Gardens, Muppets and Weddings

what is this what is this what is this what is this what is this what is this what is this what is this what is this what is this what is this what is this what is this what is this what is this what is this Congratulations my good friend Chad Fogt!
Send me an invitation to your wedding!!

I guess I've been thinking about Urban Planning, Urban Politics, and Urban Poetry lately cause I had this blog entry saved under some such title. CCNY's art department rejected me again this year.(Actually I am a little relieved. I'll tell you why later.) Maybe I will try again in 2009.

now I am studying for the final exam for this gut architecture history class I am taking with Marta Gutman, who BTW has a new book out.

Just now I am looking at the first review slides and they have to do with gardens...specifically Stourhead and Chiswick house in England. Gardens are a great subject. I hope not to get too hung up on the political aspects of the (increasing?) stratification of society in England in the 1700's. Maybe I can just compare these gardens to other gardens in the 1700's. Big gardens, smalls gardens, food gardens, flower gardens, herb gardens, factory farms, hanging gardens, terraced gardens, both romantically picturesque and less romantically picturesque.

Then there are essays to write for the following topics:

a)Neo-classicism in France and the U.S.

b)Nineteenth-Century Historicism

c)Architecture and Industrialization

d)Responses to the Industrial City

e)The American Scene

f)Victor Horta+Frank Lloyd Wright

g)European Avant-Garde Architecture in France

h)European Avant-garde Architecture in Germany

i)Postwar Modernism in the U.S.

j)Reactions to Modernism: Postmodernism

k)Reactions to Modernism: Deconstruction

(With the exception of Horta+Wright, all these headings sound alarmingly dry and terrifically academic.)

I am woefully behind in the reading/studying and the exam is on Monday so...you know...wish me luck!

p.s.

If you have been to the following places or have insight into any of the following time periods and/or builders please comment extensively. I need all the help I can get.

Guggenheim Museum
Bilbao, Spain
Frank Gehry
1991-1997

Vanna Venturi House
Chestnut Hill, PA
Venturi and Rauch
1962

The Guild House
Philadelphia, PA
Venturi and Rauch
1960-1963

Baker House Dormitory (MIT)
Cambridge, MA
Alvar Aalto
1946-1949

Guggenheim Museum
New York, NY
Frank Lloyd Wright
1956-1959

Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago, IL
L. Meis Van der Rohe
1950-1956

The Bauhaus
Dessau, Germany
Walter Gropius
1925-1926

"A City for Three Million People" (project)
Le Corbusier
1922

Villa Savoye
Poissy, France
Le Corbusier
1929

Maison Dom-ino (project)
Le Corbusier
1915+

Ward Willits House
Highland Park, IL
Frank Lloyd Wright
1902

Horta's House and Workshop
Victor Horta
Brussels, Belgium
1898-1900

Plan for Chicago (Commercial Club of Chicago)
Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett
1909

Wainwright Building
St. Louis, MO
Louis Sullivan
1890-1891

Reliance Building
Chicago, IL
Burnham and Root
1889, 1894-1895

Red House
Bexley Heath (near London)
William Morris and Philip Webb
1859-1860

St. Pancras Station
William H. Barlow
and
The Midland Grand Hotel
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott
London, England
1868-1874

Crystal Palace
Joseph Paxton
London, England
1851

Altes Museum
Karl Friedrich Schinkel
Berlin, Germany
1824-1830

Bank of England
Sir John Soane
London, England
1788-1808

"Monticello" VA
Thomas Jefferson
1768-1782

Royal Saltworks
Arc-et-Senans (near Besancon?), France
Claude-Nicolas Ledoux
1775-1779

Stourhead Park House
Colin Campbell
1720-1721
Stourhead Park Grounds
Henrys Flitchcroft+Hoare II
1744
Stourhead, England


Chiswick House
Lord Burlington (Richard Boyle)
1725
Chiswick House Gardens
William Kent
1736
Middlesex (near London)England






Stourhead, England

Portfolio 2008

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It's almost April Fool's Day and that means MFA Applications are due at CCNY.

