Submission Date

Please submit your blogs as a set, including a concluding blog and preferably arranged first to last, as a hard copy to the school office for Friday 11th January 2013 (for full time students) or Monday14th January 2013 (part-time students). I will only mark hard copy submissions.

I hope you have enjoyed the course and remember we continue next semester with the second part of the critical thinking module in preparation for your dissertations. Happy holidays!

Aman has charts!

Just in case any of you are having difficulty finding Spengler's charts, Aman from Studio 8 photographed them yesterday.
Thanks to Aman you will find them below:
 
They have been posted in the facebook group. For those that don't have access here is the link:https://www.dropbox.com/s/ea0gtot9rfdi0sp/Diagram%20Photos2.pdf 

Session 10

For this session I want you to familiarize yourselves with the argument of Oswald Spengler in The Decline of The West. The best way to do this might be to study the three charts at the end of Volume One; Contemporary Spiritual Epochs, Contemporary Culture Epochs and Contemporary Political Epochs. Unfortunately they are too large for my our scanner so I have to ask you to forage for them on the internet.
Secondly and by way of contrast, I want you to read almost any article by John Lanchester, a regular and readable contributor to many journals, especially (my favourite) the London Review of Books.
Spengler postulates an argument that even if it were to be true, is most unhelpful, but it does ask you to confront a fatalistic nihilism that pervaded an area of thought between the wars, and might readily be brought to an understanding of the work of Mies van de Rohe.
Lets see what you might make of both characters and their opposite viewpoints.

Session 9

The passages this week are from this big book, USA by John Dos Passos. Each are short biographical chapters 'Tin Lizzie' (Henry Ford) 'The Bitter Drink' (Torsten Veblen) 'Architect' (Frank Lloyd Wright)  and 'Adagio Dancer' (Rudolf Valantino). The book itself is an intensely modern attempt to express the vibrancy of the new world via biography and scraps of newsreel as well as traditional storytelling. If you would like to indulge yourself in the qualities of Dos Passos's storytelling, you would do well to read the central section around pages 1010 on entitled the 'The Big Money' charting boom prior to the wall street crash, the death of the man who had it made and the rise of a Hollywood starlet. It's a story grippingly told.
It is not unusual to find this period of dramatic transformation in the USA characterized by considerable human tragedy. Think Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby for a portrait of the high end. The low end is  a wretched struggle for rights of one kind or another, even a living wage, within the context of the american dream.
You might want to take a look at my own blog 'Architecture and Other Habits' (pauldaviesarchitecture.blogspot.com) where I discuss unofficially some of the texts in this course as they strike me this time around.

Session 8

We shall we watching the film The Fountainhead for this session, you are not required to watch it in advance. However it would be useful for you to get some background on the author of the book and the screenplay, Ayn Rand, beforehand. She has been hugely influential to contemporary American politics.
As I outlined in the last session, we now change emphasis a little. Having provided you with plenty of samples of critical method in the first part of the course, it is time for you to flex your own critical muscles. Don't worry, there's no change of format at all, I simply require you to blog as you have been doing, but instead of description coupled by bemusement, I'm hoping that you can show capabilities in comprehension and evaluation which might even be a bit more fun, as if you were writing for a critical magazine for instance. So from here on, I will not be looking for you to simply describe the story, but for you to demonstrate an overall critical viewpoint. Of course you can borrow one, but you still have to make it your own (as they say on X Factor) utilizing your contextual understanding of what Rand and Hollywood stood for, stand for, and maybe even the ongoing consequences of this particular cultural product. And do not think for a second that your discussion has to be one sided, the most entertaining blogs are those clouded in ambiguity, yet where shafts of illumination fabulously appear.

Advice on blogging

Invited to look at some of your blogs, here's some advice:

• Try to define how you are going to start, what is roughly the middle, and what your parting shot is before you start.  
• Try not, therefore, to see the blog as a chance to ramble on, instead rather to be succinct.
• Most of your entries seem too long simply as a consequence of the two points above. If you try and master your ramblings into style, the content flows effortlessly along. Hence, if you've got a basic starting point, middle and end, and you are likely to be more confident and the words will flow more easily and overall the piece will become more stylish. 
• Don't be afraid to chop stuff which is looking tedious (this is a kind of golden rule, if you sense it doesn't fit, chop it out.

