Discovering Perspective

By happy coincidence, a few weeks ago I was bored and was poking around what is new at Google and came across Google Page Creator. It turned out it had only been up a few days and already maxed out the first run of test drivers so I signed up to be notified when they were accepting more accounts.

I got the email a few days ago to say my Google account was activated for Page Creator and quickly set up my homepage.

Don't think I will be making wide use of it anytime soon but I'm interested to see how the interface will work to help those who don't know anything about web design, html, posting, etc.

Seems it's still missing quite a lot of features but is pretty intuitive though not especially customizeable.

Still haven't played around too much yet to have developed an opinion either way as to how good/useful a tool it is. I'll let you know.

Proposed Topic of Study:

Since their exile from Judea in 586 BCE by the Babylonians, and from Jerusalem in 135 CE by the Roman Empire, the “wandering jews” of the Diaspora have settled in neighbourhoods and ghettos in cities throughout Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and more recently North America.

With the emancipation and Zionist movements beginning in the late nineteenth century, later strengthened by the fallout of the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel, architecture has taken on a new role in the quest for Israel and the Jewish people to become a “nation among nations”. Mendelsohn phrased this ambition as “waiting for the dignity of our people to finally come to expression in its architecture.” To finally alleviate the 2000 year-old displaced sense of home and create a place for the Jewish people.

Perhaps in response to the previous trend of exploring the lack of Jewish artistic (and to a lesser degree, architectural) expression or legacy there has recently been an interest in trying to account for the increasing visibility and prominance of Jewish architects and architectural projects in the mid to late twentieth century. The exhibit by the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam "Yibaneh! Jewish Identity in Contemporary Architecture" and publication of a book by the same name during Summer 2004 (Yibaneh is Hebrew for "it shall be built"), has apparently further fuelled this debate.

Though perhaps to some degree, reunified by the terrors of the Holocaust and the re-appropriation of their homeland, the Jewish people remain a highly multicultural and diverse community. The materialization of the various approaches to solidifying or expressing Jewish identity through architecture has, therefore been greatly contested and criticized on many fronts.

Proposed Architectural Project:

Especially in Orthodox communities, newcomer and established Jewish families, despite their cultural differences, are still locally united by traditional, dietary, ritualistic and ceremonial needs, Specifically, Sabbath restrictions have demanded unique urban as well as ritual morphology “to adjust the law to the new urban situation of the Jewish community”

Precedent for the former condition include Bathurst St. in Toronto, and the proposed Taube-Koret Campus for Jewish Life in Palo Alto, California which is advertising itself as “Silicone Valley's Jewish Town Square”. An example of ritual morphology is the Eruv projects in Jewish communities around the world. The role of the eruv to symbolically extend the private domain into the public to permit otherwise restricted activities during the Sabbath. The eruvim are based on the concepts of 'public domain', 'private domain' and 'free place' as defined in the Talmud.

The intention of the project is to propose a decentralized, satellite Altneuland (“old-new-land” borrowed from Theodor Herzl's Zionist writings) as the “place” for the Jewish people which does not deny the millennia of Diaspora and where Jerusalem continues to act as symbolic centre. Furthermore, it proposes a Jewish architecture not directly dependent on religious or memorial programs, but rather on community.

Rob sent out an email about this article about a "professor who banned laptop computers from her classroom because she considers them a distraction in lectures."

I'm personally not a big fan of laptops in my classes because the typing sound is a bit distracting but really, that's my problem. They are extremely useful to a lot of students who can't keep up writing by hand or even read their own writing. A lot of my friends bring their laptops to take notes, and yes, to do other work/play during class.

But funny thing... I thought we were adults and old enough to decide whether or not we want to pay attention/learn anything in the classes that we are paying a lot of money for and need to pass to continue on in our chosen field.

One of the complaints is that her first year students are so focused on copying down every word that they aren't learning or interpreting the information. This is not a result of having a loptop. This is a result of being a first year student who is so brainwashed by high schools that note-taking is the be all and end all of learning. First years all come in with their multicoloured pens and complain everytime something is erased or taken off the screen.

I can imagine it is less fun as a professor to stand infront of a sea of laptops but maybe that means they should find a way to use the opportunity instead of banning it.

Well, I am Irish but it comes out more strongly today. Decked out in as much green I could manage from the closet and as much Guiness as I could fit in the fridge.

I was smart this year and pre-bought the St.Patty's Day spread so the corned beef, potatoes and cabbage are ready to be boiled. A first. I usually have to fight the crowds and desperately search at the grocery store and beer store hoping that there is still something remotely resembling the traditional meal.

A beautiful rainbow accompanied me on my walk home.

Happy Birthday blog!

This book about my grandmother's life during the Holocaust is due for release soon (May according to Chapters). I look forward to reading it.

During crits the critics kept getting their coffee and then junking their Roll up the Rim cups. At the end of the day while cleaning up we all sort of stood around the garbage trying to decide if it was worth going digging for the cups. Especially after the stupid Quebec story with the two kids. One brave soul went in after them and nothing. Not even a donut. The struggle. You look pretty stupid if you don't win anything but you'll regret it if you find out there was a car in the garbage.

My mid term crit went extremely well which feels really good.

