Pages

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Aquene Freechild: Q&A

This months cover,
featuring electronic-rock band noon:30.
Original photo courtesy of the band,
digital augmentation by K.K.W

Q&A - "Modern" Architecture,
with Aquene Freechild.
Aquene Freechild,
photo courtesy of Miss Freechild.
SP: Aquene, thanks for taking the time for the interview.

AF: Your welcome Kerwin.


Downtown NYC - digital photo by K.K.W 2012.
SP: How do you view the often dominant use of glass, or similar material and radically simple design (cube / rectangles, linear pattern) in modern architecture? 

AF: I like the large amount of light that some modern buildings offer. Concrete no, glass yes. It can be too much sometimes, people need to be able rest their eyes too.

SP: Architecture, like most things can be done wrong (design, execution, etc), however, do you feel it has more to do with opinion when its disliked (take for instance the Eiffel Tower - although its not a building- which was hated by most of the artists & many others in Paris, yet is now beloved by the world, or at least tourists)? 

AF: I am guessing that human beings share similar innate reactions to space, large spaces are grand, perhaps a little intimidating, perhaps inspiring, small spaces intimate, safer. I think there are endless likely iterations of this type of effect that I don't know how to describe.

SP: Even if a work of architectural design is considered flawed, bad, (whatever the reason) and an artist, or someone else, finds a way to express a positive feeling through it, its put to good use, people rent offices in it, an apartment / purchase one in it, does that not make it good?

AF: Yes, that makes it good. We adapt and make homes everywhere. 


Center of Skopje (Capital of Macedonia),
digital photo by Meglena Visinska 2012.
SP: Phillip Clay's two-stage model of gentrification places artists as prototypical stage one, or marginal gentrifier's. Artists (in large #'s) move into low-rent undesirables areas, rehabilitate it, making it more desirable to others (Real-Estate Developers, yuppies, semi-conservative families). By this do you think that artists, Musicians, etc, help to cause gentrification?

AF: Yes, because they provide a bridge between the classes. Artists are often from middle and upper classes and make lower income areas,  more chique and palatable to upper and middle class identified people who come to artist areas to engage with the art, which they can likely afford more than the artist's neighbors.
Aquene Freechild.
Photo courtesy of miss Freechild.
Modern Architecture has its roots in the Bauhaus movement, which originated in Germany during the 20th century, and is currently going through a major revival ("Days of the future past"?). Its ideas had a major impact one world that is still current today.  And as the subject is one that affects New York City & others, its most important to us.

Aquene Freechild is a graduate of NYU (New York University), & currently resides in Washington, District of Columbia. 

If you would like to know more, go to:www.facebook.com/aquenef ,

No comments:

Post a Comment