Week 5 - Reading 1 by Winters

Politics and the situationist international
 - E Winters

architecture should be regarded as visual art...
     Architecture is always visual art. Sometimes it is beautiful, sometimes not beautiful, but still fulfills its purpose. Architecture is subjective and not all people will like one thing. Whilst it should be regarded as visual art (because it is), there are varying degrees of this art based on purpose. Is it meant to be beautiful? Is it meant to be functional? etc. Whilst these come into effect, it is always on display, showing someones work, and for that reason, it should be regarded as visual art.

an animal follows a life laid out in front of it. man on the other hand is born free...
     I don't fully agree with this. Sure a pet might follow a certain pattern and follows that life. It is born its bought it stays with its owner, going on walks and doing various activities, gives birth in some cases and then dies. But an animal in the wild has a completely different existence. Sure it might not be as free as a humans, because we are able to think more, do more, build more etc. But at the same time, they don't follow rules like we do. They don't have laws (unless in a pack). We have never also experienced the animal life. Man's life is not free either. You have to buy things you can't afford you have rules and laws to follow. You cannot go where you want all the time or do what you want to do all the time. We are less free than animals!


the creation of architecture implies the construction of an environment and the establishment of a way of life...
     I find this to be very true. Obviously a building is constructed, but that new building directs life and is built to suit a certain activity for work, home or a range of other things. Sure you can build something for one purpose and later on a whole new purpose comes into it, but it was never really designed for that purpose and therefor may never function as well. That's why architecture can be so important. It can be designed for emergency things and therefore the architecture HAS to work as efficiently as possible. It can be built for a certain way of life for an individual and it HAS to function as best as possible for that person, otherwise the architecture is bad, its bad art and there's nothing really behind it.

Lastly, I find it very hard to believe that archigram 1) has never had anything built and 2) That they got the gold medal even though they havent had anything built. I thought over their long lifetime some of their ideas would have been constructed. But maybe they were at the forefront of ideas and future possibilities to try and keep other architecture innovating a developing new things, and just creating 'paper architecture'. Kind of like the world record line that everyone has to keep up with. For that reason they have been very successful and crucial to the world r architecture.