voussoirs: September 2026

Friday, 4 September 2026

THE GLASSHOUSE THEATRE

The Glasshouse Theatre has opened; the media has been flooded with carefully framed glassy images illustrating the gleam and gloss of curved sheets of glistening, undulating transparency; but what is the context? How does this development fit in with Gibson’s heritage-listed Queensalnd Performing Arts Centre, QPAC, in Brisbane, of which, we have been told, it is a part? This relationship is never made clear; one is only offered the photogenic spectacles of the new work to admire, little else. It seems that the context is irrelevant for this grand display, leaving the reader to fabricate some concept of a relationship with the Gibson complex to complete the picture, be it right or wrong; it doesn’t appear to matter. This Glasshouse extension has become the centre of attention without declaring any particular rationale, identifying any juxtaposition, or presenting any relational strategy with the existing building complex. It is just there, presented in all of its different, stunning glory with an attractive, alluring set of images.

The rendering.

An undulating glass facade encloses the cantilevered first floor of the Glasshouse Theatre in Queensland, designed by Australian studio Blight Rayner Architecture with international firm Snøhetta.

. . .

Blight Rayner Architecture and Snøhetta won the international competition for the project in 2019.

A friend telephoned to express concern over the siting: “Where is it?” They had gone to South Brisbane to look at this new, apparently transformative wonder after reading about it in the press, but could not find it. The media promotion suggested that this project was a prominent, state-of-the-art, new face for this listed complex, giving a fresh, updated identity to this forty year old building - or so the blurb made it appear - finally responding positively to the riverside location, and resolving all of the existing issues of the old centre with this stunning 2026, $184 million redevelopment. In spite of the hype, this new, prominent addition could not be found: hence the phone call. It was only the accidental glimpse of glass inadvertently caught by the corner of the eye that eventually gave the clue to the unexpected location of this grand, theatrical addition. The promotion of this project seemed to overreach all expectations, giving the impression that The Glasshouse was the refurbished vision for this Performing Arts Centre, when it really was otherwise, something else.

The Glasshouse is located on the southeast corner of QPAC.

The site before development.

The surprise was that this much-praised ‘masterpiece’ was squeezed into the back blocks of South Brisbane, the corner of QPAC most distant from the river, when everything in the published presentation seemed to indicate how things had been shaped around this waterway, seeming to suggest that the curving glass offered grand vistas of the watercourse. Oh, how wrong can one be? The question that was later asked by the caller was: why enclose this theatre in gleaming glass just to look at the neighbours and the street, so as to, as the promo explains: maximise light and character in the foyer? How? What does this mean in this cluttered, inner-city space? It is not as though the building presents itself to the passersby as a wonderful piece of public theatre, that grand street display spoken about in the blurb, and dramatically suggested in the renderings and wide-angle photographs of the project that highlight the transparency of the facade and its folds. This snaking wall is crowded into a compact development zone on one of Brisbane’s busiest streets. Might one see the distortions as being caused by the compression of the extra-tight fit? There is hardly space or place nearby for any comfortable observation of this grand public theatre display, let alone any location for admirable reverie that the photographs all suggest might be available to allow for the enjoyment of this astonishing pageant. It is not as though the extension fronts a broad, open plaza.

"We thought to make the transparent facade a setting for a kind of public theatre where people in the foyers would be seen variously clear and blurred from the street," said Blight Rayner Architecture director Michael Rayner.

The Glasshouse, QPAC.

The Glasshouse, QPAC - section.

Glassshouse, Port Macquarie.

After having fumbled around trying to piece the project together in its context while studying the images, and seeking out detailed plans of this much photographed scheme, one finally discovers how the new The Glasshouse Theatre, (the one at QPAC, not Port Macquarie’s Glasshouse Theatre – did the government know about this facility when it named this place? – see: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-16/qld-glasshouse-theatre-name-arts-minister/106458506) - fills this southeast corner of the QPAC, literally the ‘back block’ of the site that Robin Gibson had landscaped neatly with shrubs and lawn to display his sculptural massing to its best advantage. Perhaps this area was seen by others only as a spare allotment? One wonders: did the ‘studio’ speak to anyone from Gibson’s office about this extension to his listed building and respect the moral rights of the original architect?* In Australia, any parkland or landscaped area, large or small, seems to be seen as a potential development site: see – https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2026/01/olympic-park-brisbanes-green-development.html. Perhaps this addition was perceived as an opportunity to expand into a new beginning's unique expression with a declaration of independence, complete with visions of a bespoke dominance, ‘to jazz this place up’? The project seems to treat the original massing only as its background rather than as a respected neighbour.

