Call for papers. From Aristotle to Skateboarders: Roles of Hermeneutics in Architecture

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture’s 99th Annual Meeting will be held in Montreal on March 3-6, 2011. I would like to invite members of this listserv to participate in a paper session titled “From Aristotle to Skateboarders: Roles of Hermeneutics in Architecture.” The submission deadline for completed papers is September 15, 2010. Please go to the following website for further detail:

https://www.acsa-arch.org/conferences/annual2011.aspx

Architectural students, educators, and professionals are all enthused about the recent developments and opportunities afforded by the needs for sustainable design. The cloud of self-doubt seems to have lifted, which has been with the profession ever since Modernism failed to fulfill the promise of a better, richer, and fuller life. After Postmodernism led us to focus on the banality of everyday life and consumerism, and Deconstructionists made us find it futile even to talk about the meanings of built objects, we seemed to be left with little to praise architecture for, other than as a spectacle merely on the basis of the novelty and visual effect. With a clear sense of purpose to fulfill environmental consciousness, the profession seems finally to have revived the raison d'être. Behind this enthusiasm, however, is a danger associated with positivistic clarity. The achievements are easily understood with sustainable design because the conservation of resources, the generation of energy, and the reduction of pollution are all positively measurable. There is nothing wrong in pursuing these goals, and saving the earth in particular is an urgent task. The problem does exist, however, when we limit our pursuits only to those goals we see are attainable and to those whose degree of attainment is clearly measurable. Architecture should contribute to our understanding of the world and the self, even though this is difficult to measure. In order to take architectural discourse beyond the limitations of Postmodernism and Deconstruction, hermeneutics, as a body of knowledge and methodology for dealing with the principles of human understanding, can assist in exploring a participatory interpretation of architecture as a means for understanding the world and oneself. Here “participatory” is to be distinguished from the type of interpretations that attempt to discover the meanings intended by the author. Instead, participatory interpretations suggest architecture’s potential of assisting the viewers and inhabitants with their understanding of the world and the place of the self within that world. While David Leatherbarrow’s recent work lays out intellectual foundation, there still is much to be explored in this area. This session is not intended to demonstrate changes of meaning over time, nor to argue for a text’s contradictory meanings. Instead, this session encourages papers and presentations that illuminate the specific nature of architecture which promotes participatory interpretation, with “the specific nature” possibly being about materials, light, orientation, or procession. Authors are encouraged to draw from diverse thinkers from Aristotle to Martin Heidegger and Paul Ricoeur, even to the recent study on skateboarders by Iain Borden. A hermeneutic of participatory interpretation will look at architecture as a way of contemplating one’s place through architecture. Where Do You Stand?

The Deluge in Archaic Sumerian Cities

The walls of Uruk. Built by Gilgamesh.Among the chief of Semitic king Sargon´s exploits, was the destruction of the strong walls of Uruk. Image from www.writing.ucsb.edu/faculty/

Zigurat of Uruk. Image from http://lexicorient.com/

The Sumerians were the first literate inhabitants of Mesopotamia, and theirs is the language of the oldest tablets from Nippur which relate to Gilgamesh, the epic hero king. They had already irrigated the country and filled it with their cities, before it was conquered by Semitic tribes in the course of the third millennium BC.

Excavation has shown that the Archaic Sumerian or Early Dynastic civilization of the early third millennium follows notable flood levels at several important cities: Shurrupak, Kish, and Uruk among them. These levels close the last prehistoric period, the Jemdet Nasr Period of the archaeologists, and may mark the catastrophe described in the Sumerian story of the flood, the hero of which lived at Shurrupak. This however was not the only disaster, and Sir Leonard Woolley, in his excavations at Ur, found evidence of a much earlier flood, which may have devastated part of the country at a time before even the most primitive picture-writing had been evolved. In the Sumerian texts  the name of five cities are given which were  established before the Deluge, and to them ¨Kingship was let down from Heaven¨. After the catastrophe, according to the texts, Kingship once more descended; and the city-states which then arose were often at war with each other. In the King-list, Gilgamesh is named as fifth ruler of the first post-diluvian dynasty of Uruk.

There has been much controversy on the question of the relationship between the Genesis flood and that of the Assyrian, Babylonian and Sumerian writers. The opinion, at one time widely held that the Genesis account was a late refinement on a story once current in all the cities of Babylonia, is not now so general; while the view that it derives directly from a very old and independent history has many supporters. The decipherment of fresh texts may throw more light on the whole question. The Genesis account is probably best seen against a background of many very anciente flood stories, possibly but not necessarily relating to the same disaster.

