samuelganton

[samuelganton]

epistemology and fuzziness

We are living in an inter-medium state where everything is unclear. 

There’s us and our beliefs, in a kind of fog, and then there’s whatever is really going on, outside the box or container. We might believe that we’ll get outside it after we die, or we might believe that the fog is all there is - that there is no underlying reality outside the fuzziness. But regardless of that, we are trapped inside the mud-puddle of the world together, and though we may think we have accurate ideas about what’s out there, or think someone on the outside is communicating with us...

We can’t know. 

We are all functionally uncertain, and we have to learn to live together in that suspended state. We have to learn to extend ‘the grace of the fog.’ 

[samuelganton]

Hidden Temples of Saskatoon

Where on earth could this be?

Why, it's one of the secret Egyptian temples of Saskatoon, of course. 

Intrigued, I ventured farther, and was nearly run over by a runaway freight car.

Alarmed as I was, I nevertheless did not stop. 

I was discovering a strange alternative city, inhabited only by myself, empty train cars, and pigeons. 

Poking around in hidden corners, I felt I was getting closer and closer to the centre of these mysteries. 

The old industrial equipment was covered in a thick coat of dust, suggesting that for many years its use had been largely ceremonial. 

Would I find the sanctuary behind these grimed wooden doors? No. They were locked. I retraced my steps a short distance, entered another branch in the maze, and then

at last

My gaze was held. My eyes were drawn upward. 

I had found it. The sacred centre of this city, the monument to the glory of the gods of the prairies.

I was immediately struck by the similarity to places like the columnar hall in the Egyptian temple at Karnak:

I was humbled. And awestruck. 

Fitting, isn't it? 

That the temple of the great grain gods should be here, in this half-forgotten industrial corner of the city that was once connected to the lifeblood of the country. 

Railroads and grain elevators. That's the way it goes here on the prairies. Let us not forget to whom we owe our prosperity.

And thus the mystery is solved. 

[samuelganton]

I've so enjoyed walking across the Broadway Bridge and watching the ice floes sticking together and flowing downstream. But the immensely long shadows of the bridge were particularly striking on October 12 at sunset. 

[samuelganton]

The mural on the backside of the Broadway Theatre. So cheery! 

[samuelganton]

Ornithopters and Blimp Cars

Spotted at the Western Development Museum - a real live ornithopter! Painstakingly built by Ralph Vallevand of Elbow, SK. He was too scared to actually fly it. But the wing design was intriguing: the overlapping strips of fabric cling together on down-strokes, and then separate to allow air to pass through on up-strokes.

And this? A blimp car? Nope. It's a "Straw Gas Balloon Car," made to run on the gas created by heating straw. 

I was super impressed by the number of strange vehicles and contraptions the WDM has, and I'm hoping to visit again and catch more than the tiny glimpse I got on the night of the Festival of Trees.

[samuelganton]

Circle Drive South Bridge, Saskatoon. Just before taking this photo, I had encountered a stag deer beside the road. As I walked across, I was obsessed by the idea that the deer might follow me across, leaping and bounding along the narrow concrete passage, catching up and finally bucking me off into the icy water with its antlers.

[samuelganton]

The new Remai Modern Art Gallery, designed by KPMB, is taking shape at River Landing! 

Looks pretty dramatic at sunset. 

[samuelganton]

In/Under the City of Bridges

Since Saskatoon calls itself the "City of Bridges," it's correct protocol that I should start with a photo of bridges. As usual, I'm looking at the interesting underneath part.

But the side view is neat as well. This is Broadway Bridge, which is my connection to downtown. Because the east bank is so much higher and bluffier than the west, several of these bridges swoop across at a steep angle, which looks strange and is fun. 

Moving north: these are all from a recent Saturday on which I decided to walk downstream and discover things. My goal was the Crocus Urban Prairie tract, which I didn't quite reach, but I soon found some prairie-like grasslands right up against the university. 

