okay good evening welcome everyone so
tonight's lecture is the penultimate
lecture of the Robert B Church lecture
and exhibit series for this spring to
2017 thanks for coming out and support
of Darius and the work that he's done
after tonight's lecture there is one
more lecture that hopefully you're all
well aware of that's Craig Duikers of
snow Etta speaking on Saturday April
29th at 2 p.m. in the Bijou theater and
then there's a huge celebration planned
in honor of our graduating students
after the lecture back here so tell all
your friends about that should be pretty
fun so tonight we're we're gathered
really to celebrate our inaugural
Tennessee architecture fellow Darius
Ammon so about two years ago started
having a conversation a year and a half
ago started having a conversation about
a fellowship program which would bring
young teachers emerging practitioners
and educators to the University of
Tennessee and the School of Architecture
and basically allow them to teach and
conduct research and impact our
trajectory had it gone on in some
natural way and also to impact their
trajectory giving them support both
financial and in terms of time to
develop a project over the course of
that year so we couldn't have been more
happy when Darius accepted our offer to
become our very first Tennessee
architecture fellow and I have to say
it's been a great year having Darius
here and he's very much put us on a good
path moving forward with the fellowship
program so thank you Darius for that so
Darius Ammon in 2009 earned the Master of
Science from the ETH in Zurich and while
studying he was able to conduct research
in both Rio de Janeiro
as well as in Tokyo along with those
experiences in those two significant
cities his urban and architectural
thought is influenced by extensive
travel as a student he attended seminar
journeys to Rome Cairo Senegal Gambia
Florence Kyoto Addis Ababa Moscow Beirut
Dubai Abu Dhabi Lisbon and Cordoba so
we've been very lucky to have such a
kind of global perspective on urbanism
and on architectural thought here in
addition to these foundational
experiences as a young designer Darius
has worked for OMA REM koolhaas in New
York Rad Research Architecture design in
Hong Kong and again in New York City for
Diller and Scofidio before coming to
Tennessee Darius taught in Mark Angeles
Master of Advanced Studies in Urbanism
chair at the a-ha and Surak as well as
in the innovation center virtual reality
he's also taught at the EPFL and Luzon
Switzerland and he was there by the way
when Saunas Rolex Learning Center
building was just recently opened a
great project that we were able to see
about a week or so ago when such a Moe's
here and it's too
no small feat of Darius's that we were
able to get said jamming here at a
lecture so he corroborated to me
privately just how amazing that building
is and we're all doing work to try to
get to that level I guess in his
application for the fellowship here
Darius proposed working on the Philip
Glass House the title itself a play on
the American composer Philip Glass and
the iconic Glass House projects of
modern architecture though will
undoubtedly hear much more about his
trajectory tonight I thought it would be
interesting to pose a quote back to
Darius from his application one year ago
where he describes his project he says
quote the proposed Philip Glass House is
a dialectical discourse in the language
of architecture inspired by 20th century
musical theory
it oscillates between the universal and
the particular the implicit and the
explicit the static and the dynamic
unlocking the poetic potential within
the paradox he continues as an
alternative to a widespread cultural
paradigm centered around the
contemporary and momentary the Philip
Glass House represents an approach to
design which is based on the relatively
time-independent nature of human
cognition he says my project is an essay
for a syncretic variation on the Glass
House theme those are funny words to
hear right before you speak about it so
if you know what Darius has done here
and he's going to show us also part of
his teaching it may appear as though
he's you know found a kind of diverse
trajectory around a number of topics but
what I learned by revisiting his
application is he's been relatively on
point the whole time even his crazy
seminar neuroscience perspective on on
Vitruvius is completely laid out in his
proposal and I think fits right in so
I'm very excited tonight to see and
learn more about Darius's work here and
to and and basically through engaging
that to celebrate his presence so please
please join me in welcoming Dara Ammon
thank you Jason for that very kind
introduction and thank you all for
coming tonight it has been a wonderful
year with you here at UT very proud and
happy having had the opportunity to be
part of it and I gave a talk a year ago
with the title towards union of
opposites now the title reads eight path
towards universalism so you see I'm kind
of escalating things here but let me
start by saying this the 20th century
has been a losing battle
with the issue of quantity and the
twenty-first is endangered to become its
grisly aftermath the promise that
increasing connectivity and exchange
will lead to more and more human
sympathy appears to have turned into its
opposite instead of a prosperous global
community based on universal values we
see the polarization of societies the
destruction of our environment and the
rise of armed conflicts it looks that we
have come looks like we have come to an
end in our first impact with nature our
own and the one surrounding us but
rather than painting a picture of
blurring Horrors I would like to develop
some ideas tonight of what we as artists
and designers could do little things
that could help to educate ourselves and
others to become again more Universal
and inclusive my strategies do not
require a large-scale political
infrastructure it's more about revising
one's attitude in the creative process
since we all know that changing the
world starts with changing one's self so
when I look at the world I always try to
overcome my own prejudice of how it is
divided into geopolitical blocks or
nation-states because the more you
travel the more you realize that
nation-states can be highly artificial
constructs and the spread of local
cultures often corresponds with
characteristics of the natural
environment so this map shows the world
according to ecosystems and it can help
you if you'd like to diversify your
travel experience and better understand
how deeply connected we all are all the
types of maps I use when traveling are
maps that show the composition of the
soil if an island is composed of
limestone volcanic deposits or
metamorphic rocks makes a huge
difference to its climate vegetation and
finally to the kind of people who
inhabit it
this is a map of Greece and you can see
that the diversity of the chemical
composition of the soil is extremely
high
but at the same time somewhat evenly
distributed the fascinating thing about
Greek landscape is that by all its
