di Salvatore D'Agostino
Leggi le altre puntate del C orso di blog : La storia , L'attrezzatura e I contenuti
English translation
English translation
Geoff Manaugh è un critico statunitense, vive a Los Angeles ed è nato nel 1976.
Nel 2004 ha lanciato il blog BLDGBLOG . Nel 2007 ha ricevuto una telefonata da parte di Joseph Grima (1977) che lo invitava a partecipare al primo POSTOPOLIS! un evento dove quattro blogger, di quattro diverse città, were given an appointment to talk of architecture, urban planning, landscape design and the Storefront for Art and Architecture .
In 2009 he published The BLDGBLOG Book a collection of his best posts. In 2011 he participated in the Critical futures # 1 organized by Joseph Grima for Domus. currently teaches at the School of Architecture, University of Southern California in Los Angeles .
Following the fourth episode of his public course blog written for Abitare magazine. After History, the ' equipment and Content is the time of the public.
Following the fourth episode of his public course blog written for Abitare magazine. After History, the ' equipment and Content is the time of the public.
Geoff Manaugh *
So far the course has taken into account basics of blogging, focusing in particular on issues such as content and definition: for example we asked what the extension of the architecture Today, what are the forms of writing best suited to describe it, and then as you work to turn these questions in a blog about architecture.
However, there is still a subject of which we have not talked enough, ie the public. Now the time has come to understand who is now interested in reading about architecture, what are your expectations, what is your cultural background and, finally, what are the channels through which bloggers can reach these potential new readers.
I mean, what kind of public architecture can turn a blog?
However, there is still a subject of which we have not talked enough, ie the public. Now the time has come to understand who is now interested in reading about architecture, what are your expectations, what is your cultural background and, finally, what are the channels through which bloggers can reach these potential new readers.
I mean, what kind of public architecture can turn a blog?
In this lesson we will how do you put pictures and writings to the attention of people who are almost totally unknown to us, stimulating their curiosity to the point of them then return to read the blog.
must start by saying from the beginning that the architecture has a vast audience size. Architecture is not a niche or a discipline marginal and forgotten.
There are literally millions of people who want to read about architecture - and that does not mean I want to read Le Corbusier, parametric or Daniel Libeskind. It means they want to read and discuss exciting ideas of space.
In lessons earlier we had several opportunities to mention the open definition of topics relevant to architecture. Now we can safely say - and we therefore need to repeat it - that when we write we can write the architecture of the set of a film, the level of difficulty of a game, a novel that tells of haunted houses, ancient city buried just reported to the light, urban warfare, neuro-motor disorders, public health, and more.
is clear, however, the content and audience are intimately connected. The content is actually often the most direct and effective way to reach audiences readers.
's blogs should speak in a specialized architectural design and space, but at the same time must also be able to touch questions of economics, politics, geography and literature. Even if a blog on architecture Never publish pictures of buildings and involved only in the global steel prices or taxes and insurance applied to building, it would still be a blog about architecture.
In any case, you should absolutely avoid assume that your only potential readers will be other architects, designers or bloggers who write about art. Discarded especially the idea that you are writing only for people who practice architecture professionally. A post on a new paid parking in Miami could be interesting for an economist as a professor of business administration, a fan motors as a television producer. Similarly, a post on the architecture of planetary half of the twentieth century will be read with the same or perhaps with greater involvement from both enthusiast that historians of science.
In lessons earlier we had several opportunities to mention the open definition of topics relevant to architecture. Now we can safely say - and we therefore need to repeat it - that when we write we can write the architecture of the set of a film, the level of difficulty of a game, a novel that tells of haunted houses, ancient city buried just reported to the light, urban warfare, neuro-motor disorders, public health, and more.
is clear, however, the content and audience are intimately connected. The content is actually often the most direct and effective way to reach audiences readers.
's blogs should speak in a specialized architectural design and space, but at the same time must also be able to touch questions of economics, politics, geography and literature. Even if a blog on architecture Never publish pictures of buildings and involved only in the global steel prices or taxes and insurance applied to building, it would still be a blog about architecture.
In any case, you should absolutely avoid assume that your only potential readers will be other architects, designers or bloggers who write about art. Discarded especially the idea that you are writing only for people who practice architecture professionally. A post on a new paid parking in Miami could be interesting for an economist as a professor of business administration, a fan motors as a television producer. Similarly, a post on the architecture of planetary half of the twentieth century will be read with the same or perhaps with greater involvement from both enthusiast that historians of science.
