the workshop Red trust and
and Mr salary is the distinguished architect whose works you have studied
in the archaeology ease again. I trust everyone who looked at those and
that the exhibit over an alumni hall, Each of these in his own way is not
merely concerned with the problem of providing a habitat for the human
being, but also making sure that that habitat contributes to human values
and the quality of human life. Um This is the intent, but in every case
there are many grounds for controversy and questions and so it is our
intent is simply to throw the meeting open to questions. Would you stand
up and identify yourself if you have a question and make sure that your
voice is heard down here so that we understand what the question is.
Now, I would like to begin by addressing the same question to MR salary
that I did over as he spoke to the art and architecture students, I
understand that his archaeology, um his theories of our archaeology should
I should say is based on more than a theory of architecture, is based on a
philosophy of life. And I think this would be a good place to begin as he
lets us know some of the leading ideas of that philosophy of life and how
it leads to the particular kind of habitat that he has envisaged for the
human race.
That'll start us off.
Well, maybe I should start by saying that
state something very very abstract if you like. Or very general. I think
that life he is that kind of process that makes matter into spirit.
And evidently it's a process that it might have been happening only on
this planet. Probably is happening in many other localities in the
universe.
What we have to do is to stick with this planet and see if we can make
sense of this process. And to me it makes sense only when each successive
step
somehow works as in tropically against entropy in transforming, but we
might call the mass energy universe into consciousness the spirit.
So anything that we might be able to find out that works in this direction
for me is anti pollutant
is as in tropic, whatever works against this progression of matter, making
itself into spirit is pollutant is entropic
and to make it very brief so we can get to the habitat. I would suggest
that this is what we call the city or the man made environment for society.
He is one of the most, can be one of the most powerful places where
matter becomes spirit
to do this. Um, man has to feel not as a single isolated morning. It has
to be feel integral and to be integral part of the whole process which
involves not just man for the animal kingdom, but the vegetable kingdom
and physical kingdom.
And in order to for this process to proceed and develop, there seems to be
one mandatory demand which is that this process has to move always from
something of a certain degree of complexity to something which has a
higher degree of complexity.
If this is true then it's almost it's automatically true because
complexity is the other phase for what I'm going to say now it's true also
that the evolution of life is directly tied connected dependent on the
miniaturization process. Because complexity means the the achieving of a
certain intensity of performance within spaces which are becoming smaller
and smaller because that's that's how information, communication,
challenge and response are able to to perform and to develop.
And that's why I am very persistent in advocating this methodology which
is not packaging something and saying this is really just build it and
everything is going to be all right. But the methodology tells me that
tells life I think in general that in order to move into the next step
of evolution or spiritual ization et realization, we must except a complex
the pull together gathered together Cityscape.
This is not a a simple solution. It's not a solution. This is not a simple
methodology. It doesn't say that things are going to get better because
they're going to get simpler. Said that things are going to get more alive
if they are really going to be too complex. If I themselves. You know what
? This is the convergence sea of scattered and lose elements into a
unifying Colin
Thank you. I think I'll offer our other guests Mr Vanek the opportunity to
comment first but and then throw it up into the rest. Mhm. Well if if I
understand Mr salary right? I agree with that.
I understand that the city is the prime mover of civilization.
It is the place where man really becomes man in in in
the best sense in the
matter moves into spirit. Then that is why I want the city to survive not
only to survive but to grow and to prosper to be not only a good place to
live but also an inspiring and inspired place to live and in that sense
also
a work of art. I say also because it's got to be a whole lot of other
and if I understand Mr salary right
that we have to learn much better than we have in the last century, a
century and a half of the oncoming of technology to live with and design
with nature rather than against nature rather than imposing our will on
nature. He expressed it somewhat differently. Man doesn't have the right
to pollute this planet. And I also and this to me is the first challenge
where I differ and I differ I think quite profoundly is
in
the the the tremendous need for human continuity.
I was very happy to spend in the greek islands this past summer on on a
trip. And I've seen that everything we want has a far better way than we
are able to been designed and been built into these temple cities
on various and I think that it if we talk about designing with nature and
building our habitat in harmony with nature, we must also
and again, also not exclusive, consider the nature of man. And to me the
nature of man has a tremendous yearning. First of all, let me say that
technocrats always say, well everything changes. Therefore the city has to
change and therefore we have to accommodate for all this change. Well, man
has not changed. Man's basic needs have not changed. We still make love
the same way, we still need sunshine, we still need air, we need water.
