RESPONSE:
Please tell us more about this missing and essential truth, and its cause.
And, perhaps there is a place of essential truth; and you could
locate its place?
.H.
hi Howard, maybe there is not a truth to be told, beheld, conjured, in a
matter-of-fact way, no certainty, no absolute knowledge, no specialized
equation of what is architecture to be emulated and regurgitated by the
academic machinery.
how can architecture, and architects for that matter, interface with the
world, a world in which they do not inhabit, in the roles presupposed to
their profession(alisms)..? that is what i wonder, the virtual identity of
architect/ure as a product, pursuit, endeavor, agency to make things,
create things, express, build, define culture, and shape the world.
are architects really doing this work? and if so, how? are any major
plans happening, or are they corporate plans, by companies which are
primarily out to make a marketable bucket of cash, imagineering pseudo-
states of normalcy (celebration by Disney) in a world gone to ruin...?
where are the architects? building houses, buildings? writing books and
giving lectures? talking with contractors, financiers, and businesses?
how can they take on the world, say, if they have the complexity of
making another primitive hut for the dark ages of technological society?
architecture has become a thoroughly specialized insitution, with rules
of engagement based on the past. it is about expertise in whatever niche
market one competes to play inside. free trading of insider clues as to
how to build a career, a family, a cultural lifestyled, while the world
goes to hell. dissent, say something uncouth? whoa- be very careful-
architectural elitism may reign down upon you! sure. lots of risk, to
the person, they may forfeit their place in the game by not going along
with the flow. they may not win the competition, the popularity contest,
the seat at the table, or the conference everyone else will be attending.
architecture is not. architects are not. architects. architecture. in the
present sense. more, they practice ritualistic magik, conjuring up the
ghosts of the past to add to the resumes and curriculum vitaes of 'this
is success', i am the master of my own universe, my own house, my
own domain. everyone else, humanity, be damned, ego maniacal twist
of a fated death to the authentic, genuine Questioning of the world.
certainty, assurity, the architect is immune, architecture is immune
from all critique, walled up as it is in the private fortress of mental
designs, preformatted to get that certificate, that legitimate, that
pass for the fun ride at the best that traditional culture holds so high
on that hill overlooking all else, twinkling lights, a universe, with the
hell of ghettos below, in the fog, never to be seen on the road to more
and more freedoms of choice: "which grade of furniture, of acccessories,
of stones and metals should i put in this grande ensemble of life, asks
the architect from eons past? what lego-block construction kit, what
detail in this scrimshaw of life can i paste on the wall, elegant graffiti?
ignore the dead, the dying, the screaming crying, ignore the ugly- for
it is NOT ARCHITECTURE. it is not."
a architecture, anti, no, not, nothing, non, a-typical type "i callously
wail, yes yes, bring home the home, bring me some aesthetics, oh yes,
those aesthetes, what athletic stirnums to hook with punching fist, so
fragile a decoration, so interior their mind numbnation, so deceitful and
decadent their egoistic fantasias. nothing. not a thing. architecture."
"war, architects do not choose sides, they are war. they promote the
dysfunctional, the denial of change, the pursuit of certainty, utopian
dream ecstasy, vein busting complacency, all needs to be correct you
know." oh, yes, specialist, fixing that doorknob, kneeding the world in
revisionism until the dough is soft enough to mold in whatever way that
gray matter of the mental atmosphere can take, hold, forever do us part.
particles, details, architectural drivels, another design, another building,
the only superstructure an identity, a psycho-illogical construction which
builds to redeem itself, to verify its own existence, its own authenticities,
the anticities rot, they do not exist. architecture does not exist. it has no
essence of its own, for it has become corrupt beyond any degreed of repair.
end of a profession, of professors of confession, of bureaucratic inventions,
building conventions, making way for another replicant today, another cloned
sheep of the dollyish wannabee, glossy magazine aeshetic desiree, oh, a blue
deeply intoned in plastic mesh of silver and gold, 'that is what i
see'. despot.
depots, megamalling retail woes, roads a crumbling, highways a clogging, and
no drain to clean but that of the mental scenery, the making believing me, and
i do not believe. architecture does not exist. without essence. or
if it does, its
essence is not that bandied about in circular jerking of
adminstrations of .edu
peversions. institutions run people, is that not clearer than daylight? no.
