Vertigo on McDowell Street

Since taking its picture last year, this diner has changed hands. “The Vertigo” didn’t even have time to take down the sign of the last tenant, but simply put their logo over top. This façade is extraordinarily simple, but it’s the accessories that create identity. Red benches where people could sit – they’re not the same, but they match, like a couple married for many years. The rows of newsstands like a lineup for dodgeball – pick your free paper, to the exclusion of all others. The colors are creative. The façade can be broken into very simple facets – color, proportion, signage, canopy, accessories. It’s a collage of parts, a happy collision of intent.

Farnsworth House

The best thing for me about the Arts Conference lecture was the chance to put some of this into words - some of how I relate to Architecture, and some of why I think the built world matters to me as a citizen and as a believer in a Creative God.

This year, our church held its Second Annual Ping-Pong Tournament.Despite the obvious gratification of the contest at hand, it had the benefit of a perpetuity and tradition that the First Annual Ping-Pong Tournament only hoped toward. Tonight, as a matter of discipline, I'm beginning what I hope will be the first in a series of descriptions of images, images of Architecture.

This photo is from 1995, in Plano, Illinois, looking across the Fox River toward what I knew from school as Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe's Farnsworth House. There's some recent news about this house, that it's been purchased for posterity by the National Trust. In school, it was touted as one of the pinnacles of Modernism. For me, it is a favorite second to Philip Johnson's Glass House in Connecticut.

This photo shows the closest I ever got to this house. We actually drove by once in the summer, but the leafy trees entirely obscured any view.

Most of Mies' other work is highly public - either skyscrapers in Chicago and New York or academic. The absolute clarity of the structure, that is the definition of Modern in these buildings, is obvious and unobscured. It sits exactly on the right-of-way of a city block, perceived by countless commuters in its full statement on order.

There was no way for me to get a clear shot of the Farnsworth House without climbing a barbed fence or swimming a frozen river. But, the order of this piece of modern elegance is still obvious as it sits in surprisingly harmonious contrast to the natural order of the overgrowth around it. In the gray of winter (and this was almost Spring!), the white of the steel even mimics the white on the water.

Trying to write more about this masterpiece gets a little more academic than I mean to go, so I'll stop there with simple associations. How cool to see steel speak the same language as old woods and water?

Peace Architecture Class Outline

Intro:
Goals – notice your environment
Principles for any profession

I. A Theory of Christian Architecture (or “No Pictures Part 1”)
a. It’s okay to disagree – please use your comment card.
i. Acts 28:25
b. The earth is important; Everything God Created is Good – Be Thankful.
i. 1 Timothy 4:4
c. Notice your built environment.
i. Romans 1:20
d. Do not judge.
i. Luke 6:37
e. Nature longs for redemption,
i. Romans 8:18-21
f. Materials
i. 1 Corinthians 3:12-15
ii. Revelation 21:17-21
g. Craft
i. Exodus 31:1-11

II. XL, L, M, S (or “Pictures”)
a. XL – Maps
b. L – Streets
c. M – Shops
d. S – People and their houses

III. Response (or “No Pictures Part 2”)
a. Conversation
i. Philippians 4:8
ii. What do you remember enough to talk about?
1. Do you only remember the ugly?
b. Activism
i. Matthew 18:15-18
1. Sins against us: irresponsible clearing and leveling of land, excessive lighting (power waste, light pollution), dangerous traffic patterns (Crossroads), lack of innovation ("Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth" Isaiah 42:10), oppressive signage.
2. Who do we talk to?
a. Developers
b. Governments, but ordinances generally backfire.
c. Evangelism
i. Ezekiel 43:10 – 11
1. There is such a thing as a redemptive plan
ii. Romans 8:18-22
1. Through prayerful design, we begin to redeem nature - it's our job.
iii. Don't be ashamed of the Gospel, relate it to your environment and the people there. Preach on the street corners - preach about the street corners. Pray for the street corners. Pray for businesses. Pray for planners.
d. The Cure for Modernism = love
i. Exodus 20: Ten Commandments
1. No other gods – whatever you do, work for the Lord – Colosians 3:23
2. No idols – Frank Gehry isn’t perfect
3. Not misuse the name of the Lord – be a professional Christian
4. Remember the Sabbath – make a place for the sacred
5. Honor your father and mother – remember history
6. Shall not murder – be safe; don’t hate your neighborhood
7. Shall not commit adultery - overindulgence
8. Shall not steal – thoughtless repetition
9. Shall not give false testimony – honest materials
10. Shall not covet – simple signage
ii. Luke 6:31: Do to others as you would have them do to you.
1. Don’t support buildings you don’t like
iii. Romans 13:9-10: Love your neighbor, not rules

Vaudevillian Horizontalism

Scanned through one of these xeroxed articles passed on to me en masse, "Christian Worship in Consecrated Space and Time." It took me too long to realize that the relevant section of the article was a two-paragraph bit near the end. "Finally, we come to the architectural articulation of the place of solemn assembly."