These readers, of course, are not about architecture or as practitioners or as academics. However, they are the target audience of architecture - indeed, get to say that they are the majority, if not recognized, that audience.
After all, these two simple examples already show a great thing about writing in network architecture, or that your largest and most enthusiastic audience could not really have any professional connections with the world of architecture. These blogs have very large attraction, and this result must be accepted as vast and utterly rejected a priori not only because it is not an expert on architectural theory. Similarly, you can also advance a hypothesis perhaps risky but very exciting, that the authors of the best quality of architectural writing on the Web today are people who have no connection with what we remember nostalgically as architectural criticism, or what I still consider journalism architecture.
should also keep in mind that anything you write on the Net may be just one click away from potential readers who had never suspected to harbor any interest in the design. Close to unexpected situations and transverse diffusion of this type are much more difficult to obtain through traditional formats such as printed newspapers and books. This is especially true for those who do not have easy access to libraries, and at a time like this, so many libraries close their doors.
Today there are more and more voices that call to abandon the blog and return to a situation that has become obsolete, in which the architecture critic could claim to be the only adequate interpreters of matter, and where recognized experts in the world Academic controlled from one generation to the topics to discuss. In this regressive tendency should put up a fierce resistance: it's time for a counter-reform. If it is true, it seems, that blogs are not yet able to produce a new organic architectural discourse, I am convinced that in reality this is due to the fact that there is need further open the doors. We must expand the readership of architectural writing even more. There is no reason or need to smetteredi experiment, to stifle new voices rising, and to return to those isolated communities in which it was written for small groups and specific, often closely linked to academia.
There's another thing to say. Although so far I have tried to convince the public of architectural writing is large and growing, however, I considered these developments only in quantitative terms.
A strong and convincing argument that could be used to counter my argument is that the sheer number of readers, however great, is in itself meaningless. In fact, we need a better debate, and not just more people talking. We need quality, not popularity. For this counter-argument you can find plenty of evidence on the Net, especially in those sequences of comments on blogs, which often go off in their superficiality, even when they fell in battle as well, with insults flying from one field to another.
Also, if we take a quick look at a few blogs architecture, a typical element that we find everywhere is represented by those groups of naive readers who have no sense of history and continue to discover the hot water, enthusiastically promoting the concepts and ideas that are designed, discussed and rejected for good reasons decades and decades ago. The worst thing in these cycles of amnesia is that you get the feeling that the architectural thought can never progress, but it is doomed to repeat itself in perpetuity.
is important to keep in mind these risks. The situation outlined is not only bad for the intellectual development of architecture, but also boring. It makes no sense to invite everyone to take part in a conversation about architecture if it simply degenerates into an inglorious end the debate, with neither new ideas represented, nor answers to old questions, no solutions for emerging problems.
I must say that these counter-arguments are also very alarmist. In fact, the real risk is not simply connected to the creation of the blog open to everyone. We should not respond completely abandoning the project of architectural writing addressed to a general audience, but simply to write well engage our blog.
It is true that today it is easy to find in blogs of interest-free repetitions of abandoned ideas, which are sustained in life uncritically. You can find ideas and projects put into service by Hans Hollein, Buckminster Fuller, Archigram, even bizarre shapes of the twentieth century as Ayn Rand. But it is also true that in the blog are some remarkable examples of ideas about space in the form so radically re-contextualized, but through ignorance or by accident, that something still emerges as a critical new result.
These shorts, so to speak, within the archive, so a strange combination of ideas and approaches to bring together previously distant audiences, with a different cultural substratum, different experiences of space and different things to teach each other, are leading at a level above the essence of what is really interesting architecture.
would be a mistake that would affect an entire generazione se arrivati a questo punto dovessimo fermarci e accettare i richiami sempre più frequenti che ci chiedono di tornare alla critica architettonica tradizionale e al suo pubblico di nicchia, invece di andare avanti e difendere l’idea che l’architettura vada portata ovunque. Bisogna scrivere di qualsiasi cosa riguardi lo spazio, di qualsiasi cosa sia appassionante per l’immaginazione di lettori nuovi ed emergenti.
Si deve accogliere favorevolmente il fatto eccezionale che le idee di architettura abbiano oggi un enorme pubblico di lettori – un pubblico molto più ampio di quello che hanno gli stessi edifici. Dobbiamo solo ricordarci di usare il linguaggio giusto quando scriviamo for them.
