Magic Transistor

Ivan Leonidov. Proposal for the Lenin Institute in Moscow. 1927.

AIM: To answer the needs of contemporary life through maximum use of the possibilities of technology.

THEME: The Lenin Institute is the collective knowledge center of the USSR.

LOCATION: Where the new city is developing. Lenin Hills in Moscow.

CONSTlTUENT PARTS: A library with 15 million volumes of books and 5 reading rooms of 500-1000 seat capacity, and an institute of librarianship.

Auditoria varying in capacity from 250-4000 people. A scientific theater, i.e. planetarium. Research institutes for individual academic work.

MECHANIZATION: Library — Delivery of books to the reader and back into the stacks takes place through vertical and horizontal conveyor systems; upon request from the catalogue hall, the books are automatically delivered to the reading rooms.

Auditoria — The research institute is linked to the auditoria and reading rooms, and feature a whole series of devices: telephones, radios, and remote televisual equipment. By this arrangement the entire academic staff of the institute can work together simultaneously on a single project.

Planetarium — The sphere is convertible into a science theater after projection screens are installed along the inside skin.

The connection with Moscow itself is made by an aerial tramway with a central aerodrome for the suspended roadway. The connection with the world is through a powerful radio station.

MATERIALS: Glass, steel, reinforced concrete.  -The Charnel House

Giorgio Moroder.

Robert Fludd. Utriusque Cosmi

The Paradisio Synthesizer; In 1973, Media Lab associate professor Joe Paradiso was an undergraduate at Tufts University, and didn't know anyone who had built an analog music synthesizer, or "synth," from scratch. It was a time, he says, when information and parts for do-it-yourself projects were scarce, and digital synthesizer production was on the rise. But, he decided to tackle the project without any formal training and sought out advice from local college professors, including his now-colleague in the Media Lab, Barry Vercoe. Paradiso gathered information from manufacturers' data sheets and hobbyist magazines he found in public libraries. He taught himself basic electronics, scrounged for parts from surplus stores and spent a decade and a half building modules and hacking consumer keyboards to create the synth, which he completed in the 1980s. That synthesizer, probably the world's largest with more than 125 modules is now on display in the MIT Museum. Every few weeks, Paradiso changes the complex configurations of wires connecting the synthesizer's modules, called "patches," to create a new sonic environment. The synthesizer streams live online 24 hours a day.

Serge modular synthesizer.

Mort Garson/Lucifer.  Solomon's Ring. 1971

1970 / Officina Stellare / Piero Umiliani / Musica Elettronica, Volume One" (2000)