CHITECTURES IN LOVE SKETCHBOOK NOTES BY JOHN HEJDUKARCHITECTURES IN LOVE THE THOUGHTS AND DRAWINGS IN THIS SKETCHBOOK WERE ENTERED BETWEEN JANUARY 1 AND JANUARY 30, 1994. THE SKETCH- BOOK WAS GIVEN TO ME BY MY DAUGHTER RENATA AS A GIFT FOR CHRISTMAS, 1993, | CHERISHED RECEIVING THE BOOK FOR DRAW- ING, AND FELT A COMPELLING PULL TO FILL IT. | STARTED ENTRIES IN THE ORDER OF THE FIFTY-TWO PAGE SEQUENCE, BUT THEN | BEGAN, TO MAKE DRAWINGS ON THE PAGES THROUGH- OUT THE BOOK, MOVING RANDOMLY BACK AND FORTH, WORKING ON DIFFERENT PAGES AT THE SAME TIME. THE FIRST RECORDING WAS A SKETCH OF A BUILDING LOCATED ON AN ACROPOLIS-LIKE SITE OVERLOOKING A SEA, AND PERHAPS A FAR, DISTANT LAND. THE GENERAL FORM/ OUTLINE OF THE BUILDING WAS BROUGHT FORWARD FROM SOME OF MY PREVIOUS ‘ADJUSTING FOUNDATIONS’ PROJECTS, SIMULTANEOUS WITH DELVING INTO THE FIRST SKETCH (BLACK INK ON WHITE PAPER), L STARTED TO JOT DOWN, IN LIST FORM, CERTAIN. PROGRAM/NAMES. THIS LIST WAS MADE WHILE THOUGHTS AND SKETCHES DEVELOPED. SOME OF THE PROGRAM/NAMES ARE FROM PAST WORKS.SPNAuneroOnN SUN SILO ROOF OF LOST ALPHABETS. SARCOPHAGUS OF CONSONANTS SARCOPHAGUS OF VOWELS CHAMBER OF UNUSED WORDS ANGEL CRECHE: ASCENDING ANGELS (SOUNDINGS) DUAL ENTRY: MIDPOINT CHOICE FALLEN STAR (ADJUSTING FOUNDATIONS) ANGEL PERCHES (vLapivostok) . CRYPT OF THE FALLEN ANGEL (sovisa) . TOMBS FOR THE DEAD ANGELS . ELONGATED VERTICAL PERSPECTIVE . CEMETERY FOR SINGLE DEAD ROSES A STILL LIFE (ADJUSTING FOUNDATIONS) » A BLOWN BOULDER (ADJUSTING FOUNDATIONS) . WINE STORAGE » FLOUR STORAGE . WATER STORAGE . TRIANGULAR STAR VOLUME CRUCIFORMS [SOME DIMINISHING]20. Pay 22s 23. 24. 2: 26. ott 28. 29, 30. 31 EPS 33% 34. 35! 36. 37. 38. LIGHT/OPEN CRUCIFORMS CONFESSIONAL STAIR. EXIT FROM LOWER LEVEL METAL WORD RIBBONS NUMBERED STONES CROSS CONNECTED CORRIDORS DESCENDING ROCK STAIRS SEA VIEW LOAF OF BREAD, BOTTLE OF WINE, PITCHER OF WATER WOOD TABLE [stit Door] CONCRETE WALL: BLUE PAINTED CAPTURED QUESTIONS: MARKS ORGAN ROOM FOR DISCARDED LETTERS [ACTUAL: WITHIN ENVELOPES] WOODEN PLATFORMS. WALL OF NOTES STONE PAGE TOMBS FOR PUNCTUATION: MARKS ENLARGED CALENDAR [DECK OF CARDS/CARDS BLACK GROUND]SKETCHBOOK NOTES | kept on redrawing the building and site on the stone hill (acropolis), keeping in mind the necropolis | did for the Deaths of Architecture. The first sketches were always black ink on white paper. Later on these began to fill in with color . . . pencil, crayon, and watercolor. The second sketch in the notebook was made on a larger separate sheet of paper that was eventually folded in half and pasted into the sketchbook. On the back side of the folded paper | mounted a very small drawing of a mysterious head | made some twenty years ago. Later on | painted a blood red frame around the head, a little more than 1/8" thick, When the second sketch of the building was folded out at 902 something strange happened. On the third page, opposite the red-framed head, there is a blue sky that appears turbulent—perhaps a storm is in the making. What was important for me was the relation of the blood red frame and the clouded blue. | also mixed crayon and water- color, something | rarely do. | went back to the first page and painted the sky red. Throughout the book, the pasted in elements are pasted in with one coat of rubber cement—something | have been warned not to do: it doesn't last, and it discolors. When warned, | always think, “We don’t last, and we discolor.” | received a letter; its envelope had a beautiful blue pattern on the inside. It looked like a Japanese sea, and | used it as such for the overlooking site and building. | drew a splay of red roses with long stems. This became the basis for the interior structure of the building. The stem became the long column—concrete? wood? Probably conerete. The splayed columns support seven rectangular metal