"In a traditional German toilet, the hole into which shit disappears after we flush is right at the front, so that shit is first laid out for us to sniff and inspect for traces of illness. In the typical French toilet, on the contrary, the hole is at the back, i.e. shit is supposed to disappear as quickly as possible. Finally, the American (Anglo-Saxon) toilet presents a synthesis, a mediation between these opposites: the toilet basin is full of water, so that the shit floats in it, visible, but not to be inspected. [...] It is clear that none of these versions can be accounted for in purely utilitarian terms: each involves a certain ideological perception of how the subject should relate to excrement. Hegel was among the first to see in the geographical triad of Germany, France and England an expression of three different existential attitudes: reflective thoroughness (German), revolutionary hastiness (French), utilitarian pragmatism (English). In political terms, this triad can be read as German conservatism, French revolutionary radicalism and English liberalism. [...] The point about toilets is that they enable us not only to discern this triad in the most intimate domain, but also to identify its underlying mechanism in the three different attitudes towards excremental excess: an ambiguous contemplative fascination; a wish to get rid of it as fast as possible; a pragmatic decision to treat it as ordinary and dispose of it in an appropriate way. It is easy for an academic at a round table to claim that we live in a post-ideological universe, but the moment he visits the lavatory after the heated discussion, he is again knee-deep in ideology." [The Plague of Fantasies]
"In a traditional German toilet, the hole into which shit disappears after we flush is right at the front, so that shit is first laid out for us to sniff and inspect for traces of illness. In the typical French toilet, on the contrary, the hole is at the back, i.e. shit is supposed to disappear as quickly as possible. Finally, the American (Anglo-Saxon) toilet presents a synthesis, a mediation between these opposites: the toilet basin is full of water, so that the shit floats in it, visible, but not to be inspected. [...] It is clear that none of these versions can be accounted for in purely utilitarian terms: each involves a certain ideological perception of how the subject should relate to excrement. Hegel was among the first to see in the geographical triad of Germany, France and England an expression of three different existential attitudes: reflective thoroughness (German), revolutionary hastiness (French), utilitarian pragmatism (English). In political terms, this triad can be read as German conservatism, French revolutionary radicalism and English liberalism. [...] The point about toilets is that they enable us not only to discern this triad in the most intimate domain, but also to identify its underlying mechanism in the three different attitudes towards excremental excess: an ambiguous contemplative fascination; a wish to get rid of it as fast as possible; a pragmatic decision to treat it as ordinary and dispose of it in an appropriate way. It is easy for an academic at a round table to claim that we live in a post-ideological universe, but the moment he visits the lavatory after the heated discussion, he is again knee-deep in ideology." [The Plague of Fantasies]
Nice find. I caught that quote at the end of this lecture a few weeks back.
OhFortunae
Gender : Posts : 2311 Join date : 2013-10-26 Age : 31 Location : Land of Dance and Song
A very interesting read is his book 'on Art and Life' (have read only 20 pages yet) though I cannot find it online; about architecture, specifically, Gothic architecture as Nordic expression contrasting Southern perfectionism and specialization; humans become tools or else man. Man can be taught to draw linaer lines and carve them, a mechenical routine of the day as specialized slavery at cost of soul, but once you ask him if he can make his own lines and why they should be drawn as such, he will think, and once he starts to think about it, without possible explanation, you throw him into the abyss to explore and this becomes realization of man instead of machine.
There is much more in that book than architecture and explains very well Modernism and specialization and mechenic routine, how ''work'' is degrading our value ; prosaic I would say, it stirs my longing for the dark weather and coasts of the Nordic countries, and ignites my hatred of my childhood dream being shattered of living there being impossible relating to my character with these multicultural manifestations. About Germanic characteristics and Southern ones and what we are losing more and more in our hearts (feminization / specialization) represented in our architecture of today.
Better to identify with the Gothic spirit for some, than to repeat the common 'Roman / Greek' ideal of spirit's manifestation, perfection; Gothic as style of rudeness, harmony, imperfection, nature, mental characteristics of the creator instead of the perfect traits of tools carved in architecture - making the whole we identify as Gothic yet no clear doctrines are in existence to classify it as an absolute with absolute mechenical measurements taking away the human traits, it is about a summing of 6 fundaments but not all are always present and it too is about the interior, the creator's mental chararcteristics carved as imperfection and spirit.
_________________ 1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born? Say whose son thou art, Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened, And struck thy sword to my heart."
2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go A motherless man abroad; Father I had not, | as others have, And lonely ever I live."
