voussoirs: THOUGHTS ON TINY HOUSES

Saturday 21 May 2022

THOUGHTS ON TINY HOUSES

Was it Kevin McCloud of Grand Designs who popularised the tiny home with his ‘man cave’ experiment – his Man Made Home?: see – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhhIc_uG4Zk; or was it George Clark of Amazing Spaces who subsequently seemed enthused enough to refurbish an old 1950’s caravan and turn it into a weekender in the Lakes District, complete with a fold-out wall/balcony similar to that of the ‘man cave’? - see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrRzofLLI5o. Whoever it was – maybe both have played a part – interest in tiny houses has grown. In Australia, the exponential growth in house prices over 2021/2022 seems to have stimulated interest in these little places that have been suggested as alternative options for dwelling, as well as extra space in the backyard for an office, a work area, a retreat, a granny flat, or whatever one might envisage or require. Reports of world-wide interest in tiny houses has supported the local enthusiasm in much the same manner as the international re-use of shipping containers adapted for similar purposes has.# The difference here is that shipping containers do not have wheels: see – https://www.autoevolution.com/news/20-ft-petrichor-tiny-house-has-a-certain-je-ne-sais-quoi-plus-an-electronic-cat-flap-189279.html.

Somewhat alarmingly, McCloud started his Man Made Home experiment with the idea that his little home would be built on an old chassis complete with wheels in order to overcome the local planning rules. While it would not look like one, his home would be a ‘mobile’ home, and, as such, would not have to get planning approval. To overcome the obvious problem with this ‘solution’ that might make this experiment for television viewers look just like a silly caravan, McCloud dug a hole so that the shed on wheels would look as though it was sitting on the ground, hugging place. This little shelter was going to have all of the trappings of the primitive hut, so it would be incongruous to have it sitting up on wheels.

The solution was cleverly shrewd, but it set a terrible example for everyone in devising a way to overcome planning regulations: see – https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2022/05/is-breaking-rules-clever.html. There is enough of a problem with rule breaking in the world today without having a ‘TV guru’ promoting the strategy as an acceptable solution to anything; a smart guise; or even something to boast about. One might have hoped for a far more responsible approach than this, because the tiny house movement that has become so popular, has followed the example and promoted the small house on wheels: a silly caravan. Perhaps Clark has been more open in maintaining his refurbishment as a caravan, albeit as a rather exotic extreme that will, ironically, probably prove to be less mobile than McCloud’s home. In a subsequent programme – did McCloud have to move his home, or was the idea to overcome the trickery? - the little hand-crafted home was eventually moved to be relocated on a clifftop, to have some more bits and pieces added to it. Perhaps this shift was only to perpetuate the TV series, to create extra programmes? Whatever it was, the structure was indeed transported, perhaps using its wheels for some of the move, if not all.

Not a very mobile addition.

It was immediately obvious that the idea of digging a hole for the chassis to sit in, so that the wheels would be hidden, was a silly idea. Would water pond under the house? How would a flat tyre be pumped up or replaced? How might the completed house be pulled out other than by carrying out extensive earthworks, effectively digging it out by creating a ramp for the extraction? Maybe a crane might be essential? It seemed to be a short-term idea, suitable for a TV programme set, but it was promoted as otherwise. It does not appear to have been a strategy that is followed by many, but the idea of concealing the wheels on these tiny homes that seek to avoid planning regulations, is being addressed in a variety of other ways. Low-to-ground decks, stairs, and balconies seem to be the most popular approach, but these are all usually not mobile. The fold-down wall/balcony of the TV experiments is not something that has been regularly reproduced; but one still wonders if the tiny homes on wheels one frequently sees in media reports come with a jacking system, or even a spare tyre. How ‘mobile’ are these places intending to be? The low decks seem to suggest some degree of permanence, leaving one worrying about how the tyres might be pumped up when required. The question is: are the wheels merely a planning solution, items that will never have to function? Could one consider these ‘decoration’? The idea makes one wonder about ‘wheel appliques’ – either plastic paste-ons; photographic image inserts; or ‘clip-on’ wheels, like clip-on ties and bow ties. Would the planners care? If they fall for the “Look, this is a mobile home; it has real wheels” trick, wheels that will never rotate, why would they be worried about decorative wheel additions? The situation turns planning into a farce.

