Ways of Seeing - John Berger

Just finished this interesting little book, more of an essay really, sort of developing a materialist link between classical oil painting and publicity. I think it was published in the early 70's, so its maybe not the most revolutionary of works to be reading now, and it definitely had some of the socialist rhetoric of the 70's in there, but it was good.

He basically proposes that most oil painting (as a specific artistic form, not just the medium of the paint itself) from 1500 to 1900 is basically a wish-list, an advert for how the subject wished their lives to be seen. Dressed in rich silks and furs, surrounded by 'objects', invariably representing trade, exploration (a globe), the arts and music (a lute), or situated at ease in the country, surveying the parks and fields they owned, Berger says that oil painting allowed a degree of realism to be conveyed by the painting that when things/scenes etc were included within the painting it was like actually owning them. And this would not just be in terms of a moment, this painting was to portray this life down the ages. I suppose like a pharoah taking his treasures into the afterlife.

This was before printing of images was possible, and in the earliest cases, before even printing text was widely available. The power of images and words at this time was incalculably higher than when photographic images and print text appear - now, with thousands of digital images documenting every look, hair do, change of clothes, we don't consider our visual legacy so much, but with oil painting came a real chance to set down (forever) how you would be viewed. A picture paints a thousand words, and if a headstone was all you were going to get, then you didn't get much chance to be remembered. It created a permanence, and this permanence was materialistic. A legacy.

And then he follows that publicity, marketing, advertising flows directly from this artistic tradition. I think this was a bit of a tenuous link to be honest, but he writes some interesting ideas about what publicity means, and how we should view the images we see. We are always being sold to now, and he wants to put across his point (which I agree with), that consumerism is not substitute for real freedom. Being able to choose between three different types of lettuce in the supermarket isn't freedom. Being able to actively change society with an election is freedom... unlike the one we're about to have incidentally.

Crits tomorrow, so I'll stop this, but its an interesting book, and, being on oil painting, its got loads of nudey pictures in it, so take a look if only for that.

Shodhan DONE finally...

Amazing Co2 facts

As we all know, concrete produces about 1 metric tonne of C02 for every tonne of product created. This, as we all know, is BAD. But, I just noticed that Tesco milk cartons have a C02 footprint indicator on the side. Did you know that 568ml of milk - which is about 500 grammes (i'm sorry my research hasn't extended to finding out the Specific Gravity of milk) generates 900 grammes - 900!! - of C02. That is really bad. BAD.

So, put cement in your tea, or stop building your foundations out of milk, or we all up the swanny.

Le Cabanon ii

Doesn't it seem unusual that for one of the most influential architects of all time, such a small wooden shed is seen as such an important piece of work? Enormous state ministries and vast private residences from one end of the earth to the other are all well known, but Le Cabanon is definitely up there amongst some his most legendary works.

So simply looking at a few pictures on the internet clearly isn't enough to get a real sense of the place, not just in a physical spatial sense, but in context of Corbu's other works at the time, what he was trying to achieve with it and what else was going on in a social and philosophical sense.

From the limited amount of reading I have done it sounds like he was moving to a more spiritual position after the war, not just in terms of working on religious projects (La Tourret and the chapel at Ronchamps) but completing the Moduler... a system of proportion based around the human form (specifically a 6ft man). The reason that mathematical formulae of this type can be seen as spiritual comes from the Bible... Man, created in God's image, is therefore perfectly proportioned... in general, if not in individual instance. The Vitruvian Man is a previous example of this geometric "order" being used to express Man's divinity (in form) and the links spreading through the cosmos based on maths...

Anyway, if scales based on human geometry are applied to the proportions of a building, then the proportionality must be perfect, or so Corb's argument goes... as well as the multi functional nature of having parts all based on a similar scale - it makes industrial fabrication a lot easier if everything is interchangeable, based on one scale. Corbusier's ideas of a Machine's for Living seems to be one of his main themes, as he looked into a heavily industrialised future.

Maybe, after the horrors of the war, he felt (in what seems to be his own unbelievably self-confident way) that mankind needed a re-connection with the divine, and a sense of spirituality which had probably been lost through the secular 20's and 30's rise of socialism and fascism... I don't know, but it'd be interesting to find out what his religious views were.

