the essence of place has been buried within the river soils for millennia, the histories of time. yet, as the present travels down the same course and diminishes into open waters, it can no longer be recorded in layers of earth. the seismograph is a register for changes and developments in energies, priorities that the traditional built environment is no longer capable of enduring. an architecture that records the conditions and transfers their evaluations into chronicles of present -- eventually becoming a measured record within the stratum.
architectural tactic
throughout the technological advances of humanity, architecture has been the means with which we can consider previous generations -- understand their priorities, trials, and ethics. places with past look to their buildings to tell their stories and understand their own identities. as we confront the challenges of current architectures, there is no longer a desire or ability to create new constructions in the way we have always understood them. when the future reminisces, what will exist in order to understand today? is there anything worth remembering?
seismograph, continued.
generally, the purpose of a seismograph is to record intensity and direction of earthly oscillations in the context of time. specifically, relative to my project, the purpose of the seismograph is to record the intensity and duration of the energy, strength, and currents of the river. when viewed as a device for charting the river's view of culture in the context of time, it becomes a method to evaluate a country. if the mud of the river is the ink of the seismograph and varied movements lend to different markings, then the seismograph no longer merely exists to record the succession and variation of the earth's tremors.
seismograph
how could i begin to measure the currents and energy of the river? the resultant waterflow?
a recording instrument for the river. the energy of the river causes oscillations within the seismograph.
what does it write on? how is it supported? what do the variances in energy mean? can different vibrations cause different markings?
mud as ink.
different movements lead to different consistencies of mud? how does mud mark? how can technology influence those markings?
maybe this measuring|recording device becomes a massive indicator and displacer of the muddy waters.
still working drawings.
looking at the deposition of sediment in the riverbed. the layers that creates in conjunction with courses of the River through time.
a sort of seismograph to begin to register the energies moving with the currents. how those filter through the lens.
the tectonic shifts and movements beneath the surface around the Fault. how do those coincide with the River and its history.
the City as a place that stalls the motion. slows it down to see it and collect the acquired energies.
the speed that sends the sediment out into the open seas. the channel carved deeper with every setting of the course.
a closer look.
thinking through the River. in relation to previous post.
through the looking glass. speed. power. waste. mud. how do the geometries of the culture on the surface transform as they filter through the lens?
what does motion look like? movement of objects? that speed solidified in layers of time and place?
what does the space between the waters indicate? within the folds of the land, lie the geological histories dispersed by the currents. what story is to be told?
somehow, the products of the Country are filtered through this one place. residue of everywhere speeding through the Crescent City. what does the River see?
what is to be seen on the surface is drastically different than the story told underneath. when does the story end? how can it be recorded? does that record become the transformation?
venice
one of the most bazaar places i have ever been in my life.
walking the length of the city in about an hour, with limited italian communication capabilities and endless dead end alleys. watching limitless tourists and sought imagery, the place seemed to be an icon with a temporary existence. a place that might just vanish when the tourism industry fades and society in general loses interest. what happens to places of such history when the technology that attempts to fortify them is also the cause of their demise?
standing in piazza san marco, watching temporary bridges be constructed, wondering why, was there a parade or celebration in my future? looking from the workers, to the tourists, to the drains and realizing that the puddles in the center of the city were not subsiding, but growing. seeing their edges swell and diminish and swell again, releasing water into the heart of a place that is known by all...
the city is drowning from the inside and the solution is to erect pedestrian bridges 18 inches above the ancient pathways. there is no city there already. there is a skeleton of the past that does not house a current civilization or society. through the looking glass of place, without any occupants to see.
what happens when people lose the desire to visit?
the city will just wash away.
the River.
A certain grotesque beauty exists within the landscape of southern Louisiana, a constant churning and mixing of the souls, a subsurface cultural diversity different from the conditions above. Over its history, the environment has prevailed as a palimpsest of existence, gradients of soil deposition; throughout millennia, the meandering course of the Mississippi River has scoured the surface of the earth, rendering the land a mere plaything. The mouth and river delta have repeatedly shifted and in so doing, have left traces of geological histories embedded within the foundations of the state.
