'The Fountainhead'

‘The Fountainhead’ is a novel by Ayn Rand, written in 1943. It was later made into a film. I really enjoyed this film, and found it incredibly inspiring.

‘The Fountainhead’ is about architect Howard Roark, who spends his career battling against the mass of the ‘mob’ and the controllers of this mob. Where others give into the pressures of the society, and let their designs be controlled by others, Roark stands strong, determined to create architecture that he is proud of. His defiance against the system sees him struggle financially, and he is driven to work away from his office as labour. But he is happier at this point, working away from architecture, than being involved in projects that go against everything that he believes in.

In doing this, he stands alone against other architects, who are considered successful and are earning plenty of money from plenty of jobs, cowering to the needs of the mob and the men who run the mob. Success is the key point here – to Roark, success is the personal achievement of creating a building that he sees as his own; a building that does everything that he wants it to do, and everything that he sees as right.  An idea from his mind becomes a reality. To nearly everyone else, success is measured by money and fame, and the respect from the mob. Roark’s motivation for designing buildings is different to every other architect’s, and this is highlighted by the fact that he offers to design a building for fellow architect Peter Keating, with the only return being the satisfaction of the design being unchanged from his original idea. Unfortunately, the power of the ‘men in charge’ crushes Keating’s attempts to stop alterations to the design.

Roark’s passion for his architecture is so strong that one night he plants explosives around the building site and destroys what has been built. With almost everything and everyone against him, Roark struggles on, and stands up for what he believes in. He is the individual against the collective, and only wants to exist for himself – ‘mans right to exist for his own sake’. His mind is not an object of sacrifice, he has the right to think for himself, and will not let anyone take away his right to see through his own eyes and think with his own brain.

Ellsworth Toohey, Roark’s antagonist, writes a popular art criticism column. In a dramatic speech to Keating, Toohey openly admits his desire for control, and how he intends to go about it. Roark is such a threat to him because he stands against him, and cannot be controlled by him. There are so many quotes from this section of the film, but they all seem to speak for themselves, so I think its best if I just write the lot down!

‘Power. What do you think is power? Whips? Guns? Money? You can’t turn men into slaves unless you break their spirit. Kill their capacity to think and act on their own. Tie them together, teach them to conform, to unite, to agree, to obey. That makes one neck ready for one leash. You heard me preaching it for years but you didn’t have the wits to know what you were hearing. Why do you suppose I denounced greatness and praised mediocrities like you? Great men can’t be ruled. Why did I preach self-sacrifice? If you kill a man’s sense of personal value, he’ll submit. Can you do that to Howard Roark? No? Then don’t ask me why I want to destroy him.’

Roark is such a threat because he sees past what is presented to him in every day life as ‘normal’. He doesn’t accept that this is the way things have to be, he sees something different and is prepared to work hard to achieve what he personally believes is right. Through Roark’s determination, others start to see that there is hope for something better, and there is another way things can be done. Gail Wynand, head of the ‘Banner’ newspaper realises that before he wasn’t a ruler of the mob as he thought previously, he was in fact its tool. He tries to stand up to the powers but is eventually defeated, as he lacks the courage and determination of Roark.

This film, (along with the other texts in this course which are starting to feel as though they all tie together) has made me think about two main points. For one, we must never accept what we are told as the truth, we must find the truth ourselves. Just because things have been done a certain way for many years does not mean they are the right way, or do not need changing.

Secondly, if we passionately believe in something, we cannot give up. It will never be easy to stand up against collectivism, but an individual can make a difference. One person can inspire others, and there is always hope that can keep an idea going. In my own career as an architect, I am determined to be proud of every building that I design, and to truly believe that I have done the best job that I am capable of.

Marshall Berman - 'All That Is Solid Melts Into Air' The Experience of Modernity

We were asked to read the chapters on Goethe’s Faust from ‘All That Is Solid Melts Into Air’ by Marshall Berman. Berman tells and analyses the story of Faust. Faust is successful, intelligent man, who has achieved a lot. But he is unhappy with the way he is moving through life, and doesn’t feel that he fits into the society around him, and so he secludes himself from it.

‘The further his mind has expanded, the deeper his sensitivity has grown, the more he has isolated himself, and the more impoverished have become his relationships to life outside – to other people, to nature, even to his own needs and active powers. His culture has developed by detaching itself from the totality of life.’ He is a prisoner of his own mind.

He is briefly given hope to joining the old world that he has detached himself from as he hears the church bells ring, and he is taken back to his childhood, but this satisfaction soon passes. He realises that he has to participate in society in a way that allows his ambitions and spirit to not be restricted as it was before. In order to do this he makes a pact with the devil.

