About Buildings + Cities

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30 – Franz Kafka's America Jan 14, 2018

Show notes

Franz Kafka’s first, and least-finished, novel is an imaginary journey around the USA (a country he never visited). Written in 1912, it’s a fantasy of America at a time when seemed, to Europeans at least, to be the most futuristic (and mysterious) place on Earth.

Kafka’s fascination with machinery, technology and engineering is on display in ‘Amerika’, in which the young Karl Rossmann finds himself cut adrift in a land of glass elevators, miles-long traffic jams, endless hotels, filled with delirious extremes of luxury, poverty and inventiveness.

The edition we read is the current Penguin translation by Michael Hoffman.

We made brief reference to Joseph Roth, and to Neuromancer’s ‘Villa Straylight’.

Thanks for listening and Happy New Year!

Music:

David Rose and his Orchestra / Anton Dvorak ‘Humoresque’ (1946) archive.org
Felix Arndt / Anton Dvorak ‘Humoresque’ (1917) at archive.org
Dvorak, Casals, Szell, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra ‘Cello Concerto’ I / II (1937) archive.org
Dvorak, Szell, Cleveland Orchestra ’Slavonic Dances’ 2, 4 & 5 (1947) archive.org
Efrem Zimbalist; Sam Chotzinoff; Zimbalist ‘Hebrew Melody and Dance’ (1912) archive.org
Riccardo Martin; Dvorak; Victor Orchestra ‘Als die alte Mutter’ (1910) archive.org
Ukrainska Orchestra Pawla Humeniuka ‘Kozak-Trepak’ from the Free Music Archive
Jack Perry & the Light Crust Doughboys ‘Oklahoma Waltz’ (1947) youtube

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29 – Le Corbusier – 4 – At Home He Feels Like A Purist Dec 23, 2017

Show notes

For our Christmas episode, we're discussing the early Purist villas!

Knowing the right people, and a relentless programme of self-publicity yielded a steady stream of clients for Le Corbusier in the early 1920s, and allowed him to explore an architectural complement to Purism, most notably in a pair of houses for art-loving ‘batchelors’ — the Ozenfant Studio and Villa La Roche. We found time to discuss (probably with unwarranted levity, sorry) the death of Le Corbusier’s father George, and his troubled marriage to Yvonne Gallis.

Topics include — - Maison Citrohan
- Villa Ker-ka-re
- Studio Ozenfant

Villa La Roche
- Allusions to the English House and Pliny episodes 01 & 05, and 02 Strawberry Hill (Horace Walpole)
The Architectural promenade
- The Hôtel Particulier
- CN Ledoux
- Ryue Nishizawa & SANAA
- Domesticity, Layered Space and the ‘Buffer Zone’
Villa Le Lac in Corseaux
- The 'involuntary euthanasia' of his father George
- Luigi Snozzi
Yvonne Gallis

Music —

Emile Petti and his cosmopolitans — Cocktail Hour at the Savoy Plaza
Joseph C Smith’s Orchestra ‘Oh, Frenchy!’
Charles Trenet ‘En ecoutant mon cour chanter’
Jean Sablon ‘J’attendrai’ all from archive.org

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28 – Le Corbusier – 3 – Towards a New Architecture Dec 13, 2017

Show notes

A new epoch has begun! Le Corbusier’s ‘discovery’ is that the style of future architecture is to be found new inventions of the machine age — planes, cars, ocean liners. But ‘Towards a New Architecture’ is, at its heart, an argument for a fusion of timeless values and contemporary technology — provocatively encapsulated in its juxtaposition of a sports car and the Parthenon.

We went through the book in order, focussing on the chapters:

The Engineer’s Aesthetic
Three Reminders to Architects
- Regulating Lines
Eyes Which Do Not See
The Pure Creation of the Mind
Architecture or Revolution

Mentioning along the way: LC’s early books

‘Etude sur le mouvement d’art décoratif en Allemagne’, ‘Apres Le Cubisme’, ‘L’Art decoratif d’aujourdhui’, ‘La peinture moderne’
Adolf Loos
Piranesi’s ‘Campo Marzo’
The Ecole des Beaux Arts
Poché as a heuristic
Christopher Alexander’s ‘A Pattern Language’
Rob Krier ‘Architectural Design’
Greek temples in Athens and Paestum
Michelangelo
Patrick Schumacher’s ’Autopoiesis of Architecture’
at the end I sort of talked rather half-heartedly about Full Luxury Communism

Music is by Lee Rosevere
From the albums ‘Music for Podcasts’ and ‘Music for Podcasts 2’ ‘Musical Mathematics’, ‘Biking in the park’, ‘Featherlight’, ‘Places Unseen’

The outdo is by Mde. Ed. Bolduc ‘J’ai un bouton sur la langue’ archive.org

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27 – Le Corbusier – 2 – Oyster and Breezeblock Years Nov 27, 2017

Show notes

We’re in Paris, 1917, where Charles-Edouard Jeanneret is making friends, thinking about sex (and writing enormous letters about it), designing the occasional mechanised abattoir / concrete garden terrace, going bankrupt, trying to sell concrete blocks to postwar society, inventing a new style of painting, launching a highly costly art magazine, and (finally!) acquiring the name under which he would become famous — Le Corbusier!

