#master – @nickkahler on Tumblr

Traditionally and habitually the engineer approaches with some temerity the question of beauty. I think it could be established that the ugliest factories, not to say other buildings, are to be found amongst those where beauty has been consciously courted. I count as priggishness the conscious attempt to achieve beauty – much as though a man set out to be a beautiful character, instead of an honest man. ... To build factories and other buildings, we must be the humble, if articulate, servants of materials and things, and if we must be masters, then be masters of ourselves.

Owen Williams, “On Engineering Beauty,” 1927

#engineering #beauty #owen williams #architecture #tradition #habit #temerity #question #establishment #ugly #factory #priggishness #character #honesty #honest #building #material #master #control

nickkahler

We still have essentially the gung ho, Wild West way of doing business in this country, where we think we are the master of nature. Fighting, building barriers, instead of accommodating the ocean.

Klaus Jacob, “The New York of the Not-Too-Distant-Future,” 2016

#klaus jacob #new york city #future #gung ho #wild west #business #master #nature #fighting #building #ocean #architecture #urbanism #climate change

nickkahler

As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!

Leon Trotsky, "On Optimism and Pessimism, on the Twentieth Century, and on Many Other Things", 1901

#leon trotsky #optimism #pessimism #quote #breathe #hope #future #radiant #man #strong #beauty #master #history #horizon #joy #happiness #writing #passion #lit #literature #philosophy

nickkahler

One of the most conspicuous things about today’s young creators is their tendency to construct a multiplicity of artistic identities. You’re a musician and a photographer and a poet; a storyteller and a dancer and a designer—a multiplatform artist, in the term one sometimes sees. Which means that you haven’t got time for your 10,000 hours in any of your chosen media. But technique or expertise is not the point. The point is versatility. Like any good business, you try to diversify. What we see in the new paradigm—in both the artist’s external relationships and her internal creative capacity—is what we see throughout the culture: the displacement of depth by breadth.

William Deresiewicz, The Death of the Artist and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur, 2014

nickkahler

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.

Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, c. 1960

#shunryu suzuki #zen #mind #concept #idea #architecture #quote #master #expert #beginner #few #design #question #problem #solution #japan #religion #philosophy #buddhism

nickkahler

The building itself stands alone, in complete solitude. No more polemical statements, no more trouble. It has acquired its definitive condition, it will remain forever, master of itself.

Rafael Moneo, "On the Museum for Roman Artifacts," Merida, Spain, 1984

nickkahler

The slave master, the capitalist entertainer, the pimp and the racist scientist are the four aspects of the same figure of the colonialist. This dominating figure wants to simultaneously have access to free or under-payed (wo)manpower, to develop an economy of spectacle to its bourgeois audience, to subjugate the colonized body to his desire and eventually to justify the system of rationality he uses to legitimatize his acts through the fallacious construction of an ideology that excludes the colonized body from the realms of human beings entitled to rights.

Leopold Lambert, "Saartjie Baartman, The Hottentot Venus: The Figure of the Colonized Body," 2013

nickkahler

Rankings create order where there is chaos. They enumerate the innumerable variety of the world and give us a small sense of mastery over our environment.

Derek Thompson, "Seven Reasons for and Against Lists," 2013

#derek thompson #reason #list #ranking #chaos #variety #sense #mastery #master #environment

nickkahler

Nick Kahler vs. Google Ngram Viewer, Old Masters, 1800-2000

Daedalus Vitruvius Imhotep Suger
Alberti Brunelleschi Sangallo Bramante
Romano Palladio Porta Peruzzi
Cortona Bernini Borromini Fontana
Jones Wren Vanbrugh Hawksmoor
Bulfinch Renwick Latrobe Davis
Hunt Richardson Furness McKim
Sullivan Burnham Holabird Jenney
Corbusier Wright Gropius Mies
Loos Neutra Gaudi Velde

nickkahler

Accordingly, the first body, the Yliaster, was nothing but a clod which contained all the chaos, all the waters, all minerals, all herbs, all stones, all gems. Only the supreme Master could release them and form them with tender solicitude, so that other things could be created from the rest.

Paracelsus, "On the Yliaster," c. 1535

#paracelsus #yilaster #first #body #prima materia #clod #chaos #water #mineral #herb #stone #gem #master #god #supreme #solicitude #rest #render #release #alchemy

nickkahler

Leonardo da Vinci, Detail of the Portrait of Ginevra de Benci, c. 1474-8

#leonardo da vinci #art #detail #painting #abstraction #plant #garden #sun #color #gradient #master

nickkahler

Eero Saarinen and Kevin Roche Working on the TWA Terminal in their Office, c. 1955

#eero saarinen #kevin roche #office #twa terminal #model #architecture #portrait #photography #master

nickkahler

Architects endure all the difficulties involved in raising buildings -artifacts that perhaps at first can be said to reflect our intentions, express our desires and represent the problems we dicuss in schools. For a time, we regardour buildings as mirrors; in their reflection we recognize who we are, and eventually who we were. We are tempted to think that a building is a personal statement within the ongoing process of history; but today I am certain that once the construction is finished, once the building assumes its own reality and its own role, all those concerns that occupied the architects and their efforts dissolve. . . . The building itself stands alone, in complete solitude -no more polemical statements, no more troubles. It has acquired its definitive condition and will remain alone forever, master of itself. When architects realize that a building masters its own life, their approach to design is different. . . . Our personal concerns become secondary and the final reality of the building becomes the authentic aim of our work. It is the building's materiality, its own being, that becomes the unique and exclusive concern.

Rafael Moneo, The Solitude of Buildings from Miller | Hull Partnership's Public Works, 1986

#miller hull partnership #quote #rafael moneo #architecture #building #personal #master #architect #solitude #favorite