So what was he trying to do with Le Cabanon? Was he simply making a little retreat for himself and his wife, as a birthday present for her, some simple little shack above the sea where they could go and relax, breathe and live simple, uncluttered lives? A private space?

Or was this something else? A message to the architectural community that the great Corbu could go back to basics, could live in the small but perfectly proportioned spaces he advocated in these new communal towers he was designing? Was he trying to prove the rightness of his own ideas? A vindication? Was this in some way a publicity stunt, like the minister feeding his kids beefburgers in the middle of the mad cow scare?

Unlikely I think - he spent considerable time there, obviously genuinely did enjoy the view, lifestyle and probably the escapism of the entire concept, and ended his life there... but I think that something of his philosophy on modern living must have tried to have been expressed. Either way, simple and elegant though it is, it was not the perfect form he had entirely hoped. He had to build a separate shack shortly after due to lack of space within the original, as work required more room. Not altogether surprising really though...

In the end, the place confuses me and raises more questions than it answers. Without knowing his lifestyle at the other times, away from Le Cabanon, whether his ideas of other larger units were being as well accepted as he had hoped at the time, what his wife thought of it, I think its too easy to just look at this as a quaint, romanticised simple wooden shack...

Le Cabanon

Thought I'd write a few thoughts, first impressions really, before I read too much about Corbusier, of the images I see of the Cabanon.

First off, its small. Swinging a cat definitely doesn't look to be an option. And its (nearly) bare. What few decorations and adornments are clearly carefully chosen. There is no luxury, no comfort. However, it doesn't look specifically UN-comfortable. It looks stripped back. Basic.

Also very natural, all woods, although some are painted. The gleaming metal wash hand basin stands out with a metallic shine, and the lighting is muted. Windows are small, and solidly framed.

Its simple as well - as Paul mentioned, there's an old crate for a stool, which is obviously somewhere to sit. There is no duplicity, no sense of trying to pass something off as something other than it is. A crate for a stool. A simple box bed. A shelf, for books. It is obviously bare in the RIBA reconstruction photos, and Le Corbu would have had books and the wherewithal to live day to day when he was there, but the over-riding sense I get is of simplicity.

Pictures of Le Corbusier always show him immaculately dressed as an effete Parisian gentleman, bow-tied and often in a three piece suit. This place seems to be an escape from that, guessing now, from 'civilisation'? It is like an ascetic monk's cell, a place without fripperies and distractions from the real business at hand - whatever Le Corbusier saw that to be. I presume a place to get his thoughts in order.

Villa Shodhan - preliminary model

not finished yet

Eye opener

(ok, so this was just off google, but my mind remembers it like this..)

Just went for a run, for the 2nd day in a row! Nothing ridiculous, just trying to keep going, a plodding pace for anything over half an hour to get back into it. ("Back into it" sounds a bit too professional... but I did do some last year, and need to do more for my physio.)

Anyway, after training for the marathon last year, I found that 45 minutes or so thumping round the streets with my ipod on was a brilliant way to clear out the brain, or a good way to think. Something to do with the rhythm.

But what I hadn't remembered was how much I'd enjoyed just meandering around streets I didn't know, connecting up areas of the city overland that maybe I'd never travelled, never knew anyone who lived there, never had any reason to go there. Uncluttered back streets, away from the heavy diesel bus clag of the main streets that catches the back of your throat when you're running.

I'd done a lot of it last year, but now, with the first year architecture theory swimming around my head, I was a lot more conscious of WHY I was enjoying it, rather than just a vague voyeuristic feeling of catching a glimpse into a front room as you flash (plod) past.

A new park I never knew existed, a pristine square of Victorian-terraces, absolutely immaculate, surrounded on all sides by looming council blocks. A row of shops. The realisation a station with a distant vague name is actually JUST round the corner. The city opens up for you.

So here I am, endorphins kicking in after 20 minutes (helped by a good downhill stretch) with the Chemical Brothers giving me a booming beat to set my feet down, then, hoody up like some errant scallyway, scrambling over the locked fence of Brockwell Park and into the unlit interior.

Away from all the streets, people, houses and traffic, barely able to see where you put your feet on the dark paths, I got to the top of the hill in the centre. Suddenly, the stars burst into sight above me, blue moon light finally managing to push back the orange halo of the street lights below. Like being at the centre of your own personal black hole, looking out over the galaxy of the cities lights... amazing.

Checked my ipod... track 9... Life is Sweet.