Once there was life without books. It’s hard to imagine what that must have been like: an age of stories and knowledge of the world which stretched no farther than a day’s walk. The introduction of the written source constituted nothing less than the creation of a time and space capsule. The story, the idea, insight, knowledge were suddenly free of their messenger and were all able to bridge distances, able to surface, vanish and reappear.
Just as there was a time before the book, there will also be a time after it. In this issue ‘The Last Book’ project is taken up, but as to the consequences of publishing exclusively online – the loss of filters such as the publisher, editor and publication costs – we can only guess. Yet it is clear that our centuries old house of knowledge is undergoing a fundamental renovation, beginning with the solid base of the library.
In order to actively grapple with the challenges of our age, architects have to transform themselves from extremely competent executors of assignments into entrepreneurs and producers. This issue of Volume discusses essential tools to reclaim professional autonomy. In the first part, Volume sits ‘Around the table’ with forward-thinking practitioners who see a different role and responsibility for architects. The central part presents the portfolio of the Office for Unsolicited Architecture founded by Ole Bouman and students of MIT. The third part marks the unsolicited world according to young architects and artists from around the globe.
Our field, and perhaps every field, is defined by ambition. to know ourselves we have to know ambition. But ambition is far from simple. It is never straightforward, never the singular drive it appears to be. Rather, it is a set of interacting forces in which often the means are mistaken for ends. This issue of Volume on Ambition offers a preliminary map of what has become a landscape of misguided purpose.
"The world is running out of places where it can start over."
Rem KoolhaasAl Manakh offers a detailed analysis of the history, culture and architecture of The Gulf region including Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah and discusses the implications of the rapid development of these territories for the rest of the world. This is the first time that the unprecedented urban condition of this region has been comprehensively documented from diverse viewpoints and communicated to outside the region. Voices of architects, intellectuals and developers making the Gulf happen are represented in the numerous essays and interviews that accompany this richly illustrated study. Key figures such as, Rem Koolhaas, Ole Bouman, and Thomas Krens give their take on the current situation in The Gulf, along with their predictions for the future of this 'ultimate tabula rasa'.
It seems an eternal distinction: sometimes people build, sometimes they destroy. However, since we have a concept of modernity, we also understand that building is very often based on sheer destruction. It is ‘the price of progress’. A new insight is now emerging: much destruction also has an agenda. It has a precision that reminds us of architecture. It has a formal dimension that reminds us of design. In this issue: explore the sinister creativity of Cities Unbuilt.
Experience the wholesome effects of agitation in its political, physical and emotional dimensions. Meet agitators René Daalder, François Roche, Peter Cook, Hernan Diaz Alonso, Philippe Parreno, and Cesar Millan; check the realities of Beirut and Prishtina, visit informal Rio de Janeiro, be inspired by 'Gum Pics architecture', see the hidden persuaders in car design, discover the history of alternative architecture magazines, read...
If a crisis is imminent, we need strong policies to cope with it. If the world is facing a crisis of debt, a crisis of truth, a crisis of sprawl and a crisis of purpose, what can design do? This issue of Volume is your survival kit to take responsability and curb the lie that gives a dream to the millions but will be their predicament when they really need a home.
See how this issue of Volume can help you craft the agenda for Ubiquitous China, Covering: the Confucian-Taoist nexus, Utopianism, the new empire, Google.cn, heritage & preservation, CCTV, publishing industry, education, urban practice, architectural design, architects as businessmen, criticism, chaos as control, and much more (not necessarily in hierarchical order). In China everywhere...
In the previous two issues we emphasized how power takes shape and acquires form. How it can be recognized. We're now taking it one step further in our Volume research campaign on the architecture of (a countervailing) power. This time we will show you how power is using architecture not simply to express itself, but to organize itself. Power structures and relations think architecturally in order to be successful. And if you hope to challenge these structures and relations, you better do the same. A true Macchiavelli is always an architect.
The Architecture of Power, Part 2 The previous issue of the magazine explored how 'Power is in the details'. This issue we are widening our perspective and focusing on building schemes. Meanwhile people keep asking us questions...
If the astounding care with which our best designers can detail the way a strip of glass kisses a slab of stone is applied to thinking about the geometries of power, new roles can emerge, new risks that need to be taken. Naivete is no longer an attractive option. To ignore power is to side with it.
The isolation of the self; the sacrosanct object; the solitude of 'outstanding' architecture. Are these signs of a moribund culture? If so, where did our vitality go? Can we find it in other domains? Can we re-animate, re-infuse ourselves with energy? Read how reality seeps through our unassailable myths and penetrates our splendid isolation.
Architecture presupposes inhabitants. Literature depends on readers. Art requires the viewer. Music demands listeners. But beyond these truths, culture today must touch a general audience to maintain its legitimacy. Make yourself heard or perish! This issue of Volume provides you with the tools you need to understand your failures and the strategies you require to succeed. In this 3rd issue of Volume the box contains Volume magazine and an "Extra Edition! Read all about it!" newspaper brought to you by C-LAB. Of course there is another AMO Bulletin. Finally, the long awaited interactive documentary "On the Borderline" on CD-ROM, based on the past nine ARCHIS RSVP events.
Can we do something by doing (almost) nothing? Can we achieve anything by doing too much? Can we do what we need to do, by doing just what is needed? How do we define doing too much, too little? How to think through doing anyway?
The first issue of Volume is a tour d'horizon of the new possibilities of architecture beyond itself.
There is a growing awareness of a potential that may ultimately challenge the very character of architecture as we know it. For some this means anxiety or even pessimism about a profession in deep trouble; the aim of Volume, however, is to face this challenge with the confidence and intellectual curiosity needed to explore the implications for architectural intelligence.
Volume #16
Our society seems to be locked into a position in which the user’s and voter’s choices determine how we shall live in the future. A disturbing collective urban life in a giant Big Brother House looms, a material and social world in which sensationalistic media and its commercial translation dominate. Our sense of what is real and what is quality is on the verge of collapse. The practice and education of the engineers of this society is determined by short-term effect instead of long-term social responsibility. Culture becomes little more than a market, politics its façade and the city its stage. Instead of reviving old school high modernist social engineering or claiming the need for an intellectual junta, we solicit new forms of social engineering. Where shall this lead?
Seeing Like a Society Interview with James C. Scott Scott is one of the most profound critics of high-modernist human development planning. He believes that the process of state-building, leading to what he calls the legibility and standardization of society, fosters control and domination rather than enlightenment and freedom. Scott started his academic career studying small village communities in the forests of Malaysia. When he left the rain forest he took with him a number of vital observations on how nation states organize their society. His monumental book, Seeing Like A State (1998), became the basis for a fundamental and elaborate critique of how governmental planning for the advancement of society can go utterly wrong: compulsory villages in Tanzania, scientific forestry in Prussia, high-modernist Brasilia, industrial agricultural planning in the USSR and its modern day variant the Millennium Development Goals. According to Scott, these are all examples of rational-utopian blueprint thinking that proved fatal.
Packaging Utopian Sustainability - Matt Lewis
Are carbon neutral cities, Eco-cities and sus tain able cities discursive cover ups for synthetic design in the desert of Abu Dhabi or something stemming from an honest utopian desire? Questioning Foster's scheme for Masdar, Matt Lewis reaches revealing conclusions on the marketing of design in the Gulf.
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