Tuesday 8 September 2009

Etienne-Louis Boullée's Cenotaph for Newton & Lebbeus Woods proposed tomb for Albert Einstein

"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 you can know mine. Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city." Lebbeus Woods

Etienne-Louis Boullée's Cenotaph for Newton
Lebbeus Woods proposed for Albert Einstein
“In 1980, Lebbeus Woods proposed a tomb for Albert Einstein – the so-called Einstein Tomb – inspired by Boullée's famous Cenotaph for Newton. But Woods's proposal wasn't some paltry gravestone or intricate mausoleum in hewn granite: it was an asymmetrical space station traveling on the gravitational warp and weft of infinite emptiness, passing through clouds of mutational radiation, riding electromagnetic currents into the void.” (Geoff Manaugh).

Etienne-Louis Boullée's Cenotaph for Newton



Lebbeus Woods proposed tomb for Albert Einstein

No comments:

Post a Comment