Session 7

Your text for this week os Evelyn Waugh's short novel Decline and Fall, a parody of life in England in the inter war years where many archaic traditions live on while new thoughts drift in the wind. The architect figure of Prof Silenus is of particular interest, he seems to have quite a taste for deco rather than strictly modern, but we shouldn't worry about the style too much, it's attitudes that we should enjoy, that and Waugh's barbed wit. The cartoon below by Karl Arnold is of the same period.

Session 6

This next reading is the section on Goethe's Faust from this book. It enables us to get a handle on one of our most troublesome problems, that of development. As we have already established, man produces, we do not just flower, we take actions with consequences, we develop. Goethe wrote the story of Faust over the whole of his life, and whilst we may not know it in the original, his message is as profound as when it was written and presented well for us here by Berman. Faust's story essentially takes us from the certainties and superstitions of the medieval world, via science, in to the tumult of the modern, where all that was stable now 'melts in to air'. Faust's story is of course tragic, just as when you first leave home for the big city and leave your first lover behind, people get hurt as you progress. Faust's end is also tragic, but we learn much along the way, enough to make us most circumspect over our definition of technological progress, whilst at the same time understanding it's necessity. There is much subtlety in Goethe, but if you want it tweet sized, it must go something like 'you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs'.

Feedback 1

So we are four sessions in, and hearty congratulations to those who have kept with the program, as you do so you will feel the task getting easier, and similar remonstrations to those of you who, quite predictably, stopped just when the going got tougher. My first advice then is bog weekly on the subject given, do not let it slip, so those of you yet to offer your thoughts on Eagleton, get on with it NOW!
I do not think blogging about something is explaining it, at this stage it is more having a view on it, contextualizing it into your world, and thats where this process works. Remember if you are frustrated with the task, you say exactly that, and then expand on your view, after all we do all need to be ENTERTAINED even if by the look of it Robbie Williams thinks looking like the Incredible Hulk on X Factor last night will do the job.
Remember whilst we are writing in the present, your study texts are already firmly set in the past. They are not likely to cause you immediate pain, there is no reason to be scared of them. Perhaps though, going backwards as we are leads you down tunnels where you cannot yet see the light, where the context is unclear. This venturing takes a bit of faith, but even from what I've read, few of you seem exactly enthralled by our crappy present so what is there to lose?
So in short, recalcitrants get on board, while those beginning to sense freedom in the word- bring it on.

Session Cancelled (Again)

This is a notice for tomorrows PT students due to read Lefebvre tomorrow morning at 9am in K604. I'm incredibly sorry to have to cancel this session due to illness.
Luckily whilst in bed, I can still use the computer and shall use the time going over your blogs so far- working from the back of my list so I hopefully catch the PT students first- so you should get feedback by lunchtime and time will not be wasted. I am also very happy to respond to your carefully worded questions by e-mail at davies.vegas@virgin.net tomorrow morning. Please note the new reading as set below for your next session.
This is a most unfortunate announcement to make, and made most reluctantly. I'm sorry for any inconvenience. Paul

Session 5

For this reading we look at the easily downloadable Howl (1956) and William Burroughs The Job. The  Job is something to dip in to rather than read solidly, the structure of Burroughs thought being not unlike poetry itself. Here the interview structure helps us understand a hugely complex personality. Margaret Thatcher once said there was no such thing as society, there were only individuals and family. She announced this as she became prime minister in the seventies. 

It's interesting that she felt pushed to make such a statement, and if we hold it in our mind, and consider the political thought and popular movements of the preceding twenty years, all may become clear. We shall be considering especially our literal and metaphorical appreciation of the machine and the consequences of a breakdown in social order that created the 'swinging sixties'. In architecture this might be illustrated in the rather different work of Archigram and Superstudio.

Helpful post

I've just blogged on Lefebvre and Hickey in Architecture and Other Habits under the title 'What is Perspective' (pauldaviesarchitecture.blogspot.com) and some of you may find it helpful.

