EVENT ARCHITECTURE

R,

This is a response to your question: what do you think of this? - Augmented Australia: the contemporary list   http://architectureau.com/articles/augmented-australia/

Apologies for the length of the response, but the logic is self-evident in the text.

S.

Some thoughts on ‘AAARRKITECTURE,’ the hard and certain display of ME & MY CLEVERNESS - BESPOKE ME: the one and only genius creator. Is this the new way in which ‘architecture’ seeks to ‘speak to us’: “I have bespoken”?

One is tempted to yell out ‘FAAARRK!’ - but these projects in Augmented Australia: the contemporary list need a better, more considered response than the cliché scream that can just be too easily dismissed as the dumb grudge of inarticulate ignorance that is facetiously declared to be a total lack of understanding.

There is something missing here, something to do with the necessities of flesh and blood - living life, everyday breath and feeling: its accommodation and enhancement in the experience of form, space and place, not only in its ordinary functioning, but also in the processes involved in the making of the thing, its assembling – see http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/safety-first.html

  

Parc de la Villette, Paris

An earlier critique of Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette comes to mind. Everything appeared different and new, creatively askew and red for its own diverse theoretically graphic sake and sense, nothing else; but a door was still a door that related to one physically and emotionally in the same way as any other when approached, as did the rusting detail of the window frame: its fact in failure too. It is this understanding, the recognition, acceptance, accommodation of and caring for these subtleties of ordinary experience in others unknown, (the users and the makers), in a building that is significant: how the work incorporates and celebrates these common and straightforward complexities effortlessly with a certain coherence, charm, consideration and concern for people, persons, individuals: inclusively, with a certain grace. The ‘exclusive’ declaration isolates and estranges with its pompous intellectualism, its harsh, divisive, pseudo elitism.

In AAARRKITECTURE, the intimacy of the collaborative perception of possibilities arrogantly gets ignored in favour of the dumb belief that the gentle wonder of the architectural experience that holds depth and resonance can be, as it were, mechanically recreated in anything astonishingly different and extreme, in the apparent belief that this noisy amazement of different, eye-catching possibilities equates to that awe arising in true delight - the quiet astonishment of the mystery of beauty: its marvel.

We need to know how to make, e.g., a meaningful door or window that can accommodate and change us, confirm us and our being there/here, without any self-conscious exotic variations that make us alert to the differences that have been implemented for their own and their creator’s sake, to highlight ‘special’ aspects of the works and the individuals involved: the genius. This is an experience that is the antithesis of the sense of beauty, and its wonder that recognises a body, its presence; an eye, its glance; a hand, its touch; and cares for these senses. Traditionally art was nameless and left one speechless. Here, in AAARRKITECTURE, with managed manipulation, feeling becomes a real visual and verbal fakery directed by the stress of extremes, their unexpected surprises, shrewd interpretations and cunning explanations. The first question is ‘Who did this?” – as if it mattered: and, in this unique context, it does! Here one might be left speechless, but it has no relationship to the solitude of beauty; rather it has to do with the astonishment of the sheer gall and effrontery of the work. Indeed, this rupture is frequently acknowledged in the texts that usually seek to explain how these works do not seek to be anything like the cliché ‘beautiful’ thing; rather they indulge other initiatives and ambitions that seem to have been created as rationales after the event, with just as much a ‘creative’ ad hoc approach as any assembly and shaping might have involved – see SWELL SCULTPURE FESTIVAL 2013.

Making ordinary ‘faceless’ architecture is much more difficult than building anything that might be grossly distorted in an impromptu, random manner so as to be immediately noticed beside more quietly modest outcomes. The brashness of the perceived ‘great gestures’ stupefies and threatens; disparages with the latent question: “Why is this other work so bland?” Anything can amaze in this deliberately contorted “LOOK AT ME!” manner just too easily. Indeed, perhaps it can only do this, maybe just once. Inevitably, as with most drugs, we need more and more extremes in order to maintain the buzz: see P.S. below.

Good architecture enriches the silent knowing of everyday existence repeatedly, effortlessly, in the same way that the face of a Buddha, (for want of a better analogy), can hold peace, personally, intimately, in an encompassing experience that is both ordinary and extraordinary, poised in the raw facts of fabric, in the skill and care of the making; suspended with a coherent life-enhancing depth. Tradition beautifully explains this notion as being a circumstance in which ‘we cannot marvel enough.’ Something ‘other’ is involved; something that is difficult to articulate. Of this mystery, tradition simply says that if it could have been said, it would have been.