OhFortunae
Gender : Posts : 2311 Join date : 2013-10-26 Age : 31 Location : Land of Dance and Song
_________________ 1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born? Say whose son thou art, Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened, And struck thy sword to my heart."
2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go A motherless man abroad; Father I had not, | as others have, And lonely ever I live."
OhFortunae
Gender : Posts : 2311 Join date : 2013-10-26 Age : 31 Location : Land of Dance and Song
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]You might think that I took this photo with the purpose to focus on the church, so that this building will drag you into its atmosphere, as to express its dominant manifestation in the societal atmosphere; but why then, you might ask, did I not walk around the pole so that all the attention will go to the church. Exactly that, because this pole gravitates all the attention to its being, as ‘being in the environment’. If I will make this picture from an different angle or in front of the pole, it means that I cannot ignore it in the first place since I am the one who has to adjust to its presence – this pole is the dominant expression, in this setting, of our time.
‘’Cities are reflections of forms of governments and ideals of order’’, hence the stark contrast between city centres and the outer suburbs; the centre being most often a city’s testimony of its oldest past, thus its very beginning, and the outer-circles, depending on the city’s overall age and historic developments, testifying each a specific past, reflecting the Ideals of the many changed manifested forms of governments and caste orderings -- Hellenic philosophy, Catholic and Protestant doctrines, aristocratic vs. common citizen expression and today’s Modern Abstracts versus the connective past traditions of patience -- and of its endurances such as war, demographic shifts and environmental changes. Each people have their own intellectual, emotional and creative expression(genetic makeup) which can unfold itself through their ideals; hence the cultureless expression of Modern Europeans yet having highly ‘’intellectual’’ standards of living, in contrast with their ancestors who could unfold their expression in relation with their ideals, emotions, creativity and overall historic-chain.
A city reflects who the rulers are, or rather, what their Ideals are, how they govern the city, thus what kind of societal existential-purpose they inject into our micro-atmospheres of wellbeing; the old churches testify in the West of certain dominant religious purpose, though varying depending upon the interpretation (Bible) and monuments reminding us of their struggles and victories they celebrated. Each architectural work, or commonness, is a sign of power of its rulers, an expression of ‘’our’’ wealth, idealism and its means, such as the builders in our time build as a means of production - dig a hole and fill it again, repeat, be productive..
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Modern buildings express the wealth of our current elites through size, technology and shininess, and inject our personal-atmospheres with their idealism of a form of coexistence and comprehension of the world; hence the unavoidable digital billboards advertising all kinds of products and informing us of the economic status of the diverse abstract capital such as dollars and Euros, on the buildings in cities, most often near shopping malls.
Sloterdijk describes our current ‘’society’’ (samenleving in Dutch: together-living) as foam, each foam-bubble being a micro-atmosphere, very diverse in amount, just think of the many subcultures you encounter on a crowded street, though their common denominator is that they all want to stand out as ‘’unique’’, but their diversity in fashions only scratches the surface of their skin. Each foam-bubble is a ‘being within your own atmosphere yet within a bigger bubble’, as Sloterdijk explained using the metaphor of a traffic jam, each car containing a person or a household, everybody is in a car and all are on the same road, though few have the same destination and even if, the destination does not mean they have a same purpose of visiting; in the traffic jam all cars are at some distance of each other, if that would not be the case it means a chain collision of cars resulting in frustration, anger, conflict, injuries and possible deaths – that is something to avoid in both traffic and society.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Business interests; people living on top of each other to minimalize their share of space, a giant digital billboard to seduce people into buying products and following the advertised trends, all near their working spaces such as shopping malls – economic utility.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]The architect’s ‘’unique’’ insights that windows are the eyes to the outer-atmosphere, thus windows symbolizing glasses to look through as if each (double) room is a face on its own.
Our current cities are not anymore homogeneous unities with caste-layers of synchronic productivity and each caste having their own architectural expression, like the craftsmen and their guilds, the workers and their more common houses and the elite with their distinctive taste not related to common work; but they have become a gathering place for economic business interests; thus utility and replaceability reflected throughout all societal layers. From the ground up to the skyline you can perceive what kind of Idealism we are breathing into our minds; a circulation of money circulating around sex circulating around status, each abstract existentialism having its own orbit and planetary gravitations and directions.
