rantlust

Posted by papi on June 09th 2008 in Architecture, Art, Far East, Raves, Religion, Travel
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“You know it might be just this one anonymous glory of all things, this rich stone forest, this epic chant, this gaiety, this grand choiring shout of affirmation, which we choose when all our cities are dust; to stand intact, to mark where we have been, to testify to what we had it in us to accomplish.”

The quote is Orson Welles talking about the cathedral at Chartres, and it’s from the movie “F for Fake” but it could just as easily have been about the topic of this post. Borobudur - a tapestry of stone, a rich stone forest, an epic chant. I’d read about Borobudur in history textbooks, as the lesser known sibling of Angkor Wat, and I’d long had a desire to visit the temple and see for myself if it matched up to its formidable reputation. Earlier this year, an anthropologist friend researching urban planning in the nearby Javan city of Jogjakarta urged me to visit, and I did not need to be asked twice.

Borobudur is located about an hour away from the city of Jogjakarta in East Java, brooding over the surrounding paddy fields. It is rather too close for comfort to the active volcano Gunung Merapi, and the latter has over the years been a constant concern for the safety of the temple. However, Borobudur has survived not only the vagaries of Merapi’s explosions and numerous earthquakes, but even human attempts to destroy it. It still stands largely intact, a testament to the endurance of faith.
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Posted by meerkat on November 06th 2007 in Architecture, Art, Design
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Frank Gehry has been blamed for serious design flaws at Stata center in Cambridge. This seems to be the price you pay for having an unconventional building which looks stunning and for sure, breaks the monotony of the buildings.

From the article-
“Because Gehry’s so daring, you figure you’ve got to be daring, too, if you’re a client,” Campbell said. “You know if you hire Frank Gehry there are going to be new kinds of problems.” But he said clients accept the risks because “they’ll get a building like no other building.” (Read more…)

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