What is Mythogeography?

Batik/photo montage of textures from a drift in Newton Abbot.
Created by Batman Berlin, Robin Paris and Joker London.
With thanks for the photo to Terry Bannon. Image from www.mythogeography.com/2009/11/b1.html

In the words of Phil Smith:

¨Psychogeography is the study of how places affect the psychological states of those who pass through them. With a reciprocal meaning: that the places might be changed in order to alter the experiences and mental states of their residents and visitors. This was part of a theory of radical activism for the transformation of cities through the creation of exemplary ways of living (“situations”). In the United Kingdom the concept of Psychogeography has become somewhat detached from its original activist and unitary-urbanist meanings and reconfigured as a literary practice in the work of writers like Iain Sinclair. It has also gathered some occult trappings during this time from Sinclair, Peter Ackroyd, the graphic novelist Alan Moore and others.

Mythogeography describes a way of thinking about, passing through and using those places where multiple meanings have been squeezed into a single or restricted meaning (for example, heritage, tourist or leisure sites that are often presented in a singular and privileged way, when they may also be (or have been) homes, jam factories, battlegrounds, lovers' lanes, farms, cemeteries or madhouses). Mythogeography emphasizes the multiple nature of such places and suggests multiple ways of celebrating, expressing and weaving those places and their many meanings.

Mythogeography is influenced by, and draws on, Psychogeography – seeking to reconnect with some of its original political edge as well as with its more recent occult and literary additions. While engaging seriously with academic discourses in areas like Geography, tourism studies and spatial theory, Mythogeography also draws upon what Charles Fort might have described as ‘the procession of damned data’ and unrespectable discourses that it may use for metaphorical or literal explanation. So, occulted and anomalous narratives are among those available to Mythogeography, rarely as ends in themselves, mostly as means and metaphors to explain, engage and disrupt.

The term “Mythogeography” arose from the work of Wrights & Sites (a group of site-specific performance makers based in Exeter, UK).¨

To learn much more about Mythogeography, read my interview to Phil Smith in this link:

http://theclubofcompulsivereaders.blogspot.com/2010/03/concepts-on-mythogeography-interview.html

How would Neanderthals live among us?

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Neanderthal, 1994. Silver gelatin print of an edition of 25. 20¨x24¨

Having read Isaac Asimov´s stories of robots or human-robots living among us, I´m not surprised that Japanese have their robot teachers. But we know they are machines. The Bicentennial Man is showing the emotional, ethical and legal problems of a robot that is becoming human. We can live with it, every time he is under ¨surgery¨, he is more human, but, a modern human, who has ¨feelings¨ (remember, he was an imperfect robot) and behaviors like anybody else.

This blog is about architecture and urbanism, but so many times I have stated habitat, culture, identity, is imbued in architecture. And now, I´ve found this article, which is scientific, but makes me think about future possibilities –researchers are completely sure they´ll be successful one year or another- of prehistoric people living among us. Maybe in colonies, as they propose, because man cannot be alone.

 The economical barriers to create them, seem to be solved, every day clonation is cheaper and faster. After they solve the technical issues,  there must be a good place on earth for the neo-Neanderthals to live. Some think they would adapt to us, to our cities, to our maladies. Lots of them won´t make it. Who knows, now, it seems a science fiction story, but it´s not. The paragraphs below, are taken from the article ¨Should we clone Neanderthals?¨ written by Zach Zorich, senior editor of Archaeology, a magazine from the Archaeological Institute of America. Volume 63, Number 2, March/April 2010.

Below is the link to complete the reading, I highly recommend this article, in our field, urbanists should have the obligation to think about the new urban-sociological concerns that will be a consequence of primitive man´s clonation. Correction: they were not Homo Sapiens, that could make the difference.

Neanderthal and modern man. Image from http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect20/A12c.html

If Neanderthals ever walk the earth again, the primordial ooze from which they will rise is an emulsion of oil, water, and DNA capture beads engineered in the laboratory of 454 Life Sciences in Branford, Connecticut. Over the past 4 years those beads have been gathering tiny fragments of DNA from samples of dissolved organic materials, including pieces of Neanderthal bone. Genetic sequences have given paleoanthropologists a new line of evidence for testing ideas about the biology of our closest extinct relative.

