Session Eight: Marshall McLuhan The medium is the message

In this session instead of reading a book we asked to browse YouTube for material on Marshall McLuhan's 'media is the message'.
McLuhan Said: "The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology." - (Marshall McLuhan )

Mcluhan was one of the first to discover and spread the message of the effects of technology as it relates to human behaviour changes in communities. His thorough examinations of electric technology and media come up with the phrase “The medium is the message”.

Our society is transformed from industrial age to the information age in the 20th century. We are interested in the process and the growing trend towards repetition, virtual reality. These technologies create an extension of the human body and McLuhan warns us “we become what we behold”.  What he means by it is that electronic technology becomes an extension to our senses, primarily sound and sight. He calls the vehicle as an extension of the feet, permitting the travel between places only faster and with less effort.  But with every extension there is an opposite reaction, phrased by McLuhan as ‘amputation’.

Cars made us walking less, made us fat and less healthy. Cities are developed and life becomes faster paced more stressful and makes us more impatient.
Like the telephone or now the internet extend the voice but amputates the abilities to write letters well or communicate with other people face to face. Getting information from Google for our architectural projects is made our life easier, however at the same time it become less physical experience.  Also using computer software’s to draw our designs made hand drawing skills weaker. Our abilities are changing, transforming and these developments has advantages and disadvantages. We have a responsibility what message we put forward as designers and the media we use.

Session Eleven: The Epic II - Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead

The Fountainhead is the story of an architect, Howard Roark, who battled against the standards of society, the collectiveness, who believes modern architecture is greater to the style of traditional Greek elements. He wants to break away from the old and create something new. He is an individual who doesn’t want to compromise his values; he is selfish and doesn’t function through others.

Ayn Rand’s purpose of her writing and beliefs of individualism and anti-collectivism comes from her childhood, - as a Russian immigrant saw the rise of Communism in Russia. Her family lost their business, struggling to feed themselves because they were supporter of White Russian’s and they didn’t want to compromise their beliefs.

To be at the top 1% of Architecture you need to be able to situate yourself well and you must compromise your values – as Keating did.
It is translucent in Fountainhead the evil communist character, the Mephisto is Ellsworth S. Toohey. He uses the Banner newspaper to attack Roark and trying to change his mind to compromise his design, give up his values and join the masses.
He uses Roark’s actions of blowing up the housing estate to bring him down in court and show everyone that Roark is a trouble maker. At the beginning his speech the public is totally not in favour of Roark but in the end, after facing his enemies in the courtroom, he wins the battle and builds his modern skyscraper without compromises while getting the girl too.

Ayn Rand created—like so many American Dream stories—a happy ending, a symbol of Capitalist success the architect proudly standing on top of his skyscraper, described as a ‘Tower to Supremacy of Man’.

Session Ten: The Epic John Dos Passos USA

USA by Dos Passos - at least the three chapter I had to read - is a clever way to make us aware of the 'false' picture of the American Big Dream. The writer used short biographies of three well known person's—Thorstein Veblen, Henry Ford and Frank Lloyd Wright—to introduce us to the 1930's America. The writer had a brilliant social observation? or he was just mesmerized by the social way?

People were taught to believe they could live an idyllic life in America. Just like the film starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman titled  'Far and Away' where they traveled from Ireland where they had abandoned their old life to move to America in hopes of claiming free land in Oklahoma all-the-while having to suffer though trials and tribulations of that is the price of this dream, nothing less than a piece of your soul.

All three chapters in the the Big Money tells a tragic tale of Faustian development, destroy, break away from the old and move on to something new doesn't matter what the cost. 

First up, Thorstein Veblen a very bright individual - a non-Marxist critique of capitalism - who broke away from his Norwegian farmer family way of life. Who is a bit different, he can't say yes and at the end he fails because of his unusual personality and social awkwardness.

Tin Lizzie - 'Mr Ford the automobileer' who changed the way people lived for ever creating and standardizing cars. He was a creator, an innovator who didn't have bad habits, who never borrowed money, who only strive for profit and he didn't care about his workers, that is so familiar character we have already met previously. 

Henry Ford is a great example of Faust, however it gets too much for him when he gets older. He was afraid that he would be shot or his grandchildren would get kidnapped. So he returned to -the old way - his father's farm where he begun his journey as a child. 

