Sixty Years of Architectural Drafting

How things have changed!  Watch this great video Holiday Card from Omniplan.

http://vimeo.com/81682539

A picture of my own, circa 1970 drafting compass set - gifted to Public Domain

David Mamet on Designers

I just finished reading Mamet's book Theater.

(A few years behind everyone else... but I was waiting to find a cheap copy.)

Actually, I'm quite glad I waited for the cheap read since this book is not as satisfying as his Three Uses of the Knife: on the Nature and Purpose of Drama.  That book I found fascinating; this one, sadly, deteriorates into a rant guaranteed to irritate most Method actors and the more "visionary" sorts of directors.  (I had to laugh.)  But amid these entertaining swipes at over-blown acting methodology and overweening directorial egos comes some feet-on-the-ground comments about theater design:

"...the job of the designers of costumes, sets, and lights, is to increase the audience's enjoyment of the play past that which might be expected in a performance done in street clothes, on a bare stage, under work lights."

This is a very low bar... and yet a also a surprisingly difficult bar to leap over.  Especially if you carry the true weight, the true cost - in money and human effort - needed to create those sets, costumes, or lighting effects.

"Why is this great rehearsal more enjoyable than the vast bulk of designed productions?  It allows the audience to use its imagination, which is the purpose of coming to the theater in the first place."

Myself, I might not have said "vast bulk," but otherwise I have to agree.  (Maybe I'm just an optimist.)  Then, a little further on (writing from page 5 to 6)  Mamet goes on to say:

"It takes a real artist to increase the enjoyment of the audience past that which would be found in seeing the play on a bare stage, for the first rule of the designer, as of the physician, is do no harm."

Humbling.

YES!

Julia Morgan becomes the first woman architect to win a Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects.

Mind you, she died in 1957.  But still.  A well-deserved if long-delayed award.

Finally.

An article about the award HERE at Co.DESIGN.  An earlier post of my own on such prizes HERE.

Julia Morgan - I believe this is a public domain photo, though I'm no longer sure from where.

More Public Domain Images!

The British Museum uploads a million - one MILLION - 1,000,000 images from public domain books..  What a great institution!  Read more HERE.

We're in Gold Rush times Dear Reader.

Computer Games

THE emerging art form.  Heck, it's already flowering.  The lovely art of games like Myst and the interactivity and free-will of World of Warcraft or Evercrack, er, EverQUEST, show some of this form's possibilities.

It's like the early days of film.

I've recently discovered Minecraft.  And have become deeply addicted, of course, since that game in Creative Mode, is basically pixilated crack for designers.  Love it.  At present I'm building an entire Dutch Colonial town in a tropical swamp (why you ask? silly question!) with a growing backstory in my head of feuding tulip-farmers.  I suspect other builders run more toward forts and sci-fi palaces and Super Hero Lairs, but for me that last update adding stained glass and four colors of tulips to the world was just too compelling, so natch, first a Gothik cathedral followed by Nederlandish Imperialism!  (Tulipmania scheduled next week.)

What does a designer do to relax?  More design!

Today on the great site BoingBoing there's a post HERE about the retirement of the computer game Glitch.  Upon it's demise, it's creators were generous and wise enough to set free all the art and code involved free into the Public Domain.  Bless 'em!  May all their creativity inspire others.

Free for your use HERE.

Glitch art - public domain

So pull up a comfy Glitch "pink lime box armchair" (obviously inspired by Rietveld's famous chair; creativity goes around, it comes around).  See what YOU can think of to create with these now publicly-owned treasures.

Rietveld Chair - photo by Ellywa at Wikimedia Commons

On the theater set design front?  I'm having my first meeting for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at lunch.  Exciting project!  

The Kimbell Addition

The new museum addition by Renzo Piano to Louis Kahn's masterpiece original building opens over the Thanksgiving holiday.  KERA radio has an interesting talk with Piano HERE.

Kimbell Art Museum - believed public domain photo

I Missed Ada Lovelace Day

This year the date of Ada Lovelace Day (like so many others) just slipped past me.  Named for the first computer programmer - who happened to be female - the day celebrates women in science and technology.  (In a previous year, I responded before with a post on early female architects  HERE.)

But today there's a great post over at themarysue.com that nicely expresses the Go-Girl-Tech! vibe of Ada's celebration: a  dangerous study of the remains from early huminins found in a cave in Africa, this mission can be accomplished only by paleontologists who are also cavers.

All Female Team of Spelunking Scientists!

 

Cave photo by Ik Ikrig - public domain at publicdomainpictures.net

TheMarySue.com is worth visiting for the girl-geek of pop culture and, as today, science.

Catching Up

Busy, busy...

But here are a few highlights from the books 'n movies front lately (as I scramble to get back into a regular schedule posting here... and in the rest of my productive life!).

Films:  Just saw the knuckle-biter Captain Phillips.  A very intense study of the real-life  story about Somali piracy.  Tom Hanks's performance is riveting.  I do wish the film makers had had the grace to cut away and end the film just a few minutes sooner - it just seems wrong to watch this tough character finally fall apart once he's saved.  He has every right to!  But give the guy some privacy, right?  The very human portrayal of the pirates makes the film, I think, turning this from just another action flick into art.  I'm hoping to see the other current crisis-on-the-sea movie, Robert Redford's All is Lost this weekend.

I tried watching This Is the End the other night on DVD.  I'm not at all the demographic the filmmakers were aiming for... but did anyone find this apocalyptic brat-pack film funny?  I could see it trying.  Pirates: Band of Misfits however, remains a light but amusing claymation/animation romp with a great alternative version of Queen Victoria.  Funny.

Books:  I lost steam in reading Telegraph Avenue.  Beautifully written, coming from Michael Chabon, but... after being interrupted I never quite got back into it.  I think because I can see the ending coming too clearly and don't (just personal taste) find the ambiance of jazz, blaxploitation/martial arts movies, midwifery, and Berkeley engrossing.  I may go reread The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay instead because I like the world of comics, golems, and Brooklyn better.  (Personal taste.)

I'm in a funny mood.  I want adventure and vicarious thrills, even a touch of the creeps.  Probably the Halloween/November weather.

I got all excited at the library because several authors I follow had new books.  Sadly these were all to some degree disappointing.  Charlaine Harris's last book in her Sookie Stackhouse series (basis for the True Blood TV show) was... O K.  It ended about as I thought it should, but I got the feeling the author herself was tired of the series well before it was actually all written.  (The TV show went off the rails completely at some point.)  I can, however, heartily recommend the first book Dead Until Dark as an entertaining stand-alone.  Then you may find yourself reading the whole saga just to see what happens to Sookie.

On the other hand, though I enjoyed the earliest Anita Blake vampire novels by Laurell K. Hamilton, the series... Well, first I stopped buying them, and after this last library trip I've now officially stopped bothering to check them out.  By page 15 or so it was clear the story has dwindled to boring vampire politics, confusing yet boring interpersonal relationships, or more sex... which reads like self-indulgence.  For me the books are now unreadable.  But the early ones?  The title of the first novel says it all: Guilty Pleasures.

Speaking of which... I'm working my way through a Buffy-thon.*  Enjoying it all over again.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course.  Now in mid season 4.  Then maybe Master and Commander again for further sea adventures.  Remember the fun film Cowboys and Aliens?  How about making a Pirates and Vampires?  Pure popcorn!