variety and complexity it remains
accessible to human inquiry it allows
you to observe differences in
similarities in the natural environment
on a particular intelligible scale and
it is no surprise to me that within this
natural coincidence of unity and
diversity we see the birth of philosophy
every time I travel in Greece I carry a
little book with me Burnett's early
Greek philosophy and I just recently
discovered that subconsciously have been
working on a project to capture aspects
of pre-socratic philosophy through the
photographic glance most people agree
that philosophy began with Haley's who
flourished in the sixth century BC and
besides introducing Egyptian geometry to
Greece was looking for the material
cause of all things which the Greeks
call are here he thought that water is
the stuff of which all other things are
made of and his assumption was probably
inspired by the phenomena that water
seems to take the most various shapes of
all things we know after that of the
talese came an exam under who held that
the primary substance is none of the
visible elements but the substance
different from them the substance he
calls a payer on it is infinite
boundless and indestructible all things
arise from it and pass away into it like
an invisible substance it gives rise to
the formation of plants and rocks alike
after that came an examiners who believe
that everything is made from air and
that to verification and condensation
all things come into existence air
rarefied becomes fire convinced it first
becomes water and still further
condensed it turns into earth my 
said another way of seeing it for him
all things are numbers many of you know
the picture how he came to this
conclusion by playing on his poly cord
he must have thought if the concordant
intervals can be expressed by simple
numerical ratios by not everything else
then came Heraclitus who differs from
his predecessors in that his conception
of reality is not a materialistic of an
energetic one even for Pythagoras
finally numbers were physical objects
the metaphor he uses to express his view
is the flame the world always was isn't
shall be an ever living fire
kindling measures and going out in
measures he is original in that he
searches the eternal and unchanging not
in matter but in the laws of change he's
also one of the early sceptics
she believes that humans will never ask
the ultimate reality of the cosmos
he's antipode in this regard is
Parmenides seen as the father of
ontology who says that nothing exists
that cannot be thought this object of
thought is uncreated indestructible
complete immovable and without end and
continuous one with capital o or in more
directions terms being is now if our
aim is to become more universal it is
good advice not to trust the single
philosopher but to waste the entire
family and by doing that we might learn
something about the scope and limits of
human understanding it looks like a
pre-socratic started proposals that are
closer to the world of sense stuff we
can touch and then move towards more
conceptual notion notions that require a
higher degree of abstraction to form
them in my creative work I always or
often follow a similar strategy of
stratification by combining discrete
elements that advance different levels
of perception and cognition
in these sculptures for example the
materialistic aspect is the interplay
between organic and angular volumetric
expression color is involved in a
variety of an energetic oscillations and
in ear bands describe topological
relationships one has to decode almost
like solving a mathematical problem this
is a spatial collage I made of fragments
and I found in the streets of Rome and
in Manor of sight wombly
elevated them to the realm of art by
painting them with white house paint my
favorite moment is when an energetic
impulse is moving from one substance to
another here where the two dimensional
drawing on the surface becomes the
cascading line of a profile cut into
stone another series of sculptures
concerned with the combination of
fluidity instability color works here as
a unifying agent establishing immaterial
relationships between the individual
pieces by alienating the shadows that
the bodies cast on each other during the
production process so this is the shadow
of that body here these are paintings
that start from a random splash of color
and verdun rationalize or conceptualized
if you will over several steps until
they became non-figurative portraits of
a human being this is a still life of
apples and pears reduced to a few
suggestive devices that indicate the
presence and spatial extent the
interesting thing about this technique
of
action is that after a while the
elements take on their own life and
rearrange into new entities I won't tell
you what I see in it
and finally the two paintings you can
see in the exhibition inspired by the
study of flow builds at the main patient
patterns and organic tissue built from
simple dots and lines they are composed
in such a way that the convex body and
the concave space emerges when arrived
here last summer I found an old UT journal
of Architecture on my desk I didn't
know who put it there but there were
drawings of Danny Olivas skin and
ptomaine on the front cover and I
thought that there might be a third
variation besides the angular fabric of
the chamber drawings and orthogonal
complexity of the drawings for the
Crawford residence so from a distance
they clearly have a sculptural presence
or object quality from close-up their
deal with osmotic processes in a field
condition my Lieberstein talks about
cosmos Albert created by choice in
relation to his drawings I would like or
I was thinking about Herrick lighting
fire when
another strategy one can follow in order
to become more Universal is to
constantly update once portfolio a small
thing you can do tomorrow morning some
creative people say that after the work
is done they don't want to look at it
anymore but I see it as a chance because
you obviously can learn a lot through a
self-reflection and be more conscious
about the next steps in your work when
looking at my sculptures and paintings I
discovered a tendency to move from more
simple and static compositions to
increasingly complex and dynamic ones
and by serving the world around me I
felt like this is a more general
phenomenon that applies to a variety of
conditions not only my work remember
when Jurassic Park came out in the 90s
just having dinosaurs in the movie was
enough to make everyone go crazy but
soon the first excitement was gone and
there had to be more dinosaurs bigger
ones with more teeth in my statistical
analysis of the movie posters over the
last 20 years T here means number of
teeth then I compared a file size which
gives an indication about visual
complexity which of course increases and
another factor that can be easily
measured is the proportion of the poster
itself we tend which tends to get
narrower and taller a similar pattern
can be observed when looking at the
history of art or a very long time span
