BLDBLOG just gets better and better. It fits my worldview rather precisely, coming up with gems like this that make me want to punch the air and shout "YES!". Many years ago on a visit to Istanbul I went to see Aya Sofia, one of the oldest church/mosques in the world, a wonderful buttressed historic building that has seen the rise and fall of empires many times. The vast austere interior was at the time filled floor to ceiling with wooden scaffolding that rose dramatically into the heights. It was not just scaffolding around the edges of the building; it filled the interior, creating a strange interior space that could not be penetrated but which could be looked through. My partner and I agreed that it was as interesting as the building itself.
And now:
A Social Philosophy of Buttresses
Support Structures is a manual for what bears, sustains, and props, for those things that encourage, care for, and assist; for that which advocates, articulates; for what stands behind, frames, and maintains: it is a manual for those things that give support. While the work of supporting might traditionally appear as subsequent, unessential, and lacking value in itself, this manual is an attempt to restore attention to one of the neglected, yet crucial modes through which we apprehend and shape the world.