Self-consciously distracting different works are interesting, perhaps only for a few minutes. They rely on a journalistic interpretation and a commercial PR push for their justification, for their being considered anything at all. Hence the hype of naming, e.g. a Gehry or a Foster, or both, (see the proposed Battersea Power Station redevelopment: gosh! – a double whammy: it has to be good); or maybe a Rogers or a Nouvel (see NEW SYDNEY.). I like to call Gehry ‘Frank O’ for his uncontrolled brashness asserted in his self-centred, singular importance. In this aspect he pairs well with Lord Norman: ‘Oh Lord!’ – actually ‘Lord Foster of Thames Bank, OM Kt.’ OMG!

Indeed, the situation is worse than this hype that markets names, for the promotion of works such as these unique disturbances that are becoming just too familiar does consciously belittle those, seeks to shame those who try to show the weaknesses in the ‘architecture,’ perhaps its distorted shallowness, in order to highlight and promote their creation’s self-importance which, by implication, focuses the spotlight on their own unique qualities too: ME & MY.

‘FAAARRK!’ is probably the best primal response, but its explicitness only provides the key for this promotional operation to be successful by allowing the crudity to illustrate the mark of ignorance beside all of the exotic, clever words that seek to express an ‘intellectualism’: navigate; journey; narrative; narrate; etc., etc.

On smart words, there was a discussion on ABC Radio RN By Design (23 October 2013) concerning the Sydney Opera House that was spoken of in this crafty lingo as ‘The House.’ More and more jargon words flowed. One was ‘event’: apparently the new concern for things architectural. ‘The House,’ it was explained, had become the venue for ‘events’ that were more fundamental than exotic concerts and elitist opera. ‘The House’ was opening up to the people as a location for ‘events,’ for example, The Festival on Dangerous Ideas that was recently held at the Opera House in Sydney, and Q&A, a live ABC TV chat programme that is based on a BBC model (as usual). This radio discussion cheekily went on to ask what improvements the Opera House might undergo in order to bring it up to date, using the logic that it is after all an old building! There is no questioning the cheek of youth!

This perception helps to give some direction to an understanding of AAARRCHITECTURE that holds too much of the expletive to become a successful label. It seems that the best description of the new work is EVENT ARCHITECTURE, where the building itself becomes the event, not an enclosure to accommodate some managed festival occasion initiated to promote a chosen theme for a day or two. These building forms gesticulate with their own enthusiasm for their own purposes to be a perpetual EVENT, nothing else, even though the texts might seek to explain things differently. It could be called PERFORMANCE ARCHITECTURE – see P.S. below on performance art and its extremes. Sadly, when constructed, these buildings have a life longer than the ephemeral fun and games of celebratory events that, like this AAARRCHITECTURE, readily move on to the next fad of fashion festivities. But these transient occasions leave only memories in another time, unlike these architectural ‘EVENTS’ that remain as permanent markers of a ‘genius’ that is constantly moving on to bigger and better things as if to prove itself grander than the greatness of ‘genius.’ Maybe these schemes are best left as flimsy digital fantasies? But we all know how ideas never die, even though some should. The danger is that such displays as this contemporary list will encourage others to build similar forms as fashion, fad, fantasy and determined egos demand. Even worse, some might try to create even more extreme variations of these distended distortions.

The situation establishes a real point of difference with Otto Wagner’s statement made in The Architecture Of Our Time, Vienna, 1914: ‘It cannot be beautiful if it is not practical.’ Indeed, the published images seem to prove Wagner’s point that is exactly the same statement that tradition made on art: see NOTE below. We need to rediscover this intent and content today rather than pressing on blindly with bland, random guesses: whatever comes up; whatever it takes; however – just to impress ourselves. Tradition saw such a loose, egocentric, personal approach as a situation where one was going wildly astray, suggesting that it is better to copy a work of substance than to try to invent a different one. Perhaps the beginning of this change is humility?

The other question that arises with these works is: just what is Australian architecture? Do we know? Do we care? Is all this effort a cringing attempt to prove that we have a ‘world class’ culture? - unique ‘world class’ difference for the sake of difference, and ME!

