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In Waterfall, Brian Hudson explores the many myths and legends waterfalls have inspired in cultures ranging from Native American to Celtic and Indian, and how they have been depicted in art, literature, film, and music. He also examines their influence on architecture and landscape design, as manmade waterfalls begin to be a staple of parks, gardens, and backyard(...)
Waterfall: nature and culture
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In Waterfall, Brian Hudson explores the many myths and legends waterfalls have inspired in cultures ranging from Native American to Celtic and Indian, and how they have been depicted in art, literature, film, and music. He also examines their influence on architecture and landscape design, as manmade waterfalls begin to be a staple of parks, gardens, and backyard landscaping. Hudson also discusses the ecology of waterfalls and the conflict that arises from their importance as both a source of hydroelectric power and tourist attractions in many countries. As erosion takes its own toll, the additional environmental impacts of human exploitation could be devastating.
Landscape Theory
A philosophy of discomfort
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A Philosophy of Discomfort explores the idea of comfort and discomfort as a historical and philosophical concept – a constant push and pull of opposing forces. Discomfort is a relative state, changing as the idea of well-being shifts through different epochs and cultures. Yet Jacques Pezeu-Massabuau claims that discomfort is of greater importance than comfort, even as we(...)
A philosophy of discomfort
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A Philosophy of Discomfort explores the idea of comfort and discomfort as a historical and philosophical concept – a constant push and pull of opposing forces. Discomfort is a relative state, changing as the idea of well-being shifts through different epochs and cultures. Yet Jacques Pezeu-Massabuau claims that discomfort is of greater importance than comfort, even as we maintain the constant struggle to evade pains and privations. He explores notions of comfort over time, and considers examples of housing and interiors, from Japanese homes to the Moroccan casbah and modern city apartments, in which aspects of discomfort – the physical lack of well-being – are tolerated and accepted. In so doing, he also unravels the myths of modern comfort. While instinct demands we avoid it, the author insists that we recognize discomfort as central to our existence. He suggests we should learn to utilize it in order to find our way to its opposite: be it pleasure, hedonism or well-being.
Architectural Theory
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In 1975, when political scientist Benedict Anderson reached Wat Phai Rong Wua, a massive temple complex in rural Thailand conceived by Buddhist monk Luang Phor Khom, he felt he had wandered into a demented Disneyland. One of the world's most bizarre tourist attractions, Wat Phai Rong Wua was designed as a cautionary museum of sorts; its gruesome statues depict violent and(...)
The fate of rural hell : ascetism and desire in buddhist Thailand
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In 1975, when political scientist Benedict Anderson reached Wat Phai Rong Wua, a massive temple complex in rural Thailand conceived by Buddhist monk Luang Phor Khom, he felt he had wandered into a demented Disneyland. One of the world's most bizarre tourist attractions, Wat Phai Rong Wua was designed as a cautionary museum of sorts; its gruesome statues depict violent and torturous scenes that showcase what hell may be like. Over the next few decades, Anderson found himself transfixed by this unusual amalgamation of objects, returning several times to see attractions like the largest metal-cast Buddha figure in the world and the Palace of a Hundred Spires. The concrete statuaries and perverse art in Luang Phor Khom's personal museum of hell included, 'side by side, an upright human skeleton in a glass cabinet and a life-size replica of Michelangelo's gigantic nude David, wearing fashionable red underpants from the top of which poked part of a swollen, un-Florentine penis,' alongside dozens of statues of evildoers being ferociously punished in their afterlife. In The Fate of Rural Hell, Anderson unravels the intrigue of this strange setting, trying to discover what compels so many Thai visitors to travel to this popular spectacle and what order, if any, inspired its creation. At the same time, he notes the unexpected effects of the gradual advance of capitalism into the far reaches of rural Asia.
Art Theory
Mountains and memory
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From Egypt’s Abu Simbel to South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore to Tan Swie Hian’s Earth Art Museum in China’s Quingdao National Forest, mountains have long been shaped to resemble human personages, including pharaohs, presidents, and painters. Mountains and Memory explores this practice and traces the history of anthropomorphism—the attribution of human qualities to non-human(...)
Mountains and memory
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From Egypt’s Abu Simbel to South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore to Tan Swie Hian’s Earth Art Museum in China’s Quingdao National Forest, mountains have long been shaped to resemble human personages, including pharaohs, presidents, and painters. Mountains and Memory explores this practice and traces the history of anthropomorphism—the attribution of human qualities to non-human nature—as expressed in the form of carvings on mountainous rock formations.
Architectural Theory
books
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Du Parthénon à la postmodernité, de Platon à Merleau-Ponty, Amaldi propose une histoire de la pensée architecturale et de la perception de l’espace, en même temps qu’une phénoménologie du vide et du plein, de la ligne et du mouvement. Qu’est-ce que la profondeur, comment la perspective en rend-elle compte, qu’est-ce en fin de compte que l’espace, pour nous qui l’habitons(...)