It has taken time to work out the details of this particular siting, as most images of this Snøhetta (and Blight Rayner) marvel appear to be edited and carefully framed to delete, where possible, all references to the context, removing any clear definition of its particular location. Why? Is there some embarrassment with a misfit? One is left asking: What is this Snøhetta (and Blight Rayner) glazed wonder? Why is it? Why is it where it is with this expression? The friend’s telephone call is not a surprise. In spite of this hiccup in locational identity, the work remains presented as a proud Snøhetta (and Blight Rayner) artful astonishment for all to admire; ‘no worries.’

A rendering of the project without the lower stair.

It seems that one cannot say this name, ‘Snøhetta,’ enough, such is our cringe. We appear to need intriguing names from other countries/cultures with strange letters and accents to be able to really drool over these big $184 million projects with blind praise. WOW! It must be good! Dare one say otherwise? Is this desire to involve foreign/international firms because of the inadequacies of local firms? – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2023/02/thoughts-on-sydney-modern.html. Why is the theatre not named The Glasshøuse to really give it some stylish stature like the mysterious Ikea names on products made elsewhere, anywhere else, that we are told in bold lettering, have all been ‘designed in Sweden’? Might this Glasshouse be seen likewise: ‘designed in Norway; made in Australia’? Could it have been?

Brisbane River.

The foyer.

It is only after finding a small site plan online and looking at Google Earth that one eventually understands the precise relationship of The Glasshouse project with the existing QPAC planning arrangements, and discovers what has been deleted from / obscured by the photographs, or only partially revealed when they cannot be completely excised. These are: the vistas along Grey Street with the neighbouring Convention Centre on the south; the nearby ABC Headquarters directly opposite, to the east; and The Wheel of Brisbane to the north, a miniature apology for London’s Eye. A glimpse of the Brisbane River is gained from one end of the foyer. Why are architects so reluctant to illustrate what is immediately obvious to the passerby when they are so keen to publish and explain their project for acclaim? Is it that architects want to manage how their projects are seen? Has the scheme really been considered as a stand-alone project? Is this the vision, for the addition seems to want to be solitary, alone, in most of the PR images that appear to cry out "Look at ME!"?

The glimpse of water.

The foyer.

We are told that the eye-catching undulations of the gleaming glass wall that used imported Austrian glass from the same company that provided the glass for New York’s Apple Store, (WOW! It must be good! More cringe!), is a meaningful reference to the Brisbane River. Is this explanation just too much of a cliché, referencing a curvy river drawn by a child with the flow of water equating to a wriggly glazed transparency? Maybe curved glass, (apparently this wall is double-glazed curved glass for environmental purposes!), has merely become fashionable, and is used just because it is more readily available? There are numerous other international examples.# Snøhetta, (and Blight Rayner – one wonders how these joint ‘studio’ projects are developed, and by whom; surely it is not only the different ‘nåmé’ that is needed?), gives more details that involve a First Nations reference, which, these days, appears to be considered a necessity, saying that the concept of the flowing ‘Brisbane River’ glass was really inspired by a prose poem by Murri artist and Gangulu woman Lilla Watson, that talks about the rippling river flow and swimming fish. Should there have been fish etched into this wall to complete the reference? Why might this wall not be the Rainbow Serpent? Could one suggest that there is an entertainment reference here too – the curved glass mirrors of the fairground that produces the funny images? Are there any? “Hey! Look at me! Ha, ha, ha!” “No, that’s the reflection in flat section.” “Oh!”

Fairground mirrors.

The foyer.

The cliché river image.

According to the studio, the facade is a nod to a prose poem by Murri artist and Gangulu woman Lilla Watson, which refers to the rippling water of the Brisbane River and fish swimming beneath its surface.

Its design was also intended to minimise the theatre's visual mass while maximising light and character in the foyer.

Manufactured by Austrian company Seele - the same company behind the iconic 5^th Avenue Apple retail store in New York - it comprises two tiers of unique seven-metre-high glass panels. Some of these have black ceramic inlays to help minimise solar glare and heat gain.