The modern notion that can accept that, e.g. a jug might not pour properly but can still be declared beautiful, a wonderful design, creates a schism that has allowed Sullivan’s ‘form follows function’ to be cast aside as an old-fashioned, out of date theory and understanding. Just why misunderstandings are allowed to gain such momentum is a mystery, because Sullivan’s words, like Kipling’s classic statement too, did not stop there. Just as ‘East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet’ has become a rhythmical, hackneyed phrase that completely changes sense when the next word is read: ‘Till,’ so too does Sullivan’s understanding of function get transformed when seen in its full context. His words continued: ‘function follows form,’ citing the rose as an example: ‘the form of the rose is the function of the rose; the function of the rose is the form of the rose.’ This notion touches on something much more subtly substantial that any ordinary practical performance. There is a different necessity here: (see NOTE below).

0h, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

Kipling  The Ballad of East and West

Sadly our arrogance is blind to such issues as these, making it unacceptable to do what we must: learn to understand where we have come from. We seem happy to press on with some silly notion of ‘progress’ that seeks to discard any past in favour of some unknown future that is assumed to be better, when something far more inclusive is required. Science knows about this: how theories need to incorporate older theories or to refute them with a transforming rigor and understanding that can truly enlighten. Architecture needs to learn about this concept, and come to understand its true roots and spirit. We need to learn that architecture is not a personal statement or a bespoke competition. It is and always has been much more than this.

To understand this notion better, one should peruse Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language and The Nature of Order.

P.S.

11 November 2013 news: Russian performance artist nails testicles to Red Square.

Can one expect a building shaped like testicles soon? Oh Ghery? Indeed, why not?! – well, ‘why?’ might be a better question. For the Russian this act was a form of political protest, not a protest about art. The alarming inference is that this is art! One might assume that, art or not, it will be sore: an eyesore?

See http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/performance-artist-pyotr-pavlensky-nails-testicles-to-red-square-cobblestone-in-kremlin-protest/story-fni0xs61-1226756979155

Gosh, has he used masonry nails for this “I have bespoken” feat?

NOTE:

In the same way it can be said that ‘the function of the leaf is the form of the leaf; the form of the leaf is the function of the leaf.’ It is an apparent circularity that Christopher Alexander talks about in  The Nature of Order  Book One  The Phenomenon of Life  The Center for Environmental Structure, Berkley, California, 2002, p. 117- 118

Consider, for instance, one of the apple leaves shown below. We feel it to be a center, of course. Now, suppose I ask what it is about the leaf which makes it seem like a center. To answer this question, I have to point to the tip of the leaf, the uniform double curvature which makes it a single thing, its spine, its minor ribs, all parallel to one another, the zone of flesh roughly a parallelogram between two ribs, the stem of the leaf, and the indentation where the leaf is joined by this stem, and the very tiny serrations, almost smooth, which form the outer boundary of the leaf. All these are centers.

It is the organisation of these centers which makes the whole leaf a center. Yet all these things are themselves centers. That is why we notice them. It is their centertedness which we notice, and which makes us pick them as the elements with which to see and explain the centeredness of the leaf as a whole. Thus it is the organisation, the “centered” organisation of these other centers, which makes the leaf a center in our experience. As soon as we try to describe, precisely, why this particular thing is a center, we find that we have to invoke some kind of description in terms of other centers.

In mathematics, such a concept is called recursive. Grasping this idea, and grasping the fact that this bit of understanding is a positive step forward, and not problematic, is the key to understanding wholeness. The apparent circularity here is – I believe – the crux of the problem of wholeness. The reason that deep wholeness (or life) is so mysterious, is that centers are built from centers, wholeness is built from wholeness.

This is not a peculiarity of the leaf. It is typical of every single thing in the world that we can examine.

Alexander also touches on the notion of beauty and function in The Nature of Order  Book One  The Phenomenon of Life,  p 185:

Although it may seem surprising to someone raised in the mechanistic-functionalist tradition, good shape in buildings, rooms, gardens, streets, plays a vital role in the way they work. Essentially, what happens is that the thing which works effectively has - must have - more centres in it and, by virtue of having more centres, has better shape. So the good shape is not only making things more beautiful; it also makes them work more profoundly, more effectively.

