Divine Comedy

Very interesting read on - progression lets say :)....breaking rules and much more

"Readers often cannot understand how such a serious work may be called a "comedy." In Dante's time, all serious scholarly works were written in Latin, a tradition that would persist for several hundred years more until the waning years of the Enlightenment, and works written in any other language were assumed to be more trivial in nature. Furthermore, the word "comedy" in the classical sense refers to works which reflect belief in an ordered universe, in which events tended toward not only a happy or amusing ending but one influenced by a Providential will that orders all things to an ultimate good. By this meaning of the word, as Dante himself wrote in a letter to Cangrande I della Scala, the progression of the pilgrimage from Hell to Paradise is the paradigmatic expression of comedy, since the work begins with the pilgrim's moral confusion and ends with the vision of God."

"He wrote the Comedy in a language he called "Italian," in some sense an amalgamated literary language mostly based on the regional dialect of Tuscany, but with some elements of Latin and other regional dialects. He deliberately aimed to reach a readership throughout Italy including laymen, clergymen and other poets. By creating a poem of epic structure and philosophic purpose, he established that the Italian language was suitable for the highest sort of expression. In French, Italian is sometimes nicknamed la langue de Dante. Publishing in the vernacular language marked Dante as one of the first (among others such as Geoffrey Chaucer and Giovanni Boccaccio) to break free from standards of publishing in only Latin (the language of liturgy, history and scholarship in general, but often also of lyric poetry). This break set a precedent and allowed more literature to be published for a wider audience, setting the stage for greater levels of literacy in the future."



Source:wikipedia

"We value our customers who are patiently waiting more than anything"

What a wonderful statement ! 

"Making something from passion and soul, not necessary money and fame takes time." How true is 

that?

Source: http://shinyakimura.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/the-last-ride.html

"the word art etymologically means to do" Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp

We took part recently in a architectural competition for a building for an European Chess association and i was reading trough some of the chess books i ordered at the time  and came across the name of Marcel Duchamp, who I learned had turned a very successful chess player in his later years. (to a certain discontent of some of the established a the time chess masters).

The book is called  The Chess Artist by J C Hallman, One  quote stuck in my memory - "He preferred a beautiful loss to a boring win"

Duchamp, along all the attributions he has to the modern art we know today, was also one of the first artist to try and express/implement  4th dimension in his work, which could be very tricky when you are working with "static" lets say media/tools.

AJ exclusive: James Pallister spoke with Swiss starchitect Peter Zumthor on the eve of his RIBA Gold Medal lecture

Many details that make your work so rich seem to come from very close observation of daily life. Do you think architects’ work would be better if they learnt to relax and play a little more?
I know exactly what you mean but it gives the wrong impression of how I work. I try to create emotional spaces that feel right for the purpose and the place. So I try to go into the use of the building very deeply and see what could be beautiful and comfortable.