(figure 3) Vernacular farm building from Tras-os-Montes region of Portugal
"Paulo Varela Gomes, in his brief but excellent synopsis of Portuguese architecture, has called the thinking reflected in this book a "metaphysic of the relation between work and life. The vernacular is seen as the unmediated and, shall we say, prelinguistic product of life and its conditions. I would again bring to mind Rosenberg's idea of "American action painters" whose work did not represent the being of the artist so much as it was an unmediated trace, or record of the artist's life in action. These buildings are like tools, transparent to their human task (figure 3). They bear the logic that brought them into being: the task to be performed, the hand that will need to grip them, and indirectly that aspect of the society reflected by the very existence of the need to perform that task to which the tool is dedicated. The sign is not yet broken into the arbitrary relationship between the signifier and the signified. "
alvaro siza
Boa Nova Tea House
and the ocean pools... pretty good images here
and the serralves foundation (contemporary art museum).
It would be interesting to map out a geneology between some these buildings and the fascist state's attempt at projecting a nationalized space of domesticity.
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(figure 3) Vernacular farm building from Tras-os-Montes region of Portugal
"Paulo Varela Gomes, in his brief but excellent synopsis of Portuguese architecture, has called the thinking reflected in this book a "metaphysic of the relation between work and life. The vernacular is seen as the unmediated and, shall we say, prelinguistic product of life and its conditions. I would again bring to mind Rosenberg's idea of "American action painters" whose work did not represent the being of the artist so much as it was an unmediated trace, or record of the artist's life in action. These buildings are like tools, transparent to their human task (figure 3). They bear the logic that brought them into being: the task to be performed, the hand that will need to grip them, and indirectly that aspect of the society reflected by the very existence of the need to perform that task to which the tool is dedicated. The sign is not yet broken into the arbitrary relationship between the signifier and the signified. "
alvaro siza
- bill 10-06-2004 11:33 pm
Boa Nova Tea House
- selma 10-06-2004 11:48 pm [add a comment]
and the ocean pools... pretty good images here
- selma 10-06-2004 11:54 pm [add a comment]
and the serralves foundation (contemporary art museum).
- selma 10-07-2004 12:16 am [add a comment]
It would be interesting to map out a geneology between some these buildings and the fascist state's attempt at projecting a nationalized space of domesticity.
- pedro c (guest) 10-21-2004 12:40 am [add a comment]