African Wisdom in Image and Proverb

The student union's art gallery is currently displaying the photography exhibit Betty Press: African Wisdom in Image and Proverb. These black and white images show moments of people's daily lives that the photographer witnessed while traveling across Africa.

I sketched one that I particularly liked:

The accompanying proverb, from Kenya, read: "A calabash with holes cannot be filled."

The photo's caption said that the image was from Mbao, Senegal, in 1988. About the image the photographer wrote:

"While visiting a women's group that was setting up a dried fish business, I saw this woman sitting in a courtyard cleaning rice. As she was doing this most mundane job, she was beautifully dressed and so composed that even having her picture taken did not distract her from her work."

I really liked the photo's contrast between the austere buildings of the fore and middle ground with the subtle ornament of the background's domed building, which is likely some sort of church or mosque. All this austerity contrasts sharply with the woman's richly patterened clothing, which I didn't sketch (of course). It makes me wonder what the building interiors look like--like the severe surfaces of the building exteriors or the richness of the clothing?

I've read that in many of the cultures in this area the buildings are focused inward toward a central courtyard and contribute little to their sides facing the streets. I'm not sure how this affects the street culture, having never witnessed these types of places. I do know that other cultures whose buildings are also inwardly-oriented include Arab cultures, the cultures of North Africa, the Middle East, and Spain.

For more of Betty Press's work, check out her website at http://www.bettypress.com/.

Changing it Yourself

I came upon this blog post the other day about people taking it upon themselves to improve their communities. Some of these fixes may be illegal, such as painting crosswalks yourself. I've heard of people going to jail for doing so, but I guess they couldn't wait around any longer for the government to take care of it. The painted intersection looks like the new one here in Starkville, and I thought the "free little library" that reclaims the setback was neat as well.

Congested Streets

I just read a blog post that reminded me of something I'd read earlier in Suburban Nation. In Suburban Nation the authors write that many of the strategies used to address heavy traffic situations end up increasing traffic in the long run. More roads and wider roads just invite more traffic and often more congestion as well.

This post by a former classmate of mine compares two streets in Chico, CA. One is an attractive, multi-way boulevard and the other is a typical strip mall type road, the "stroad." The strip mall road seems to have more traffic, but it actually carries less traffic than the multi-way boulevard. This is because of the "27 mph rule," which states that 27 mph is the most efficient speed for moving traffic. As speeds increase over 27 mph, vehicles start to spread out from one another and the street's carrying capacity is reduced. So not only is the multi-way boulevard more attractive, but it actually can carry more traffic than the "stroad."

Town and Highway Relationship

Here's an interesting picture from Suburban Nation by Andres Duany et al.:

Which one is your town? Starkville would definitely be the bottom one. Most of the important businesses are spread out along the highway, with more under construction. The businesses in the middle of town are more for when you have a little free time or a little extra spending money. Most of the civic buildings are still in the middle of town, but after a recent vote it looks like the people are wanting them moved out to the edge.

Some other nearby towns that fit the bottom image are Mathiston, West Point, Flowood, and almost everything in Desoto County. Oxford would definitely be one of the top images, and it seems they're proud to keep it that way.

MIT's Building 20

The way Stewart Brand described MIT's Building 20 in How Buildings Learn made it seem like a really neat place. It was a temporary building built during WWII to develop radar for the war effort. After the war it became the "magical incubator" with a variety of different kinds of activities happening inside. Student groups, small research projects, and people needing a hideout from the bustle of campus all found a place there. I thought I would look more into it but it looks like it was demolished in 1998.

It was replaced by Frank Gehry's Ray and Maria Stata Center:

facade.mit.edu

I'd still like to go and see this. It definitely looks like a place worth exploring.

Chapter 3 and 4 The Architecture of Community

Leon Krier is definitely coming across as a modernism hater. I think I understand where he's coming from, but it seems that he's mostly making his points using the worst examples of modernism. I'll have to admit that there's plenty of bad examples to pick from. However, one of my favorite things to look around for is examples of attractive, human-scaled modernist design. It can be tough to find, but it's out there. I'll see if I can get some good examples for my precedent paper.

Chapters 3 and 4 from Suburban Nation

After reading through these chapters of Suburban Nation, I feel that the authors are forgetting some of the drawbacks of the pre-WWII development that they seem to like so much. The way I understand it, one of the major reasons for sprawl was that it was a reaction against the terrible urban conditions of cities at the time. They were dark, crowded, unsanitary places, and the people needed to be spread out for their own health. These aren't major issues in our urban places anymore, but I can see it as one of the big reasons that the authorities wanted to move so many people out of city centers back then. At the same time, though, I do agree with most of the what the authors are saying about what needs to change about our current development patterns.