And in thinking about the city and the future of the city, we have to
think I think very, very strongly and much more than we have in the past
about this yearning for and then it's necessity for continuity. We cannot
just pick up and leave and build a super city somewhere hundreds of miles
out of nowhere. Whatever the rationalization we have to pick up from where
we are and carry that forward and build had design and live within the
framework of our of our civilization and carry that forward and it's the
abrupt
change here, everything is different. And now we start from scratch and
you disregard several 1000 years of human human civilization and we play
God and built the great city. This to me is chutzpah, it's full press and
it's it's valuable as utopias are always valuable in elevating thinking
that it's a disservice to the extent that it might distract us from the
task on hand. And that is to pick up the continuity of our place to live,
of our architecture, of our urban design of our lives. Pick it up again
and subordinate technology to the basic human needs which are humanistic
needs. Right? We have a question already here, did you identify yourself?
My name is Kali and I just want to point out or ask you that you see man
hasn't basically changed in all that time. But the one thing that has
changed mankind is the fact that we have a tremendously increased amount
of information and knowledge. Don't you think that that changes man and
what he has to do in direction in himself in the future? No, it's confused
man a great deal basically I think that the the were beginning to discover
now for instance, I mean this is part of the knowledge of course that
there is no such thing as pro primitive man. There is no advance. I mean
progress in the sense of of of making men any smarter or bringing up his
Children any better at solving his problems any better that we keep on the
same level. But the guru tribes in in in wherever the hell they are in
Australia or wherever
you know, as much about the art of living as we do except ours are more
complicated and we need more milltown. Um and we can't sleep at night and
we have more violence, you see, so that actually all this new information
and I use the term ironically now unquote input has not really improved.
Man certainly hasn't improved and I don't think has really basically
changed.
Yes, another comment. Peter Waldo,
I don't know. I have a feeling that you're so much contradicting yourself
now, you're saying that we should um face, have continuity and base what
we do and what we already know. And this is what I see mr salary doing and
that he's saying, we've designed the same way for thousands of years. Um
let's take into account man's total needs and design the whole environment
, not just a building to live in. And you criticize this on the grounds
that this is something totally new and too far out and we're not ready for
it. And we have to go step by step. I just I just don't see that the
criticisms founded or the reason for that sort of criticism.
Well, I think inevitably we are going step by step and we are not um I
mean this is a prediction. Now, this is not going to be able to build a
totally new environment because all the elements of change, all the
elements of our way of looking at things are not going to be the same way
that your Children are going to look. That is also part of human nature,
that each generation has a different idea on how they want to live in some.
However, there are some basic things that have been found pretty good.
The institution of the family, friends and by the same token, the
institution of streets and houses as the streets of social space and
houses as as your own. You know, this whole business of privacy and
community and a whole lot of things that we know work quite well and why
disregard them or discard and where we do describe them as in bauhaus type
housing projects, for instance, where we've destroyed the street. We have
also destroyed social intercourse. To the point where you have a large
increase of violence and unhappiness and where we have to go and blow up
through Pruitt Igoe exploded. Didn't work because we have disregarded
certain basic lessons that we've learned over several thousands of years.
I can say the total opposite. I can see if we got rid of all the streets.
We wouldn't have any violence is people that makes discussions.
I don't think the streets have been working so good.
They've been working pretty well before the automobile came along.
Yes. Um, in talking about human beings haven't changed. There's some
things that have changed one thing we live longer and we have better
medicine and with the population growth. Um, it seems that just kind of
doing what we've been doing, but maybe improving it doesn't solve our
problems. Now, I'll get to my point, you seem very strongly in favor
satellite cities like Tapiola. Since you conclude your book with the
discussion of Tapiola or perhaps Columbia Maryland. But isn't that simply
kind of continuing what we're doing? Won't these satellites simply grow
and fill in the spaces between the big cities and the surrounding
satellites? And if that happens, how are we solving anything with Tapiola
or or some other comparable Newtown?