"Since the Jesus Christ is the temple of God, there remains no particular geographic place or space that is essentially sacred or rendered sacred by particular rites or specially designated officers, for the people of God is consecrated in Christ. Consequently, it is possible to gather anywhere and use any kind of building for worship. . . it is not true that the design of worship space has been rendered secondary or unneccessary by Christ's coming. Rather such design should symbolically evoke the ordered world revealed through the lens of redemption and experienced in the life of the church."
Arie C. Leder - Calvin Theological Journal

I'm not in a hurry to discuss the necessities in church Architecture. This article describes the modern church building as "vaudevillian horizontalism," meaning, my dictionaries tell me, theaters for entertaining our neighbors with little expression of our vertical relationship between God and man of praise, worship, prayer, holiness, symbolism, revelation, and the sacred. I don't deny this threat, and as a deacon board member with a budget, I won't pretend to know the answer.
In the urban context, this is a reminder to look for the sacred streetcorners. To start, is the church in the town center? No? Is there a town center? No? Is there anywhere that cars have to slow down and recognize a moment in space and time? Only at stop lights and accidents and drive-thru's. Vaudevillian horizontalism seems about right.

Learning from Fuquay Varina

Started going through slides last night to prepare for the conference. I started with Fuquay-Varina, since those slides are the most recent.

The points to make from these tiny towns are probably enough for an hour course themselves, maybe a semester.

These points are from Fuquay's mainstreet alone:

1. What is the role of the individual shop owner? Is there any moral imperative for supporting him? Isn't it better to have the selection, low prices, bulk shipping, accountability that wholesale department stores offer? Is there a compromise option? Is there a Biblical model for the individual retailer, or just an American one?

2. Building elements survey: door, sales window, signage, facade, canopy, parapet (Genesis 1:6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.") What is a canopy really for? What does it do to a storefront?

3. Gas stations: no hiding the gas station in a small town. They become a feature. They are polished and orderly. They fill their site well. They look like elegant modern furniture.

4. "Expect a Miracle Christian Bookstore" What is the nature of explicitly Christian retail? Is it pretending to be something else - this store looks like a country porch? Is that marketing, or a reaction of the hearts at peace inside? Contrast with "Family Bookstore" at the urban mall.

5. Catastrophic signage. How do we respond to the retailer of random goods? There are some moral issues here and isolation, but the change likely has to come from the inside. Who will have the patience to befriend this man?

6. Perfect signage, perfect proportions, detailed brickwork. What, no canopy? How is a storeowner compelled to be so rational in his design? What went right here?

7. Aha! It's his house! That's what went right - personal responsibility and care.

8. The urban courtyard. It may be space for infill, but it adds depth and complexity to a streetfront. Outdoor malls have similar configurations, but the open space is reserved for parking, not for people. Note the picnic table.

9. Rear signage - take responsibility for your backyard - makes the potential for other uses of the service aisles.

10. National retail chains on their day off = empty parking lots and ugly architecture. This Hudson Belk is offensive in its minimalism. If I were to write a letter to the store owner, what could I say? Empty space cannot be ignored. My guess is that its the sin of sloth, maybe adultery.

11. Grace Presbyterian Church. The most beautiful featureless storefront I've ever seen. Maybe the cure for modernism is love.

12. Studies on signage and color and mixed use.

Everything I need to know about Architecture I learned from Fuquay.

The Cure for Modernism

A few points here, but mainly a reference to the irrelevance of the title. Modernism in architecture generally refers to the minimalism of decoration, clarity of forms, economy in structure and function. The conversation on modular construction began here with high hopes for low-income housing and expedient build times.

The disease of modernism came when the only words the developers heard were "cheap," "fast," and "build-to-suit."

