Week 14 Questions

LTL:
1) Throughout the opening few pages, the essay makes reference to the unexpected and chaotic with respect to a conditioned norm. What is your opinion on the necessity of rules or 'the norm' to serve as a backdrop for innovation and chaos to shine?

2) When discussing form and function, LTL suggests renaming the common phrase "form follows function" to "function fucks with form." Why do you think they chose to word it that way instead of simply swapping the object and subject to "form follows function?" Specifically, the choice of words implies that form need not be a predetermined outcome (form) of a set of inputs (function) but that form is a multitude of possible outcomes that takes influence from the inputs, but not in a necessarily deterministic way.

3) LTL describes surrationalism as, "the self-conscious examination of the rational...Surrationalism is first and foremost a conscious, critical, and rational project..." If you consider the rational as "the norm" and surrationalism itself as a rationalizing reimagination of the norm, then would it not eventually result in the same rationalized norm that it seeks to reconsider?

Woods;
1)Woods describes the temporal nature of establishment and innovation by stating, "The architect must become, more than ever, a creature of the present, fusing all that is remembered and all that is dreamt within it..." What are the implications of equating the past with the established and the future (dreamt) with innovation?

2) Though Woods talks about the architecture of old as a service, his pleas for a new architecture with new methods, values, and tactics still treats architecture as a service. Why do we, as a profession, consistently value architecture based on its ability to solve a problem - to "save the world"?

3) Woods states on rebuilding the city, "Because the architect has a more intimate knowledge than others of the city's physical structures and their processes of coming into being, it falls to the architect to act in the void left by the disruption or collapse of institutional authority." He says this despite saying, several paragraphs earlier, "Architects are no longer able...to view the city from high above, as though it were an object to be manipulated and dominated." Do you see a non sequitur here? Is there a way for architects to take charge using our knowledge while still being cognizant of the greater society at large? Do we need to?