although of course there are
fluctuations within the different
periods and my claim is not to offer a
lot that includes every painting that
has ever been made and evidence think
that the general tendency from
object-oriented conception of pictorial
space to a conception of space that is
closer to excitations in a field
condition the transition from
hunter-gatherer to urbanite can be
observed similar observations net 100
well fling to the ideas he articulated
in his principles of art history which
were published almost exactly hundred
years from now to the formal analysis of
paintings and sculptures he came to the
conclusion that development of artistic
styles follow certain rules according to
his principle Styles tend to move from
linear to painterly representations from
closed form to open for more from
clarity to ambiguity he argues that one
should not see one characteristics
superior to the other but as different
stages in the development of seeing
which always moves from the first
quality to the latter inspire examples
are from Renaissance and Baroque art
epitomized by the two versions of David
by Michelangelo and Bernini but if
you remember the paintings and posters a
show before there seems to be a wider
range of data that supports his theory
well thing does not offer an explanation
from how his principles work on a
neurological level nor what is
responsible for the fact that we see
several cycles in the history of art
that begin with linear representations
move to painterly ones and then end at
some point but these two texts to offer
some close my reference theory seems to
work in the science of art cognitive
scientists vs Ramachandran formulates a
principle on the micro level he calls
peak shift which explains my art tends
to enhance or exaggerate stimuli and on
the macro scale thomas kuhn structure of
scientific revolutions contains a model
that can be used to explain why after a
certain time artistic styles are
exhausted and replaced by new ones and
already on the title page there's some
evidence for the correlation or did
anyone ever come across a second edition
that has been revised and reduced so
briefly the definition of the two
concepts peak shift is if a rat is
rewarded for discriminating a rectangle
from a square it will respond even more
rigorously to a rectangle that is longer
and skinnier than the prototype the
image shows mock-ups that behavioral
scientists use to test the reaction of
herring gull tricks that the most modest
peak you get normal reaction with a
realistic shape less real action with
the blunt shape and they go crazy when
they see a very thin elongated beak now
Ramachandran argues that we see this
behavior because the visual primitive
for bigness which is thought in the
herring gulls memory is actually closer
to the caricature of the beak and to the
natural shape for the reason that
otherwise everything would look like a
beak so in order to discriminate things
from each other we store an extreme
version of the thing in our brains a
paradigm is defined as universally
recognized scientific achievements that
for a time period provides model
problems and solutions to a community of
practitioners the activity of these
practitioners within a paradigm is
compared with puzzle solving and the
paradigm shift is what happens when one
set of model problems shifts to an
entirely new set of problems as in the
case of alchemy for example when it was
replaced by modern chemistry as an
illustration for the peak shift
principle might serve these close-ups
from Michelangelo's David where we find
not a new naturalistic depiction of
features but in exaggeration some sort
of bigger than life version of a man's
eyes ears and lips an illustration for
paradigm shifts within art we can look
at these little graphs Picasso completed
between 1945 and 1946 which
recapitulates this transition from
Impressionism to cubism to surrealism
each artistic paradigm contains a number
of admissible problems and after their
solve the artist moves on to the next
set to the next puzzle and we love the
series of lithographs because they show
that this assumption that the trip
from linear to painterly is a one-way
street is not true and that reduction
and simplification can be regarded as a
natural development tool I think this is
one of the more relevant lessons from
modernism abstraction is possible and
positive if you look at modernist
architecture we can see that actually
both tendencies are present at the same
time Mies going from freeform to
abstraction and Corb the other way
around no I don't know what was the
reason for them to end up in such
different ways did they just follow
their artistic temperament it means
realized that you'll never have the
dexterity to draw curves live Corb or
did Corb shy away from missing clarity
because he felt that he has no chance we
will never know but I think the fact
that both aspects can coexist and embody
the highest level of architectural
creation is encouraging and the valuable
piece of information in the project I
called the education of the client which
I think is part of the architects
responsibility I call Mies process
conceptual cycle but because he moves
from sensory stimulus towards higher
cognitive function so from vision to
decision making and Corbs process
perceptual cycle moving from a rational
from rational thought to essentially
this approach the peak shift principle
makes us to move up or down the
cognitive ladder in search for more
extreme stimuli the essence of what
makes us excited
and the paradigm shift is when all the
interesting problems are exhausted and
the new fresh set of problems is needed
although I love Corbs late work I
always had the negative attitudes
towards the perceptual cycle because I
connected it with decadence from which
there seems to be no escape only further
deepening of cultural decline but
recently I came across a book by eduard
side which offers a different
perspective in his unfinished cover
late style he died while working on it
he looks at the number of writers and
composers and the late works there are
some that represent the negative
characteristics of late style like
contradiction difficulty or
fragmentation but with the touch of
Mediterranean generosity side sees at
the same time a second clause of late
works works that convey a sense of
mastery resolution or wholeness the last
three piano sonatas of Beethoven will be
an example for the first class Mozart
opera The Magic Flute or late Corb an
example for the second class and through
this differentiation it suddenly seems
possible to complete the circle by
working from difficulty to maturity or
from fragmentation to wholeness so that
the contradiction can turn into
something productive rather than instructive I
would love to believe inside because
then we could transfer from one paradise
to another avoiding hell in the middle
and if you look at the dominant
paradigms in twentieth-century
architecture we can see that such a
transition from one heyday to another is
possible stylistically if you forget
