Roman dedicatory and ephemeral verses on the built environment

Inscriptions on the Ark of the Bankers. From http://www.livius.org/

¨In the last paper we took up for consideration some of the Roman metrical epitaphs. These compositions, however, do not include all the productions in verse of the common people of Rome. On temples, altars, bridges, statues, and house walls, now and then, we find bits of verse. Most of the extant dedicatory lines are in honor of Hercules, Silvanus, Priapus, and the Cæsars. Whether the two famous inscriptions to Hercules by the sons of Vertuleius and by Mummius belong here or not it is hard to say. At all events, they were probably composed by amateurs, and have a peculiar interest for us because they belong to the second century B.C., and therefore stand near the beginning of Latin letters; they show us the language before it had been perfected and adapted to literary purposes by an Ennius, a Virgil, and a Horace, and they are written in the old native Saturnian verse, into which Livius Andronicus, "the Father of Latin literature," translated the Odyssey. Consequently they show us the language before it had gained in polish and lost in vigor under the influence of the Greeks. The second of these two little poems is a finger-post, in fact, at the parting of the ways for Roman civilization. It was upon a tablet let into the wall of the temple of Hercules, and commemorates the triumphant return to Rome of Mummius, the conqueror of Corinth. It points back to the good old days of Roman contempt for Greek art, and ignorance of it, for Mummius, in his stupid indifference to the beautiful monuments of Corinth, made himself the typical Philistine for all time. It points forward to the new Greco-Roman civilization of Italy, because the works of art which Mummius is said to have brought back with him, and the Greeks who probably followed in his train, augmented that stream of Greek influence which in the next century or two swept through the peninsula.

In the same primitive metre as these dedications is the Song of the Arval Brothers, which was found engraved on a stone in the grove of the goddess Dea Dia, a few miles outside of Rome. This hymn the priests sang at the May festival of the goddess, when the farmers brought them the first fruits of the earth. It has no intrinsic literary merit, but it carries us back beyond the great wars with Carthage for supremacy in the western Mediterranean, beyond the contest with Pyrrhus for overlordship in Southern Italy, beyond the struggle for life with the Samnites in Central Italy, beyond even the founding of the city on the Tiber, to a people who lived by tilling the soil and tending their flocks and herds.

Inscription on Fabricius´ bridge. Google images

But we have turned away from the dedicatory verses. On the bridges which span our streams we sometimes record the names of the commissioners or the engineers, or the bridge builders responsible for the structure. Perhaps we are wise in thinking these prosaic inscriptions suitable for our ugly iron bridges. Their more picturesque stone structures tempted the Romans now and then to drop into verse, and to go beyond a bare statement of the facts of construction. Over the Anio in Italy, on a bridge which Narses, the great general of Justinian, restored, the Roman, as he passed, read in graceful verse: "We go on our way with the swift-moving waters of the torrent beneath our feet, and we delight on hearing the roar of the angry water. Go then joyfully at your ease, Quirites, and let the echoing murmur of the stream sing ever of Narses. He who could subdue the unyielding spirit of the Goths has taught the rivers to bear a stern yoke."

Excerpt from:

The common people of ancient Rome. Chapter II Their Dedicatory and Ephemeral Verses. Author: Frank Frost Abbott. New York, 1911
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13226/13226-h/13226-h.htm#ch03-2

Museo del Bicentenario, Buenos Aires

Picture from inhabitat.com

Picture from inhabitat.com

The Museo del Bicentenario blends history and modern technology in an elegant and conscientious way, deep under Buenos Aires’ Pink Governmental House. Its 54,000 square foot galleries stretch in and out of a bright and wide patio area and a beautifully-restored building.

The museum is settled within the city’s former fort structure, once used from 1580 until 1855 when it was then transformed into the site for Taylor Customs welcoming people and goods in from the Old World. From 1957 on, the structure served as the Governmental Pink House Museum, and now the building is the newly restored Museo del Bicentenario.

Designed by a group of engineers, architects, restoration specialists and the Federal Planning and Public Investment Ministry, many original features like old wooden beams that come out from the pink stone walls reminds visitors and the museum staff the importance of working with long-lasting sustainable materials, which at the same time, touch on the romance of the historic site.

Picture from tigrealdia.com.ar

REFERENCE:

Article by Ana Lisa Alperovich

http://inhabitat.com/gorgeous-underground-museum-hidden-below-buenos-aires-government-house/

Is Seal Beach´s pier for handicapped?

Seal Beach´s pier. California. 

I love Seal Beach. The beach, the houses, are clean, neat and beautiful, Main st didn´t change along the years, but it´s nice to walk and go to the restaurants. The city also has the Leos Club they make community work, it´s a great organization for young people who are always helping. Congratulations! 