Neither house nor caravan, just an awkward in-between.

The situation needs to be resolved by the planners, as it is currently just foolish, with small, permanent homes being considered ‘mobile’ in order to overcome the rules, just with the addition of wheels. Instead of having some sense of place and permanence which they obviously seek, these structures stand in the no-man’s-land of the between: they are neither a permanent little home, nor an efficient recreational vehicle or a caravan. If one really wants a good RV or a caravan, then there are many options to choose from already without building a permanent home on wheels, complete with every cliché one might hope for in a dwelling. Everything about these little places squeals out 'permanent home' – even the name: tiny house. Externally, they look like tiny traditional houses, with wheels added; internally, they seek to offer everything that one could expect in a permanent home: such is the intent. Mobility has nothing to do with things other than in accommodating the rules.

The interiors are "just like home."

Ironically, permanent low decks offer additional external space.

The rules need to be changed. Once this has been done, a whole new world of certainty and invention will arise. Once the rules for permanent tiny homes are established, then designers will be able to give attention to, not just the problem of fitting wheels onto the structure, and then worrying about how to hide them, but how to develop options for these little houses. One could see group little houses;# or add-on options, allowing little houses to grow into larger assemblies; or ideas on how these little places could be continued to be used alone in a backyard, or in the bush, without the hassle of proof of mobility, when sense of place can be assured. It has to happen if this present farce is to be overcome, and regard for planning regulations is to be regained. Currently all the energy is going into ignoring regulations, rather than in complying with them. The outcome has to be a shambles. We need to get back in control and devise ways to manage out cities, towns, and countryside. Currently we have nothing in the city fabric between a permanent house, and a mobile tiny home, an RV, and a caravan. The rules say that a permanent home has to be of a certain size, or be ‘mobile.’ This needs to be addressed.

One of the few folding decks.

One wonders about the number of wheels: does more mean more mobile intentions?

There might be some romanticism in the transience of a caravan park, but this deteriorates into a terrible shambles once it becomes permanent, and comes with some stigma. We need to give thought to tiny homes, what the rules need to be to allow these to become a part of our urban structure. We need to discern their role; how they can become adequate in providing not only real comfort, but privacy too. How might they successfully cluster and grow? What might the rules for privacy be – for noise; for vision? How is health managed, including mental health? What is the minimum space and distance needed for satisfaction and contentment? ‘Wheels’ seem a terrible solution to excuse anyone from considering these matters. The world has a big enough problem now with things labelled ‘fake,’ without promoting fake wheels as a way of solving housing problems. Surely change must be welcomed, if only to give respect back to our planners and their rules. We already have a large enough problem with enforcement without encouraging such a dismissive strategy.

George Bernard Shaw outside his 'mobile' home.

If we truly want mobile homes, then we should look to the example of George Bernard Shaw, who built a tiny retreat for himself that could pivot, allowing him to push it around to let it follow the sun. He wanted to be able to sit and write in sunlight all day. One can also look at the tiny places that have already been squeezed into cities, and be inspired to create rules to allow more and varied approaches to civic infill. There is a future here that needs to be grasped rather than ignored with a sleight of concept.

NOTE:

Perhaps planning needs to become more of a performance description rather than seeking to prescribe by defining outcomes by type, form, and dimension. Better results could be achieved by deciding on requirements for sunlight; breezes; noise pollution; visual pollution; public open space; private open space; views; trees; shade; etc. Now one finds oneself in the world of Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language. Using something like this, in association with The Nature of Order, outcomes might be more humane; life-enhancing with an inner beauty, as Alexander once noted. Planning today gives us an horrendous set of conditions as outcomes, disguised in architectural style. It seems capable of accommodating anything. The matters listed above as starting points to be considered by way of example, are all ignored by planners who couldn’t care less if a space received no sunlight or breezes, was noisy and never private. There are numerous examples of such outcomes that have all received planning approval. It seems that anything might be better; but once one is dealing with tiny things, matters all become more critical – hence the importance of planning; of resolving the madness of the ‘wheel’ approval.

