Nikio

Here it is. It was about time, don't you think? Let me know your impressions

PS: this wouldn't be possible without Violetisha from whom I borrowed the css code.

Today I would like to present a work by Slovenian sculptor Janez Lenassi, which is located in my very own town (I can even see it from my room). Sometimes when something lies right in front of your eyes for too long you might become blind for it's beauty. Many people from my city are not aware of the masterpiece they are seing every day. I myself wasn't aware of it's meaning untill recently.


Ilirska Bistrica is a city that is merged from two previous villages; Trnovo and Bistrica. Inbetween there is a hill, covered with grass, that now stands in the centre of the city. In 1960's they decided to use that prominent location to make a monument to fallen in WWII. The design of the monument was done by a sculptor, Janez Lenassi, who wanted to present two basic ideas; the shape of the bones (there are actual bones of dead solders burried underneath the monument) and a cube of Kras' cave that is taken from beneath the ground and now floats above the ground. (Karst, called Kras is the predominant type of landscape here and has deep symbolic meaning for local people).

The monument was an immediate success. In the same year Lenassi recived the Prešeren Foundation Award and got published throughout the former Yugoslavia. The monument is still often published in architecture and design magazines. I believe there is a lot of visionary thinking behind this design.

Sadly, Janez Lenassi died earlier this year.



More photos here.

I read a lot about brains and how they work lately. I just finished reading Jeff Hawkins' On Intelligence which made a lot of sense to me. I will pursue this topic in some of my future posts, for now I'd like to stop at a passage which the author wrote as an introduction to the chapter dealing with application of AI, based on his proposed Memory-prediction framework.

Originally posted by Jeff Hawkins, On Intelligence:

It's hard to predict the ultimate uses of a new technology. As we've seen throughout this book, brains make predictions by analogy to the past. So our natural inclination is to imagine that a new technology will be used to do the same kinds of things as a previous technology. We imagine using a new tool to do something familiar, only faster, more efficiently, or more cheaply.

Examples are abundant. People called the railroad the "iron horse" and the automobile the "horseless carriage." For decades the telephone was viewed in the context of the telegraph, something that should be used only to communicate important news or emergencies; it wasn't until the 1920s that people started using itcasually.

It is exactly what I have been thinking for a long time and it is not hard to find other examples. Science fiction of late 19th century depicted future with large steam machies. They were unable to think of anything else. Sci-fi of 1960' already had computers, but guess what; no displays! Only flashing buttons. They just projected new applications on the existing technology.
On more realistic side: at first World wide web was just a copy of printed media. Only recently we developed interactive applications that can't be found anywhere else. Or one thing that frustrates me with cars; once a crank handle was required to lower a car glass. It is normal, that the handle was located on the inner side of the car door. But now, since we have electronic buttons, that position is no longer obligatory. Buttons can be placed anywhere in the car! Why not the stearing wheel? Yet only few cars take advantage of the very technology they use. It is still a lot easier to change technology than paradigm.

An other example that effects me a lot more personally now is in photography. If you take a look at present day digital cameras, they don't look much different than their film predecessors. I believe that the digital technology brings a lot of new ways how to build and use camera and we have not yet exploited them.

I observe that thing happening on myself. Recently I bought a decent digital camera, yet I still use it exactly as it was on film. I don't take many shots, I don't experiment enough and I don't play arround in post-production... I just shoot like 20th century photographer.
But I think it is time to move on. I found many photographers on the internet that never used film and their aproach is very refreshing. One of them is Lenart Senica, a young guy from Slovenia, who takes his camera to school. Just look at the results! I would never imagine doing something like that in my highschool days.

So... yes... It is time to rethink my assumptions and rearrange my neurons

Sometimes anniversaries come together. This year we honour 50 years of Plečnik's death and celebrate 120 years of Le Corbusier's birth and 100 years of Edvard Ravnikar's birth.

To mark Ravnikar's 100 years, Faculty of Architecture in Ljubljana organized a special 2-day symposium which took place in Cankarjev dom (cultural organisation and building also designed by Ravnikar himself). We could attend various lectures and visit exhibition of his drawings in a gallery (the exhibition will remain opened untill 21st January 2008) that is in a building also by his design. It is incredible how much he did for Ljubljana after WWII.

I personally believe that Ravnikar's contribution for Slovenian and European architecture was highly underestimated up to this day. Being one of the last true allaround scholars, his architecural and design works reflect the widest spectrum of the knowledge and tallents he had.
He was also a gifted writer and teacher. The collection of his theoretical articles is huge and the impact he left in only one year of his so called B-program at Faculty of Architecture in Ljubljana (in 1969, then they stoped him) still echoes among today's professors and students.

The main work he did for Ljubljana is Trg revolucije (Revolution square), which is designed by the theme of a regular triangle, regular hexagonal or both together as on a passageway window below. The floor plan of both twin towers is of the same shape.


Click below for some more pics...

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This article is a little contribution towards understanding abstract art in general. I was actually thinking to write about cubism and Picasso, but that shuld wait for the next time. I believe this comes first.

People often visit modern galleries and watch modern art with no understanding, because they expect to recognize parts of their physical reality. I think there is much more to human life than that. What about our passion and love, fears and demons, what about our phylosophy? Isn't that worth expressing? And how could you do it if not by complex "rebuses"? How did it come t that?

On the left: Le guitariste by Pablo Picasso (1910)

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This is an other post about deconstructivism, but this time we'll look in other areas, not just architecture and design. Is it possible to find this ideas of deconstructed (crushed or melted) creativity in music, movies, televison...?

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This post is my little contribution on understanding contemporary art, especially architecture and design. It is not written for architects and designers (they are supposed to already know that), but for normal people who want to know something more about what's going on now in architecture and understand it. So I have to warn experts and "experts" that some simplifications are neccecary, but basicly the point is there.

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I uploaded a new design for this blog. I don't have time to develop something more unique, so this will have to do it for a while. I hope you like it.