Well this blog will, I suppose, be more blog-like. I feel good today. And now I'm just going to ramble on... Because I can. It's dark outside but my lamp is on, spilling its golden light into my room. Cozy. I think I feel so good today because I learned a lot. One, I lived a little. Pat will be happy to know I asked a cute girl out to tea only on a hunch that she also liked Radiohead. As good excuse as any for asking a girl out. Two, two nights ago I learned how to energize water. Just pour yourself a glass of tap water and place it atop your stereo speaker. Then, play a good tune or two or three. Drink the water. Tastes good doesn't it? Tastes like water, which is nothing. Rather unlike tap water. After these thoughts cross your mind you'll notice all your little aches are gone from your body and your head feels clearer. What's happened? Well its actually a quite well known phenomenon in some circles. Look through the Coast to Coast link for it. Tomorrow I think I will go to the university. I am starting the outline for my research paper. I finally have all the pieces to write about Le Corbusier. Architecture is my thing and I really now feel comfortable working within Corbu's theoretical framework. I had to connect the two far extremes embodied in Le Corbusier; the strong influence of the Western Architectural Canon on Le Corbusier and also the time he lived in and the ziestgist that whipped it along, modernism. What I found in my research was that Le Corbusier believed rationalism connected his modern architecture to the great architecture of history. This is actually started in the blurry-word Enlightenment. The disconnection of language from the object had many consquences, in architecture it is seen from the detachment of decoration and structure. This is conclued by Le Corbusier in Purism. But truly Le Corbusier gave us much architecture, or more accurately, how we looked at architecture. Le Corbusier stood back and looked at architecture as a smaller component in the large fabric of the urban environment, he in effect, only wanted us to looked at architecture's context. Architecture at it's core was about social change, or rather a tool for social change. So how did Le Corbusier support these arguments? I don't even know if I can use this word: esotericlly. I really look at his theories criticlly (I don't help myself any by liking the guy just because someone said he was the best). The main issue and focus of Le Corbesier's theory is worker housing and yet he built many villa's (what worker housing he built is barely suitable for a jail really, that said, he thought out of the box for sure). He believed that to build rationally one needs a system of proportion. Books and books are dedicated to this issue. Perhaps the cloister-like system of academics during the time had an affect but Le Corbusier's vision is perhaps grander than is achievable at the time. Le Corbusier has a plan for the urban modern city, but his theories are too fuzzy, it's like doing research in a soup. He contradict himself, his actions sometimes speak quite differently that what he writes. His contemporary critics pointed this out at the time, but as Tom Wolfe points our about the time period, the architect was always right. Perhaps this confusion even made him more attractive, because he was very successful, he raised structures all over the world. So how do I look at Le Corbusier. Well I do to him what he did for us. Separate form and context. Look at his Villa Savoye. If I look at the building in its context it looks dated, unloved. I see it's many mechanical failures and client problems and the monster that are his theories. But one could also look at just the pure form of the Villa. Then one can see that the beauty of modernism is quite old, it is rooted in the timeless nature of all good architecture. The lightness, the functionalism, the poetic nature of architecture is all revealed.