His pact with the devil enables him to seduce Gretchen, a girl who symbolises innocence and world of his childhood. However, as she personally develops, she looses her innocence, and Faust looses the girl that he fell in love with.

Faust goes on to involve himself with society by becoming a leader, who through politics, develops society in the direction he wants, but this thirst for development is all-encompassing, and with it, Faust looses complete control of what he is doing by unknowingly killing an innocent couple who represent the goodness in the past. Faust is saved from hell, because of his commitment and continuous striving for development to improve the world around him.

There is a lot to learnt from this story and I think that I will come back to it and probably realise a few more important messages each time I read it, Berman certainly makes it clear in the way he breaks it down.

After reading this text, along with all of the others so far in this course, I feel that development must happen. We must keep moving forward but not disregard what has happened in the past. We must learn from everything that has happened to us, the good and the bad, and use this knowledge to move forward again. There will be mistakes made along the way, but the attempt to move forward is more important than this. It is better to do this than to not try and to not take risks. The past means a lot to everyone, if we loose sight of the things that we love about the past, we could loose sight of the part of ourselves that helped us become who we are today.

We must not see ourselves moving forward in an attempt to eventually arrive at our destination and then stop. Going back to Eagleton’s ‘After Theory’, we must not settle. We cannot expect to be presented with the answers that will solve every problem, so we must be prepared to accept that we will constantly have to think in new ways to deal with new issues.

As said earlier, this text shows that we can be torn between two different worlds – one which holds onto the past in a nostalgic way, and one which is moving forward from this first world into something different. In this process of development, we must never stop, and we must never loose sight of where we have come from.

Evelyn Waugh's 'Decline and Fall'

This week we discussed Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Decline and Fall’. This short novel tells the story of Paul Pennyfeather. This was a bit more easy-going than what I am used to from the theory lectures, and I enjoyed how quickly I could read it! The main part of the book discussed on Friday was that on Silenus, Margot’s architect. Silenus resembles Le Corbusier, and his modernist viewpoint. His attitude towards most things in life can be summed up in his approach to assessing a beautiful woman, which is by rating the efficiency of her digestive system.

Le Corbusier was obsessed with truth and order, which he tried to place on everything. Every decision made in the design process needed solid reasoning behind it - this approach led to the 5 points of modern architecture, which derived from the use of concrete in building.

Le Corbusier’s modernist perception did not allow for human needs. For his designs to remain pure, there would be no room for individual character – everyone would have the same of everything, and everything that existed would be designed to do a specific job, there would be no variation. The problem with this attitude towards design is that humans need more than the bare minimum – to bring the excitement and life to the things around us, there needs to be a higher level of stimulation. When everything is reduced to its functional form, it can mean it does not have its own unique character, and it becomes soulless.

I think that there are great rewards taken from the design process of form following function, and looking for purity in every day objects. However, it cannot be taken to the point that it neglects human nature. Homes and cars are designed for people, and so fulfilling people’s needs should be the main objective in designing them. This includes psychological needs and goes beyond the purely functional.

'Howl' and 'The Job'

This week we were asked to read ‘Howl’ by Allen Ginsberg. For the first time, I decided to wait until after the lecture to write anything about it for my blog, purely because I wanted to have a better understanding of it before I wrote this.

Firstly, I’m glad I now know something about this poem, as it is an important classic, so I feel like I should know about it! It has lead me to find out more about Beat Poetry, and the 50’s and 60’s in general. It seems strange that I already knew quite a bit about the history of this era, but didn’t really think about why the changes happened the way they did. The 50’s / 60’s were full of new discoveries - space exploration being hugely influential. More and more people’s minds were thinking beyond the conventional and they were questioning and objecting to their previous generations’ ways of thinking. LSD was being used to experience new things and think outside the box. People were thinking and acting freely about sex, music and language, and these people were the children that came from the end of the second world war.

Times were changing dramatically, and this meant that the way people wrote needed to change with it. ‘Howl’ is an important poem as it stated a debate as to what was acceptable to write about, and gave new ideas to how it could be written about, it essentially expanded creativity. Ginsberg writes a continuous flow of thoughts, feelings and impressions of what he sees happening around him. He tells it like it is. His attitude to what he sees and how he writes about it was the starting point for a revolution in writing.

Briefly looking at William Burroughs in ‘The Job’, the main thing that I took from this was his idea of images and words being used as an instrument of control. He believed that to get to the origin we must scrutinise the instrument itself. This ‘suspicious’ attitude towards words lead him to use his ‘cut-up’ technique, which would undermine the power structures that control language. By rearranging the words he was given on a page, he believed that he could start to understand what the message that these words were being used for really meant. It’s an interesting idea, and a fascinating attempt to looking beyond what we all accept as truth in the way we communicate, but if words are not an accurate tool to understanding the truth, I don’t think that randomly rearranging them is the answer. To me, I think that a whole new method of communicating would be needed, but I have no idea what that could be!

