Writings on Architecture
Casa da Musica, Porto
Archined | 29 April, 2003
And it is partly the result of the building’s form, which looks like the remains of a hasty meteorite attack on Porto. Nonetheless, the carcass of the Casa da Musica is impressive for the tension it reveals between its monumental spatial character and subtle simplicity, both of which are the result of a carefully composed structure. It is a typically inimitable Koolhaas design, a carefully manipulated programmatic and spatial delirium within a solid form.
The Art of Adult Architecture or The Politics of Pornographic Planning
Cut-Up | 24 September, 2005
This essay - a montage of analyses, opinions, voices and ideas centred around the topics of architecture, ideology, pornography and the network culture (the natural versus the electronic) – explores the possibility of resurrecting the concept of Progressive Political Pornography, this time as the Politics of Pornographic Planning, not as an act of retro-active necrophilia, but as a manifest discontent with the way the legacy of the hard-core second generation of modernists (the ones shaping our world after the Second World War) is treated.
Ephemera and Experience
Tresholds #31 | 2006
This text is a personal reflection on Capturing the Moving Mind, an Ephemera conference on the Trans-Siberian train (Moscow - Novosibirsk - Beijing, September 2005)
Friday morning, or is it Friday noon? Just a short walk through the corridors is enough to experience the confusion about the time zone we are living. Are we in Moscow-time or Novo-time? Nobody really knows and the structure to put everybody into the same schedule is lacking. It is 1:19 PM Novo-time, 10:19 AM Moscow-time. Some participants just woke up, others are already cruising the cabins since the early morning. Seems like roaming the different rhythms become part of this journey. All effects of the traveler’s insomnia, a no sleep ‘til Beijing attitude.
The Terrifying Century of Beautiful Urbanism
In architecture beauty is a taboo; it is a perverted, sentimental, awkward and outdated way of dealing with architecture or the city. It is an unspoken convention that projects should be economic and functional; they don’t aspire to be ethical, beautiful or permanent, but are a commercial exploit or a mere expedient. They have no higher ideal of unity than commercial success; beauty is the byproduct, an accidental accumulation of an accidental encounter between form and content.
(back)