Downloadable Lefebvre

Here's a downloadable text for Lefebvre:
http://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/lefebvre_production_space.pdf

Session 4

This weeks reading is from this book, Chapter 2, Social Space, pages 68 to 85. Despite the text hardly being the easiest read, it is quite reasonable for you to get the basic drift of what Lefebvre is on about (the consideration of 'space' in a more specific way than 'nice space' and also a broader conception of it's formulation according to perhaps better criteria than capitalism applies) and be able to make some inroads in to an understanding of what might for instance be the difference between a 'work' and a 'product' and further wonder at what precisely he finds good in Venice.
Given our discussion of Eagleton, it is perhaps worth considering that the inquisition into the real as exemplified in the work of Roland Barthes, Caude Levi Strauss, Michel Foucault and so on was also a response to the abuse of truth manifested by Nazi ideology with such horrific consequences in WW2, as well as our need to come to terms with the new consumerist world characterized by an onslaught of advertising.  

Session 3

To make sense of the confusion we might feel now, Terry Eagleton makes it clear in this book that something has changed, but what from? Eagleton provides at least the brass tacks here, and does it in a very readable and humorous way. Why indeed are todays grad literature students concentrating their studies on S&M when there might be so many more useful things to do?

Whilst it would be useful for you to read the whole book, plus any number of others Eagleton has written of the same type, including 'Literary Theory' a standard text, and 'Why Marx was Right' (just Google him) I would expect you to enjoy the first few chapters for the benefit of this session. 

Session cancelled

With apologies the 9 am session for part time students on 8th October has been cancelled due to illness.  We will pick up again next week.

Session 2

'At Home in the Neon' by Dave Hickey from Air Guitar, and 'Sand Fear and Money' in Dubai by Mike Davis. You need to find the book for Hickey, but Davis's piece is easily downloadable.
We move backwards from our quandry about reality; Badiou and Meades were wrestling with it, but Hickey and Davis knew where they stood writing these pieces.
Hickey writes lyrically about Las Vegas, using everyday observation and personal history to establish his positive view. Davis doesn't like Las Vegas, but he dislikes Dubai even more. He's an orthodox Marxist if there can be such a thing. I wonder what Hickey is other than a great writer? It is for you to decide whether the small time victories Hickey cherishes are worth what he invests in them. Similarly it is for you to decide whether you can enjoy Davis' geopolitical critique, obviously forgiving his initial prologue of SF, which only shows he can't write that sort of stuff very happily.

PT Room Relocation

For the session beginning for Part Time Students next week 1st October, there is a change of room to K604, same 9am start.

Further Texts

Here's a list of the further texts you will be studying on this course. You may wish to prepare yourself in advance by seeking out cheap copies via ABEbooks, Amazon, E-Bay and so on, or even asking your friends in final year. This is the most basic of reading lists.

Dave Hickey: Air Guitar, Mike Davis: Evil Paradises, Terry Eagleton: After Theory, William Burroughs: The Job, Allen Ginsberg; Howl, Henri Lefebvre: The Production of Space, Marshall Berman: All That's Solid Melts in to Air, Evelyn Waugh: Decline and Fall, Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead, Oswald Spengler: Decline of the West, John Doss Passos: USA,

Session 1

Jonathan Meades text on Zaha, and Alain Badiou's text 'This Crisis is the Spectacle, Where is the Real?' are both easily downloadable for free. Juxtaposing them is a good way to start and that's how we begin the first session. Make sure you read both texts before the first session and write your first blog after the first session.
I was thinking of dropping Meades, but since the publication of Museum Without Walls (his collection on architecture) to considerable acclaim only very recently, we are going to look at him carefully some more.

Welcome

This is the unofficial blog for the Critical Readings we make as the first component of your H&T module on the first year of your PGDip in Architecture at LSBU. If you are enrolled on this course please join this site as a follower and use it for advice weekly as you set up your own blog (with blogspot.com) and make posts on each of the texts set. It is also imperative that you get in to the habit of making your own posts on your own blog week by week, since this is a process orientated submission made over time. I will be reading your blogs as we go along.

You will find you get over any shyness quite quickly. The blogosphere is huge, and it is unlikely you will pick up much traffic from elsewhere, even if you do, who cares? Blogging will help you get in to the habit of writing without the stress of trying to construct an academic essay, yet usefully constructing smaller, more discrete arguments all the same. The task is as much craft as anything. At the end of the course, you simply write a concluding blog and print it all out and submit it.

PLEASE NOTE: It is important not to be pretentious, to throw out any jargon and write straightforwardly. That is your primary task to begin with, that and reading carefully. It is not easy to write well if you do not read well. All the texts have been selected as good pieces of writing as well as pertaining to the search for truth that is theoretical investigation.