bricology: Muse, muse, muse

bricology (

bricology) wrote,
@ 2008-10-21 09:49:00

Current mood:	sleepy
Current music:	trash truck outside

Muse, muse, muse

On Sunday, we walked down to see the John Zorn exhibition at Daniel Libeskind's newly-opened Contemporary Jewish Museum. I have to confess that I'm not much of a fan of Libeskind; much of his work seems like exercises in formal novelty, rather than Good Architecture. The Museum is composed of two elements: the existing shell of Willis Polk's dignified 1907 Jesse St. Substation, and Libeskind's hyperactive geometrical addition to the top and west side. It's certainly striking, but I don't think it makes for a good neighbor.

Such are the excesses of "starchitects".

The interior was oddly divided up, with awkward traffic flow. And I have to say that interior spaces that give the impression that a 40 foot-tall wall is trying to fall on top of me are not my cup of tea.

Nevertheless, I tried to shush my inner architect and get on with appreciating the show.

(note: the view here is nearly straight up)

the flooring is nice; end-grain tropical hardwood of some sort (cocobolo?)

this was one of the best things I've seen in a while: a sculpture by Ben Rubin titled "His Master's Voice", inspired by the great Horn Antenna of 1959, which Rubin appropriates as a method by which to "listen to god".
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
From there, we went to SFMoMA for the exhibition "Brought to Light: Photography and the Invisible, 1840-1900". It was utterly fascinating. Victorian photography is interesting enough on its own, but 150 year-old pictures of lightning? Century-old X-rays? Daguerreotypes of the moon? I was in antique geek heaven. I cannot recommend this show highly enough. If you're in the Bay Area and this sounds even mildly intriguing, you must see it. It runs through January 4.

a lovely collection of mounted photomicrographs from 1871

Trouvelot Figures from a spark generated by a Wimshurst Machine, of course. 1888

a solar eclipse from 1889

snowflakes? Nope. A photomicrograph of "ferments of sweet urine" from 1844

a Roentgen-ray image from 1895, the year it all began

a few of the lunar Daguerreotypes. Very tricky to photograph. I want one to carry in my pocket
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
we had to stop in and see some of the wonderful Klees in the Djerassi Collection

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
a block away, we took a ride on the 1905 carousel saved from Playland-at-the-Beach
fascinating overhead mechanism and the chaos around the kingpost

K. handles her camel with aplomb

...but mine seems a bit dicey

if that isn't a malevolent gleam in his eye, I don't know what is

eeeeeeee-viiiiiiil

...and we're being pursued by Baphomet! I thought he preferred children and templars

...and that goat is clearly ill-tempered

flee, little girl!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
roses next to the carousel

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
walking home, we stopped in at Anthropologie, where they had transformed old books into mobiles

inside, they had an immense old wooden rack with bottles wired to both sides, some of them containing botanical specimens

...which I've been pining over ever since

(23 comments) - (Post a new comment)

	a_bonsai_tree 2008-10-21 04:57 pm UTC (link)
	fantastic shots! (Reply to this) (Thread)

	bricology 2008-10-22 01:44 am UTC (link)
	"fantastic shots!" Thank you! Is that Bucky in your icon? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	a_bonsai_tree 2008-10-22 11:56 am UTC (link)
	Indeed it is! (Reply to this) (Parent)

karinmollberg
2008-10-21 06:12 pm UTC (link)

What an incredible post!
The Jewish Museum by libeskind in Berlin is quite amazing, but not healthy to be in. He has worked very similarly (this could almost be it...) there: all uneven floors inside the buliding which shook up my sense of gravity (pun intended) so badly, for instance in "the immigrant´s garden" that it caused my body to think of it´s Meniere disease (quite earnestly) and I was taken ill with vertigo for two days after the visit as a result. But there was no window in the building to fall out of, luckily. The building sort of killed off my impression of the exhibition itself, which was most fascinating and immense.

