Posted: February 13th, 2010 | Author: ajrigau | Filed under: Personal, Philosophy | Tags: Philosophy, work ethic | No Comments »
“The realm of the final inch… The work has been almost completed, the goal almost attained, everything seems completely right and the difficulties overcome. But the quality of the thing is not quite right. Finishing touches are needed… In that moment of fatigue and self-satisfaction it is especially tempting to leave the work without having attained the apex of quality… In fact, the rule of the Final Inch consists in this: not to shirk this crucial work. Not to postpone it… And not to mind the time spent on it, knowing that one’s purpose lies not in completing things faster but in the attainment of perfection.”
—Alexander Solzhenitzyn, The First Circle
Posted: January 11th, 2010 | Author: arigau | Filed under: ArchDrawing, Architecture, Personal | Tags: Architecture, Collin Rowe, Derrida, Eisenman, El Lissitzky, Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Phenomenology, Philosophy, Robert Slutzky, Robert Venturi, Scott Brown, Space, Transparency | No Comments »
Visual interpretation of the negative space in the Herbert F. Johnson Museum.
My dad once told me that there are two kinds of architects: the ones who can understand spatial transparency (the privileged) and those who cannot (the rest). Robert Slutzky and Colin Rowe develop in “Trasparency” and “Transparency 2″ (from Architecture Culture: 1943-1968, by Joan Ockman) an understanding of how a building’s formal structure can demarcate spaces. They single out two types of transparencies: the literal and the phenomenal. The first refers to how a material like glass, although physically “transparent,” is still tangibly present in the structure’s form. In contrast, phenomenal transparency allows for a simultaneous perception of different spatial locations within the same space. The idea is that, like in an optical illusion, forms are suggested –or implied, as Peter Eisenman would prefer to say– rather than depicted. In other words, it allows for spatial stratification within given limits. Phenomenal spaces are never different, but differentiated. Like in Cubist paintings, phenomenal forms are suggested, not stipulated. The viewer defines what he/she sees.
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