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What does a life look like when viewed through Google Earth? On the surface, it simply looks like different settlement patterns that morph depending on the altitude setting. Some places have 3D buildings, but most do not. In a few cases, the 3D buildings were inaccurately rendered. The person who had done them had never actually visited these places from my life. He was merely going off the satellite image and guessing at building heights and shapes. I, on the other hand, posses a great deal of information.

What would it look like if I annotated these maps with my memories; if I extruded the buildings? The notations would be so dense as to obscure the territory itself. Should Google give the responsibility for these geographies to those who contain them within their memories? Maybe Google should hire me to be the custodian of my own territories, past and present.

More after the break.

The 2011 TED Prize-winner is the artist who goes by the tag, JR. His enormous photographic installations obscure the facades of buildings, overlay streets, and sometimes collage to cover clusters of buildings in one massive broken image.

While some shy away from calling his work “street art,” I don’t see any shame in this—especially given the clear social justice objectives inherent in the imagery. It presents the faces, literally but never as cliché, of invisible and overlooked peoples. In this way, it is street art in the best sense of the term. You walk into the street and there it is and it has something to tell you. It takes buildings and turns them into indexes of shame, embarrassment, nobility, hope—whatever you might associate with the everyday struggles of the displaced lower-classes.

More after the break.

Here in Sequoia, after the first snow, my most pressing problem is not shelter, bears, or cougars, but how to write about architecture while being awed by natural wonder.

What architecture there is in these mountains could be considered basic: it protects from the elements, you can build a fire, and it has wi-fi. I am perfectly happy with the minimal design the US Park Service has provided: there is a lodge with a massive stone fireplace and the immediate forest (active bear country) is unobtrusively dotted with tiny clapboard cabins for park personnel.

More after the break.

Architect Hagy Belzberg recently showed me around his latest creation, the new Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust. He had kindly agreed to give me a personal tour since I was preparing to write up a review.

While I had fully intended to focus on the architecture, the site, the ideas behind the design, I was caught off-guard by something unexpected: people.

Prior to my visit I had been looking at some new photographs of the building taken by Iwan Baan. Architecture photographed for reviews is usually uncluttered by the messiness of life. The buildings are often empty vessels waiting to be activated. People appear as mere apparitions, like objects, often blurred. Thus, there is little evidence of other responses or adaptations to the architecture. If we overlook the gaze of the photographer, there is then only one gaze present: that of the singular “I”. And this “I” had expected an encounter with a building.

More after the break.

If you happen to find yourself in Los Angeles tonight be sure not to miss the AIA Design Awards Party at LACMA. As the email I recently received noted:

Join us for what will be a joyous celebration of architecture and design in the Los Angeles community.

These award bashes are always well-produced: nice venues, music, projection screens, hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, sumptuous buffet. Plus, who doesn’t like getting awards? Everyone being honored deserves the recognition, respect, and adulation of professional peers. The accomplishments of architects, firms and organizations like the Skid Row Housing Trust should be celebrated and honored. But what if they were honored more publicly?

More after the break.

Blair Kamin is the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune. He is the author, most recently, of Terror and Wonder: Architecture in a Tumultuous Age. We recently engaged in an email discussion about architecture as a social art, the importance of enlightened leadership, and about the critic as a tie-wearing “street fighter.”

GH: Whenever sites like ground zero come up, or New Orleans, architecture takes center stage for a brief moment. Park51, the so-called “ground zero mosque,” is also a good example of catalyzing architectural concern through controversy or trauma. When this happens the symbolic or political aspects of architecture get emphasized over everything else. This contributes to the notion that architecture is removed from day-to-day issues, that it is special, exotic, not next door. Do you think such architectural controversies help create more awareness of architecture and its day-to-day importance or do they ultimately make the public wary of “architecture” and architects?

See the complete discussion after the break.

There is much debate about competitions and their implications for design and the business of architecture. Regardless of where you fall on the pro-con spectrum, the fact remains that they have become institutionalized within the profession and the public expects architects to work this way.

Architectural practice is thus based as much on not getting projects as it is on getting them and getting paid. People in business would consider this a high level of risk. In some ways, given the chances of winning, an unacceptable level of risk and a business condition that merits critical reassessment. Plus, how do you do a strategic risk-assessment for something like design? Maybe not for design, but for the business of design this seems like something worth looking into.

More after the break.

As stupid as this sounds, it’s National Boss’s Day in the US and Canada. But, you may ask, isn’t every day your boss’s Day? Technically yes. But today is that one special day when you can express your gratitude openly…and maybe score some extra points. But, of course, it isn’t about that. If you don’t have this holiday in your country, you should lobby for it—maybe even make it a day off!

For architects, National Boss’s Day means celebrating the good work done by your principals, thanking them for their leadership excellence. After all, in this economy, principals are having a hard time and are under a lot of stress. You may have noticed them age, much like Obama has in the last two years.

Loud music reverberated from speakers. The line at the sponsored free bar spilled out onto the sidewalk. The 2010 AIA/LA Design Award boards were perfectly leveled along the crisp white walls. With all the great design on display, the music, the mingling, the clinking of plastic glasses, one might think architecture was simply business as usual.