In your post here, I particularly love the Master´s Voice thingy, the spark and the thorax-roentgen, then the camel with the evil eye and I think most of all; those "books".
...If it weren´t for your and K. in your outfits, which are glorious as ever!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

bricology
2008-10-22 02:11 am UTC (link)

I've wondered about his museum in Berlin. Of course, since I haven't seen it in person (although I have examined it in many architecture magazines), I can't speak with any authority, but it seems to me that it's as theatrical and didactic as anything designed by Albert Speer. I'm leery of contemporary architecture with those ambitions. Having said that, sculpture that uses architectural idioms to achieve those same aims, I have no trouble with. But Libeskind isn't working from that angle. As someone who was trained in architecture, I think that Libeskind, Eisenman, Hadid and especially Gehry, are trying to carve out a new niche on the boundary of sculpture and architecture, but producing work that's unsuccessful by the standards of either discipline, often being nothing more than stylistic gimmicks. But that's just my opinion.

How interesting that being in the building so profoundly affected you, physiologically!

Thank you for your kind words about the photos. It was a fine day!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

karinmollberg
2008-10-22 11:51 am UTC (link)

The Berlin variety is not as striking from the outside, it looks almost bauhaus-clean-cut, but all those floors one had to climb up using the sidebars and then stumble back down on; extremely so in the "immigrants garden", were very much supposed to make one dizzy, of course.

So I reacted correctly and as wished for. The visitor was meant to feel the alienation of jewish immigrants bodily, and at a floors til(t)ed some 45° with matching optical delusions; one definitely did feel uneasy. Libeskind obviously didn´t assume an audience able to reflect too much on its own, I gather?

And, without wishing to get into too much of a (Tom) Wolfeian rant on the easy to repeat-tenor: "...And one just can´t´´fínd the bloody door, either!" I do tend to feel a tiny bit (ouch: good old Wolfgang) Goethian about that kind of architectural bait: "Man merkt die Absicht, und wird verstimmt" ("one notices the intention, and gets depressed" -dangerous thing; intention) though Wolfgang spake of literature, I seem to recall...

I still find that (Bernard) Rudofsky makes a valuable point in his "Architecture without architects" (1965) which I posted on here: http://karinmollberg.livejournal.com/9241.html#cutid1 in quoting Jamshid Kooros, there:

"Give a mason bricks and a mortar," writes Jamshid Kooros, an M.I.T. - educated Persian architect, "and tell him to cover a space and let in light, and the results are astounding. The mason, within his limitations, finds unending possibilities, there is variety and harmony; while the modern architect with all the materials and structural systems available to him produces monotony and dissonance, and that in great abundance."

But then, utility pure, bores the bones off one, too.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

bricology
2008-10-22 08:28 pm UTC (link)

Excellent points, all (I particularly appreciated the Goethe comment).

Architecture Without Architects has long been one of my favorite books, and your post on it was fascinating! I don't know how I missed reading it when you posted it. The breadth of your knowledge is, as ever, impressive.

I'd be very interested to know who some of your favorite architects are and what buildings you particularly admire.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

karinmollberg
2008-10-23 09:23 am UTC (link)

The Goethe quote, is one so often used as a phrase in german daily speak, that one hardly notices (ha!) it´s meaning anymore... and Rudofsky´s book is one of those one keeps returning to, isn´t it, while many others are being merely read through, then put aside forever more in the fight-against-dust mores.

You are being most gentlemanly kind as ever (first I managed to read your answer to my comment as: "Bread of Knowledge" ...very much wondering what this rather religious-sounding phrase might mean then?!, before I actually found my reading glasses but got them now; which may even minimize the usual amount of embarrassing typos, I sincerely hope;) but, I fear, you are very much mistaken on your gentile assumption. My "knowledge" is if indeed existent, dilettante and unvoluntarily "fractional" too, as it jumps mostly on intuitive associations, often with as little a sense of logic as one of gravity, for that matter.

Speaking of: being vertigo-struck by a building, was pretty unvoluntary too but it made us notice one more negative point about Libeskind´s Jewish Museum in Berlin; namely that it is almost impossible finding the exit or even an escape dito, if suddenly needed. Instead one is led (and I suspect this of being method, too) around in a seemingly windowless world forever and "by the nose"; at times feeling like walking loathsome IKEA-footsteps, only with far more fascinating things to look at so to speak.

