Nov 9, 2012
Matthew Stadler commented on Western Bridge Melts into the Air.
I'm uplifted by this. It's so good to see the transitory celebrated as the site of meaning and value. Permanence is overrated. Western Bridge has been lovely. What next?
Aug 24, 2012
Matthew Stadler commented on Short Film Fridays.
Strange echoes here of Bruce Benderson's 2009 novel, PACIFIC AGONY: a jaundiced travelogue by a writer assigned to tour this region of the West, heavily annotated by his editor and annotator Narcissa Whitman Applegate.
Aug 8, 2012
Matthew Stadler commented on The King Cat Theater Looks to Be Closed.
I remember getting into R-rated movies at the King Cinema, when I was TOO YOUNG! Then it was nothing. I didn't even know what The King Cat Theater was when Bettie Serveert, a Dutch band I loved, showed up in Seattle in 1997 and played there. I had pleasant flashbacks. Who knew?
Jun 21, 2012
Matthew Stadler commented on Today in State Surveillance: Artist Jill Magid.
Jill Magid is a remarkable artist and writer. In Portland, we've just published the book that is the centerpiece of her current shows at Honor Fraser and Gallery Yvon Lambert (Paris), FAILED STATES. http://www.publicationstudio.biz/books/1…
May 14, 2012
Matthew Stadler commented on Enough of the Human Scale: Taller Is Better.
@15 Disagree! That is, if I understand you correctly. Has rational planning or technical or utilitarian consideration of these questions yielded any results that we'd want to live with, really? I think not! It's time to give free rein to the real genius of the human mind—the imagination, the poetic and aesthetic sense, all that is weird and significant (to site @2)—and start designing cities, economies, and lives with no regard for technical or utilitarian considerations. Rational planners, you've had your turn. Look at the mess you've made. Get out of the way!
May 14, 2012
Matthew Stadler commented on Enough of the Human Scale: Taller Is Better.
Also, @4, you, and I'm sure Charles, must know that wonderfully dystopian elaboration on skyscraper living, J.G. Ballard's nightmarish HIGH RISE. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Rise Things go poorly in the high rise...
May 14, 2012
Matthew Stadler commented on Enough of the Human Scale: Taller Is Better.
@2, oh I completely agree with your appetite for how significant and weird humanity is. But I think skyscrapers are a relatively crude and wasteful way to get there, like getting ice cubes by dragging an iceberg around with you. Most of the skyscraper is sheer background. Human weirdness can play out horizontally too, so that all of it is ultimately part of our experience. Constant, the Dutch architect, made his bizarre "New Babylon," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Babylon… and there's Archigram's "Plug-In City," which while not strictly horizontal, made the vertical into something other than an inaccessible backdrop. http://va312ozgunkilic.wordpress.com/201…
May 14, 2012
Matthew Stadler commented on Enough of the Human Scale: Taller Is Better.
As your illustration shows, what you are imagining and enjoying is looking down. Gehl rightly focuses on looking up. The other advantage of low-rise density is the reduced difference between the two. On a Parisian street you can shout up to windows and balconies and have conversations from street to any story (an old Parisian street). Skyscrapers are monuments to wealth, frozen capital, that serve those who own them and would like to look down on the rest of us.
May 10, 2012
Matthew Stadler commented on Clouds and City.
What a beautiful photo. It's an excellent picture of Seattle, I think, dominated by a fascinating and mercurial sky. I like the way you look at the city and see the combo of ambition and triviality, precariousness, grandiosity and indifference to context, all under a beautiful blue heaven. The strip of sound and mountains at the bottom left is perfect—so incidental and yet foundational. I've always wondered why people think buildings in Seattle ought to be beautiful, why that matters to anyone. It seems so beside the point. This is a great photo. Thanks for it.
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