What's Worth Knowing 1
(Newsletter from the Hotel Architecture, 7.3.2004)
Hello
It's been a week since arrival on the big bird from Atlanta, tight spaces, sitting next to a computer game fanatic who was returning from meeting his 'girlfriend' - fellow 'quest?' gaming member - in Oklahoma. Colder than usual here in the Hotel Architecture, so the open log fire has been in use, outside it has even snowed and the winds come down from Siberia, eastwards across Scandinavia. The writing goes well, the new book is called 'Architecture or Life' (what a choice huh?) and I must complete an initial draft/ outline scheme for the publishers by first week April, ready to work on it in Autumn for publication next spring 2006. In the meantime I have been looking around at all the books here in the cottage and thinking of something Esther said about the notion of a 'lost' or partial education.
What exactly do we mean by this?
Why are some names, references appearing now and how have they (suddenly) gained currency at SOA? Is it the introduction through new faculty? Is it a representation of what has happened eslewhere and the 'tickle down effect' as it comes into the SOA? Why, if modern/conemporary philosophy is more talked about, should we attend to this? And how would we attend to it? By a reading list, by a chance route, by intense investment in things we at first do not understand, or by attempting to understanding for example Robert Smithson's work? Do you sometimes feel you have to graduate to realise we wish no longer to question or engage deeply with knowledge as experience but accept learning as 'example' (and become professionals: remember the US army recruiting slogan - learn, lead, succeed!!)? Or do you graduate to realise you only just begin engaging with knowledge and experience when you begin questioning it?
Which are you? And is it either-or?
I think not; the world is both-and, and the difficulty is oscillating and sailing between the two. How many of us are comfortable with uncertainty? A good friend of mine, the architect Volker Giencke, teaches in Innsbruck and believes that architecture students, first year, must also begin with a course on art...not Renaissance art or Greek Art, but art today, art tomorrow in all its messiness and 'incomprehension'. He believes the first grapple with 'incoherence' and 'incongruities' becomes the first step into the potential world in architecture that has not been scripted, not already existing. And the references the artists use are those very same that you have suddenly found appearing in your various seminars and studios!! What is your take on this? Is it a 'lost education' or a late-education? Take a look at the following: "An Ideal Syllabus" (Artists, Critics & Curators choose the books we need to read) edited by Jerry Saltz, Frieze, London 1998.
Early morning greetings from the Hotel Architecture.
Frank.
Hello
It's been a week since arrival on the big bird from Atlanta, tight spaces, sitting next to a computer game fanatic who was returning from meeting his 'girlfriend' - fellow 'quest?' gaming member - in Oklahoma. Colder than usual here in the Hotel Architecture, so the open log fire has been in use, outside it has even snowed and the winds come down from Siberia, eastwards across Scandinavia. The writing goes well, the new book is called 'Architecture or Life' (what a choice huh?) and I must complete an initial draft/ outline scheme for the publishers by first week April, ready to work on it in Autumn for publication next spring 2006. In the meantime I have been looking around at all the books here in the cottage and thinking of something Esther said about the notion of a 'lost' or partial education.
What exactly do we mean by this?
Why are some names, references appearing now and how have they (suddenly) gained currency at SOA? Is it the introduction through new faculty? Is it a representation of what has happened eslewhere and the 'tickle down effect' as it comes into the SOA? Why, if modern/conemporary philosophy is more talked about, should we attend to this? And how would we attend to it? By a reading list, by a chance route, by intense investment in things we at first do not understand, or by attempting to understanding for example Robert Smithson's work? Do you sometimes feel you have to graduate to realise we wish no longer to question or engage deeply with knowledge as experience but accept learning as 'example' (and become professionals: remember the US army recruiting slogan - learn, lead, succeed!!)? Or do you graduate to realise you only just begin engaging with knowledge and experience when you begin questioning it?
Which are you? And is it either-or?
I think not; the world is both-and, and the difficulty is oscillating and sailing between the two. How many of us are comfortable with uncertainty? A good friend of mine, the architect Volker Giencke, teaches in Innsbruck and believes that architecture students, first year, must also begin with a course on art...not Renaissance art or Greek Art, but art today, art tomorrow in all its messiness and 'incomprehension'. He believes the first grapple with 'incoherence' and 'incongruities' becomes the first step into the potential world in architecture that has not been scripted, not already existing. And the references the artists use are those very same that you have suddenly found appearing in your various seminars and studios!! What is your take on this? Is it a 'lost education' or a late-education? Take a look at the following: "An Ideal Syllabus" (Artists, Critics & Curators choose the books we need to read) edited by Jerry Saltz, Frieze, London 1998.
Early morning greetings from the Hotel Architecture.
Frank.
posted by frank heron at 1:47 AM
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