thoughts in and out of season
A UK cabinet minister says that Britain is on the verge of a “new Renaissance,” at least if plans go forward to shift arts funding from pork barrel to pursuit of excellence. According to the Culture Secretary, and a report prepared for him, “the society we now live in is arguably the most … More ...
Why do we have horrible inhuman architecture? I’ve claimed that the issues are basically religious: “we want the world we build around us to look like the world we believe in. Otherwise it seems stupid, distracting, phony and aside the point.” So if you’re a modernist technocrat who makes a religion of the laws of … More ...
Christopher Alexander puzzles over the difference between a Catholic vestment, which is likely to have a symmetrical design centered on the Cross, and a Japanese kimono, which is likely to have an intentionally asymmetrical design, although one composed perhaps of symmetrical and even identical elements like stylized blossoms. (The Nature of Order, vol. … More ...
I’ve had a bad cold, and spent part of the afternoon yesterday watching Stalker, a film by the Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. The film redeemed the afternoon. It’s an extraordinary presentation of the Russian soul as affected and afflicted by Soviet and modern life. I can’t believe the censors allowed it to be … More ...
A couple of family members are in India just now, so I went off to the Metropolitan Museum to look at their collection of Indian art. Here are some (rather naive) notes:
A reader mentioned Michel Houellebecq in connection with my link to a consumer’s guide to women in a recent post. I haven’t read Houellebecq’s novels (I don’t read French) and decided to look up his Wikipedia entry, which led me to a review by John Updike of his most recent book.
The review’s … More ...
I can’t get off the topic of Alexander and architecture. Luckily for my few remaining readers I’m running out of things to read and comment on, at least until volumes 2, 3, and 4 of his The Natwhy wereure of Order arrive. Anyway, I found on the web the transcript of a 1982 debate between … More ...
I’ve been reading a couple more books by Christopher Alexander that happen to be available at the New York Public Library, The Timeless Way of Building (1979) and A New Theory of Urban Design (1987). They’re altogether consistent with the more recent book of his I’ve read, the first volume of The Nature of Order… More ...
I went on the Gowanus Artists Studio Tour yesterday, and as usual was made very happy by the number of good artists. It’s a good outing and I’d recommend it. Most of the artists have open bottles of wine and snacky-type food in their studios, so you tend to get mildly and very cheerfully sloshed … More ...
Alexander is important because architecture is important. It gives the social, intellectual and spiritual order a physical form that helps mold our lives. Also, it’s large, solid, visible and very expensive, so it’s difficult to ignore issues created by the kind of order or disorder it embodies. Discussing architecture is therefore an indirect way of … More ...