Liturgy and Sacred Space Architecture for Divine Worship in the 21st Century

Liturgy and Sacred Space Architecture for Divine Worship in the 21st Century Tiltenberg, November 5-6, 2012

 Preliminary program (July 12, 2012)

http://www.tiltenberg.org/cms/index2.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=634&Itemid=359

The conference is held under the auspices of the Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam

Art in the US Open in Huntington Beach and Laguna Beach

¨With the US Open of Surfing opening tomorrow in sunny Southern California, Push was commissioned to paint some murals for Converse. This piece was painted at Livery Design Gruppe in Huntington Beach featuring some of the MSK-affiliated writer’s signature patterns and colors. Check out a photo set of the walls below as well as some in-progress shots. Photo credit: James Ng for Arrested Motion.¨

http://arrestedmotion.com/2012/07/streets-push-huntington-beach-2/?amp%3Butm_medium=rss&%3Butm_campaign=streets-push-huntington-beach-2

Yesterday I was passing by the  US Open in our way to Laguna Beach. Too much people, but it´s a real urban feast. I took these pictures at approx. 4.30 PM at the corner of Main St, Huntington Beach

Then, in Laguna Beach, I´ve seen the guerrilla knitting (also called yarn bombing) on two trees at the Main Beach Park, and I was wondering if it was the work of Magda Sayeg. But no, I´ve been researching and here is the permit for the temporary installation by Twisted Stitchers:

http://lagunabeachcity.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?meta_id=16389&view=&showpdf=1

The Laguna Beach Independent says that this wrapping is an ¨unusual venue¨. It seems to me that the article´s author doesn´t know too much about the subject. I think it´s a mere copy of the mere copy .... of the works of Magda Sayeg. Read the note here:

http://www.lagunabeachindy.com/2012/05/23/wrapping-unusual-venue/

Massive crocheted alligator in Sao Paulo

After looking at the pictures of Magda Sayeg´s urban guerrilla, with her knitting in urban spaces, I´m wondering who was first with the idea. 

Anyway this is not urban guerrilla, this is Art or, landscape art. The pictures posted here have been downloaded from MSN (worst of all, they don´t mention the author, not even the place) and Inhabitat, from where I also took this excerpt:

Brooklyn-based artist Olek is known for the ambitious scale of her work; when we last checked in on her, she crocheted an entire NYC apartment, transforming it into a surrealist, psychedelic house of yarn. Recently, Olek set her sights on São Paulo, where she collaborated with several Brazilian artists to produce "Crocheted Jacaréa," an enormous crocheted alligator playground that's completely covered in colorful yarn.

With the help of a team of “crocheteiros,” Olek completely covered the massive alligator in colorful yarn and ribbons. Kids can climb in, through and on top of the brightly-colored alligator, which loses some of its intimidation with that blanket of pink yarn. The crocheted alligator is part of the SESC Arts Show 2012, a non-profit arts show across several venues that runs from July 19 to 29 in São Paulo.

The Polish-born artist has been quite prolific recently, covering everything from a convertible to the bull on Wall Street in bright-colored yarn.

http://inhabitat.com/olek-knits-a-massive-crocheted-alligator-playground-in-sao-paulo/

This is Olek´s design for an apartment in NYC, also from Inhabitat.com

Sacred Street Theater in Medieval England

Medieval Mystery Play by Joseph Ratcliffe Skelton, twentieth century.

—Private Collection/© Look and Learn/ Bridgeman Art Library

Soldiers Dividing Christ’s Coat, detail of Byzantine fresco in Macedonia, fourteenth century.

Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

Doomsday, 1433. In York, after dark. A red curtain. Painted stars. Actors in hoses, wigs, and two-faced masks—some in angel wings, some with trumpets. Wooden clouds and pieces of rainbow, and an iron frame with pulleys meant to effect Christ’s movements between Heaven and Earth. a “hell mouth” billowing smoke and the smell of sulfur. Even a host of tiny puppet angels, set running about the firmament by means of rollers and a bit of twine. And in the midst of all this pomp and technology, God the Son, wearing a crown and golden mask, Holy Wounds gaping, enters from above:

This woffull worlde is brought till ende,

Mi Fadir of hevene he woll (wills that) it be;

Therfore till erthe nowe will I wende,

Miselve to sitte in magesté.

