Resurrecting Gesù

This year’s professor for the Visiting Critic’s Studio is Louis Brillant, architect from Montreal and alumnus from Carleton School of Architecture. Louis completed his graduate studies at McGill University and has a specialized knowledge of conservation in liturgical buildings in Canada. We sat down with Louis Friday morning to review this semester’s brief, which will focus exclusively on the Gesù Church in Montreal. Our task is to architecturally elevate the site from its current state of neglect. Historically, the Gesù Church has been a meeting point for discursive artistic events but has since diminished in its social role. It really has slipped into a state of urban abandon; inside, the extravagant appearance of the church is unsuspecting. Resurrecting this historic relationship of the church to its immediate neighbourhood -- from a contemporary gaze -- is a fundamental condition to respond to this term.

The semester is structured to have bi-weekly desk-critiques with Louis. Much of the course reading will revolve around religious texts to help navigate the religiously hopeless folk, like myself. Readings of note include: Genesis, Dante’s Divine Comedy, James Joyce’s Ulysses (pity on the poor sucker stuck with that one…).

On Tuesday, the group is meeting in Montreal with Louis to survey the existing church at Bleury Street. There seems to be multiple lessons in this exercise: 1. get experience surveying a large-scale building 2. learning the importance of communication – something always goes wrong in surveys. This struck a parallel theme to our Murray & Murray competition (underway, and rockin’ out). While the Tower of Babel was a project derived from human-made plans and drawings, Noah’s Ark on the other hand was a project derived from instructions by word of mouth (i.e. mouth of God). The relevance of this lies in how information is translated. From an absolute idea which is perfect in your head, something is interpreted and then translated as soon as it leaves your head. Interpretation occurs in how instructions are said, and then how it is represented on a drawing for example. This is passed on to others to read and interpreted again to construct the physical reality of an originally perfect idea (so, going from 'dream stuff' to 'real stuff', blurring occurs). Stuff like this can happen. Our trip to Montreal will prove that between holding the dummy end of the measuring tape to translating the information onto CAD and then using this presumably definitive information to derive a new building, there will ultimately require a certain level of interpretation. When we compare our survey notes 'as-is' to how it is meant to be built, I'm sure we'll find allllll kinds of discrepancies.

On the home front, the house is an explosion of stuff. Moving in happened, then happened again when Paddy and I moved J’s stuff into the house. It’s a mess. Thursday I’ll be getting internet, and the next day a cell phone, with a bonus girlfriend!

Back to drawing…

2007 Murray & Murray Competition

Following the director’s address Tuesday afternoon, we received our annual brief for the Murray & Murray drawing competition. This project is always a good opportunity to playful with drawing and experimental in drawing medium. The competition is mandatory for first year students right through to master’s level and the winner of the competition usually receives a monetary prize and world-wide fame.

For this year’s competition, we are to design The Tower of Babel and Noah’s Ark from a ‘Neo-medieval’ approach to architecture. This project makes references to architects such as Piranesi, John Ruskin, and Carlo Scarpa. Scarpa’s Castelvecchio in Verona is a case for ‘Neo-medievalism’, as it was originally built as a simple stone-walled fortification but later modified prior to WW1 to give it a more robust castle-like appearance. Castelvecchio was bombed twice during the war and later restored by Carlo Scarpa. His treatment of the building follows structurally medieval principles in its orientation of beam spans, detailing, and treatment of light for example; the end result is a modern art gallery.

* * *

The Brief – as written by Director Marco Frascari

Architecture as the result of an infinite mirroring of translations began with the architectural dream of the Tower of Babel 1, i.e.: the human origin of ethnification, trans-nationalization. Since then architects moving from nation to nation from ethnic group to ethnic group are constantly translating human virtuality intertwined with the infra-ordinary fabric of our reality, dream stuff, into the built reality, the solid stuff, and vice versa. The dream stuff and the solid stuff are inseparable parts of our constructed solid stuff environment.