it is night, and artifice, well, it is irrelevant for it is 'sacred
blight' to the
true believing, make perceiving, that is the professionalization of deceit.
architecture does not exist in the minds of architects. a formula does of a
world long gone, an ideal, idol, idle world, newtonian spatial time, no matter
what design is made, logic deciphers cryptic page, cad drafting,
milling about.
essence, there is none, for there is none. nobody. no one. none. nowhere to be
seen nor heard. 'we' don't exist. we exit, forever, dreams, as a result of the
collective ignorance of commonality. the expert, specialist, perfection in the
details, whether writing whither designing, weather building, stage setting a
next home box office smash hit for the global theatre and its
mediated audience.
ho hum, no scotch tape left, no pencil nor cardboard, no plug to
turn on the only
machine. no way to say, working together let's do something today. difference,
particulars, we are not the same, we are different in most everyway.
it is just
not 'my way of seeing', privatized realizations, precedent loaded
with prejudice,
living in la-la landings, courtship enhancing, mood swing dancing,
around and around,
merry as all hell. 'boy a pencil is powerful'. 'the sketch, so
divine, it brings me into
another world altogether, more perfect, more real, i forget the
blight, the sadness,
helplessness', 'this artist if my hero, my heroine, my savior, my
love' forever lost.
"ruins once romanced, now a stenching mess of rotting flesh,
horrors, death, police
statutes, bring down the (people's) house, why don't you then,
bulldozing it so it
can be replaced by the authentic architecture of this day,
manufacturing consent via
'master building' of a race of peons, ready to rule for eons, the
architectural ego of
the status quo, the receipt found in sewage treatment tanks and
their treaties, oh,
gas and smog and weather mascarades, no more money, architecture disappears in
less than a day. ego busting bombshells for the elite culture
car-crash tells, drink
fine wine and ruminate about that single line, that all important
perfection, the one
and only 'right' choice, to succeed, medallions, all awaits those
who believe, fakery
of architectural deceipt, complancency of the organized depletion of
ideas by a cabal
of crooked, handshaking, mindless soul drifted wood sized politician
in the makeup
room of life. theatre in the merriest of go-rounds, Hail
Architecture, Heil Architect,
where is the patriotic chord to the bureaucratic drum beating,
fantastic weaving of
the mythology of meaning long since disappeared. what has happened
of note in the
last 20 years, but regression, but denial of social agency, but
intellectual vapidity,
poseurs and potentes, riding around in luxury carriage houses on
wheels, i am more
make-believe than you, see says all who follow suits."
"lawyers, be afraid of wicked battles, of all things civilization
can throw at you as
the CAD buttons are pushed. the price is so high- for thinking. for
freedom of seeing,
saying, perceiving, but not believing, as long as one goes along for
the ride."
all the theorists, academics, professionals, where are they now with
their high-
minded vocal lessons, legions of hubris-designing, why do they not
use their voice?
there is none. nothing to say. architecture does not exist today. an
illusion centuries
old, smoke and mirrors no longer foolish enough to give them false
praises in the
holiest, most sacred of artificial embraces. they know nothing about
the land they
walk upon, nothing of the minds they format in their images. and
they have nothing
to say about the world that is not the way they perceive. they do
not exist, as people.
they are mirages of choice, of freedom, of criticism, of risk.
exploit another avenue
of despair to make it ahead. this is the year of Shinkle, no, to say
the least- who will
rise to the occassion to build for the new state of policities..?
oh, lining up at the doors,
the gates, another competition to make a new wave, past tries to
churn forward and
the theory-mongers holding their breath for opportunistic
adventures, only when
things 'calm down a little bit'. bit by bit, taking it apart, and
there is no-thing left.
"that is what architecture has become, nothing. that is the greatest
creation, its own
instutitional and ideological destruction, for it is no longer free,
and this is war, as
Le Corbusier once questioned, thinking there was a choice for an
architectural piece.
thus, what 'heroes or heroines' does this architecture that is not
have? look in the
papers, all the pretty designs. ignore the smoke and black clowds,
miliary planes and
bombings, the interrogations of people, the blacklisting. just go
along for the ride. yes,
sooner or later it will be your turn. and it seems architecture long
ago picked sides."
a fictitious faction.