This is the Diefenbaker Canada Centre. We may as well call it the 'Diefenbunker,' like the one in Ottawa. Has that militant feeling. This is one of several brutal-esque buildings on the campus which hunker down and seem to be very much at home crouching in the tall grass. I can imagine it being cozy in the winter, with snow piling up against the walls... 

And close by, this sculpture... field? I'm used to sculpture gardens. But this is just a field in an odd corner which contains dozens of stone and concrete monoliths. It almost feels like it could be a holdover from a proto-british megalithic alternative past. But then there's this telecommunications enclosure on one side. 

Kind of magnificent, on the whole. And reminds me of Storm King more than anything else. 

Just a bit further on, I stepped into a secret garden. Massive trees overshadowed an irregular courtyard punctuated by waist-high rubble walls and threaded by flagstone paths. There was a firepit in the middle. The surrounding buildings married brutalism and collegiate gothic styles. 

I'm still not sure how they pulled this off. 

It has something to do with the frankly amazing quality of the stone masonry. It looks good enough to be ancient, but it's from the 60's. And the cantilevered precast concrete looks pretty good too. 

I found out later that this is the Lutheran Theological Seminary, which is fitting. This may be the first time a brutalist-type space felt contemplative and mysterious to me. Way to go, Holliday-Scott + Paine (the architects)! 

There followed a close encounter with a bulldozer. 

I am fortunate to have escaped with my life, and that is all I have to say about that. 

Continuing with the trope of "standing beside machinery which is large and could kill you," I present the Saskatoon CPR Bridge. 

As I approached, and saw people crossing on the pedestrian path high above, and then a train approaching, and then the people as they just kept walking immediately adjacent to the train, my thoughts were "I must go there now." 

This was unwise.

When I stepped onto the bridge, and discovered that I was three feet from the rushing, thundering, rumbling train, and that the walkway was made of wood, and that the wood was old, and rickety, and vibrated to the same amplitude as the train itself, I felt that this could not possibly be a City Approved Public Walkway. But it was. And this is one of the odd things about Saskatoon, that something like this is just fine, while swimming anywhere in the river is strongly prohibited due to 'currents'. I sense blind spots. I sense bad judgement. 

Nonetheless, standing here as the train roared by was a majestic and life-altering experience (also there were cracks in the wood planks by which one could look down to Certain Death). So, fun, on the whole.

Also from the bridge, I got to look back and have this view, which I think explains at a glance why this is actually a gorgeous city, and I'm glad to be here, and I like the prairies, especially the river parts, and stop talking to me like I'm a maniac to come here you silly people, you have a strange inferiority complex in this province, and I chose to come here so there and that's that. 

Happening to look in the other direction as the train disappeared, I saw this heart-warming sight, which, if you can't quite make it out, is a bride and her Mountie groom in full ceremonial dress getting wedding photos taken.

At the apex of my northward odyssey, I crossed the river on this, which is exactly as amazing as it looks. It's a pedestrian bridge slung between and hanging from two other bridges on either side. 

It was getting to be sunset as I walked back along the west bank. Notice how the long shadow of the railway bridge stretches out along the red-stained shore. Feel the poetry here, people. 

This is the Weir, an eternal wave where, as the information plaques are careful to explain, you will Certainly Die if you fall in. 

The moon rises over University Hill. 

Existential graffiti? Inquiring into the mysteries of existence and the universe at the close of the day? Philosopher-Street Artists' Guild of Saskatoon?

A good end to a good day: seeing the Arrogant Worms perform at the Broadway Theatre, one block from my house. Yes, they finished off with the Last Saskatchewan Pirate. Yes, I performed that song at a certain Coffee House earlier this summer. And forgot to credit the Worms because I was nervous, so everyone (some people) thought I wrote it. Cringe. 

Anyway, here I am in Saskatoon. Am I crazy?

I'm liking it so far. 

[samuelganton]

I Almost Died Here and Other Adventures

This is Mont St Michel. I was here on Christmas Morning, and it was the most glorious day of my life. Then I almost died, and it became the most dangerous as well. 

