Friday, February 18, 2005
reading Response 5: due 2/20 at 5PM
Readings: "Empire and Architecture" from Hal Foster's book "Design and Crime" (photocopy)
and excerpt from Iceberg Project's book "Gravity" (photocopy)
Frank Fantauzzi who will be speaking on Monday is a member of Iceberg Project, an experimental architecture collective.
Reading question:
One of the main themes throughout "Architecture and Empire" is Rem Koolhaas' obsession with urban architectural "bigness". Urban architectural bigness initally surfaces via the skyscraper in its demand for attention in a world of chaos. Yet with the advent of air conditioning and escalators a new concept of bigness emerges in the suburbs, the shopping mall. White flight in the 70's and information technologies further disrupt this earlier notion of a stoic, immutable bigness. Yet in the 90's the urban landscape co-opts the mall theme of the suburbs as cities become "disneyfied". Koolhaas states that the city can no longer be described within traditional categories of architecture, landscape and urban planning (p. 54) as exemplified in he model for Lille (p. 50). He also refers to the rise of the megastore and its eventual defeat through the advent of online shopping and its submission to capital's inherent product obsolescence.
Discuss how architectural projects such as Iceberg Project's and ones previously shown in class such as mobile structures, or new ones you discover intervene in the historical notion of architectural bigness and monumentality.
Rem Koolhaas OMA site: (you might also want to do google searches for other links)
http://www.oma.nl/
and excerpt from Iceberg Project's book "Gravity" (photocopy)
Frank Fantauzzi who will be speaking on Monday is a member of Iceberg Project, an experimental architecture collective.
Reading question:
One of the main themes throughout "Architecture and Empire" is Rem Koolhaas' obsession with urban architectural "bigness". Urban architectural bigness initally surfaces via the skyscraper in its demand for attention in a world of chaos. Yet with the advent of air conditioning and escalators a new concept of bigness emerges in the suburbs, the shopping mall. White flight in the 70's and information technologies further disrupt this earlier notion of a stoic, immutable bigness. Yet in the 90's the urban landscape co-opts the mall theme of the suburbs as cities become "disneyfied". Koolhaas states that the city can no longer be described within traditional categories of architecture, landscape and urban planning (p. 54) as exemplified in he model for Lille (p. 50). He also refers to the rise of the megastore and its eventual defeat through the advent of online shopping and its submission to capital's inherent product obsolescence.
Discuss how architectural projects such as Iceberg Project's and ones previously shown in class such as mobile structures, or new ones you discover intervene in the historical notion of architectural bigness and monumentality.
Rem Koolhaas OMA site: (you might also want to do google searches for other links)
http://www.oma.nl/
Friday, February 11, 2005
Reading Response 4: due 2/13 at 5PM
FUTURE OF TYPOGRAPHY
READ short article on Finnish designers (photocopy)
READ "Digital Type Decade" by Emily King at:
http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature.php?id=4&fid=3
READ "Typography of News" at:
http://www.fontshop.com/virtual/FSSF/features/fontmag/002/02_news/
xtra credit reading: "The New Typographer Muttering in your Ear" by Kevin Fenton from Looking Closer 2 (photocopy)
VIEW LIZ KNIPE'S INTERACTIVE TEXT ART AT:
http://www.dreamdilation.com
Liz is a MFA candidate in Media Studies
Questions to consider:
Discuss the ways that technology has affected the relationship between:
• the type designer and the act of creating type
• the designer and their use of type
• the reader and the act of reading
• the history of type and its relationship to the construction of meaning
Be sure to include discussion on how perception of time and immediacy have changed and the affect of new platforms for reading.
READ short article on Finnish designers (photocopy)
READ "Digital Type Decade" by Emily King at:
http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature.php?id=4&fid=3
READ "Typography of News" at:
http://www.fontshop.com/virtual/FSSF/features/fontmag/002/02_news/
xtra credit reading: "The New Typographer Muttering in your Ear" by Kevin Fenton from Looking Closer 2 (photocopy)
VIEW LIZ KNIPE'S INTERACTIVE TEXT ART AT:
http://www.dreamdilation.com
Liz is a MFA candidate in Media Studies
Questions to consider:
Discuss the ways that technology has affected the relationship between:
• the type designer and the act of creating type
• the designer and their use of type
• the reader and the act of reading
• the history of type and its relationship to the construction of meaning
Be sure to include discussion on how perception of time and immediacy have changed and the affect of new platforms for reading.
Saturday, February 05, 2005
Reading Response 3: due 2/6 at 5PM
READ Hal Foster’s essay “Design and Crime” from his book “Design and Crime” (photocopy)
READ URL's:
China crowns first ever Miss Plastic Surgery
http://www.yehey.com/lifestyle/woman/article2.aspx?id=11098
READ ABOUT subRosa:
http://www.nyfa.org/level3.asp?id=296&fid=6&sid=17
READ SECTION ON: Biopower Unlimited and U-Gen-A-Chix
http://channel.creative-capital.org/medium_article_4.html
Then view subRosas online project "U-Gen-A-Chix":
http://www.cyberfeminism.net/eggdonor/index.html
http://www.cyberfeminism.net/eggdonor/ed_fleshmarket.html
QUESTIONS:
What is the overarching premise for the text “Design and Crime”? What is his position on contemporary design?
What are Foster’s 3 main reasons for this? (he explicitly states them in the text)
How does biotechnology (genetically modified foods, reproductive technologies, plastic surgery, nanotechnology, etc) relate to his ideas about the current state of design?
As a designer, can you think of one way to “provide culture with running-room” as critiqued by Loos and Kraus?
READ URL's:
China crowns first ever Miss Plastic Surgery
http://www.yehey.com/lifestyle/woman/article2.aspx?id=11098
READ ABOUT subRosa:
http://www.nyfa.org/level3.asp?id=296&fid=6&sid=17
READ SECTION ON: Biopower Unlimited and U-Gen-A-Chix
http://channel.creative-capital.org/medium_article_4.html
Then view subRosas online project "U-Gen-A-Chix":
http://www.cyberfeminism.net/eggdonor/index.html
http://www.cyberfeminism.net/eggdonor/ed_fleshmarket.html
QUESTIONS:
What is the overarching premise for the text “Design and Crime”? What is his position on contemporary design?
What are Foster’s 3 main reasons for this? (he explicitly states them in the text)
How does biotechnology (genetically modified foods, reproductive technologies, plastic surgery, nanotechnology, etc) relate to his ideas about the current state of design?
As a designer, can you think of one way to “provide culture with running-room” as critiqued by Loos and Kraus?