If possible then, due to the architecture of the place?
Suffering vertigo walking the thankfully even floors of the exhibition, where I wanted to see and read as much as possible about Mendelssohn, for instance, was a bit like being dead drunk amongst an AA-meeting only without the previous fun. (The latter not necessarily an option in this place, of course.) Looks kinda funny from the outside I guess, like having put one´s pet Peg into the washing machine, as Wilbur said, at my tumbling and falling over to one side trying hard to walk straight, but it´s not quite as entertaining looking out from the inside of that maritime-feel centrifugal "window" with no eye in the storm, in sight (only surrounded by circulating underwear and flying handkerchiefs for all who wondered).

...More like being the proverbial poodle that woman put into her micro-wave oven as an IQ-test, I presume, then cashing insurance money for her daftness as there was no warning sign on the machine in quest, saying one shouldn´t cook one´s poodle. So I may get rich, yet, I hope but I drift as ever:

Your question put me in the embarrassing position of pondering:
"Hm, what architects and buildings do I like?" Far easier to name what not, isn´t it? ...If names pop up at all, when thinking of that wooden musichall in Stockholm (Aalto) or even The Globe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Globe_Arena , what´s he called again...Then coming up, I fear, with the most cliché-like likes too, but there you go... It isn´t fair answering like this either, I guess, because I am pretty sure you mainly meant modern architecture (?) of which there exists enough good examples, surely. Only, at first I couldn´t think of but a few classics. And, my very first notion stays the building I love most of all I ever saw, as a pure architectural delight done by Senenmut for his beloved (a statement of the awe-inspiring kind a Taj Mahal is, only earlier and the other way around, in sense of affection, they say):

http://kidblog.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/hatshepsut-temple.jpg
http://www.roseofsharonwomen.com/ROSES.html (senenmut)
http://www.molon.de/galleries/Egypt/Luxor/Hatshepsut/

It looks as if it had to grow out of the mountains and sand to stand exactly where it stands. Next, I thought of many... but my mind preferred to rest on the roman Panthéon, of all classical buildings one can come up with:

http://www.bugbog.com/gallery/rome_pictures/rome_pictures_6.html (pantheon)

To make it even worse, next came The Alhambra...whose previous owner left it crying as legend has it, but had given in in fighting his enemies who took it over, only to save his beloved home from erasure:

http://www.hickerphoto.com/casa-real-alhambra-court-of-the-pool-picture-30721-pictures.htm

...to be continued, I am afraid...

(Reply to this) (Parent)

karinmollberg
2008-10-23 09:28 am UTC (link)

Nevertheless; the place one grows up, puts its mark on one´s mind, whether one wishes so or not. I do adore the Asplund Rotunde to this day. And by the way, the delightful Nils von Dardel wall decoration going down to the children´s department:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Public_Library

I guess, again because I grew up with it, most of his work seems to be such a natural part of where it stands to me, like birch trees in a Carl Larsson wood, and I don´t appreciate all, but indeed some of his work:

http://architecture.about.com/od/findphotos/ig/Alvar-Aalto-Photos/

Anais Nin once said, Wright was the only truly american architect she knew of. And I do love some of the places he made though I haven´t seen any in real life yet but am looking forward to do so, even some of those never realised, ever since that first exhibition I saw at the Stockholm Modern Museum ages ago:

http://www.wright-house.com/frank-lloyd-wright/

Furthermore I have a faible for art deco, still. Started as a teen when I was only ever wearing second-hand (not "vintage" as it is called nowadays, when the things I once bougth for a few kronas are antiques hanging in museum glass-boxes but I bought them for lack of money for the modern clothes others wore at school, being an immigrant child was so interesting, I found...:)

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/MID/MID021.htm (chrysler building)

And I like most streamline things, actually. No: I love them! They are bold and modern in a gorgeously mind-boggling Fritz Lang Megalopolis-sense. They ooze off the splendid view of our future cities once existent, stemming from early pulp Science Fiction mythology and those fantastic covers, of which I own but a few:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streamline_Moderne
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/decodictionary/
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/busdepot/
http://www.decopix.com/New%20Site/Pages/Directory%20Pages/Streamline_dir.html
http://viewfinder.english-heritage.org.uk/search/results.aspx?index=0&mainQuery=art%20deco%20architecture&searchType=all&form=home
http://www.decopix.com/New%20Site/Pages/Directory%20Pages/Decopix_Directory_NEW.html

