NEW CITY, PRINCIPLES OF PLANNING

Ludwig Hilberseimer

« Reason is the first principle of all human work ». Consciously or unconciously L.Hilberseimer follows this principle and makes it the basis of this work in the complicated field of city planning. He examines the city with unwavering objectivity, investigates each part of it and determines for each part its rightful place in the whole. Thus he brings all the elements of the city into clear, logical order. He avoids imposing upon them arbitrary ideas of any character whatsoever.

He knows the cities must serve life, that their validity is to be measured in terms of life, and that they must be planned for living. He understands that the forms of cities are the expression of existing modes of living, that they are inextricably bound up with these, and that they, with these, are subject to change. He realizes that the material and spiritual conditions of the problem are given, that he can exercise no infleunce on these factors in themselves, that they are rooted in the past and will be determined by objectives tendencies for the future.

He also knows that the existence of many and diverse factors presupposes the existence of some order which gives meaning to these and which acts as a medium in which they can grow and unfold. City planning means for the author, therefore, the ordering of things in themselves and in their relationships with each other. One should not confuse the principles with their application. City planning is, in essence, a work of order; and order means - according to St Augustine - «the disposition of equal and unequal things, attributing to each its place»

and if you are more interested on The Principles of Planning , you can see the entire book here, ( it takes a bit of time to appear ) which is more explicit than the sample of texts and images above, and allow to understand Hilberseimer's reflexion as a whole

OVERPAINTED PHOTOGRAPHS
Gerhard Richter

Richter began to produce these small-scale works by smearing, mostly at the end of a working day; some of the paint left on one of his squeegees - the large-scale spatulas with which he drags great volume of paint accross the canvas to achieve his signature blur - onto the surface of photographs he keeps in this studio. This connects the photographic images, mostly snapshots taken by the artists himself, in a very immediate and physical way with his paintings. The majority of photographs adhere to a standard size of approximately 10x15 cm, the same size Richter also employed in War Cut. The subjects cover a similar range to that Richter ‘s painting based on photographs: mountain ans seascapes, cities and landscapes, self and family portaits and images of friends as well as anonymous crowds of people. On the whole, they have an everyday, if not idyllic, quality to them , circling the same cosmos of holiday mementoes, treasured private moments and records of a personal life that many of us use photography both to construct and to freeze frame. Noticeably, these are few excpetional subjects and no images that would carry a particular message or that would appear burdened by the gravitas of what they depict; no sites imprinted with the traces of German History, no images of particular celebrities or of dramaturgical scenarios - just an ordinary personal universe.