The most elegant expressions of modernism came with Mies Van Der Rohe with his steel and glass apartment buildings, institutional halls, and houses (Chicago +/-). While these were modular with their proportions and general in their function, they were not fast and certainly not cheap.

The most devastating expressions of modernism came in the mass-housing facilities of every major urbanity, based on part of Le Corbusier's Unites d'Habitation, the part where a lot of people can fit on a small footprint of land.

While post-modernism certainly has its own crises, it offers some opportunity for the developer / planner / owner to take responsibility for his actions while coming closer than ever to his goals of cheap, fast, and modular. This is done largely through cheaper, more functional, more available, more environmentally beneficial, more easily worked materials.

So, part of the "pill" is new materials and methods. But it means that the designers have to go back to work. Innovation has to be in our vocabulary again. Where the citizen was voiceless against the modernist economy, today he can make demands on those who build his environment. He can demand beauty and functionality without expecting the inconvenience of lead-times and price increases.

Manipulated by Camus

I finished "The Fall" today. According to my marks in the margins, I've actually read this before, at least to within the last 10 pages, but I didn't remember a word of it. In grammar school, we learned that you can't write a story in 2nd person. The reason for this now I understand isn't that it's impossible, but that it's cruel. I became the character to whom the author was speaking. Even when I wasn't reading the book, during the day, I was that 2nd person. And to learn that I had driven the protagonist to his provacative end, what kind of man am I? "It's always too late. Fortunately." Oh dreadful, so revealing.

Evangelism

Ezekiel 43:10 "Son of man, describe the temple to the people of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their sins. Let them consider the plan, 11 and if they are ashamed of all they have done, make known to them the design of the temple-its arrangement, its exits and entrances-its whole design and all its regulations and laws. Write these down before them so that they may be faithful to its design and follow all its regulations.

- There is such a thing as a redemptive plan.


Romans 8:18 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

- Through prayerful design, we begin to redeem nature - it's our job. I don't want to exagerrate this reference, but the connection is clear, that sin does not only affect our souls, but it has affected nature and the built environment.

- What is "Christian" design? What would Jesus do? Follow the 10 commandments and the golden rule: make no idols (no showy buildings), do not covet (simple signage), do not bear false witness (honest materials), love your neighbor (relate to your context), do unto others as you would have done to you (don't build buildings you don't like).

- But, how do we make the connection to Jesus? How do we preach the gospel through design? The surface answer is probably the best - communicate with developers and planners and builders and shopowners and tell them what the Bible says about what they're doing. Don't be ashamed of the Gospel, relate it to your environment and the people there. Preach on the street corners - preach about the street corners. Pray for the street corners. Pray for businesses. Pray for planners.

Activism

Matthew 18:15-18 "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

How do we decide what the sins against us are?
A few ideas: irresponsible clearing and leveling of land, excessive lighting (power waste, light pollution), dangerous traffic patterns (Crossroads), lack of innovation ("Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth" Isaiah 42:10), oppresive signage (Can we use the 4th ammendment? Maybe it's a stretch, maybe not.)

Who do we talk to?
Developers
Town ordinances often backfire and create loopholes. Make it a point of personal responsibility instead.

Go alone, then go with friends, go with your church, boycott.

Conversation

A first part of reading a downtown is talking about it. When you get home to your family, what do you remember? What can you mention? The first things I hear when people talk to me about architecture - within seconds - is that strip malls are ugly and that Walmart has taken over. Yes, there are 4 Walmarts within 10 miles of my house, but if Walmart is the only building we remember in that 20 mile diameter, they're doing something that no other building has been able to do. Do we only remember the ugly? Why has our perspective become so dim? Or, is there something more insidious about Walmart than its landscape that causes us to remember it. In that case, we haven't remembered anything at all about the built environment within 10 miles from our home.

Can you name the nearest strip mall? Where is it? What is ugly about it? Is it a service to you? My guess is that our memories point to the 1965 modern shell with empty storefronts. Thankfully, this model appears to have failed and is being replaced. What is different about the replacements? More careful materials? Colors? Was the solution to the ugly problem of the strip mall that simple?

As an exercise for the class, we could try to have people list ten buildings they remember between their house and the church. Which of these would you like to talk about?

Materials

Common urban building materials:

Brick and mortar: earthy, locally available in red-orange, permanent, labor intensive, non-structural, detailing is rare and expensive, readily transmits water, no insulating value, potential for mold if not insulated properly.