The first studies of Neanderthal DNA focused on the genetic sequences of mitochondria, the microscopic organelles that convert food to energy within cells. In 2005, however, 454 began a collaborative project with the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, to sequence the full genetic code of a Neanderthal woman who died in Croatia's Vindija cave 30,000 years ago. As the Neanderthal genome is painstakingly sequenced, the archaeologists and biologists who study it will be faced with an opportunity that seemed like science fiction just 10 years ago. They will be able to look at the genetic blueprint of humankind's nearest relative and understand its biology as intimately as our own.

In addition to giving scientists the ability to answer questions about Neanderthals' relationship to our own species--did we interbreed, are we separate species, who was smarter--the Neanderthal genome may be useful in researching medical treatments. Newly developed techniques could make cloning Neanderthal cells or body parts a reality within a few years. The ability to use the genes of extinct hominins is going to force the field of paleoanthropology into some unfamiliar ethical territory. There are still technical obstacles, but soon it could be possible to use that long-extinct genome to safely create a healthy, living Neanderthal clone. Should it be done?

Although most of the Neanderthal genome sequencing is now being done by the San Diego-based company Illumina, the Max Planck Institute initially chose 454 because it had come up with a way to read hundreds of thousands of DNA sequences at a time. Genome-sequencing technology is advancing at a rate comparable to computer processing power. "Six years ago if you wanted to sequence E. coli [a species of bacteria], which is about 4 million base-pairs in length, it would have taken one or maybe two million dollars, and it would have taken a year and 150 people," says Jarvie. "Nowadays, one person can do it in two days and it would cost a few hundred dollars."

Putting the fragments themselves in order can be a little tricky. "At first glance, it's just this completely random assemblage of As, Ts, Cs, and Gs," says Irzyk. "But it turns out there are patterns and motifs, and sometimes these are very specific to a group of organisms." For the Neanderthal sample, the human and chimpanzee genomes were used as references for checking the sequence.

The 50,000-year-old skull of a Neanderthal from the site of Shanidar in Iran (top) has a prominent browridge and more projecting face than the 40,000-year-old Homo sapiens skull found at Pestera cu Oase in Romania. (Erik Trinkaus). From Archaeology magazine.

Working with ancient DNA can be much more problematic than sequencing genetic material from living species. Within hours of death, cells begin to break down in a process called apoptosis. The dying cells release enzymes that chop up DNA into tiny pieces. In a human cell, this means that the entire three-billion-base-pair genome is reduced to fragments a few hundred base-pairs long or shorter. The DNA also goes through chemical changes that alter the nucleotides as it ages--C changes into T, and G turns into A--which can cause the gene sequence to be interpreted incorrectly. In the case of the Neanderthal sample, somewhere between 90 and 99 percent of the DNA came from bacteria and other contaminants that had found their way into the bone as it sat in the ground and in storage. The contaminant DNA has to be identified and eliminated. Given the similarity between Neanderthal and modern human DNA, this can be especially difficult when the contamination comes from the people who excavated or analyzed the bone.

Schuster sequenced the mammoth genome in 2007, and that approach might work for large animals, but taking five samples from a single Neanderthal would require the destruction of a large amount of valuable bone. 

According to Schuster and Lalueza-Fox, the cellular damage that occurs after death makes it impossible to understand Neanderthal gene expression. This could mean that making a clone identical to someone who lived 30,000 years ago is impossible.

One way to get around the problems of working with an artificial genome would be to alter the DNA inside a living cell. This kind of genetic engineering can already be done, but very few changes can be made at one time. To clone a Neanderthal, thousands or possibly millions of changes would have to be made to a human cell's DNA. George Church, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, is part of a research team that is developing a technique to make hundreds of alterations to a genome at the same time. 

Church believes the place to start with Neanderthal cloning is on the cellular level, creating liver, pancreas, or brain cells. "You can't really tell anything from just looking at the gene sequence," he says. "It's hard to predict physical traits; you have to test them in living cells." Neanderthal cells could be important for discovering treatments to diseases that are largely human-specific, such as HIV, polio, and smallpox, he says. If Neanderthals are sufficiently different from modern humans, they may have a genetic immunity to these diseases. 

The number of sick and dead individuals produced by nuclear transfer cloning is the reason nearly all scientists are opposed to human reproductive cloning. But even if nuclear transfer cloning could be perfected in humans or Neanderthals, it would likely require a horrifying period of trial and error. 

