Re: (Fwd) Level of Discussion Sinks

On Sat, Sep 16, 1995 12:53:56 PM  at Nidhip Mehta wrote:

>My point: The inexplicable tendancies of architects to adore each and
>every word that comes of their mouths.  I've never seen a group of people
>who love to hear themselves talk as we do.  I say "we" because we are all
>guilty of it from time to time.  Even as a 3rd year student, I've
>encountered so much unnecessary "arch-speak" from pedantic architects
>with their trusty thesauri at the ready, that I just ache, from time to
>time, for simple and clear language.  After all, this is what we've been
>told is good about architects - the ability to formulate an idea in a
>clear and accessible language, not in the lofty "arch-language" that most
>of us have regrettably learned is the proper way for architects to write
>and speak.
>
>I don't know.  Maybe more composition classes are what's needed.  Maybe
>then we wouldn't have this list that seems to perpetuate the notion that
>the words we use are more important than the ideas we have.

what part of 'fuck you' was "unnecessary arch-speak"?  I was rather pleased
at my pithiness.  I guess I'll have to go back to floating ideas in
'incomprehensible jargon': that trusty phrase that every undergraduate
learns to defend him/herself against ideas they don't want to learn.

Composition? Do you mean language or form, for I think there are enough
Allen Greenburg's  (do I even have that right?) in the world.  If the
latter, the line for the Neocon, Neourban and Neonatal forms on the right.


Here, here's an idea sure to sustain the graduate career of someone, and it
even sort of ties in (what with us discussing language and worried about
the level of discussion, & etc.):

In contemporary theory, there is a lot of appropriation from various
threads of continental philosophy and literary theory.  We are reminded
that building are texts.  Lebbeus put it best a couple months back when he
said that architects produce descriptions of buildings (or words to that
effect).  This certainly legitimizes the idea that buildings are texts.
But if we are to apply this notion thoroughly, why do we so transparently
accept the framework of this text, i.e, the laws and contracts that govern
the making of descriptions?  Unlike fiction, as much information surrounds
and surmounts the text as the text itself (well, OK, fiction is not context
free, but the rules governing the creation of a building, i.e., the
contract, are much more literal than the context in which fiction occurs),
yet there is no similar interrogation of these texts (this makes the
exercise of textual reading a much more structuralist exercise, but it is
true that many theorticians are stuck in this mode of assesing texts).  I
hold that the described relationship between the architect and owner and
contractor is as, if not more, important than the implied or assumed one
(i.e., the pre-existing language supercedes all the interactions the
architect/client go through in the creation of the description, in Lebbeus'
terminology).  Why do we so naively ignore these crucial texts (though I
bailed before I got to the practice class, I know they discussed billing
and liscencing more than anything else) and instead create these fictive
notions of relations and circumstances when talking about clients or
houses?

And this is to ignore the effects of codes and zoning, other entire texts
that impact both the legal and 'artistic' production.

How about it:  does anyone here use anything besides the trusty B155, A204,
or whatever?  What is your preferred contract?  Ask your highbrow and
highlight friends (maybe jya and spn could do a survey at the 4 seasons) if
they attempt alternatives, or, gasp, the deadly letter contract.  What do
these alternative texts do to the creative process, the legal relationship?


with a burning heart
nic musolino
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