A dreaming but ‘incomplete’ Canadian Lady who owns a cottage located on exceptionally large piece of land facing the astonishingly great lake of Nimrod has decided to build two replicas of biblical constructions that can be considered as genetic primers since out of them originated two of the most fundamental building systems, the wet and the dry construction. The first construction will be located on a peninsula protruding within the lake and it is a replica of the Tower of Babel and its construction site during an early phase of the erection. The edifice will be in bricks and it will be surrounded with all the appropriate equipments and devices required for its erection. The second construction is a replica of Noah’s Ark that will be docked in a large bay near the tower.

Genesis 6:15 in the Bible tells us the Ark’s dimensions were at least 135 meters long (300 cubits), 22.5 meters wide (50 cubits), and 13.5 meters high (30 cubits) 2. That’s 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high! It could have been larger because several larger-sized cubits were used. But the 45-centimeter (18-inch) cubit is long enough to show the enormous size of the Ark. 3

In the Bible, the dimensions of the tower are not given, but remember the intention was to reach the top of the sky.

The Design must be presented with landscape orientation on a board 30 x 20 –inches.
Competition Deadline: boards must be pinned up by September 10th at 11:00 in the Pit.

A preliminary and selective judging will take place between 11:00 and 12:00

The judging of the finalists will take place at 16:45 in the Pit.

A celebrative reception will take place at 17:30



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1. The Tower of Babel was, according to the Old Testament (see Gen. 11:1-9), a tower erected on the plain of Shinar in Babylonia by descendants of Noah. The builders intended the tower to reach to heaven; their presumption, however, angered Jehovah, who interrupted construction by causing among them a previously unknown confusion of languages. He then scattered these people, speaking different languages, over the face of the earth.
2. 14. “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch.
15. “And this is how you shall make it: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits.
16. “You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above; and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, second, and third decks.
3. A cubit was the length of a man’s arm from fingertips to elbow.

Berlin

After Barcelona, I headed off to Berlin for the second leg of my trip. Highlights include: being randomly interviewed by a German radio station for nation branding at the Reichstadt, currywursts, Camille Carot painting 'Ville d'Avray', and Gauklerfest (street performance festival / beerfest).

Barcelona

Well I'm comfortably seated in a familiar old chair in the roasting humid loft of my home in the Soo now. I apologize for the long hiatus, but I've been sifting through the thousands of digi pics from the last leg of my travels in Europe, correcting, cropping, and organizing the good shots between visiting friends and getting my eyes, teeth and ticker inspected upon return. I'm really happy to be back in familiar territory, living beyond a luggage bag and something larger than a shoe-box apartment. That. feels. great.

Work at the friary came to a close but the celebrations postponed until after my end-of-the-year travel-fest. I tied up some loose ends over the weekend and took off for Barcelona and Berlin over 1.5 weeks. Unfortunately Jess was tied down at work and had to chill in Dublin while I spoiled myself silly on vacation (I didn't really, but taking a solo vacation in the bigger picture is a bitttt of spoilage). Anyhow, I spent 5 days in Barcelona and 4 in Berlin. The trip to BCN turned out to be more of a Gaudi pilgrimage than a relaxing time on the beaches. In fact I didn't even hit the beaches in reluctance of unveiling my newfound ribs and pasty Irish skin. Staying in one of the architecture capitals of the world (with 9 World Heritage Sites - 7 of which are works by Gaudi) I just couldn't resist but see everything I could pull my feeble body to see. In fact my OCD kicked in and I gave'r for the first few days in attempt to see Everything. Here's my current photo album of a portion of what I saw (seriously, my culture filter clogged right up here. I saw a lot):



Have yet to get through my Berlin pics but am working towards it for the end of the weekend. Only one week left till going back to Ottawa to see everyone. See you all on Friday 31st!

Hi everyone. At the moment I'm on a short holiday after finishing up at work last week. I just left Barcelona for Berlin and will be back in Dublin on Thursday. I'm sorry to keep you staring at the same old post for a while, but I'll have plenty of photos and events to recap when I get back to the Soo on the 16th! This isn't the end of the blog by any means...I'm going to try to transform it into an outlet for thesis and all-round trash-talk forum. Anyways, hope to fill you all in shortly and maybe see you face to face in the Soo or Ottawa!