volumes that penetrate the roof and act as large open sky wells. They also serve as enclo- sures for the archangels who drop down into the space during the day (suspended) and move up into the volumes during the night. There is also one large steel cylin~ drical volume penetrating the roof whose angled glass opening is supported by a structure fanning out . . . ike the rays of the sun, | will describe the participant's passage/journey: one moves at the base of the acropolis from a flat plane overlooking the sea up toward the top of the acropolis (the name acropolis will soon be changed). A stone stair moves along the vertical slopes of the elevated site. Carved within the vertical cliff stone surfaces is a series of ascending caves, each one filled with fresh flowers and burning candles.The flat plane at the top of the acropolis supports the main building and a number of other elements. A. Fallen Star half embedded in the earth. 8. A forest of steel poles supporting large spoked wheels (horizontal, some tilted at 30°). From these poles a creche of a multitude of full-sized angels moves upward from the wheel perches into the sky. These angels are made in Naples. C. A large boulder lies on the site, as if it has been blown out from the side of the building. There is a large hole within the vertical stone granite wall of the building. The image is taken from the Pasolini film, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew. there is that shattering moment in the film when the boulder covering Christ's tomb is blown horizontally out, revealing, | think, the blackness of the cave, the tomb of Christ. Also the horror of Salomé's face/look when she asks for the head of John the Baptist. Her face from early Italian paintings—a face that is remote, distant, cruel, and evil, The pewter disk plate of Salomé reflects light onto the head of John the Baptist, and into the eye of Salomé. D. Triangular stepped seating, one side facing the stilVlife on the south walll of the building (containers for water, wine, and flour on a raised wooden platform), the other side facing the open sea. E. At the very tip of the site (the south end) there is a descending stair cut into the stone which moves down within the rock to an open- ing overlooking the sea. F. Later on, a wood table is placed on the site, upon which a bow! of fresh fruit is placed. G. Exit from the Crypt of the Fallen Angel. The passage into the building begins with two entries, with the choice of entering through one opening or the other (two snake-like metal corridors), Midway through the funneling corridors, one has the possibilty to crossover to the other snake corridor. Continuing, one cortidor/entry leads into the interior of the building's Great Hall; the other corridor leads down a stair into the Crypt of the Fallen Angal. From the crypt one exits through a stone stair leading to the outside plateau. In the Great Hall the observer can look down into the Crypt of the Fallen Angel, but cannot enter the crypt from this level. Inside the building's major volumetric space, the building's elements begin to come into view. Looking south, one sees a forest of columns, the tops of which splay out like fingers supporting the large cylindrical skylight, and the metal rectangular volumes containing the suspended archangels. One looks west and sees the Concrete Wall: Blue Painted and the blasted opening where the boulder has blown out. A fixed plate of glass cut to the configuration of the outline of the boulder is steel/detailed and attached to the west wall.Placed approximately midpoint in the hall are: 1. a sphere, 2. a cube, 3. an elongated pyramid. They are named: 1. Sarcophagus of Vowels, 2. Sarcophagus of Consonants, 3. Elongated Vertical Perspective. Along the interior east walll is an enclosed wooden stair (open top) terminating