From The Epic of Gilgamesh. English version by N.K. Sandars. The Penguin Classics. Great Britain. 1962

Gilgamesh. Image from http://thisfragiletent.files.wordpress.com/

The London Festival of Architecture 19 June-4 July 2010

The Festival in 2010 will be a city-wide celebration of architecture in the capital. As London gears up for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games we look at ways that planners, architects and local communities play their part in the development of 'The Welcoming City'. Everyone is invited to join the Festival community, to develop projects to take part in debates; to investigate ways that London can be made a better place to live, work and play; to explore the city through guided walks and bike rides and to examine change in the capital in a celebratory way.
A wide range of independent events will surround a number of core activities - some focused on high profile weekend events - others taking place throughout the Festival period.
http://www.lfa2010.org/about.php

THE FOURTH WORLD UNIVERSITIES FORUM

Hong Kong Institute of Education      
Hong Kong      
14-16 January 2011      
http://www.UniversitiesForum.com
The World Universities Forum brings together those with a common concern for the role and future of the university in a changing world.
Never before in their long history have universities faced as many challenges as they do today. We live in times of enormous economic, political and cultural transformation, demanding at times that the very idea of university to be re-imagined. Citizenries and stakeholders now question the relevance and effectiveness of the University in ways they have never done before. In such a context, universities do not only need to re-think and re-frame their purposes and governance, but also communicate effectively with the communities that support them. They also need to take a manifestly pivotal role in addressing the key challenges and opportunities of our times: globalization, environmental sustainability, economic development, social inclusion, and human security. 
The World Universities Forum is a forum for the discussion of an agenda that explores the key challenges of our times, challenges that will shape the future role of the University. We have published the draft agenda emerging from our 2010 conference athttp://ontheuniversity.com/ideas/action-agenda/ - please join us at the next conference as we take this discussion a step forward.
The World Universities Forum is held annually in different locations around the world. The Forum was held in Davos, Switzerland in 2008 and 2010; and in conjunction with the Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay, Mumbai, India in 2009. In 2010, it will be hosted by the Hong Kong Institute of Education.
In addition to this impressive lineup of plenary speakers, parallel paper, workshop and colloquium presentations will be made by researchers and administrators from a wide range of fields, institutions and geographical locations. Participants are invited to submit a presentation proposal for a 30-minute paper, 60-minute workshop, or a jointly presented 90-minute colloquium session.
Presenters may also choose to submit their written papers for publication in the peer-refereed Journal of the World Universities Forum. Those who are unable to attend the conference in person are welcome to submit a virtual registration, which allows for submission of a paper for refereeing and possible publication in the journal, as well as an option to upload a video presentation to the conference YouTube channel.
We also invite you to subscribe to our free, monthly email newsletter, and subscribe to our Facebook, RSS or Twitter feeds at http://ontheuniversity.com .
The deadline for the next round in the call for papers (a title and short abstract) is 10 June 2010. Future deadlines will be announced on the conference website after this date. Proposals are reviewed within two weeks of submission. Full details of the conference can be found at http://www.UniversitiesForum.com .

EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE HUMANITIES

University of California, Los Angeles, USA      
29 June - 2 July 2010      
http://www.HumanitiesConference.com
The Humanities Conference provides a space for dialogue and for the publication of new knowledge that builds on the past traditions of the humanities whilst setting a renewed agenda for their future.
This year's conference will feature the following plenary speakers:      
* Joyce Appleby, University of California, Los Angeles, USA    
* Douglas Kellner, University of California, Los Angeles, USA      
* Jodie Parys, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Whitewater, USA      
* David G. Stork, Stanford University, Stanford, USA      
* Edward A. Tiryakian, Duke University, Durham, USA      
* Tricia Wang, University of California, San Diego, USA      
In addition to plenary presentations, the Humanities Conference includes parallel presentations by practitioners, teachers and researchers. We invite you to respond to the conference Call-for-Papers. Presenters submit their written papers for publication in the refereed 'International Journal of the Humanities'. If you are unable to attend the conference in person, virtual registrations are also available, which allow you to submit a paper for refereeing and possible publication in the journal.
Whether you are a virtual or in-person presenter at this conference, we also encourage you to present on the conference YouTube Channel. Please select the Online Sessions link on the conference website for further details.
The deadline for the next round in the call for papers (a title and short abstract) is 10 June 2010. Future deadlines will be announced on the conference website after this date. Proposals are reviewed within two weeks of submission. Full details of the conference, including an online proposal submission form, are to be found at the conference website -http://www.HumanitiesConference.com/.
We also invite you to subscribe to our free, monthly email newsletter, and to our Facebook, RSS or Twitter feeds at http://thehumanities.com/.
We look forward to receiving your proposal and hope you will be able to join us in Los Angeles in June.