The Architect - Frank Lloyd Wright story also a success like Ford's with some difference. He was a famous designer who made something of himself in the world. However, he struggled with bankruptcy and divorce that actually sees him failings as a man. 

These threes stories carries the same message that Dos Passos wanted us to learn, to be a capitalist you need to be selfish and need to be a success so you are not on the same level as the majority of people. But what is the price, to give up yourself, to be afraid and fail as a man/woman.

Session Seven: Counterculture Howl by Allen Ginsberg

Drugs, sex, rock & roll, experimentation, freedom fighting, dark matter, the words that I would use to describe this poem in one sentence.
It is a riveting piece especially after I listened to Allen Ginsberg reading it on you tube.

This poem, like marmite —you either love it or hate it. I started to love it reading it the more I read it while attempting to make all the pieces slot in, much like doing a puzzle, starting with the outside pieces and working in.
It reminds me of Jim Morrison's music/lyrics what I listened to a great deal as a rebellious teenager.

Jim Morrison's Quote:

Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.

  

There is a YouTube video of Ginsberg' Howl mixed with Jim Morrison's music called the underworld superstars a rare unreleased piece. It's worth watching especially if you don't get Howl-

Allen Ginsberg writes about his personal experiences, his deepest fears too in the first part of the poem. You can't really relate to him and this writing unless you tired or lived like him or you have ever felt deeply depressed in your life. This message has been portrayed using the word 'who' throughout.

In the second part his focus is on the industrial civilization and the rejection of the modern world. He uses God Moloch as a reference to a person or thing demanding or requesting a very costly sacrifice.

In Part three he is writing to his friend Carl Solomon who is in the madhouse - saying his madness his rebellion against Moloch and I am with him, and extending my hand in union. Ginsberg gets emotional feels compassion towards his friend. He knows that capitalism is destructive and Society is ruthless. 

Session Four: Marxist Thinking - The production of space by Henri Lefebvre - 'Social Space'

I found 'Social space' by Henri Lefebvre puzzling and in most parts I found myself questioning and disagreeing with his theory, mostly due how limiting single minded view it imposes on any inquisitive mind. .

Let's just forget about the fact that he was a communist for a second and think about him as a philosopher.

Henri Lefebvre is examining with a deep approach into the subject that explaining the two terms involved 'production of space'.

In Hegelianism we are a product of nature (humanity) created by nature.

The concept of classification of social space, Lefebvre talks about it as possibilities from nature, production to works and products. He talks about nature doesn’t know that it creates products only creates what humanity uses.

How would he know what nature feels? Why does he think everything have to be produced?

On one hand the burden of proof to his hilarious theories can easily be flipped around because he makes assumptions about something intangible and clearly beyond his comprehension and the current level of intelligence (or lack of thereof) as if it was a fact, or that his perception is the only valid and undeniable truth, please tell me it isn't so... Smiley face.


Lefebvre comparing nature and its agents as a production entity that doesn't produce anything, only mankind produces.

A product by definition is created by a process of manufacture and processing of materials by some organized agents—man and beast—alike in this sense. God or the flying spaghetti monster dont even factor into my reasoning.

Politics, religion, juridical forms are the product/creation of violence much like mountains are the production/creation of natures and ever violently changing form and to control and change climate.

I think it is arrogant to think that we are the only ones that produce. Nature produces in a more subtle manner and trade as well. For example: Flowers are colorful —they know why they need to be vibrant colours—and produce a perfume smell to draw insects to pollinate them, that helps the flower at the same time bees produce honey out of it (Oops! Nature produced honey). Nature created a free market they are exchanging products and services, trading in its purest form, something we try to mimic and mostly fail...

Having read The production of space, I am reminded that we do not truly understand how nature and its agents/mechanisms function if there's a greater conscience behind it and to the philosopher its far easier to speculate since to imagine the alternative would reveal the real secrets of the universe. Mankind is only able to scrape tiny pieces of which make out our most brilliant inventions/discoveries, and nature does so in manner we can only mostly admire from afar.

Session Six: Postmodernism - Colin Rowe - The Mathematics of the ideal villa and other essays

Rowe compares Palladio's “Villa Foscari” with Le Corbusier’s “Villa Steinhe”.
The essay on ‘Maths’ is rather difficult to get as an ordinary reader. 

