Robbing the Void

that’s what the recent century that I rode around Lake Tahoe was like. I couldn’t have dreamt better weather, and our entire team rode swift and strong. With no official time goal other than completion before course closure (roughly 12 hours or 6am to 6pm), and since I’m mad, and afflicted with cycling sickness , I set a personal goal of six hours. Don’t let me fool you, it’s not as aggressive as it sounds. While it certainly is challenging given the topography, it’s not impossible.

I’m on a plane, bound for Tahoe to ride a century. For those wondering what that is; it’s a 100 mile road race/ride on a bicycle (yes, completed in one day). If you’ve read my profile, you already know that I enjoy cycling. Immensely. If you haven’t read my profile, you know now - ‘cause I just said as much. Cycling is awesome! I enjoy it at least as much as I enjoy architecture (more so even) because cycling works my body, like architecture works my brain. If it’s not obvious, I intentionally use the term “cycling” in lieu of “bicycle riding” in an attempt to convey relative intensity. I break it down like so:

It’s already April (25 to be exact) and I’m late for this party. No matter, poetry harbors no schedule, and that’s one reason it’s so awesome. There are other reasons this is so; Poetry is the literature of everyman - anyone can write it; Poetry need not follow “top down” writing conventions - it has a rebellious nature that attracts me; Poetry spawns easily in the mind, when the mind is open to free association - which is habitually so for mine.

As an architect, sometimes the membrane separating my “inside” reality from my “outside” reality gets dangerously thin . Especially when talking with other “like minded” architects, or architecture students. When this happens, sometimes my tendency to free-associate runs amok, confusing the hell out of those around me (because, of course, they’re only getting half of the conversation that is taking place in my mind). Why this happens I don’t know - I don’t really care (even though I have to laugh at myself for it).

For this architect, the summer’s been crazy. It began with an actual project, and it will end without one. I can’t say I’m surprised - I had a gut feeling about it. The project (a residential tower) ramped up from zero to full burn in the span of four days and cast it’s intense heat into the universe for eight weeks. Alas the intensity was unsustainable. The owner faltered pulling the plug just last week. It was like a great big hug of hurt , but without the actual fire.

Or what not to do on your J4 vacation. I've been busy since NeoCon. I had a furniture showroom project (for the event) which was completed just in time, and the party was outta' control. Close on the heels of that was Spring Fling (an industry benefit party that's held here every year). Put on by one of the bigger developers in the city, everyone gets all fancy and hangs out on the riverfront for the evening. Most go from fancy to sloppy in a few short hours : ) The beginning of Summer is such an inhibition obliterating time in Chicago. I guess it's all the Winter angst making 'em crack.

*Um, not really*

Recently, I said something which lodged an idea in my brain where it’s been stuck. It was half-baked idea at the time (maybe it still is). I was distracted; it was something about doing the same thing over and over, finding different results. Summer may bring skin, firepower, and trips to the Shedd , but it also brings a glut of resumés and portfolios from a fresh crop of architecture graduates seeking employment.

I’ve been AWOL. I blame a recent project I’ve been working on. Albert Einstein once said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results”. I wonder what he’d call doing the same thing over and over, finding different results. I’d call it madness .

DB: I think there are some constant definitions of truth. Me: Truth is both provisional and contextual; for every condition of true, I bet I could find an exception proving the reverse (and not in a purely logical sense either).

Forever thirsty, I dream (unbearably) of a small and orderly labyrinth at whose center lay a well; my hands can almost touch it, my eyes can see it, but so bewildering and entangled are the turns that I know I’ll die before I reach it.

This is Carlo Scarpa. He is cool, no? Of course he is (er was, because he’s dead now), but the real question’s why was he cool?

“So what do you need, besides a miracle?” “Seeds. Lot’s of seeds.”

Prompted by some great comments from Tuesday’s installment. I thought it’d be fun to linger a bit and showcase fictional architecture. You know. The kind of stuff that exists only in the illustrator’s/architect’s mind vast territory of madness . Illustrations of architecture that could be real, but aren’t; except as depictions of a space, a place, or an object.

Wednesday is day three of Architecture Week. Are you sick of it yet?!? Me neither. Today’s installment of the obscure, infamous, or interesting is Spaceport America in New Mexico. This project is the product of collaboration between Virgin Galactic, Foster+Partners, SMPC Architects, and URS Corporation.

Obscure and marginalized, Lebbeus Woods isn’t so much non-famous as infamous, and interesting. By my experience he’s either detested or loved (depending upon who one asks). While they are certainly brutal, I like his drawings and diagrams; I think they’re freakin’ sweet.

There are soo many fabricated weeks on the calendar and this week just so happens to be architecture week. Yay! In the spirit of fabricated importance I’m going to try and present one interesting and obscure project per day, for the week.

Ahhh, the mantra of ultimate personal action. I love that phrase because it’s a scalpel; it’s Phaedrus’ knife. It precisely divides one’s desire for something from one’s willingness to invest in it’s production. Everyone knows that an investment of this sort is commonly made with one’s own blood, sweat, and tears hands. Sometimes it also requires some money and resources, depending upon one’s skill level.

I walk. Just, walk. Moving from the point where I entered this existence to the point where I’ll exit. Like many I’m intimately familiar with my own start point, and know nothing of my own endpoint; not the when, the where, nor my proximity to either. Common sense demonstrates the endpoint to be in flux, undetermined, and inevitable.

Seeing darkness and recording it is observant.