In the pouring rain, one may say words reminding another of a time forgotten when snakes lived on the island and stones were carved with elaborate, symbols of hope, maps for the future from the past. Place something in the ground believing that three hundred and ten years later a leaf will fall. Last year, a t-shirt was silk-screened with the name of a small group of musicians who rattled a tune loose from the ladder everyone was afraid to climb. Words are spoken. Words are written down. Words are whispered and then forgotten, only to be remembered late one night in a dream. Carving something out of wood, carving something into stone, one remembers the rhythm of ancient songs. Sea Chants work, songs lift the soul out of poverty and carry the spirit along to places forgotten or unknown, real and imagined for battle or verse. Never before have the planets seen a fireworks show such as the one that will happen tomorrow or next week for every thing is slightly different now than it was. What remains constant? Earth is still rotating. Sun continues to burn, a baby is born but this one is not like any other. This baby is slightly different. A tree falls but the sound echoes differently than one that fell yesterday or last week or the ten that will fall tomorrow. Along a river, a person jogs, listening to the music of her footsteps. The sound of her breath is rhythmic and deep. In her breath one can hear dark stories of earth, and fire. In the water lurk transparent creatures that need little light. Has someone placed a turbine there? Canvas hangs on a wall in a gallery. The image presented is abstract, hewn from linen, linseed oil, and the finest ground pigments. Next door another gallery, with flat acrylic cartoons on wood hung on drywall, screwed to an aluminum frame. Aluminum is lighter and less expensive than wood. The artist lives a monastic life. He wakes early, meditates. He listens closely to the music of the street. He loses his identity and becomes a vessel for a spirit, the spirit of the city. Everyone works in harmony. The music of the city is an elaborate, spontaneous ballet. There are time honored methods for dealing with the inevitable. Death, taxes. There is truth in the belief that many heads are better than one. Cars come and go. People spend money they have been ruthless in acquiring on cell phones, wireless computers and cable TV. Space is treated as a commodity. Airplane traffic was non existent two hundred years ago. Languages have died and been re-created. Documentation is on the rise. Ahead, on the left is a large hole in the ground. Santiago is working here. Across the hole stands a tall dark tower, a graveyard and St. Paul’s Chapel. The chapel is painted pink and blue. The chapel is neo-classical.

architecture history marches on

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Nineteenth-Century Historicism: England, Germany, and France

Historicism
Gothic Revival
Greek Revival
Nationalism
"Battle of Styles" Eclecticism
Ecole des Beaux-Arts
marche
caractere
parti
esquisse

Sir John Soane
Sir Charles Barry
Agustus welby Pugin
Charles Garnier
Bank of England
House of Parliment
Altes Museum
L'Opera

Rethinking Architecture in women's history month

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Last night I met Amayas at the Lion's Head Pub and got him to list his five favorite artists and architects. Here they are:

Santiago Calatrava

Daniel Leibeskind
Marc Newson

Wet Designs

Norman Foster

zdizlaw beksinski

H.R. Giger

Frank Freezette

Marcos Chin

Ralph Goings

Kevin Grass

I like the looks of Marcos Chin.

In other news the "Colisseum of Vagina" in in a ceramics exhibition here at CCNY.
The reception is tonight 6-8PM.

Elanor, rain, and homework

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It's a sad wet day.
My great Aunt died.



Ottoman,
Constantinople,
Byzantium,
Istanbul
Five Pillars of Islam
Waqf
Madrassa

Bezistan

Main Players
Suleman, the Magnificent
Koce Sinan (1491-1588)

Examples
Topkapi Palace,
15th, 16th centuries
Turkey


The Karadjozbegova Mosque, Mostar, 16th century (Bosnia)
Stari Most (The Old Bridge), Mostar, 16th century

For comparison
Hagia Sophia,
6th century

Ver...Verts...Versailles

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Dunlop, Mitford, Bryant
for the love Deidre...
evoke something reborn Verlet
exact lines so evedently important.

L'approach, L'autumn, the royal chase
First enlarge Louis XIV, party,
Nine porcelaine offshoots,
Marble everything, hearts too.

Clagny, add water, bring to 1701
redecorate. Now, le Chappelle:

Small cabinets, pompadour, of Berries
The Queen, M. Leszinska
Louis the XVI
Marie Antoinette and the game of make believe

Resurection
Le reine, Le Rhine, LeNotre
Fantasy flight night, Le Chambre
Rendez-vous

Alceste, The Enveloppe, the place of arms
Fireworks, flotillas, Grotte
Parterre du Norde, Satory in construction
Stables, windows, beds
Aerial photograph, furnature
reconstruction

lithograph machine, Aquaduct, ground
St. Louis King, Marley Chambre?
1701--Bull's Eye Salon

Duchesse now (private recollection)
Vivien Bourgogne Gobert and the cabinet work
Louis XV roofscape garden axis
Dormer of Bains, Stockholm
The stairs of ambessadeurs.