about political events in the middle of
the century a more recent paradigm with
its most prominent representatives even
though there are still a number of
interesting puzzles to solve I think
that in the work of supermoto and
Christian carats we can already find the
features of late style I believe we have
seen that other than both means linear
theory of succession of clothes
stylistic period suggests there are
possibilities to navigate within and
between paradigms and because my in
today is to talk about fast towards our
universalism I will now briefly
introduce three strategies that could
help to extend one's reach leave
ideological ghettos behind and develop
empathy for the other by becoming the
other
the set is a tool that allows for
explanation and navigation within a
given paradigm the connectome is a tool
that can help the synthesize various
aspects into mature work near the
exhaustion of a paradigm and the reset
is a tool to formulate a completely new
set of admissible problems a new
paradigm so when I read texts that
discuss artistic strategies I draw these
maps and locate the techniques mentioned
in a field that goes from perceptual to
conceptual and from specific to
universal qualities this is first
century BC with juvies and first century
AD do Chrysostom do Chrysostom is a
Greek orator and philosopher who spent
some time in the mission's Rome and
wrote a piece about the rules of art
that videos employed in his sculptural
work now if you have a map of strategies
to describe by a writer of an early
stage and another from a later stage of
the same paradigm you can compare it to
the contemporary situation and not only
locate yourself but also plan
anti-cyclical actions predict future
trends or work towards the exhaustion of
the paradigm by quickly solving all the
remaining puzzles connectome is a
neologism that it combines genome and
connection and means the entirety of
structural connections within the brain
or the infrastructure of thought but
that shows the hardware to understand
the way you think we must study
functional connections that means to
determine the regions of the brain that
are activated simultaneously and
communicate communicate with each other
the completive default mode shows more
activity in the back of the brain and
cognitive control has more activity in
the frontal lobe the brain uses
different frequencies of electromagnetic
impulses to synchronize information from
different sources and scientists came up
with five distinct channels involved in
these so-called multi-sensory processes
gamma is the high energy band for
cortical computation solving a math
problem for example beta is involved in
sensory motor activities alpha is
associated with the rest state of the
brain and therefore probably imagination
or contemplation theta is connected to
emotional arousal and Delta governs
motivational States and activity in the
reward system the important thing is
that they all can influence each other a
lot of activity in the gamma band can
influence the Delta band and the other
way around where the motivational state
acts like a hull curve - or cortical
operations and dealing with UT paper 
work when you're really hungry for
example that's a famous English poem and
you can see how the poet is activating
different mental and emotional faculties
in a well-orchestrated sequence
traversing from body to the mind and
back to the body by using this tool we
can bring together different aspects in
our design and near the end of a
paradigm work away from fragmentation to
wholeness from contradiction to
resolution and potentially make
architecture more humane through the
study of human nature lenin knew well
that love is not simply an emotion it is
much more than that and acts as a
unifying principle in the cosmos and
think about what we as architects would
need to do that people would actually
love our designs wouldn't that change
the way we look at the world in general
the third strategy I show today is the
reset that can be used to formulate an
entirely new set of model problems based
on preceding paradigms it's rather
simple you build a descriptive list of
two paradigms that exist here modernism
and post-modernism line up the
corresponding concepts ask yourself what
has not been covered and seems to be
interesting for future investigation and
come up with a new model problem that is
not just one more possibility but really
transcends the preceding problems as in
this example where you have the
opposition of form an anti form and the
related a qualitatively different
concept of the soul when hypotheses and
paradoxes have lost their appeal
ellipsis the omission of information can
become a new investing area of
investigation or if modernist
metaphysics are no longer relevant and
you had enough of postmodern irony why
not try poetry for a while in the last
couple of years I've been doing a lot of
resetting trying to define a new set of
model problems for future investigations
this is a high-rise project I designed
them by living in Tokyo and as you can
see it's very much inspired by the
Japanese way of breaking our program
into discrete units but I always felt
that imminent energy is more interesting
than expressive form and therefore I try
to merge the bottom-up approach with the
top-down move the project is not about
classicism per se it's more about the
affinity between European modernism
Japanese minimalism and Greek classicism
and of course lost column but other than
his Chicago Tribune Tower I have
on section the next project is a reset
attempt against the functionalist
paradigm in urbanism proposing an
elevated High Line for central Athens
it's a circle line that in special
locations can become a wall or a viaduct
but for most parts the circle avoid
around the Acropolis is filled with
walls and columns the basic DNA of
architecture the kind of anarchist
urbanism since there is no assigned
program and it's left to the people how
they want to appropriate the structure
at the time I proposed this in 2009 it
was also a Clinton statement against the
austerity program imposed by the
European Union by the way the idea that
often function is paradigm follows the
structure is approach to urbanism seem
to me even more evident of there found
June 1973 is issue of Cosabella in which
almost voluntary personal project was
published and literally the next page in
the magazine is an article that features
burned and he Rebecca's water tower
series that's the plan a circular and
porous antithesis to the Exodus proposal
balancing the urban chaos of central
Athens with an element of order a five
man long stoa which in itself again is
a chaotic assembly of orderly elements
some kind of infinite reflection between
the urban and the architectural my
entry open Helsinki competition
on the one hand side it's really an
actual proposal for a Museum of stacked
galleries with open space between them
so that people can meet and talk about
art not only consume it at the same time
it's a subversive comment on the
peculiar form of cultural imperialism