SAFETY FIRST?

The bureaucratic mind never fails to astonish. This knuckle-grazing handrail not only ignores every requirement for handrail design, but it comes with instructions that the hand rail itself obscures: 'Hold the hand rail.' What else is one supposed to do with it? Admire it? Is there a trick here? One is asked to 'Stay safe' but might trip over the stair whle trying to read this strange request that is partially concealed behind the post of the rail that is supposed to improve matters.

The odd issue is that the identity of the origins of this installation is made clear, as if this might be the whole importance of the work: 'safe + sound' subtitled, 'Everybody everywhere everyday' - yes, with the first upper case letter there too. One can just see fifteen or twenty public servants sitting around the table for a couple of days discussing the name of the Workplace, Health and Safety scheme and how it might be implemented, and ending up very pleased with themsleves, finally reporting up the line on their successes. This looks like the nanny state gone mad. Is there nothing else to do?

The strange circumstance is that here one is being asked to 'Stay safe' when the stair at the entrance on which the handrail has been installed has unequal risers, and a top riser directly at a doorway. Nothing could be more dangerous; but the bureaucrats do not seem to care. They have achieved their outcome: the ticking of the boxes and the installation of the signs.

The handrail is useless. Imagine leaving this building: the hand opens the door and holds it ajar. The first riser has to be negotiated carefully. How is one supposed to reach the handrail? Is there a hand available? Is it possible? Entering this place has all of the same problems. What physical chaos might there be at the top riser when one has to release the hand from the rail, (if it fits), reach for the door and open it in, (one assumes it opens inwards), as one steps over the top riser and moves forward with the door swing.

Good design is much more rigourous and coherent than this installation that is useful only for highlighting everything that good design should never be. Good design facilitates the body's being there, its functions and feelings.

Australians seem to like unnecessary signs: see - 

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/only-in-australia_19.html

BOND DOWNPIPES

The new Abedian School of Architecture at Bond University on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia is nearing completion. Amongst the various pieces and parts of this educational edifice that make a claim for attention, the downpipes are particularly eye-catching. The question arises: is this a symphony of downpipes or a cacophony? Were the downpipes once forgotten, or are they a reference to the ad hoc arrangement of pipes sometimes seen on older Australian country buildings?

The difficulty in seeing the arrangement as either a circumstance driven by necessity, or a considered design, a clever, self-conscious 'reference' to the buildings of old, lies in the clashes of the downpipes with the carefully sculpted sunhoods. The hoods seem shaped more for pleasure for the eye than for any shading outcome, but these seemingly obvious 'design' elements have, on occasion, had to be chopped off and hacked away to allow for the apparently random run of the downpipes.

If the downpipes were attempting to touch on the character of the quaintly improvised setouts seen on old buildings, sheds and hotels and the like, then why were the pipes not arranged to avoid the need to carve out any of the hoods? It seems that what might be the random organisation of necessity has been artfully adapted and articulated, manipulated to recreate perhaps only the appearance of layouts that the tradesman's careless functional inattention achieves - the commonplace ease of the 'whatever it takes' attitude.

So, is it a symphony of downpipes or a cacophony? Perhaps we can say that it is a cacophonic symphony? The downpipes look deliberately attention-grabbing. Even those that cluster in the decorative verticals on the south are kinked, maybe for identification, rather than seeking out any simple concealment with a straight vertical run. One wonders if these pipe elements map out the gestures of the conductor of this symphony, such is their unusual configuration? Who knows? Is it all a reference to itself, singing its own praises? The whole is more 'sophisticated' than the raw beauty of ordinary buildings that reveal a rude naivety, something almost transparently and unapologetically uncouth.

See also:

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/crab-architecture-at-bond-university_4645.html 

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/crab-architecture-at-bond-university_6463.html

http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/pete-dud-on-cringe.html

17 MARCH 2022

Barcaldine

MUSIC AND PLACE

FIDDLER'S’ BID IN BRISBANE 

It was discovered in the schedule of DOCUMENTS in MS Word. This review sat neglected under the simple title of ‘Fiddler.doc’. It was a piece that had been jotted down some time ago when the Shetland group called Fiddlers’ Bid played in Brisbane for the first time. It is published here because it is an example of music that is intimately related to place. It is a circumstance that architects can learn from as they make and shape place in various regions of our world. There are many subtle matters involved in this task that is more than music and memory; but these make and shape a good example of what ‘place’ means. Feelings are involved. Our architecture needs to rediscover its roots in the integrity of emotion rather than in the self-conscious drama of things unusual, different, distorted and bespoke.

