Net-Materials

On Sun, Apr XX, 20XX at 2:00 PM, XXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXX@hotmail.com wrote:

Hi Ted,

I am just laying the groundwork for my XXXXX project at XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX. And I came across your work. Like you I am not a tekkie. Nor am I attached to the physical form of architecture. Cities, like cyberspace are full of rubbish and the constructed environment has enough physical construction for me not to produce a building for the project.

I am more interested in the future: the fact that architecture can play a role in the connectivity ofsocialstructures or ideas like transclusion in the built context. One way is that a piece of architecture is just the skeleton, with floor plates - allowing as much freedom as possible (see Le Corbusier’s plan libre).

The other way to see it is that we don’t need building anymore…we are mobile and perhaps it’s just nature, perhaps gridded and divided - with rules of cultivation (see REX). Or perhaps I could design a giant jail the size of Mt. Everestin each major city andincarcerate the city’s inhabitants for crimes to the earth. The building could just use the surrounding, useless fabric.

I’m not a morbid person - perhaps my question to you is that, because you foresaw many of the components that the web has today, what do you now see it becoming, technologically and probably more poignantly, socially and if you have some hints, architecturally?

I hope you have time.

XXX XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXX

From: Ted Nelson
Sent: Thursday, April XX, 20XX 9:22 PM
To: XXX XXXXXXXX
Cc: Ted Nelson
Subject: :gbg:arx:artx: Architecture, Art, Web 2.0 (wuz Re: Social Architecure’s Future)

Thanks for your kind words.

I am afraid I don’t have time to answer all the essay questionspeople send me.

I haven’t the foggiest idea what junk or fads will come nexton the Net. ‘Web 2.0’ nonsensically conflates a bunch ofvaguely related stuff under a misleading title.

Architecture? I loved it as a kid but I’m a cynic now.Like “Art,” look at who profits and why. The art establishment(critics, galleries…) mediates between public, collectorsand would-be artists. If those emperors have no clothes,it would all fall down.

Architecture could be cheapo modules. Who prevents?The contractors (working through the Building Codes). Soleri told me that the building codes had killed him.And the big firms that want to build screwy-lookingconcert halls. (Note: I’m hoping to build a good oldQuonset hut on our family farm. Beautiful space inside.)


Quonset hut. Sourced from Texnrails.

(And how come nobody’s selling the Usonian houseas a prefab? Surely the rights have expired by now.THERE’S a money-making suggestion for you.)


Palace, 2008, Frank Lloyd (I’m) Right..

Enough! No time.

TN

—
- FIRST ROCK MUSICAL RECALLED— See
http://hyperland.com/A&E.AnnivBlurb-D10.txt
- NEW XANADU SOFTWARE— See xanarama.net
- MY SPECIAL LECTURE on 14 non-computer topics—
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/podcasts/seminars.php

Theodor Holm Nelson
Founder, Project Xanadu
Visiting Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute
Visiting Professor, University of Southampton