lewism » Quote

Deadlines

lewism — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:24:34 +0000

I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by. -Douglas Adams

If everything’s under control, you’re going too slow. -Mario Andretti

Never Be An Architect

lewism — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:57:55 +0000

You’ll never be an Architect, but aim for a career in journalism!

-Toivo Salervo to Alvar Aalto, who, in the summer of 1916, just before beginning his studies in architecture, was a trainee in Salervo’s architects’ office. #

2 years today

lewism — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:22:54 +0000

The taste of the apple….lies in the contact of the fruit with the palate, not in the fruit itself; in a similar way…poetry lies in the meeting of poem and reader, not in the lines of symbols printed on the pages of a book. What is essential is the aesthetic act, the thrill, the almost physical emotion that comes with each reading. (Jorge Luis Borges)

This blog is two years old today, and the quote above could be read as applying to blogging also. The meeting of the writer and reader makes the thing itself, and of course in blogging of the reply and rewriting as an added dimension! It’s been great fun so far.

Torture by another name

lewism — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 09:53:34 +0000

Critics will no doubt say I am accusing the Bush administration of being Hitler. I’m not. There is no comparison between the political system in Germany in 1937 and the U.S. in 2007. What I am reporting is a simple empirical fact: the interrogation methods approved and defended by this president are not new. Many have been used in the past. The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn’t-somehow-torture - “enhanced interrogation techniques” - is a term originally coined by the Nazis. The techniques are indistinguishable. The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death.

-Andrew Sullivan (via)

The Philosophy of space

lewism — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 10:45:20 +0000

We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing
That the usefulness of the wheel depends.
We turn clay to make a vessel;
But it is on the space where there is nothing
That the usefulness of the vessel depends.
We pierce doors and windows to make a house;
And it is on these spaces where there is nothing
That the usefulness of the house depends.
Therefore just as we take advantage of what is,
We should recognize the usefulness of what is not.
-Tao Te Ching

An old one but a good one to remind myself it’s not always about the object itself, this may well apply to all design.

OMA at work

lewism — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 10:47:39 +0000

I’m unsure what to make of this essay about working at O.M.A. On the one hand I’m thrilled by the thought of working there in a kind of supercharged electrical field of design, where ideas are ruthlessly produced, used ,discarded, reworked. On the other it sounds like a slightly authoritarian production office which makes last minute decisions based on the leaders whim usually just before an important meeting, in other words …….just like many other design offices.

When one is involved in this process, one can sometimes despair over the inefficiency and the absence of conventional professionality. But in the end, one is obliged to concede that the non-linearity of the design process, the lack of routine or an established canon of methods or solutions are the basis for the quality of the office’s work. It is precisely the apparent chaos that constitutes the distinctly unusual quality of the office’s professionality. It is characteristic that Rem assesses a project sceptically precisely when it has developed continuously without conflicts, crises and interruptions.

Let one building be like another

lewism — Thu, 11 May 2006 11:00:00 +0000

Let one building be like another. We won’t be published in Deutsche
Kunst und Dekoration and we won’t be made professors of applied art,
but we will have served ourselves, our times, our nation and mankind to
the best of our ability. (via) -Adolf Loos

Something about this quote really makes sense, sometimes good design means not being noticed.

Telegram from Helsinki

lewism — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 16:17:23 +0000

A Telegram from Aalto sent to MIT in 1958

‘Dear John just unable to produce enough architectural philosophy you may publish this telegramletter as a substitute stop Sibelius said if you publish three words of explaining music at least two words are wrong this may be true also in my architectural philosophy stop In ordinary discussion in recent decades the traditionally imitation has been pointed out as main enemy number one today is modern formalism non traditional where in human elements are donminating stop True architecture the real thing is only where man stands in centre’ Alvar AAlto 1958

MIT AAlto