The Shetland Islands lie well above Australia in the usual reading of the globe. Indeed, they sit above Scotland, north, beyond the Orkney Islands, but frequently suffer from the cartographer’s graphic necessities that relocate these tiny islands in their own boxed inset, like a postage stamp, anywhere within the frame of the page that might illustrate Scotland or the whole of the United Kingdom at whatever scale might be chosen. Shetland never seems to fit. Little wonder that the islands are sometimes confused with the more familiar western isles of Scotland. They are Britain’s most northerly islands. They have been treated as trinkets to form part of marriage agreements and trophies, and have been linked to Denmark, as well as Scotland and Norway. The gene pool of the people is almost an equal mix descending from the Vikings and the Picts.

. . . . . . .

Word came from above that Fiddlers’ Bid was coming to town via Tasmania. A little research indicated that Tuesday 10^th at the Brisbane Powerhouse was indeed the time and place for the one and only Brisbane performance. One wondered: why Brisbane? The tickets were ordered and the weeks rolled by. How long was the band to be in sunny Brisbane? Might we meet up with the group and show it more of the city?

Word again came that the band had left Shetland and was in Melbourne on its way to Tasmania where it was to play before its two performances in Brisbane. Two? - 9^th and 10^th? Was this correct? We thought that we had seats in the one and only performance. On checking the web site, it became clear. Tuesday 'SOLD OUT' - 400 seats filled! The second performance was to be held on Monday. Having the second event prior to the first was unusual, but the message was clear: Shetland fiddle music was not unknown in this remote part of the world.

The evening arrived for the first performance after reports that the second had gone well - nearly sold out too! The Powerhouse is an old coal-fired powerhouse building that once generated electricity for Brisbane. It is now transformed into a performing arts centre on the Brisbane River next to the New Farm Park. Such conversions are fashionable. Sydney has its Powerhouse too that was redeveloped well before Brisbane’s. The early arrival at the Powerhouse on the mild autumn evening proved futile. The theatre did not open its doors until a quarter of an hour prior to the performance, and then it was a matter of grabbing your own seat, wherever, however.

A couple of scotches filled in the time and set the scene for a Shetland evening downunder. We waited in the huge brick volumes once filled with turbines as gymnasts rehearsed behind tall, dark shrouds, appearing periodically in the gaps spinning around the floor or on trapezes in the glaring dazzle of the lights above. Smarty, ‘arty’ neons winked on the walls and smiled in Skye blue and Irish green as the graffiti of old and new eras was illuminated in a quirky gleam of shadows. The shell of the building has been left in tact, complete with the original graffiti, grime and grit, with the new work separated as internal solids, just as the Burra Charter, the bible for restoration of historic buildings, proposed. Then the time came: the theatre doors opened.

After being put through the styles as sheep in a caaing, being subjected to pushing, pulling and shoving as folk fought like beasts for the opportunity to claim the best seating location, the theatre patrons settled down into their seats and waited.

The group Fiddlers’ Bid was announced, the lights faded into stage brilliance and the group strolled into the glow without fanfare, to their allotted spots on stage marked by the fiddles, harp, bass, piano and guitar. The surprise was the stubby of beer that each member carried. I had forgotten the need for each musician to always have a drink nearby. I was in Shetland again!

The first story was told to set the scene, the accent transforming the sense of place and releasing the tensions heightened by the lack of the allocation of seating; and the music started. The energy and intensity of the evening grew as time passed. Finesse and fury filled the theatre as one felt the seating structure swaying with the foot beats, leg movements, head nodding and hand clapping intensifying with each tune. It was enlivening and transforming. What might the structural engineers think of this? Even stayed bodies eventually swayed. Shetland’s fiddle music is after all basically dance music.