But this crowd had gathered to listen to a panel on where things stand with the economy as it relates to the architecture industry. The event was sponsored by Form Magazine and coincided with the release of their October Money Issue. One person I spoke with wondered if the panel would show their cards.

More after the break.

–Go West, The Village People

These days you have to be willing to go just about anywhere for a job. Here is a sampling of recently advertised locations: Rwanda, Liberia, South Korea, Qatar, Libya, India, Saudi Arabia, Austria, and Singapore. The rest were in China. What about North Korea?

More after the break.

–Charles Bukowski (From a letter to publisher Douglas Blazek in Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960-1970. Ed. Seamus Cooney. 1993.)

More after the break.

Recently, two firms I know of laid off groups of employees. One victim was a veteran of over ten years. Another was a junior employee being mentored by one of the best people in the office. They were all valuable employees the firms had invested in and benefited from.

If you can believe it, when I was laid off I actually felt sorry for the leaders who had to drop the guillotine. There I was with my neck under the blade and I was saying things like, “I know this must be difficult for you” and “So sorry you have to pull the lever.” Even after the blade came down I kept saying this, a talking head without a body. And here I am, still a talking head!

Leadership is undoubtedly in a difficult situation. After chopping someone’s head off they probably go back to their desks, pull out their little metal flasks of whatever they prefer and take a swig. Think of the emotional damage this does. I wonder if this makes it difficult for management to carry on in their leadership roles to help their firms weather the storm. Can a captain who throws crew members overboard still function as a good captain? I suppose that is for the historians to determine. And what does the rest of the crew think?

Go back to grad school:

This thought was like a microscopic stroke. The M.Arch was the “go-back” and my PTSD symptoms get more acute whenever I get near institutions of higher learning.

Ride my bike across the country and write about it:

If I had a bike this might be a good one. The great escape. I had it all planned out. My wife and three year-old daughter would also come along. I could tow her in a little trailer. No need for training because we’d get in shape as we went—after all we are riding bikes. The things we’d see! Live off the grid! We could write a book about our adventures on the road, the crazy people we met, the kind citizens who would open their homes and kitchens to us. How our spirits were restored by the long journey. Then there would be the book tour. Film rights. Ewan McGregor would play me. Have to get steel-framed bikes so they could be welded at any roadside gas station. None of those fancy carbon fiber frames, light as they are, because I understand they can snap. The bikes would have to be very expensive and very cool—this is why I never go to bike shops with my credit cards. Maybe we could get a sponsorship deal, ride for some cause. See Architecture for Humanity entry, below.

The numbers look good/bad. The economy is recovering/anemic. The markets are up/down. If you follow economic reporting and analysis the economy seems to be a schizo-economy. What this indicates, in this era of battling economic models, is that no one really knows from one day to the next.

When will this end? Nobody knows this either. Even the economists don’t know because we have never been in a recession rooted in such deep complexities and systemic vulnerabilities. In such an environment, the phantoms of group-think become a virus that exacerbates real conditions. Doubt shadows every possible move.

As the Buddha said, life is suffering. The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard defined this as either/or. The central issues in his book, Either/Or, hinge upon the individual’s choice and will in the face of life’s difficulties. This is his take on how to end the suffering.

I recently paid a visit to the smallest office I have ever set foot in. It was actually a tiny one-bedroom apartment overlooking a pool. Its location, and the maneuvers I had to make to gain access, gave it the ambiance of secrecy. This must be what it feels like to visit a safe house, I thought.

Significant things are going on here. You may learn of them soon enough so, excepting one thing, I will not break the mystery. On one wall, in the very center of the wall, there hangs a small oil painting. The subject: a shipwreck in turbulent seas. It was done in blues with a very purposeful, skilled hand. It is not famous but could have been had it gotten into the right hands. It reminded me of Fitz Henry Lane’s “A Smart Blow (Rough Sea, Schooners),” 1856.

I asked the architect if he had done this. No, he said. He then told me the story of how this painting was the first beautiful thing that had ever transfixed him. When he was five or six, he used to sit and stare at it endlessly. This reminded me of how I used to stare out at the thunderstorms from my grandmother’s window, feeling like I was in the midst of them. As a child, he must have felt transported by this painting the way I was by that surrounding sky.

Propaganda, n. The systematic dissemination of information, esp. in a biased or misleading way, in order to promote a political cause or point of view. Also: information disseminated in this way; the means or media by which such ideas are disseminated.

– Oxford English Dictionary

This heavy pause in the profession, unsettling as it feels, is just the open mouth of the river, beckoning. As the doctor said, “Du calme, du calme.” You will turn, head up, and pass through the stations ahead. This is affirmation of redefinition is the essence of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The recession is why I am drawn to it.

Given current conditions, must architecture, the discipline and profession, embark on a journey of redefinition itself? Though it may not be on the same level as GM’s restructuring, broader economic forces beyond the profession’s control compel it to thoughtfully consider the course forward. On a private level, this is perhaps the best time to define or redefine yourself as an architect or architect-to-be. This process of self-discovery is how you own it.