La Universidad de Buenos Aires cumple 190 años de su creación

La Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), la casa de altos estudios más importante del país y una de las más relevantes de América latina, celebrará desde el lunes el 190° aniversario de su creación con un calendario de festejos en facultades, colegios, hospitales y centros culturales que dependen del rectorado.

Del 26 al 28 de agosto se realizarán los festejos centrales, con una megamuestra y recorridos guiados en la Manzana de las Luces, donde comenzó la historia de la universidad porteña, el 12 de agosto de 1821.

Muestras, jornadas académicas y científicas, festivales culturales y espectáculos, concursos, talleres y charlas, son algunas de las actividades que las unidades académicas organizaron para el aniversario, según informó la agencia DyN. El Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, la Iglesia de San Ignacio, el Patio de la Procuraduría de las Misiones y la Sala de Representantes, entre otros espacios, abrirán sus puertas a estudiantes, docentes y visitantes.

Más de 500 actividades se realizarán en las aulas, galerías, salones y patios históricos de la Manzana de las Luces, donde diversas propuestas lúdicas, interactivas y tecnológicas permitirán recorrer la historia de la universidad. Habrá en exhibición objetos del patrimonio cultural de la UBA, tecnologías, documentos y muestras de todas las épocas.

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1393532-celebrara-la-uba-sus--190-anos-de-existencia?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=titulares&utm_campaign=NLCult

Somebody´s own dream castle

A beautiful sand castle. Picture downloaded from pictureschat.com

There´s a house like a kitsch castle in a corner of Sunset Beach, a few blocks from our apartment. Every time my husband and me see it, we smile and say ¨somebody´s own dream castle¨. It looks like taken from a kid´s tale, worst of all, it doesn´t have land around, it is compressed in a small lot in front of the beach.

I think all architects in the world have at least once, met a client who brought his own drawings with the family´s ideas on them. Some clients are nice and recognize their limitations and that the architect is a professional. Some of them not, and I also heard ¨I´m paying here, so, it´s my decision¨. Now, would anybody explain to the doctor how he has to be cured? Architecture, interior design, even construction are full of people pretending to show they know about the subject, and it´s pretty annoying. 

I´ve found this story from the book ¨Amazing Stories¨, and the first chapter made me laugh, it reminded me some experiences in our profession:

¨This little guy Stoddard was one of the toughest customers I'd ever done business with. To look at him you'd think he was typical of the mild pleasant little sort of suburban home owner who caught the eight-oh-two six days a week and watered the lawn on the seventh. Physically, his appearance was completely that of the inconspicuous average citizen. Baldish, fortiesh, bespectacled, with the usual behind-the-desk bay window that most office workers get at his age, he looked like nothing more than the amiable citizen you see in comic cartoons on suburban life.

Yet, what I'm getting at is that this Stoddard's appearance was distinctly deceptive. He was the sort of customer that we in the contracting business would label as a combination grouser and eccentric.

When he and his wife came to me with plans for the home they wanted built in Mayfair's second subdivision, they were already full of ideas on exactly what they wanted.

This Stoddard—his name was George B. Stoddard in full—had painstakingly outlined about two dozen sheets of drafting paper with some of the craziest ideas you have ever seen.

"These specifications aren't quite down to the exact inchage, Mr. Kermit," Stoddard had admitted, "for I don't pretend to be a first class architectural draftsman. But my wife and I have had ideas on what sort of a house we want for years, and these plans are the result of our years of decision."

I'd looked at the "plans" a little sickly. The house they'd decided on was a combination of every architectural nightmare known to man. It was the sort of thing a respectable contractor would envision if he ever happened to be dying of malaria fever.

I could feel them watching me as I went over their dream charts. Watching me for the first faint sign of disapproval or amusement or disgust on my face. Watching to snatch the "plans" away from me and walk out of my office if I showed any of those symptoms.

"Ummmhumm," I muttered noncommittally.

"What do you think of them, Kermit?" Stoddard demanded.

I had a hunch that they'd been to contractors other than me. Contractors who'd been tactless enough to offend them into taking their business elsewhere.

"You have something distinctly different in mind here, Mr. Stoddard," I answered evasively.

George B. Stoddard beamed at his wife, then back to me.

"Exactly, sir," he said. "It is our dream castle."

