#olympusbcl

KOBH #0048 —  Dancing House, Prague

Laughter and Hope

Dancing House (Czech: Tančící dům), completed in 1996, was a collaboration between Czech architect Vlado Milunic and Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry.

In KOBH #0047 the Mediæval and the Art Nouveau stand side by side. Here, Dancing House embodies another epoch in Prague’s history — either side of the “Deconstructivist/neo-Baroque” design one sees Habsburg-era buildings. The building on the right of Dancing House (the one that has a globe on the rooftop) was the long-term residence of the late Vaclav Havel, playwright, political dissident and first President of the Czech Republic. Havel was a keen supporter of the Dancing House project.

From the terrace atop Dancing House one can spy a tower that was used by secret service agents of the Communist-era Czechoslovakia government to surveil Havel’s home.  As much as Dancing house is emblematic of a different epoch, I say the same applies for Vaclav Havel himself — the dissident who became the President.

Said Vaclav Havel:

Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.

Hope is the deep orientation of the human soul that can be held at the darkest times.

KOBH #0068 — Sydney Sandstone Series •

Gazing at a different face of the city •

A selection of the images from the completed “Sydney Sandstone” series on architectural/psychogeographical wanderings through Sydney. 

My aim was to link the present built-up shiny towering city to a time  when sandstone quarries were once a short walk from the city centre.

All of the architecture photographed were built with stone quarried from Pyrmont.

To see the entire series, follow the links below:

KOBH #0047 —  Powder Gate and Municipal House, Prague

Three years and 33 years on

1475: Construction began on the Powder Tower/Gate. It was one of the 13 original city gates of Prague. In the 17th century gunpowder was stored there, hence the name.

1912: The Municipal House opens. It was designed in the Art Nouveau style, earlier known as the “Mucha style” such was the influence of Alphonse Mucha whose work can be seen inside. Seen here above the main entrance is the mosaic “Homage to Prague” by Karel Spiller.

1984: A Czech writer named Milan Kundera was interviewed by fellow writer, Ian McEwan in Paris — Kundera’s adopted home. At the time, Kundera’s writings were banned in Czechoslovakia and his novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” had recently been published — one of this writer’s favourite novels and definitely the spark for wanting to visit Prague.

One of the topics explored in the interview was kitsch (and politics):

McEwan: You have written: “Kitsch is the aesthetic ideal of all politicians and all political parties and movements.” According to you the function of kitsch is to conceal death. Does this mean that there is no conceivable politics without kitsch? Kundera: In my view, politics — in the sense of political parties, elections, modern politics — is unthinkable without kitsch. It is inevitable. The function of the successful politician is to please. — from “Greetings from Prague”  Granta No.11, 1984.

True that.

KOBH #0046 — Moon Rise over the Pacific, North Coogee

We cannot think of a time that is oceanless — TS Eliot

David Foster Wallace was a writer of non-fiction and novels who favoured exposition and specificity. To me, his style is dialectical, analytical, near-syllogistic and witty. Even the surprises in his prose are matter-of-fact. He once gave a commencement speech which started with the following anecdote:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?

What followed was an exegesis on perspective, compassion and the quotidian. Later the speech was published as a piece entitled “This is Water”, worth a detailed read: [PDF]

Following an utterly divergent path, novelist and poet Jack Kerouac writing about time spent in Big Sur, California reconstellated the ocean in words:

Shoo — Shaw — Shish — from “Sea: Sounds of the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur”

Both evoke that oceanic feeling.

KOBH #0045 —  Prater Park, Vienna

Truth and Art

Said Pablo Picasso:

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realise truth.

For further context to Picasso’s quote: [link].

Seen here is the Great Ferris Wheel of Vienna (Wiener Riesenrad), where Orson Welles playing Harry Lime in the film “The Third Man” said:

Don’t be so gloomy, after all it’s not that awful. You know what the fellow said: “In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michelangelo, da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.”

The film was set in post-WWII Vienna; the observation is apposite now — aside from the quote’s loose grasp of the history of Switzerland. (Refer to Picasso above).

Incidentally, an essay published in 2012 on the BBC website includes an account of the real-life political intrigue connected to the creation of “The Third Man” involving its writer Graham Greene, a Soviet mole and George Orwell.  It’s part of a broader discussion…

Title of the essay: “Are tyrants good for Art?”: [link]