Each building expresses its own purpose, like a farm with its distinct areas for the farmer’s his cattle and his own private living, and reflecting his or his household’s micro-atmosphere (ego) in which he or they might feel comfortable, but which as well may be depended upon the current Ideal (super-ego), reflecting through their decoratives such as crosses and pagan symbols carved into the wood. Or a school with their distinct areas restricted by age, niveau and lessons within the whole of the building – or the contrast between the various political and religious schools, though increasingly uniform due to the current political domination of secular / democratic values.
_________________ 1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born? Say whose son thou art, Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened, And struck thy sword to my heart."
2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go A motherless man abroad; Father I had not, | as others have, And lonely ever I live."
Lyssa Har Har Harr
Gender : Posts : 8965 Join date : 2012-03-01 Location : The Cockpit
"A city is not only a place but a state of mind, a symbol of a distinctive style of life whose major attributes are variety and excitement; a city also presents a sense of scale that dwarfs any single effort to encompass its meaning. To "know" a city, one must walk its streets; but to "see" a city, one must stand outside in order to per- ceive it whole. From a distance, the skyline "stands for" the city. Its massed density is the shock of cognition, its silhouette the enduring mark of recognition. This visual element is its symbolic representation.
The cityscape, man-made, is etched in its architecture and its bridges. The key materials of an industrial civilization, steel and concrete, find their distinctive use in these structures. The use of steel, replacing masonry, allowed architects to erect a simple frame on which to "drape" a building, and to push that frame high into the sky. The use of reinforced concrete allowed the architect to create "sculptured" shapes that have a free-flowing life of their own. In these new forms one finds a powerful new comprehension and organization of space.
In the new conceptions of space, there is an inherent eclipse of distance. Not only is physical distance compressed by the newer modes of modern transportation, creating a new emphasis on travel and the visual pleasure of seeing so many different places, but the very techniques of the new arts, principally cinema and modern painting, act to eclipse the psychic and aesthetic distance between the viewer and the visual experience. The emphases in cubism on simultaneity and in abstract expressionism on impact are efforts to intensify the immediacy of the emotion, to pull the spectator into the action rather than allow him to contemplate the experience. Such is the underlying principle, as well, of the cinema, which, in its use of montage, goes further than any other contemporary art in the direction of "regulating" emotion, by selecting the images, the angles of vision, the length of a single scene, and the "synapse" of composition. This central aspect of modernity—the organization of social and aesthetic responses in terms of novelty, sensation, simultaneity, and impact—finds its major expression in the visual arts.
So predominantly has the modern aesthetic become a visual one that dams, bridges, silos, and road patterns—the ecological relationships of structures to environment—all become matters of aesthetic concern. The organization of space, whether it be in modern painting, architecture, or sculpture, has become the primary aesthetic problem of mid-twentieth-century culture, as the problem of time (in Bergson, Proust, and Joyce) was the primary aesthetic concern of the first decades of this century. In this pre-occupation with space and form, the vitality of modern culture has been expressed best in its architecture, painting, and cinema. In the middle of the twentieth century, these have been the significant arts, and their outlook the significant one of our time. Insofar as the debate about the effects of mass society on high culture has neglected this understanding—for the debate has been shaped by humanists whose conceptions of high culture were formulated mainly about literature—it has failed to confront the most important aspect of the nature of mass culture, the glaring fact that it is a visual culture." [Capitalism]
_________________ 1. "Youth, oh, youth! | of whom then, youth, art thou born? Say whose son thou art, Who in Fafnir's blood | thy bright blade reddened, And struck thy sword to my heart."
2. "The Noble Hart | my name, and I go A motherless man abroad; Father I had not, | as others have, And lonely ever I live."
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 39735 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
Those not blinded by their own bitterness, prejudices and lack of knowledge, quickly recognises that Salingaros himself is a charlatan - he has a solution for sale and thus needs to create a problem.
The original essay "Twentieth Century Architecture as a Cult" is no longer available at INTBAU's website. It was removed not long after a certain someone stepped on the scene and challenged Salingaros' followers in a public debate, when they brought up his essay as "proof".
There's no reason for architects to take Salingaros seriously. He may have some valid points, but those have already been discussed in the architectural community since the 1950's. The essay should be read only as Salingaros' personal opinions.
Lyssa Har Har Harr
Gender : Posts : 8965 Join date : 2012-03-01 Location : The Cockpit
Those not blinded by their own bitterness, prejudices
What prejudices might those be?
Quote :
There's no reason for architects to take Salingaros seriously. He may have some valid points, but those have already been discussed in the architectural community since the 1950's. The essay should be read only as Salingaros' personal opinions.
