TOPOPHILIA

Tuan, Y., (1990) Topophilia, A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values. Nee York, Columbia UniversitPress.

page 1
With out self-understanding we cannot hope for enduring solutions to environmental problems, which are fundamentally human problems. And human problems ...... hinge on the psycholohical pole of motivation.

p.53
Has the female a characteristic way of structuring the world that is different from the male?

In every known culture , male and female are assigned distinctive roles; they are taught in childhood to behave in differing ways, .... Dolls and guns.

p.55
When a girl designs an environment, it is usually that of a house interior, ..... in a girl's scene, people and animals are mostly within such an interior or enclosure, and they are primarily .. in a static position. Why static>

Along with tall structures boys play with the idea of collapse; ruins are exclusively male constructions. Does this include decay?

p99A man's belongings are an extension of his personality; to be deprived of them is to diminish, ...his worth as a human being. Capitalism, ...a person in the process of time invests bits of his emotional life in his home, and beyond the home in his neighborhood. ...which in its familiarity protects the human being from the bewilderment of the outside world

London Futures

Mythogeography at the Royal William Victualling Yard

Mythogeography at the Royal William Victualling Yard

http://www.mythogeography.com

Songlines

Chatwin, B., (1988), The Songlines, London: Macmillan Publishers.

p2
Aboriginal creation myths tell of the legendary totemic beings who had wandered over the continent in the Dreamtime, singing out the name of everything that crossed their path-birds,animals, plants. rocks, water-holes-and so singing the world into existence.
p3
Now, in a Europe of mindless materialism, his 'old men' seemed wiser and more thoughtful than ever
p13
the Aboriginals had an earthbound philosophy. the earth gave life to a man; gave him his food, language and intelligence; and the earth took him back when he died. a man's own country' even an empty strech of spinifex, was itself a sacred ikon that must remain unscarred.
'to wound the earth ...is to wound yourself, and if others wound the earth , they are wounding you.
p13
the Aboriginals...were a people who trod lightly over the earth; and the less they took from the earth, the less they had to give in returm.
p17
Aboriginals could not belive the country existed until they could see and sing it...'to exist' is 'to be perceived'.

Home

Blunt, A.,Dowling, R., (2006), Home. London: Routledge.

p22
home is not merely a physical structure or a geogrephical location but always an emotional spacel.
home is neither the dwelling nor the feeling, but the relation between the two.
p23
home does not simply exist, but is made. home is a process of creating and understanding forms of dwelling and belonging.
p49
for Rominies 'domestic rituals'are 'performed in a house, a condtructed shelter, and derive meaning from the protection and confinement a house can provide...it can be an ordinary housenold task such as ...sewing a seam.
p50
home is an idea: an inner geography ....
p52
household guides helped to redefine middle-class domesticity and the feminine attributes on which it was seen to depend, and gave a new status to women at home.
p53
magazines and a growing number of househokd guides helped to redefine middle-class domesticity and the feminine attributes on which it was seen to depend, and gave new status to women at home...throughout its history, the women's magazine has defined its reders 'as women'...femininity is always reprresented in the magazines as fractured....still to be achived. Houshold guides ...both asserting a femimized domesticity and instructing women on its achievements.
p53
resarchers in ...women's history have been reevaluating home economics, developing an understanding of it as a profession that... opened up oportunities for women...some were focused on the home, while others were more concerned with the broader social environment.
p54
the 1950s home increasingly articulated interior design as a form of household management....this discouurse gave women a new capacity to shape there part of the world during the 1940s and 1950s
one the one hande both state and market discourses suggested that women could sweep away the elements of traditional....home designs... on the other, popular magazines also placed a great deal of emphasis on the look of things and on looking itself, further inscribing women's identity within domestic space.
p57
'modern' architects argued that the kitchen should be a machine for cooking in, but this small modern, and efficient space.... completely overlooked ...working class social practice'.
kitchens were to small for a table, but ...reidents ate there...perched up at the ironing board or at the shelf by the hatch.

Walter Benjamin on Architecture

Harrison, C., & Wood, P., (ed), 2003, Art in Theory 1900-2000 An Anthology of Changing Ideas, USA: Blackwell Publishing. Page 525 -526.

Walter Benjamin.

‘Architecture has always represented the prototype of a work of art’.

‘A man who contemplates before a work of art is absorbed by it. He enters into enters into this work of art....In contrast, the distracted mass absorbs the work of art’. 

‘Buildings have been man’s companions since primeval times.... the human need for shelter is lasting.

‘Architecture has never been idle. Its history is more ancient than any other art, and its claim to being a living force has significance in every attempt to comprehend the relationship of the masses to art’.  

my thoughts on the passage

Architecture is a simple way of bringing art to the masses, buildings are appreciated by two senses, touch and sight, the appreciation of the art of architecture is developed by habit, not attentive concentration or contemplation

Navigation.

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'Were the Nabataeans Really Sea Going? How the Nabataean people took to sailing ships? The speed at which they did this might be considered remarkable, if it were not for the fact that navigating in a featureless desert is very similar to navigating on a featureless ocean'

'The basics of this navigation, whether it be used on the high seas, or in the depth of the Arabian desert.'

'However, not all Arab tribes knew how to navigate by the stars. Indeed, only a very few had this skill, as even today only the Slayb tribe are known as the trackers and guides in the desert. (See: Where are the Nabataeans Today?) Many early sailors sailed along the coast, always keeping land in site. In this way, they simply harbor-hoped along the coast. One wonders what sea captain would have committed himself to the emptiness of the open sea without a knowledge of navigation by the stars. It would seem a small step however, for desert traveling Nabataean merchants to move on to being ocean traveling merchants, if they had the occasion to own ships and the need to transport goods by them.'

'Modern navigation includes three aspects. Finding latitude, longitude and accurate time-keeping. By knowing one's location and the speed of their travel a person can accurately navigate across featureless landscapes.'

'qiyas 
Before the invention of the compass, watch, and the sextant, the mariner's main guide was latitude. To obtain their latitude, Arabs measured the altitude above the horizon to a known star, and then deduced from this the altitude of the Pole Star, (since the Pole Star was the one star that did not move in the sky). In some cases ancient navigators measured directly the altitude of the Pole Star. This was the simplest method, and was known as the science of qiyas. The easiest method was to use the width of a finger. When held at arm's length, the width of four fingers was considered to measure 4 isba'. In a 360 degree circle there were 224 isba'. It was considered that a day's sailing due north would raise the Pole Star 1 isba' from the horizon. For those traveling on land, the isba' was further divided into 8 zam. Thus land distances were often measured in zams.'

'kamal 
A more accurate, but still simple instrument was known as a kamal. This was a small parallelogram of horn or wood measuring about one by two inches with a string inserted in the center. On the string were nine knots at measured intervals.'

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The end of the string was held in the teeth. The lower edge of the horn was placed on the horizon while the horn was moved along the string until the upper edge touched the required star. The knot at which the horn covered the exact distance signified a certain number of isba' of altitude of the star. The altitude of the Pole Star could then be deduced from the rahmani.

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An alternative way of using a kamal was to move the knots through the teeth until the piece of horn or wood covered the required star altitude.

Vasco da Gama's pilot from Malindi used a kamal, and the Portuguese adopted it and eventually modified the spacing of the knots to measure degrees.

Sometimes Arab and Indian seamen added extra knots marking the latitudes of particular ports of call, or they simply used a kamal on which all the knots indicated particular ports of call.

(unknown) 2002 [online]  Available at: http://nabataea.net/sailing.html