LETTER no. 32 gn 101 si e Week no.5: Visiting You. Thursday D Week 5 Design 101 MOOC, Abadir for iversity sday Thur 1 032/10 Greetings from Brasília,
A modernist dream city imagined and planned by Lucio Costa and the great Oscar Niemeyer. Beautiful organic shapes that appear here and there.
Very early this morning, Victor Prôa took us on an excursion to the rainforest, in a special place where he discovered his so-called “flower power”. Magically, a magnificent flower grew before our very eyes.
The term “flower power” comes from Allen Ginsberg (a man abundant of curious ideas). During the Vietnam War, peace protesters, also known as flower children, would give flowers to policemen, press and politicians.
Our own “flower power” has proved that it’s never out of fashion to spread some #lovelove. As Robert Plant once said, “How can you consider flower power outdated? The essence of my lyrics is the desire for peace and harmony. That’s all anyone has ever wanted. How could it become outdated?” Question of the day: What did I learn from the other students?
Once again, today’s question is the same as yesterday. So important that we will repeat it three more times.
And by now, you must have a good idea… :-) Collection of nice ones (4)
“Spring is very energizing to me,” said our David Hockney (our spiritual guide).
Today, it’s all about the flowers and their ecosystem. Flowers are one string in a web of interconnected forces, much like our community.
To show (and feel) this principle we have prepared a nice soundtrack, a cumulative one. A soundtrack that will grow along with today’s album.
So, here we go. First, there was the rainforest.
Zlatina Marinova
“The career of a sage is of two kinds: He is either honored by all in the world, Like a flower waving its head, Or else he disappears into the silent forest.” Lao Tzu
Mu Um
“Why not a space flower? Why do we always expect metal ships?” W. D. Richter
Christina Tsita
“The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.” Leo Buscaglia Mafalda Elias
Then, some chirping...
Natasha Demkina
“Love is the flower you’ve got to let grow.” John Lennon
Samudyatha Subbarama
“A flower blossoms for its own joy.” Oscar Wilde
Claire Bolsens
“A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love.” Max Muller Rebeca Porras Alonso
Then, a gentle rainfall...
Jose Antonio Monzon Muñoz
“Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.” Sigmund Freud
Stanka Shingarova
Then, a heavy rainfall...
Andrew Shapiro
“I’ll always pick you, the prettiest flower that I can find, even if it’s the hardest one to get.” Pon and Zi Swati Srivastava
“The time was ripe for Flower. The vibe was right.” Jody Watley
Dina M. Pugaeva
Then, the rain hits a tin roof.
Sapo Braun
“Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” Hans Christian Andersen
Mark David
“Flowers are so inconsistent!” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Mariela Cordero
“I must have flowers, always, and always.” Claude Monet
Catalina Popa
“A weed is but an unloved flower.” Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Wiam El-Tamami
“I played around with the flowers and the lighting, so that was a good way to educate myself.” Robert Mapplethorpe
Sadia Naheen
“I had only to open my bedroom window, and blue air, love, and flowers entered with her”.” Marc Chagall Rajendra Shrestha
Then, a gecko screaming.
Anna Amalfi
Then, some more tweets...
Angshuman Mishra
Then, there were monkeys in trees...
Hala Barakat
“Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity.” John Ruskin. Dragica Nikolovska
“When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.” Paul Cezanne
Anirudh Chawla
“The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition.” Honore de Balzac
Mario Pertile
“The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly.” William Wordsworth
Kaushalia Khanna
Then, some sonar waves. Amalia Cioaba
The thunder stroke.
Kristina Neral
“Her body calculated to a millimeter to suggest a bud yet guarantee a flower.” F. Scott Fitzgerald
Luisa G Costa
“The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.” Jean Giraudoux Design 101. A How-To.
We know we have some late-comers, here are a few instructions on how the whole thing functions...
A typical Design 101 day:
We send you an email around 9 in the morning (Berlin time) with the link to our daily unit + some news, updates, cool Design 101 things we found etc.etc.
Note: you can find all of our previous emails in the “Announcements” section of Design 101 on iversity.
Once you land on the unit’s page, you find our shipment (which consists of a video-postcard + a letter). You watch the video, read our letter, get to work and complete the assignment (or relax if it’s a weekend day). For even more fun, you can always refer to the Design 101 encyclopedia, which is updated every week.
Don’t forget to take part in the conversations of the “Discussions” forum!
Now, going beyond the iversity platform, we have setup other places for us to meet and spread things we do.
On Facebook: the Design 101 page: to follow what’s going on (in general terms) the Design 101 Exercises page: to check out picks (things that fascinate us the most) the Design 101 Arena group: to post your pictures, share your thoughts, emotions, references, lalala… (as a complement to the discussions happening on the platform).
On Twitter, @design1o1: to follow what’s going on + discuss with each other. #design1o1: to connect us all under a same hashtag.
On YouTube: the Design 101 channel: to view + share our video postcards (which is not possible to do from the iversity platform) On Instagram: #design1o1: to connect us all under a same hashtag.
Regarding the hashtag, make sure to use #design1o1 with an “o” and not a “0”...
:-)
PS
Uploading your homework to the iversity platform is very important in terms of “archiving”. It is the only way we can collect all the things we do in one same place. Once the course ends, it might turn out to be reorganized into a wonderful book and/or exhibition… Today’s postcard
Brazilian Rainforest Proa’s “Flower Power”
Oscar Niemeyer
Sketch by Oscar Niemeyer