LSBU Critical Reading 2017 - James Pinkney

I, I will be king And you, you will be queen Though nothing, will drive them away We can beat them, just for one day We can be heroes, just for one day. One man against the world. One man unwilling to compromise. Rourke the hero. The Marvel Architect. Ayn Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead’ a genre defining piece of Neo-liberal propaganda which would begin to define a generation of political thinking within the United States. It may be somewhat surprising then to find a creative at the centre of the story however there is very little comment trough out the piece on the quality of the architecture. Modernism is used to represent an uncompromising new age. One of the very rare moments of nuance or attempts of subtlety in book (or subsequent film) permits the true reveal of comparisons between modernism and the economic model in favour. In a curious moment when editors at ‘The Banner’ (the newspaper which had previously lead to the destitution of Rourke’s mentor) meet to discuss the sub...

MESSAGE!  MESSAGE NOT MASSAGE! MESSAGE! Massage: the typo in the title retained by McLuhan as if to prove the point entirely. That point being, of course, that medium in which the message is delivered is more important than the message itself. Immediately alarm bells ring. The content is unimportant? Should be disregarded? A moment of further analysis will realise that the message McLuhan is conveying cannot be that easily trivialised into the sound bite newspeak. If one were to attempt to compress McLuhan’s actual message, you may end up concluding with something more akin to: The method of communication has more of an effect on history than one particular message. Not as catchy however much easier to relate too and understand. The main example used to explain McLuhan’s thought process is the invention of the printing press in the 15 th Century. Suddenly information could be ‘mass’ produced. No longer was the written word only the reserve of the aristocracy and clerg...

Natural vs Customary? The real juxtaposition between modern and classical Architecture? Terms coined by the great sir Christopher Wren, Natural beauty tied to the mathematical principals of classical geometry whereas Customary beauty is defined by the user or environment. Throughout ‘The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa, Rowe explores how both classical and modern architecture juggle these same contexts with similar results. Rowe is very much of the previous generation. In a world today where one has to prove his worth in pounds and pence, there isn’t room for the merlot soaked philosophies of the 20 th century academic. The last of his kind, Rowe has become seen as an almost comical figure. However, for all his witticisms, the concepts and ethos became a driver for the start of post modernism, culminating in the work of his former draughtsman James Stirling. So are modernism and classicism just two sides of coin. A slow evolution not uprooting revolution which the early 1900...