It was dramatic, too. Nothing stupid like food poisoning or an allergic reaction. Not for me. I had to climb up the forested back side of the island and then slide my way down cliffs covered in thorn bushes, clinging to sagging branches for support and wondering how sharp the rocks were at the bottom. 

By the time I got to this spot, I knew there was a 20 foot sheer drop into water below me, and I had no idea which way to go. "What should I do?" I asked the statue of St. Aubert on the chapel. He smiled encouragingly, but that was ambiguous. 

What did I do? 

I'll tell you later. Now at least I've got my *feet wet* in posting. Pun? Intended? Yes. Only the worst for you, dear friends. 

[samuelganton]

Shirley Temple meets Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in 1944.

(In the tradition of http://awesomepeoplehangingouttogether.tumblr.com/, and in memory of Shirley Temple Black, who recently died.)

[samuelganton]

Rock Faces

This is Sperlonga. It seems to belong to the same story as Capri - a town built on a steep ridge on the coast, with streets branching off in every direction, including up and down.

It's an impossibly complex puzzle contained in a tiny area, and like many of these towns, it seems like geology rather than architecture. The houses are cliffs growing out of the rock. The rooms are caves. The streets are rivers. 

Italians understand their landscape really well. Their buildings are like faces on its surface, smiling and expressing the personality underneath.

[samuelganton]

Capri By Itself

Capri is an island. I mean, it feels like a real island. Sometimes islands just feel like another bit of land which happen to have some water around them. Capri feels separate. 

We set out in early in the morning from Salerno on a ferry, and sped along the penisola Amalfitana, stopping in at little towns along the way. The Amalfi Coast. The name was like magic. I never expected to see it. It was half-mythical. And we saw it all flashing by at sunrise, under low clouds and mist which lifted off the mountains like curtains rising. 

Then we reached Capri.

Capri is a rock, and to walk around the island basically means climbing. But as we rose higher and higher on the east peak of the island, the air felt cleaner and sweeter, and the sea spread out in all directions, blurring into the sky. My thought was "somehow, everyone in the world should see this place."

We reached the palace of Tiberius, 1000 feet in sheer white cliffs above the dark blue sea. 

Later we slid back down. Almost. Some of the paths were really steep. 

We passed this grotto on the way down to the traditional architecture-student-swimming-hole. It was a rocky bay surrounded by cliffs with a huge natural stone arch rising on the slopes above. 

Swimming here felt good. Usually it makes me tired and cold. Here it was energizing. And salt water kind of does make you almost float, if you're in a place with less wavy-ness. 

Islands are special. 

[samuelganton]

A preview of what I'm going to post about next - our South Trip to Capri, Pompeii, and Paestum!

Including some late-night temple-sneaking...

[samuelganton]

Trastevere - My Neighbourhood in Sketches

Hello! This is where I live in Rome.

My house is just around the corner from here, on Vicolo della Torre, the 'alleyway of the tower'. 

Trastevere is like this. Narrow, winding streets, paved with cobbles, windows with shutters up above, hanging vines, hanging laundry... Super Medieval. 

Now, let's climb up five storeys to reach our apartment. And step out on the terrace.

I'm an architect, so here's a cross-section of the terrace. (How else could I explain it?)

There's a lower bit with flowers in planters, and a lot of snails. Then there's a ladder, and you can climb up and edge carefully around the skylight, because if you fell through, you would drop into the stairwell and die. Finally you reach the top ledge, and you can sit there close to all the seagulls, and the forest of quirky TV antennae. 

This is what you actually see. It's a lovely view. Clay-tile roofs, buildings curving around to follow the invisible Tiber River, the ridge of the Janiculum Hill on the left, and in the far distance, the dome of St. Peters. 

Now let's go for a walk. 

This is my school! 

The University of Waterloo School of Architecture Rome Campus... only the third floor, really. We share space with Pratt Institute. 

