Entry Nine: Parody - Evelyn Waugh's 'Decline and Fall'

Evelyn Waugh's 'Decline and Fall' is a parody set in the twenties in England and Wales and was published in 1928 by the English author. The novel is a piece of satire which comments on the divisions in social classes, social conventions of the time and human behavior to name a few of the themes.

The chapter we have read refers to the grand Tudor country home of Margot Beste-Chetwynde called ‘King’s Thursday’ and describes how everyone in the county marveled at its magnificence. Waugh refers to the country home and how it had retained all its historic features, and has been kept exactly how it was originally intended for the last three centuries;
“unmodified by any of the succeeding fashions that fell upon domestic architecture. No wing had been added, no window filled in…”

King’s Thursday had been recognised as ‘the finest piece of domestic Tudor in England’ by some of the ‘high society’ who regularly visited for parties. They were in complete admiration of the ‘unspoilt’ Tudor home. However, it had long been ‘unsuited to modern requirements’ due to its only intention being to restore which also meant it had avoided any updates from plumber or engineer. It was barely possible to live there with less than twenty servants.
Margot Beste-Chetwynde had bought the home after it had been empty for two years and commissioned Professor Silenus (I definitely see an implication of the word ‘silliness’ here due to his obscure remarks and odd mannerisms) as her Architect, who attracted her attention through the rejected design for a chewing-gum factory.
When the neighbours find out the house is to be knocked down and rebuilt they are up in arms about it.
Silenus tells a reporter “The problem with architecture as I see it is the problem of all art – the elimination of the human element from the consideration of form…. All ill comes from man.” For the modern architect – humans are very separated.

In terms of modernism I think Waugh comments on social resistance to change. It is not possible to accommodate to ‘how life was’ forever. There are connections here to what was spoken about in my blog of Goethe’s Faust- things have to change but there will always be opposition to it.

Entry Eight: Colin Rowe - 'Mathematics of the Ideal Villa' (1947)

Colin Rowe’s essay on The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa was first published in the Architectural Review in 1947. Rowe was an architectural historian and critic. Within this particular essay he compares the works of Palladio and Le Corbusier.

Colin Rowe begins his essay with a quote from Sir Christopher Wren about the idea of beauty being either natural or customary where; natural beauty is from geometry consisting of uniformity, equality and proportion, and customary beauty is down to familiarity to something, which is not in itself lovely. Wren describes geometrical figures as being ‘naturally more beautiful than irregular ones’ as well as perpendicular and horizontal as being the ‘only two beautiful positions of straight lines’.

Rowe makes a ‘diagrammatical comparison’ between Palladio’s 'Villa Foscari' (the Malcontenta), dating from the 16th Century, and Corbusier's 'Villa Garches', dating from the 1920s. He describes what he believes to be 'fundamental relationships' between the two. These include firstly comparisons with the geometric ratios and then a comparison of the structures, plan and so on.
He talks of a lot of mathematical 'coincidences' and some would argue that he is in fact distorting information to create evidence for his argument by plucking these thoughts out of the air.

Rowe goes on to say; ‘Development was, therefore, less a matter of innovation, than an extension of ideas already implicit.’ This implies that in architecture, we have been regurgitating the same ideas for decades in one way or the other. This is certainly true to a certain sense, I don't believe any form of 'design' is truly 'unique' as I believe everything we do has got to be influenced by our own experiences within society and our acquired knowledge and understanding of the world.

Entry Seven: The Production of Space - Henri Lefebvre

I found this text the most difficult to tackle and was so relieved to be reassured in the following class discussion that I was not alone in thinking that it was a difficult one to get your teeth into, a lot of rereading went on here!

Henri Lefebvre was a French Marxist philosopher and socialist. His work spanned over sixty years and he wrote more than sixty books and three hundred articles. He died in 1991, aged 90 years old.

Lefebvre takes on what has been described as 'word interrogation' in the chapter 'Social Space' from the book 'The Production of Space'. He talks about the differences between the words 'work' and 'product' are spoken about in this section and the concept of 'the production of space' where the word production has been a word were the meaning has been gradually lost over time.
The description of the product is something that is easily replaceable through replication whereas a work is something that is unique and therefore, irreplaceable.

When talking about 'Art' he describes how producing artworks with the intention of being sold, exchanged and so on, in fact takes away from the artwork and makes it instead a product. I think this is definitely the case when creating artwork for the subject 'Art & Design' at GCSE and A-Level stages, when producing artwork with the intention of fulfilling specific criteria to get me into the next stage of education. 'Works' should be created out of the beauty of creating a 'work', out of love and admiration of a type of craftwork, it is not something which can be mass produced.
This is just one first look of this text, it is a meaty text which I'm sure needs to be revisited many a time and I'm sure I will revisit this reading in the future.

Entry Six: Counterculture - Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl'

Howl by Allen Ginsburg is a poem published in 1956 about counterculture in 1950s America. The poem itself is split into three sections. There are themes of sexual liberation, experimentation with psychedelic drugs and anti-capitalism.

The poem is one of the most well-known poems to be associated with the writers of the ‘Beat Generation’ who explored these themes amongst others and greatly influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era throughout the 1950s.
Another contributor to great ‘Beat Generation’ literature is William S. Burroughs with his novel ‘Naked Lunch’ (1959). He is one of the authors mentioned in the footnote to Howl ‘holy Burroughs’ and both works ‘Naked Lunch’ and ‘Howl’ caused a lot of controversy at the time and were the centre of obscenity trials in America but the judge decided the poem was of ‘redeeming social importance’.

I.

The first section starts with,

‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness’

This section describes the experiences of the outcasts of society who don’t want to conform to the controlled and oppressive post-war (WWII) America. 

Ginsberg represents their experiences in graphic detail in what seems like an archaic mess of writing; in 'Notes Written on Finally Recording Howl' (1959), he describes how he let his innermost thoughts, feelings and experiences flow out in just one mad sitting;
"I thought I wouldn't write a poem, but just write what I wanted to without fear, let my imagination go, open secrecy, and scribble magic lines from my real mind--sum up my life--something I wouldn't be able to show anybody, write for my own soul's ear and a few other golden ears. So the first line of Howl, "I saw the best minds etc.," the whole first section, typed out madly in one afternoon".


I think in writing the poem this way, as if it was really for his eyes only, in sort of a therapeutic outburst, we really see the reality of his experiences.
This first section is by far the longest and we go through it with a good rhythm;

"I depended on the word "who" to keep the beat, a base to keep measure, return to and take off from again onto another streak of invention" (Notes Written on Finally Recording Howl).

II.

The second section talks about the figure 'Moloch'.

'Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!'

This can be interpreted as an evil demonic figure, or money or the establishment itself. It seems to be a cry out against conformism and capitalism.

III.

The last section talks of Carl Solomun in Rockland, (a psychiatric hospital) where he describes his solidarity with him.


Ginsberg gives a stark, personal and real voice to his experiences in the 1950s. It is a strong and evocative piece of writing which gives us a true insight into social experiences in post-World War II America.