(Well minus one who does not like symbolism but its pretty much unavoidable when you're talking about a building that will house jewish, christian and muslim ceremonies)

I don't know if I had mentioned that the courthouse project is a competition for the Canadian architecture grad schools. Of course my project went so off track from the requirements that I was pretty sure there wasn't any reason to continue as if it would be submitted. Each school can only submit one. During my crit, one of the critics who didn't know this told me I should submit anyways. It was explained that only one can be submitted and then the director of the school said he didn't care that it no longer complies with the requirements and that he thinks I should aim for submitting it. (He's also one of the three votes for determining who's will go). I'm pretty excited about it because I was struggling earlier when I decided to give up on the competition in order to follow through with the religious court.

There's still a month left in the project and five other students competing so we'll see where it ends up.

After the crits and panel discussion, we had a dinner reception with the invited architects and other panel members. We had a great conversation about who in the relationship (when one is an architect) gets control of decorating/arranging the house. And how absolute that is. I determined that I am a generous architect by allowing Mekki to have the office to with as he pleases. Most of the other architects say that their wives joke that they are relegated to the basement. Though it is probably a bigger conflict for them given it is generally the woman who is in charge of that. Let's just say it was a good thing none of the signifigant others came to dinner.

Afterwards a bunch of the students all went out dancing to cap the evening. Lots of fun. Now they can't say I never go anywhere with them. It was really fun.

Thanks to Ben and the deadline to revise my manifesto, I think I've managed to clarify a few things and bring in a reference to the Tube Map as interesting precedent. We'll see what Paul has to say about it tomorrow when we meet about it.

(yes, by "clarify" I mean that it is still extremely suggestive and vague but with more intention than the last iteration)

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from nowhere to nowhere and everywhere between

A common mode of transportation in large cities is public. This mode of transmission, "conveyance from one place to another" (from the Latin transmissionem) though the most “public” is ironically one of the most removed from the city. In Ottawa, this is due mainly to the Transitway which is rerouted off the main streets and onto its own network in favour of “efficiency”. In this manner, it becomes more akin to its metro/underground counterpart systems around the world. As such it is a peculiar and clear example of the transit condition; One that is more easily mapped in this light despite its elusive and secret nature.

The characteristics which will inform the type of mapping required of the Transitway and its stations are:

The transit station is an artificial destination.
It is not the intended destination of the traveler but one that must be passed through to continue on towards the final goal. However, it becomes part of the local urban vocabulary of landmarks and directions.

The transit station is the city's vestibule.
The demand on these spaces is to reorient the travelers, giving reference to their location in relation to the rest of the city and initiate them into the new district they are about to enter. It connects the transit network to the urban network and directs the flow between the two. The characteristic of any junction is one of potential collision, overlap and failure, however, these conflicts present opportunities for the environs, otherwise anonymous and invisible, to express themselves.

The transit system is a secret network.
It forbids traffic of pedestrians and personal vehicles and denies even its own passengers the necessary knowledge of orientation and location in order to retrace the route on their own when translated into the regular city networks. It has its own set of roads, its own set of laws and permissions.

The transit system is involved in the collapsing of space and time.
The experiential quality is inherently such that the moment of departure becomes the moment of arrival, in between is no-time and no-space. Upon entering the system, the traveler abdicates responsibility and control of their geographic relation to the city. The commuter traverses the city displaced from context, caught in limbo until deposited at the station and re-enter the city.

In what is now considered to be the canonical mapping system of the Underground, Harry Beck's Tube Map introduced the schematic diagram of distorted geography and topology in favour of clarified and simplified mapping of the sequential and connective relation of stations. Beck's Tube Map institutionalized the irrelevance of geographic specificity but is problematic in its inability to re-orient travelers upon their re-admittance into the geographically specific network of streets and sidewalks of the city.

Furthermore, in Beck's map, as in most others which followed his example, the relation between stations is represented by a non-descriptive schematic line. It is time to unmask, reveal and record the “other” time and space, the ether of the mysterious medium through which the traveler is conveyed. What exists between departure and arrival and how can it be meaningfully represented?

In so doing, we can assist in the movement to make riding the bus an event, a spectacle of the city, fueling the urban exploration subculture. Remove the seeming passivity of the traveller and seeming disjunction and dislocation of the transit system from the urban context.
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Great website explaining what I mean by Beck's abstraction of London geography in his map.

My midterm crit went extremely well which always helps you stay interested and excited about your project. Everyone had a great time celebrating last night down in the Market.

I was rather disappointed the other day when I realized that I hadn't paid attention while at the check out at the store the other day and got overcharged for one of the items. Only about $1.50 so not worth going back to the store.

Lesson learned. Pay attention.

So yesterday while walking home I was rewarded and found a $5 bill in the melting snow. Hooray!

I have a friend looking to sublet her room ASAP. If anyone is looking for a room in Centretown Ottawa let me know and I'll put you in touch with her.

My pens. My precious pens.

(see earlier posting if you are confused)

The time has come once again when I can't live without my Rapidographs (*sniff* moment of silence for the one lost in the Orvietto Well) which means I must clean them before refilling them with life/ink.

It is a messy procedure and my hand will be slightly stained black for a few days but you can only live with cheap pens for so long before you hear the call of the Rapidograph beckoning. I've usually gotten away with just rinsing them with water but it has been longer than usual and the last time it was starting to show signs that water would no longer be enough.

Being cheap/ that I spent all my earthly possesions buying the pens in the first place, I didn't want to buy the Rapidograph cleaning kit so I did a quick google search and decided on rubbing alcohol (apparently vodka works better, but again, I'm cheap) and compressed air (we have a few cans laying around).

Cross your fingers. With any luck I will be in the blissful world of Rapidograph drawings by this evening.