14 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2016
    1. understand and care about the people we are designing for

      Is this ever going to be possible with public housing and low cost housing in general? Is it really possible to minimize costs without minimizing thought?

    2. helped him to appreciate the character of the African American

      It seems kind of weird to distinguish races as if we innately live differently and have different "character". This mindset doesn't feel like it would help with any kind of racial divide.

    3. would start to repair the professions’ reputation in underrepresented communities and assist professionals in providing holistic solutions to the problems plaguing those communities

      Is this to suggest that part of the reason architecture doesn't benefit minorities is because minorities are not part of the architectural community?

  2. Feb 2016
    1. s^t^ecorationro_ay_^^l^^^byornLirntalbelong.Thelesscannotincludethegreate.TS

      This discussion of style and proportion reminds me a lot of George Orwell's approach to language in his Politics of the English Language, where he emphasizes the need for a simple and structurally sound base before any fancy ornamentation or extreme stylistic twist should be made on any spoken or written word. A sentence that uses large, polysyllabic words is of no use if it does not follow rudimentary grammatical rules that render it useful in communication.

    2. EveryItalianpalacehasitsmezzaninorprivateapartment

      The speaking of the French palace makes me very interested about the general idea of public vs. private. I wonder if it is more common for architecture as a very concrete term to signify what is public or private, or whether this is the job of decoration. Thinking about this has also made me really question whether architecture and decoration can really be separated at all or if they are naturally embedded in each other.

    3. Suchchanges,infact,lie ratherinthe directionofalterationthanofadornment;butitmustberememberedthatfiie_resultsattainedwillbeofgreaterdecorativevalue’thanwereanequalexpendituredevotedtosurface-ornament

      Is this to suggest that the alteration that occurs when decorating during the building process itself is innately different from the idea of decorating after the fact? It seems that the core principles of decoration are present in each, but only the order of execution has been changed.

    1. wider sense of place.

      The main differences seem to be in whether or not importance is placed on the macrocosm or the microcosm. I think it would be interesting to see if there was a third individual that incorporated both sides of these ideologies because they do seem very compatible.

    2. we manipulate and demand from our world rather than meet it an attitude of sparing and preserving

      Doesn't the root of building/dwelling lie in manipulation of the environment?

    3. the kindly concern for land, things, creatures, and people as they are and as they can become

      I find it interesting that the author of this analysis would lead with this observation, which was not something that really stood out to me when I first read the Heidegger piece.

  3. apartmentstories2016.files.wordpress.com apartmentstories2016.files.wordpress.com
    1. What is the state of dwelling in our precarious age? On all sides we hear talk about the housing shortage, and with good reason. Nor is there just talk; there is action too. We try to fill the need by providing houses, by promoting the building of houses, planning the whole architectural enterprise.

      How has the time in which housing was in short supply and high demand informed he current status of housing and dwelling that we exist in today?

    2. Rather, ·dwelling itself is always a staying with things. Dwelling, as preserving, keeps the fourfold in that with which mortals stay: in things.

      All of this talk of the "fourfold" seems very reminiscent of the Platonic four elements, which, interestingly, exist in a sort of opposition to the Cartesian "I think, therefore I am" stated earlier in the piece. There is certainly a mix of philosophical approaches taken in this piece, and I wonder how well they exist in harmony.

    3. We do not dwell because we have built, but we build and have built because we dwell, that is, because we are dwellers.

      This very affirmative statement situates very nicely historically, but I wonder when it became so clear and ineffable that "we are dwellers". Should a statement like this acknowledge historical turning points like the neolithic revolution, is that the point at which it became possible to say so confidently "we are dwellers"?

    4. Bridges and hangars, stadiums and power stations are buildings but not dwellings;· railway stations and high-. ways, dams and market halls are built, but they are not dwelling places

      This comment seems to presuppose that dwelling is a purely anthropocentric idea—I suppose, then, that Heidegger would say that an animal taking refuge does not dwell. I would be curious to know how the role of a domestic animal might be considered, or if dwelling is, in fact, exclusive to humankind.

    5. cogito sum, I think, I am,

      This is very similar to the Cartesian "cogito ergo sum", "I think, therefore I am". To place this sort of phrase at the beginning of the analysis seems to place the same importance on it that Descartes did, in that existence and the self lie at the center of all thought, and, by extension, at the center of each building and dwelling, too.