The best way to clone Neanderthals may be to create stem cells that have their DNA. In recent years, geneticists have learned how to take skin cells and return them to a state called pluripotency, where they can become almost any type of cell in the human body. Church proposes to use the MAGE technique to alter a stem cell's DNA to match the Neanderthal genome. That stem cell would be left to reproduce, creating a colony of cells that could be programmed to become any type of cell that existed in the Neanderthal's body. Colonies of heart, brain, and liver cells, or possibly entire organs, could be grown for research purposes.

This technique could also be used to create a person. A stem cell with Neanderthal DNA could be implanted in a human blastocyst--a cluster of cells in the process of developing into an embryo. Then, all of the non-Neanderthal cells could be kept from growing. The individual who developed from that blastocyst would be entirely the result of Neanderthal genes. In effect, it would be a cloned Neanderthal. Church believes that after the earliest stages of development, the genes would express themselves as they did in the original individual, eliminating any influences from the modern human or chimpanzee cell.

The technique is new, and has only been tested in mice so far, but Church thinks it might work in humans. However, he points out that anyone cloned by this process would still be lacking the environmental and cultural factors that would have influenced how the original Neanderthals grew up. "They would be something new," Church says, "neo-Neanderthals."

Clones created from a genome that is more than 30,000 years old will not have immunity to a wide variety of diseases, some of which would likely be fatal. They will be lactose intolerant, have difficulty metabolizing alcohol, be prone to developing Alzheimer's disease, and maybe most importantly, will have brains different from modern people's.

Bernard Rollin, a bioethicist and professor of philosophy at Colorado State University, doesn't believe that creating a Neanderthal clone would be an ethical problem in and of itself. The problem lies in how that individual would be treated by others. "I don't think it is fair to put people...into a circumstance where they are going to be mocked and possibly feared," he says, "and this is equally important, it's not going to have a peer group. Given that humans are at some level social beings, it would be grossly unfair." The sentiment was echoed by Stringer, "You would be bringing this Neanderthal back into a world it did not belong to....It doesn't have its home environment anymore."

There were no cities when the Neanderthals went extinct, and at their population's peak there may have only been 10,000 of them spread across Europe. A cloned Neanderthal might be missing the genetic adaptations we have evolved to cope with the world's greater population density, whatever those adaptations might be. But, not everyone agrees that Neanderthals were so different from modern humans that they would automatically be shunned as outcasts.

"I think there would be no question that if you cloned a Neanderthal, that individual would be recognized as having human rights under the Constitution and international treaties," says Lori Andrews, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law. 

Legal precedent in the United States seems to be on the side of Neanderthal human rights. In 1997, Stuart Newman, a biology professor at New York Medical School attempted to patent the genome of a chimpanzee-human hybrid as a means of preventing anyone from creating such a creature. The patent office, however, turned down his application on the basis that it would violate the Constitution's 13th amendment prohibition against slavery. Andrews believes the patent office's ruling shows the law recognizes that an individual with a half-chimpanzee and half-human genome would deserve human rights. 

"If we could really do it and we know we are doing it right, I'm actually for it," says Lahn. "Not to understate the problem of that person living in an environment where they might not fit in. So, if we could also create their habitat and create a bunch of them, that would be a different story."

Excavators in Spain's El Sidrön cave wear "clean-room" suits to keep their DNA from contaminating Neanderthal bones. (Courtesy Carles Lalueza-Fox). From Archaeology magazine.

Read the complete article

http://www.archaeology.org/1003/etc/neanderthals.html

Filippo Brunelleschi and the City

The city of Florence from the Duomo. From www.sunilshinde.com/p-italy/

Filippo Brunelleschi was born in Florence in 1377. We know nothing of his life before 1398, when, at the age of 21, he was admitted as a goldsmith to the Silk Guild. Little is known again until about 1418, the date of the competition for the model of the dome for the Cathedral. The recorded information, together with evidence derived from his works, has led to the recognition of Brunelleschi as a man of ¨universal¨genius. According to Manetti, his biographer, he was än architect, mathematician and excellent geometer, as well as a sculptor and painter.¨ He has invented various machines for constructing buildings (he utilized his goldsmith´s knowledge of clocks and bells which functioned with multiple gears moved by counterweights); he was a military, naval and hydraulic engineer; he made projects for theatrical performances and musical instruments; he studied Dante´s Divine Comedy, and achieved a deep understanding of its structure and significance.