There is much to ponder.

23 MAY 22

Decks hide the wheels and the chassis, (at least on one side), to make it look like a real house.

24 MAY 22

POD VILLAGE

A village of shipping containers has been set up for those left homeless by the floods in Lismore, Australia, 2022: see - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-23/pod-village-flood-recovery-northern-rivers-welcomes-stability/101085672

What might a village of tiny houses look like?

25 May 2022

If one really wanted a ‘mobile home,’ then something like this would be far superior than a box on wheels: see - https://www.autoevolution.com/news/eos-12-camper-trailer-brandishes-american-glamping-muscle-for-no-less-than-75k-189384.html

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/sowelo-tiny-house-is-one-of-australia-s-forbidden-fruits-you-must-wait-until-it-s-ripe-189051.html

27 MAY 22

See - https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/best-tiny-house/ - The 5 best tiny houses: Modern tiny homes for any space.

29 MAY 2022

The tiny homes keep appearing. Here is yet another, the Grand Sojourner - a clever name meaning 'a temporary resident,' reinforcing the idea of mobility: see - https://www.autoevolution.com/news/versatile-tiny-home-grand-sojourner-boasts-a-spacious-interior-ideal-for-big-families-189814.html It clearly comes, like most of the tiny houses, complete with wheels and a tow bar, equipment one usually sees on a caravan; but will this tiny house ever be able to be registered to go onto a public road? It is all just too tricky.

Could one suggest that it is ‘living the lie’? What is the weight of this tiny house? What is needed to pull it along? What clearance has it for towing? What is its height? The farce needs to be resolved. At 2.5 metres wide, it is the maximum width for a caravan in Australia. Its length is said to be 9 metres, but it is not known if this is the total length that includes chassis and accessories. The maximum length for a caravan is 12.5 metres. The height is not given, but it seems to be about 3.6 metres plus ground clearance; perhaps about 4.0 metres. The maximum height is 4.3 metres, including all hatches and accessories. It is sized to fit within the caravan rules, has wheels and a tow bar, but it is not a caravan. One wonders how well it might tow to arrive at its next sojourn.

The Grand Sojourner

30 MAY 22

And there is more: see – https://www.autoevolution.com/news/eone-is-a-tiny-home-designed-to-unlock-a-whole-new-world-of-glamping-wonders-189735.html. This article gives details of the weight of this tiny house – 5,443 kilograms. The towing capacity of a Subaru Outback is 1,200 kilograms; that of the Toyota Prado is 3,000 kilograms. We need to stop the pretence of mobility, and acknowledge that the game is all about cheating the planning regulations, nothing else, even though this tiny house called The eOne, is built by a company with a mobile-sounding name: Escape Traveler. It seems that this model will not see much travelling.

1 JUNE 22

A tiny house without wheels!! - see; https://www.designboom.com/architecture/first-3d-printed-tiny-house-europe-3dcp-05-30-2022/. What one needs to know is what the rules are for such tiny houses: there has to be a strict set of planning guidelines and rules if such places are to play a significant role in our lives beyond some fantasy of temporary/permanent tiny housing that is here further dramatised with 3D printing.

4 JUNE 22

An advertisement for tiny homes (without wheels) - Granny Flats, Tiny Homes, and Cottages: see – https://www.containerdomesandshelters.com.au/product-category/all-products/portable-buildings/. The need for a comprehensive set of rules has become essential. The aesthetics of the tiny home also needs to be debated. Should they look like a replica ‘tiny’ traditional house; a stylish caravan; a modern ‘styled’ house; or a refrigerated box? Should they respond to context, or be the equivalent of a transient alien?

A new 'fold-out' cottage on wheels.

A Chinese folding house.

And another - The Dot House Is a Prefab Tiny Home With Spot-On Finishes:

see – https://www.dwell.com/article/dot-house-boano-prismontas-prefab-tiny-home-london-fa9b0072. The future could have tiny houses dotted all over the place, willy-nilly. One might be fine, and appear to be splendid; but many might make slums if we are not careful.