Some more on Hickney

Friday’s lecture actually made me feel quite positive about things. Our discussions about Hickney’s ‘At home in the neon’ left me asking myself the question; what happens when you stop scrutinising and looking to uncover the mythologies of our time, and just enjoy it? We discussed how the bad points of Vegas exist everywhere, but are just hidden in other places, and how Hickney makes you understand his connection to Vegas by referring to it as home, and then defining home itself.

Unfortunately, it seems that Las Vegas has been gobbled up by major corporations, and is not the same place that it used to be, certainly for Hickney who longer sees it as his home.

The main point that I took from this was that Las Vegas, as a place became the perfect tool to liberate writing. The values that fit in with traditional writing just don’t fit with Vegas - it has become the vehicle for writers to evolve. It is the sort of place that inspires people to feel liberated of social ‘normality’, and do what they want to do.

Maybe we should stop and simply enjoy the world around us, instead of desperately trying to undermine it. Or maybe the struggle to understand what is around us, and the purpose of all of this, can be much more enjoyable than just accepting without deeper thinking.

Dave Hickney's 'At Home with the Neon'

This week I have read ‘At home with the neon’ from the book ‘Air Guitar’ by Dave Hickney.

Before reading this, my opinion on Las Vegas was probably the same as most of the people in the class (I’d imagine). I felt that it was tacky, tasteless, and a place that exploited peoples’ greed. I now feel slightly bad about feeling that way, although I can’t say that I suddenly really want to go there now.

Hickney writes how Las Vegas has become the only place where he feels at home. He raises a lot of positives about the place – Vegas presents a flat-line social hierarchy. Money is just money. Vegas is about stakes, not status. It is about real action, not connections. All of these points made me re-think my attitude to the place. Las Vegas actually sounds quite appealing when you look at this way. Nowhere else has this level-headed attitude to society. To be in a place that treats everybody as equals, and escapes the pretentious nature of our culture must be amazing! Of course, there will still be people there who are making judgments on status, and turning their nose up at appearances, but I suppose those are the people that are not really experiencing Vegas. When you go to Vegas, you leave that behind, you escape the real world, where sadly everyone is judged by everyone.

One of the things that bugs me about Vegas is the exploitation of the people that go there to risk their money on the possibility of winning more. Hickney writes that it is essentially their own fault, which in reality is true! People are so un-used to regulating their own behaviour, that when they visit Las Vegas they go too far and end up broke and in jail. However, I still feel that even though everyone is responsible for their own behaviour, the Casino’s obviously do know peoples’ weaknesses, and they do exploit them. I really am being swayed both ways with this one, hopefully tomorrow’s lecture will help again.

Finally, I do feel that in accepting that I find the décor of Vegas tacky, I am accepting that I am pretentious, and see myself as ‘having better taste’, and therefore ‘above’ those who do not find it tacky. I obviously don’t want to think of myself as pretentious!

Maybe I need to accept Vegas as being what it is, and stop comparing it to what I see as better places. It is a one-off, which gives hope and pleasure to a lot of people. I think we could all do with adopting a more laid back, open, Vegas attitude. We are so caught up in our materialistic society, which pushes us into doing things that we feel we simply have to do, that we don’t even realise what it is that we want to do. This wacky place could in some respects keep us more level headed that anywhere else!

Revisiting Eagleton

I want to briefly revisit Eagleton’s ‘After Theory’.

I am now feeling more sympathetic towards Eagleton’s nostalgia of a time where thinking was deeper and moving forward. Today there isn’t the depth of thinking that there was in the past. Everything is quick and concerned with everyday life, the here and now. This is causing us to ignore the real questions like famine and poverty – we distract ourselves with investigations into ‘Friends’ and ‘S&M’, and we are ignoring the real.

I still feel that everyone has the right to look closely into the topics that they personally find interesting, but I agree with Eagleton that it is sad that many people immerse themselves in these studies.

We are too happy to accept what has been put in front of us as the truth and only way to operate. We need to keep moving forward and we cannot settle. We need to get underneath the surface and discover what are the myths that we live under.

Terry Eagleton's 'After Theory'

This week, we have been asked to read part of Terry Eagleton’s ‘After Theory’. To be honest, I’m not quite sure what to make of it. He writes that we are living in an aftermath of what one might call high theory, in an age, which, having grown rich on the insights of thinkers has also in some ways moved beyond them. It seems quite depressing to think that we are now of the generation that cannot think at the same intellectual level as previous generations. He writes that structuralism, Marxism and post-structuralism are no longer the sexy topics they were, and what is sexy instead is sex. Maybe he is right in many cases, but I don’t think that that is the case with everyone, and I’m sure that not everyone in the past felt that structuralism was sexy.