The sacrifice of Isaac. From http://faculty.evansville.edu/rl29/art105/img/brunelleschi_sacrificeisaac.jpg

Philippo Brunelleschi. Image from the100.ru/en/architect/page179.html

The earliest works by Brunelleschi known to us are goldsmith work and sculpture: parts of the silver altar in the Cathedral of Pistoia; the group representing thea angel Gabriel and the Virgin of the Annunciation for the Porta della Mandorla on the Cathedral of Florence; and the relief panel of 1401. These works already reveal his personal break away from the elegant, rhythmic and self-contained equilibrium of Gothic sculpture in favor of a more dynamic conception in which forms creates its own space. Despite Brunelleschi´s evident mastery of sculpture, sculpture was either excluded entirely from his architecture of strictly subordinated to it. At the same time, his sculptural sense is clearly manifested in the strength and importance of his ribs, cornices, capitals, etc.

In the years 1420 to 1446, Brunelleschi single-handedly created a new architecture, proceeding from his experience of Classical, Romanesque and Gothic architecture and utilizing his own personal solution of the problem of perspective, conceived as knowledge ¨per comparatione¨ (Alberti). His achievement appears all the greater if we consider that very few of the buildings which he planned and began were actually brought to an advanced state of construction of completed before his death. His work marked a decisive moment in the history of architecture and urban design in general, and in the relationship between the artist and the community.

Brunelleschi´s works were conceived for an urban context. Indeed, the outer perimeters of the city had been defined, and a dome for the Cathedral has been foreseen by Arnolfo. Brunelleschi´s reconstructions of San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito could be interpreted as ¨modern¨ versions of medieval ecclesiastical buildings and Piazza Santissima Annunziata as a cloister transformed into a piazza. But his structures, considered both as units and in their reciprocal relationships, created a new articulation of medieval Florence based on rational, geometric order. Moreover, this order organized not only specific areas within the city, but also the city as a while with respect to its surrounding territory.

Brunelleschi conceived the city as a new rational entity in which everything, even the past, took a new meaning. A new kind of city-planning became possible: articulated, yet unified and ordered according to a rationally planned hierarchy, and logical in every part. Far from ignoring the medieval city, in fact, taking it as his starting point, Brunelleschi re-cast the entire preceding tradition in terms of a new vision which inverted and profoundly changed its significance. In this sense, Brunelleschi´s project for a piazza facing the river for Santo Spirito was an example; the church was no longer seen as the central point in the surrounding urban disorder, but as the focus of a radical reorganization of the quarter within the total urban context. In the medieval town the river, for example, had only a functional role, which concerned separate and independent stretches of it. Instead, Brunelleschi thought of the river as a major structural axis. It is really due to the work of Brunelleschi that Florence, although it is still basically medieval, has been considered a Renaissance city ever since the 15^th century, when the humanists looked on it as an example of the ideal city.

Text slightly adapted from the book Brunelleschi, by Giovanni Fanelli. Special edition for Becocci Editore. 1988. Florence.

Flores. Cuento urbano de Luis R. Makianich

Flores. Electrografía de Luis Makianich, 2008

Si bien tengo mi blog de literatura ¨theclubofcompulsivereaders¨ (el link está a la derecha) me pareció bien reproducir este cuento del arquitecto Luis R. Makianich, porque nos traslada a una situación cotidiana, al menos en las avenidas de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, la de enfrentarnos constantemente con los vendedores ambulantes. Pero esta vez, el simpático desenlace no es habitual.