in a room projecting out of the south wall. This room is called the Chamber of Unused Words. The stair itself is called the Confessional Stair. Perpendicular to this stair, projecting cut from the east wall are: 1. Confessional Room, 2. Room for Discarded Letters, 3. Cemetery for Single Dead Roses. The wood stairs interior west wall is for the Wall of Notes. Somewhere in the hall is placed a stone page. Along the interior side of the south wail are embedded the Captured Questions:Marks and the Tombs for Punctuation: Marks. Somewhere or other Victor Hugo refers to architecture (the death of ?) and literature {or perhaps text? Or type?). It occurred to me that the main building may speak of the entombrmnent of text. Qr, the inverse of an archaeological dig: the building up of text, the recording and naming (not labeling) of every element in the building, of every building material. Just as the archaeolagist records his finds and takes things apart, he also numbers everything, so this building would also have every stone, every material, every namething numbered. For instance, the wall of granite stones: each stone would be numbered, but the stone wall would be named once. Tha typology (or typography) would have to be found for the stone name. Literal. Glass would have to be named, and the intrinsic type would have to be found when applying/incising the name onto/into the glass. Right down to the door pulls/knobs. One would put the name of Door/Pull onto/into the pull. If bronze, what would be the typeface used to reflect Bronze Door/Pull? The building would ke written on/in to one vast integration of language and architecture, intrinsically interconnected. . . . Amass... substance. Sometime during the deliberation of these thoughts, | also realized the building | was involved in was a male building. Instantaneously, a female building came to mind. On the same site? Exact? Replacing the male building? Qr perhaps two similar sites? One female? One male? But | am moving ahead of my story. The final elements of the initial Great Hall building are the roof with the cruciforms open for light, the extended cruciform projections diminishing internally to a cruciform point. The roof acts as the carrier of signs/symbols/annotations/geomettic figures. Later on in the sketchbook the roof becomes the carrier of chromosomic signs, information, and genetic coding.Between the roof and the stone wall there is a separation; located within this space are black cards (enlarged) representing the calendar, 364 days + 1 (the joker). These are extracted from the Groningen entry towers and inverted: red heart on black ground, black club on black ground, red diamond on black ground, black spade on black ground. Moving toward the north are the Metal Word Ribbons . . . and thoughts about solid space . . . fruit. . . Piero della Francesca . . . Giotto. . . Duccio . . . and the Battle of San Romano by Uccello. The cross section of the building reflects opacities. Located approximately in the middle of the book are two postcards, both from friends, one of Prague, one of a Morandi still life. | think | received one from a male friend, the other from a female friend. The juxtaposition of these two is extremely important lo my thought: the subtlety of the Morandi, particularly the power of the still life at the edge of the table, the edge condition, and the shadow of the table as right- angle triangle; and the mysterious black vase and the black towers of Prague | studied the postcard showing the cityscape of Prague. | focused in on the double- towered Tyn Church and the tower on the right with the clock, and came to this conclusion: the church shown was female, and the tower with the clock was male. The clock was a male invention, the male insisting on numbering, ordering, dividing time, an insidious rational. The