RIP Stanley Chapman (1925 – 2009)

RIP Stanley Chapman (1925 – 2009)[1]

via www.tate.org.uk

Cover illustration for Subsidia Pataphysica, no.1, 19 December 1965

Stanley Chapman (1925 – 2009) was a British architect, designer, translator and writer. His interests included theatre and pataphysics. He was involved with founding the National Theatre of London, was a member of Oulipo of the year 1960, founder of the Outrapo and a member also of the French Collège de ‘Pataphysique, president the London Institute of ‘Pataphysics and the Lewis Carroll Society. His English translation of Hundred Thousand Billion Poems was received with “admiring stupefaction” by Raymond Queneau.

The Eiffel Tower @120

The Eiffel Tower @120

The Eiffel Tower was inaugurated April 1, 1889 in Paris.

The Eiffel Tower is an iron tower in Paris, France. It is one of the tallest structures in Paris and one of the most recognized and visited monuments in the world. Named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, it stands as a symbol to the modernity of Nineteenth century Paris.

The tower was met with criticism from the public when it was built, with many calling it an eyesore. (Novelist Guy de Maupassant — who claimed to hate the tower — supposedly ate lunch at the Tower’s restaurant every day. When asked why, he answered that it was the one place in Paris where you couldn’t see the Tower.)

One of the great Hollywood movie clichés is that the view from a Parisian window always includes the tower. In reality, since zoning restrictions limit the height of most buildings in Paris to 7 stories, only a very few of the taller buildings have a clear view of the tower. The relationship Eiffel Tower/Paris is metonymical.

The Eiffel Tower was the second instance of modern architecture after the Crystal Palace, modern architecture understood to be driven by technological developments, a celebration of the aesthetics of iron, steel, concrete and glass.

Iron, steel, concrete and glass

I see modern architecture as primarily driven by technological and engineering developments, rather than artistic and social developments) and that the availability of new building materials such as iron, steel, concrete and glass drove the invention of new building techniques as part of the Industrial Revolution. The first example in this category is the Crystal Palace which used iron, steel, concrete and glass to house the Great Exhibition of 1851.

About 40 years later in France, the Eiffel Tower was inaugurated. It broke all previous limitations on how tall man-made objects could be—and at the same time offered a radically different environment in urban life.

The style was first verbally celebrated by futurist architect Antonio Sant’Elia in 1914 in his Manifesto of Futurist Architecture.

“The house of concrete, glass and steel, stripped of paintings and sculpture, rich only in the innate beauty of its lines and relief, extraordinarily “ugly” in its mechanical simplicity, higher and wider according to need rather than the specifications of municipal laws. It must soar up on the brink of a tumultuous abyss: the street will no longer lie like a doormat at ground level, but will plunge many stories down into the earth, embracing the metropolitan traffic, and will be linked up for necessary interconnections by metal gangways and swift-moving pavements. ”

Baron Haussmann @200, Haussmannization and creative destruction

Baron Haussmann @200

Place de l’Étoile

Baron Haussmann (1809 – 1891) turned 200 today.

Haussmannwas a French urbanist who called himself an “artiste démolisseur,” literally translated as artist destroyer, a concept with a political equivalent of creative destruction. I’ve mentioned Haussmann and Haussmannization here [1] and here[2].

Haussmann’s renovation of Paris is often simply referred to as Haussmannization, connected to the notion of creative destruction, a political concept.

creative destruction, surplus product

The notion of creative destruction is found in the writings of Mikhail Bakunin, Friedrich Nietzsche, and in Werner Sombart‘s Krieg und Kapitalismus (War and Capitalism) (1913, p. 207), where he wrote: “again out of destruction a new spirit of creativity arises”. In Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter popularized and used the term to describe the process of transformation that accompanies radical innovation. It contrasts with various tactics of preservation and embalming the past.

Interestingly, Flaubert’s friend Maxime du Camp said:

“Paris, as we find it in the period following the Revolution of 1848, was about to become uninhabitable.” – [Paris Arcades] quoting from Maxime du Camp, Paris, vol 6 (Paris, 1875), p.253.

and

“Its population had been greatly enlarged and unsettled … and now this population was suffocating in the narrow, tangled, putrid alleyways in which it was forcibly confined.” — [Paris Arcades] quoting from Maxime du Camp, Paris, vol 6 (Paris, 1875), p.253.]

It was Jules Ferry who wrote “Les Comptes fantastiques de Haussmann,” his indictment of the bold handling of public funds for the Haussmannization. It was published in 1867, its title being a play on words between contes, stories or tales – as in Les contes d’Hoffmann or Tales of Hoffmann, and comptes, accounts.