See also: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2021/04/wheres-granny-flat.html for the problem of multiples.

The Dot House.

No comments:

ON GARDENING

I am strongly of the opinion that the possession of a quantity of plants, however good the plants may be themselves and however ample their number, does not make a garden; it only makes a collection. Having got the plants, the great thing is to use them with careful selection and definite intention. Merely having them, or having them planted unassorted in garden spaces, is only like having a box of paints from the best colourman, or, to go one step further, it is like having portions of these paints set out upon a palette. This does not constitute a picture; and it seems to me that the duty we owe our gardens and to our own bettering in our gardens is so to use plants that they shall form beautiful pictures; that, while delighting our eyes, they should be always training those eyes to a more exulted criticism; to a state of mind and artistic conscience that will not tolerate bad or careless combination or any sort of misuse of plants, but in which it becomes a point of honour to be always striving for the best. Gertrude Jekyll Colour in the Flower Garden Mitchell Beazley London 1998 – Introduction (first published 1908)

MORE IS LESS

Significantly, in the era of the ‘information revolution’, the same process is now affecting disinformation: whereas in the past it was lack of information and censorship which characterized the denial of democracy by the totalitarian state, the opposite is now the case. Disinformation is achieved by flooding TV viewers with information, with apparently contradictory data. The truth of the facts is censured by over-information, as we have seen from the press and television discussing the Balkans. The globalitarian state, built out of economic-strategic alliances, is no longer old ‘Anastasia’ with her scissors: it is Babel. Now more is less. And in some cases, less than nothing. Deliberate manipulation and unintentional accidents have become indistinguishable.

Paul Virilio Strategy of Deception Verso 2007 p.48

(first published Editions Galilee 1999)

‘That which precedes the event is not necessarily its cause,’ claims the wisdom of the ancients. p.76

As Negroponte has rightly remarked, with the ‘liberation of information’ on the Web, what is most lacking is meaning or, in other words, a context into which Internet users could put the facts and hence distinguish truth from falsehood. On the Web, where, as everyone knows, the terrorist temptation is constant and where depredations of hackers are committed with impunity in a strange state of legal indeterminacy, the difference between (true) information and (false) deception fades a little more each day. In entering the looking-glass worlds of television and home computers, we are in the end left in the position of Kinglake’s old ‘English soldiery’. As they saw it,

insofar as the battlefield presented itself to the bare eyesight of men, it had no entirety, no length, no breadth, no size, no shape and was made up of nothing . . . In such conditions, each separate gathering . . . went on fighting its own little battle in happy and advantageous ignorance of the general state of the action; nay, even very often in ignorance of the fact that any great conflict was raging.

As Albert Camus asserted: ‘When we are all guilty, that will be true democracy.’ p.78

ENCOUNTERING CONRAD

Ryszard Kapuściński The Other Verso London 2018, p. 92

At the end of his book, Kapuściński asks whether, in our encounters with others in the future:

Will we jointly wish to refer to what – as Conrad puts it - ‘speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation – and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts: to the solidarity of dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope, in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all humanity – the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.’?*

* J. Conrad, Preface to The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’: A Tale of the Sea, New York: W.W.Norton, 1979.

Architecture stands in between of all of these circumstances of encounter, but how does it explain itself beyond being a bespoke ‘grand design’ of a potential genius?

ON THE CULTURE OF OTHERS

Herodotus . . . wanted to know them because he understood that to know ourselves we have to know Others, who act as a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected; he knew that to understand ourselves better we have to understand Others, to compare ourselves with them, to measure ourselves against them. As a citizen of the world, he did not believe that we should isolate ourselves from Others, or slam the gates in their faces. Xenophobia, Herodotus implied, is a sickness of people who are scared, suffering an inferiority complex, terrified by the prospect of seeing themselves in the mirror of the culture of Others.