for which these projects stand for and
in another way again it's at the attempt
to fuse futurists in with classicism you
know the most people associate classical
architecture with monarchy or corporate
capitalism but I'm interested in it
because of its universality it connects
the east and the west north and south
and you can have curved straight lines
angle squares dots and circles
repetitions exceptions basically every
geometric expression you can think of
that's a plan for a visit the Center for
German Bundestag in Berlin rethinking
the wall and means in space by
introducing permeability and gradual
change and the view from the plot area
public where you can see the interplay
of massive wall sections with slender
columns the references to classical
architecture are becoming more and more
intertextual this is a project that I
built on top of a mountain in
Switzerland with a group of students
from epfl in 2015 the investigates
fundamentals of architecture such as
tectonics proportion relation to sight
light and shadow it can be read as a
commentary to the staggering volumes of
Brunelleschi's on Lorenzo and Palazzo
Pitti which I think inspired right to
the sliding eaves of Robie house this is
a photograph taken at 2:45 in the
afternoon when the angle of the Sun
makes the otherwise solid shadows
dissolve into bands of black and white
interview from the helicopter we were
lucky to have at our disposal for the
construction process most of these
projects were of course polemic and the
Liberty using the classical vocabulary
as a potential source for controversy
but as I said earlier my interest in
classicism is not primarily a semantic
one I'm interested in it because it is a
framework within which the syntax of
universalism seems possible for the
remainder of the lecture I would like to
talk about the two projects and I hope
to be able to take the next steps
towards a more Universal architecture of
the future first the Philip Glass House
a variation on the glass house theme as
it has been defined by Mies van der Rohe
in Philip Johnson and which is the
fellowship project I had the opportunity
to develop here at UT as the name also
implies investigates the possibility to
transfer compositional techniques used
by minimalist composers such as Steve
Reich or Roberto Philip Glass to
architecture we here we have a list of
topics from Japanese Greek Italian and
German architecture that constitute the
foundation for my design research to
experimental projects because I'm a
personal development I'm still far away
from a truly universal design and
hopeful though that I will get there
someday probably be around my 102nd
birthday I haven't got the name for the
new paradigm ray yet but the two
projects and developing at the moment
occupy different quadrants in the field
of admissible problems
one is a more balanced design in the
rational and simple section the second
one a more radical specimen in the
complex emotional corner as an
inspiration for the fellowship project I
visited amazingly beautiful landscapes
of Tennessee and rent the mists and
sacred formulas of the people who lived
here before they were driven out by the
settler colonial society that still
occupies the land today interesting
about Cherokees conception of natural
space is the fluidity and permeability
between the natural environment and the
human environment trees rocks and rivers
can be inhabited by spirits animals
stalks the human being beings and the
entire landscape works as a kind of
collective memory to the tribes in the
cosmogonic myths we can find an account
for how the appalachian mountains and
valleys are made by the great positive
flapping his wings that's the first
sketch that shows the fluidity and
permeability between natural space and
architectural space and the diagrams
that preceded the sketch where I
proposed the notion for the relationship
between space and structure that is
related to the conception of Mies and
Johnson but somewhat different from them
in that it specifically defines
architectural space as the interplay
between topography and man-made
structure some later sketches where the
idea of an architecture that is equally
informed by topography and structural
logic takes shape as some of you
might remember my talk a year ago that's
my solution to the problem how to find
the third structural archetype besides
the umbrella diagram and Johnson's desk
in Lee the necklace and my answer to the
problem of creating space differently
from Mies tradition and Johnson's
cardinal definition there is through
diagonal relations this is the plan that
resulted from these considerations and
you can see it and I'm using read
regulating circles to define the
orientation of the project when it's a
natural environment not unlike the
Greeks who used similar constructions to
define orientation and proportion of the
temples by the way this is - taken from
khador material occur from where the Le
Corbusier has his borrowed his
regulator
I'm not using the circus to rent my
temple according to some celestial
formations but according to the more
immediate context of rocks and trees
I made a 3d scan of the section of
Roaring Fork Creek and now therefore the
exact position of these elements the
white surfaces are horizontal sections
of trees that grow there and these
regulating circles do not only define
the orientation of the structure they
also control the position of columns the
beginning and ending and wall of walls
and even programmatic zones like lot
front yard back yard and entrance zones
in the development of the project I used
a similar strategy like the one Johnson
used to derive his glass house but
different from his dialectical table of
opposites I'm using the connecdome as a
vehicle towards a more universal design
process for each of the five levels of
mental sensibility and have five
corresponding design moves so for
example alpha addressing our imagination
by combining welfreds opposing
attributes gamma stimulating cortical
computation through the discussion of
historical precedent and theta causing
emotional arousal by applying
compositional techniques used by Philip
Glass and as you may have noticed in the
exhibition I try to follow this
multi-sensorial or a multi-modal
approach also in the presentation of the
project to the different media these are
images that show the Philip Glass House
in its natural habitat for some reason I
thought that my first project in the US
should be close to a waterfall
design not only relates to its context
in plan but also in perspective you see
the ambition to create a new entity
between the natural and the artificial
this angle you can see through the
structure down to the rock formation
that certain and look straight into the
eye of the River God to whom this temple
is dedicated patients are going to be
exactly the same but the antropomorphic
gesture of the architecture will be
perceptible an interior view where my
vision of spatial complexity achieved
through rule and exception becomes
apparent I want to create an