Well now you're confusing. I think two things. 11 is is is building new
towns or or that we put it in a broader way organizing our urbanized
region. Um, is that continuity? Yes it is takes into account the fact that
people want to be with the action. People have been flocking to the
seashores like crabs and that's where they want to be. Is it organize a
bill yet? Do we begin to see that we should be smart and smart this
abusive when the hives get too big start building new heights. Yes. Will
the space between those hives then fill in and become one terrible
urbanized mess. It doesn't have to, we can apply order. We can apply green
bills we can organize
and that's I think what I'm saying I'm saying we have to take human nature
into account. Oh and human nature. I think part of human nature shown
wants to be together and want to be in certain areas of the, of the, of
the world geography and not in others and they want to be where existing
institutions are, but we have to learn how to organize this and keeps them
open, not have these what the british called conservation? The british can
do it. Why can't we? But one thing it seems we have to organize a
population growth then. Damn right. We do. And we're beginning to we're
coming very closely all these dire predictions of the population explosion.
The Bureau of Census tells us now we're all very much an error. You don't
draw the line straight up. Mr salary hasn't been part of this discussion,
but I sensed some reactions. I wonder if he could put them in words. Mhm.
I'm thinking of what I call the syndrome Adams and Eve syndrome. And I
think it's very represented by Mr Eckert
by this. I mean that um
he has a view of history that I cannot accept and I cannot I cannot accept
it. And that means that we cannot we cannot really
communicate because I cannot accept. The premise is that man has been
printed by certain metrics and that's it. I mean, this is this is a
fantasy of major dimension and I cannot accept it. Because
do we start to chicken man? Do we stop to the simian? Do we stop to the
anthropoid? We stopped the apes we stopped to the lizard. Where do we stop
in understanding what man is and what this matrix is? We've been printed
as as the virus has been printed at the beginning, do we evolve or we do
not revolve evidently if we do evolve, what MR records said, it doesn't
make very much sense. The only sense it makes is that historically we have
a certain certain kind of timetable that tells us that we cannot
accelerate. Be honest with the limit, But evidently to stay that 50
generations from now, man is going to be exactly what it is now.
I cannot it's inconceivable for me Because 50 generations ago, 500
generations ago, man wasn't what it is now.
So I can agree on the fact that we cannot drastically transform ourselves
and environment. So we know now that something drastic has to be done
because of the limited, limited
envelope that we are living on limited resources. But if we need a guy,
some kind of guidance and I think we needed this guidance has to be able
to point as to have a have a prospective that must go beyond the concept
that man has been created by God With 33 vertebra etc, etc. And it's not
going to change ever. Man has been changed because man at the beginning
was a was a dim consciousness wiggling in the water of the primeval seas.
No, there's quite a difference between that creature and ourselves and
it's the same kind of difference is going to be probably between ourselves
and the creatures that are going to come in the future. Um So I think
that's where the stumbling block is,
comment on that. All right. No question if I might mr Solar, you can
before distinction between matter and spirit, I'm a little troubled by the
terms spirit, I'm not sure I know what it means, perhaps. I don't know
what that means either,
would you? Perhaps? Well, if you're a physicist, Professor Eckert, who is
a professor of religion, so I warn you before you was saying if you have a
business, you can tell me that, that's honest.
Okay, I'll give it to you straight.
Um
But if you're a professor of religion, let me tell you what I've been
thinking in the last few days,
I think.
Well,
well, that's that's the point. Yeah. Uh let's say God is not in the past,
God is in the future.
We are creating God. We are guarding the making. Which is very
presumptuous. Mr Echols said something about that, we have to presumption
or I made two Presumptions, you know, we think that we can transform the
universe. I think we can transform the universe because we are seeking to
become God, which doesn't exist. So, the spirit is synonymous
in a way, Spirit is this kind of of a known
mhm subtle phenomenon. Sometimes we call it consciousness
the ability to
reflect a certain input and come out with a certain answer which is
rational or can be somehow rationalized relatively. And but this this
trust again has began very dimly in a very small way, very primitively and
it's developing within us within us as life and it's going and it's
seeking something in the future that somehow we have to believe is in the
past. So we are supported by the backing of God.
So the spirit would be the transformation of the and topic universe or the
universal mass energy into into something which has a consciousness of
itself, at least in the creation of God.
The motivation for building these cities would be two
move towards spirit, move matter towards spirit as opposed to just
immediate happiness of man. Well, the immediate happiness of man is part
of the movie into the spirit because again, I can take the happiness over
over butterflies
and try to compare it to for the happiness and the happiness of a person.
And I would conclude maybe that the happiness of the person is more
substantial has more power to it. There's more ability to proceed in this
evolution and the happiness of the So but this happiness has to be based
on worthiness. In other words, the joy that anyone of us can get out of
whatever we do. He is conditioned by the work of this action that we are
performing. So joy in a way is a byproduct for work.