Ryszard Kapuściński The Other Verso London 2018, p. 19

CLEVER PEOPLE SELF-DOUBT

I last met him when Philomena came out back in 2013. Back then, Coogan was a bracing, combative interviewee. He saw every question as a potential ambush and moved to thwart any perceived journalistic angle. Today, though, he seems more comfortable with the process, more at ease with himself. It used to be that he felt he always had to have his guard up. Now he accepts that he can sometimes afford to let it drop. He’s middle aged and a mass of insecurity and contradictions. He suspects that, on balance, that’s not such a terrible thing to be.

“And actually I think acknowledging your own fallibility makes you a better artist and a better person,” he says in a rush. “It’s fairly obvious to me that the real wisdom lies in seeing people’s failings and trying to understand them. Because the alternative is that very childlike, Donald Trump thing of believing that admitting any weakness is fatal. What was it Bukowski said? All the clever people are full of self-doubt and all the stupid people are very confident. That’s the era we’re living in now. That’s the era I don’t want to be a part of. So all you can do is try to go about things differently. Do interesting work and don’t be a cunt.”

Coogan gulps for breath. His eyes widen and then he rocks with laughter. “There you go, that’s my big artistic statement,” he says. “Do interesting work and don’t be a cunt. Took me the best part of an hour. Got there in the end.”

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/04/steve-coogan-interview-stan-and-ollie

HILLS

The hills bespeak a healing power and closeness to unseen help now lost in the security of modern welfare. Those who befriend the silent peaks in a lifetime's work know well their embracing strength. (p.91)

For only once is it given to man to lie in the arms of the eternal forces which give all matter form. (p.98)

Iain R Thomson Isolation Shepherd Birlinn, Edinburgh, 2007

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

Psalm 121 King James Version (KJV)

SPAN

17 August 2012

This blog began as a co-operative concept. While the idea and the stimulus was generated through discussion, the blog has turned out to be an individual enterprise. SPAN stands for ‘Spence and’ in the context of others. As a word, it fitted in nicely with the idea of voussoirs - parts and pieces, complete with keystones, that could ‘span’ the gaps in understanding and communication. The word SPAN also allowed for a shared input into a blog.

Spence Jamieson is an architect and the author of these articles. The blogs show the scope of his interests.

THE IDEA

chapters and verses as architectural commentary:

the wedge to isolate, array and shape ideas; the keystone to highlight core, supporting issues. voussoirs is a concept to start an architectural discussion to span the large gap in the debate on things architectural; a bridging of the void in architectural issues by exploring considered bits and pieces. The state of the profession today is highlighted by silence and self. It is introvert and protective. Educational centres remain isolated within their own constructs, being run primarily as businesses. They put very little back into the community. They indulge themselves in their own interests and exclude contrary and different ideas and ideals. They constantly avoid any challenge on concepts or strategies that might change the plotted course. Rarely does comment ever come from this academic world into the public or any arena. Very few publications help direct the public interest. Rarely do newspapers grasp the issues and explore them. One aspect may be given space in the popular press, but architectural debates and concerns are rarely given attention. The professional institutes are doing much the same as the educational institutions. Private practice is doing likewise, offering, if anything, only its own pushy propaganda to the public. Yet there is a discussion and debate in these silences that needs a larger and more open platform. Discussion is alive and well amongst a few in at least one curry house, but the debate needs to be a broadened. voussoirs is the place for this discussion. It is a site for ideas, comment, articles, and critiques on things architectural and associated issues. It is here that matters can be aired and ideas discussed and debated without fear of the neglect and disdain that institutions and private groups and publishers give to open speaking and differing ideas.

There can be no true understanding of any idea if discussion and debate are curtailed in favour of a preferred position.

ON COMMUNICATION

. . . there has been a growing feeling of concern to solve what is now commonly called “the problem of communication.” But if one observes efforts to solve this problem, he will notice that different groups who are trying to do this are not actually able to listen to each other. As a result, the very attempt to improve communication leads frequently to yet more confusion, and the consequent sense of frustration inclines people ever further toward aggression and violence, rather than toward mutual understanding and trust.

