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Monday, June 26, 2006 |
 
Guardian: "Totalitarian architecture shares many of the worst features of modernism. Most obviously, there is its inhuman scale... the styles demonstrate a contempt for all that is unplanned, organic and vernacular.
Mussolini once said: 'Fascism is a glass house'. This was not intended as comment on architecture, but rather on the need for transparency in government. In other words, the Italian dictator was contrasting his regime with the corruption and confusion of the semi-democracy that had preceded it. But that did not stop an architect by the name of Giuseppe Terragni from taking Mussolini at his word and designing a glassy fascist headquarters for the town of Como.
But like all enemies of tradition, they [the modernist architects] forgot that some things never change - not least the truth that a better future can only be built on a human scale."
At best corporate buildings show their disdain for the outside world in an aesthetic elaboration of aloofness and throwing back of light by the glass walls while at the same time allowing the light to enter the building. The ING building (see picture right) is a huge shoe to kick your butt.
Residential buildings are somewhat different, though equally repulsive of the outside world. Like the Piraeus building (picture left) in Amsterdam they are usually made of dark brick, have no protruding parts (no connection with the outside world), no window sills, in short they are prisons with a key created by architects with a totalitarian outlook.
The Piraeus building is a prison. The occupants are not allowed to install flower-boxes or window-boxes because these clash with the totalitarian 'aesthetics'. The central space is not a garden, but a space with steel/concrete slabs like they use in construction. There is a fire escape that resembles a prison staircase. It is pure horror.
Nevertheless the Piraeus building is considered to be one of the highlights of architecture in Amsterdam. But it is an aesthetics that is not human, it is totalitarian.
11:59:24 AM 
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Guardian: "Drug companies are accused today of endangering public health through widescale marketing malpractices, ranging from covertly attempting to persuade consumers that they are ill to bribing doctors and misrepresenting the results of safety and efficacy tests on their products.
In a report that charts the scale of illicit practices by drug companies in the UK and across Europe, Consumers International - the world federation of consumer organisations - says people are not being given facts about the medicines they take because the companies hide the marketing tactics on which they spend billions."
10:56:03 AM
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Independent: "The huge pledges of aid, debt relief and trade reforms that were promised at last year's G8 conference at Gleneagles have not been delivered, according to a report by Action Aid.
Next week sees the first anniversary of the summit, which coincided with the Make Poverty History campaign and Live8 concerts.
Its report, entitled Mission Unaccomplished says millions of lives are still being lost in Africa and the rest of the developing world by the failure of Western countries to live up to the favourable headlines generated by the summit. The charity is calling for the millions of people who supported the Make Poverty History campaign to use the first anniversary to increase pressure on the Government over the failed pledges."
10:50:39 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Hetty Litjens.
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