Rowe starts to analyze the two buildings, layouts, structural rhythms etc. straight at the beginning without any real introduction, so if you don’t know the two villas you won’t have an understanding of Rowe’s essay. Even if you know the buildings you will be lost and confused, as the author seems to make miscalculations about his target audience.
After a fair bit of research, now I can try to comment on Rowe’s article. This fact already tells me that Rowe is able to derive details from the comparison, that perhaps others would miss, showing a degree of complexity that is translated to his writing style.

Villa Foscari

Palladio's 16th century design of Villa Foscari strongly based on the symmetry, perspective and values of the formal classical temple architecture of the Ancient Greeks and Romans.

Villa Steinhe

In 1926, the year in which Le Corbusier began to design the Villa Steinhe formulated his famous "5 Points," which became a credo of modern architecture.

These points are in brief:

1) columns supporting concrete slabs
2) roof gardens
3) the open plan
4) ribbon windows
5) the free facade, relieved of structural functions

These two buildings are so different even Rowes declared, that these ‘are superficially so entirely unlike that to bring them together would seem to be facetious’.
I wonder if this article then is Rowes idea of a dry and inappropriate joke.
Rowe set up the basics such as amounts and volumes to be comparable and parallel in the two buildings.

Nevertheless as a reader keep questioning it throughout the essay struggling to get a grip of it.
I'm a visual person, maybe with more graphic explanations would be able to engage with this writing. I don't feel this is about the villas anymore more of a mathematical equation I can't solve.

Session Five: The Tragedy of Development, Faust by Goethe, as retold by Marshall Berman

Faust has an engaging personality, so many today’s film characters are based on him. He is still relevant today. Berman achieved a great fictional analysis that is flowing, rational and comprehensive.

Berman describes how Goethe’s Faust presents a refined story that associated to social and political development of Germany within the historical context of a revolutionary western world. Goethe also provided what would seem to be a prophetic understanding of how the aspiration for development will invariably have consequences and result in human tragedy.

Berman splits the story of Faust into three metamorphoses: The Dreamer, The Lover and The Developer. In each section, both development and tragedy occur to some degree.

The Dreamer sees Faust, an insightful and well-educated man who accomplished what he could but now he feels trapped. He wants to change but he can’t, nothing cheers him up. He is having a mid-life crisis.
He is pulled back from the verge of suicide by the sound of Easter Sunday church bells, which sound he knows so well. The memory of his lower class childhood opened himself up to a whole lost dimension of his being that can renew him. He is ready to start a new life in the world, outside of his study in society where he can grow. But it will take "the powers of the underworld" to make such a synthesis work.

Mephisto provides him with "money as an extension of man, with speed to do great things in the world and also this will generate a sexual aura thus making capitalism a leading force of Faust's development. 

The Lover begins in the Second Metamorphoses. Faust fall in love with Gretchen - with her innocence that draws him to her, representing something him can no longer have. But like in most love stories it ends with tragedy, loss of her life. She is betrayed by Faust.

To me this is where Faust begins to lose his humanity. He realizes to get to where he wants and to achieve his desires, there are going to be destruction and victims and that he cannot afford to 'feel' any remorse in his path - you would think it is the very notion of capitalism but it is also central in socializm as well.

Faust rises up again in The Developer metamorphosis and leaps entirely into the creation of his new development. "Faust's projects will require not only a great deal of capital but control over a vast extent of territory and a large number of people."  His idea of the new modern world would leave no traces of the old world or anythings that comes in his path like the lighthouse and the old couple whom he asked of Mephisto to 'get rid' of.

"He will be a destroyer and creator, the dark and deeply ambiguous figure that our age has come to call "the developer".

Session Three: Neoliberalism - Dave Hickey's Air Guitar vs Mike Davis' Fear And Money In Dubai

Las Vegas vs Dubai, The desert playgrounds.

I haven't been to either of these places and may even seem quite intriguing, even a dream to visit for some — Mike Davis describes Dubai as a travel guide book, however the truth is both destinations are sin cities with a bit of bling bling.
They were both built in large tracts of deserts emerging out of nothing.
Mike, through his writing compares Dubai to America and Las Vegas so it make sense to me to compare the two writers articles.