The every day life in the layer art of Sigmar Polke

Aachener Strasse, 1995 (a series of sixty C-prints) by Sigmar Polke and Augustina von Nagel. From Sigmar Polke-Photoworks: When Pictures Vanish, MOCA/SCALO, 1995. From http://stoppingoffplace.blogspot.com/

You have to be really trained in Aesthetics to see Arts in everyday life. For the German painter and multimedia artist Sigmar Polke, a simple object, a stone, scenes in the streets, a faucet -that reminds us construction work-,  can be transformed in Arts.

¨For the past thirty years, Sigmar Polke´s art has perplexed critics and public alike with its multiplicity of styles, subjects, and positions. Polke´s paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculpture have variously been described as metaphysical and profound on one hand and jocular and deliberately dumb-witted on the other. His densely layered art, with its commitment to finding again and again an equivalency between subject and technique resists facile interpretation.¨ (Polkography. By Paul Schimmel. In Aperture. 1996).

From the Getty Museum web page we can learn:

Born in 1941, Polke studied from 1961 to 1967 at the Düsseldorf Art Academy where he helped launch an art movement known as Capitalist Realism, which mined popular culture and advertising for its pictorial language. Polke took up photography in the mid-1960s using a handheld 35mm Leica camera. The small, light camera with a silent shutter gave Polke the ability to record "found" still lifes quickly and effortlessly.

Guided by curiosity about the medium's optical and chemical properties, Polke also began to experiment with printing techniques in the darkroom to transform the raw material of his negatives through the alchemy of black-and-white photochemistry.

Image from Getty Museum on line 

Shopwindow Still Lifes

Storefront window displays provided ready-made still lifes for Polke. The absurd juxtapositions and overabundance of items displayed in shop windows provided fodder for the exploration of consumer society. Polke's images offer a catalogue of the types of products that were available to consumers in postwar Germany. They often commented slyly on the nature of taste, as in the pairing here of a cheaply framed painting of flowers with a kitschy planter of ivy

Image from Getty Museum on line

Close-ups and Double Exposures

Polke's use of the close-up directs our attention to those details that fascinated him most, such as the arch of the chrome faucets seen here. At times Polke placed two negatives in the enlarger to introduce context and narrative into the final layered image. In this image, Polke used double exposure to embed the two gleaming faucets among shoppers carrying umbrellas as they navigate a flooded street.

Aachener Strasse

Aachener Strasse

The Darkroom as Laboratory

Polke taught himself to develop his own negatives and enlarge prints. From the beginning, he viewed the darkroom as an arena for exploration. Curiosity about the process of developing prints and seeing images emerge led him to disregard standardized procedures that determine the length of time a print is to remain in each chemical bath and the sequence of those baths.

Polke's impatience with the "rules" of the darkroom often resulted in scratched negatives, under- and overexposures, and prints that further obscured details to create visually disorienting compositions.

http://getty.museum/art/exhibitions/polke/

Cincuentenario del Teatro San Martín, Buenos Aires

Teatro General San Martín, Buenos Aires. Imagen de http://farm4.static.flickr.com/

Ayer se celebraba el bicentenario de nuestra patria argentina. Entre las celebraciones, se reabrió el Teatro Colón al público, y no olvidemos que el Teatro San Martín, del arquitecto Mario Roberto Alvarez cumplía su cincuentenario. Hace varios años ya, tuve la oportunidad de recorrer íntegramente ambos teatros, una experiencia que recomiendo a los arquitectos y estudiantes de arquitectura argentinos.

De la nota de Leni González para revista Eñe:

Complejo del Centro Cultural San Martín. http://www.ba3d.com.ar/

Como a los inoportunos nacidos en Navidad o Reyes, los cincuenta redondos años del Teatro General San Martín (TGSM) cayeron en fecha complicada: coinciden nada menos que con los festejos del Bicentenario de la Patria (aunque sea un suceso porteño porque en 1810 no existía la Nación) y el Centenario postergado del hermano mayor e hijo pródigo Teatro Colón. No obstante, no está mal patear un poco para delante el descorche de champán y despegar de fiestas privadas, goteras torrenciales sobre los escenarios y rumores de nombramientos. Para estrenar y conmemorar nunca faltan oportunidades, ni ahora ni antes, en alguno de los tantos principios. 
El 25 de mayo de 1960 se inauguraron los 30 mil metros cuadrados cubiertos de Corrientes 1530. 
Hacía seis años que el edificio de trece pisos y cuatro subsuelos, proyectado por los arquitectos Mario Roberto Alvarez y Macedonio Oscar Ruiz, había comenzado a construirse, en el mismo predio del viejo Teatro Municipal. 
Sin embargo, el aire en el TGSM empezó a moverse en 1961, cuando se estrenaMás de un siglo de teatro argentino, un collage de fragmentos de obras nacionales desde Dido, de Juan Cruz Varela (1834) hasta Un guapo del 900, de Samuel Eichelbaum (1940), que se enlazaban con el relato de Iris Marga y Santiago Gómez Cou. 

