Session 4 - 23.10.09 Henri Lefebvre's 'The production of sapce'

So my thoughts on 'social spaces' and 'Nostalgia' session 4 discussions...

I found the text by Lefebvre hard to read and a little out of date, but I found interest in the concept of 'work' and 'Product'. As Lefebvre states "a work has something irreplaceable and unique about it" in my opinion this is something, which in present day culture, is becoming harder to find.

As we discussed within the session we live in a replay culture, a "product" culture, events are replayed on loop and thanks mainly to advances in technology, i.e. the computer and television, we find ourselves looking to the past for ideas for the present and therefore becoming very Nostalgic.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Example 1
James May's Toy Stories, BBC 2.

I've just, prior to writing this blog, watched James May in action. Trying to reintroduce the classic Airfix models to a new generation of children. This made me reminisce the times when I myself created these models. This is a great example of nostalgia, it's the feeling of happiness of experiencing good memories again. Will I conform to May's vision to bring back Airfix as a hobby, no, but it was nice to look back for a brief moment of the past.

Example 2

Current film releases and television, 2009-2010.

Looking through the coming soon section of the local cinema it is clear to see that nostalgia is not always a good thing in culture. Do we really need a re-released Nightmare on Elm Street, no, Halloween, no. Do we need more sequels, for example, a 4th, 5th, 6th Saw movie, good God no! Why are film producer’s constantly going back and remaking, creating sequels to films. Are we incapable as a culture to produce something authentic? This trend can also be applied to other media, television, they are currently remaking the A team, why? Even when we do come up with a great authentic(ish) concept why must we then ruin it by over modifying and dragging out it's life until the original idea becomes forgotten, for example; Lost, 6 seasons later and I still have no idea what the heck is going on, I can't remember what happened at the beginning, something about a plane crash and a hatch? Why not just finish it and move on and create a new "work"?

Session 3 - 16.10.09 The Pololities of Amnesia

So my thoughts on Eagleton's After Theory...

I really did enjoy reading Eagleton's book, well what I could read of it through Amazon. (The copy I ordered is still sitting in a sack in some post office while the postman have their yearly whinge about pay etc... anyways I digress, back to Eagleton) I found the book easy to read and I could relate to what Eagleton was agonising over.

As we have discussed in the previous two sessions, Dubai and Zaha, it is hard to apply architectural theory to modern day ways of thinking, this is because over the last century the civilised world has developed at an alarmingly quick rate. What is current now can so easily not be the case tomorrow. As Eagleton highlights "we still trading on the past" yet this is no longer applicable, I feel that theory just needs a bit of time to catch up.

One point that Eagleton raises is the way in which, "In some traditionalist universities not long ago, you could not research on authors who were still alive. This was a great incentive to slip a knife between their ribs one foggy evening, or a remarkable test of patience if your chosen novelist was in rude health and only 34." This can only be seen as a good progression in the study of theory surely? How crazy would that be trying to do this very course, for the obvious fact that we won't have been able to read this very text.

Theory isn't over; it has merely evolving into something quite different...it just needs a bit of time.

Session 2 - 09.10.09 Dubai

So my thoughts on Dubai…

The opening section of this essay, by Mike Davis, gives a good account of how most people in the world view Dubai; it is a weird and crazy place which has grown out of the dessert over the last few years, it is the place to go for the ultimate phantasmagoria experience, it’s Las Vegas and Disneyland’s freakish love child, who’s role models are Jordon and Jodie Marsh, pumped full of drugs and allowed to run wild.

But what most people don’t realise, or indeed choose to turn a blind eye towards, are the underlying circumstances from which this city has been built. The quote from the session “it is like a lot of smiling people at a party” really helps to sum up the feeling that I would get if I were to visit this crazy place. This is a city built by benefiting on a terror fearing world in which we live and the fact that we need oil. This is a city which has benefited on exploiting people, workers living in poor conditions being paid very little for working long hours. There is no real reason for the developments, it’s just because they can and they want to be bigger and better than anyone else.

This is a city that’s architecture basically flaunts to world “thanks for all the money”.

Session 1 - 02.10.09 Zaha

So my thoughts on Zaha...

Her office and working environment sounds like a place I would never want to work. It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie; All the employees hook up to computers, connected together digitally as one giant CAD organism, working in silence, fixed to their screen as if in some weird trance. But obviously it works since Zaha has created, from this giant organism, some of the most recognisable architecture in the world today.

Regarding physical location, she appears in the article not to be engaged with her surroundings in London. This is reflected in her architecture around the globe that turns its back on the historicism of their locations.

I respect the way that throughout the interview with Meades, as well as in the rest of her life, she plays her cards very close to her chest. It is clear in this piece that this woman is very clever; of course, she knows why her buildings appear as they do. She rightly doesn't give away any trade secrets to the ways in which she designs her architecture, why should she? Zaha knows the second she does copycat designs will spring up all over the place. Cheap knock offs of Zaha's style, like knock off Rolexes (half the price, looks similar from afar, but will develop problems fairly quickly), which means she will possibly lose out on commissions. I can see in the future she may write a book which will explain all her secrets, but until that time why not keep making her mark, unchallenged, on the architectural landscape of cities that can be recognised as unmistakably Zaha.