Fish fry day! Thank you Lions!

But, since the first time I´ve been there, March 2004, I´ve always been upset about the bad conditions inside the pier´s public bathrooms. They were so dirty and abandoned, that in 2004 I´ve sent an email to a planner (maybe the director of planning, I should check my old emails)  telling him about this situation.

He apologized and said the bathrooms were under a restaurant´s concession. He never mentioned which one was in charge. Maybe Ruby´s? The great obstacle at the end of Huntington Beach and Seal Beach piers? The one that blocks the end of them? I don´t know.

Anyway, I came back in 2006 with friends. Our girls wanted to go to the bathrooms, we had to tell them to suffer and wait, we would be coming back home. There was a door missing, excrement and urine everywhere, underwear on the floor (nobody would dare to take it again), flies everywhere. While submitting plans at the City Hall, I talked to Building and Safety´s supervisor. This time, I was told that they would go and check. I told my husband and friends, if we go to the beach, we are going to Huntington Beach, not here, that´s nasty.

I came back today, early, as we were in the area. It was 8.30 AM, the bathrooms had been already washed. No disinfectant at all, pretty difficult to see in the pictures, but it was FULL of flies. The slab has cracks everywhere, while it´s an obligation from Health Department to have a continuous clean-floor surface, one toilet was clogged with a handwritten explanation of how to flush it on the wall , the handicap seat was in bad condition and nobody was there, but whoever cleaned it, left dirty papers on the floor. One sink wasn´t working. At least, they were painted and much better than some years ago, specially being so early.

This exterior door is not self closing

Then, I walked along the pier, and took a picture of the ramp that leads to Ruby´s handicapped door.

The wood is in bad condition, with missing parts, and there is a ¨step¨ to take the ramp. 

At the end of the ramp, no extension of handrail, see the condition of the handicap bathroom´s door. Hmm, I didn´t have my tape to measure the clearance, no hardware. I saw a girl kicking the door to enter. Same solution for the men´s.

See the handicap entrance, it´s not  a commercial door. No sign required per Building and Safety Code, no Braille, again, I didn´t have my tape to measure the clearances. Tempered glass in such an old door? Hmmm, not sure. By the way, the air curtain was poorly working, it was ¨dying¨. 

There are some cases where the handicap improvements in old buildings is really difficult. But here, at the pier, I don´t see it´s impossible. To level the ramp, change the deteriorated wood, add signs, clean, disinfect....

Now, the questions of the million dollars: Where are the inspectors? Is the hard City Council taking care of the pier´s conditions? Is Ruby´s so consolidated as a firm that they can do whatever they want, while any other new restaurants are under strict rules to be approved?

This sink is to wash fish. I really forgot to see if the drainage is well connected to the sewer, I don´t think the blood it´s draining directly to the sea, next time I´ll see.

Note: I´m the author of all pictures. They can´t be reproduced without my permission.

Center for Visual Arts in Colchester. By Rafael Viñoly

My architect friends, my husband and me have all the pleasure to know arch. Rafael Viñoly, who´s been born in Uruguay but studied and worked at our Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo in Buenos Aires. So, we don´t miss a single design by Rafael, and we used to have long conversations on his projects. I think up till now, our great favorite is the Forum of Tokyo. From architectural record:

The First Site centre for the visual arts is set to open in Colchester, Essex, in September, with architectural design and interiors by Rafael Vinoly, branding by Marcia Mihotich, wayfinding by Aukett Brockliss Guy and print materials by A Practice for Everyday Life.

The centre, which opens on 25 September, will be a home for the work of visual arts organisation First Site.

Designer and illustrator Marcia Mihotich has worked alongside First Site for the past nine years on various projects, designing lettering and publications as well as the advertising for upcoming exhibitions. She will also create the branding for the centre's in- house bar/restaurant.

http://archrecord.construction.com/yb/ar/article.aspx?story_id=160856915

All pictures from 

http://www.colchester.gov.uk/

Snail shell system

I knew about the cabins in Japan where anybody can sleep, but didn't know about this portable system. The difference (apart from the construction system) with the other one in Japan is that it can be yours. From its manual:

The SNAIL SHELL SYSTEM is a low cost system that enables persons to move around, change their whereabouts and live in various environments. One unit supplies space for one person. It is mobile both on land and water. One person can move it slowly, either by pushing it like a wheel, walking inside it or on top of it.

On water it can be rowed, moved by a kite or hooked up to a vessel, for example, a ferry. The unit rests on one flat side and can be anchored in lakes, rivers, harbours or at sea. On land, it can be placed in city spaces, fields, forests etc.