architecture of relationships musical
relationships if possible this kind of
looks like Philip Glass sounds now
as in Greek classical architecture the
complexity resides within simplicity and
simplicity emerges from complexity I'm
interested in the dual nature of the
Doric temple which oscillates between
plasticity and linearity some close-up
pictures that show the structural
details the actual load-bearing
structure is not the cereal I beam
attention Abel's in combination with
spacers that line them up in curves like
poles in a necklace the white line here
that's just paint but it clarifies the
structural relationship and it's
actually derived from Cherokee ornament
you can find in their quilt work or the
suspension device for the glass walls
also evocative of tribal ornamentation
the capital of the columns is derived
from the ones at the Palace of Knossos
or the Johnson max company except that
there are more suggestive with their
receding akeno's here an idea that comes
from the supple adjustments found in
Doric homes which were slightly grinded
down along the perimeter to prevent them
from splintering of marble chips at the
occurrence of an earthquake and
eventually one or two words and remarks
about teleclass I really love his music
predominantly for two things first of
all it's incredibly beautiful but beyond
that I admire him and the other
minimalists because they have found a
way to leave the fragmentation and
contradiction of European surrealism
behind and enter a new world where
resolution harmony and wholeness is
again possible in other words
contemporary classical music that people
actually do like to listen to some of
the techniques they're using in their
compositions you can see here phase
shift is basically what you have in a
Canon where different voices sing the
same melody but with their entries
shifted in time Terra's transformation
is a very typical focus and it means
that you double or quadruple notes
before altering them or repetitive
structures there are more prominent
features of his compositions the
interesting thing is that the melody is
not defined by the succession of
individual notes but rather by the
melodic figure that emerges from or
hovers above the repetitive elements
translated into architecture it looks
like this
is what happens between floor and
ceiling the ceiling is actually a
scaled-down mirror image of the floor
shifted by two units towards the right
resulting in some kind of dynamic
symmetry there are transformations are
responsible that not one i-beam but
always a pair of them describe the same
curves around the rocks and finally
repetitive repetitive structure and its
architectural equivalent of the i-beam
that is repeated 36 times but in
perspective leads were all kind of
emergent phenomena the importance now is
not on the repeated elements but on its
interaction with other elements and the
emergent phenomena that this interaction
creates I took the relationship between
architecture music one step further and
literally translated architectural
dimensions into musical pitches and with
this free we're here I tested the
harmony of proportions in my project so
this the first piece is without phase
shift
and the second version is with face
shift
exactly like in a class about an
improvement and I'm kind of
seriously proposing this technique for
the purpose of detecting the need for
aesthetic refinement in architectural
compositions and the last image for its
project without the context so that the
structural relationships you will be
able to experience and moving around it
on site become visible
and we'd like to end with the preview of
a project I'm also working on at the
moment right now at the curve country
house a curvilinear version of Miss free
country house from 1923 based again on a
similar list of architectural topics
dealing with site space and structure
but conceived as a counterpart to the
Philip Glass House the Glass House being
the Renaissance project and the country
house being its baroque sibling this is
some sort of meta experiment in the
process of creation that advances the
question what will happen to our work if
and ourselves if we increase the
frequency of the cycles will we become
more Universal if he constantly force
ourselves to change our point of view
with a work have greater chance to reach
resolution and wholeness at some point I
can architecture act as some kind of
therapy I don't know but I'm ready to
try so the basic theme of the next
project is not about compositional
proportion but movement and gesture
movement and gesture that this suggests
suggestive of something immaterial not
dynamism of art an actual form per se as
in these night paintings when I had the
lamps attached to my body and moved
around in empty space the body is
invisible but at the same time present
through its movement some examples for
curves that are suggestive in the way I
imagined it I can spend hours and days
drawing them by hand scanning them
tracing the Medicaid program printing
and redrawing them another example for a
design should that should suggestive
curve where an entire architectural
universe is condensed into a few
oscillations between the convex and the
concave this is an image of a laser
projector I directed towards the abscess
in Borromini's on Colorado Quattro
Fontana and recently I discovered a new
technique how to create a highly complex
biomorphic shapes using analog and
digital technologies and I get a
synergetic Lee this is the result of
mixing hydrocal with concrete
edge and throwing everything into the
deep freezer after it has solidified you
can take a 3d scan of the bubble texture
and scale it in one direction in Rhino
which gives you a highly differentiated
three-dimensional curve scape which that
leads to me and this fellow here appears
to be a rather inviting
that's erected near precedent nice long
house in box 9 from 1923 and this is my
dissection of it separating different
structural entities such as the 19th
century boudoir the mirrored L the TT
the corner fold of the vertical
ballerina which I intend to transform
into curvilinear doppelgangers my
credential said if you imitate other
people's work you will never go past
them which can be reinterpreted in the
sense that if you want to go something a
specific try to find his sources so
that's the source of miss country house
white fairy house and they were
published in 1910 in the first volume of
the Voskhod portfolios and you can see
that the basic idea of five rooms
organized the same in a centrifugal way
around the proverbial harf can be read
much easier in write scheme and some
other president I'm interested in is the
spatial logic of China ishigami house
and restaurant there are free form
bubbles defined more or less confined
spaces and say Jima as mu Sumida hokusai
Museum where we can find a particularly
elegant and feminine interpretation of
Michelangelo's sublime gesture that's
the first study model five rooms
organized around the central void so
think about the people as a space