Dave Hickey’s ‘A Home in the Neon’ is an enjoyable more personal read. A well traveled individual who has lived in many diverse places throughout his life, but eventually has chosen Las Vegas as his ‘home’.

He enjoys the fact that Las Vegas possesses a very strange characteristic for modern America and a lack of a programmed social order. It doesn't matter where you come from, what your qualifications are. It is the cities of opportunities where American —and foreign— Dreams can come true. You just need to gamble and your life might turns around, you start with equal chance at the black jack table.

A city of sin in the more extreme descriptions. But here we have someone describing it as his home.

Dubai is also a Dream —as Mike Davis compares it to Disneyland— "Rubbing your eyes with wonderment", on the other hand in most cases it is not for the everyday Joe. It was created for the 1%. All about labels, Gucci, Cartier, extremes after extremes like snowboarding in the heat. Temptation is everywhere you look. A "Strange Paradise".

It is a paradise for architects and engineers also. It is like a playground. No rules, just dreams and nothing is impossible.

However, this dream comes as a price, other poorer  "lower class" people building these dreams for the rich and famous and they are not recognized.

Las Vegas and Dubai both in sheer scale of spectacle and a profligate consumption of water and power. At the scale of still growing consumption our planet will not survive. Might be good for the local economies, for the Sheikh and other minorities but it is actually causing us and humanity more harm than good. Why don't we want to see this? We like meaningless bling bling and we like to dream.

Session One: Paul Mason - PostCapitalism: A Guide to our Future

Focus is on Chapter 9 'The Rational Reason to Panic' from Paul Mason's book Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future,

Paul Mason is a big traveler as we find out from the first page of chapter 9. He is a curious person,  asking people with different backgrounds questions about their economy, but instead getting answers about the climate change.He writes about the relationship between the two almost interchangeably, seems to be one of the ways he rationalizes the issues that face us all. You can't talk about money without talking about climate or vice-versa.

P. Mason paints a picture the seemingly eternal conflict between ecologists and economists.

Mason is pulling references from IPCC, IEA to J.Ashton. Shows a well researched individual who concerned with accuracy and facts in order to rationalize his views. He is in a way an explorer or investigator, exploring the relationship between economics and ecology and investigating the impact on local cultures and economies. He writes with purpose and deliberation.
His book reads more like a documentary. He writes this chapter into the book at this stage on purpose, as a way of making us aware of the importance of the underlining issues. It's almost like watching Sir David Attenborough's documentaries about Planet Earth.

Paul Mason talks about the Gobi desert, The Himalayas that walls off the Gobi desert and while he didn't mention this next fact,  The Himalayas captures all the moisture on its slopes and that acts has a natural impact on the delicate climate and is the main cause for the Gobi deserts existence. The Himalayas are still growing and with it, rising temperatures, and the dying grassland that so essential for sheep farmers in Ningxia Province, China won't be able to grow.

P.M. has an opinion - he gives a grim view of the possible future, how industrial society effects the natural ecological and climate balance. 'if climate change is real, capitalism is finished and the economic world of those who hold the power could be destroyed.'

Again and again through the chapter he is reinforcing his experiences around the world with facts and pointing it out if we don't act now -probably we are already too late —you can read between the lines—we are doomed and humanity itself could very well be the architects of our own demise.

Its a vicious circle we live in. What might be good for economy in short term is bad for our climate. We receive wrong market signals, the dropping oil prices instigated by Saudi Arabia, makes us buy more cars and drive more miles.

P.M indicates in between the lines the beginning of the end if (by 2050) we haven't achieved the goals set out in order to keep our climate under control, his message is loud and clear. The market stands in the way of the climate change and the market mechanisms are clearly inadequate and have failed.

The connection Paul sees between WWII and the COP's future meeting - that will be held in December 2015 - Is he indicating this seems like its leading us to another World War?  Certainly feels like it these days.

The idea of a centralized governmental control to meet the critical emissions targets might sound great, quite ideological. But can we really trust the governments to take over and allocate fairly - like in Hungary they did for 40 years, as I felt it on my own skin-doesn't work.

Mason's political background as a former member of the Trotskyist Workers' Power group lights through. Communist ideologies sounds great on paper until you introduce greedy and corrupt people to this equation.