EIFS: manmade, available in any color, cheap, fast, any detailing is possible, water barrier, insulating, looks plain in large fields, dirties quickly

Glass Storefront: welcoming, advertising value, sheds water, cleanable, some insulating value (not much), simple installation

Glass Curtainwall: Opportunity for proportions, showy, produces glare and heat gain to other buildings, marginal interest level, expensive, dishonest at floor levels, generally inoperable and offer no ventilation and bulk heat gain and cooling loss.

Exposed steel structure: honest and demonstrative, very difficult to do well, difficult to seal for water and climate

CIP Concrete: honest and demonstrative, durable, expensive, difficult to detail, no insulating value - some mass value, condensation problems without proper insulation techniques

Pre-cast concrete: for show only, expensive

Wood: warm, welcoming, natural, honest - seldom used commercially because it burns and rots.

Course Format

As a nod to Koolhaas' book, a helpful outline for the Peace Arts workshop may be XL, L, M, S.

XL will be very short, but may highlight idas by Calthorpe and DPZ.

L can talk about strip malls, Crossroads Plaze, SouthPoint, and Poyner Place. L is also the place to reference "downtown Cary and the Maynard Road photos.

M can reference specific downtown storefronts.

S could be houses, but may be better to move directly to the person: the shop keeper, the developer, the commuter, the employee, the consumer, the town planner, the hearer. S could be the car and the pedestrian.

Reference Material

Currently, I'm reading "The Fall" by Camus and "Learning from Las Vegas" by Venturi. The former will keep me humble, I expect, and the latter, well, we'll see. Pastor Jones last week gave me a stack of reference material: "The Culture of Time and Space" by Kern, "The Condition of Postmodernity" by Harv, along with a stack of photocopied articles.

A recent "Mars Hill" article described the decision of a large urban church congregation to remain in the city, despite it's growing need for parking. The decision to stay was based on its significant ministry opportunities by being located within an urban environment. It also mentioned the importance of churches to retain their own real estate as the city grows around them. This was the most hopeful article I have heard about the contemporary church and / or architecture.

Except for classical and neo-classical writers, I've found very little of depth on Christians and Architecture. It's just as well since I read so slowly.

Arts Conference First Thoughts

For the Arts Conference at Peace Presbyterian Church, I'll be doing a short workshop on Architecture - "Faith and Your Daily Commute." Following are some loose thoughts:

1. Isaiah describes a new heavens and a new earth. We're not escaping the world. We're not removed from the world. Our communities deserve more than to be ignored. The earth isn't bad, though it's fallen.

2. I've been studying mercy, but practicing Architecture. What is the relationship? How does one affect another?

3. Many parts of the this talk will be contraversial. Most of my colleagues won't agree with me. My pastor agrees with me, so we'll be encouraged by that. [I plan to have a response card for people to describe where they disagree before they walk out. It could have three strikes that people could write down as I talk. We could talk about some afterwords, but mostly it's for me to develop my thoughts better.]

4. "For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer." 1 Timothy 4:4; MT 7:1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

When we start to look at our communities and our highways, we need first to be thankful. Second, we need to remember that people are involved. We can see character in the uniquities and eccentricities caused by materials, limits, and time.

5. Read Your Downtown:
Architecture, Faith, and Your Daily Commute
Connect these dots: - God’s qualities are understood from what has been made and men are without excuse; - God creates man in His image; - Man creates Crossroads Shopping Center.
In the same way we can know God through His word and His creation, do we reflect our image of God in the environment we create around us? This workshop encourages you to watch the built environment that surrounds you. How do structures and roadways reflect our community? What is the nature of brick, EIFS, and shrubbery? Best case, this workshop spurs conversation, activism, evangelism, and the cure for modernism. Worst case, we all get to watch a lot of slides with no people and go home. Either way, we may step into a brave old world of Beauty on an urban scale.

6. Show photos of downtowns - have people guess where they are and give them points: 1 point for guessing the city, two points for naming the street.

7. Show photos of Cary - what is happening at these intersections? Why are the buildings being hid? Why are gas stations being hid? What is this about?

Page One

Good afternoon. Obviously, this site is blank for now, but I have some plans. What a great opportunity to post into the ether. What a great time we live in to print so freely and wonder if anyone will read. My interests are writing, architecture, and music, and I'd love comments on each. We'll see what the site lets us do. Thanks for stopping by.