It's a fantastic location, right on Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere. A very active square, with musicians playing constantly. Its only fault is that it feels a bit Disney-ish at times, with tourists and souvenir-sellers and street performers outnumbering actual Italians... And many of the street performers have a repertoire of approximately four songs, beginning with "Time to Say Goodbye" and ending with "O Sole Mio". 

Really, though, I have no right to complain. And in the time-scale of this city, I'd still be a newbie tourist even if I lived here for a whole year. Or ten years. 

If we climb the Janiculum ridge, we'll find this - Bramante's 'Tempietto', meaning 'little temple'. The first true Renaissance building. It's very cute. 

Now, this sketch may seem confusing. It may look upside down. And yes, when I started drawing it, I had it facing the other way, because I started with the Baroque fountain, and the pool in front of it. But when I'd done that, I had to turn around and draw the view in the other direction, because it was stunning. 

This is just a few hundred metres from the Tempietto. The fountain was built to celebrate the end-point of a new aqueduct entering the city.

The road sweeps around it in a great globular curve, and in every direction you can see the city spreading out. Domes, towers, hills in the distance. As it gets dark, lights on the Alban Hills flicker like torches, or like lava flowing down a volcano. 

This is my neighbourhood.

[samuelganton]

Sketching Rome

In Rome, photographs just won't do. 

I mean, in this city, everything has been looked at and gasped over and analyzed and studied and drawn to death for about 2500 years. And for the last half-century, billions of tourists have taken snapshots of every monument over and over again. 

So I have to sketch. 

The image above is the first drawing I did here. Hadn't bought my sketchbook yet, so it's pasted from a lined notebook. I got up before sunrise and walked north to the edge of the Aurelian Walls, the outer border of the 'Centro-storico'. Then I sat and had breakfast at a cafe in Piazza del Popolo. This is where pilgrims have always entered the city on their way to visit the churches and relics. It seemed like a good place for me to start, too.

The corner is folded because I tried to draw a car.

I can't draw cars. 

You know what this is. 

It turns out - those massive wedge-shaped sloping walls which give the Colosseum its distinctive 'cut-back' shape? Those are actually brick infill which the popes added to prevent the amphitheatre from falling down - after they stole half the stonework to build churches. 

This is one of the truths of Rome - if anything is missing from an old building, it's rarely just been knocked down or destroyed. It's nearly always been cannibalized, co-opted, digested into the walls of another building. Romans have been practising sustainable recycling since the 5th Century A.D.

Not far away from the Colosseum is the Palatine Hill - the palace of the emperors. A really peaceful place, nowadays. This is a lonely tree on a little hill in one of the courtyards of the paranoid emperor Domitian. Domitian was scared of the people, and he wanted to impress them, so he kept building and building frantically, covering the entire hill with colonnades and sunken courtyards and terraces. He clad his favourite courtyard in mirrored metal so he could tell if anyone was sneaking up on him.

It didn't work. He was assassinated. And now the courtyard is full of blue flowers. 

The tree reminds me - Rome has the best trees, in general. This is an 'umbrella pine' - tall and soft, with wide canopies. There are also cypresses, which are like swords pointing at the sky. 

Rome is layered. You can see it. Stuff gets built on top of older stuff, or in the middle of it.

This is Chiesa di San Pietro e Paolo - and the medieval tower and vaulting is built over and around an old Roman facade.

But Rome has modern buildings, also! Two of them, I think. 

This is one: the Maxxi Museum, by Zaha Hadid. It looks awesome, and it doesn't make any sense inside. There's a whole atrium full of staircases that lead nowhere. 

But we'll forgive her. And I'll keep sketching. 

More on Rome later. I'm so glad and grateful to be here.

[samuelganton]

[Palladio's] major problem was THAT WHICH CONFRONTS ALL MODERN ARCHITECTS, namely, how to make a PROPER USE OF COLUMNS in domestic architecture, since a combination of columns and walls must always be a contradiction.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, 1786

what

"1700s Modernism in a nutshell"

[samuelganton]

Textures of Rome - Old and New...

More posts coming soon!