One of us had a very creaky chair in this episode. Also we were drinking again. Apologies for both.

We discussed —

The breeze block plant at Alfortville
Societe d'Applications du Beton Arme
a Slaughterhouse at Challuy, near Nevers
(for no good reason) Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle’ (1906)
- Unbuilt project for a dam
a Water Tower in Podensac
- his meeting and collaboration with Amedée Ozenfant
- Purism as a style in Art — the Tate has a good definition
- Fernand Léger
- L’Esprit Nouveau
Pierre Jeanneret

We’ve been reading —

Nicholas Fox Weber ‘Le Corbusier: A Life’ (2008)
Jean-Louis Cohen ‘Le Corbusier: Le Grand’ (2014)
Oppositions 15-16 (1980)
Catherine de Smet ‘Le Corbusier: Architect of Books’ (2004)

Music —
Charles Trenet ‘Le Retour des Saisons’ archive.org
Victor Marching Bank ‘French Reel’ (1918) archive.org
Jean Sablon ‘Sur Les Quais de Vieux Paris’ (1941) archive.org
Vaughn Monroe and his Orchestra ‘The Last Time I Saw Paris’ (1940) archive.org

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26 – Le Corbusier – 1 – Have Formwork, Will Travel Nov 13, 2017

Show notes

We’re taking on the origin story of (for better or worse) the most important architect of the 20th century — Charles-Edouard Jeanneret aka Le Corbusier. His origins — petit bourgeois, Swiss, provincial — can make his eventual rise to world-enveloping notoriety and era-defining influence seem all the more unlikely. We’re digging into his childhood, family, education and travels as a young man before taking on a couple of early projects.

We discuss —

La Chaux de Fonds
Charles L’Eplattanier, his teacher
Jugendstil & Art Nouveau

Early projects —

Villa Fallet
Villas Stotzer & Jacquemet
Villa Jeanneret
Villa Favre-Jacot

Travels, and meetings with —

Otto Wagner
Josef Hoffmann
Vienna Secession Building
Auguste Perret
Rue Franklin Apartments
Peter Behrens
Mount Athos

And a more detailed look at —

Villa Schwob (including Colin Rowe’s ‘Mannerism and Modern Architecture’)
Maison Domino

We've been reading —

Nicholas Fox Weber ‘Le Corbusier: A Life’ (2008)
Jean-Louis Cohen ‘Le Corbusier: Le Grand’ (2014)
Oppositions 15-16 (1980)

Music —
The final part of Beethoven’s 9th — the Ode to Joy

An excerpt from — Mahler: Symphony No. 3: iii. Comodo. Scherzando. Ohne Hast from archive.org

Britt Brothers — ‘Alpine Milkman Yodel’ (1933) from archive.org

Thanks for listening!

We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org

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25 – Palace of the Soviets – Wedding Cake Stalinism Oct 30, 2017

Show notes

First announced in 1931, the project for the Palace of the Soviets in Moscow evolved into a staggeringly vast and bizarre proposal which stalled during WWII when only the foundations had been completed. A 400m tall neoclassical fantasy topped with a vast statue of Lenin; the Palace would probably, if completed, have still been the tallest building in the world in the year 2000. Forming a counterpart of sorts to our discussion of the Chicago Tribune — the Palace is another worldwide competition of the interwar period in which the battle over architectural style and ideology played out in the process of selection and development, as the old 1920s avant grade felt the ground shift under them and the ideology of Stalinist architecture began to solidify.

A couple of helpful listener corrections (here)[https://www.instagram.com/p/BbUxAq2FLaj/] (and here)[https://www.instagram.com/p/BbUxB0vlmnJ/]

We discussed — Joze Pleçnik Edwin Lutyens (neither in the competition)

Russian Avant-gardists — Ivan Leonidov Konstantin Melnikov Mosei Ginzburg

The League of Nations Competition entries of Le Corbusier & Hannes Meyer

Foreign modernists in Russia Ernst May

And the entries of — Le Corbusier Walter Gropius Erich Mendehlson Hans Pölzig Auguste Perret

The winners — Boris Iofan Vladimir Shchuko Hector Hamilton

Plus the later designs of — Ilya Golosov’s Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Gelfreikh Alabian, Kochar and Mordvinov’s Simbirtsev

Alexander Brodsky’s Reminiscences

Anatole Kopp ‘Foreign architects in the Soviet Union during the first two five-year plans’ Sonia Hoisington ‘Even Higher: The Evolution of the Palace of the Soviets’

Music — ‘A1’ from the album ‘ΝΕΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΚΟΚΚΑΛΑ’ by Kοκκαλα, from the Free Music Archive ‘Bolshevik Leaves Home’ (1918) by D. Vasilev-Buglay, Demyan Bedniy Soviet National Anthem, Stalin version

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24.5 – Blade Runner 2049 Oct 23, 2017

Show notes

Don’t listen if you haven’t seen the movie yet!