Al aproximarme a aquella esquina mi pensamiento se inunda de color, reprimiendo toda otra sensación que atempere su efecto afrodisíaco. Cada mañana mi semblante palidece como todo el entorno subyacente para destacar su abrumador colorido. La música en el interior de mi automóvil se congela y una tenue bruma inunda la cabina desenfocando todo aquello que desconcentre mi mirada de su exótica belleza. Aún antes de llegar a verla toda la escena se prepara para su irrupción en ella conmoviendo a los transeúntes que aminoran su paso al acercarse a ese semáforo diariamente, apostando a ser detenidos exactamente antes de empezar el sublime acto. El tiempo se detiene a la señal de alto y sube el telón. No importa cuántas veces haya visto esta función ni cuántas antes me estremeció, cada vez es diferente, no porque ella haya cambiado sino porque cada día me siento distinto. Los automóviles se detienen totalmente conformando el palco y los peatones arrancan su marcha sobre las bandas blancas delineando el foro. Tras bambalinas emergen los malabaristas revoleando sus anillos y estacas de fuego, dando marco a la aparición de su estrella principal, que se acerca a la ventanilla de un auto detenido frente al mío. Allí esta ella, con su falda azul de lunares blancos y blusa asesina inclinándose hacia el conductor y ofreciéndole un ramo de rosas envuelto en rocío. El coro permanece estático por unos instantes que me parecen eternos. Ella apoya sus brazos en el coche y menea la pollera con suaves movimientos de cadera. Mi corazón también permanece callado y una fría gota de transpiración recorre mi mejilla estremeciéndome. Todo es más lento hasta que se detiene. Su cabello hace un leve movimiento hacia atrás y lentamente su cabeza gira clavándome sus ojos hasta herirme de muerte. Se incorpora y orienta su cuerpo hacia mí escondiendo el ramo de flores tras su espalda y se abalanza lentamente como un felino ante su presa. Sus movimientos me hipnotizan y su cuerpo se agiganta a cada paso. Yo me hundo en mi asiento reduciendo mi estatura, como entregándome a su feroz zarpazo. Sus tres últimos pasos son seguro, martillo y percutor para luego…Disparar.

Caí mucho antes de escuchar el ruido, como desmayado y aterrorizado aprieto el botón en mi puerta que baja la ventanilla hasta que su melena se introduce en ella junto con su embriagante perfume y repitiendo el acto anterior apoya sus antebrazos cruzados en mi auto enseñándome el ramo como una afilada y brillante espada, amenazándome con su dulce estocada que asesta en mi antes de hacer contacto. Desenfunda el arma secreta de su sonrisa como haciendo alarde de su fuerza de ataque. Mi corazón late como el motor de un viejo camión guerrero, tan fuerte que no me permite oír sus palabras y en mi desesperación intento contestarle…pero mi voz también resultó inaudible, al menos para mí. Al verme entregado a sus encantos, me ametralla con una incontenible risa y me abandona herido a la gracia de Dios, arrojándome una rosa sobre mis humedecidos pantalones como tiro de gracia.

Quedo tendido sobre mi asiento mientras la veo alejarse victoriosa por el espejo retrovisor en busca de otra víctima, alardeando su aniquilación al grito de:-“Flores…Hermosas y perfumadas flores…”

Building, Body and Nature

White Thorn. From http://www.burrencottage.com/Photos/VN07.jpg

Today it is the 205^th birthday of Hans Christian Andersen (April 2, 1805 – August 4, 1875), the Danish author and poet, so well recognized for his children’s stories.

Andersen’s tale “Danish Popular Legends” was first published in The Riverside Magazine for Young People, Vol. IV, pp. 470-474, New York, October 1870. It has never been published in Denmark.

Here is one of those legends, where we see the human body deterioration  in connection to a church’s decayment.

I must tell you one more church legend. There lived in Denmark, on the island of Falster, a rich lady of rank, who had no children, and her family was about to die out. So she took a part of her riches, and built a magnificent church. When it was finished, and the altar-candles lighted, she stepped up to the altar-table and prayed on her knees to our Lord, that He would grant her, for her pious gift, a life upon the earth as long as her church was standing. Years went by. Her relations died, her old friends and acquaintances, and all the former servants of the manor were laid in their graves; but she, who made such an evil wish, did not die. Generation upon generation became strange to her, she did not approach anybody, and nobody approached her. She wasted away in a long dotage, and sat abandoned and alone; her senses were blunted, she was like a sleeping, but not like a dead person. Every Christmas Eve the life in her flashed up for a moment, and she got her voice again. Then she would order her people to put her in an oak coffin, and place it in the open burying-place of the church. The minister then would come on the Christmas night to her, in order to receive her commands. She was laid in the coffin, and it was brought to the church. The minister came, as ordered, every Christmas night, through the choir up to the coffin, raised the cover for the old, wearied lady, who was lying there without rest.