So in that sense, happiness is very important.
Joyful. I mean, the joyful ritual ritual of life, it's absolutely
essential
if you're talking about him and spiritually? Yes, most of your work seems
to be attributed towards complexes such as do you think by creating such
an artificial environment? Well, spiritually
please a man, not so much spiritually, physically, as much as psychologic.
In other words, to create an environment such as this room and create
grass, trees, land, will this please the man as much as to live as we do
on the real earth psychologically, it just doesn't please a person to live
in artificial environment. Yeah, but you see that again, I think I think
there is a short sightedness there that I can't really grasp. Suppose
again that I am I am an animal and I for some reason God appears to me in
form of, let's suppose I am Eliza and God appears to me in the form of a
monkey of a warm blooded creature, well as the leaves that I'm going to
say, this is a monster and I don't want to have anything to do with it. I
am the perfected perfect creature existing in the universe. This fantasy
or this thing that I see there, the warm blooded creature is, his
monstrous is not natural. It's unconceivable. I cannot accept it. It's
it's something that I have to destroy.
And I don't think, I don't think that you can say that just because
something hasn't existed, something cannot come about. And I mind you that
I'm not, I'm not presented presented as anything like a blueprint for a
city, I am presenting excellent as an example, my personal exemplify
vacation in very schematic terms, in very abstract terms of a certain
methodology. So if you're reading into it, but I didn't put into it, then
evidently we cannot discuss it. What what you should try to read into it
is that this visual thing suggests a certain kind of technological
development plus extra, possibly the beauty, the aesthetic aspect that Mr
Speaker was talking about that will allow myself and the group that
composes society to perform certain things better more efficiently with
more joy and so on. It might be mistaken as such because it and it's
evidently it's there because it does not apply to a contextual problem.
It's just an abstraction to illustrate an idea.
Question up here. one thing that's still bothering me about why did you
have by centralization, you're going to the way I look at it, you're only
going to decrease the rate at which we're destroying correct. Which is
which is not a bad point
that we're doing it right now, increasing it by uh anything except a very
large amount. Well, that that would be a large amount of it will be a
substantial amount. So much so that I consider it again as a methodology,
not as my clever solution that says everything is settled now just use it
and you'll get the results as a methodology. I think it's that's where the
answer is because my allowed us to make the quantum jump that we need to
in order not to stifle or
take validity out of life through the ecological crisis, but by moving at
one level where the needs of a lively civilized cultural society can be
satisfied, but with much less energy matter,
space and so on. So it's really it would really be the motion from a
certain level of materialization to a greater level with the realization
which means making more matter, making making more spirit out of matter.
And I think really the solution of the problem we are in now the fact that
we are too many and we are demanding too much from a limited amount of of
space energy and raw materials is this quantum jump not the steady state
theory, but the quantum theory
question. Yes. Um you said that we were heading towards a godlike
existence. That's what you're saying that in the future that we're
directing now towards, towards God in the future now, only in the sense
that life, as far as I can see, is a development towards the production of
what, for lack of better words we call godliness, does that mean that
mankind will achieve in the future of perfect form or that we're going to
be heading towards a perfect form? Well, if if you take that the
methodology of complexity miniaturization to the extreme. You see that
this form will be a point, the gut point, all powerful, all
millicent. And I will tell you
how can we at this point in our existence determined how to direct
ourselves in that way. What what do you use in determining your cities and
your direction in what did you
evidently? I I can only try to see the mechanisms, not the results. You
know, words again, going back to the piano, I cannot make the music. I
mean hopefully I can make some music. But what I'm really trying to do is
to make the instance. So what I'm looking for is a certain kind of
persistent method that seems to be applying to the evolution of the
consciousness of life And see and see why why not this methodology is not
the good one. And this methodology is that life is an implosive process
and it's an explosive process. So anything that has to do with life has to
do with gathering of things with connecting of things with integrating of
things with unifying of things not the opposite. So that's the methodology
context ification which necessarily demands
putting together, which means which I call it the miniaturization.
Do you feel that the only way we can involve towards this state is through
, you know, this collect this, this very dense collectivity. Do you feel
that there's other alternatives?
Mhm smaller collectivity is or even in isolation? Well, I would never
advocate gigantic collectivity. What I I think at this point we should try
to stay within From 50,000 to I don't know Below one million because we
are still pretty young and pretty and experienced. So another locating big
metro police.