Work

The past few weeks have been fairly busy at work but very rewarding. I just submitted a planning application for a small domestic extension to an old Georgian home just up the street from my current address . The building is considered a protected structure by conservation standards and so we've had to apply for permission to make any changes to the existing building. This particular project was good because I've been able to work on it from survey stage through design development, client presentations and then to planning stage which is rarely the case. Having a 10 month work period just lends to actually seeing a project through. Unfortunately, next week is my last week of work, so no chance of seeing it on site. I think I'm allowed to show just about this much of the project:

Sketchup model of the back extension.

I can't really believe it but next Friday is my last day of work. Then I'm going to sneak off to do some traveling and come back to visit J's ancestral village of Killishandra in County Cavan. And then my friends, it's home sweet home.

Copenhagen Consensus

Credit to Dave Viitala for posting this on his facebook page, but I thought it was really interesting and wanted to hear what you thought about it. This was a lecture that reflected discussions at the Copenhagen Consensus 2007, this particular topic a counter-argument or at least a readjustment of where we should stand regarding climate change. Bjorn Lomberg is head of the Consensus meeting and his talk is very persuasive so I'm extra skeptical...

Hugh Doran

I've come across these black and white photographs by Hugh Doran (1926-2004) and wanted to share them. Doran was a printer by profession for the Guinness company and these are some of his 'amateur' photographs which he compiled in his spare time. A lot of his photos are of Dublin and its architecture. His prints are on display at the moment at the Irish Architectural Archives.







These samples are from a new publication: Hugh Doran Photographer, Irish Architectural Archive, 45 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, 2007.

Torino - Genova

One week after seeing Northern Ireland with Jess, I took the last bit of my holiday time to see Andre in his ancestral homeland for a few days. We met up in Turin in the middle of the night, because of a terribly delayed flight into Italy on Ryanair. I checked in at our hostel at around 11:30 at night, without having dinner yet and woke Ghione just to say I arrived. I then headed out into the city to find some dinner until about 1:30am to settle the day's worth of hunger.

The following day, we said a more coherent hello to each other and headed out into the city. We caught a nice view of the city from the hills nearby the hostel - the Mole Antonelliana (pronounced moleh...with a bit of Italian flair) as the main focus with the Alps in the background. Haphazardly, we made our way towards it to see it up close and explore the city at the same time. After a nice long circle route with more catching up with each other than touristy sight-seeing, we reached the Mole. It looks like a church but it has been converted to a cinema museum. We decided to have a look. It was really worth it, the inside was full of activity - a nice break from just looking at the inside of a church which has become the usual in most European cities. In Dublin however most of the churches have been converted to lighting shops or pubs. Anyhow, we spent a while here then checked out the Royal Gardens from a closed fence and walked around for most of the remaining day.

The following day, we caught an early train to head down to Genoa (Genova). Before coming here, I was trying to place our hostel on google maps. You have to see this. It's quite a contrast to Turin's gridded map. In Genova, Ghione and I explored the old medieval town and later saw the famous La Lanterna (lighthouse). Architect Renzo Piano has redeveloped the main harbour, including a tensile tent (which was closed when we were there) as well as a floating butterfly bubble. The city is totally focused inward on its historical port, where Christopher Columbus is supposedly born. The harbour is filled with massive ferries and cruise ships. We visited the aquarium there as well which is known as the largest in Europe.

We caught a lot of sights together, but it was really nice to catch up with the old mountebank again. Our next proposed rendezvous will be in Thailand circa 2008.

Quick Update

Hi everyone, the last few weeks have been pretty busy. Three big events: second trip to Belfast with Jess, seeing the Leinster Final Hurling match at Croke Park, and a romantic getaway to the Siena region of Italy with mega friend Andre Ghione. There's plenty to report and I haven't even had time to upload the photos yet. Hopefully over the weekend I'll have it all sorted.

word of the day :: triskaidekaphobia \tris-ky-dek-uh-FOH-bee-uh\, noun: A morbid fear of the number 13 or the date Friday the 13th.

\/Take extra care today\/