“Is my church still standing?” she asked, with shivering voice; and upon the minister’s answer, “It stands still!” she sighed profoundly and sorrowfully, and fell back again. The minister let the cover down, and came again the next Christmas night, and the next again, and still again the following. Now there is no stone of the church left upon another, no traces of the buried dead ones. A large whitethorn grows here on the field, with beautiful flowers every spring, as if it were the sign of the resurrection of life. It is said that it grows on the very spot where the coffin with the noble lady stood, where her dust became dust of earth.

From http://hca.gilead.org.il/danish.html

Questioning myself about USA 2010 Census

Rear constructions and a tent. Personal archives.

I remember when I was a child, the Census day was really important. You stayed at home with your family the whole day, waiting for the person in charge to ask the Census questions, usually a teacher.

And this 2010 Census in USA is my first one here. The questions, pretty simple, nothing about the quality of the house/apartment. And what is more, I discovered that I am classified under a new race: Argentine. That´s a good solution –at least for me- because I have Spanish, Italian and German blood, and I´m not sure how to classify myself. For my kids, they have then, same as mine, plus Yugoslavian and Arabic. What a mess! But this is America. I imagine there will be a new classification in the future for my third generation.

So, I am questioning myself about the ¨real¨ numbers and poverty situation reflected on the Census. Because, so many people is living in tents, cellars, garages, sub rented rooms, storages, trailers and even cars. I don´t know how they can show it. Lots of information will be hidden for ever.

It seems it is not only my concern, here is a forum at Urban Omnibus, called ¨Mapping the Holes in the Census Count¨, dated March 24^th, 2010, from where I´ve taken this excerpt:

Rear constructions. Personal archives.

¨The 2010 Census has begun – you should have already received your questionnaire. And if the 2000 census is any indication only 45% of us New Yorkers have sent it back. In the next few weeks, census workers will begin making house calls to try to gather data from non-responders and to seek out people with no fixed address or live in non-standard housing.

Steven Romalewski – familiar to Omnibus readers from his report on OASIS, the Open Accessible Space Information System, last September – is tackling the issue of undercounted populations with a new website that highlights regions that are likely to be undercounted and thus underrepresented. Hard to Count 2010 helps clarify both the logistical challenges of counting the third largest national population in the world (or about 4.5% of human beings) and shed light on who the winners and losers are under the current census system.

The map can be filtered according to various characteristics that hinder an accurate count, including prevalance of poverty, of rental units, of transient laborers and of language isolation. As his map shows, New York City’s high immigrant pool, high renter rate and high proportion of people depending on public assistance make the city’s count particularly difficult.  Perhaps as a similar measure to encourage participation, the Census Bureau is running its own live-feed interactive map highlighting the highest-response rate regions (Montana has already sent back 33% of its forms! New York’s Lyon’s Falls Village, population 591 (2000 census) already has a response rate of 70%!). What both maps show is that New York City is losing millions of dollars in funding to better counted communities.

Census workers may make up to six visits to individual homes before turning to neighbors to help fill in missing data. Through heavy regional advertising and community outreach, officials hope to fill in the holes of undercounted populations. But the measures are not always enough to combat the issues that arise in highly transient, non-English-speaking, or poorer populations that are hesitant to be counted by the government for a whole host of reasons.¨

http://urbanomnibus.net/2010/03/mapping-the-holes-in-the-census-count/comment-page-1/#comment-12082

I entered the Hard to count site, and this is what I´ve found today for California:

¨Be Counted! The latest 2010 participation rate for California is 51% (as of 4/1/2010). Visit the Census Bureau's Take 10 Map to see how your area compares with others locally and nationwide. (Participation rate = the percent of forms mailed back by households that received them.) In 2000, the participation rate for this state was 73%.¨

 51% against 73% in 2000! I don´t think it´s a language issue. Questions were very basic and anybody with civic culture could ask a person of his/her community to translate. In my opinion, people do not want to declare about housing and population real situations, because they feel it´s highly compromising. They don´t trust on the government´s confidentiality. I wouldn´t trust either, considering lots of inspectors have been sent to the streets to search for illegal constructions. 

A house in a rural area of California. Personal archives.

