Architecture beyond Anthropocene E-Book

Elizabeth B Hatz

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 70

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Essays on Architecture in the Anthropocene. 44 young architects in the making share their reflections and possible/impossible stances facing architecture in the Anthropocene. Every text here has a core of doubt. Doubt that opens up to some insight or towards a focus, an interest, an outlet. Every text has an unusual stillness brought forth through reflection. Reason and feeling are balancing on a tightrope. In the suspense, I imagine humour will enter. It is always best above the abyss.

Leseprobe

If I were Neanderthal

in Nature’s unhampered complexity

if I were

and a car rolled past

or a radio sang of toothpaste

it would be as strange

as it is

Susan Weil

A small gap in time – is maybe what is needed – to cast a side light on ourselves in the world,

to leave the trail for a second, leave our own body and look at it from afar,

to halt for just a moment the hasting accomplishment of our all-important task

to do nothing

to take in the world

or

we may need the shock of a lightening

– a very strong one that we could not foresee

one that threw everything up-side down

and for ever changed our feeling

of now and ever

of the work of our hearts

of the work of our hands

here in this world

a gap in time

7 encounters around the spoken word, accompanied by images – is not much.

What can they alter in the stream of dead-lines, head-lines, hand-ins and messages?

I buy books. They may stay and wait for a long time on the bookshelf – but I know that one day that particular book will be important at that particular moment. I try very much to rid myself of those I have a suspicion will never do. It’s a delicate balance between intuition and decisive repulsion. If there is one thought, or one observation, that one day will make a difference, and set you off in a slightly different direction or open a door you did not know was there, it is already something. In the Anthropocene, we will need books, we will need culture, we will need reflection and above all we will need to care. That is why we most of all need to stop, many times, and slow down time. Or we will never see, again.

Every text here has a core of doubt. Doubt that opens up to some insight or towards a focus. Every text has an unusual stillness brought forth through reflection. Reason and feeling are balancing on a tightrope. In the suspense, I imagine humour will enter. It is always best above the abyss.

Elizabeth Bonde Hatz

These texts present a set of reflections and stances, facing Architecture in the Anthropocene A speculating lecture series sparked off the writing of 46 architects in the making. A selection of literature is offered at the end.

Lectures by E Hatz:

Prime Permanence

beyond progress

Black Backsides

Anne Carson, Rachel Carson, delaying obsessions

Notes on Nothing

Paul Valéry, elements of resistance

Lightning Lights

Hannah Arendt,

Ghost Gardens

Fluxus, Joyce, Bo Bardi

Ambivalent Alterations

Fred Scott, Ruskin

Tending Tendencies

obliteration of authorships, Giotto

Texts by

Chang Hyun Ahn,

Paulina Aydin,

Oliver Brunhart,

Fiona Carter,

Antoine Casile,

Oliver Cassidy,

Roderick Crawford,

Ludvig Ekman,

Lisa Enbom,

Alexander Ferguson,

Simon Fored,

Fanny Frykberg Wallin,

Jin Gu,

Vaka Gunnarsdóttir,

Hampus Hermansson,

Daniel Holmberg,

Henrik Holte,

Qixim Iverson Yu,

Yuxin Jiang,

Maria Johansson,

Mathilda Kinde,

Love Lagercrantz,

Hedvig Lindgren,

Sara Lisspers Thungström,

Xin Liu,

Ana Martinez Vasquez

Felix McCabe,

Emma Moberg,

Arturo Moreno Latorre,

Sonia Nicoletti,

Obi Okoye,

Gustav Sandholm,

Polina Sanström,

David Shanks,

Dominika Stanek,

Johan Stockselius,

Aleksander Switkowski,

Ekaterina Ulitina,

Carl Wallin,

Natasya Venasia Frisca Indra,

Patrik Vikberg,

Jakub Witkowski,

Mengying Xie,

Minye Zhang

Contents

Architect in Anthropocene

Light and Shadow

Permanence- A Difference between Art and Architecture

An Ode to the Bicycle

Le stylo

Tectonics of Darkness

The real unreal architecture

Disruptive Presence

aware

Re-Evaluation

RED.BETA

Humanity, nature, freedom

Sound of shadow

Constructing Nothing

Can We Pollute Black Holes?