defined by curved walls the idea does is
that curved walls move around these
spatial containers and that in the
project will have an interplay between
dynamic form and Static space which i
think is different from most
contemporary architectural dynamism very
structure is dynamic and so a space
that's a very quick study I did for the
lecture tonight to illustrate the idea
it's far from what i have in mind but
you can see how freeform curved walls
can potentially define suggest or
circumscribed
enclosed spaces to sum up I hope that
some of you have discovered one or two
strategies how to look at the design
process from a different point of view
and embark on the journey of
universalism I really feel that the only
way to solve the challenges of the
present and near future is the first
address them on a personal level and
snap back from shopping off the
responsibility to institutions
technology or the Society of others it's
ultimately about the Socratic legacy
only the examined life is worth living
and the only way of life to which we can
constantly grow change develop and
become better human beings if you like
to paint it black to get there by way of
catharsis or if you prefer it in color
in the 21st century there's no way to
avoid the question of universal
togetherness thank you hey thanks Darius
that was really really cool I really
liked weaves of many different parts of
the project or parts of your practices
that were across each other I really do
think that contingency is like a project
of the 21st century that so many things
are contingent on each other and it's
hard to it's hard to say one thing is
just that or the other and I was just
thinking across the Philip Glass House
and I wonder if like given given the
really interesting fantastic
representation across the way over there
I wonder if you see the Philip Glass
Houses showing up in different modes or
speeds and that like would I encounter
it the same each time and is that do you
think that's caught up in the way it in
the way you represent the work or that
it's like how does it how does it act
when it becomes a physical thing in the
world and that's the experiment I'm
happy to do in a couple of weeks or over
the summer I don't know yet how this is
yeah I think anyway you know like these
projects they they they usually they
stay a paper architecture and and they
they are done to be politic published
together with an article so I hope to
really actually build it in
in an actual site and see how you know
like it interacts with visitors and and
the site and learn from that and use
that as a kind of a critical practice
towards a architectural project of the
future that will be more permanent the
that version is just one amongst many
others that you've already produced now
is that is that true no that's a
different that's a different one that's
a qualitatively different than what
saying because it's really it's trying
to to really work with all the the kind
of theoretical ideas themes aspects that
I've been developing over the last
couple of years it's the first one that
brings these things really together and
the others were small tries competitions
that they were done in a couple of weeks
and that's a project that really goes on
now for a longer period of time
thank you very much Darius that was
really really fascinating and I was just
wondering if you had any I mean what
what I really thought was interesting is
you presented a very interesting and
kind of rational way of mapping out your
design process and I'm just wondering
what you think about perceptions that
are unmediated by any of that so for
example how how how do you how do you
think about communicating with audiences
who can't access so for example someone
who happens upon the Philip Glass House
with you not being there without knowing
how do they how how do they proceed how
do you think that they begin to
understand what that is I mean knowing
nothing about Philip Glass or nothing
about just coming upon it randomly I
suppose so I I really hope that many of
these aspects and especially the
universal approach of the architect is
something you can experience just as a
normal person visiting the project and
seeing the diversity of geometric
operations and the architectural
language I think that's something that
I'm trying at least you know like with
with the connecdome to to enable for a
larger audience to to access it and to
connect to it because you know like we
all have different preferences some are
more interested in in higher cortical
operations and some others are more
acceptable for emotions and I think if
you try to offer for everyone something
that is evocative then you you might be
able to hear to address them and to just
have accents no
thank you thank you I think um
the sort of visual quality of your
presentation is so stunning that my
question I guess really it's more to
what you have to let go of when you're
applying the processes that you're
talking about in order to focus in the
way that you're hoping to it seems you
have to make some things minor that
manifesting it as a physical thing we'll
have to come back into the equation okay
yeah it must be exhausting and
frustrating and imagine you're sort of
leaving your studio to just go for a
walk all right and so at some point one
has to decide what you will make less
important in order to develop the
relationships that you see most salient
in the work mm-hmm yet to make it
manifest you can't let go of all of
those in some way so I'm just curious if
there's a process that starts to
evaluate to do that you mean like
editing getting rid of extra things that
are not necessary to the project or I
guess for the clarity of making the
process and the argument that you are
making it would be I guess I think of it
more as shedding in some way but one
will accrue I guess the contingencies
that are being suggested are I don't
know there's some there's a strong
materiality to work sometimes but only
with some aspects of materiality in
order to make them powerful so when
others start to influence that
differently I'm just wondering how one
continues to refine the myriad things
that you have to be responsive to to
weave these together with the clarity
that you are seeking question or a
comment yeah so
you know that the goal is to master a
very complex a process and to to have
various aspects represented in the
architectural product at the end so I
think the editing happens before and I I
developed this project other than other
projects that I develop a lot through
sketching and develop developed it in
you know imagination long before I
really picked up the demands for the
first time so it I think the editing
process happened pace okay in a specific
project the Philip Glass House which is
really about rational decision-making
and I think the editing happened before
before it actually became a materialized
into architecture and or if you would
give me a clear specific example of what
do you think okay wouldn't need so that
there specifically but something is
specific I guess in the in the Athens