Architecture, profondeur, mouvement
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Du Parthénon à la postmodernité, de Platon à Merleau-Ponty, Amaldi propose une histoire de la pensée architecturale et de la perception de l’espace, en même temps qu’une phénoménologie du vide et du plein, de la ligne et du mouvement. Qu’est-ce que la profondeur, comment la perspective en rend-elle compte, qu’est-ce en fin de compte que l’espace, pour nous qui l’habitons ? P. Amaldi saisit l’architecture non comme un problème historique ou technique, mais comme une donnée fondamentale de notre perception et de notre sensibilité.
books
March 2012
Art Theory
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This new selection brings together Benjamin's major works, including "One-Way Street", his dreamlike, aphoristic observations of urban life in Weimar Germany; "Unpacking My Library", a delightful meditation on book-collecting; the confessional "Hashish in Marseille"; and, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", his seminal essay on how technology changes(...)
Walter Benjamin : One way street and other writings
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This new selection brings together Benjamin's major works, including "One-Way Street", his dreamlike, aphoristic observations of urban life in Weimar Germany; "Unpacking My Library", a delightful meditation on book-collecting; the confessional "Hashish in Marseille"; and, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", his seminal essay on how technology changes the way we appreciate art. Also including writings on subjects ranging from Proust to Kafka, violence to surrealism, this is the essential volume on one of the most prescient critical voices of the modern age.
Critical Theory
The domestic space reader
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The Domestic Space Reader demonstrates how discussions of domestic spaces can help us better understand our inner lives and challenge our perceptions of life in particular times and places.
The domestic space reader
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The Domestic Space Reader demonstrates how discussions of domestic spaces can help us better understand our inner lives and challenge our perceptions of life in particular times and places.
Architectural Theory
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La publication par les architectes américains Robert Venturi et Denise Scott Brown de Learning from Las Vegas, d’abord sous forme d’articles puis de livre, a entrainé à partir de 1968 une controverse sans équivalent dans l’histoire moderne de l’architecture. L’historien Stanislaus von Moos a parlé à ce propos d’« une polarisation de pratiquement l’ensemble du champ(...)
La controverse Learning from Las Vegas
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La publication par les architectes américains Robert Venturi et Denise Scott Brown de Learning from Las Vegas, d’abord sous forme d’articles puis de livre, a entrainé à partir de 1968 une controverse sans équivalent dans l’histoire moderne de l’architecture. L’historien Stanislaus von Moos a parlé à ce propos d’« une polarisation de pratiquement l’ensemble du champ architectural — et pas seulement en Amérique — entre les opposants et les sympathisants des supposées ou réelles positions des Venturi. » En revenant sur les nombreux arguments mobilisés alors par les architectes, les critiques et les universitaires, et en observant la dynamique des débats sur une durée de vingt ans, Valéry Didelon éclaire ici d’un jour nouveau l’émergence du postmodernisme en architecture, mouvement culturel dont Learning from Las Vegas allait devenir à tort ou à raison l’un des principaux manifestes.
Architectural Theory
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Conceived by a misguided government seeking to quiet the fears of an anxious public, the concept of the “Family Fallout Shelter” was Cold War paranoia at its finest, a massive bit of “propaganda by architecture” that has no more truth behind it than the absurd notion of “duck and cover.” Inundated with government-sponsored films, posters, booklets, traveling caravans and(...)
Bomboozled : how the U.S. governmenrt misled itself and its people into believing they could survive a nuclear attack
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Conceived by a misguided government seeking to quiet the fears of an anxious public, the concept of the “Family Fallout Shelter” was Cold War paranoia at its finest, a massive bit of “propaganda by architecture” that has no more truth behind it than the absurd notion of “duck and cover.” Inundated with government-sponsored films, posters, booklets, traveling caravans and exhibitions, the American family bought into the idea, investing millions of dollars in home shelters of every conceivable material and design. Bomboozled charts the panic-fueled evolution of the shelter from a well-stocked basement pantry to a full-fledged (and often completely decorated) home addition, laying bare the buried truths of America’s family fallout shelter obsession.
Architectural Theory
Cybermohalla Hub
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Cybermohalla Hub, a hybrid of studio, school, archive, community center, library, and gallery is a structure that moves between Delhi and diverse art contexts. The Cybermohalla project, which takes on the meaning of the Hindi word mohalla (neighborhood), has been engaged in rethinking urban life, and reimagining and reanimating the infrastructure of cultural and(...)
Cybermohalla Hub
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Cybermohalla Hub, a hybrid of studio, school, archive, community center, library, and gallery is a structure that moves between Delhi and diverse art contexts. The Cybermohalla project, which takes on the meaning of the Hindi word mohalla (neighborhood), has been engaged in rethinking urban life, and reimagining and reanimating the infrastructure of cultural and intellectual life in contemporary cities.
Urban Theory