Well, I am afraid, this answer got to be a tiny bit long...
Basically, I think the main thing for making me like an architectural, or for that matter any other thing of art or fashion or even literature, per se, is how it has got to have an aura of "fantastic naturality" to it. Not necessarily a literal, latter one.
It must have both spleen and modesty, be bold but harmonious; even if funny and absurd but keeping it´s feet firmly on the earth. Both here and there, I mean. Like these dancer´s feet, for instance: http://intelligenttravel.typepad.com/it/2008/01/strange-plane-1.html

My ideal, seems to be what this Pratchett-quote (from memory) illustrates best:
"Where did that house come from? It wasn´t there yesterday!"
"No, that´s true. I have never seen it before."
"But it has always been there!"
"Yes. Always. But not yesterday. Today, it has always been there."
"Yes, but I never saw it before in my life".
Etc. ad perpetuum.
Something along those (stream)lines...

In good hope of not having talked too much or anything, as my habit -n-ever was;) yours was very inspiring a post, I must say!

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	trini_naenae 2008-10-21 06:56 pm UTC (link)
	This is fantastically fun to look at. Thanks for sharing (Reply to this) (Thread)

	bricology 2008-10-22 02:12 am UTC (link)
	"This is fantastically fun to look at. Thanks for sharing" Well, thank you! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	ngakmafaery 2008-10-21 07:40 pm UTC (link)
	...I prefer the innards of the museum to the unstable-looking box it's in...thanks for showing us! (Reply to this) (Thread)

	bricology 2008-10-22 02:13 am UTC (link)
	"...I prefer the innards of the museum to the unstable-looking box it's in...thanks for showing us!" Oh, me too. We have enough buildings in SF that actually are likely to fall over, to want more that simply look like it. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	electricwitch 2008-10-21 07:58 pm UTC (link)
	Oh my god, sciencey and beautiful. AND A CARROUSSEL OMG! I WANT TO RIDE THE DEVIL'S CAMEL! (Reply to this) (Thread)

	bricology 2008-10-22 02:19 am UTC (link)
	"Oh my god, sciencey and beautiful. AND A CARROUSSEL OMG! I WANT TO RIDE THE DEVIL'S CAMEL!" His name is "Ashtaroth", and he'll be waiting for you. (Cue warped draaiorgel music) Glad you liked the sciencey stuff; it wuh s'marvelous. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	electricwitch 2008-10-22 09:23 am UTC (link)
	lol draaiorgel. I always forget you lived here. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	aaronstjames 2008-10-22 06:05 am UTC (link)
	Oooh! Clearly I need to get to MoMA forthwith. I have definite plans to see the Afghanistan show at the Asian, but I didn't know about this one! Thank you for sharing such a fun day! (Reply to this) (Thread)

	bricology 2008-10-23 10:46 pm UTC (link)
	"Oooh! Clearly I need to get to MoMA forthwith. I have definite plans to see the Afghanistan show at the Asian, but I didn't know about this one!" Oh, definitely! I think we'll be going back to see the show again. "Thank you for sharing such a fun day!" Thank you for taking a look! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	burntfoot 2008-10-23 01:27 am UTC (link)
	That black polygon (building) looks like reptile skin. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	bricology 2008-10-23 10:55 pm UTC (link)
	"That black polygon (building) looks like reptile skin." You're right, it does! As far as that surface effect goes, I much prefer H&deM's Prada store in Aoyama: (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	burntfoot 2008-10-24 03:37 pm UTC (link)
	I do love glass buildings for some reason (Reply to this) (Parent)

	styleiseternal 2008-10-25 06:49 pm UTC (link)
	I love the Roentgen-ray image! (Reply to this)

	karinmollberg 2008-11-02 09:18 pm UTC (link)
	Sorry for overposting you a bit...but, I thought you might enjoy this: http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=376 (Reply to this)

(23 comments) - (Post a new comment)

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