November 2007 Archives
ok, in the last post you could see the gaps for the panels and the way the stairs grow around the springing of the vaults.
Here there is wahat the ceiling looks like with the panels, and where buttresses will go.
The elements constituting a symbolist creation should be:
1: Ideative, since its sole aim should be the expression of the Idea:
2: Symbolist, since it must express the idea in forms;
3: Synthetic, since it will express those forms and signs in a way that is generally comprehensible;
4: Subjective, since the object will never be considered merely as an object, but as the indication of an idea perceived by the subject;
5: Decorative, since decorative work, such as it was conceived by the Egyptians, Greeks and the Primitives, is nothing other than an art at once synthetic, symbolist and ideative.
Is it allowed to add stuff to entries so as to not clog our blogs with entries of unspecific updates? Anyway: more vault developments:
Elev-Profile Vaults
yet another failed attempt. I guess Im learning every time though...
First there are the utopias. Utopias are sites with no real place. They are sites that have a general relation of direct or inverted analogy with the real space of Society. They present society itself in a perfected form, or else society turned upside down, but in any case these utopias are fundamentally unreal spaces.
There are also, probably in every culture, in every civilization, real places - places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society - which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality. Because these places are absolutely different from all the sites that they reflect and speak about, I shall call them, by way of contrast to utopias, heterotopias.
General
How can the Church grapple with the spiritual salvation of Wealthy Man?
How can the Church once again connect with a Man whose society sates him so elaborately?
How can the Church console a population whose pains are no longer physical but are entirely psychopathological?
The Church will step outside of itself, into the contemporary world. It will study both how the human needs it used to fulfil are being satisfied so much more effectively elsewhere; and it will examine what ills and anxieties are besieging the minds of its potential congregations.
Then firstly it will reconfigure its sacraments according to the lessons learned, so that it may speak the message and convey salvation in a manner that contemporary man will understand; and secondly it will create new spaces and rituals which will offer release from and consolation for the anxieties of today’s world.
The Church wishes to re-inject meaning into the contemporary world, and to do that it will learn from that world, but note that it will not become that world; rather it will be an edified reformulation of that world, it will be a re-sanctification of culture. The Church will continue this experiment -unceasingly- until it has managed to attain a blueprint for the re-sanctification and consolation of contemporary man.
Formal
There is a hierarchy of formal concerns which must govern the language of the new Church:
1. A balance must always be found between recognisable historic form, and novelty. One must never be found without the other. Where the content of the space is a new introduction, the recognisable should dominate; whereas where the content is unchanged novelty should prevail. References may vary according to region but the principle must remain.
2. Although the Church will clearly define how each layer of its space should be expressed as a formal expression of its purpose, and thereby be distinct and recognisable, the different layers should come together at as many points as possible to convey a vigorous, contrasting, combinatory unity.
3. As new liturgical developments are expected to continue for some time, the new Church should be within an open framework which should never be seen as finished lest the possibility of expansion be precluded.
Leonidov meets San Gimignano for my Mausochapeleum towers. One tower of twisting classical cornices, one of organically freeflowing bell towers, another Christ wind turbines, all competing for attention, and together crowning the Church of Perpetual Experimentation.
Turbine tower
Twisting tower... but with only one element repeated. I want it to be multiple pieces.
After collaging together an aerial view of heathrow from Google, It is clear how the site, in its process of continuous construction and renovation and reorganisation, is a model of growth and perpetualy dizzying involution which is vital for me. I am aiming at exactly this... but in an ecclesistical and highly aestheticized mode. Also, the way in which the aerial view communicates occurences, activity and various stages of construction is something i would like to use. Spinning cranes, and piles of rubble galore. Heathrow as narrative methodology.
