midterm project images

midterm presentation studio

although the title was sadly missing at the presentation i don't want to go without one (i wasn't sure about the sarcastic and humorous flexibility of the guest critics and didn't want to overtax them). the only bad thing is that there are so many titles that would fit - "begegnung der dritten art", "alien", "they have landed", "game over" or "what is the matrix?" are just some that come to mind. whatever the title should have been, one thing has gotten clearer and clearer in my mind: the design is not so much about guggenheim or utopia anymore but more about "should this be built? can it even be an icon while aspiring to be one? can it be this form? and if so - why? the most elusive question for me is "how strange can a building get and still have meaning and be useful (to what ever end you desire) without being just another disneyland or giant architects d...replacement?". the visits to all the famous monuments of architectural geniuses didn't really help, there are more questions now then there had been before. in the end it seems it's all belief: belief in your own infallible greatness, belief in your design as the only right and proper one and the projection of this belief onto others that they may buy you and built the manifesto of your belief and thereby validating it. is that all there is to it? if so the whole project might be a failure - i proved to myself that i can handle the algorhythms to create forms that are considered beautiful by others, but where to now? quo vadis? although the long talks we had with reinhold martin in the last weeks helped a lot to position ourselves and our projects i still feel very adrift in the surrounding mass of theory. at the moment the title of the last pinup seems appropriate to me: "well done earthlings - next time you win!"

meeting of the new york giants...

glass house II

glass house I

near midterm...

work in progress

autumn

Herbsttag

Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war seht groß.
Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los.

Befiehl den letzten Früchten voll zu sein;
gieb ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage,
dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage
die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein.

Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben,
wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
und wird in den Alleen hin und her
unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.

Rainer Maria Rilke

photography III

tripod fetish

after spending five hours in the night downtown being harrassed by security guards of different corporations and being watched in an unfriendly way by police officers i gave up on getting the images that i wanted on that site. i still don't understand the fetish they have about tripods - well, of course everybody with a tripod also hides a rocket launcher or an equally easily available and conceilable M60 in his backpack - but be serious: how obvious can a government be in its tries to create paranoia in its citizens? if you are in danger of being arrested because you are carrying a tripod its not such a big step to being arrested for wearing the wrong t-shirt design, having the wrong haircolor or just "behaving suspicious". i am truly worried for this country which was once friendly and welcoming (and still is in places).

lunchbreak...

...although the beer belonged to an overnighter some days before, i somehow thought it should be in the picture...

avery moments I

studio "guggenheim utopia" I

the studio design revives the defunct notion of a monumental guggenheim museum for new york city. this time the place for the design is governors island in the direct vicinity of manhattan, renamed "utopia". the task is to design an iconic building that has "[A]rchitecture" with a capital a written all across.
the method of working in reinhold martins studio this semester is supposed to emulate the workings in a "real" office with pressure of time and quick decisions.
thus far i have come up with three related schemes of how to tackle this problem but none of which satisfy me. of course they could be built and of course i could come up with reasons why it has to be designed exactly in this way and not another, but i am tired of bullshitting myself and others. if i present a design next week i want to really stand behind it and be able to declare it as my own truth concerning the question at hand.
in the following i will post the images created for the first three pinups, and yes, i made them black/grey by design, and i also can render high gloss with screaming colours, rippling water and sky if i want to. it just happens that i chose not to.

photograhy class II