Atdtda22: [43.8i] Work is work, however you look at it, 633-634

[David Morris]

On Nov 24, 2007 10:09 AM, Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> ... the principles of Invisibilism, a school of modern architecture which believed that the more 'rationally' a structure was designed, the less visible would it appear, in extreme examples converging to its so-called Penultimate Term--the step just before deliverance into the Invisible, or as some preferred to say, 'into its own meta-structure', minimally attached to the physical world.

Rationality and Purism are not naturally or inherently linked in
architectural "schools."  But Rationalization is inherent in all of
them.

Purist, nearly invisible modern architecture would be epitomized by
the houses and pavilions of Mies van der Rohe, and his later imitator
Philip Johnson with his "Glass House."  In these buildings everday
items that would distract from the purity of their vision.  But these
designs are far from rational.

http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/farnsworth/index.htm
http://www.miesbcn.com/en/inside.html

http://architecture.about.com/od/greatbuildings/ig/Modern-and-Postmodern-Houses/Glass-House.htm

The AtD Wiki connects invisibilism with "Buckminster Fuller's concept
of ephemeralization [...] which notes that as design and technology
improve [...] the more that can be done with less, process waste
converges toward zero and things become physically smaller"

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_615-643

I think there is no real-world similar architectural school parallel.
But Pynchon has created two fictional characters that eventually
become invisible:  the mechanical duck of MD and Slothrop in GR.  I
don't know how they might be compared to this Invisibilism stuff.

David Morris