I shuddered at the expression. If you'd mix ice cream with pickles and beer and herring and lie down for a nap, it might result in a dream castle.

"It will be a difficult job, Mr. Stoddard," I said. "This is no ordinary job you've outlined here."

"I know that," said Stoddard proudly. "And I am prepared to pay for the extra special work it will probably require."

That was different. I perked up a little.

"I'll have to turn over these plans to my own draftsman," I told him, "before I can give you an estimate on the construction."

George B. Stoddard turned to his wife.

"I told you, Laura," he said, "that sooner or later we'd find a contractor with brains and imagination."

From Rats in the Belfry. By JOHN YORK CABOT. In Amazing Stories January 1943.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32900/32900-h/32900-h.htm

Congreso ALTEHA HABITAR EL TIEMPO Y EL ESPACIO, Buenos Aires Argentina

18 y 19 de octubre de 2011 Buenos Aires, Argentina

Asociación Latinoamericana de Teoría del Habitar Regional Buenos Aires

Instituto de la Espacialidad Humana

Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo

Universidad de Buenos Aires

Convocamos a este nuevo encuentro interdisciplinario a todos aquellos que, sintiendo que los involucra la temática directriz de este pre-Alteha, quieran postular ideas que colaboren a un enfoque que profundice estos conceptos. Tiempo y Espacio son dos campos problemáticos que han quitado el descanso a la filosofía desde los principios de los tiempos, y también a la física, la astronomía, a las artes y a todas las prácticas proyectuales. Tiempo y Espacio incorporados a la Teoría del Habitar –sobre todo en el ámbito latinoamericano– adquieren otras características y sugieren otras miradas.

El Tiempo Latinoamericano es distinto, se mide de otro modo y dictamina otro género de destinos, definiendo una identidad que se despliega y crece constantemente. El Espacio Latinoamericano es distinto al de otras latitudes, porque ya no es uno y tampoco son varios, son multitudes de espacios, y la identidad se define desde la tierra, o como un espejo en lo que esconde y dice la tierra, y se extiende en un territorio tan vasto y variado como nuestros modos de habitarlo.

Debe haber muchas palabras que permitan retomar una búsqueda que debe cobrar nuevamente un rotundo y poderoso sentido. Los esperamos.

Formas de participación

Participación como ponente:

Existen dos modalidades:

A–Ponencias: Presentación de resultados de Investigaciones, desde las sedes, cátedras y /o proyectos de investigación.

B–Póster: Presentación de trabajos que den cuenta de proyectos de investigación en curso desde las sedes, cátedras y / o proyectos de investigación. Formato: A0

En ambos casos quienes deseen participar enviarán (sólo por correo electrónico) a prealteha@gmail.com, un resumen de hasta 400 palabras.

En "Asunto" debe indicarse: "Ponencia" o “Póster” y apellido del primer autor.

La recepción de resúmenes se encuentra abierta hasta el 22 de agosto de 2011.

Los resúmenes (para ponencias y póster) contendrán:

Titulo: (en mayúsculas, centrado, con letra Arial, cuerpo 12)

Autor/es: (en mayúsculas / minúsculas, centrado, con letra Arial, cuerpo 11)

Pertenencia institucional: (en mayúsculas / minúsculas, centrado, con letra Arial, cuerpo 11)

Correo electrónico: (centrado, con letra Arial, cuerpo 10)

Palabras claves: (centrado, con letra Arial, cuerpo 10)

Resumen: (no deberá superar las 400 palabras, con letra Arial, cuerpo 10, interlineado simple justificado. El mismo no deberá incluir gráficos ni imágenes)

Modalidad de participación: (indicar ponencia o póster)

Participación como asistente:

Enviar por correo electrónico los siguientes datos:

Nombre, pertenencia institucional, dirección postal y electrónica a prealteha@gmail.com

En "Asunto" indicar "Asistente" y apellido.

