On 2/15/11 11:10 PM, cook michael wrote:
Le 16/02/2011 07:21, Heathkid a écrit :
BLING?
Really? Seriously? A "watch" is considered "bling" now? Can you build
a mechanical watch in your workshop that is as accurate as those
manufactured 100 years ago? That's technology! Otherwise, a precision
watch.... mechanical or electronic is just as on-topic as a Cs
standard and I'd like to hear more about mechanical watches. Btw, the
"tick" sounds nice too!
You appear to have misunderstood my comment. I entirely agree with you.
When I mentioned "bling" I was talking about the fashion content.
having watched "The Devil Wears Prada" again, last weekend.. There's an
interesting monologue in there about the value of fashion..in re Andi's
poly blend blue sweater.
Fashion is important.. otherwise we'd all live in identical functional
minimalist boxes. Yes, we need things to work, first, but I don't see a
problem with style and fashion on top of it. Sometimes, it is the drive
to make something work in a "pretty" way that results in new
technologies that enable it, too.
Brunelleschi's work on the Duomo in Florence wasn't necessarily
motivated by the desire to build a bigger dome, per se, but because that
big dome enabled an architectural vision of a large clear span in the
building. To build that dome required (re)inventing a bunch of
technology and engineering.
This winter, I was in Egypt doing the usual monuments thing.. The
pyramids are impressive for their scale. What was impressive to me was
not the first step pyramid at Saqqara (which was basically piling
mastabas on top of each other) but was the adjacent temple (also
designed by Imhotep), with the idea of the colonnade and roof, etc. He
wasn't bold enough to try self supporting columns (they're sort of half
columns with a buttress to the surrounding wall), but he had the vision
of a room with a long clear span. That was something that hadn't ever
been built before. The idea of a pyramid is obvious to anyone who has
ever built a pile of rocks.. But a room with a big roof... that's not as
obvious.
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