The music was punctuated with stories that were a pleasure to hear beyond their narrative. The Shetland dialect is another form of music to the ear that, in Australia, is more used to a dry, laconic drawl than the sweet, rhythmic tones of yarn, humour and irony. Some in the audience were moved to dance in the impossibly tiny spaces available. It was a rare sight for Australians who make good queues and generally do as they are told. Is this a relic of the convict past?

Each member of the group was introduced with a nice subtlety that revealed the instruments and the individual characters without undue ceremony or fuss. It was a pleasure not to have to endure any hype or pretence in this performance. There was no fancy garb here!

In all, it was a wondrous evening during which one could believe one was in the Baltasound Hall again, if careful, self-conscious awareness was allowed to drift and dream. The sound of the fiddle held the landscape before the eyes too, just as the rhythms of the voices recalled the presence of friends and relatives. 'He sounds just like …' was the repeated comment; then more complex memories and associations arose.

Yet the evening was never just nostalgic. It placed tradition firmly in the present, alive with a new energy that revealed the true vitality of persons anywhere and everywhere when real music reaches beyond noise and relates to places and persons beyond parochial and egocentric idiosyncrasies.

And why Brisbane? Fiddlers’ Bid said that Aly Bain had played here. It was an intuitive guess that the Brisbane folk included numerous homesick Shetlanders, and relatives and friends who knew the intimacy and magic of the islands, and who yearned for a good fiddle evening. They were right. We hope to see Fiddlers’ Bid again soon, either here or there - above or below.

. . . . . . .

Time has passed quickly since this event. Thankfully we have again experienced both - Fiddlers’ Bid in the Shetlands and in Brisbane. It was their second time in Brisbane when I invited a friend who played the guitar and sang in his own 1960’s revival group to come to the show. It was with some trepidation that he agreed to attend a fiddle evening. He seemed to have been exposed to some teasing by the other band members. He left the Powerhouse transformed! Such is the Shetland fiddle that grasps both landscape and character in its power.

For more on Fiddlers’ Bid, see http://www.fiddlersbid.com/

 

SKYE HIGH BESPOKE

Grand Designs: Kevin McCloud presented the little house and studio complex on the Isle of Skye. The promotion, that carries the same hype as the programme, had told how this was the best house McCloud had ever experienced. Now that was some claim! It was a modest home and studio project with a final cost of 130,000 pounds. The ladies had saved for years to get the place after paying 40,000 for their small block of land. The design was simple 'modern', displaying a typical Gio Ponti lozenge form in plan that had a gable turned across its length. The accommodation was appropriately unassuming too: two bedrooms; two ensuites; living, kitchen, and dining spaces; plus a separate small studio. These folk were artists, but one was the local bus driver too. Both buildings were clad in vertical larch that was left to gray gently under a turf roof – some eighteen tonnes heavy. It was a simple form. The subtle resolutions and proportions of the openings, even the juxtaposition of the masses that echo each other, and their sensible location in the landscape, made this a 'grand' but not grandiose scheme with humility and power: little wonder that McCloud thought so highly of it.

Everything worked to allow this small place to settle nicely into its environment. McCloud emphasized this in his usual hype - see http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/grand-design.html - that makes everything overly dramatic, even this modest build; but the cameras clearly showed how the colours of the roof and landscape matched perfectly, and how the forms looked strangely gentle in their location: obviously new and different, but subtle and careful. It was indeed a lovely project. One was left vaguely guessing about the systems for air supply and heating, but this is the norm for McCloud’s GD; and no one ever said anything about the overhanging end that dramatically narrowed as it sailed above a void to perch on a solid masonry wall. Was this a carport? What on earth fitted into this narrowing end of this cottage that was held high? It seemed a self-conscious extravagance in the whole simplicity of things with its commitment to an ideal, but the gesture was interesting in this sensitive project.

Or so it appeared to be: yes, sensitive maybe, but was it an environmentally responsible house? Was this a 'natural' house? One is reminded of Frank Lloyd Wright’s book of this title that is now seen as an historic relic. Was this Skye-build a good example of environmental care? It seemed so and Kevin said it was, dramatically as usual: but . . There are buts involved. All of the timber came from Scandinavia. The high tech windows and doors likewise all came from Scandinavia. The ‘environmental’ roof had soil that came from Inverness. Inverness soil had been carried across Scotland and the waters into Skye. Is this environmental? The turf was transported from England! Have we gone mad in our understanding of things sensitive and environmental? We seem to have a serious problem here. The cost and impacts of distance are getting buried in our enthusiasm for the promotion of ideas: a new modern place for Skye. This positive newness and its benefits were all presented to us with a gentle scoffing critique on the traditional little white local places with slate roofs that were scattered across the landscape: hoo haa! Just look at this ordinary stuff! Kevin blazed away with a raw arrogance at this conservative approach, declaring that he would prefer the new and different any day: and so the argument seemed to be a good one.

