kazys-varnelis – mammoth // building nothing out of something

Tag Archives: kazys-varnelis

September 13, 2010 – 4:43 pm

architects without architecture

As a coda to our collaborative reading of The Infrastructural City, mammoth spoke with Kazys Varnelis, editor of that book, about how the infrastructural city and “network culture” are related, what the contents of an imaginary new chapter for The Infrastructural City might be, and the future of architecture in the wake of global economic […]

By mammoth | Posted in architecture, economics, infrastructure, interviews, mammoth book club, the-expanded-field, urbanism | Also tagged | Comments (6) | Permalink
August 14, 2010 – 3:41 pm

reading the infrastructural city, chapter ten index

[Bird’s-eye view of “Wal-(medley mixed-up mélange montage mash-up shopping)mart”, an absurdly-titled (but also somewhat light-hearted) proposal for a Wal-Mart on the Gowanus Canal, drawn by (then?) Yale architecture students Alexander Maymind & Cody Davis; read an in-depth interview regarding the project at Archinect.] Catching up (post-viral and sister-visiting-from-Mongolia break) on the Infrastructural City, with two […]

By rholmes | Posted in mammoth book club, readings | Also tagged , , , | Comments Off on reading the infrastructural city, chapter ten index | Permalink
December 9, 2009 – 5:55 pm

total service delivery

The Dirt has a lengthy interview conducted by Pierre Belanger with Joe Brown, chief executive of planning, design, and development at AECOM, the architecture and engineering firm that swallowed EDAW (formerly the world’s largest firm primarily focused on landscape architecture, if I recall correctly). The interview covers a wide range of issues, from the “need […]

By rholmes | Posted in asides, infrastructure, landscape-architecture, urbanism | Also tagged , , , , , , | Comments (5) | Permalink
December 3, 2009 – 8:10 pm

infrastructural urbanism and fracture-critical networks

[Amos Coal Power Plant, from Mitch Epstein’s fantastic series American Power] Adrian Lahoud has a lengthy post on infrastructure and urbanism at Post-Traumatic Urbanism; the post is well worth reading. A handful of somewhat scattered comments on it follow. I strongly agree with the emphasis on “complex urban interdependencies”, in addition to “physical artefacts” of […]

By rholmes | Posted in infrastructure, urbanism | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (2) | Permalink
December 1, 2009 – 4:58 pm

a superproject void

[Aerial image of the Hoover Dam Bypass under construction; I’d love to give credit for the image to the photographer, but it came to me through a long email chain, lacking any attribution, and I haven’t been able to locate the source] Economics journalist Louis Uchitelle complains about a “superproject void” in the Times; Infrastructurist […]

By rholmes | Posted in infrastructure | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (7) | Permalink
November 17, 2009 – 4:33 pm

varnelis interview at triple canopy

Kazys Varnelis follows up his recent interview of Joseph Tainter (author of The Collapse of Complex Societies) by himself being interviewed, at Triple Canopy (whose last two issues on urbanism are indispensable): Triple Canopy: You’ve argued that it’s no longer possible to rebuild existing infrastructures or, for that matter, to build better ones. And you’ve […]

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October 14, 2009 – 9:33 am

city, battlesuit, archigram

A conversation worth following: the original piece is Matt Jones’s “The City is a Battlesuit for Surviving the Future” at io9, in which Matt draws connections between Archigram, the architecture of science fiction and comics, ubiquitous computing, and the future of mega-cities. Varnelis responds, arguing that Jones’ rhetorical adoption of Archigram inadvertently reveals an absence […]

By rholmes | Posted in architecture, asides, readings, urbanism | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (6) | Permalink