Comments for LEBBEUS WOODS

Comment on UTOPIA? by David J

David J — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:44:11 +0000

I still find it very difficult to envisage society today as a utopia,

i may be a cynic but my understanding of a utopia is of a society that functions correctly. in other words the Garden of Eden scenario.

the only way a utopia can exist, is if as individuals we give up some of our ‘freedoms’. but as can be seen throughout society there are too many people who will take advantage of weaker mmbers of society it is a trait that we as humans have and until this trait is irradicated then there can never be a utopia

Comment on SANT’ELIA’S WORDS by atlatl2

atlatl2 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:02:08 +0000

great post, thanks for that. Finding a book on Sant’Elia’s work when I was in high school was one of the most radical things I remember hitting me. There it was, equivalent to Malevich’s black square, from the same time. Sixty years later “contemporary” art and architecture were congratulating themselves over their cleverness and I was struck by a young Italian mowed down in a senseless war.

Comment on THE LIGHT, THE DARK by Quick Reading « CMU 2nd Year Studio

Quick Reading « CMU 2nd Year Studio — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:20:42 +0000

[...] Woods’s “The Light, The Dark” Geoff Manaugh’s “Editing the Shadow [...]

Comment on ANOTHER REM by lebbeuswoods

lebbeuswoods — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:04:19 +0000

Jack Self: Mas Yendo is a very creative architect who has made an impressive, provocative group of projects over the years. Your comment prompts me to make a post on his work. Thank you.

Comment on NOTEBOOK 01-3 (the last) by lebbeuswoods

lebbeuswoods — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:01:16 +0000

Paco Diego: “Installation” is an art-world term that I don’t like for that reason—I want my “constructions” to be seen as architecture (or strongly related to it), and not as art. But I sometimes slip into using the more common term. I really shouldn’t do that….

Comment on ANOTHER REM by Jack Self

Jack Self — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:37:47 +0000

On the subject of Rem, I saw this that made me think of that floating island in Delirious. Oh, and one of your old students - Mas Yendo - is exhibiting in London , how do you feel about his work?

Comment on NOTEBOOK 01-3 (the last) by Paco Diego

Paco Diego — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:36:23 +0000

Not to dabble in semantics, but when The Storm was presented at Cooper Union, you referred to it as a “construction” (I even purchased a poster of it for $25).

Reading your awesome0 sketchbook and your captions on the images above, you clearly regard it as an “installation”…can you differentiate between the two words?

Comment on SANT’ELIA’S WORDS by c.smith

c.smith — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:28:28 +0000

The scans are fantastic. Thanks

Comment on THE LIGHT, THE DARK by Damir

Damir — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:25:31 +0000

I always identified more with limiting light in a space in order to make it feel like it belong to me or I belonged in it. It makes me more aware of the elements the sorround me. I tend to light a candle anytime I can, rather then turn on a light. My shadow on a wall, made me feel as if the space is shared. I wonder if in new York we will ever see the stars reflect on the same curtain walls the sun covers during the day? I wonder if that would change the cities self involvement? I wonder if the city would grow at night if we didn’t turn on our lights and reflect ourselves?

Comment on ANOTHER REM by Cruz

Cruz — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:54:31 +0000

O.M. Ungers said it in his interview with Rem and Hans Ulrich Orbist: “There is a great misunderstanding among architects. They think they are inventors and always need to be avant-garde. But you cannot permanently exist as an avant-garde. That is impossible.”
I think that this statement draws a clear sketch of the condition of the “avant-garde” architect. On one hand they take advantage of their condition of being intellectual leaders and having control of the mass media to draw clients and armies of young architects willing to sacrifice for their gods, and on the other are confronted with the sad reality of having to face a market that outlasts a discipline as slow as architecture. Koolhaas is the vivid example of this. And even when his office is recycling the shapes of the original projects, they don’t have the intellectual fuel that makes them what they were in the 70’s and 80’s.
If you go as commercial as ‘K’ did it’s hard to avoid the detriment of the original ideas, unless of course you do like Corbu, and reinvent yourself one time after the other, even when you end up contradicting your strongest urban and architectural statements.
Anyways, more or less related to this discussion, we are writing some research based on contemporary architecture, maybe Mr. Bosman and Mr. Woods find it interesting:

http://waiarchitecture.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-about-understanding-contemporary.html

Comment on THE LIGHT, THE DARK by josh

josh — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:52:01 +0000

simply beautiful LW..

Comment on SANT’ELIA’S WORDS by Chris Teeter

Chris Teeter — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:07:13 +0000

(6) leffe’s + (2) Guisness

whatever Sant’Elia did or wrote is at best just visual representation of a radical tone beneath. as your buddy Steven Holl states above, in similar fashion to Futurismo, i put Radical Reconstruction on my table to just break out of whatever i’m thinking when doing a competition…

Sant’Elia didn’t really contradict himself though, he was moving fast out from under Ottto Wagner (good sketches in the “teNeues” book) and steel construction was fairly new.

the statement you qoute is the very problem we face every day now and from now on. his very basis for monumentality was religious and historical and based on logical meaningful systems of thoughts of the past…

“We have lost our predilection for the monumental, the heavy, the static, and we have enriched our sensibility with a taste for the light, the practical, the ephemeral and the swift.”

i think you’d agree that this type of monumentality disappeared when glass became a wall and the internet? monumentality has become impossible as peronsal preference of multiple individuals (i-pod internet etc…) overidees a unified agreement on social norms daily.

it’s all transparent and it all erupts or begins in one spot, and how does it begin, immense movement…

for me that’s the underlying point of Futurism which rips at everyone who reads it, is it’s constant re-structuring of the moment towards another moment of re-structuring, and each drawing is nothing more than a calculus derivative of that moment (a formula projecting the course at that moment).

it’s good to bring this type of work up, it makes me wake up after i finish the rest of my Guisness, it moves the theory of architecture to it’s edge.

someone mentioned good scans, well not exactly Sant’Elia, rather Hugh Ferris, check out this link

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/inside/units/ldpd/avery/html/

Comment on ANOTHER REM by Lubbeus on Rem @ FreeRange

Lubbeus on Rem @ FreeRange — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:26:47 +0000

[...] Worth a quick read, I say! [...]

Comment on UNDERGROUND BERLIN: the film treatment by actor/network narratives « Ancientevening's Blog

actor/network narratives « Ancientevening's Blog — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:26:21 +0000

[...] Lebbeus Woods: Underground Berlin – the film treatment. [...]

Comment on UTOPIA? by thais

thais — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:54:22 +0000

I think it is really hard to experience Utopia, but nonetheless, it exists. Even more than we think.
Utopia has always been accosiated with something unattainable, and therefor unachievable.
Not many years ago, some “intelligent” people decided to make up an utopia. But only centuries after, we realise what sort of utopia that was.
…Utopia is everywhere