March 8, 2011
After all, these two simple examples already show a great thing about writing in network architecture, or that your largest and most enthusiastic audience could not really have any professional connections with the world of architecture. These blogs have very large attraction, and this result must be accepted as vast and utterly rejected a priori not only because it is not an expert on architectural theory. Similarly, you can also advance a hypothesis perhaps risky but very exciting, that the authors of the best quality of architectural writing on the Web today are people who have no connection with what we remember nostalgically as architectural criticism, or what I still consider journalism architecture.
should also keep in mind that anything you write on the Net may be just one click away from potential readers who had never suspected to harbor any interest in the design. Close to unexpected situations and transverse diffusion of this type are much more difficult to obtain through traditional formats such as printed newspapers and books. This is especially true for those who do not have easy access to libraries, and at a time like this, so many libraries close their doors.
Today there are more and more voices that call to abandon the blog and return to a situation that has become obsolete, in which the architecture critic could claim to be the only adequate interpreters of matter, and where recognized experts in the world Academic controlled from one generation to the topics to discuss. In this regressive tendency should put up a fierce resistance: it's time for a counter-reform. If it is true, it seems, that blogs are not yet able to produce a new organic architectural discourse, I am convinced that in reality this is due to the fact that there is need further open the doors. We must expand the readership of architectural writing even more. There is no reason or need to smetteredi experiment, to stifle new voices rising, and to return to those isolated communities in which it was written for small groups and specific, often closely linked to academia.
There's another thing to say. Although so far I have tried to convince the public of architectural writing is large and growing, however, I considered these developments only in quantitative terms.
A strong and convincing argument that could be used to counter my argument is that the sheer number of readers, however great, is in itself meaningless. In fact, we need a better debate, and not just more people talking. We need quality, not popularity. For this counter-argument you can find plenty of evidence on the Net, especially in those sequences of comments on blogs, which often go off in their superficiality, even when they fell in battle as well, with insults flying from one field to another.
Also, if we take a quick look at a few blogs architecture, a typical element that we find everywhere is represented by those groups of naive readers who have no sense of history and continue to discover the hot water, enthusiastically promoting the concepts and ideas that are designed, discussed and rejected for good reasons decades and decades ago. The worst thing in these cycles of amnesia is that you get the feeling that the architectural thought can never progress, but it is doomed to repeat itself in perpetuity.
is important to keep in mind these risks. The situation outlined is not only bad for the intellectual development of architecture, but also boring. It makes no sense to invite everyone to take part in a conversation about architecture if it simply degenerates into an inglorious end the debate, with neither new ideas represented, nor answers to old questions, no solutions for emerging problems.
I must say that these counter-arguments are also very alarmist. In fact, the real risk is not simply connected to the creation of the blog open to everyone. We should not respond completely abandoning the project of architectural writing addressed to a general audience, but simply to write well engage our blog.
It is true that today it is easy to find in blogs of interest-free repetitions of abandoned ideas, which are sustained in life uncritically. You can find ideas and projects put into service by Hans Hollein, Buckminster Fuller, Archigram, even bizarre shapes of the twentieth century as Ayn Rand. But it is also true that in the blog are some remarkable examples of ideas about space in the form so radically re-contextualized, but through ignorance or by accident, that something still emerges as a critical new result.
These shorts, so to speak, within the archive, so a strange combination of ideas and approaches to bring together previously distant audiences, with a different cultural substratum, different experiences of space and different things to teach each other, are leading at a level above the essence of what is really interesting architecture.
would be a mistake that would affect an entire generazione se arrivati a questo punto dovessimo fermarci e accettare i richiami sempre più frequenti che ci chiedono di tornare alla critica architettonica tradizionale e al suo pubblico di nicchia, invece di andare avanti e difendere l’idea che l’architettura vada portata ovunque. Bisogna scrivere di qualsiasi cosa riguardi lo spazio, di qualsiasi cosa sia appassionante per l’immaginazione di lettori nuovi ed emergenti.
Si deve accogliere favorevolmente il fatto eccezionale che le idee di architettura abbiano oggi un enorme pubblico di lettori – un pubblico molto più ampio di quello che hanno gli stessi edifici. Dobbiamo solo ricordarci di usare il linguaggio giusto quando scriviamo for them.
March 8, 2011
Intersections ---> MONDOBLOG
COMMENTA
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Note:
* Pubblicazione autorizzata da Abitare Geoff Manaugh, Blogging 101 - La storia Abitare n. 510 , marzo 2011, pp. 150-153
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