Las salas estrenadas eran dos: la Martín Coronado (en homenaje al dramaturgo), con su escenario a la italiana y capacidad para 1.049 espectadores; y la Juan José de los Santos Casacuberta (quizás el primer actor criollo de la historia), con lugar para 566 personas y platea semicircular. En 1967, con la proyección de La pasión de Juana de Arco, de Carl T. Dreyer, se sumó la sala cinematográfica Leopoldo Lugones, con 233 butacas. 
La tercera sala teatral, bautizada Antonio Cunill Cabanellas (por el director y pedagogo catalán), se inauguró en 1979 por iniciativa de Kive Staiff quien convenció al entonces intendente, el brigadier Osvaldo Cacciatore, para que no renovara la concesión de la confitería del subsuelo con el fin de convertir ese espacio en una sala de 200 localidades. "Un café costaba casi lo mismo que una entrada", recuerda en su despacho el actual director general y artístico en su último año de gestión. Hablar de Kive Staiff es hablar del San Martín. Y al revés y desde cualquier lado, también. Porque no hay manera de separar el destino del ex periodista del diario La Opinión y fundador de la revista Teatro XX y el de la institución que tuvo a su cargo en tres etapas diferentes: 1971-73, 1976-89 y 1998-2010. 

Reparación de la fachada del Teatro San Martín. Imagen de http://www.ajedrez.com.ar/024.jpg

Para leer la nota completa:
50 Años a Telón Abierto

http://www.revistaenie.clarin.com/notas/2010/05/25/_-02199812.htm

The Holocaust Monument in Berlin. Interview with Peter Eisenman

Aerial Picture of the Holocaust Monument, Berlin. From Spiegel.com

There´s too much controversy about this monument. Some people say it looks like a gigantic cemetery; others, that it is too abstract; some think that instead of those blocks it would have been better to plant trees ¨trees and plaques are for memorials¨. And some say Eisenman´s design was to provoke disorientation, anguish, feelings that had the Jews in the Holocaust. It is difficult for me to express an opinion, because I´ve never been there. Maybe 2711 abstract blocks is too much, it looks like too big for me and I´m thinking how long a person could be walking inside without wanting to escape. But this is just my feeling. I preferred to reproduce Spiegel´s interview with its author, American architect Peter Eisenman in may 2005. 

SPIEGEL ONLINE:

Berlin has been watching the monument take shape for years. You've been working on it much longer, close to six years to be exact. Are you happy it's over?

Eisenman: No. For sure not. It's like saying you're happy you're going to die. I am not a finisher, I am a starter. And I am always thinking, what is the next project, we are working on, and those are the things that are exciting to me. Endings are like, I always say, like a women's pregnancy. When she has a child, she is happy to have the child, but there is a thing called postpartum depression, that is that she is no longer carrying the baby. Is it exciting to see and having gotten it finished? Is there a sense of accomplishment? Is it more than I could have thought? Yes.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are you satisfied with the finished product? Does it look like you wanted it to look?

Eisenman: What is interesting to me is how much I have learned in doing the project. Just yesterday, I watched people walk into it for the first time and it is amazing how these heads disappear -- like going under water. Primo Levi talks about a similar idea in his book about Auschwitz. He writes that the prisoners were no longer alive but they weren't dead either. Rather, they seemed to descend into a personal hell. I was suddenly reminded of that passage while watching these heads disappear into the monument. You don't often see people disappear into something that appears to be flat. That was amazing, seeing them disappear.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You hadn't thought of that effect when you designed the monument?

Eisenman: No, I hadn't. You pray and pray for such accidental results, because you really don't know what the finished product will be like. For example I didn't realize that the sound would be so muted inside. You don't hear anything but the sound of your footsteps. Also, the ground. We didn't want to use any materials that came out of the soil because the soil was for the Germans. "Blood and Soil" was the ideological moment that separated the Jews from the Germans. And here, the ground is very uneven and difficult. My wife yesterday got dizzy walking in the memorial because it slopes in several directions. It was really extraordinary.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there anything you don't like about the finished product?

