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!"