#humanism – @nickkahler on Tumblr

In this respect, our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words, they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they have taken no precautions.

Albert Camus, The Plague, 1947

#albert camus #lit #literature #quote #the plague #humanism #belief #disbelief #pestilence #measure #thing #bogy #mind #dream #nightmare #pass #precaution

nickkahler

Beauty is a big, transformational thing, the proper goal of art and maybe civilization itself. This humanistic worldview holds that beauty conquers the deadening aspects of routine; it educates the emotions and connects us to the eternal.

David Brooks, “When Beauty Strikes,” 2016

#quote #art #beauty #big #transformation #thing #metamorphosis #civilization #goal #worldview #humanism #routine #education #emotion #connection #eternal

nickkahler reblogged

archatlas

nickkahler

ATA Studio, Library on the Quay, Anhui, China, 2016 (via archatlas)

‘The library is an important part of the riverside park that was converted from an industrial wharf.The purpose of the library is not only to provide a place to read books and viewing for people, but also to preserve the historical memory of the place. People can see the river through the window. Inside the bookshelf enclosure, there is a ladder shape reading space. The ceiling of the ladder shape space is a bamboo device – “The upside-down landscape”. It shakes gently in the breeze. It looks like a symbol of Chinese humanistic philosophy.’

nickkahler

Architecture in the postcritical, post-starchitect, posthumanist, postparametric twenty-ﬁrst century is changing, or perhaps has already changed, certainly into a scrappier discipline, if not one of actual scraps. In such times our youngest and greatest minds are encouraged to ﬁght, to scrounge, and to root for remains that might be used to cobble together any experimental construct at even the most minuscule of scales—and for free.

Mark Foster Gage, “Rot Munching Architects” from Perspecta 47: Money, 2014