I'm randy, Ayn Randy

YAY FRIDAY YAY FRIDAY YAY FRIDAY

I don’t have the most fun weekend ever coming up, but it is a weekend none the less and that’s good enough for me.

My homework was fairly light this week, so I’ve been memorizing dates, ornamentation and then trying to step outside the studying a little bit, to look at this architecture thing in a bigger picture.

First off, I went to today to go see Phillip Johnson’s only building that he did for Chicago. He was a popular NYC architect and he passed away this week. He sounds hilarious, and the opposite of our friend Louis Sullivan. He didn’t give a goddman what was going on inside a building, he was all about the aesthetic and admitted it. He designed (I was going to say “built” but I’m being trained to say that so and so architect didn’t BUILD a building, he designed it) so Johnson designed the crystal cathedral in California (http://www.arcspace.com/kk_ann/11/) which is crazy to look at.

So he designed the building at 190 S. LaSalle. You’ve probably seen it, it’s huge and just lovely. It’s designed with Chicago’s history in mind with the gabled roof resembling the now destroyed Masonic Temple by Burnham and Root. He also colored the building to match the Rookery which is right across the street. Very pretty.

The next thing I’ve been reading about is the book that has had the most impact on my life “The Fountainhead”. I’ve always loved the Fountainhead and learning about architecture is making it all that more appealing to me.

Here’s what Ayn had to say about the Worlds Fair of 1893:

The Rome of two thousand years ago rose on the shores of Lake Michigan, a Rome improved by pieces of France, Spain, Athens and every style that followed it. . . . Its architects competed on who could steal best, from the oldest source and from the most sources at once. It spread before the eyes of a new country every structural crime ever committed in all the old ones. It was white as a plague, and it spread as such.


Sounds familiar yes? Apparently, Sullivan and Wright are not the BASIS of Roark and his mentor Cameron, but she did use them as a form, as an idea, an inspiration.
Which I just find awesome.

That’s it for me today, long enough already and I gotta use it.