The Magnificent Morton Gneiss, Part 19: Tractatus Lithico-Philosophicus | Morton, Minnesota, USA
Once again, looking northeastward at a building on the corner of Main and W. 1st Streets. This photo is a companion to and near-twin of the Part 18 image, taken at a little greater distance.
The passing of the decades has taught me that it's difficult to get enough of a good thing. So I proudly continue my appreciation of this remarkable shoebox store.
In my first, widely read and wildly popular dissertation on the higher aesthetics of this noble edifice, I described not only its polished stone cladding but the brickwork that surmounts it. See that groundbreaking work for more on the latter.
Now, however, let's really focus on the Morton Gneiss. It is, in the lingo of Postmodernist architects, contextually appropriate. And how; this rock was extracted from the Earth's crust in the quarry only two blocks, more or less, from here.
The way in which the cladding panels have been set into the facade, without any obvious intent to create book-matched or even slightly coordinated patterns on a scale larger than each individual section, can also be seen on the classiest of Art Moderne skyscrapers. There, if not here, money was no object and the skill of the masons was of the highest order.
This surrender to the stone's intrinsic chaos suggests that the Morton Gneiss is trying to tell us something. It's saying that it will be used only on its own terms, and in reference to nothing else, including itself. Each square or rectangle of this stone is its own primordial cosmos caught before it began to organize itself into recognizable structures.
This gives each Morton Gneiss installation of any size the unsetting look of a nascent multiverse viewed through a prism. Which reality will you choose to visit? Will you ever emerge?
If this sounds too far-fetched, spend a few minutes exploring the cladding here. Take a ride on its amphibolite rafts, follow the trackways of its pegmatite swirls, and careen about its gneissic-banding roundabouts. You'll find this stone immerses you in its own Archean world the way no other can.
In fact, the Morton is so antisymmetric, agitating, unattached, and inchoate that I'm surprised that designers agree to use it at all. Are they giving in to something much bigger and older than their own egos? That would be a heartening sign and a way forward.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this set, visit my Magnificent Morton Gneiss album.
The Magnificent Morton Gneiss, Part 19: Tractatus Lithico-Philosophicus | Morton, Minnesota, USA
Once again, looking northeastward at a building on the corner of Main and W. 1st Streets. This photo is a companion to and near-twin of the Part 18 image, taken at a little greater distance.
The passing of the decades has taught me that it's difficult to get enough of a good thing. So I proudly continue my appreciation of this remarkable shoebox store.
In my first, widely read and wildly popular dissertation on the higher aesthetics of this noble edifice, I described not only its polished stone cladding but the brickwork that surmounts it. See that groundbreaking work for more on the latter.
Now, however, let's really focus on the Morton Gneiss. It is, in the lingo of Postmodernist architects, contextually appropriate. And how; this rock was extracted from the Earth's crust in the quarry only two blocks, more or less, from here.
The way in which the cladding panels have been set into the facade, without any obvious intent to create book-matched or even slightly coordinated patterns on a scale larger than each individual section, can also be seen on the classiest of Art Moderne skyscrapers. There, if not here, money was no object and the skill of the masons was of the highest order.
This surrender to the stone's intrinsic chaos suggests that the Morton Gneiss is trying to tell us something. It's saying that it will be used only on its own terms, and in reference to nothing else, including itself. Each square or rectangle of this stone is its own primordial cosmos caught before it began to organize itself into recognizable structures.
This gives each Morton Gneiss installation of any size the unsetting look of a nascent multiverse viewed through a prism. Which reality will you choose to visit? Will you ever emerge?
If this sounds too far-fetched, spend a few minutes exploring the cladding here. Take a ride on its amphibolite rafts, follow the trackways of its pegmatite swirls, and careen about its gneissic-banding roundabouts. You'll find this stone immerses you in its own Archean world the way no other can.
In fact, the Morton is so antisymmetric, agitating, unattached, and inchoate that I'm surprised that designers agree to use it at all. Are they giving in to something much bigger and older than their own egos? That would be a heartening sign and a way forward.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this set, visit my Magnificent Morton Gneiss album.