Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Blink & Breaking Ground
I have been enjoying reading non-fiction lately. I have to admit, that very little of it absorbs me quite the way that fiction does, but it is an interesting area to explore a bit more. I find the ego a little more prevalent in non-fiction. You hear the author either speaking in the first person or arguing their own ideas, usually from a rather personal point of view.
Two most recent non-fiction books are Blink by Malcom Gladwell and Breaking Ground by Daniel Libeskind. I am still trudging through the little book Blink, but I finished Breaking Ground today after work. Both are very fast and easy reads.
Blink is an interesting little book that deals with Malcom Gladwell’s concept of “thin slicing.” He argues that most people actually make very fast and accurate judgments/decisions/inspirations in a split second then spend the rest of the time trying to justify the decision. He argues that we make these quick decisions behind the “locked door” of our unconscious. Your unconscious sifts through your prior knowledge, associations and returns a fairly accurate response. The more expert you are at a subject the better your response. He backs up all of this with some really interesting psychological experiments and anecdotal evidence (that is not always accurate).
I usually love anything about cognitive science, but this kinda reads like a really long magazine article. Sure it is researched, but I am not sure how solid it is. He does not seem to ever really get very deep. It all remains fairly surface, although that is the premise for Blink, fast recognition. I am not sure that is how I would really put together a theory. If you feel like a little more meat in your cognitive science, my friend Richard suggestes The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities by Gilles Fauconnier as an excellent book.
Ok, on to Breaking Ground by Daniel Liebeskind. I found this a really interesting book to read at the same time as Blink. Liebeskind talks extensively how he has a flash of an idea that is born fully formed like Athena from Zeus’ head. This is something that Gladwell argues comes from behind the “locked door.” The moment of inspiration after soaking in the problem. I enjoyed the happy coincidence.
Have you seen any of the designs for the master plan of the new World Trade Center? Well, that is some of Daniel Liebeskind’s work. He also designed the new annex for the Denver Art Museum. His work is very untraditional. He approaches each building in a more esoteric mode than your typical architect. His designs are very cutting edge yet incredibly compelling to me.
The book is an anecdotal journey of his creative process, theory, personal history, gossip about the architecture world and book to argue why he is a genius when it comes to architecture. Each chapter loosely centers on its theme: Foundations, A Sense of Place, Building, Faces, Hertzblut, The Proposal, The Invisible, Materials, Forced Marriage, Faith. Breaking Ground rambles on in an organic kind of way explaining his position in the world with stories of childhood and various projects he has worked on. A major theme is overcoming obstacles, which he has had his share.
I have to say that I loved his family stories, it gave me a wonderful view of how he became the person he is. I loved his creative process, he has an amazing take on the world and brings it into his work amazingly. I found his stories about the personalities of the architecture world catty and gossipy. I could have done without his characterizations of some really well known people, it made me feel that he was using his book to get back at these people and to prove to the world how he is the better person. In my opinion, if he were such a great person it would not be necessary to drag these people through the mud as he does. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any love for the people who he gossiped about, but it just felt like such an unprofessional thing to do. Breaking Ground begins beautifully and ends on a bit of a sour note as he shares a lot about the personalities involved in rebuilding the WTC
Two most recent non-fiction books are Blink by Malcom Gladwell and Breaking Ground by Daniel Libeskind. I am still trudging through the little book Blink, but I finished Breaking Ground today after work. Both are very fast and easy reads.
Blink is an interesting little book that deals with Malcom Gladwell’s concept of “thin slicing.” He argues that most people actually make very fast and accurate judgments/decisions/inspirations in a split second then spend the rest of the time trying to justify the decision. He argues that we make these quick decisions behind the “locked door” of our unconscious. Your unconscious sifts through your prior knowledge, associations and returns a fairly accurate response. The more expert you are at a subject the better your response. He backs up all of this with some really interesting psychological experiments and anecdotal evidence (that is not always accurate).
I usually love anything about cognitive science, but this kinda reads like a really long magazine article. Sure it is researched, but I am not sure how solid it is. He does not seem to ever really get very deep. It all remains fairly surface, although that is the premise for Blink, fast recognition. I am not sure that is how I would really put together a theory. If you feel like a little more meat in your cognitive science, my friend Richard suggestes The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities by Gilles Fauconnier as an excellent book.
Ok, on to Breaking Ground by Daniel Liebeskind. I found this a really interesting book to read at the same time as Blink. Liebeskind talks extensively how he has a flash of an idea that is born fully formed like Athena from Zeus’ head. This is something that Gladwell argues comes from behind the “locked door.” The moment of inspiration after soaking in the problem. I enjoyed the happy coincidence.
Have you seen any of the designs for the master plan of the new World Trade Center? Well, that is some of Daniel Liebeskind’s work. He also designed the new annex for the Denver Art Museum. His work is very untraditional. He approaches each building in a more esoteric mode than your typical architect. His designs are very cutting edge yet incredibly compelling to me.
The book is an anecdotal journey of his creative process, theory, personal history, gossip about the architecture world and book to argue why he is a genius when it comes to architecture. Each chapter loosely centers on its theme: Foundations, A Sense of Place, Building, Faces, Hertzblut, The Proposal, The Invisible, Materials, Forced Marriage, Faith. Breaking Ground rambles on in an organic kind of way explaining his position in the world with stories of childhood and various projects he has worked on. A major theme is overcoming obstacles, which he has had his share.
I have to say that I loved his family stories, it gave me a wonderful view of how he became the person he is. I loved his creative process, he has an amazing take on the world and brings it into his work amazingly. I found his stories about the personalities of the architecture world catty and gossipy. I could have done without his characterizations of some really well known people, it made me feel that he was using his book to get back at these people and to prove to the world how he is the better person. In my opinion, if he were such a great person it would not be necessary to drag these people through the mud as he does. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any love for the people who he gossiped about, but it just felt like such an unprofessional thing to do. Breaking Ground begins beautifully and ends on a bit of a sour note as he shares a lot about the personalities involved in rebuilding the WTC
# posted by lyskie @ 10:09 PM 