Organizan:

Centro de Investigaciones del Habitar

Instituto de la Espacialidad Humana

Secretaría de Investigaciones

FADU – UBA

Cátedra Teoría del Habitar

Materia Electiva

FADU – UBA

Sede Asociación Latinoamericana de Teoría del Habitar

FAUD - UNSJ. San Juan. Argentina.

contactoalteha@yahoo.com.ar

A video of Jane Jacobs. Her advice on the built environment of the city

Jane Jacobs, OC, OOnt (May 4, 1916 – April 25, 2006) was an American-Canadian writer and activist with primary interest in communities and urban planning and decay. She is best known for The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), a powerful critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s in the United States. The book has been credited with reaching beyond planning issues to influence the spirit of the times.

Along with her well-known printed works, Jacobs is equally well-known for organizing grassroots efforts to block urban-renewal projects that would have destroyed local neighborhoods. She was instrumental in the eventual cancellation of the Lower Manhattan Expressway, and after moving to Canada in 1968, equally influential in canceling the Spadina Expressway and the associated network of highways under construction.

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

From ¨The Zen Garden¨

Zen garden at Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino, California. My picture from May 2014.

Dry Garden in Ryoanji. Picture by Stephane D´Alu. Wikipedia.org

¨In recent, more popular books one often sees the Japanese garden explained as an expression of Zen philosophy. The idea that gardens express Zen is relatively recent; it is not found in the old Japanese garden texts, neither in the early twentieth-century literature on the garden art of Japan. The following pages address some of the more significant contributions pivotal in the establishing the "Zen interpretation" as well as my rejection of it.

A visit of the Garden Club of America to Japan in May 1935 generated great excitement on the Japanese side. It was a period in history when Japan was extremely sensitive to its relations with foreign countries, especially the United States. To receive the club an official General Reception Committee was formed with important politicians and government officials as patrons, perhaps because all club members were "ladies representing the best of America's cultured society".

From the Japanese side, a book on Japanese gardens was prepared for the occasion. It is Tamura’s Art of the Landscape Garden in Japan. It was edited in a luxurious edition with silk cover featuring an ink painting by Yokoyama Taikan to be presented to the club members. In the same year Loraine Kuck's One Hundred Kyoto Gardens came out. It is here that Zen comes to take a major position in the interpretations of Japanese garden art. Kuck focuses in particular on the stone garden of Ryoan-ji, and describes its Zen qualities, with the harmony of the balanced composition as a clue, as follows:

“In this harmony is found the real key to the meaning of the garden, the philosophical concept which the creator was striving to express. Minds unable to grasp this inner meaning have invented a number of explanations ... But students of real understanding realize that the aim of the designer was something far more subtle and esoteric than any of these. The garden is the creation of an artistic and religious soul who was striving with sand and stones as his medium to express the harmony of the universe ... (follows a discussion on the difference between the Oriental and the Occidental concept of existence. The Oriental supposedly sees

himself not as an individual at war with his environment but rather as fundamentally a part of all that is about him.) ... The (Oriental, wk.) artist, whatever his medium, is striving to grasp the essentials of his subject, the thing about it which is universal and timeless, and common to both himself and it (=the subject, wk.). ... The creator of this garden was a follower of Zen and an artist who strove to express it whatever his medium. The flowing simplicity, the utter harmony,rhythm and balance of the garden express this sense of universal relationship”

Seeing the small medieval garden as an expression of Zen philosophy became generally accepted in the following decades and is found in other publications of Kuck as well. The concepts "Zen garden" or "garden expressing (the spirit of) Zen" are common in today’s popular literature on Japanese garden art.¨

Ryoanji stone garden. Wikipedia.org

Zen garden. From inspirehomemagazine.com

Zen rock garden. From zengarden.org

From: an abbreviated version of "The Zen Garden" as it was published in Themes, Scenes, and Taste in the

History of Japanese Garden Art, Gieben, Amsterdam, 1988. By Wybe Kuitert

http://www.wybekuitert.nl/gfx08/pdf_TheZenGarden01.pdf

The decay of monuments

Mayan ruins at Xunantunich near San Ignacio. From planetware.com

San Ignacio Ruins, Misiones, Argentina. Picture posted by Kelly Davico at Panoramio.com

There is a comfort in the strength of love,

Making that pang endurable, which else

Would overset the brain—or break the heart.

Wordsworth.

