Man fears time, but time fears the pyramids.
Unknown author. The Architecture Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained. New York: DK Publishing, 2023. (see page 22)
More from the picture books are underrated file.
Category: architecture
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Found this one late. Will add to the original list of seven.
The decay of the body is irreversible. Death is non-negotiable. After that, what’s left? Stories. But not just the stories as the story tellers remember them and then recounted them to others. The stories that people adapt from other people’s stories which then are retold, remade, and handed down until only their essence remains.
Matt Zoller Seitz -
He wrote of Brasília the way some write of Paris or New York. With reverence and adoration. Three exclamation points and an all caps shout-out? That’s love right there.
Up into the sky! To the broad heavens! High above the earth: the white city, the Venus city: BRASÍLIA!
Representative Marco opens every door to me. But Brasília has no doors: it is bright space, an extension of the mind, radiance become architecture. The public areas throb with children, the palaces lend implicit dignity to their institutions. The architect Italo, a friend of Niemayer’s, has been ten years in Brasília, and takes us on a tour of the new Itamaraty, the Congress, the still-unfinished theater, and the Cathedral, a rose of iron whose great petals open toward infinity.
Brasília, isolated in its human miracle, in the midst of Brazilian space, testimony to man’s supreme creative will. From this city one would feel worthy of flying to the stars. Niemayer is the terminus of a parabola that begins with Leonardo: the utility of constructive thought; creation as social obligation; spatial satisfaction of intelligence.
Neruda, Pablo. Passions and Impressions. Trans. Margaret Sayers Peden. Ed. Matilde Neruda and Miguel Otero Silva. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983. (see pages 193,194)But why Neruda’s adoration of Brasília? Over Sao Palo? Over Rio? Timing I suspect.
When Passions and Impressions was printed in 1978, Brasília was a bebê. An infant city of eighteen years. The Cathedral of Brasília had only been completed eight years previously. And the intent of Brasília’s creation was to be a global city of progress. The E.P.C.O.T. or World City of South America.
Brasília was an ambitious project. Not only in design and scope, but in time. A city built from scratch in only five years? It deserves a spot on Patrick Collision’s “Fast” list.
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Here me out. Doesn’t this description of Hendrik Anderson’s World City remind you of Walt Disney’s Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow?
Under Andersen’s direction, Hèbrard began work on developing the architectural drawings for the World City. They imagined it as a three-mile-long rectangular settlement, three miles long and a half-mile wide, featuring a downtown district marked by broad avenues and monumental edifices. It would include administrative buildings, a bank, and various “temples” (palais) devoted to the pursuit of art, music, drama, and other cultural endeavors. There would be a world zoo, botanical gardens, and a sports center designed to host the Olympics, featuring a large stadium and colossal swimming pool (or “natatorium”). The area between the stadium and the Grand Canal would feature a recreation area, with a ball club, skating club, tennis club, and kindergarten. At the base of the grand avenue lined by the palaces of nation there would be a great circle ringed with the institutions of the new world government: an international court; ministries of industry, agricultural, medicine, and science; as well as the great library and a palace of religions. They all fanned out from the great circle, forming a kind of lopsided mandala around a central Eiffel Tower-like Tower of Progress, a symbolic center for scientific research that doubled as a radio tower to send and receive wireless signals from all over the world.
Wright, Alex. Cataloging the World: Paul Otlet and the Birth of the Information Age. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. See pg 130At first, I thought there would be many similarities between Walt Disney’s E.P.C.O.T. and Hendrik Anderson’s World City. But turns out they’re more different than alike.
Design and Layout
E.P.C.O.T.’s design was radial. The “radial” plan it’s called. Think of a wheel. There’s a central hub, and then the spokes flare out to low density housing.
The World City had a radial element to its design too, but its main layout was rectangular.
Both cities had different central themes
E.P.C.O.T. represented the ingenuity of American enterprise and the free market. Shops, restaurants, corporate offices, and low and high density housing were the fundamental infrastructure features of E.P.C.O.T.
E.P.C.O.T.’s centerpiece was a hotel.
The World City’s central theme was sharing cultural ideas, and its grandest ambition – world peace.
