David, this goes zoom, as we used to say in Pewaukee, ca. 1973. May I
suggest a chapbook, of say ten pieces (all in low-income housing block form
like the below), with each beginning, "I think the problem is that the
dominant architecture..."

mahvelous.

Kent




>From: "david.bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: "david.bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Only the Shadow knows
>Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 06:37:21 -0000
>
>I think the problem is that the dominant architecture is corporate and of a
>workplace that is not a domus space. To me, the borderlines of barbarity
>lie
>in the (truly) authoritarian source of the workplace, on harsh angles of
>light, in power centres as brutal as Norman castles, to which domestic
>vernacular is no more than a segregated, conditioned retreat.
>The rest of the cityscape, its malls, markets, libraries, tudor police
>stations, private homes for the elderly shadows guaranteed, parks slowly
>turning private like a summer drought's browning, confraternity halls,
>hospitals that are very often scrubbed places to die in, all these
>paraphernalia of necessity stem from the dark commerce at the hub, the
>call-centres and offices il faut absolutement modern.
>Like an art of surfaces. International as music, or a pandemic.
>
>Or some such.
>
>david bircumshaw
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Henry <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2000 4:47 AM
>Subject: Re: Only the Shadow knows
>
>
> > Dr. John got it from an old radio mystery serial called "The Shadow" -
> > played in the 30s.  My father would say that phrase - "Only the Shadow
> > knows" - about anything mysterious.
> >
> > The most important writing of a poet on architecture that I know of is
> > Mandelstam's short essay "Humanism & the Present".  In it he tries to
> > reconcile what he recognizes as the need for a universal "social
> > architecture" - as opposed to "flat" 19th-cent. individualism - with
> > safeguards against the "Assyrian" social architecture of the coming 20th
> > century.  His answer draws on his notions of Acmeism, "domestic
>hellenism",
> > and humanism - the "teleological warmth" of the free human household as
> > a standard.
> >
> >     "The monumentality of the approaching social architecture is
>conditioned
> > by its calling to organize the world's economy according to the
>principle
>of
> > universal home economy to meet man's greater demands, broadening the
>scope
> > of his domestic freedom to universal proportions, fanning the flame of
>the
> > individual hearth to a universal flame.
> >     "The future appears cold and terrifying to those who do not
>understand
> > this, but the internal warmth of the future - the warmth of efficiency,
>home
> > economy and teleology - is just as tangible to the contemporary humanist
>as
> > the heat of the incandescent stove of the present.
> >     "If the social architecture of the future does not have as its
> > foundation a genuinely humanistic justification, it will crush man as
> > Assyria and Babylon did in the past.
> >     "The fact that the values of humanism have now become rare, as if
> > taken out of circulation and hidden underground, is not a bad sign in
>itself.
> > Humanistic values have merely withdrawn, concealed themselves like gold
> > currency, but like the gold reserves, they secure contemporary Europe's
> > entire circulation of ideas, and control them more competently for being
> > underground.
> >     "The transition to gold currency is the business of the future, and
>in
> > the province of culture what lies before us is the replacement of
>temporary
> > ideas - of paper banknotes - with the gold coinage of the European
> > humanistic tradition; the magnificent florins of humanism will ring once
> > again, not against the archeologist's spade, but when the moment comes,
> > they will recognize their own day and resound like the jingling coins of
> > common currency passing from hand to hand."
> >
> > *
> >
> > This confident essay of 3 pages was published in Soviet Russia in 1923.
> > Soon Mandelstam would be silenced.  Though I think if he were writing
> > today, this concept of humanism would be tempered by ecological
> > considerations, the image of "domestic teleological warmth" & freedom
> > as a goal of social (as opposed to purely individualistic) architecture
> > still seems valid & stirring to me.  "Vernacular architecture".
> >
> > Henry

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com