After 30 years of architectural career in NYC, Mr. Tom answers to the Forum that he has seen: structures not on the streets; below grade accommodation; commercial building dwellers; empty building living; campers. It is worthwhile to read his comments. He finalizes saying:

¨Campers –
This is perhaps the saddest category, but one only needs to practice observance to see the increase of people living in their cars or campers. Typically this occurs in industrial areas and around parks and can be observed in every borough.

Missing a 60 story apartment tower is quite dramatic, but these less glamorous situations are where the meaningful under count lies.¨

El Teatro Colón renovó su telón histórico

Interior del teatro Colón en Buenos Aires. Foto de http://www.teatrocolon.org.ar/imagenes/nuevo%20telon/ganador/telon1.jpg

Reproduzco aquí la nota de hoy de Verónica Pages, para el diario argentino La Nación, sobre el telón del famosísimo teatro Colón, en Buenos Aires. Tengo el orgullo de conocerlo bien, por haber hecho visitas guiadas exclusivas para grupos de la Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo de Buenos Aires. Estoy ansiosa por la próxima apertura prevista para el 24 de mayo, luego de tantos trabajos de restauración. Felicitaciones a todos los trabajadores que pusieron empeño en restaurar nuestro edificio histórico.

El telón restaurado. Foto de lanacion.com

La cuenta regresiva está en marcha. Con la fecha de apertura del Teatro Colón ya anunciada para el 24 de mayo, y la certeza de que a partir del 15 de este mes van a empezar a trabajar puertas adentro los cuerpos estables, no quedan muchas dudas. Pero por si faltaba algún dato, desde anteayer volvió a cubrir la boca del escenario el telón histórico completamente restaurado. Con colores más brillantes sobre todo el gran paño de terciopelo -sólo producto de la limpieza-, el telón confeccionado en 1936 luce "lo suficientemente fuerte como para sobrevivir muchos años más", dijo el arquitecto Francisco López Bustos, encargado de la restauración de los textiles. Durante cinco meses, cerca de quince personas trabajaron en la limpieza y la restauración de los apliques y del terciopelo. El telón fue desmontado, desarmado, restaurado y luego armado en el propio teatro -específicamente en la sala de ensayos 9 de Julio-, ya que se priorizó no sacarlo para preservarlo y evitar que sufra así más desgaste.

Fueron necesarios casi veinte operarios para colgar nuevamente el telón. Cada una de las dos hojas mide 360 m2 y pesa más de 700 kilos. Se trata de un telón con sistema a la italiana, es decir que se abre en dos paños hacia los costados, lo que provocó en todos estos años de vida útil un desgaste sobre todo por la mecánica de apertura. Para evitar futuros -y prontos- problemas se cuidó de modificar los marcos de guardado. "El manto de terciopelo es excepcional, claramente de mejor calidad que el resto de los textiles, y ha sido por eso que ha resistido mucho mejor el paso del tiempo y el uso", sigue López Bustos. Lo que no luce brillos ni bríos son las aplicaciones que, aun limpias, están más opacas pero de majestuosa belleza luego de la restauración.

Sin reemplazo

En todo este tiempo, gran revuelo se armó por la posibilidad de que el telón -al que muchos llaman el original- fuera reemplazado, y en su defensa se alzaron voces del mundo de la clásica, como la de Plácido Domingo, que envió una carta para pedir su restauración. La realidad es que el primer telón era pintado y fue reemplazado poco tiempo después de su "inauguración" en la década del 30 por el actual, al que sí es correcto llamar histórico, pero no original. De tal valor es considerado que finalmente se decidió restaurarlo para preservarlo y utilizarlo sólo en galas de verdadera importancia.

En las funciones más cotidianas se utilizará el nuevo telón que creó el artista plástico Guillermo Kuitca junto a la escenógrafa Julieta Ascar. Ellos ganaron a fin del año pasado un concurso para el diseño del nuevo paño, actualmente en construcción. Se espera que este telón esté listo en octubre, ya que están tratando de que coincida su inauguración con el estreno de la obra sinfónica del Bicentenario que está componiendo Mario Perusso a pedido del teatro. Del nuevo telón, Ascar destacó su intención de hacer convivir lo histórico con lo moderno: "Si bien la imagen es contemporánea, queremos que las tradiciones textiles se mantengan. La pasamanería telonera, que es lo que permite que la tela tenga cierta morbidez, es fundamental para nosotros, lo mismo que un buen diseño".