David Bohm On Dialogue Routledge, Oxon, 1996 (2004) p.2

ON ART & METHOD

Even in relationships with inanimate objects and with nature in general, something very like communication is involved. Consider, for example, the work of an artist. Can it be properly said that the artist is expressing himself, i.e., literally “pushing outward” something that is already formed inside him? Such a description is not in fact generally accurate or adequate. Rather, what usually happens is that the first thing the artist does is only similar in certain ways to what he may have in mind. As in a conversation between two people, he sees the similarity and the difference, and from this perception something further emerges in his next action. Thus, something new is continually created that is common to the artist and the material on which he is working.

David Bohm On Dialogue Routledge, Oxon, 1996 (2004) p.4

THE NECESSITY OF THE INCOMPLETE

The early 50's and 60's is a period that is gaining interest in architectural ideas. Perhaps this is why Princeton chose to republish The Tao of Architecture. It is a beautiful little book that discusses the implications of traditional wisdom in architecture. Given the astonishing lack of direction in current architectural theory, the publication is very timely.

Amos Ih Tiao Chang, The Tao of Architecture, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1956, reprinted 2017.

p.26

Laotzu's idea of formation is heavily concerned with emptiness or non-existence. To him who regards nothing as persistent, what is essentially important in things is the possibility of becoming something, not the opportunity of remaining as something confronting deterioration. Consequently, meaningful incompletion is taken as the most desirable state of tangible being.

p.22

. . . the full meaning of existence is beyond the power of any manifestation. What appears tangible, architectural or natural, is only a means to suggest that which is lacking in appearance and existing in man's intangible understanding and aesthetic feeling.

LIVING IN IMPERMANENCE

Maybe it is a good thing for us to keep a few dreams of a house that we shall live in later, always later, so much later, in fact, that we shall not have time to achieve it. For a house that was final, one that stood in symmetrical relation to the house we were born in, would lead to thoughts – serious, sad thoughts – and not to dreams. It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.

Gaston Bachelard The Poetics of Space

see: THE NECESSITY OF THE INCOMPLETE in the sidebar

THE REAL AND THE IMAGINARY

I prefer, by far, real islands to imaginary islands, just as I prefer prime documents to novelistic remakes. That's because the real is richer than the imagination. The real demands investigation and is an invitation to sensitive knowledge, whereas the imaginary is more often than not just a collection of stereotypes, a soup of clichés offering an infantile kind of satisfaction. Then, a relationship to the real and its resistance requires changes in thought, in ways of being, in ways of saying, it leads to a transformation of the self. Whereas imagination is nothing but compensation. There's even something horribly autistic about sitting in one spot and spinning out invention by the yard. How much more interesting an open and poetic process involving contemplation, study, movement, meditation and composition.

Kenneth White Across The Territories Travels from Orkney to Rangiroa Polygon Edinburgh 2004 p.86

VISION, CIVILIZATION & SPIRIT

The architect who combines in his being the powers of vision, of imagination, of intellect, of sympathy with human need and the power to interpret them in a language vernacular and time - - - is he who shall create poems in stone.

When you look on one of your contemporary 'good copies' of historical remains, ask yourself the question: Not what style, but what civilization is this building? And the absurdity, vulgarity, anachronism and solecism of the modern structure will be revealed to you in a most startling fashion.

It cannot for a moment be doubted that an art work to be alive, to awaken us to life, to inspire us sooner or later with its purpose, must indeed be animate with a soul, must have been breathed upon by the spirit and must breathe in turn that spirit.

Louis Sullivan

AN UNCHANGING PROFESSION

ARCHITECTURAL PRACTICE

. . . no one can relieve (the architect) from the need to rely on his own discretion, for that discretion is linked to a responsibility which belongs to no one but (the architect). It is the exercise of discretion hampered by considerations of cost, of risk, of exact justice, of conflicting interests, of uncertainty as to facts, of misunderstandings and of diverse individualities and dishonest or incapable agents, which is the chief care and preoccupation of architectural practice. To design a building, to draw and specify every part of it, and to direct its construction and see it completed with no other anxieties and dilemmas than belong to the exercise of those duties, is unknown.

