Zaha And Futility

Of Other Spaces



"For a brief, but achingly significant period in the middle of the nineteenth century, architecture and engineering really did meet, in the sense that there was a reciprocal demand for expanding the limits of each field. New technologies led to new building types, which forced engineers to come up with new structural systems. The iron and glass palaces really were as close to that perfect moment as construction could get, but by the end of the 19th century, the capabilities of the engineers had exceeded what they could be needed for. Look at the Paris exhibition of 1889; the Eiffel Tower and the Galerie des Machines were both engineering feats that totally over-fulfilled the demands that could be made of them by society; there was no need for any building that vast, and there never really would be. In a way, this outstripping of technology is akin to ‘the fall’ of functionalism; humans are incapable of living up to this ideal synthesis of technology and design, and it can therefore only ever be a case of expressing something that cannot actually be, of ‘elegant’ (or of course, cost-effective) solutions to our inadequate problems. This fracture in the conceptual foundations of modernist architecture haunts it still.For a brief, but achingly significant period in the middle of the nineteenth century, architecture and engineering really did meet, in the sense that there was a reciprocal demand for expanding the limits of each field. New technologies led to new building types, which forced engineers to come up with new structural systems. The iron and glass palaces really were as close to that perfect moment as construction could get, but by the end of the 19th century, the capabilities of the engineers had exceeded what they could be needed for. Look at the Paris exhibition of 1889; the Eiffel Tower and the Galerie des Machines were both engineering feats that totally over-fulfilled the demands that could be made of them by society; there was no need for any building that vast, and there never really would be. In a way, this outstripping of technology is akin to ‘the fall’ of functionalism; humans are incapable of living up to this ideal synthesis of technology and design, and it can therefore only ever be a case of expressing something that cannot actually be, of ‘elegant’ (or of course, cost-effective) solutions to our inadequate problems. This fracture in the conceptual foundations of modernist architecture haunts it still."

Anniversary Treatise [Mozart]

After Γεώργιος (Musto) Χοιροβοσκός



"The score as a founding document of re-creation has no temporal status. It is both precedent and descendent of realization. The score always arrives after the fact, to dictate the fact. (...) A performance of the piece would not exhaust the score; it would still call for another realization and another, ad infinitum. This is another feature of the score. It is never satisfied."
Seth Kim-Cohen, In the blink of an ear, 2009, pp.49-51

JD Salinger (1919 - 2010)

Comin Thro' The Rye
By Robert Burns

O, Jenny's a' weet, poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry:
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!

Comin thro' the rye, poor body,
Comin thro' the rye,
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warl' ken?

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the grain;
Gin a body kiss a body,
The thing's a body's ain.

This Ain't No Technological Breakdown

Or A Wife For Tsioupis

Abide

Oikonomika Anoigmata

Ependiseis stis Seyxelles -

Go On, Go On / Away From Here