Try something small, garden front, Opera
Banquet Hall, le Juene
Le Bassin d'Apollon, the Canal
an illuminated wedding, Bust, le Compte
Bibliotheque

Vigee Mme Le Brun, scandal (1783)Houdon
Plantation (M. de V.)
Belevedere (Georges Saad), Temple of l'amour
Engraved by Nee

Chevalier de l'Espinasse
Try another...Grotto, Chatelet
Plan, block, floor
Small cabinets, endpapers
Archives, Musee, Bureau

Building, tree, organic growth
supreame glory
Tout les jours comedies
Gallery of colonnades
fountains, M. Dunlop, fountains
Le Frondes, le soleil

Historic tourists pantomime
strange oversight untouched
Daughters of France, odd bourbons seen
Madame de Sevigne
Charming centre of government seat

Pergola arbor disappeared
Great mouldering palace
conversation, a curious fact
Le Service de Batiments

Fond of close green thing
Listen she falls slowly, last
Cry rain fountain water

Batsford, Rainbird, Dauphin
there will always be difficulty
a certain point, a knoll of length
dominating three facades
gliding ornament, avenues above
one hundred steps, among the trees
Orangeries (of love?)
not yet arrived luxuriance
offered coup l'oeil
approach coming ediface
small mouth of excellence unrolls
Lytton Strachey

Birds search

delicate mist

tack tacking spring

abolotion
dead son
Artois
Abbe
lies
room encrusted diamonds
murmur mob

discontents
sea
humanity
at three o'clock
Rambouillet

eini, meni, minei, mo

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Time, Authorship, and Ottomans

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Okay I am back here at the NAC...Still my Campidoglio "piece" is not done. (Somehow I feel by renaming "papers" "pieces" i will be less prone to writers block. Go figure.)

With great relief, I found my flash drive was still here (Thank you, whoever decided not to take it. You are a saint.)

I just finished reading "What is an Author" by Michel Foucault in order to "assess authorship in Foucault's terms". I think it brought on an LSD flashback, effectively disabling my ability for rational thought for several days.

Professor Gutman's Architectural History class has moved up to Chapter 19...the Ottoman Empire Islam and the changing of Constantinople to Istanbul around 1453. I am trying to find out about what kind of calender the would have used and if the Persians told time the same way...you know 12 hours...Am and PM.

International Studs, Wastestreams, And Rome

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Hello.


It's a snowy Friday evening and I am here in the NAC computer lab getting ready to pound out a "piece" on Michael Angelo's Campidoglio (aka Capitoline)that was meant to be done last Tuesday(yikes! Please forgive me Professor Gutman, if you are reading this...Instead of working on this yesterday I went to an awesome producton of Harvey Firestein's International Stud put on buy CCNY's theater students)

Also new...Tuesday CUNY+NYC Dept of Sanity had a kick off event for 2008 Sustainable CCNY Committees.


Last night Mark brought over some awefully sweet wine and one of my all time favorite films. Amayas came over and we agrued a little about early civilizations and whether or not hunters and gatherers are "un-civilized"--well, Mark and I argued (comme d'habitude). Amayas got bored and left.

CCNY MFA Group Show

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Dennis Delgado

Filipa Farraia


Glenda Hydler


Jang Soon Im

Rachel Jobe

Seung Ae Kim


Sun Kim

Anthony Miler


Nancy Palubniak ak ak ak

Shani Peters

Patricia Reibesehl

Arthur Skowron

Miranda Small


Dessida Snyder

Erik Sommer

Mary Sweeney

Pei Chum Tsai

Priska Wenger

Yu Zhang

asl, Martini, Me Shell

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Last night Amayas and I met up with Krishna and Virgina and some of her friends at a hooka bar on the lower east side...the music was a bit loud and I began to wish I knew someASL which coinsidentally has the same acronym as the Art Students League.

Ok...i've spent a couples of hours (or days) at the Met
Checking out the Studiolo
of the Duccal(sp?)Palace of humanist Federico Montefeltro at Gubbio, an entire room panelled (sp?) in an elaborate, intarsia trompe l'oeil from the woodshop of architect Giorgio Martini (circa 14??AD).

http://12.151.120.44/explore/studiolo/studiolo_hmpg.html

http://www.jstor.org/view/00261521/sp050877/05x7277w/0

http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300085167

http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/f/francesc/index.html

http://www.le-marche.com/Marche/html/martini.htm

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

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

Art Collectives, Lexis, and Convertables

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Hello...I should be reading chapters 17, 18 and 19 of Kostof's A History of Architecture. Instead, I am researching art collectives on LexisNexis. Finally, I have access to this thing. It seems like it may have been outmoded by Google though.

Has anyone seen the movie, Three Kings? I had heard it wasn't that good but I saw it a few nights ago and it was WAY better than I expected.

Spain and the N. E. W. World

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Oh...Mon Dieu! It's the year of the Rat!!

There is so much to read (Now I wish I hadn't cheated my way through Coach Kirby's World History Class.):

Piazza San Marco

Basilica San Marco

Doge's Palace

Libreria


Loggetta

La Zecca

Vignola

Il Gesu


Pre-Columbian

indigenous

"reconquest"


Colonial


Absolute power

Syncretism

ceremonial city

zocalo


Neo-Platonic

Divine Beauty

ideal geometry

Fernando and Isabella


Carlos (Charles) V

Montezuma (Moctezuma?)

