today

Today I started a conversation with an older archie who is currently pursuing her Master's in historic preservation at Columbia! It's so exciting to be able to talk to someone about a similar interest like this. Even though I'm still very unsure about what my future will hold, the ability to even have someone older to talk to who's in the field feels so secure. Everything she had to say, too, was not only happy and uplifting, but it was stuff that I am looking for. I know that for me to jump to conclusions and dive into something too quickly is a very bad thing - my fire burns out fast. But there is just some new turning-of-a-page feeling that's come from this whole realization that I enjoy and miss seeing Ostia, Trento, Piensa, all of these old towns in Italy and especially all of the old treasures that are nestled into them.

Now it's just a matter of getting myself past DD... I also had a great conversation today with Christine - a girl who went to Italy with us and has just gone through DD - very successfully, her project was voted the 'best' by the professors. While my fears rose hearing that we HAVE to use Microstation for EVERYTHING: renders, drawings, 3D modeling... anddd I also heard about it being a real, awful hell. Printing is going to be a nightmare, getting my partner to wake up and come into studio is going to be a nightmare... but she also is very positive and said that if I liked the Enclosures-type classes (which I most certainly do!) then I might be in a very good position for the type of work they are looking for in DD. She's also the second group that I've heard never pulled an all-nighter in DD - there was another group, two boys from that grade that had an awesome project and slept every night (okay, I'll admit I don't exactly see this happening to me, but it's nice to dream). It was nice to see that she too said she'd be willing to talk about things as I'm going through DD, which after the position I've been in this summer - to entirely walk out on the school of architecture - the best thing I can have right now is some support from people like these. For now I think I just need to keep focused on what I want to do with my future - continue searching out my interestes in the historic stuff and make sure to choose and interesting and challenging project for DD that can keep us occupied and guessing all semester long.

What this post was going to start-off as, was actually discussing this book I've been reading again: The Timeless Way of Building. I'm now onto page 400 and it keeps getting better. I had to stop myself from reading it past 2.45 last night (morning?) because my brain was starting to hurt so much - I was literally being taken away with all of these ideas. So once again, here are some quotes I've pulled from this marvelous book that I'd like to share:

" It is terribly hard to make precise statements which really get to the heart of the matter. Every observation, like the one about the mystery of house entrances, starts with intuition. The task of identifying just precisely thoe relations that are at the heart of such an intuition is no easier in architecture than it is in physics, or biology, or mathematics. Noone can tell you how to do it in science, noone can tell you how to do it in design."

"By contrast, patterns made from thought, without feeling, lack empirical reality entirely."

"We can always ask ourselves how a pattern makes us feel - and we can always ask the same of someone else... he can do experiments to 'prove' something is better - cleaner, healthier, but this is not admitting his feelings while being there."

"So often people choose to put their own opinions forward, in place of reality. Saying people should 'learn to do this' is wishful thinking and the concept will fail - you cannot just claim that a force existing in reality does not exist. Yet it is hard to give up preconceptions of what things 'ought to be' and recognize things as they really are."

"In eary times the city itself was intended as an image of the universe - its form a guarantee of the connection between the heavens and the earth, a picture of a whole and coherent way of life."

"Each language tugs at the fabric of the larger language, pulls with it other larger patterns, and in this fashion then helps to repair the larger whole. Thus, within the larger language, it is impossible for any act not to help to repair the larger whole... A man who builds a house, and has a language for a house, will also help to build the larger street outside his house, generate the patterns which form the street outside his house. A child who helps shape his room will also help generate the larger patterns for the stairway and the common space outside his room." - like the brain, neural networks, unfolding, overlapping, connections new old repeat



Well, once again these quotes are probably just misleading and strange to anyone who isn't reading the book
but to know the depth of these ideas - they would really blow your mind. I guess there's not much more to say about today either. Went shopping with mom and the sis, which has been nice - shopping with them is more common this summer than ever before so I kind of feel like I'm being included a bit more in the family. Disappointing though my best friend can't even find time to talk to me... but that's not something I'll get into right now. There's probably many things going on on her side of things that I have no idea about, so I can in no way begin to judge. Ahh - so bad I need to stop mentioning little perks of personal stuff within these blog posts... that's what my sketchbook is for haha too bad it's so much easier to just sit here and type... but really no, I can't say that because I am more deeply in love with my sketchbook than with any computer. Ciao.

- c