Hasta que el nuevo telón suba a escena, será este paño histórico restaurado el que dé la bienvenida a los melómanos porteños. Hoy todavía el teatro está tomado por operarios y técnicos que buscan su restauración sin entorpecer el espíritu del trabajo que allí se ha realizado por cien años y que se espera que se pueda seguir realizando por otros cien. De hecho, con el telón ya colocado, anoche se realizaban en el teatro nuevas pruebas de acústica, la gran prueba que ahora les falta pasar.

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1249524&origen=NLCult

Baroque Churches of San Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. In the words of Umberto Eco.

Baroque Bahia´s Church interior. From http://www.seasonsporttour.com/igf/novas_imagens/Bahia/182.jpg

From UNESCO list of the World Heritage Monuments:  As the first capital of Brazil, from 1549 to 1763, Salvador de Bahia witnessed the blending of European, African and Amerindian cultures. It was also, from 1558, the first slave market in the New World, with slaves arriving to work on the sugar plantations. The city has managed to preserve many outstanding Renaissance buildings. A special feature of the old town are the brightly coloured houses, often decorated with fine stucco-work.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/309

I’m presenting today, Umberto Eco’s great description of San Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos’s baroque churches in his book Foucalt’s Pendulum. 

Nosso Señor do Bonfim. From idasyvindas.blogspot.com/

Bahia´s baroque church. From http://www.colonialvoyage.com/viaggi/brazil71.jpg

Facade of Cathedral, San Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. From http://www.studylanguages.org/images/salvadordabahia/cathedral-salvador-bahia.jpg

Cloister of Convent of San Francisco/Sao Francisco, Salvador, Bahia. www.colonialvoyage.com/viaggi/brazilsalvador.html

“ And I saw Salvador: Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos, the “black Rome,” with three hundred and sixty five churches, which stand out against the line of hills or nestle along the bay, churches were the gods of the African pantheon are honored.

Amparo knew a primitive artist who painted big wooden panels crammed with Biblical and apocalyptic visions, dazzling as a medieval miniature, with Coptic and Byzantine elements. …..he spent his days dreaming in the sacristies of the sanctuary of Nosso Senhor do Bomfim: a triumph of horror vacui, scaly with ex-votos that hung from the ceiling and encrusted the walls, a mystical assemblage of silver hearts, wooden arms and legs, images of wondrous rescues from glittering storms, waterspouts, maelstroms. He took us to the sacristy of another church, which was full of great furnishings redolent of jacaranda. “Who is that painting of?” Amparo asked the sacristan. “Saint George?”

The sacristan gave us a knowing look. “They call him Saint George,” he said, “ and if you don’t call him that, the pastor gets angry. But he’s Oxossi.”

For two days the painter led us thorugh naves and cloisters hidden behind decorated facades like silver plates now blackened and worn. Wrinkled, limping famuli accompanied us. The sacristies were sick with gold and pewter, heavy chests, precious frames. Along the walls, in crystal cases, life-size images of saints towered, dripping blood, their open wounds spattered with ruby droplets; Christs writhed in pain, their legs red. In a glow of late-Baroque gold, I saw angels with Etruscan faces, Romanesque griffins, and Oriental sirens peeping out from the capitals.

I moved along ancient streets, enchanted by names that sounded like songs……At the feet of those deserted and leprous churches embarrassed by their own evil-smelling alleys, fifteen-year-old black prostitutes still swarmed, ancient women selling African sweets crouched along the sidewalks with their steaming pots, and hordes of pimps danced amid trickles of sewage to the sound of transistor radios in nearby bars. The ancient palaces of the Portuguese settlers, surmounted by coats of arms now illegible, had become houses of ill-repute.”

Umberto Eco. Foucalt’s Pendulum. Chapter 26. P. 174-175 USA 1988

Convent and Igreja de São Francisco, Salvador (Bahia). Abaroque church with a beautiful azulejos cloister. Forced to build their masters' church and yet prohibited from practicing their own religion (Candomblé), the African slave artisans responded through their work: the faces of the cherubs are distorted, some angels are endowed with huge sex organs, some appear to be pregnant. Text and picture from www.colonialvoyage.com/viaggi/brazilsalvador.html

Bahia´s Church Interior. By Tony Galvez

San Salvador da Bahia. From http://abagond.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/salvador_da_bahia_church_brazil.jpg