I also wonder how far new thinking can go? We live in an age where almost anything can be interrogated as part of a student’s studies. I don’t think that this is a bad thing, as long as it doesn’t come to the point where more traditional topics are neglected. However, I do think that if someone has enough of an interest in something, they have the right to look into it more closely, even if I personally don’t find that topic remotely interesting.

Maybe I do not understand this fully, I think Friday’s lecture will help me get my head around this. What Eagleton is saying does make sense, but I’m not quite sure where he’s going with it. Maybe once my part-time job starts I’ll buy the book and find out more!

'Sand, Fear, and Money in Dubai' by Mike Davis

Before reading ‘Sand, Fear, and Money in Dubai’ by Mike Davis, I didn’t like Dubai. Now that I have read it, I really don’t like Dubai. Modern Dubai is a theme park, a completely fake ‘world’, which physically represents the greed, ignorance and selfishness of its creators.

Like I said before, I already didn’t like Dubai - the architecture being built there is monstrous. It doesn’t need to take into account any context, environmental factors, or anything else; because all that matters is that the buildings are a symbol of money. I wonder what will be next after Burj Dubai, or what people will make of this in 50 years time. The idea of building a set of islands that creates a mini world is ridiculous! I don’t know how Rod Stewart (wanting to buy Britain) can take himself seriously! Definitely a case of more money than sense. It is almost laughable.

Unfortunately, it isn’t funny, because behind all of the glamour and prosperity, is a grim reality of exploited workers and dirty money, which most of the overpaid celebrities won’t even know about. The ones that do are probably having too good a time to care. The divide between rich and poor is so extreme, but I suppose this is not unusual. It does baffle me how so many people can choose to be so ignorant to how others live.

Reading this text has really frustrated me, because ultimately a lot of the problems raised are not just about Dubai. Unfortunately Dubai is just an extreme representation of an attitude in many societies across the world. We live in a world where everyone has to be number one. Everyone has to be at the top. Everything needs to be the best, the quickest, the best looking - there isn’t time to waste – if we don’t have these things our lives will be so much worse than that other guy that we’ve never met. It’s really sad that all of this has distracted us from the real. Just like Badiou’s article explains; we are watching a fantasy on a cinema screen, we can’t get sucked in – we need to stand back and look at what is going on in the real world, and in the case of Dubai, it’s pretty terrifying.

Revisiting Badiou

Before I start writing about this week’s text, I thought I’d briefly revisit Badiou.

One of the most interesting points raised in the lecture for me, was that we have completely lost touch of the real, as we are no longer free thinkers. Everything around us has been defined. Everything seems to have an explanation, and it seems to be impossible to detach ourselves from a way of thinking that has been built into us throughout our whole lives by the society that we live in.

This is something that I have thought about before in terms of understanding what happened to create life (i.e. before the big bang). This may be completely off of the point, but there is a trail of thought that leads to this! I completely accept that we can never know exactly what happened, as we have no way of comprehending it. How can we completely understand something if we are limited by words and numbers, which are simply tools that we have created ourselves? We define everything using these tools, but there must be limits to how much these can explain. In this case, I think it is impossible to ever understand what is the real.

Alain Badiou’s ‘This Crisis is the Spectacle: Where is the real?’

I have just finished reading the first text for Theory 1 – Alain Badiou’s ‘This Crisis is the Spectacle: Where is the real?’

I wasn’t expecting to be reading texts like this at the start of the Theory course, but I’m glad that I am. Politics, the financial crisis, and everything else that goes along with it, has been something that I have always wanted to know more about. Unfortunately, in the past I haven’t given my time to reading into these topics, and only just keep up-to-date with what’s happening in the world by watching the news every now and then, and flicking onto the BBC news home page. As soon as I have started to find out more, I have been distracted by something else, and too many references to things that I do not know enough about stop me from fully understanding what I am reading.

Now I am being ‘forced’ to learn about it, and I like it. As I read through this text I kept looking up definitions, and looking into the histories of different political groups, and actually enjoying learning about it!

Badiou’s text has really made me think. He seems to simplify and clarify everything that that I have been hearing about briefly in the news. His ideas make sense, and make me question our Government’s interests. However, I am only just getting in to this – I have a lot to learn. I do not want to make a judgment too soon, as I tend to be quite easily convinced by a strong argument like this. I hope that we continue to read into this more in our theory lectures, and I want to make more of an effort with researching in my own time.

Hopefully, it won’t be long until I can confidently form my own opinion on all of this, and completely understand these important issues.