Monday, September 13, 2010

Strategies against Architecture

Here at Riddled we are loath to stand in the way of progress. No, wait, that was steamrollers. Obstruct progress all you want.

But one thing we have learned is that when hiring an architect to renovate the South Wing of stately Riddled Manor (long in a state of desuetude and decrepitude), do not pick the person whose previous client was an extremely wealthy elephant who wears a purple dressing-gown smoking jacket and travels around on a traction engine. However great his reputation for innovation and cutting-edge out-of-the-box thinking. The architect, not the elephant.*
He came to us with a name for designing fine stairways (a key feature in the renovation since there is no point in having a a vast stockpile of suet in the basement of the South Wing if we cannot get to it; not to mention the crepes in the attic).

However, the plans he has presented to us have been increasingly grandiose, whimsical and impractical. Does he think we are made of money?



Finely-machined beryllium alloy perhaps, in the case of my prosthetic spare part, but that's all. And citing passages from Borges and Bioy-Casares about the Great Chaotic of Rome** does little to allay our concerns.

It came to a head at last week's meeting. "Call me old-fashioned," I said, "but I feel more comfortable using stairs when there is a clear distinction between the treads and the risers."

"Also would they not be more efficacious if they were slightly closer to the ground?" vouchsafed Another Kiwi.

"Ah," we were told, "it is a flight of stairs."

AK muttered something about "Hairway to Steven". Market analysts are predicting a sharp increase in the consumption of akvavit and Blackwood's Shetland Gin in the near future.
---------------------------------------------
* Who stole a bicycle once. This is why I rate for the Badfort crowd.** "This noble edifice, which to some seemed a sphere, to others an ovoid, and to the reactionary a shapeless mass, and whose materials ran the gamut from marble to cow dung, consisted essentially of truncated bridges, of spiral staircases that gave access to impenetrable walls, of balconies to which entrance was impossible, and of doors than opened either into pits or into high, narrow rooms from whose ceilings soft armchairs and comfortable double beds hung upside down. Nor was there any lack of concave mirrors."

28 comments:

Unknown said...

If ChCH wasn't needing it, we could have got the Miracle Wonder 3000 Architect pack with service update 4.42.
That's what Wellington used, just sayin'.

litlymi, some sort of Brit lawyer, author?

Substance McGravitas said...

Don't get a tesseract! RIP OFF.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

...and comfortable double beds hung upside down.

No surprise, that. So what happens to all the hats?
~

Unknown said...

Velcro (tm) now that the Mericans won't be needing any for killing, they be using buttons again and all, there is a shortage of velcro.
MWA3000spu4.42 is being programmed as we speak to rebuild ChCh in velcro shaped as biddy-bids as a homage to, erm some creator thingy.
I don't know I never unnerstand them architextureismists do you?

histike, some doods son?

Smut Clyde said...

For the sake of our non-biddy-bid-comprehending visitors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acaena

I forgot to point out that (a) Uncle has his own blog; and (b) the only thing stopping me from writing a Homeward / Gormenghast cross-over pastiche is my absence of literary talent.

Smut Clyde said...

Don't get a tesseract! RIP OFF.

Rest assured, Mr McGravitas, that having discovered the roominess of a 120-cell hyperdodecahedron, there is no way I am going back to the narrow confines of any smaller regular polytope.

guitarist manqué said...

Strategies against architecture must involve tactics against architects amirite?

moduxib --wasn't he that guy in Dune?

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

tactics against architects

destroying the housing market seems to have worked pretty well.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Hopefully the renovation of the Tower of Flints won't be too expensive.

mikey said...

Nope, might as well be written in the original Cymraeg. Just a buzzing noise, not terribly unpleasant,but still, informational content approximates zero.

Read it twice. There were actually passages that DIDN'T seem a collection of random words one might find cleaning out the deepest arachnid-infested parts of the garage, but they were rare, and on closer examination yielded nothing contributing to a cogent narrative.

I think I'll operate on the assumption that it's all a deeply impenetrable prank, and come back later after the mean-spirited laughter dies down and my hot tears of shame have dried...

Jennifer said...

who wears a purple dressing-gown smoking jacket

Sounds like party pajamas...

Smut Clyde said...

might as well be written in the original Cymraeg

A bicycle is involved.

mikey said...

A bicycle is involved.

Of that there can be little doubt...

Hamish Mack said...

I also rate for the Badfort crowd and would like to know why the fighter jet is melded into one of the floating stairways.I think that this is gilding the lily somewhat and might put a burden on the tax-payer, through Earthquake Commission funds, that we might later regret.

Smut Clyde said...

I think it explains why low flying aeroplanes are scared of too solid clouds.

Hamish Mack said...

But of course. Enmeshment in staircases is not the same as being Top Gun.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

I didn't know Peter Eisenmann was still designing buildings.

Using "designing" in an extraordinarily loose fashion there, you understand....

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

... Also "buildings"

wv pretall. What my son was before he entered puberty.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

THIS THREAD IS MINE.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

And I will play Thompson Twins videos if I want to.

You're asleep, you can't stop me.

Hamish Mack said...

Have a care there young Zombie! Vigilance is never asleep. Because it's vigilant

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

or was perhaps at the pub very late.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

who you calling youngster? Get offa mah lawn.

Smut Clyde said...

Did someone mention Eisenmann?

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

I mentioned him; not only that, but expressed surprise that he was still practicing (and why not? you say. It appears, from his record, that he can use the practice). Let the record show that I was on-topic, however briefly.

But I guess one gets work where one can, these days, and if that means working for Riddled or Howard Roark, so be it.

Smut Clyde said...

Isn't he still building a new hilltop on a hill outside Santiago de Compostella? Can't be arsed Googling.

Unknown said...

There's always someone on a hill somewhere building, building, building.

rerse, volte face

N__B said...

Crepes in the attic? In civilized countries we use the toilets.