Given the number of new, inspirational curved glass projects in the world, has this Aboriginal ‘river’ attribution merely been a convenient ruse, an afterthought applied to a new, popular, ‘classy glassy,’ stylish convention?# The naming of the theatre did have one proposal for a first nations reference, but the government appears to have jumped the gun and approved a name before any public consultation– see: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-16/qld-glasshouse-theatre-name-arts-minister/106458506. Is it a typical Queensland move - to ask for submissions just to be able to tick the appropriate box? This theatre will not follow the model for the naming of Sydney Modern; see – https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2024/05/more-on-sydney-modern-ai.html. Aboriginal names seem popular today, and come with the constant repetition of the recognition of country statement as if to emphasise our sensitivity and care that is presented by blatant, raw wrote: see – https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2024/06/country-outside-inside-place.html: “This is the news from the ABC coming to you from Gadigal country” – job done. Is this circumstance similar to the ‘protesting too much’ idea – hollow and guilty? In spite of this claim to be aware and caring, the new theatre has been named The Glasshouse, referencing the curvaceous, handsome facade, and, perhaps, the ‘green’ concept of the horticultural glasshouse analogy with the cliché title that seems to fall into the ‘Happy Valley’ category of familiarity.+

House of Mirrors.

"And we wanted to embed the beginnings of First Nations narratives related to the context into the design."

Snøhetta - (and Blight Rayner): ah, one cannot emphasise this foreign name enough! - gives us more referencing for the project, apparently to try to prove that it is truly ‘of Queensland,’ in spite of the international connection. Snøhetta promotes itself as: Snøhetta is a global transdisciplinary practice, working on projects of all scales.^ We are told that there is ‘meaning’ hidden in the count of skylights - seven to represent the seven watersheds in Queensland. What are these? Who cares? Who counts? The colour of the foyer carpet, yellow, is said to represent Queensland’s golden sand beaches – (no sand here please); and the hue of the theatre finishes and furnishings, deep ‘forest’ green, is explained as suggesting Queensland’s rain forests, with dark iron bark timbers - maybe a Queensland variety? - to remind one of old musical instruments: see – https://www.dezeen.com/2026/03/13/glasshouse-theatre-snohetta-blight-rayner/. The whole auditorium space is alluded to as an instrument. Is this so-called ‘symbolism’ a learned, synthetic understanding like that seen in Lupa? – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/11/lupa-longing-artful-knowing.html. We seem to have no idea about meaning other than as some adopted, applied analogy, similarity, story, or parallel perception: ‘It looks like, sounds like, . . .’ The approach to meaning seems as randomly ad hoc as the curved plan form of the balconies in a recent coastal unit project, that, in the planning submission, were said to have been inspired by the sectional profile of a nearby ‘sacred’ hill, thereby apparently claiming some vital Aboriginal connection. Such similarities are deliberate intellectual abstractions that seek to describe the project for the perceptions of the rational mind. The experience lies elsewhere; differently; beyond this arbitrary, random, promotional irrelevance – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2024/06/country-outside-inside-place.html.

"The theatre was designed to operate like a finely tuned musical instrument – adjustable to support world-class opera, ballet, dance, symphony, theatre and musical productions," said Snøhetta's Australasia managing director Gumji Kang.

"Inspired by the qualities of stringed instruments, we have combined technical precision with atmospheric intimacy, enriched by layered timber ribbons that feel quintessentially Queensland."

. . .

Another feature of the building is seven skylights, which are a homage to Queensland's First Nations cultural heritage.

Specifically, these skylights represent Queensland's seven watersheds – areas of land that separate waters flowing to different rivers – based on water‑related heritage research by First Nations Elder Colleen Wall of the Dauwa Kau'bvai Nation.

It (the theatre) is finished with ironbark walls and deep green carpet.

There seems to be a struggle for meaning here in this confusing attempt to define the claimed ‘international’ design ‘by an Australian studio’ as being a ‘grass roots’ regional, Queensland project that is sensitive to local First Nations issues: truly ‘home-grown’ when it appears more interested in adopting and exploring the latest international technology in glass. Is this rationalisation really just a bit of everything to cover all options? The tension between style and story is obvious with what looks like this deliberate construct designed to instruct one on how and what to see.

The most photographed image is the glass wall. Alas, just as with the original building, this dramatic, glazed frontage struggles to give patrons a glimpse of the river as it dramatizes the local street vistas and neighbouring buildings - but for what purpose? - all while being curvaceously formed to dramatically reference the nearby river, or so we are told. Perhaps this strategy was inspired by Gibson's approach in the nearby art gallery where the river is ignored and a pool is provided inside to remind visitors of the river? - see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/02/robin-gibson-book.html and https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/02/robin-gibson-postscript.html: or the influence might have been the original QPAC development itself that treats the river as an ‘a-side,’ literally.