Salingaros is a Scruton-ian conservative, and his elaboration against minimalism and frankfurt cult of critical theory is embedded in a wider war, and not *just* an opinion. The disappearance or rapid decay of Aesthetics per se is fact. Against him however, is time, and now dis-emotional minimalism has been replaced by "neon emotions"... From abstract dissonance that DE-registered emotions as weakness, shame or a luxurious decadence, to what Perniola called 'sex appeal of the Inorganic',,, buildings trying to stimulate maximal emotional response, eroticizing buildings, that I haven't seen him address in any article that I know of.
Believing that one can make valid judgements about professional fields and its practitioners without having the proper knowledge of those fields.
Lyssa wrote:
his elaboration against minimalism and frankfurt cult of critical theory is embedded in a wider war, and not *just* an opinion
The Frankfurter Schule (if that's what you are referring to), is a legitimate part of modern Western Philosophy. It is subject to the same academic criticism and paradigm shifts as all other philosophies.
Also, if this "war" is so important for Salingaros, why would he remove his own essay from the web (so that his followers now link to this site instead), and not even have backed it up at The Wayback Machine?
I will not comment on any of your links (which is self-referential anyway, see original post _for reference_ ). Links on this page are not visible to unregistered users, so posting tons of links (which is also a hallmark of Salingaros' "counter-cult" of devoted followers) does not contribute to anything in the bigger picture. (See "Propaganda" and "The Art Of War" for detailed reference.)
Lyssa Har Har Harr
Gender : Posts : 8965 Join date : 2012-03-01 Location : The Cockpit
Believing that one can make valid judgements about professional fields and its practitioners without having the proper knowledge of those fields.
Except, the topic was not on architecture as praxis, and particular style of architects, but observing shifts as part of a cultural medium, and the expansion of a certain theory into every domain,, architecture being just one form-at of its expression.
Quote :
The Frankfurter Schule (if that's what you are referring to), is a legitimate part of modern Western Philosophy. It is subject to the same academic criticism and paradigm shifts as all other philosophies.
And so its an open topic here.
Quote :
Also, if this "war" is so important for Salingaros, why would he remove his own essay from the web (so that his followers now link to this site instead), and not even have backed it up at The Wayback Machine?
I didn't say the war was important for him, but his commentary and observations pertain to and are embedded in a larger war that I perceive.
Quote :
I will not comment on any of your links (which is self-referential anyway, see original post _for reference_ ).
Its called contextualizing than reading it as an isolated opinion of a random individual.
I am aware of the fact that Salingaros may not have intended the essay as a personal attack on architects. But he may have chosen an outdated way of expressing his views on culture. I don't think he took into consideration that The Cult Of Architecture would actually emerge. Architecture is not the same it used to be, nor is cults. (I.e. Gardner's Book of Shadows was supposed to be a secret only for the initiated, now everyone can download it.)
I can agree with some of his criticism, but at the same time he is devaluing himself as an academic. He presents a set of conclusions, but makes no serious attempt to analyze the premises. The full picture is far more complicated, there's a reason why it takes 5 years minimum to get a master's degree in architecture (and even that's hardly enough time).
Here's a few actual reasons that architecture students choose the minimalistic design process instead of a more elaborated and time-consuming organic/traditional/whatever design process:
- not being properly prepared for the study, having unrealistic expectations - mixing up "personal growth" - processes with actual design processes - wasting time in their first (and most important) years, falling into "panic mode" in the later years - refusing to listen to experienced students, insisting on "finding their own way" - not reading their contracts, thereby not realizing all the things they are _allowed_ to do
Lyssa Har Har Harr
Gender : Posts : 8965 Join date : 2012-03-01 Location : The Cockpit
I can agree with some of his criticism, but at the same time he is devaluing himself as an academic. He presents a set of conclusions, but makes no serious attempt to analyze the premises. The full picture is far more complicated, there's a reason why it takes 5 years minimum to get a master's degree in architecture (and even that's hardly enough time).
Here's a few actual reasons that architecture students choose the minimalistic design process instead of a more elaborated and time-consuming organic/traditional/whatever design process:
- not being properly prepared for the study, having unrealistic expectations - mixing up "personal growth" - processes with actual design processes - wasting time in their first (and most important) years, falling into "panic mode" in the later years - refusing to listen to experienced students, insisting on "finding their own way" - not reading their contracts, thereby not realizing all the things they are _allowed_ to do
That's it?
And you don't think the demand in the market and the fetish for unconventional shockers triggered by the FS. has something to do with 'viable' pursuits? You are looking at minimalism as an academic discipline, I'm looking at it as an ideological [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] continuing the original subversion of reality begun by J.-Xt.
