this is the end

_ _ _ _ _ _

1. this is the end of architecture for me. it is somehow tied to my growing out of puberty.

2. with the passing of years and events, my love of architecture has waned and i've overcome my childhood reverie of becoming an architect, for good.

3. as a kid i didn't really know what architecture was about. i just liked to build dinosaur skeletons on this really ancient 2-d computer program i had, and constantly drew megapalaces and encased cities and flying walkways and underwater capsules in notebooks. when i was like 9 or 10, i thought i had it figured out: i wanted to be an "architect by computer." computers were pretty rare in the tropics back then, and people would ask me: –what the hell is that? and i would just answer –well, i'm going to build buildings, but by computer.

4. on of the things i hate most about architecture today is the fixation on renderings; second only to future-of-architecture review boards:




5. i don't see how we can become enthralled and jolted by architecture anymore. i think architectural ideas and concepts might still hold some sort of power, but architectural practice right now seems just about as promising as investment banking.

6. architectural remains, on the contrary, will be more significant than ever, particularly as we move away from physical and visual concerns, into the abstract yet predominantly material domains of program, process and hidden meaning.

méxico lindo

paul outerbridge, travel agent, mazatlán, mexico, c.1950
via loudpaper

xxx

we've hit tropical mode in barcelona. people are half-naked on the street. men wear mustaches and nylon shortshorts. protoqueer emotions of my childhood in southern california c.1984 all over again. i am sweaty and dizzy. i miss the cool rainy summer nights in mexico city.

childhood frustration leads to architecture

i wanted to be a musician, but i wasn't good enough so i became an architect...
renzo piano

yeah you see i started in an art school and or you see my intention was to became a painter. this what i do more personally in which i think is more intimate you see and in which myself you see i can expand maybe as a person you see inside the in a dialogue with myself is the painting and the sculpture.
santiago calatrava

- when you were a child, did you want to become an architect?
- no, I wanted to be anyone who wore interesting clothing: a priest, a policeman.
daniel libeskind

punk farmers

my childhood memories of L.A. are green, lush even. i was five-years old, and the neighbors kept asking my mom how come my sister and i were mexican and blond.

we lived in the not-quite-middle-class albeit gated workman's mill in whittier. all i remember is our "townhouse" surrounded by fake tropical landscaping, fake waterfalls and ponds and even little frogs. it was 1985 and my hometown mexicocity had just been half-destroyed by the earthquake (we watched it on t.v). so to me, as a kid, this was as close as it got to heaven (besides, it was like a twenty-minute drive to disneyland). of course i didn't know shit about crips, bloods, crack, riots or south central, for that matter.

l.a. in my head still brings up these weird happy confusing and even hopeful images

ok, i'm not mike davis; but i'm not that big of a michael eisner fan anymore either

l.a. like mexicocity is a huge overarching constantly happening place, you have the tips of the worst and best and all the shit and charm and life that goes in-between

xxx

in the past few months there's been a buzz on urban agriculture, from edible lawns to ruralizing detroit

so, it's kinda sad to read about the rise, resistance and (temporary?) fall of the south central farm




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+ déjà-vu

+ toppings: wassup rockers read this to the soundtrack (chicano punk, yes, there is such a thing). the movie is airy, and features skating and cute long-haired mexican boys in tight pants, if (like me) you dig that sort of thing...