The question now remains: how can one build on Skye with Skye parts and minimal transport? What forms might such an approach generate? What materials might be chosen? Surely if we are to be concerned with the environment and its sense of place and being, then this is the matter that we need to addresses rather than remaining happy with transporting anything willy-nilly, whatever from wherever, to achieve an ‘environmental’ outcome: whatever it takes? One can easily do this today, but let's not pretend that we have no impact, or low impact, with this new idealism that seems blind to criticism, and uses the ‘care and concern’ for things environmental against any critic.

If left on Skye with no transport, truck or aeroplane, what would one build? How would one build? It has been done in the past. If accepting that some trucking is needed, what might one use and what forms might one generate if the rule becomes absolute minimal transport? It seems that it is not only in building that transport is becoming a concealed cost. What pressures does this movement of things place on our world that we seek to be so gentle with; that we seek to use to boast about our concerns and cleverness? Just look at the supermarket and see the food we import while local manufacturers are closing down and growers are pulling out trees and ploughing in crops.

Why can a bottle of Australian wine made in South Australia that markets for ten dollars or a little more in Australia be sold in Lerwick for five pounds? Why does Australia import fruit while local growers are destroying their produce? If we are to be serious about our place in this world, then we need to do more with things 'local' - well, regional: see http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/what-is-local_12.html  The pressures on international trade seem to have other goals beyond caring for the environment. Politics and economics are involved; and profit making too. Look at what Australia - the world - gets made in China. Just being happy with whatever is cheap, or whatever can be imported for our environmental boasting is not good enough. We need regional living that reaches out only once everything is resolved locally first. Is this concept too parochial or just responsibly sensible?

Do I hear: “What about the poor - aid and aids?” Matters are not simple, but it does seem silly to be boasting about a simple little environmental place on Skye, even if it is beautiful, when it has been assembled with pieces, parts, soil and turf from afar. In order to get a real understanding of the role transport plays in our brave new world, we should have everything marked with a miles/kilometers identification in the same manner as food contents are placed on labels. Then we might be better informed and able to make responsible choices. Just buzzing around saying how lovely life is, and how gentle we have been when we have carted dirt across land and sea to create the roof that had been the dream of a young girl for years seems shallow, irresponsible and indulgent. Has Skye no roofing turf? The Faroes have these roofs: are they imported? Seyðisfjörður in Iceland- see http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/norwegian-wood-and-corrugated-iron.html - has Norwegian pre-fabricated houses imported in the 1920s. They are beautiful. The question is: if we are importing everything from Scandinavia for our enclosures, why not the whole home as happens in Shetland? Of course this raises more questions about style and place, but it is worth considering. Would this be more environmental? Probably not.

After having considered what one might build in Unst, Shetland, and asking these questions of the locals, it was pointed out to me that there is a company on Skye that is producing its own local prefab designs that have a local inspiration and reference. Why do we go elsewhere for our things? If we are so poor at producing good products ourselves, isn't the answer improvement rather than transport? Is there something snobbish lingering here, where the thing from overseas is different, better because it is from elsewhere and highlights ‘me, me!’? Is this an ‘us, us!’ from these ladies who were waiting for their art to materialize? This is another matter. Inspiration does not relate to time; maybe place. That is why we need to concentrate on what we have next to us, near us, for our shelter and life support systems, and our food and clothing too can enhance our connection to place. The concern is that today we seem more interested in appearing bespoke, owning things from another place that no one else has, or can afford!

We know how what was called the ‘International’ style has failed us. Internationalism is doing likewise, but more subtly and intrusively. Importing solutions has only had undesirable and unpredictable repercussions: look at the cane toad in Australia, imported from South America as the ‘solution’ to the cane beetle problem in northern Queensland. It is now a pest that is creeping across the whole of the continent. Why do we never seem to learn?