The words in the manifesto of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] have their roots in psycho-physical [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] wrought by a cynical messianism...
J.G.Ballard wrote:
"The suburbs dream of violence. Asleep in their drowsy villas, sheltered by benevolent shopping malls, they wait patiently for the nightmares that will wake them into a more passionate world . . ." [Kingdom Come]
Are you a postmodernist, afraid, or in denial, of looking at the bigger picture? You do realize its easy to dismissively label anything that disturbs one's favored narrative a 'cult', or a 'conspiracy' or a 'counter-cult'... What cult are you the leader of, anyway?
Local 'orders' may appear to deny distant entropies.
Satyr wrote:
"Idiot Savants.
A byproduct of increasing specialization. An individual becomes an "expert" in one field, knowing all there is to know about it (a collector of information he accepts from the "appropriate" sources and regurgitates as a matter of fact); his entire life is taken over, with brief breaks to replenish his energies and to recreate, with keeping up to date with the information he requires to maintain his expert status.
As a consequence his performances in all other areas and his knowledge of any other field of knowledge, suffer. He may even become socially inept having not cultivated the social aspects of his behavior. Common terms for such types are: nerd, geek, dweeb etc.
He increasingly becomes dependent upon other experts in other fields, in this way also reinforcing his own status as a specialist they too depend upon. This increasing interdependence results in the opposite of freedom and uniqueness. His inadequacies in all areas except the area of his expertise makes him more dependent on imitating and simply accepting popular trends or fashions coming from other "specialists" in the fields of behavior or sexualtiy or comedy or charm. The source leads to a uniformity because it is itself trained by an institution wanting to produce a particular mindset and to reinforce the value of a particular behavior and a particular way of thinking. The institution, after all, wishes to preserve its own relevance and so it both promotes an attitude which does so and it also glorifies those who adhere to its principles.
In the sexual game this type becomes antipathetic to the opposite sex. it lacks the charm and knowhow, the contact with its own essence as male or female to be attractive...yet its social success makes resources accessible to him. What he or she lacks in charm and sexual energy he makes up with social status. His special skills and techniques make him valuable to the other experts who need him to take care of the aspects of social living they cannot dedicate but little time to, thusly freeing their own time to dedicate to their own specialty.
This codependency is defended vehemently, as the years pass by and more investments in time and resources have been made and more dependencies have been nurtured. The individual becomes conservative to preserve this inter-relationship making himself viable within it.
If we combine Dysgenics with Socialized/Institutionalized Autism we might begin to understand how intelligence can be declining while most of us would consider it on the rise. Declining IQ's, focused obsessively will appear as genius in the particular area of interest.
As a side-effect these individuals become less and less able to perceive any grand picture or to challenge the status quo. Their entire intellectual capacity is taken over with the finer details of their craft, submerging themselves in the particular, loosing view of the universal."
Cult of uniformity is the cult of bland, nondescript nothingness. An expression of the American culture-of-no-culture. American individuality: an un-free individual who displays his non-existent uniqueness, as symbolic representations of his surrender to the collective, i.e., god and/or absolute Order.
A Modern degenerate does want to rise up, or to stand out, he wants to convince you that you're as depraved and a total nothing as he is....or feels, because its the same. He can't stand you not being as depressed and degenerate as he is.....think/feels. To feel is the Modern way of un-thinking - very very feminine.....female intuition, the mystery and mystifying essence f the female mind. Actually not that complex and unpredictable, if you stop listening to their words and start watching their actions, i.e., behaviour, choices etc.
_________________ γνῶθι σεαυτόν μηδέν άγαν
Cult_Leader
Gender : Posts : 41 Join date : 2017-04-27 Age : 47 Location : Scandinavia
Architecture can also be considered the outer skin of a civilization, culture being its spirit/soul defined as mind/body synthesis connected by memories/traditions. A civilizational skeleton. Like all art forms it externalizes - exposes - an internal structure, representing a relationship with existence.
_________________ γνῶθι σεαυτόν μηδέν άγαν
Kultur
Gender : Posts : 234 Join date : 2021-02-14 Location : Faustian Land
stepped on the scene and challenged Salingaros' followers in a public debate, when they brought up his essay as "proof". 
). Links on this page are not visible to unregistered users, so posting tons of links (which is also a hallmark of Salingaros' "counter-cult" of devoted followers) does not contribute to anything in the bigger picture. (See "Propaganda" and "The Art Of War" for detailed reference.)
