THE BOOK OF TRANSFORMATIONS
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‘’Every victory contains the germ of future defeat’’
Carl Jung
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Fluid Structures - 2011 - Ink on paper - 100x70cm - Sinan Logie
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I ching, the book of changes “……The Chinese mind, as I see it at work in the I Ching, seems to be exclusively preoccupied with the chance aspect of events. What we call coincidence seems to be the chief concern of this peculiar mind, and what we worship as causality passes almost unnoticed. We must admit that there is something to be said for the immense importance of chance. An incalculable amount of human effort is directed to combating and restricting the nuisance or danger represented by chance. Theoretical considerations of cause and effect often look pale and dusty in comparison to the practical results of chance. It is all very well to say that the crystal of quartz is a hexagonal prism. The statement is quite true in so far as an ideal crystal is envisaged. But in nature one finds no two crystals exactly alike, although all are unmistakably hexagonal. The actual form, however, seems to appeal more to the Chinese sage than the ideal one. The jumble of natural laws constituting empirical reality holds more significance for him than a causal explanation of events that, moreover, must usually be separated from one another in order to be properly dealt with. The manner in which the I Ching tends to look upon reality seems to disfavor our causalistic procedures. The moment under actual observation appears to the ancient Chinese view more of a chance hit than a clearly defined result of concurring causal chain processes. The matter of interest seems to be the configuration formed by chance events in the moment of observation, and not at all the hypothetical reasons that seemingly account for the coincidence. While the Western mind carefully sifts, weighs, selects, classifies, isolates, the Chinese picture of the moment encompasses everything down to the minutest nonsensical detail, because all of the ingredients make up the observed moment……..”
Extract from Foreword to ‘‘I Ching book’’ by Carl Jung, 1949
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I-Ching’s 64 Hexagrams
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Learning from Mies In 1926 Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe was commissioned by Eduard Fuchs, president of the German Communist Party at that time, to design the memorial to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, founders of the anti-war Spartakusbund (Spartacist League), in Berlin. This geometric brick monument has been destroyed in 1933 by the Nazis, and forced Mies to move, in 1938, to the USA in order to escape repression for his political engagement. More than his involvement into the design of this monument, Mies has also directed the BAUHAUS and has been one of the main actors of the ‘’Deutscher Werkbund’’, a multidisciplinary association of artists aiming to create a better environment for a better society, by the sampling of artistic and artisanal knowledge. This exceptional behavior for a self-educated architect seems nowadays like the last Samurai’s involvement into the art of building, following his social-humanist engagement as path. Even if by moving to the USA, Mies’ theories have been recuperated and drained by capitalism and its endless need for open space office blocks, Ludwig’s researches in his early period are readable through the eternal quest for sheltering by the honest use of materials as one of the humanity’s essences. Of course, the advent of Modernism and the spread of its theories matched with the democratization of photography and film technologies. The Modernism and Rationalism have been the first artistic movements to be supported by a large field of Medias. This situation has led slowly to the architectural star system, as commonly accepted in the Society of Spectacle, with unpredictable effect: The acceptance of international star architects designing buildings for non-democratic governments around the planet. Even with great energy spent to make this architecture as spectacular as possible, it will remain flatter than Mies’ curtain walls in history books. The flatness of architect’s disembodied social responsibility, the emptiness of cities as Dubai trying to exist on a map.
