JOHN LOBELL "Our world is no longer what we have thought it to be, and a new world is struggling to be born. Visionary Creatives are driven to bring this new world to all of us."
- PROFESSOR of Architecture Pratt Institute - AUTHOR “Visionary Creativity: How New Worlds are Born” - AUTHOR of the NEW BOOK "Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy" (and more)
JOHN LOBELL addresses how new technology changes our consciousness, which in turn leads to cultural paradigm shifts. He received his degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and is a professor of architecture at Pratt Institute. His interests include creativity, architecture, cultural theory, consciousness, mythology, and movies. He has lectured throughout the world and is the author of numerous articles and several books.
EMAIL: JohnLobell@mac.com LANDLINE (yes still have one): 212-679-1935 MOBILE: 646-734-2860 WEBSITES: johnlobell.com visionarycreativity.com
NEW BOOK: bit.ly/2020LouisKahn_ArchitectureAsPhilosophy
Thank you, that was very informative and pleasant to watch. I study these modernist architects because I don't like their work but they are influential. Many of these architects are so concerned with great principles they forget that most of the quality in human life is about small, charming things. Classical monumental buildings have ornament because the charming details give us the feeling that a rich and varied experience can be part of something bigger, while the bigger thing feels rich because of its details. Remove multiplicity from unity and you get boredom and repetition. Remove unity from multiplicity and you get chaos. The big mistake of most modernists, including Kahn, was thinking that removing the ornament would reveal the essence. They killed the essence, the tree of life, by removing its leaves and flowers.
Your personal experience does not speak for “human life”, please. For me the small ornaments only make me feel dizzy and restless. One of the charm of Kahn’s work is the feeling of serene eternal order, which is heavily borrowed from Ancient Greek architectures. The ancient Greeks have a deep understanding of what is “essence” (philosophically).
How can we manifest our own lives.. you posted this video in early February 2013, and I'm now including it in my opera about Finnegans Wake nearly 11 years later in early 2024. Thanks for sharing!
The Japanese’s respect for FLW’s design must have been immense for them to relocate a portion of the hotel to a park instead of it just becoming a memory.
Andrew Levitt an interesting architecture academic passed away recently, just beginning to read one of his books (Listening to Design) Any familiarity?
Someone said if you try to explain an idea, you may end up killing the idea. So I appreciate how you talk about Kahn stopping and leaving it at 'Order is'.
Watching from the start, for a second time. Completely engaging and thoughtful. It is ironic that some the terms, like "animism" and so on, would be subject to cancellation for being inadequately woke. (What rubbish).
Gothic architecture is the expression of french middel age thinking definitely shaped by ancient greek philosophy ... at the same time gothic adventure began aristote thinking were rediscovered. (it's the begining of the scolastic a counter courant to neoplatonisim). Their is nothing about violet leduc and all the reconstruction and readaptation of the gothic architecture during 19century. and not so much about the different form of gothic giving a different meaning to this architecture. (german gothic cathedral are realy different from french one) nevertheless Thanks for the share good sir. Hello from france.
I very much value your interpretation of historical data that you do throughout the lecture and at the end of it. Thank you for your intellectually beautiful lectures.
The Dogon tribe's knowledge of the Sirius system in Africa is proof that Yuga cycles can be accurate.This oral tradition continued from a time when it was common knowledge and Kali got rid of Yuga. If Yuga is an accurate model of the solar system cycle, then this will explain why there have been fewer Dis-asters recently. The fact that Earth moves through a less dense area of the galaxy with less debris (Comets) will allow for a gradual rise in consciousness, as the Upanishads explain.Alhamdulillah, as a Muslim and as a scientist, I am proud to pay attention to astro Science, sending love and respect to all viewers of the super novas are close.
This is sickening. Do we want the Dogon to become like us? Like the West? The question should be do "they" want to become like us. Honestly, our civilization is based on organized chaos (our idea of freedom), and profiteering. I don't know if thinkers such as Jefferson would have wanted it this way, but, this is where we are at now -and it is killing both our bodies and our planet. So who is the real primitive man? Seems like Hobbes definition of primitive looks more like modern man than the Dogons. Our peoples lives are becoming more isolated, alone, as we are surrounded by filth (think of the plastics and our polluted waters), and ignorance. It's obvious that with a few refinements the Dogon culture will probably outshine ours.
Great introduction, John! I wish I had seen it in the beginning of architecture school, not at the end. Do you have more in depth lectures on this subject? All the best, Stian
That was an amazing memorial. I’m Vito Longo, Pratt Grad ’85. While I never had a class with Mimi Lobel, I had taken 2 classes under John Lobel. Mimi I remember carried the essence of passion with regards to her theories. I remember her speaking during Thursday night lectures. Always smiling, very pleasant woman. Who is that man speaking 1:30? I remember him. So very long ago was my tenure at Pratt. Time erodes all. I operated Cropsey Iron Works to the best of my ability until I could no more. My designs were very important to me, and without Pratt I would have always wondered what the value of a serious education could bring.
Wypepo always sexualize everything! Those are not pin-ups. But representations of the divine masculine and the divine feminine Ancestors. So typical of a colonizer and his arrogance.
The pic of the Nathan G. Moore house you put up in the opening is the 1925 FLW redesign after the fire. As it appears today, it is far more Wrightian then the more restrained Tudor style home Wright designed preceding it.
I'm sorry, I think St. John the Divine is really quite a piece of shit. Ralph Adam's Cram was a nut case. NONE of his monstrosities are very good examples of neo-Gothic/Gothic Revival architecture. St. Thomas on 5th Ave is hideous, Princeton Chapel is hideous, West Point chapel is hideous, the most hideous of all is Liberty Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh----truly ghastly. The only church he designed which shows some taste, balance, and refinement is Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago---and that church is by no means stunning. For that matter, there is little ecclesiastical architecture on this side of the Atlantic worth studying, most of it is deplorable "fake architecture." National Cathedral is about the best thing we have, Newark Cathedral is not bad, either, but RAC had nothing to do with either (THANK GOD!)