Zoos, “temples” dedicated to the arts, botanical gardens, a center of sports, ministries of industry were the key components of her infrastructure.
It’s centerpiece was a communications tower called “The Tower of Progress”.
Local vs Global Perspectives
Walt hoped E.P.C.O.T. would be an example for city design across the globe. But it’s focus was local. It’s central Florida location was chosen to make travel to E.P.C.O.T. easier for American tourists and Florida residents. E.P.C.O.T. also emphasized its capacity for high and low density housing. Work and home life being close together.
As it’s namesake suggests, the World City was intended to be a beacon to the world.
The World City design doesn’t mention plans for residences. Instead it calls for institutions: places of worship, structures for a new “world” government, a “great” library, etc. The hope being, these institutions would foster communication between human beings, and promote world peace.
Wrapping Up
While their urban visions differed, the brilliant similarity between Walt Disney and Hendrik Anderson was courage they possessed to imagine cities in a new way.
Sources:
Cataloging the World: Paul Otlet and the Birth of the Information Age. By Alex Wright
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From Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.
Two solid paragraphs from Gordon S. Wood on Thomas Jefferson’s endless curiosity.
He was interested in more things and knew about more things than any other American. When he was abroad he traveled to more varied places in Europe than Adam’s ever did, and kept a detailed record of all that he had seen, especially of the many vineyards he visited.
Wood, Gordon S. Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. New York: Penguin Press, 2017. pg. 10Not sure how one measures that Jefferson was interested in more things, and knew more things than any other American, but I trust Mr. Wood here. Also, Jefferson’s record keeping is legendary.
He amassed nearly seven thousand books and consulted them constantly; he wanted both his library and his mind to embrace virtually all of human knowledge, and he came as close to that embrace as an eighteenth century American could. Every aspect of natural history and science fascinated him.
Wood, Gordon S. Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. New York: Penguin Press, 2017. pg. 10, 11It wasn’t enough that Thomas Jefferson owned seven thousand books. He consulted them regularly.
He knew about flowers, plants, birds, and animals, and he had a passion for all facets of agriculture. He had a fascination for meteorology, archaeology, and the origins of the American Indians. He loved mathematics and sought to apply mathematical principles to almost everything, from coinage and weights and measures to the frequency of rebellions and the length of people’s lives. He was an inveterate tinkerer and inventor and was constantly thinking of newer and better ways of doing things, whether it was plowing, the copying of handwriting, or measuring distances.
Wood, Gordon S. Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. New York: Penguin Press, 2017. pg. 11It’s hard to think of any modern, public person, with Jefferson’s insatiable appetite for “all of human knowledge”.
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I have sketched my house at Easton Pierse and marked with a cross my grandfather’s chamber where I was born. If it had been my fate to be wealthy man I would have rebuilt my house in the grandest of styles. I would have added formal gardens in the Italian mode of the kind I have seen at Sir John Danvers’s house in Chelsea and at his house in Lavington. It was Sir John who first taught us in England the way of Italian gardens. I would have erected a fountain like the one that I saw in Mr Bushell’s grotto at Enstone: Neptune standing on a scallop shell, his trident aimed at a rotating duck, perpetually chased by a spaniel. I would have carved my initials on a low curved bridge across the stream. I would have remade my beloved home in the shape of the most beautiful houses and gardens I have visited in my unsettled life, tumbling up and down in the world. But fate has taken on a different path and the house of my dreams is mere fantasy: a pretty sketch on paper.
Scurr, Ruth. John Aubrey: My Own Life. London: Vintage, 2015. pg 181We should take these excerpts with some reservation. These aren’t John Aubrey’s copied diaries, but rather an original format historian Ruth Scurr uses to deploy John Aubrey’s biography.
John Aubrey is a man who knew what he wanted. We see this in the detailed descriptions of the gardens and fountains he dreamed of constructing:
I would have added formal gardens in the Italian mode of the kind I have seen at Sir John Danvers’s house in Chelsea and at his house in Lavington. It was Sir John who first taught us in England the way of Italian gardens. I would have erected a fountain like the one that I saw in Mr Bushell’s grotto at Enstone: Neptune standing on a scallop shell, his trident aimed at a rotating duck, perpetually chased by a spaniel. I would have carved my initials on a low curved bridge across the stream. I would have remade my beloved home in the shape of the most beautiful houses and gardens I have visited in my unsettled life, tumbling up and down in the world.