H.B.Creswell The Honeywood Settlement Faber and Faber Limited London 1967 (fourth edition: first edition 1930 Architectural Press) p.128

MENDING WALL

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Robert Frost

CATHEDRALS and SYMBOLISM

Everything is the symbolical representation of an idea. p.28

The same artists, who had to follow a strict rule when treating the history of God, could use all of their imagination when treating the ornamental: whence the blossoming of the grotesque and the original. p.38

In those days religion, drama, and art had the same aim and sought to provoke the same thoughts. They did not pretend to amuse the people; they endeavoured to teach them. p.51

This way of thinking and reasoning takes sometimes a very subtle turn. p.53

Hélène Fouré The French Cathedrals Their Symbolic Significance Bruce Humphries Inc. Publishers, Boston, 1931

THE COMPLIMENT & THE CRITIC 2

ON DEMOLISHING BUILDINGS

Nothing appears to me much more wonderful, than the remorseless way in which the educated ignorance, even of the present day, will sweep away an ancient monument, if its preservation be not absolutely consistent with immediate convenience or economy. Putting aside all antiquarian considerations, and all artistical ones, I wish that people would only consider the steps, and the weight of the following very simple argument. You allow that it is wrong to waste time, that is, your own time; but then it must be still more wrong to waste other people’s; for you have some right to your own time, but none to their’s. Well, then, if it is thus wrong to waste the time of the living, it must be still more wrong to waste the time of the dead; for the living can redeem their time, the dead cannot. But you waste the best of the time of the dead when you destroy the works they have left you; for those works they gave the best of their time, intending them for immortality.

John Ruskin Lectures on Architecture George Routledge & Sons Limited, London p.109

THE COMPLIMENT & THE CRITIC 1

How to avoid insult

But how much of nature have you in your Greek buildings? I will show you, taking for an example the best you have lately built; and, in doing so, I trust that nothing that I say will be thought to have any personal purpose, and that the architect of the building in question will forgive me; for it is just because it is a good example of the style that I think it more fair to use it for an example. If the building were a bad one of the kind, it would not be a fair instance; and I hope, therefore, that in speaking of the institution on the mound, just in progress, I shall be understood as meaning rather a compliment to its architect than otherwise. It is not his fault that we force him to build in the Greek manner.

John Ruskin Lectures on Architecture and Painting George Routledge & Sons Limited; New York: F.P.Dutton & CO - p.64-65

ON EDUCATION

'. . those who are responsible for giving instruction in the theory of architecture should be practising architects. The warning is necessary because, strange though it may seem, English schools of architecture to-day tend to be run by men who either do not practise at all, or whose practices are for them a very subsidiary spare-time occupation. Often a teaching appointment is a means by which a clever student avoids the humiliation of entering an office as a junior assistant, thus depriving himself of the only opportunity he will ever have of learning something of the practical side of his profession from the bottom upwards. There can be no doubt whatever that the teaching of theory has suffered severely as a result of this habit: and this leads me to the conclusion that no man should be permitted to teach until he is recognized by his Faculty as a Master of Theory and Practice. In other words, he should be not only a practising architect but also, what is unfortunately a much rarer specimen, a good architect.'

W.A. Eden, The Process of Architectural Tradition, Macmillian & Co. Ltd, London, 1942, p.p. 86-87

ETHICS

Thus Pugin laid the foundation stones of that strange system which dominates the nineteenth-century art criticism and is immortalised in the Seven Lamps of Architecture: the value of a building depends on the moral worth of its creator; and a building has a moral value independent of, and more important than, its esthetic value. We must not consider this emphasis on morality peculiarly Victorian. Whenever esthetic standards are lost, ethical standards rush in to fill the vacuum; for the interest in esthetics dwindles and vanishes, but the interest in ethics is eternal.

Kenneth Clark The Gothic Revival - An Essay in the History of Taste, (1^st edition Constable 1928); third edition John Murray 1962, reprinted 1974, p.149.

