ulysses
james joyce

it may seem fruitless to convince anyone that this is a worthy text. apart from its profound effect on my interests of structuring complex solutions and deep relationships, and the potential multiplicity of forms and shades of meaning and reference, i have a much more personal, although no less covered by the critics, affinity for the text, that is the transformation of the ordinary man and his ordinary activities into the stuff of beauty and universal resonance. of course this investment is completed through the tools i discussed above, but the human idea, that the things we see every day, and the things we eat, read, say, and touch carry the poetic depth and heroic potential as observed by someone like homer or joyce, has formed the largest core of my world outlook, and my will to live.

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translations from drawing to building
robin evans

i believe this to be the greatest text on architecture written in the 20th century. evans (rip) digs into some very obscure territories, from 18th century furniture catalogues to the tracery of a dome by de l’orme. he admits these curiosities with gravity and submits them to very clever angles of inquiry to elucidate points about peter eiseman, mies van der rohe, and the greater practice of building itself. yet all of these objects and approaches are tied under the title to expose the space between the ennunciation and the act, the drawing and the building, both movements in themselves, both powerful, yet in the eyes of evans, surprisingly distant.

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