drew on technology to imagine future living growing cities and I guess this will tie in with Corb who must have been one of the first architects to start directly relating architecture to the functionality of machines and industry.

Now my videos are becoming a bit more relevant so Im gonna put another one up..

these guys have to be the only band to succesfully infuse heavy metal with rap, except maybe Cypress Hill, but unfortunatley spawned years of shite music from people like Limp Bizkit

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE




this album was released 17 years ago yesterday! I couldnt find the original video so this will have to do. The images are a little on the anarchic side but at least theyre fairly provocative.

Moloch & Metropolis

Im loving the blogging as part of the course, hence my various random posts that arent necessarily tied to theroy2, but this should not be confused with the abomination that is Twitter, which is clearly for twits, Ive tried all the other social networking crap, but twitter really is a step too far :)

These past two however are related to my dissertation on architecture and film and this one is related to the next piece by Allen Ginsberg as he did say that the Moloch section in Howl was partly influenced by the character Moloch in Metropolis, even if he was off his tits on cactus when he thought of it!

More on Howl next...

Man With A Movie Camera

Awesome Cinematic Orchestra song, that everyone probably knows, but the vid is an edited version of Dziga Vertov's 1929 movie, the original can be watched on google:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2809965914189244913#

Oh and by the way Cinematic Orchestra are playing at the roundhouse on friday night - I cant go damn it but it will be awesome they are doing a full live orchestral show of their man with a movie camera album - tickets are 25quid - pricey but well worth it.

Las Vegas - Tom Wolfe & Dave Hickey

Both pieces are very pro Vegas, particularly in relation to democratisation. Indeed Hickey sees Vegas as the last democratic stage in America and as a result calls it home. I think this comes from the total freedom that Vegas offers its users. Something that America is supposed to be and in turn exactly where Wolfes beatnik style comes from.

The same applies to the architecture of Vegas, total freedom from history, to the point where buildings are no longer the architecture but signs and light are. Having spent some time in America and been travelling alot I can identify with the beat philosophy and the liberation that is tangible in America so the idea that Vegas is this and more just makes me want to go there!


http://amazingdata.com/old-las-vegas-neon-signs/

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=buttocks%20d%C3%A9colletage

Henri Lefebvre

Best bit yet and although I feel Im becoming a bit like Stephen Fry and arrogantly talking to myself as if loads of people really want to read my thoughts, I cant help it! At least this module gives me a reason to do so.

Ive read this piece three times now and although I love the beatnik nature of Tom Wolfes piece Ive spent alot more time thinking about Lefebvres philosophy.

I think its generally about our concept, as players of the current cultural theory, of 'reality', in particular and in direct relation to our understanding of Space. We all know about Marxism and its conotations toward communism, but I certainly dont know the details, which I think is the reason I feel the need to understand it.

So to what degree is social space a product? To answer that question we have to ask what is a product, and what is social space. The issue of social space, certainly in Lefebvres mind, is intertwined with the human concept of product and reading this shit is fascinating, it challenges the things that everyone plays along with every day!

His discussions revolve around Marxist thinking, use value and exchange value. I see that as monetry (current political and economic) value and real, personal, natural value and that these are the very basic building blocks of a system that allows our current capitalist world to work.

As a result of this we discuss the difference between A product and A work and the more you get into it the more you realise that whilst both have their own distinction, they are, in current society, difficult to seperate and have been since at least Roman society.

Im rambling cos Ive drunk several bottles of wine and Ive had a mental week, but I think that the answer is that social space is a product, it may be far removed from the basic idea of a product, but it is a result of societal work, which is in turn a product of the political and economical world that weve all been living in for a long time!

Shawn Phillips

'The Politics of Amnesia' by Terry Eagleton

A departure from the last two pieces, this is first of all a book, not an article and has a stronger constitution. As Paul pointed out, the other two pieces are like mutations of theory, this however is more serious. Eagletons approach is immediatley more philosophical, he talks about ideas and ways of thinking rather than general happenings and occurences in modern day life. Indeed this chapter is about that very thing. The state of theory today, how we got here and where we are going.
Theory obviously develops with time as we learn from our predecessors, what Eagleton is saying is that currently we arent really making the leaps and bounds in cultural theory and thinking that have been made up until recently and that current theoretical thinking has strayed to popular and philisophically thin subject matters. I tend to agree with him, not that I know that much about the great theorists before us, but the world does seem to be a quagmire of consumerism and indulgence more than ever before. On the other hand he argues that never before have we been so liberated in our cultural theory and I think thats the point where are we and where are we going.



http://www.scribd.com/doc/13652422/Politics-of-Amnesia-Terry-Eagleton

Mike Davis - Fear and Money in Dubai

Fear and Money in Dubai - what a fascinating article, fascinating in part because my oldest and best friend has lived in the middle east since I first met him at boarding school and now lives in Abu Dhabi, where I will be heading to be his best man in 6 months time!

I have always been a bit perplexed by the existence of the UAE and how such a monstrous place could have been created from the nothing that it was all of roughly 60 years ago. This article has definately offered a better understanding of how and why all this happened.
The edifice complex of bigger is better rules over all and its interesting how this has been created through the running of Sheikh Al Maktoums country like a business and the global marketing of that business which in turn feeds the gigantisism. If you look up Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum you will find some pretty wild facts, for example he has 19 children, a senior and junior wife and in 2008 was estimated to have amassed a fortune of 28,000,000,000 us dollars!

The problem with all this however is that the world pays for it and oil is where it all started, Saudi just next door owns 13.9% of the worlds oil reserves by contrast the UAE only owns 3.2% of the worlds oil. However the UAE is only 4% the size of Saudi so by land mass is far richer in oil. I always find statitistics difficult to accept because they only pertain to one single number relating to one single relationship. Anyway its clear that UAE has loads of dosh! The question now is not why but how do they have so much dosh and I was interested to read how Al Maktoum has created these low tax incentives to draw in business from the rest of the world so that it isnt just oil that keeps the economy ticking.

Finally the question of ethics arises and clearly ethics are not a gigantic factor in this world of biggism, no matter how you look at it its pretty clear that work forces are drawn in from poor countries to build the place. The BBC ran a Panorama documentry on it earlier this year:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7985361.stm

and what pisses me off more than anything is the rich bastards who dont seem to be doing anything about it. Architects moreover like Zaha who head out there to produce their wild and wonderful concotions should be at the front of the opposition.


http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2635

ZAHA HADID: THE FIRST GREAT FEMALE ARCHITECT - by Johnathan Meades

Johnathan Meade’s excellent article is a sort of intellectual dissection of Zaha Hadid. He does this, as discussed, through the examination of a number of agendas that contribute to the zaha amalgam.
Context seems to me to be the most interesting and important question, whether it’s the physical environment into which her buildings are dropped, the social context of the architectural world, or the places where she lives and works. Her designs are so outrageously extreme I think this is a valid subject to address.
This render of a competition entry she did for the Centre for Islamic Art in the Cour Visconti at the Louvre is a prime example, the shape of the intervention is so far removed from the existing courtyard that it isn’t easy to see how it was born. However, her buildings are, as Meades says, sensitive to their surroundings. She is not drawing forms directly from the surrounding landscape rather making an intervention into the existing space to make a better and more exciting use of that space. There is further context in this design in the geometrical patterns of the cladding, an acknowledgment of what lies within. So she may appear to be ‘anti-contextual’, but in reality the designs still need to come from somewhere.

http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/zaha-hadid