ROM, June 2007

Back when it was first announced in 2002, my gut reaction to the ROM renovation was immediately negative. I am, however, coming around to passivity.

When I examine my own intial response, I think it can be summed up as a reaction to its "irresponsibility" as architecture, similar to the cotemporary addition to the Ontario College of Art and Design. I was responding to a feeling that the lack of civic responsiveness and respectability in the execution of these designs was a flagrant violation of the seriousness of Architecture. While by no means have I changed my mind about the lack of urban sensitivity and refined sensibility (lets face it, the crystal is gaudy, like a fat diamond ring!), I have seriously softened my demand for these things as obligations to either the architectural profession or to society. I can accept this "architecture as reaction" or this "architecture as spectacle" or this "architecture as personal expression", whatever you wish to denote it as, insofar as they represent voices in a necessary built dialogue. In other words, I can respect what the architect, Libeskind, and his team think they are doing and their vitality and energy in attempting it, whether or not I respect the final form. I am willing to admit this as a concession to plurality in the built environment.

Libeskind feels a need to break down the rectilinear and cellular structures of traditional museums. This is in keeping with a fairly noble idea of reinventing and loosening up the rigid story-lines we associate with the curation of knowledge. He wants, I believe, to architecturally represent the popular philosophic belief that our relationship to knowledge, and to truth should become more dynamic. The problem is of course that this is very difficult to accomplish through static architectonics. The crystal, while implying movement, is, or we hope is, static. The architecture then, failing in this attempt at dynamism, ends up relying upon showmanship, spectacularism, and its role as a monument to the architect - a celebration of his genius. Unfortunately this building, as civic monument, is a one liner, a joke got before its told. Let's hope then that it proves to be a useful space for displaying the ROM's impressive collection of curiousities.

Chumboots

for Jake . . . a synergetic niche

People and text

OmniTope 1

. . . and now for self indulgence maximized! Yes that's a picture of me. . .

Three Containers

This photo was oddly enough inspired by the water bottle that my philosophy proff. was drinking out of. I was thinking about the different sorts of things that we use to contain and transport water and their significance to us.

Make Good

I realized immediately after posting this that it might easily be confused for a rather angsty cry for help. It actually originates with the idea that I like to make good things, which neccesitates that I "make things good". "Make things good" also implies an active ethical engagement in the world. Furthermore, the similar phrase "make good" is a typical note used in architectural drawings. Thus the image above. . .

Dufferin to Spadina on King

Somehow I can't get Blogger to retain any of the formating of text. This poem should have a lot more complicated formating, but I think it works ok without it too. I wrote it over a couple of weeks riding the streetcar to work.

puma

shoe

tracks through

the

muddy

cigarette

snow

babbling

babylonians

babel

WAITING

for the third streetcar

HOPING

its nice and juicy always surprised when it isn’t

BUSY

he spreads his knees but feels kinda lonely, in a state this morning, moving like monkeys, like penguins, like

STORKS

disappointment on their polished angular faces, disapproving of the snowbanks they step grimly over with

COFFEE

Cultures Collide: white lids, brown lids, black lids, may yourbucks always be starbucks, your second cup always better than your coffee

TIME

on sunday morning coffee in one hand, pram in the other, her boots are made of spanish spanish

LEATHER

none of this pleather bullshit! Never underestimate a pregnant woman! She’s got a pretty face, but have you seen her

FEET

shuffling, he cuts through the crowd with a queens quarterly

and

alights down

amongst

the

babel --

snow