Eisenman: I think it is a little too aesthetic. It's a little too good looking. It's not that I wanted something bad looking, but I didn't want it to seem designed. I wanted the ordinary, the banal. If you want to show a picture, just show it -- don't spend too much time arranging it. And unfortunately it looks a bit too arranged.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: A lot of people say it looks like a cemetery.

Eisenman: I can't think about it. If one person says it looks like a graveyard and the next says it looks like a ruined city and then someone says it looks like it is from Mars -- everybody needs to make it look like something they know. There was an aerial shot in the paper on Saturday -- a beautiful photo. I have never seen a graveyard that looks like that. And when you walk in, it certainly doesn't feel like one. But if people see it like that, you can't stop them. It's fine.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is there a feeling or an emotion that you wanted to generate in the people who visit the monument?

Eisenman: I said all along that I wanted people to have a feeling of being in the present and an experience that they had never had before. And one that was different and slightly unsettling. The world is too full of information and here is a place without information. That is what I wanted.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You were against the building of the Center of Information underneath the monument, weren't you?

Eisenman: I was. But as an architect you win some and you lose some.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Who is the monument for? Is it for the Jews?

Eisenman: It's for the German people. I don't think it was ever intended to be for the Jews. It's a wonderful expression of the German people to place something in the middle of their city that reminds them -- could remind them -- of the past.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: An expression of guilt, you mean?

Eisenman: No. For me it wasn't about guilt. When looking at Germans, I have never felt a sense that they are guilty. I have encountered anti-Semitism in the United States as well. Clearly the anti-Semitism in Germany in the 1930s went overboard and it was clearly a terrible moment in history. But how long does one feel guilty? Can we get over that?

I always thought that this monument was about trying to get over this question of guilt. Whenever I come here, I arrive feeling like an American. But by the time I leave, I feel like a Jew. And why is that? Because Germans go out of their way -- because I am a Jew -- to make me feel good. And that makes me feel worse. I can't deal with it. Stop making me feel good. If you are anti-Semitic, fine. If you don't like me personally, fine. But deal with me as an individual, not as a Jew. I would hope that this memorial, in its absence of guilt-making, is part of the process of getting over that guilt. You cannot live with guilt. If Germany did, then the whole country would have to go to an analyst. I don't know how else to say it.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The monument is specifically devoted to remembering the Jews who died in the Holocaust. Do you think it's right that the other groups victimized in the Holocaust are excluded from this monument?

Eisenman: Yes, I do. I changed my mind on that a few months ago. The more I read about World War II history, the more I realized that the worse the war went in Russia, the more Jews were killed by the Nazis. When the Nazis realized they couldn't defeat the Bolshevists, they made sure they got the Jews. Now I think it's fine that the project is just for the Jews.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But now there is the danger that all other groups will want a monument and Berlin will turn into a city of memorials.

Eisenman: I don't know about that. I'm certainly not going to do another one. I'm not into doing these monuments.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You're project was originally chosen in 1999 from among hundreds of proposals. What was the most difficult part of the six years that have elapsed since then?

Eisenman: The project was heavily politicized. And knowing how to deal with the political process was difficult for me. I am an American and I don't fully understand the sensitivity or the sense of humor that operates in this country. Sometimes it has been difficult to know how to maneuver. There were a lot of problems and if you sit in a room with 20 politicians of different colors around a table, each one of them has to speak. That's a beautiful thing, but also very tedious. In the end, there is no such thing as a pure client who gives you totally free reign. And the best clients in the world are the people who cause you to struggle.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Now that the monument is finished and open to the public, it probably won't be long before the first swastika is sprayed onto the monument.

Eisenman: Would that be a bad thing? I was against the graffiti coating from the start. If a swastika is painted on it, it is a reflection of how people feel. And if it remains there, it is a reflection of how the German government feels about people painting swastikas on the monument. That is something I have no control over. When you turn a project over to clients, they do with it what they want -- it's theirs and they occupy your work. You can't tell them what to do with it. If they want to knock the stones over tomorrow, honestly, that's fine. People are going to picnic in the field. Children will play tag in the field. There will be fashion models modeling there and films will be shot there. I can easily imagine some spy shoot 'em ups ending in the field. What can I say? It's not a sacred place.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you have a favorite monument?

Eisenman: Actually, I'm not that into monuments. Honestly, I don't think much about them. I think more about sports.

Interview conducted by Charles Hawley and Natalie Tenberg

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,355252,00.html

Pictures from Spiegel.com