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Memorial to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg // Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe // 1926
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From Collage to Morphing ‘’..Where collage merely superposes materials from different contexts, morphing operates through them, blending them. True to the technologies of their respective times, collage is mechanical whereas morphing is alchemical. Sphinx and werewolf, gargoyle and griffin are the mascots of this time. The character of morphing is genetic, not surgical, more like genetic cross-breeding than transplanting. Where collage emphasized differences by recontextualizing the familiar, the morphing operation blends the unfamiliar in ways that illuminate unsuspected similarities and becomings……’’ Marcos Novak – Transmitting Architecture / The transphysical city
20th Century’s modernism and capitalism has been characterized by collage as operational system. Of course, earlier, collage had been successfully manipulated during European Colonialism as vector of control over conquered masses through tight application of European rules on culturally different civilizations. But Modernism and its intimate relationship with the rules of capitalism had tremendous effects on urban conditions. Le Corbusier’s Catholic vision of the city divided into zones was probably the most damageable. Nevertheless, Modernism’s early years ambitions and enthusiasm, its power to develop utopias must be kept as a precious heritage for architecture. Modernist architects showed us how to envision the future in a postive way through mega-structures. The utopia’s use as: Criticism of the present and ground for the future. This positivist attitude seems to be fundamental in regard of mankind’s upcoming challenges, in terms of urban densities, mobility, environmental issues and release from fossil energies; in this perspective, morphing, or more precisely: hybridization can be seen as the main paradigm to envision changes. Morphing or hybridization is already on its way, technological evolutions had deeply reshaped human behaviors, and the modernist vision of the City versus the Countryside in not up to date anymore. Nature has become an artificial landscape controlled by men, and the Cities must be seen as rich ecosystems, or fluid structures, forming a potential surface of opportunities in a blurred macro form. This new paradigm is a rupture from the dichotomy between nature and built or real and virtual.
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Plan Voisin pour Paris // Le Corbusier // 1922-25
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Learning from Istanbul Through the ages, Byzantium, Constantinopolis, Istanbul, showed the energy to redefine and redesign itself, in an endless struggle against wars, political or religious intrigues, earthquakes, fires and uncontrolled urbanization. Despite all these facts, the City, by its exceptional history, geographic position and nature, remains one of the pearls on earth. Today, going through the city offers a large experience of contrasted fragments, showing us that, unconsciously, Istanbul has succeeded before other cities to create a hybrid environment. Antique texture hosting modernist patterns, informal settlements mimicking village life in the heart of luxury developments, kitchen gardens behind shopping malls, all of this used by a population composed of modern nomads, flying to the city with the hope of a better future, in an estimated massive amount of 400.000 new inhabitants per year. Effectively, this complex multidimensional layer system that shaped the city through different cultures or periods which all left their landmarks or settlements defined Istanbul as a specific Metropolis, hosting a quarter of the Turkish population and generating 50% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This spectacular spread, started in the 1960’s following Adnan Menderes’ urban operations, and accelerated in the 1980’s, has overtly influenced Turkey’s macro form, with Istanbul as the eccentric heart of the country, located on a critical seismic zone. This risky position, for a City dealing with a risky real estate based financial bubble to sustain itself, became a major concern in the Turkish political agenda. The recent debate on the ‘’Disaster risk law’’ announced by the government, aiming to destroy and rebuild almost half of the building stock in the country following earthquake norms is a source of controversy. This controversy is fed by the law’s lack of transparency and by the nature of involved planning agencies such as TOKI (Housing Development Administration of Turkey) which hasn’t been able to improve in recent years, despite its large operational power, the built environment and the social fabric related to it.
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View from Pera // Istanbul
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Moreover, the neo-liberal real estate attack on Istanbul showed recently an impressive speeding, increasing the tension between social classes and flattening city’s imperfect texture which was tying the heteroclite fragments, one to each other. Imperfection allows freedom, while perfection is a totalitarian tool. All these undergoing and future changes are also questioning the future of urban condition, in an era facing environmental and energetic challenges under a high economic pressure. Can real estate operations be the only economical growth vectors? Can real estate build a better environment? Can a country built its future on one real estate bubble? Nevertheless, change is about to come, in one way or another. The future will judge the architects, and how they reacted against this uncertain future, will they see there the opportunity to make business, or will they be able to stand up against the possible calamity by inventing new operational modes and respond to the needs of sheltering.
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Historic Kitchen Gardens around Yedikule // Istanbul
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Envisioning change as chance More than judging the causes and responsibilities of the uncertain future that we are facing, the ‘’Book of transformations’’ aims to approach the phenomenon of change as the essence of mankind and universe, and define a few possible strategies. This attitude, facing change, can be seen as the application of the Chinese mind as described by C. Jung. The ‘’Book of transformations’’ will be a compilation of urban utopias, questioning the habits, the rules and the ways of developing urbanism and architecture under different forms: Poetic, pragmatic, critic or fearless. The opponent is powerful; the only attitude can be to use the power of its strike to transform the situation.
‘’I don’t fuck much with the past, but I fuck plenty with the future’’
Patti Smith
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Fluid Structures // Sinan Logie // 2005
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