Frank Gehry @70

Frank Gehry@70

Dancing House, Prague by Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunić (photo by ccwrks)

Frank Gehry (born 28, 1929) is a Canadian-American starchitect based in Los Angeles, California, primarily associated with a strain of postmodern architecture, known as Deconstructivism.

His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions. Many museums, companies, and cities seek Gehry’s services as a badge of distinction, beyond the product he delivers.

His best known works include the titanium-covered Guggenheim Museum in  Spain, Walt Disney Concert Hall in the United States, Dancing House in the Czech Republic, and his private residence in California, which jump-started his career, lifting it from the status of “paper architecture“, a phenomenon which many famous architects have experienced in their formative decades through experimentation almost exclusively on paper before receiving their first major commission in later years.

La Fontaine Anspach

La Fontaine Anspach, Vismarkt, Brussels

La Fontaine Anspach was originally located at the Place de Brouckère. It was displaced to the Vismarkt. The monument is an hommage to Jules Anspach.

It was designed by Emile Janlet with the collaboration of Paul De Vigne, Julien Dillens, Godefroid Devreese and Pierre Braecke. Georges Houtstont did the ornaments.

One I forgot:

I hope they never “clean” this. No matter how dirty, I always prefer it to the restauration.

Andrea Palladio @500

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C08pv_YZE70]

Andrea Palladio (November 30, 1508 – August 19, 1580), was an Italian architect. The Palladian style, named after him, adhered to Roman architecture principles and a search for classical perfection. The Palladian villa format was easily adapted for a democratic worldview, as can be seen in Thomas Jefferson‘s commissioned buildings. Palladian motifs made a comeback during the postmodern era, the American architect Philip Johnson frequently used them in his doorways.

Whither now, anarchitecture?

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4A5ybTAOWw&]

Some Office Baroque footage, Some footage similar to Office Baroque

Gordon Matta-Clark died thirty years ago today. He stayed in Antwerp for a while in 1977, just before his death, working with Florent Bex, creating Office Baroque, which he called anarchitecture. Pieces of his “building cuts” were sold around the world[1].

I like him, much as I like the near-contemporary and also short-lived Robert Smithson. Whither now, anarchitecture, and other visionary environments?

Stranger than fiction

I’ve posted about these two buildings before, but the similarities are to substantial to let it pass over not to post them juxtaposed. Find out more by clicking on the buildings.

The Borgesian fictions of Filip Dujardin

Filip Dujardin (born July 14 1971) is a Belgian photographer. He is currently (January 18 – March 31 2008) exhibiting at the Bozar (Paleis voor Schone Kunsten) of which the highlight is this photo, a sublime Borgesian fiction. Highly recommended.

World cinema classics #24

Steve + Sky (2004) – Felix van Groeningen

Steve+Sky (2004) is a Flemish film by director and screenwriter Felix van Groeningen (Dagen zonder lief). To the right of the screen capture is Titus De Voogdt, to the left the Delfine Bafort, the Belgian model/actress who recently starred in Looking for Alfred by Johan Grimonprez. The film was produced by Dirk Impens, best known for Daens, currently working on an adaptation of Dimitri Verhulst’s novel De Helaasheid der Dingen.

The film is situated in a Ghent “route nationale” red light district (locally and euphemistically known as “De Warme Landen”, literally the “warm countries”), and beautifully photographed by Ruben Impens who treats this Belgian vernacular architecture with a gloss of 1980s nostalgia.

The petty criminal Steve (Titus De Voogdt) is released from jail and looks up his ex cell mate Jean-Claude (Johan Heldenbergh) in the latter’s strip club. There he meets the intriguing Sky (Delfine Bafort). They start a passionate but impossible love affair in a story reminiscent of Betty Blue and the American production Buffalo ’66.

The soundtrack was compiled by Soulwax who chose “De meeste dromen zijn bedrog” by Marco Borsato, the cult hit “Putain Putain” by TC Matic, Reese‘s “To the Rock (to the Beat)” and “Beats of love” by Nacht und Nebel for the clubbish post-punk/New Beat atmosphere of the film.

The film editor is Nico Leunen, who learned the trade from Ludo Troch.

The film is noted for its naturalism with dialogues such as “A hole is a hole and a dick has no eyes.” (Jean-Claude) and a hilarious dispute between Jean-Claude and his pubescent daughter in which she asks him for money. When she gets the money he says: “Thank you, daddy!” and she replies “Thank you, asshole!”

Jan Sulmont at Kutsite.com has a fine review.

Previous “World Cinema Classics” and in the Wiki format here.