This history lies dormant, buried beneath the tides and currents, the beauty shadowed by the muddy waters and the people on the surface blinded by the darkness. The forceful witness to development and change over epochs, the Mississippi River is the lens which magnifies and corrects those conditions. The unabashed coalescence of endless miles of place has solidified itself as an unexplainable barrier, dividing the powers of multiple worlds. The actions, thoughts, ideals, and opinions fundamental to a Country lie dormant in these layers -- surfaces of past supporting a society continually less aware. The River, an omnipresent power to view, affect and alter that which it alone can see, is the viable catalyst for exposure.
Within the last hundred years, the Country has attempted to solidify the River’s course. If we cannot control our world, they say, then we can surely control our River. Previously, the changing courses of the River have varied as much as the identities now spread throughout the Country. Today, the controlled remnants of present cultures speed out into the Gulf, vanishing into the open sea. The control of the Country eradicates the barrier that formerly protected the Country itself. The Country has forgotten the beauty of existence; it now merely relies on a rigid structure of perceived authority. The River, seemingly controlled, still sees. The Country, unlike the River, is young and naive. The River has always been there, seen devastation, seen jubilation, seen horrors as well as triumphs, the fleeting moments of good and bad. The River still exists -- flowing with a wiser and more generous understanding that life and the world are beautiful.
a couple of sketches.
looking at the changing courses of the mississippi river as a lens for american culture.
america
the senses. the smells. the food. the laughter. the qualities that are easily observable as well as those that are present, though entirely unexplainable. what is it that gives a place a certain flavor? its history, identity and culture.
the history of america, the history that we are truly familiar with, is quite brief. yet, the history of the landscape of america is forever. what is the story of the country that is told by the landscape? this omnipresent force that is always there and readily trodden upon, what does the landscape magnify for the viewer?
change over time. perception of power. fluctuating communities, organizations, and infrastructures.
the mississippi river. there always.
viewing a section of the mississippi river as a section through american culture. the beauty that exists in this world.
the river is somehow older and wiser, perhaps. the one who has been there and seen all. america is so young and naiive -- maybe the river becomes a lens, a way in which things are magnified and corrected.
what does the river as a lens look like? what does it see?
a lens with which to view a culture.
lens.
a piece of transparent substance, having two opposite surfaces that magnify and/or correct.
culture.
"maybe they become more than a vehicle to act as a new landscape. a new way to see the landscape. the history. the culture. the place. the beauty."
the image of the landscape has been a tactic for changing the perspective of that scene. the story that the eye reads. so, what story am i telling and how do i want to tell it?
the value of the drawing is to explain a piece of thinking, a drawing that embodies the spirit of the architecture.
the object and the viewer.
it is by distinctly paranoiac process that it has been possible to obtain a double image. in other words, a representation of an object that is also, without the slightest pictorial or anatomical modification, the representation of another entirely different object - this one being wholly devoid of any deformation or abnormally disclosing some adjustment.
the rotting donkey
surrealism is not a new or easier means of expression, nor is it a metaphysical of poetry; it is a means toward the total liberation of the mind and of everything that resembles it ... we have no intention of changing men's habits, but we have hopes of proving to them how fragile their thoughts are, and on what unstable foundations, over what cellars they have erected their unsteady houses.
surrealist declaration of 27 january 1925
dead
i made something out of the series of components. i dont know what was in my mind exactly, but i do know that this was not it.
the passion that i have for certain aspects of architecture is not present in this drawing. machines and destruction. no.
maybe they become more than a vehicle to act as a new landscape. a new way to see the landscape. the history. the culture. the place. the beauty.
what am i truly interested in?
not this. blah.
components
i am trying to design a landscape that would be an artificial system that would be able to respond to whatever conditions were there. something that could do the things that the natural environment no longer can. i am trying to mentally build this thing out of a series of components that i am already relatively familiar with.however, how can i design something that has never been seen or done using the things that i myself have seen? does that even make sense? an moving system, that people would want to visit their area because it reacted to those issues that they themselves could not solve. so, what solves them?
an immortal wetlands....
what does it do?
what are the functions?
provides breakwaters. stimulates habitat. channels/diverts water. peels up wasted surface. breakdown of dead. interaction of membranes. connects to environment. a moving scab.
how does it move? do those functions pause during that transportation?
a collective matrix. an environment in which _______ develops. a surrounding medium or structure.
wearing down
back to the initial question :
what if we quit trying to repair he existing landscape and instead, created a new one that was responsive to the current conditions?
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