female has her own time—hidden, a timelessness— internal/eternal time. | moved to the female building and produced four initial drawings and placed the building on an Epoctveropolis. Some parts are similar to the male building . . . but only a few. The central space of the female building is a cylinder with an angled slice/cut at the top that supports a flat sun and lets in light. This central shape comes from a previous project (Church Complex) in the book Soundings. The plan drawing (blue-grey) appears, perhaps, like those silent forms that move in the deepest depth of the ocean, where the pressure is the greatest and the dark- ness, the darkest. Yet the forms moving through these depths appear to be an apparition, like moving x-rays, and they give off a ghostly light, illuminating the solid fluidity. They are like gelatinous moving stars in a deep liquid heaven. Braque under- stood these depths when he made his aqueous paintings, as if he had painted these special paintings while he was underwater, a full-grown, submerged man, innocent, floating, yet solid in the womb of the sea. It is there that he trapped the wild geese within the patterns of a three dimensional wallpaper.In any case, the cylindrical volume has an extension of mixed curves (volume/ diaphanous) containing organs/organ, the sound reflecting oft of complex curved volumes. Here, too, is the possibility of a solid space carrying genetic coding. Angel tombs line and ascend on the inner curvature/lining of the cylinder, and a stair wraps around the outside of the oylinder. Some say it appears as a snake moving to the sun; others say that it protects an architectural gestation period: others see it as just an outside stair painted green, oriented to the north | made two black ink drawings of the female version of the building: one drawing, the Epochicropolis (elevational) from a distance (a line contour); the other one a composite sketch of inside/outside. These drawings remained black and white for some time. I found a note card with an angel (a créche angel). | cut the angel out from the card and pasted the flying angel on the elevational/building drawing. The angel was col- ored by Italians, with @ beautiful pink-blue-yellow flesh. | was inspired to color the intetior/exterior drawing on the page opposite the oréche angel, so | did, | was refreshed by the angel—I have a volumetric one floating from the wall in the room where | work in the house | live in; it too is pink-blue. \t had fallen, and | have tried to put it together again. Two pages after the Prague and Morandi postcards, the first half of the book was. basically completed. | started the second half of the book/drawings toward the end (six to eight iast pages). The first set; Cain and Abel, a pure geometric abstraction, a total reduction: two figures and a cut... .The next two pages were the last two drawings done for the book (perhaps this is not true). Anyway, | will speak of them at the very end of this building/writing/architecture. After Cain and Abel came the Shadow of the Apple, and a drawing called Expulsion. Then, two full color pages that leave me uneasy and not satisfied: one is too abstract, the other too literal, The last drawing on the last page properly ends the book. Before the Cain and Abel drawing, the second section of the book contains eighteen pages. In the middle of this eighteen-page section there are two drawings that are not part of the sequence: one is an homage to Le Corbusier, the other is called In the Garden of Eden. To enter the thoughts of the second section of the book, the following piece will act as an oblique preface. It was written in the fall of 1992.STILL LIFE/DEAD NATURE THE FOLLOWING WORK CAME/BEGAN AFTER A MAJOR TRAUMA TO BOTH BODY AND SOUL, AND AFTER A LONG CONVALESCENCE. THAT IS, AFTER A PERIOD OF HEIGHTENED