The Glasshouse seems to have done likewise with the river: treated it in an offhanded manner, while making a significant, formal, ‘in your face’ stylish gesture that is said to acknowledge it. One wonders why the foyers of a significant theatre complex might be positioned and detailed so as to address the adjacent streets and neighbouring buildings when the centre occupies a riverside site. Was the wriggly glass considered such a vital, preferred, eye-catching element that it really didn't matter what space it related to or addressed? The spaces enclosed by this wall include what look like a mix of service areas, circulation spaces, and foyer zones, using the elevational strategy seen in Le Corbusier’s La Tourette – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2012/05/corbusier-renaissance-man.html. One wonders: was this glazing used just for its stylish gleam? Strangely, the suggestion is that this glass cannot be seen. This is the Louvre pyramid argument that ordinary experience refutes. The irony is that glass becomes even more visible than other materials with its meandering gloss, bright glare and dazzling, inverting reflections.

Glare and reflections emphasise the glazing.

Its (the facade) design was also intended to minimise the theatre's visual mass while maximising light and character in the foyer.

. . .

A rendering of the project.

Are we really only interested in referenced appearances and unusual names, Snøhetta (and Blight Rayner), gestures that can be hyped in the media to highlight the ‘bespøke’ difference? How does this project sit in the street? Google's Street View helps here. Does any awkwardness matter, for here we have something stylish by a foreign firm using foreign glass too, that all photographs marvellously: WOW! Brisbane is finally ‘world class.’ Who might dare question this outcome?

Google's Street View.

A glimpse of The Glasshouse from the river's edge.

The space from which the public theatre is to be observed.

The rendered vision.

Google's Street View.

The project looks like a clever, bespoke gesture to nothing in particular but its own grand display. One had hoped that it might have addressed the river, as our friends had expected; but no. QPAC seems more interested in flashy, (literally), form and formalism. All of the issues with Gibson’s existing building remain: tight foyers; squeezy toilets; sideways river glimpses. This smart new corner just adds a flash of panache, with the gleam of light on slick curves of glass to mark the presence of this new theatre extension that seems to do very little for the centre as a whole other than to declare the presence of this new QPAC ‘Snøhetta’ (and Blight Rayner) statement corner that carries its own unoriginal, mundane, self-evident, self-referential name: The Glasshouse – “No, it’s the Queensland one; not the one in Port!” "Oh!"

One might have hoped for a more modest, respectful addition to this heritage-listed place instead of getting what could be likened to the eye-catching qualities of a nasty skin rash on the body; or is it a remarkable dragon tattoo; an erupting blister?

NOTE: Quoted extracts have been taken from https://www.dezeen.com/2026/03/13/glasshouse-theatre-snohetta-blight-rayner/.

Unfortunately Rayner seems to have a history of working on other’s projects without any consultation or recognition of moral rights, e.g. Kangaroo Point Boardwalk and South Brisbane TAFE Block D - see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2025/02/robin-gibson-postscript.html.

INTERNATIONAL CURVED GLASS EXAMPLES

(There are no images of The Glasshouse reproduced in this collection of images.)

AI Overview

There are dozens of places, parks, and communities named Happy Valley worldwide, including at least seven geographic locations in Australia alone and a major chain of eight theme parks in China.

Because "Happy Valley" is a very common global placename, it refers to multiple distinct categories.

Snøhetta seems to like references:

AI Overview

In Norwegian, Snøhetta literally translates to "snow hood." It is the proper name of a prominent, rugged mountain with multiple peaks in the Dovrefjell mountain range of central Norway.

The Mountain's Significance

Translation: Composed of snø (snow) and hetta (the hood/cap).
Location: Situated in central Norway, standing roughly 2,286 meters above sea level.
History: Historically viewed as a massive, symbolic landmark visible along traditional travel routes.

The Famous Design Studio

The name was adopted by the renowned international architecture and design firm, Snøhetta.

Origin: The founders originally set up their collaborative workspace in an attic above an Oslo beer bar named Dovrehallen (the Hall of Dovre).
Symbolism: They named their collective after the highest peak in that same mountain region (Dovrefjell-Sunndalsfjella) to represent a shared, monumental landscape that anyone can experience, but no single person owns.

For more on the perceptions of The Glasshouse, see the drawings.

The smiling lips below sunglasses?

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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.