Human intelligence: past, present and two futures

Appreciation of pointless(?) details

SPACE . LIGHT . SILENCE

Escaping the Anthropocene

To the human:

A common cookie

Illuminate the Shadow

The beauty of darkness

Wabi Sabi-Imperfect

In Praise of Shadows

Crossroads of Morality

Adding another zero

Responsibility or commitment?

Melting glacier

Architects or Gods?

Changing our prerequisites

The “national character” of design - Is it something worth preserving?

A void in survival

The beauty of loved

Cultural coherency and convenience – An impossible synthesis in the new age?

Dark

Building for weeds

Human erosion

This is the title of your text

Removal and Restraint

A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.

The Mystery of Oriental Aesthetics

In Praise of Shadows

How to Feel Shadow?

Literature

Architect in Anthropocene

What is the role of an architect in Anthropocene? It seems that the discussion toward this issue have been started since the concept had argued by Paul Crutzen in 2000. However, since bunch of discussions by bunch of architects, it is still hard to answer for the question about the position of an architect and architectural field. But it is also true that now it is hard to avoid thinking about the Anthropocene in architectural term since it has considerable amount of affects in today’s life.

Dipesh Chakrabarty, a historian, talks about the possibility of technological solution of the problems in Anthropocene such as climate change and global warming. From his article “The climate of history: four theses(2009)”, he argues that human have already acquired some technology of controlling climate and the only thing blocking us from solving the problem of Anthropocene is the politics. Since mankind do not perceive themselves as a specie of whole nature, proposals for the issue are regulated in the small scale of region, nation and international, but not the global. He also argues that if people become able to think entire mankind as a single specie, climate change and global warming can be solved by several ways such as redistributing of inhabitable area, regulating the CO2 emission and sharing the energy produce and consumption.

Though the opinion of Chakrabarty is somehow unrealistic in this nation-based global system, just like Roy Scranton mentioned in his book “We’re Doomed. Now What?(2018)”. However, I think it picks up the crucial part that can be considered since now all of beings are facing the side-effects of climate change. Donna Haraway also talks about the position of human in this era in her article “Tentacular thinking : Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene(2016)” that locating human being as a single factor that reacts with all other beings so that there is no hierarchy among the species and the human being is no longer in the center of the world. She also points out the concept of Capitalocene, interpreting global side-effect with capitalism. This idea could be transferred into an answer for the question of “who should be more responsible for the global warming?”. As we can see that there are apparent inequality of energy usage in this era.

We’re Doomed. Now What? by Roy Scranton The Climate of History by Dipesh Chakrabarty Chang Hyun Ahn, Studio 8

Buckminster Fuller, an architect, was also trying to visualize this problem in 1940’s by designing a unique global map called “Dymaxion Map”. Unlike Mercator map, the most common 2D map in these days, Fuller’s map can be unfolded from its original -3D polygon. By this action, it becomes able to see the world with totally different perspective. What Fuller have done with this map was one more step further, he defined his own idea of energy consumption and labour as ‘energy slave’. He dramatized the enormous gulf between high-energy and low-energy societies.

As Scranton denied a central-powered organization for the global warming, contemporary times could be seen as the era of no-central and no-major. Every nation is divided into tiny pieces unlike the world before modern age. Right-wings win the political games according to the depression of world economy. United States, one of the biggest CO2 emitter in the world (ranked 2nd in 2009), left the Paris agreement. However, big problems like global climate change needs big power to be solved. Then how can an architect produce this kind of social movement without forcing someone to follow the order?