Brain Mackay-Lyons
What a lecture!
I was quite excited about the opportunity to be apart of a lecture by this architect. Any architect really. I knew nothing about Brain and although I appreciate the anesthetics of copper on the “plaza building” and enjoy the commons on the main floor – mostly because of the windows – asides from these points I would say that I’m not an overall fan of the building as a whole. I would dare to say that it lacks a certain ambition.
My true first introduction to Brain actually occurred outside. As an observer. I was smoking when he and a few friends approached the doors to the theater. Brian made a few casual jokes about all the students who must surely be receiving bonus marks for showing up. He also wondered aloud whether anybody else was going to show up. His friend mentioned that he spotted a bald guy so if nothing else he’d have one other person there. This conversation was casual, light and without distress.
Sometimes, the world seems to make sense. There is a quietness, a stillness I received from Brian talking about his work. A real sense of comradeship to the community, a connected humanness. There is an honest humbleness about him and the philosophy he brings to his work and to the platform. Below are excerpts from my notes – please feel free to comment.
Contributing factors and difficulties in current architecture
1-place – climate, material culture
- buildings are not dropped from an airplane
- contextual – radical idea
- everything is starting to look the same
2- environment – sustainability
- cultural
- pragmatic view
3- social agencies – politics of space
- get to assert humanism
- design the building with the community that’s going to use it
- quite democratic
READ “WAYS OF SEEING” – you learn about seeing at home – start where you live
Architecture without an architect is good
“Vernacular is what you do when you can’t afford to be wrong.”
vernacular – a local dialect or language of a particular country; the language of a particular clan or group; informal speech; not of foreign origin or of learned formation.
Architecture is a social art – must have social value ”…-your mom has to ‘get it’”
Art is not for the elite or critics
Ping pong vs. tennis – with tennis you’re actually on the table (–Brilliant)
“In Nova Scotia we don’t put our gonads on the front lawn.”
SOCIAL SPACE IS IMPORTANT
“Not only to do what you’re told – to serve is not to be a servant.”
Cultivate the world – leave it better than you found it. Enrich the world.
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