ANXIETIES AND CALM, THOUGHTFUL TIME. TIME HEALS. SO IT IS SAID, BUT NOT ALL THE TIME, SOME- TIMES TIME DISAPPEARS, AND AT ONE TIME STOPS ALTOGETHER. IT IS ALL RIGHT IF WE CAN REMEMBER STILLED TIME, A PARADOX FOR WE CANNOT REALLY REMEMBER STILL TIME; WE CAN ONLY REMEMBER THE TIME BEFORE STILL TIME, AND, IF WE ARE FORTU- NATE, THE TIME AFTER STILL TIME. NOTHING IS MORE FRIGHTFUL THAN THE MOMENT BEFORE STILL TIME (REMEMBERED TIME IN ITS DEEPEST NOTHINGNESS), AND NOTHING MORE CENTERING, MORE SACRED THAN AFTER STILL TIME WE SELDOM LOOK AT THE REAL MEANINGS OF CERTAIN PAIRINGS OF WORDS; IF WE DID, THEY MIGHT STILL STOP US. IN PAINTING, THE ENGLISH TERM STILL LIFE AND THE [ITALIAN TERM NATURA MORTA HAUNT. NOT AN INNOCENT COMBINING OF TWO WORDS: IN ENGLISH, “STILL LIFE"; IN ITALIAN, “DEAD NATURE.” CLEARLY THE PAINTER CAN SET UP A COMPO- SITION ON A TABLE OF A SO-CALLED STILL LIFE/NATURA MORTA—BOWLS, FRUITS, TABLE- CLOTHS, BOTTLES, GLASSES—AND PAINT THEM ON A TWO DIMENSIONAL CANVAS AS HE SEES THEM OR RE-IMAGINES THEM; ALTHOUGH WITHIN THE ARRANGED THREE DIMENSIONAL STILL LIFE, CERTAINLY IN THECASE OF THE FRUIT (APPLES, PEARS, GRAPES), THERE IS A ROTTING TAKING PLACE, AND THIS IN TIME DESTROYS THE ORIGINAL STILL LIFE THROUGH ORGANIC DECAY (PERHAPS MEAN- ING NATURE DYING). PAINTING CAN ONLY CAPTURE, AS MATISSE HAS INDICATED, THE “SINGULAR"—A SINGULAR MOMENT IN TIME. THE SARCOPHAGUS OF THE STILL LIFE 1S THE OPAQUE “LIFE-ABSORBING" FLAT CANVAS. IN ONE MOVE THE PAINTER HAS EMBALMED A STILL LIFE INTO NATURA MORTA. HE IS THE CONTRACTOR OR THE UNDERTAKER OF NATURE, THE GREAT PAINTERS HAVE ViEWED/CON FRONTED STILL LIFE/NATURA MORTA. THEY ARE THE RIVER STYX BOATMEN, TAKING STILLED LIFE TQ THE UNDERWORLD; THAT IS, SOME OF THEM DO. NOTHING IS FRIVOLOUS IN STILLING LIFE. TIME, SOME TIME, NO MAT- TER HOW INFINITESIMAL, IS NECESSARY FOR THE CROSSOVER. THE PAINTER ACCOMPANIES LIFE TO ITS STILLNESS OR FIXES NATURE, CONSEQUENTLY DEFYING MORTALITY. THE PAINTER IS MORTAL, THE PAINTING IMMOR- TAL. THE BEAUTICIAN AND MORTICIAN WORK TOGETHER, ONE HIDING LIFE, THE OTHER HIDING DEATH. THE PAINTER’S STILL LIFE iS NATURE, GOD'S STILL LIFE IS MAN IN BRAQUE'S PAINTING ‘STUDIO NO. lil’ (1949) THE BIRD OF DEATH FLIES THROUGH THE WALLPAPER OF A ROOM. THE BIRD IS CAUGHT. WITHIN THE WALLPAPER'S PATTERN ON THE WALL. IT IS CAUGHT IN THE PATTERNS OF MANY LAYERS OF PEELED WALLPAPER, OBLIVI- OUS TO THE DEATH ENTANGLEMENT OF THE SURFACES. IN THE PAINTING ‘STUDIO NO. II’ (1949) THE BIRD 1S OBSERVED BY A MAN'S HEAD;WE ARE NOT SURE IF IT IS THE PAINTER'S HEAD OR EVEN PERHAPS A CAST HEAD—WE ARE NOT SURE. THE BIRD IS AGITATED AND CAN BE SEEN MOVING INTO AND PARALLEL TO A WINDOW, ABOUT TO BE ENTWINED IN THE WALLPAPER OF THE ROOM. ANOTHER VIEWING OF THE PAINTING COULD BE THAT THE FORMER HEAD OF THE PAINTER, INSTEAD OF BEING ON THE PEWTER PLATTER OF SALOME, IS POSSIBLY PLACED ON THE WOOD PALETTE OF THE PAINTER. IN ANY CASE, THE BIRD IN THE ABOVE PAINTINGS DESIRES ENTRY INTO THE ROOM TO BE FINALLY ENMESHED, AS A SHARK IS ENMESHED IN AN UNDERSEA NET. THE PAINTER ATTEMPTS TO CAPTURE DEATH, OR AT LEAST A FLEETING THOUGHT. ALMOST TWENTY YEARS LATER, IN THE BRAQUE PAINTING ‘THE DEAD BIRD’ (1957), THE BLACK BIRD LIES ON ITS BACK—A NATURA MORTA, A STILLED LIFE. IF THE PAINTER COULD, BY A SINGLE TRANS- FORMATION, TAKE A THREE DIMENSIONAL STILL LIFE AND PAINT IT ON A CANVAS INTO A NATURA MORTA, COULD IT BE POSSIBLE FOR THE ARCHITECT TO TAKE THE NATURA MORTA OF A PAINTING AND, BY A SINGLE TRANSFORMATION, BUILD IT INTO A STILL LIFE? THE CEMETERY FOR THE ASHES OF THE STILL LIFE PAINTERS IS AN ARCHITECT'S THOUGHTS UPON THE ABOVE CONDITIONS, AND ALL THE THOUGHTS IN THIS BOOK ARE IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER RELATED TO THE FLIGHT OF THE DARK BIRD THROUGH THE DEPTHS OF FLAT SURFACES, WHICH, IN THE END, IS A CELEBRATION.