The monuments which human art has raised to human pride or power may decay with that power, or survive to mock that pride; but sooner or later they perish—their place knows them not. In the aspect of a ruin, however imposing in itself, and however magnificent or dear the associations connected with it, there is always something sad and humiliating, reminding us how poor and how frail are the works of man, how unstable his hopes, and how limited his capacity compared to his aspirations! But when man has made to himself monuments of the works of God; when the memory of human affections, human intellect, human power, is blended with the immutable features of nature, they consecrate each other, and both endure together to the end. In a state of high civilization, man trusts to the record of brick and marble—the pyramid, the column, the temple, the tomb:

"Then the bust

And altar rise—then sink again to dust."

From: Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad with Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected Vol. III (of 3)LONDON SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 1835.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36820/36820-h/36820-h.htm#page231

Vietnam, the new spot for Western architects

SOM has six projects in Vietnam, including Green Tech City, in Hanoi. The master plan features two villages and a lush park that will act as a sponge for rain runoff.

Perkins Eastman has conceived a 229-acre residential district that will be part of North An Khanh New City, a new mixed-use development in Hanoi designed to accommodate 30,000 inhabitants.

In Ho Chi Minh City, Carlos Zapata Studio and EE&K (now owned by Perkins Eastman) are working on a 7.5 million-square-foot development dubbed Ma Lang Center.

It might have been unthinkable as a place to do business just a few decades ago, when half of the country was at war with the United States. It doesn’t have the resources of China, its booming neighbor to the north. And its communist government might not appeal to citizens from capitalist nations. 

But quietly, Vietnam has in recent years become a hot spot for many Western architects, as work in their home countries remains elusive. About two dozen North American and European firms now have projects in the Southeast Asian nation, including Foster + Partners, HOK, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). And some are opening permanent offices there, according to architects working in the country.

Vietnam is “starting to dip its toe into the pool with more Western buildings, because it wants to make a mark on the international scene,” says architect Anthony Montalto, a principal with Chicago-based Carlos Zapata Studio. “There is definitely an opportunity to try something fresh.”

Two of his firm’s buildings — reportedly among the first by U.S. designers to be built in Vietnam — appear strikingly different from the low-slung and boxy structures in the country’s cities. Its 68-floor Bitexco Financial Tower, completed in 2010 in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), features a helipad jutting like a diving board from its glass-walled upper stories. And in Hanoi, the firm’s 450-room waterfront Marriott, which resembles a crooked horseshoe if viewed from above, is now under construction.

Many of the opportunities in Vietnam entail urban planning. Unlike buildings, master plans do not require collaboration with licensed local architects, perhaps making them easier for Westerners to take on, according to sources. 

Text and pictures references:

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/2011/07/110722-Vietnam.asp

The symbolism of the storming and demolition of the Bastille

The Storming of the Bastille. Watercolor painting. 1789. By Jean Pierre Houël. Wikipedia.org

The notion of a respect for cultural heritage, especially one that lay outside one´s own tradition, was in large part an Enlightenment idea. But the Enlightenment also ushered in a new period of heightened destruction -the French Revolution- and new reasons for the demolition of monuments where their deliberate erasure took on an ideological flavour: this was an iconoclasm that was anti-clerical rather than intra-clerical. (...) In the Revolution, rationality was to replace superstition and divine right with equality. Many churches and cathedrals were desecrated and closed or turned into Temples of Reason. Manor houses, castles and abbeys burned. The storming and demolition of the Bastille (....) was an attack on the embodiment of royal authority. Teh Bastille prison was targeted despite holding only seven prisoners, none of them remotely political. It was a symbol of state oppression rather than a significant site of the practical exercise of that power.

The critic Georges Bataille went further, suggesting that monuments do not just symbolize an enemy but are in themselves the enemy:

It is obvious, actually, that monuments inspire socially acceptable behaviour, and often a very real fear. The storming of the Bastille is symbolic of this state of affairs: it is difficult to explain this impulse of the mob other than by the animosity the people hold against the monuments which are their true masters.

Tha Bastille´s stones were broken up and sold as souvenirs -secular relics almost- a commodification process repeated with the fragments of the Berlin Wall 200 years later.

Plan and view of the Bastille. From Project Gutenberg eText 16962.jpg From The Project Gutenberg EBook of Historical Epochs of the French Revolution by H. Goudemetz 

TEXT REFERENCE:

Introduction of the book The Destruction of Memory. Architecture at War. By Robert Bevan. Page 21. London, 2007.