We discuss Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049. It’s pretty formless and we forgot the names of most of the characters, actors, significant plot entities. You’ll get who we’re talking about it you’ve seen it.

We refer in passing to — Moebius & Jodorowsky ‘The Incal’ Vladimir Nabokov ‘Pale Fire’ Robert Louis Stevenson ‘Treasure Island’

Outro — Dharma — Plastic Doll (1982)

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24 – Blade Runner – Do You Like Our Owl? Sep 16, 2017

Show notes

As a postscript to our discussion of Cyberpunk in episodes 20-21, and vaguely looking ahead to the release of the upcoming sequel, we talked about Ridley Scott’s 1982 film ‘Blade Runner’.

We were really winging it on the research for this one and as a result it marks a high point for getting key facts completely wrong, including — the name of a key character (see if you can guess which one!), various attributions of ethnicity, dates, names, places, the ending of the book on which it’s based, and a bunch of other things. Oh well. I edited out what I could… some moments deserve to be lost in time & without any tears being shed over it…

Things we mentioned — Nicholas Røeg Peter Sloterdijk's book ‘Terror from the Air' Dashiel Hammet’s ‘The Thin Man’ Akira Kurosawa ‘Stray Dog’ (again) Some great photos of the model shop for the film Caravaggio ‘The Calling of St Matthew’ Antony Burgess ‘A Clockwork Orange’ Richard Jeffries ‘After London’ Yvegeny Zamyatin ‘We’ (discussed in episode 3) T.S. Eliot ‘The Wasteland' Johannes Vermeer Wilhelm Hammerschoi Jan van Eyck ‘The Arnolfini Portrait’ Vernon Shetley, Alissa Ferguson ‘Reflections in a Silver Eye: Lens and Mirror in ‘Blade Runner’, in Science Fiction Studies Mar 2001, Vol 28 Issue 1 Michel Haneke ‘Caché’

Music and sound effects are from the film.

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23 – Chicago Tribune – 2 of 2 – Honourable Mentions Sep 02, 2017

Show notes

We conclude our discussion of the 1922 Chicago Tribune competition, going through a few of the less favoured entries, and discussing how it’s been seen and understood in the years since. Apologies for some clipping on the audio – we’ve tried to edit most of it out but some is still left.

As before, you can see all the entries in this book

We discuss the entries of – Walter Gropius (197) Adolf Loos (196) Paul Gerhardt (159 & 160) Saverio Dioguardi (248) Vittorio Pino (252) Alfred Fellheimer & Steward Wagner (158) – the big pyramid Emile Pohle & Adolf Ott (200) – the bridge Walter Fischer (221) Bruno & Max Taut (231, 229) Gerhardt Schröder (228) Fritz Sackermann (225) Anonymous (281)

Plus anonymous entries by – Hans Scharoun Wassili Luckhardt

Manfredo Tafuri’s 'The Disenchanted Mountain' — published in ‘The American City’ (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1979)

Ludwig Hilberseimer’s unentered design

Hugh Feriss’s Envelope Drawings

Pier Vittorio Aureli’s ‘The Barest Form in which Architecture Can Exist’

The book of ‘Late Entries’ can be found here

Diana Agrest ‘Architectural Anagrams’ in Oppositions 11

Music includes Collins and Harlan ‘The International Rag’ King Olivers Creole Jazz Band ‘Just Gone’ …both from the Free Music Archive and first heard on the excellent Antique Phonograph Music Program

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22 – Chicago Tribune – 1 of 2 – World's Most Beautiful Office Building Aug 10, 2017

Show notes

In 1922, to coincide with its 75th birthday, the Chicago Tribune set out to endow the city with ‘the world’s most beautiful office building’. The results of the design competition have been seen in retrospect less as ‘the ultimate in civic expression’ than as an expression of aesthetic and theoretical crisis within architecture. Hugely varied, bizarre, ingenious and occasionally grotesque, the entries provide a window into a discipline in transformation, as well as into the politics of a new American metropolis.

Apologies for some slight issues with the sound.

A book showing all the competition entries has been uploaded to Monoskop — if you download it you will be able to see what we’re talking about… https://monoskop.org/File:Tribune_Tower_Competition_vol_1_1980.pdf

We discuss the entries by John Mead Howells & Raymond Hood (plate 1) Eliel Saarinen (13) Holabird & Roche (20) John Wynkoop (90) Ross & Sloan (84) Hornbostel & Wood (91) Daniel Burnham (44) Jarvis Hunt (118) William Drummond (134) Sjostrom & Eklund (190)

Music includes — Arthur Fields ‘How Ya Gonna Keep Em Down on the Farm After They’ve Seen Paree?’ Jockers Dance Orchestra ‘The Royal Vagabond’ The Columbians ‘Just Like a Rainbow’ Victor Dance Orchestra ‘The Great One Step’ …all from the Free Music Archive and first heard on the excellent Antique Phonograph Music Program

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