To deme my domes (issue my judgments) I woll descende,

This body will I bere with me,

Howe it was dight (put to suffering), mannes mys (man’s sins) to mende.

All mankynde there schall it see.

“Obviously,” says Clifford Davidson, “it was intended to be a big flash. Everything builds up to the Last Judgment.” That’s right: Everything. Davidson, professor of English and medieval studies emeritus at Western Michigan University (WMU), is referring to the York Corpus Christi Cycle in toto, a daylong theatrical celebration of the eucharist, held on the seventh Thursday after Easter, that almost every year, from 1377 to 1569, wound through the narrow streets of England’s then northern capital, presenting its audiences with nothing less than a staged vision of the sacred history of the world—all of it, from the pre-Creation Fall of Lucifer to the Savior’s final sifting of the faithful from faithless at the end of time. As many as forty-six plays, amounting to more than thirteen thousand lines of verse, may have preceded the performance of the Doomsday play. Together they hit most of the highlights of the Christian canon and apocrypha. There was The Creation of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, The Temptation in the Wilderness, The Coronation of the Virgin, and so on—each mounted on a wagon, known as a “pageant,” and hauled about the city, stopping at anywhere from ten to sixteen predetermined and municipally approved performance stations. According to a contemporaneous document, the entire affair began “at the mydhowre betwix iiijth and vth of the cloke in the mornyng,” and, though its exact duration is debated among scholars, it almost certainly lasted well into the night. Each individual pageant was the responsibility of one of York’s craft and trade guilds, fraternities whose members shared both a profession and a patron saint. They didn’t write the scripts—and, in fact, scholars aren’t quite sure who did—but raised money for their production, maintained the stage wagons and their trappings, and, very likely, performed many of the roles. Friends and relatives of the guild members, as well as others, including musicians and maybe even the York Minster choir, would also have lent a hand, fleshing out the cast and crew. “It was,” says Davidson, “the biggest, most expensive civic effort of the year.”

KEEP ON READING this article by James Williford for Humanities Magazine:

http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2012/julyaugust/feature/the-body-christ

Society of Architectural Historians 66th Annual Conference Conference. CALL FOR PAPERS

Abstract Submission Guidelines

The Society of Architectural Historians is now accepting abstracts for papers for its 66^th Annual Conference in Buffalo, NY, April 10-14, 2013. Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words no later than June 1^st for one of the thematic sessions listed below. There will also be open sessions for those whose research does not match any of the themed sessions. Those submitting to the open sessions will follow the same deadline and process as those submitting to a thematic session. This is a change from previous call for papers. Only one abstract per author or co-author may be submitted. SAH is using an online abstract submission process – please do not send your abstract to the session chair’s email address as this will delay the review of your abstract or possibly void your submission. 

If submitting to a thematic session, send your CV to the appropriate session chair and the SAH office. If submitting to the open session, send your CV to the SAH office only.

Abstracts should define the subject and summarize the argument to be presented in the proposed paper. The content of that paper should be the product of well-documented original research that is primarily analytical and interpretative rather than descriptive in nature. Papers cannot have been previously published or presented in public except to a small, local audience. All abstracts will be held in confidence during the review and selection process and only the session chair and General Chair will have access to them. 

http://www.sah.org/index.php?submenu=2013&src=gendocs&ref=Call%20for%20papers%202013&category=Annual%20Conference%202013

SAH Conference session topics include: early modern architecture, diasporic architecture, Buffalo in 19th and Early 20th century, architecture and the book, post-modernism revisited, conservation and restoration, and postwar architecture.

Organized by: Society of Architectural Historians

Deadline for abstracts/proposals: 1st June 2012 (passed)

Buenos Aires: un country ¨fantasma¨ en el Nordelta

Agentes de ARBA inspeccionando. Foto de Clarin.com

Es habitual que a veces nos llamen algunos clientes pidiendo presupuesto para un diseño de casa en México. Cuando indagamos sobre las cuestiones de código y presentación municipal, nos dicen, no, la zona es rural, nosotros nos arreglamos solamente con el albañil.

