10(+) MORE architects i have been thinking about

Thread is enormous so I am scared to load it and check.

Doctor Casino

here's what we were thinking about today:

Ned TRifle was thinking about treehouses - can you blame him?

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/238/521614297_9882c1bfcd.jpg?v=0

and Doctor Casino was alerting us to a Herzog & DeMeuron we might have missed:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3196/3158434490_21b50a3220.jpg

Good idea Jed, that was a lovely thread to watch load ...
10(+) architects I have been thinking about
...but, yeah, getting big!

I'm on board - thanks, Jed.

The HdM above, fyi, is condos at 40 Bond Street in Manhattan. More photos starting here. Very neat, I think, and some interesting ideas going on with the fence, which suggests an upside-down arcade, some kind of hedgee, and a reinterpretation of graffiti. The shiny metal stuff on the ground level is recycled from their Forum 2004, which seems like a smart move to me.

LOVE the calligraphic fencing and like the rest of 40 Bond, but there's something lacking in the overall effect. The elements seem unrelated to one another. Like, "here's this moderately cool buidling ... and here's this ASTOUNDING decorative detail glued on for no particular reason." I've got nothing against ornamentation for its own sake, but I want all the pieces to fit together, somehow.

It's got a lovely lock!

Here's another one I've been thinking about. I mentioned this on the weird buildings thread but it's not really weird.
http://mocoloco.com/archives/jackson_clements_burrows.jpg
Jackson Clements Burrows Architects

The house shows a projection of the house it replaces.

You can read more about it on the architects website
http://www.jcba.com.au/
...but (like ALL architects websites) it's a pain to navigate and this one has an added clicky noise.

Here's another one of the same architects. They do nice houses.
http://www.contemporist.com/photos/cape_schank_010.jpg

I've found a better picture of the house in Melbourne with architects explanation.
http://static.worldarchitecturenews.com/project/uploaded_files/713_385%20Jon%20Clements%20HOTY%20Old%20House.jpg
The site was controlled by a Heritage overlay which favoured the retention of existing dwellings. In response to the clients desire to demolish the existing house, we proposed a strategy to replace the dilapidated cottage with a new house integrated within a supergraphic image of its former self.

a supergraphic image

lol architects.

Is the issue the redundancy of "graphic" and "image"? Because I get what they're going for, in that "supergraphic" refers to a specific history/movement/motif of the late 60s and early 70s, so it's an adjective modifying "image." I dunno.

contenderizer - I agree to an extent that the green grid of windows has rather little to do with the graffiti wall, but I'm also kind of okay with that. And I'm still convinced there's something going on here in reference to Aldo Rossi but I can't really explain it coherently yet...

tell more more of this supergraphic movement?

I wanted to be 40 Bond's biggest fan but seeing it in person was more than a little underwhelming. I don't know if I can elaborate much but it was an "is this all there is?" kind of moment.

Well, I mean...it's just condos, y'know?

re: supergraphics - kind of a non-architectural architectural movement growing out of Op Art and a general interest in grooooovy environments through graphics. A Flickr search should turn up some typical images...here's a nice one:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3285/2452013495_bb213fa33d_o.jpg

You know, that stuff.

John McMorrough writes in Hunch 11:

Supergraphics are those big arrows, numbers or words painted on walls and seen throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. Though clearly a minor occurence within the annals of architectural history during its time as a fad, it received some amount of critical attention. It was, for a time, presented as an answer (or at least a tool) to elevate to the aesthetic, social problems facing the man-made environment.

Basically, the appeal was that with just a thin coat of paint you could - without doing anything traditionally associated with architecture or interior design - transform the social conditions of a space, let's say from "boring, uptight, 1950s corporation" to "swinging, hip, groovy 1960s corporation." The limitations of this are probably pretty apparent, but that was the thinking at the time, as I understand it.

OK, fair dos, they were not just being pretentious then! (maybe just a little).

