#iron – @nickkahler on Tumblr

The view from the porch stretched off across a long incline studded with iron weed and across the highway to a vast vista of hills and one small mountain. Long views depressed Parker. You look out into space like that and you begin to feel as if someone were after you, the navy or the government or religion.

Flannery O’Connor, “Parker’s Back,” 1965

#flannery o'connor #quote #parker #back #porch #view #stretch #incline #stud #iron #weed #highway #vista #vast #hill #mountain #space #long #landscape #pursuit #government #religion #fear #control

nickkahler

The girl’s face seemed to mirror the nakedness of the sky. In despair he leaned closer until he was stopped by a miniature visage which rose incorrigibly in her spectacles and fixed him where he was. Round, innocent, undistinguished as an iron link, it was the face whose gift of life had pushed straight forward to the future to raise festival after festival. Like a master salesman, it seemed to have been waiting there from all time to claim him.

Flannery O’Connor, “The Partridge Festival,” 1961

nickkahler

When she looked out any window in her house, she saw the reflection of her own character. Her city friends said she was the most remarkable woman they knew, to go, practically penniless and with no experience, out to a rundown farm and make a success of it. 'Everything is against you,' she would say, 'the weather is against you and the dirt is against you and the help is against you. They’re all in league against you. There’s nothing for it but an iron hand!'

Flannery O’Connor, “Greenleaf,” 1956

#flannery o'connor #quote #lit #literature #look #window #house #reflection #character #friend #city #remarkable #woman #success #everything #opposition #dirt #league #nothing #iron #hand #country #rural #farm #nature

nickkahler

The particular character of fortified works does not appear with as much impact when one dwells in them. This character became vivid only when I was reviewing block 14 of the customs point at Greffern, which its occupants had deserted. When I had after much effort succeeded in opening the enormous iron door and had gone down into the concrete crypt, I found myself alone with the machine guns, the ventilators, the hand grenades, and the munitions, and I held my breath. Sometimes a drop of water would fall from the ceiling or the sector telephone would ring in various ways. It was only here that I recognized the place as the seat of cyclops who were expert in metal works but who do not have the inner eye, just as sometimes in museums you can ascertain the meaning of certain works more clearly than those craftsmen who made them and who used them at length. Thus was I, as if inside a pyramid or in the depths of catacombs, faced with the genius of time that I construed as an idol, without the animated reflection of technical finesse and whose enormous power I understood perfectly. Moreover, the extremely crushed and chelonian form of these constructions recall Aztec architecture, and not only superficially; what was there the sun is here the intellect and both are in contact with blood, with the powers of death.

Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel, 1924 (via virilio)

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Élisée Reclus + Louis Bonnier, Shrine to the Earth for the Exposition Universelle, Paris, France, 1900 (via hideback)

'This enormous, scientifically accurate globe would have stood 418 feet tall. A spiraling ramp would have led viewers along a journey from Antarctica to the North Pole. Proposed in 1895, it was never built. Patrick Geddes called it “no mere scientific model in its institute, but the image, the shrine, and temple of the Earth-mother.”'

#elisee reclus #louis bonnier #architecture #drawing #sphere #geometry #metal #iron #earth #shrine #sacred #god #temple #religion #paris #france #expo #exposition universelle

nickkahler

Ivan Leonidov, Proposal for a Iron and Steel Works at Magnitogorsk, Russia, c. 1928 (via rosswolfe)

#ivan leonidov #architecture #drawing #iron works #steel works #steel #iron #globe #city #yin yang #magnitogorsk #russia #ussr #soviet union #art #favorite #circle #geometry #collage #blue #ultimate

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Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, "Iron Column Loggia" Entretiens sur l’architecture, 1863 (via polychroniadis)

#eugene viollet-le-duc #iron #column #detail #loggia #structure #bridge #human figure #concept #architecture

nickkahler

Ivan Leonidov, Detail of the Proposal for Magnitogorsk Iron and Steelworks, Magnitogorsk, Russia, 1930 (via rosswolfe)

#ivan leonidov #detail #magnitogorsk #iron #steel #russia #constructivism #architecture #drawing

nickkahler

Henri Labrouste, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris, France, 1843-50

#france #henri labrouste #iron #library #paris #plan #revivalism #architecture

nickkahler

Tom Thwaites, "How I Built a Toaster - From Scratch," TEDsalon London, 2010

"It takes an entire civilization to build a toaster. Designer Thomas Thwaites found out the hard way, by attempting to build one from scratch: mining ore for steel, deriving plastic from oil ... it's frankly amazing he got as far as he got. A parable of our interconnected society, for designers and consumers alike." Other projects include "Policing Genes," "Prohibition Culture," and "Honeytrap."

#tom thwaites #sculpture #industrial design #material #toaster #TED #video #london #embodied energy #steel #mica #iron #copper