También he tenido oportunidad de ver unos planos de un local de yogur helado para Filipinas, los arquitectos me explicaron que no necesitaban pasar el filtro del departamento de Salubridad, cada cual presenta lo que quiera, generalmente proyectos standard.

Por supuesto, hay casos peores como las construcciones de países sin desarrollo, recordemos a Haití y la catástrofe de las viviendas desmoronándose en el último terremoto.

Siempre pensé que Buenos Aires, salvo por algunos casos aislados en zonas más rurales, era una ciudad-provincia más controlada. Y JAMÁS hubiera imaginado que un country, de cientos de viviendas y natatorios, se hubiera construído sin planos, sin inspecciones, sin impuestos, por supuesto.

Me pregunto si la gente no se da cuenta que una obra ilegal es como no tenerla, incluso, si se pudiera legalizar, cómo comprobar -salvo por pericias exhaustivas- los materiales ocultos empleados, serán lo suficientemente seguras estas viviendas que construídas en el Nordelta tal vez ni estudio de suelos tengan?

Una situación lamentable, en una época en que desde Google Earth, todo lo vemos. ¿Cómo puede haber pasado TANTO tiempo para que se descubra?

Vergonzoso, sin excusas.

Del diario Clarín, comparto unos párrafos y dejo el link para que lean la nota completa:

La Agencia de Recaudación de la Provincia de Buenos Aires detectó que todas las casas del country Los Alisos, ubicadas en el Complejo Nordelta, en Tigre, no estaban declaradas ante el fisco y figuraba como baldío. Se trata de 234 casas y 75 piletas de natación, comprendidas en 68.261 m2, lo que junto a otras propiedades de lujo fiscalizadas en el predio totaliza 114.721 m2 sin incorporar al fisco y una evasión de más de $1,3 millones de Impuesto Inmobiliario. El country Los Alisos cuenta con un lago interno de 7,3 hectáreas, un Club House con quincho, parrilla, 4 canchas de tenis y una cancha de fútbol 5. Con la evasión en el Impuesto Inmobiliario, los contribuyentes habían dejado de pagar $674.944, por lo que la Agencia los intimó a regularizar su situación, o si no serán incorporados de oficio y recategorizados de oficio en los próximos días. (....)

En estos controles, los fiscalizadores también hallaron sin declarar un complejo de departamentos, "Quartier Nordelta", unos 30.000 m2 que tendría que pagar en Impuesto Inmobiliario $171.790 y que estaba declarado como baldío. Por su parte, también se detectó al edificio "Loft de Bahía Grande" declarado ante el fisco como baldío. Son 10.300 m2 que tendría que pagar de impuestos $96.456 al año. Tampoco estaban declaradas las mejoras en el Hotel Intercontinental de Nordelta, un emprendimiento 5 estrellas que no incorporó 900 m2, lo que representa una evasión a la Provincia de $155.983.

http://www.clarin.com/politica/Evasion-millonaria-detectan-fantasma-Nordelta_0_740326189.html

Breakfast with a landscape in the sour cream can

I´m a person of light and open windows. I´m always looking through the windows while cooking, while having breakfast, sometimes without attention to whatever I see.

A client of mine told me a few days ago, ¨Myriam, when you feel sad, look through the window, enjoy nature, life is beautiful.¨

Of course, not for everybody. 

Anyway, I´ve been having the same breakfast since I was 12 years old, two wheat toasts with sour cream or cream cheese and black tea with lemon and sweetener. 