MODERNITY

The everyday is covered by a surface: that of modernity. News stories and the turbulent affectations of art, fashion, and event veil without ever eradicating the everyday blahs. Images, the cinema and television divert the everyday by at times offering up to its own spectacle, or sometimes the spectacle of the distinctly noneveryday; violence, death, catastrophe, the lives of kings and stars – those who we are led to believe defy everydayness. Modernity and everydayness constitute a deep structure that a critical analysis can work to uncover.

Henri Lefebvre, The Everyday and Everydayness, in Stephen Harris and Deborah Berke, Architecture of the Everyday, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1997, p.37.

NAMING

The simplest act of substitution is to put the name of a maker in the place of his or her work, which amounts to a paraphrase in itself. . . . All paraphrase sets aside the original: To put the name in place of the painting is to remove it from immediate consciousness; to narrate the life of an individual is an act profoundly different from looking into a painting and one that cannot be conducted simultaneously with it. To substitute a temporal narrative, already present in a name, for the physical work of art is to give up those features of the thing that were transient and unrepeatable, bound to a moment that is irrevocably ended; the unique insistence is, for the moment at least, sacrificed on the altar of continuity.

Thomas Crow, The Intelligence of Art, The University of North Carolina Press, 1999, p.1.

ON BRANDING

Branding is now the art of getting people to think what something might be rather than what it necessarily is. It's about the manipulation of the virtual reality in which so many live. The manipulators include anyone with an interest in what we might think of them - not just big companies with products to sell but political parties with votes to win, design gurus with clients to attract - anyone, in other words, acting in some kind of market. They all have an interest in controlling their appearance to make us believe it is the reality.

John Humphrys Beyond Words How Language Reveals The Way We Live Now Hodder and Stoughton. Great Britain 2006, p. 86-87

see:

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2015/10/faking-provenance-misuse-of-meaning.html

PRECONCEPTION

Leone Huntsman Sand in Our Souls The Beach in Australian History Melbourne University Press 2001, p.16:

Thus first impressions were filtered through existing preconceptions, starkly revealed in Sir Joseph Banks's description of the people seen from Captain James Cook's Endeavour when it first touched on the Australian continent in 1770:

In the morn we . . . [discerned] 5 people who appeared through our glasses to be enormously black: so far did the prejudices which we had built on Dampier's account influence us that we fancied we could see their Colour when we could scarce distinguish whether or not they were men.

Here Banks refers to William Dampier's unfavourable accounts of the West Australian aboriginal people in published accounts of his landings in 1688 and 1699, and reveals his own awareness of the extent to which perception was influenced by expectation.

see: http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/seeing-what-we-believe-idyllic-visions.html

THE MUSE - GETTING IT RIGHT

"It can be in the morning, any old time, I wake up with an idea and it starts following you around.

"You go, 'Ah that's good' because you know when it's going to work, it's going to be fruitful.

"Other times you'll get the edge of an idea and maybe it fades away or there's just no way it can be made to serve, you know?

"Then you just, it takes its time and you work on it and if necessary you work on it more than once. I'm known to work on it two or three times before you get it right."

Les Murray

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-02/les-murray-latest-volume-reflects-on-bunyah/6816714

http://www.lesmurray.org/

JARGON

The world seems to find it necessary to use more and more jargon in general reporting and conversation. It is especially noticed in accounts and discussions on the arts. The ABC TV arts programme presented on 7 January 2017 at 6:15pm had more jargon than usual; indeed, had more unusual expressions than previously encountered, ones that had not been heard before:

"unpicking the tapestry" of one's life;

and

looking at "the fan deck of what you do."

These reminded one of other popular fashionable expressions:

“to unpack an issue,” meaning to analyse it in some detail;

and

“to segue,” meaning to shift to a new topic or activity.

This last term is a favourite of radio announcers. The Italian word is often misspelt as ‘segway’ because of the similar phonetic sounding that is more commonly understood as Segway, the brand of a human transporter.

The parallel is interesting, as the idea of being ‘transported’ is common to both words, but it seems to hold little interest to the radio voices that appear just too cleverly happy with the use of this different, interesting expression.

Saturday 21 May 2022

THOUGHTS ON TINY HOUSES

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