A Demographic Time-bomb - demographic aging is another (new) problem and nobody protest against it even though potentially as a big external shock as climate change.
P.M believes falling birth rates in the rich world and western women independence makes this imbalance irreversible.What a sexist comment. The economy and rising prices that makes us rethink to have kids in the first place.

Paul Mason is trying to look at the bigger picture, he steps back as if admiring a painting in a museum. While looking at different issues, Paul's views which are formed from elegant investigation into problems like impact of migration, ecology, economy, population and state responsibility, simply do not do enough to point out it would take a massive re-education of peoples mentalities and the way we all live our lives in this industrialized society. This is the biggest hurdle and its certainly not achievable in 30 years.

Session Two: Writing from the Last Decade - Diary - Will Self - Battersea Power Station

Brilliantly written by Will Self —about the Battersea Power Station. I truly enjoyed his writing style.
His article reveals that journalism need not be a  pompous and a jargon filled piece to captivate and engage audiences, even if being provocative.

Will Self really plays with the readers mind straight away —at least mine— connecting Battersea to historically infamous people so the readers perhaps associate it with a villainous history by reading Hitler's name. It slightly put me into a negative state of mind towards the power station. Which is indeed a correct proposition due to the fate that Mr. Tincknell has in store for it.

Will Self compares Battersea and London to the Roman Empire, Hitler and his 'Theorie vom Ruinwert'. The idea was pioneered by Albert Speer Hitler's architect, while planning for the 1936 Summer Olympics, although he should had mentioned that Speer was not its original inventor, even if the idea seems to come from him.

In reality it was a much older concept, even becoming a European-wide romantic fascination at one point.[1] Predecessors include a "new ruined castle" built by the Landgraf of Hesse-Kassel in the 18th century, and the designs for the Bank of England built in the 19th century produced by Sir John Soane.[1] When he presented the bank's governors with three oil sketches of the planned building one of them depicted it when it would be new, another when it would be weathered, and a third what its ruins would look like a thousand years onward.[1]

[1]Spotts, Frederic (2003). Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics. New York: The Overlook Press. p. 322.

Self has a great way to tell readers Battersea is the capital's last 'fucking huge' ruin.

'ultimately, all that remained to remind men of the great epochs of history was their monumental architecture … What then remained of the emperors of the Roman Empire? What would give evidence of them today, if not their buildings?’

Self made this article personal. He gives a gleam of his day-to-day life. He tells us he has been living close to the Power station and every day he sees the building in a different light. Through his adult life he had seen everything fundamental happening to the power station.

Is Battersea 'iconic' a temple to worship as so many people and Mr. Tincknell believe so? They are going to create a brand out if it for the rich to live in with their winter garden balconies and fake rebuilt chimneys.

Battersea is just a piece of economic hardware which is at the moment is a shell, a monument to the period industrial capitalism.

Will Self confesses that he belongs to the ‘progressive’ left despair of people, who regard the city’s genius as being the sum of its disparate, otiose, non-functioning and outright redundant parts.

He loves the so called retro living 'urbanist nostalgie de la bouse' and scrape the river mud off his boots with his iconic boot scraper that he picked up from an architectural salvage store.

Self wants to believe in Mr. Tincknell that this time he can pull it off —like so many others failed— to save the power station.

He sees the future, what this redevelopment could mean for his home, to the area of Battersea and the people who have lived there for decades. 'London, if Tincknell and his kind are anything to go by, will become a safer, cleaner and fundamentally duller city.'

On the other hand Will is so bothered about people who is strongly against Battersea Power Station being turned into shiny, happy flats for shiny rich people.
The class-cleansing of central London continues.

Battersea Power Station with its history of service to everyone indiscriminately, now it will only serve the rich and powerful few, perhaps a final undignified yet sarcastic and ironic fate to befall such a hideous monstrosity.

Session Two: Writing from the Last Decade - Jonathan Meades - An Article on Zaha Hadid

THE FIRST GREAT FEMALE ARCHITECT by Jonathan Meades - Intelligent Life 2008

Admittedly, I had to read the article a few times—with my dictionary in hand, it has far too many jargon words for a foreign student—and every time there were different feelings or thoughts about the article. The article reads like a mandatory 3000 word essay and is quite an heavy read and clearly the interviewer seems to be more interested in what he has to say rather than to focus on the interviewee. A read that left much to be desired, to be sure.

Jonathan starts his article with some basic observations on Zaha's office and the people who work there.