A few days ago, I opened a new can of sour cream and was delighted to see, instead of plastic, a nice print on Aluminum, a landscape from the Grand Canyon, Arizona. A small detail that enlightened my morning. ¨ENJOY 100% NATURAL BEAUTY¨

Tides of water and people. A Romantic point of view by Ebenezer Howard

Every year, upwards of 135,000 music fans camp among stages in the fields of Glastonbury, a small town in Somerset, England. The influx of people who come from all around the world for the weekend festival swells the population roughly 1,560 percent. Photo Chris Drake. http://www.pbs.org/pov/lasttrainhome/photo_gallery_ten-human-migrations.php?photo=1#gallery-top

While reproducing the following words by Mr Ebenezer Howard, I take the opportunity to show some examples of temporary massive migrations, what in Fractal Urban Morphology could be associated to a dynamic system with an attractor, indeed a strange attractor.

All pictures and texts (except for the one in China) below have been downloaded from POV25

 http://www.pbs.org/pov/lasttrainhome/photo_gallery_ten-human-migrations

Under the reign of Saddam Hussein, openly celebrating Arba’een was illegal. Since his fall from power, hundreds of thousands of Shia Muslims head to Karbala, a city south of Baghdad, to mark the religious rite. The event marks the end of a 40-day period of mourning after the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad, who was killed in the seventh century. 

In 2009, this 10-day annual festival saw 2.5 million women descend on the area near the Attukal temple in Kerala to give offerings to the Hindu goddess Bhagavathy — an incarnation of the goddesses Kali and Saraswati. What used to be a traditional smaller pilgrimage and festival, in recent years, has become the Guinness World Record holder for the largest annual gathering of women.

The fifth and final pillar of Islam is the Hajj, a pilgrimage which every able-bodied Muslim must complete once in their lifetime if they can afford it. During the month of Dhul Hijjah, the twelfth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, upwards of 2 million Muslim pilgrims travel to Mecca in order to take part in the rite. Photo Ali Mansuri

The annual two-month festival at the Sabarimala temple in Kerala attracts between 45 and 50 million pilgrims each year. During this time, pilgrims make their way up a hillside to enter the Sabarimala temple where the Hindu god Ayyappan is believed to have meditated. The mass of pilgrims is primarily composed of men, as women aged 10 to 50 (those of typical reproductive age) are not allowed inside the temple, due to the fact that Ayyappan was celibate in Hindu mythology.

MR EBENEZER HOWARD (Founder of the Garden City Association) said: 

 I have read and re-read—in the proof forwarded to me—Professor Geddes' wonderfully luminous and picturesque paper with much interest. He has given us a graphic description of the geographic process which leads to the development of the city. We see vividly the gradual stages by which the city grows and swells, with the descent of the population from the hillsides into the valleys, even as the river which flows through the city is fed continually by the streams which flow down to it. But is there not this essential difference between the gathering waters of heaven, as they pour into the great city, and the gathering tide of population, which follows the path of the waters? The waters flow through the city on, on toward the mighty ocean, and are then gradually gathered upward into the soft embraces of the clouds and wafted back again to the hills, whence they flow down once more to the valleys. But the living stream of men, women, and children flows from the country-side and leaves it more and more bare of active, vigorous, healthy life: it does not, like the waters, "return again to cover the earth," but moves ever on to the great city, and from thence, at least for the great majority, there is no chance of more than, at best, a very short stay in the country. No: the tide flows resistlessly onward to make more crowded our overcrowded tenements, to enlarge our overgrown cities, to cause suburb to spread beyond suburb, to submerge more and more the beautiful fields and hilly slopes which used to lie near the busy life of the people, to make the atmosphere more foul, and the task of the social reformer more and yet more difficult. But surely there must be a way, could we but discover it, of imitating the skill and bountifulness of Nature, by creating channels through which some of our population shall be attracted back to the fields; so that there shall be a stream of population pouring from the city into the country, till a healthy balance is restored, and we have solved the twin problems of rural depopulation and of the overcrowded, overgrown city.

2009 Chunyun period, ( Spring Festival Travel Season) Beijing West Railway Station,China. Photo Charlie Fong

REFERENCE:

Civics: as Applied Sociology by Patrick Geddes Read before the Sociological Society at a Meeting in the School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), Clare Market, W.C., at 5 p.m., on Monday, July 18th, 1904; the Rt. Hon. CHARLES BOOTH, F.R.S., in the Chair. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13205/13205-h/13205-h.htm