Hernan Cortez


Palace of Charles V



Huitzilopochtli

Tlaloc

Palace of Montezuma
Tenochtitlan

Mexico(D. F.)City

1500 A.D.

Mexico City Landmarks

Saturday in the Library

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I'm here at the Cohen Library with Richard Rojas, talking about volcanos and looking at Gallery websites.

Still way behind in the reading for ARCH 622/242:

School of Athens

Palazzo del Te

Porta Pia

Tribune

Palladio

thermal windows

tromp l'oeil

Jacopo Sansovino

Carlo Borromeo

Pallazzo Chiericati

Villa Barbaro

Villa Rotunda

Teatro Olympico

Church of Redentore

Florence, Bramante, and Mannerism

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Okay...I am taking a course in Architecture history starting with 1144 AD. Turns out, (quelle suprise)there is much I don't/didn't know.

Coliseum

trabeated

arcuated

De re aedificatoria

Brunelleschi

Michelozzo di Bartolomeo

Cosimo de' Medici

Ospedale degli Innocenti

Santa Maria Novella

Chruch of Sant' Andrea

Church of San Francisco

Santa Maria dei Fiori

Arnolfo di Cambio

Church of San Lorenzo

Spiro Kostof


Sir John Summerson

Vitruvian Man

Divine Proportions

Ideal Geometry

divine beauty

harmonic proportions

Neo-Platonic

martyrium

Donanto Bramante

Leonardo Da Vinci

Pope Nicholas V

Pope Julius II

Santa Maria della Pace


San Pietro in Montorio

St. Peter's Basilica

View of an Idea City

"Sforzinda"

Palazzo Caprini

Francesco di Giorgio

Mannerism

Council of Trent

Michealangelo Buonarroti

Giuliano Romano

Pope Paul III

Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

Campidoglio

Letters, Brown and clay laments

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Okay...I'm back from Ohio where I spent some time being with relatives and failing (again) to lose ten pounds.

Today was the first day of classes here at the City College of New York. After some headache (I think) I found an interesting class for which (It sounds like)I can get graduate credit. I was hoping to take the Clays and Glazes class Sylvia had recommended, but that is looking unlikely.

Perhaps in error, I ended up in an architecture history lecture series led by a fairly entertaining speaker named Lance Jay Brown and taed by Camille Dunn. The course is called The built environment of NYC: Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design.

The assignments and readings are numerous, starting with:

turning Down the global thermostat
a conversation with ed mazria
and measures of sustainable design and performance

eat crepes in '08

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Well...today is the last day of 2007, one of the best years ever. I spent the morning taking pictures of an art project involving 100 postcards...then spent an hour scrounging around for change to buy stamps. By the time I got to the post office the time was 1:18 PM and the post office had just closed. So...I made some really delicious crepes and came to the library.

Happy New Year!

Women, Dewey & The Medium

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As preparation to writing my essay for my second application to CCNY's MFA program, I starting looking at some of the art/philosophy related books I have collected and not yet read. Here are four (not so random) selections:

Women Who Make Moviesby Sharon Smith

http://www.wmm.com/
http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c681.shtml
http://www.brynmawr.edu/visualculture/wmmholdings.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2479/is_3_33/ai_n16100894http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=miranda+july&search=Search

This book printed in 1975 is a fun read. Stories about female filmmakers most of which I have never heard of are interesting and helpful in that many of the ideas and impulses I have as a female and an artist are represented in their stories.

Reconstruction in Philosophy and Art as Experience (I just now realize) are by the same author, John Dewey. I can only guess why I found both of these (Strand, 48 cent) books interesting enough to bring home. As it turns out Dewey is a major figure on influence in American educational philosophy. (Who knew?)I haven't really heard much about him.

I have yet to form much of an opinion. Hopefully, I will love or hate him and maybe mention him in my essay with the appearance some sort of informed intelligence.

The Medium Is The Massage: an inventory of effects1967 by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore is a fun, heavily illustrated book about society, the recient advent of "jobs", Government, education, and ever-changing technology. The Medium refered to is electronic technology.

blogging about books on book blogs

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Meryl Zegreb has sent me the most interesting book yet, The Bookaholic's guide to book blogs. The writing is not alltogether horrible and there is a list of blogs to check out in the back.

Salon

Spike

3AM

the millions

noam

jeanette winterson

me and my big mouth

front list

bookblog


N+1

litblog co-op


slushpile

straight from the fridge


underground lit

pinky's paperhaus

girl on demand

futureproof

grumpy old bookman

Ms. Baroque