The SNAIL SHELL SYSTEM takes up very little space and can easily be placed in a discreet way. It can be buried in the ground, exposing only the entrance. It can also function as a comfortable space inside existing buildings.

Several units can meet up and form temporary communities.

The unit can be hooked up onto existing infrastructure like telecommunication lines and electricity cables (for example, by connecting it to street lamps).

If special devices are added, the unit can supply its own energy.

The SNAIL SHELL SYSTEM can also be used for transporting different items and it can provide protection for persons when they participate in situations like demonstrations.

http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/SNAIL_SHELL_SYSTEM/SSS.html

Michel Bauwens says " The Snail Shell was pretty cool but a bit too small for anything but a fun experiment. It lacked any insulation and the tiny manway was difficult for most people." Thanks Michel for sharing!

Teaching architecture

The window. Acrylic on canvas by Christina Ramos.

Young people go to the university with the aim of becoming architects, of finding out if they have got what it takes. What is the first thing we should teach them?

First of all, we must explain that the person standing in front of them is not someone who asks questions whose answers he already knows. Practicing architecture is asking oneself questions, finding one’s own answers with the help of the teacher, whittling down, finding solutions. Over and over again.

The strength of a good design lies in ourselves and in our ability to perceive the world with both emotion and reason. A good architectural design is sensuous. A good architectural design is intelligent. We all experience architecture before we have even heard the word. The roots of architectural understanding lie in our architectural experience: our room, our house, our street, our village, our town, our landscape –we experience them all early on, unconsciously, and we subsequently compare them with the countryside, towns and houses that we experience later on. The roots of our understanding or architecture lie in our childhood, in our youth; they lie in our biography.

Picture from wikihow.com

REFERENCE: paragraphs from chapter Teaching architecture, learning architecture. 1996. From the book Thinking Architecture, by Peter Zumthor. Berlin

Manteros en la calle Florida: la degradación del espacio urbano

Foto: lanacion.com.ar

Siempre estuve orgullosa de mi ciudad nativa, Buenos Aires. Tan hermosa, con sus torres, el río, los edificios eclécticos, la variedad de su arquitectura, la vegetación, las calles llenas de gente. Antes de viajar a EEUU, me paré con mi hija mayor en Plaza de Mayo, y le dije, mirá bien a tu alrededor nuestra ciudad. Porque no sabemos cuánto tiempo pasará antes que volvamos. Así fue. 

Desde hace unos años, mis amigos arquitectos me hablan del boom de la construcción, veo fotos de avances y me alegro, hasta que leo noticias como esta, de nuestra calle Florida, tan conocida por los turistas, llena de gente que no paga impuestos, tirados en el piso como linyeras, vendiendo baratijas, al frente de los locales distinguidos, que son mantenidos y por los cuales se paga altísimas rentas e impuestos.

Hace algo el gobierno, la policía? Pues no. Porque muchos policías están ¨arreglados¨ con estos ¨vendedores¨ callejeros y reciben sus pagos para cerrar los ojos. 

Como dicen en La Nación, cómo se siente un ciudadano argentino que paga sus impuestos y ve que la AFIP no se inmuta ante estas cuestiones?

Alguna vez he visto estos callejeros en la calle Florida, pero eran unos pocos, asustados. Y, en la ciudad balnearia de Mar del Plata, se aterraban si veían llegar a la policía. Jamás imaginé tanta degradación del espacio público, ni hablar de las casas tomadas y destruídas.

Hace dos días, un cliente mexicano, nos preguntaba si valía la pena invertir en Argentina, que era una idea que tenía pendiente. Luego de media hora de charla, lo convencimos que hasta que no cambie esta situación, que vaya pensando en otros países, cómo haría para cuidar su propiedad a la distancia?. Lamentablemente.

Foto lanacion.com.ar

Acá dejo un link del diario La Nación, que he leído con mucha pena

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1388077-los-manteros-de-la-calle-florida?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=titulares&utm_campaign=NLOpi

Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center by Renzo Piano

Construction of the $803 million Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center will start later this year and conclude in 2015. The building will rise on the Saronikos Kolpos waterfront in southern Athens, within the new 42-acre Stavros Niarchos Park. Piano has folded the park over the structure, lifting the landscape to a height of 32 meters. SFNCC’s submerged interior will include a 1,400-seat theater for the Greek National Opera, as well as a 400-seat experimental performance space. The new building also replaces the 1832 National Library, providing a home for more than two million books.

REFERENCE (Article and pictures):

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2011/06/110629-Stavros-Niarchos-Cultural-Center.asp