Scurr, Ruth. John Aubrey: My Own Life. London: Vintage, 2015. pg 181John Aubrey was a man who embraced his fate. He accepts his fate twice in one paragraph. This was probably a more common character trait in the 1600s. In the modern west we’re taught to battle against our fate. We’re told anything is possible. That if we’re passionate, put our minds to it, we can bend our fate to be anything – yeah, yada, yeah. So when you hear someone admit their fate was not to be a wealthy man, and they accept that, it catches the ear.
If it had been my fate to be wealthy man I would have rebuilt my house in the grandest of styles.
and
But fate has taken on a different path and the house of my dreams is mere fantasy: a pretty sketch on paper.
Scurr, Ruth. John Aubrey: My Own Life. London: Vintage, 2015. pg 181John Aubrey sketched! It’s not surprising. Photography was still two hundred years away, so people captured images by drawing. They preserved memories by drawing. They dreamed with their drawings:
I have sketched my house at Easton Pierse and marked with a cross my grandfather’s chamber where I was born.
and
But fate has taken on a different path and the house of my dreams is mere fantasy: a pretty sketch on paper.
Scurr, Ruth. John Aubrey: My Own Life. London: Vintage, 2015. pg 181There’s so much to suss from this single passage!
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An inspiring list of world changing projects completed quickly.
Our favorites?
- The Spirit of St.Louis: Charles Lindbergh piloted and help design the plane. 60 days!
- The Empire State Building: The name alone – Empire state. Full swagger that. Not only was the Empire State Building built quick, it’s stood the test of time. 91 years old and it still stands, straight backed, imperious. Also impressive, the builders – Starrett Bros. & Eken didn’t own any equipment during the bidding process:
- The builders As part of their bid to get the job, builders Starrett Bros. & Eken told Raskob that they could get the job done in eighteen months. When asked during the interview how much equipment they had on hand, Paul Starrett replied, “Not a blankety-blank [sic] thing. Not even a pick and shovel.” Rosenberg, Jennifer. “The Empire State Building.” ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, thoughtco.com/the-empire-state-building-1779281.
- TGV: Every country, and every state should have high-speed rail. The French completed the rail link between Paris and Lyon in 1,975 days. Compare that with California’s high speed rail project connecting San Fransisco and Anaheim. The project began in 1996 and is estimated to finally be completed 2033. 37 years!
Read the list in it’s entirety here.
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I was really not a good drawer. I wasn’t the worst in the class, but I was by no means ever the best in the class, whatever class. Even in the little architecture school there were five or six people who could draw better than me. They could certainly draw trees and birds and you know, all that stuff. I was a rather painful drawer.
– Peter CookInspiring to learn architect Peter Cook was not the best artist in his classes growing up. He toiled to improve his drawing. He called himself a “painful” drawer.
“I’m still not fluent. If you were watching me drawing then, I’m using a straight edge. I’m using aides. I’ve got lots of tricks of the trade by now.”
– Peter CookFascinating how Peter describes drawing like a language. He uses the word “fluent”.
He still believes he’s not “fluent”. But Peter is open to using tools to overcome his artistic limitations.
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Cities, on the other hand, are marked with specific architecture from specific dates, and this architecture, built by long-vanished others for their own uses, is the shell that we, like hermit crabs, climb into.
Cole, Teju. Known and Strange Things. A Conversation with Aleksandar Hemon, pg 86.I’ve never read Steward Brand‘s book “How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built“, but it’s all I could think of after reading this passage.
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Bruce Mau? Before yesterday, never heard of him. To only call him a graphic designer would be a disservice.
Apparently he’s redesigned entire countries?
Has ideas on diplomacy?
Written or designed more than 250 books?
On our watch list.
H/T: Monster Children
Floodlights and Goalposts 