example it would be the city right that
some this ring and the sort of power
that you described somehow in its
context that is less controllable then
wondering how they it can't I don't
that's that's one example that came to
mind right I think you've you know
you've kind of lifted the veil you know
between the gallery installation the
results and viewership of the results
and your process here and so a lot of
people are probably digesting that to
some extent that's how I take your
question or your comment Trisha is just
you believe it described and one
the job
and that's a contradiction or evolution
okay yeah you know the thing is it's
it's kind of strange to to show all
these operations and to really let you
in and lift the whale in all these
thoughts but I that's somehow the way
how I approach architecture and I think
it it's more interesting I liked
lectures better when people talk about
their you know considerations and their
references and what they really think
that they that brings them to a formal
decision or a kind of a specific
architectural product rather than
hearing stories about the site and that
the clients who were involved and what
happened on the third day and there was
a leak in the in the in the ceiling like
these things that they're nice
interesting but at the beginning of a
career I think it's interesting if you
really lay that open and make it
accessible to other people so that they
can react to it and always when I meet
with with close friends who are
architects then we always talk about
these things and we don't talk about the
leak in the roof when you were when you
were lecturing I was thinking about
Japan and some time that that you and I
had with others recently there and it's
one of my experiences was just being
yoked if you will back and forth between
silence and a kind of historic and deep
singular space and just on the one hand
and then on the other hand the kind of
chaotic super energy of the city you
know it's lights it's level of activity
it's crowdedness all of that stuff and I
you know I was thinking about that as
you were showing this and there's some
motivation I would say towards the
silent and the singular and and I'm
curious if you feel like the kind of
noise of the city or the the kind of
contingency of the contemporary is an
operating condition for you that you
simply footnote or are you really
looking to kind of find that silence and
find that the kind of singularity
without regard to the lark that larger
cultural context
and in Japan that oscillation was super
clear to me yeah I definitely think that
silence and contemplation is something
that we have to engage much more in the
future you know to really really define
the way we want to go with with society
with where we want to go with the world
all together I think that mode
definitely has to come back to our
thinking and maybe architecture can help
and for me in in in that in these
projects I'm doing it for myself you
know I'm going to Greece and I'm
spending two months in in the landscape
thinking and being silent and like
having a very very simple kind of
primitive way of life and yeah that's
definitely some vision and half of the
future we have to introduce that
component or this aspects of human
nature again to what we're doing with
just constantly living in the humming
and of the of the of the metropolis I
think it's it's masking a lot of
essential things that we should think
about right now one more question
so I won't be as articulate as you have
been but certainly I appreciated this
meta view  of philosophy and the big
picture within which you look at your
work and so I wanted to ask you from a
Universalist way of thinking if you
think a kind of dialectic is a
Universalist way of thinking and so
specifically you know the German
tradition and then Wolfe Lin and
Renaissance and Baroque and the way you
just talked about the specific in the
universal but just setting up these kind
of you know opposite poles but then
stepping back and thinking of yin and
yang and you know is this a universal
way of looking at the world and looking
at opposites and then trying to figure
out the spectrum between opposites yeah
I think that's you know polarities or
dialectic relationships are definitely
the starting point you know that's the
way how we can compare and connect
things and then if you want to have five
things connected we still have to
compare two things we have to think
about similarities we cannot think about
similarities of five things or ten
things at the same time
we really have to start with smaller
pieces that we can process and I think
the dialectic and the polar opposites
they are the starting point towards
universalism so you just add them and
you know I combine them and then build
hierarchical structures and combine
opposites of larger higher entities
classes yeah so it's the beginning if
you want to go I think no that's that's
my personal point of view but if you
want to go towards universalism you have
to start one to want to connect two
things to thoughts and then integrate it
into larger structures
that's gonna be the political question
now no that was a really awesome
presentation I used to be a neuroscience
major so that was really up my alley
I'm a little bit conflicted just like
internally when I think of like
universalism I guess I think of like
what what he said about like silence and
like unity but also then I think about
all the problems in the world and all
the differences that we have and what if
like we can't communicate these
connections with people who aren't
designers that's like my I guess my
question we cannot communicate the
connections between like all of us and
like everything and like but don't you
think that the architecture has the
potential to create exactly that you
know that space where people can come
together and and meet and exchange and
and I think there's a design moves and
decisions that you can take to either
enable that and foster that the kind of
quality or you can go against it and I
think maybe architects I have a
suspicion and I'm not sure if it's true
but architects they have a very specific
kind of aesthetics and they love certain
things and they love certain things
because other architects love them too
you know that's a kind of a group
aesthetics and that thing not always
you know like matches what people like
what people love as a space they don't
feel comfortable in a completely
antiseptic modernist
cleaned out in like a glass cube that's
not what they what they prefer so I
think we we just the study of the brain
- the study of human nature we can get
closer to a real understanding of our
client or you know the people that
actually inhabit architecture at the end
so I think that study has to be done and
if you do it if you if you go into
neuroscience then suddenly it becomes
easy for you it's something that you
want to do it's something that you that
you can attain as a positive thing and
not something that you have to cut off
from your being an architect thank you
