classics digests, reflections and reviews
Dedication to Augustus When I saw that you [Imperator Caesar] were giving your attention not only to the welfare of society in general and to the establishment of public order, but also to the providing of public buildings intended for utilitarian purposes, so that not only should the State have been enriched with provinces by your means, but that the greatness of its power might likewise be attended with distinguished […]
Read moreHistorian, Philosopher and Poet If I can quote one passage from Hugo’s books that best reflects the author, the focus of his passions, the style and architecture of his novels, it would be the following: “There he was, serious, motionless, absorbed — all eye, all ear, all thought. All Paris was at his feet, with the thousand spires of its buildings, and its circular horizon of gentle hills, with its […]
Read moreArchitect Richard Meier gives a detailed personal account of the building of the Getty Center, one of the most important works of architecture in recent history, which took 13 years to complete and cost one billion dollars. Meier’s design philosophy emphasizes the human scale, freedom of movement, the experience of space and light as one moves around in the building, the relationships between solid and void, between openness and closure, […]
Read more[Posted to commemorate the 192nd anniversary of Thoreau’s birthday] A Thought-Provoking And Sobering Essay on Life In this book, Thoreau reflected on the necessities of life (food, clothing, shelter and fuel), while he experimented with building his own shelter in the woods and growing crops himself. He pitied the lives of working men, “buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs”, expressed a strong desire for adventure, a higher, […]
Read moreThe last of Christopher Alexander’s books that I read. It left me in a somewhat melancholy mood. In this book, Alexander gives a few examples (mostly from classical cultures and his own works) of buildings and neighborhoods that have life in them. I catch a glimpse of the “vision of a living world”, but also realize for the first time how fragmented and unwholesome the modern buildings are. Just as […]
Read moreA Real Design Problem “We are searching for some kind of harmony between two intangibles: a form which we have not yet designed, and a context which we cannot properly describe.” The harmony / good fit between form and context can be regarded as the total absence of potential misfits, which can be represented by a finite set of binary variables all taking the value 0. A Homeostatic Form-Making Process […]
Read moreLiving Centers Centers arise in space and each center has life to a certain degree. It is not inherent in the center by itself, but is a function of the whole configuration in which the center occurs. The life of one center is increased or decreased according to the position and intensity of other nearby centers. The centers are the fundamental elements of the wholeness. Fundamental Properties of Life The […]
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