Europe Graphic

Architect Lebbeus Woods

Manifesto: RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION (1997)

Architecture and war are not incompatible. Architecture is war. War is architecture. I am at war with my time, with history, with all authority that resides in fixed and frightened forms. I am one of millions who do not fit in, who have no home, no family, no doctrine, no firm place to call my own, no known beginning or end, no "sacred and primordial site." I declare war on all icons and finalities, on all histories that would chain me with my own falseness, my own pitiful fears. I know only moments, and lifetimes that are as moments, and forms that appear with infinite strength, then "melt into air." I am an architect, a constructor of worlds, a sensualist who worships the flesh, the melody, a silhouette against the darkening sky. I cannot know your name. Nor can you know mine. Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city.

science glamour shots

Nancy Wexler

Beadle & TatumWatson & Crick

For deep fixed and wholly personal—

Then we cannot walk the same street.
You’ve stolen them all, and lines, and reality.
Give them back whole and firm, unchange them.
Or pick just one (others will result). Return it.

Come down from there, I promise
Your face will dry, (or the streets
Will sweat in you. You need balance, double yellow)
And will harden into a smile, your seismic mouth
filled through with cement.

Do not call a street irrational
Nor unreliable. Call it bare if you wish
Stockholm upon it, but if you leave with it, forget
Its black seal behind in your getaway.

Prague Ladies

FOUND Prague

Peter Doig