The location remains the same, only the building's signage has been upgraded. This 'factory for art' remains and is even bigger than ever, with nearly double the employee count today at 350.

At first I found Meade's article to be somewhat disrespectful towards Zaha, like he wanted to provoke some sort reaction. I felt maybe this was another gender attack...

Reading for the second time and putting my professional hat on, I realized, actually he is telling us about the facts of today's architecture and being critical about Zaha's work and not talking about her personality or whatever it felt like when I read this the first time around,

I think Jonathan in his article is looking for answers. Who is Zaha Hadid? She is known and publicized as an "Icon", but little else is known about the person behind the image, which may very well be an intentional move to project a specific image.

"The first architect to be so blessed since Mies(van der Rohe)". Surely this is not true. How about Alvar Aalto or Gaudi? Their architecture seems to be more relevant to Zaha's work rather than what is suggested by Meades article.

Where do her inspirations come from, what is her process? Those are what one should be asking.

"I rather suspect that Zaha has an ancient fear: that to discover how her processes work would be to jeopardise them."

Zaha is mysterious; she doesn't want to share her private life, or work/creative processes. I suspect there is no great mystery but rather some simple and poignant facts that when revealed, the allure to the architect maybe lost.  
However, she shared one thing her dream to design an entire city.  "A city. A city! Without looking backwards".  She contradicts herself several times throughout.
Her distaste for anti-modernist escapism architecture is total, doesn't like retro-developments and Disney's celebration. She still dreams about creating Hadidopolis.

However, she is not the first architect who dreams big - maybe even not the first female to do so. 
Certainly is the only internationally known and clearly sought after, as Zaha's company growth indicates.
Le Corbusier in 1920's wanted to demolish downtown Paris to pull up his monster towers. 
Architect's purpose is to call attention to the different roles architecture can play, and the potential of cities to function differently. 

"Despite its practitioners' fastidious, perhaps delusional protests that it is a creative and scientific endeavour, architecture is a very big business, one that is involved in the creation and sale of one-off objects: it is a trade dealing mostly in the bespoke."

Seven years ago Jonathan Meades said about Zaha "The world is waking up to her". I think he was right. The world is recognizing her work, even thought she still gets criticised and maybe not every project has been such a great success.


Zaha will next year become the first woman to win the Royal Gold Medal in her own right in the 167-year history of the prize.
Unfortunately what should have been her moment of thunder, was instead yet again cut short as the story hit the headlines shortly after the announcement was made - being cut off during a live radio interview over allegations regarding deaths on her Al Wakrah stadium in Qatar. 
Design critic Stephen Bayley later described her as aggressive, intractable and bitter. Would Bayley see the same way if Foster or Koolhaas did the same?

While the gender aspect is still a wall that must come down, there are many issues that stifle the growth and recognition of Architects throughout the world.
In some ways I would have liked to have read about how politics have impacted the progress of Zaha's recognition as an Architect. However it does mention architecture as a big business and in my opinion aiming at the top 1% something somewhat of a problem for the future of architects and architecture, while perpetuating this absurdly archaic legacy that has remained largely unchanged for thousands of years.

Welcome Dear Reader!

 

Teacher hard at work

I'm starting my first sentence as a new blogger. smiley face hashtag hooray.

 

It is going to be a learning curve, but what isn't?

After 2 years on break from formal education, I'm back at the London South Bank University, a bit nervous but looking forward to the challenge.

It feels good to be back and to be able to catch up with some old friends, it has been such a long time since I last saw them.

This is Monday morning the 5th October at 9am about to have a History & Theory lecture, I'm sitting in a small room with so many others. Everyone looks tired, with coffee in their hands looking forward to our first lecture.

I look around in the tiny lecture room we are sitting in, not the most inviting place to learn about critical reading and thinking and not very inspiring architecturally speaking, but in some weird way its made me put my critical hat on, hashtag lucky-coincidences?

The tables and chairs are positioned in circle and all our attention is focused on one person - the teacher some of us already had the pleasure be taught by before at undergraduate level - Paul Davies a man full of passion for Architecture and after you get to know him a little bit you want to be at these lectures.

In this blog I'll be posting my observations on different articles and books that are required reading and trying to be critical about it. Hopefully at the end of all this I'll get one step closer to my dissertation.