Well, they are architects. ;)

<3 all of you

also, are there any wittgenstein/popper-esque stories about famous architects beefing? i never encounter these. are architects just chill?

ALSO: do people exist who find this style strictly beautiful?

http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/oreilly/IMAGE017.jpg

Not interesting, not important, just awesomely beautiful.

Not me, but you will find a lot of love for, and images of, that breed of blocky, primary-colored postmodernism in arch. magazines from the late 80s through the mid-90s - GA would be a good place to look I think. Also the later works of Aldo Rossi and Michael Graves, off the top of my head.

Yeah, that's a Graves there. I just can't stand that kind of thing, and I've worried about it a lot and can't figure out why! The colors, the shapes...I'm just repelled by it all. Maybe it comes from being a child of the 80s and being inundated with suburban sprawl (vaguely) reminiscient of the above. I really don't know.

Damn straight, I love that deep blocky, colourful architecture, and naturally I love Aldo Rossi (these are great)and certain things by Michael Graves.

Also see that Loyola Law school by Frank Gehry, which, being somewhat of a Gehry-naysayer myself, I think is way better than his other stuff.

http://www.pixelmap.com/images/Arch/dma_gehry_23.jpg

x-post, that is

Wait, you can't stand it/are repelled by it, but still find it awesomely beautiful?

Just personally, I think a lot of this stuff does play out in a really plainly dialectic fashion - so a lot of that stuff emerged specifically out of people being sick of white-box modernism in whatever its forms, which the architects in question had all been inundated with in their own formative years. And so similarly, we grew up in a world where every movie theater, doctor's office, student rec center, etc. looked like THAT stuff and we can't bloody stand it.

This is an oversimplification in a lot of ways - the architects in question are a lot smarter than I'm giving them credit for - but it does play a role.

The other story (in terms of how it became so ubiquitous) is that postmodernism's own hype had to do with communicating directly with the people, providing symbols that could be understood, etc. Whether or not the people could understand them, it reflects an interest in playing ball with the market. The architects themselves were singing the voices of cheap materials, historical quotation, and so on. The color palette might just be zeitgeist - I mean the 80s and early 90s were not, in my opinion, great times for color in general...

As a side note, I'm learning to leave room in my own tastes for things I Just Plain Like and Just Plain Don't Like, even if I can't intellectualize them yet. I can't fully rationalize my hatred of the 80s stuff or my love of Art Nouveau, the latter's just pretty and the former's just grody.

I'm generally just interested in them on aesthetic levels, especially when they're really pared down, minimal forms.
cf. http://farm1.static.flickr.com/21/29467421_191cb9f563.jpg?v=0
Michael Graves, on the other hand, does tend to be repulsive in, I guess, depending on 'postmodernism's own hype' and tend to make some disgusting buildings. Stuff like the above, though, I really like.
It feels like forever since I read anything about architecture though, so I'm out of touch.

the above meaning that Theatre Square building.

Xpost to myself, I misread your post. And the answer is yes, me.

I don't mind the early Rossi (the image mehlt's just posted for example) which I think is onto a specifically interesting kick about type, history, collective memory, a lot of other dry and spooky stuff that makes a lot of sense for something like a crematorium. Rossi runs into trouble later trying to articulate things like conference centers and I don't know what else, but they start getting gross IMO.

Early Graves is also really good - let's say pre-1980, but there might be some good stuff later. In general I'm interested in everything about postmodernism EXCEPT the historicist language and material palette of the 1980s. Like, if you read Venturi's Complexity and Contradiction, everything he's talking about sounds great - complexity, multiplicity, layering of meaning, etc. The Hollein I posted to the last thread would be an example of that (to me), or for that matter this Ricardo Bofill project which I don't think I posted:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3205/2782368241_b5f7c28885.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3224/2783232228_a3d7163df8.jpg

The language is cloying, but the spaces are fantastic!

x-post, that is

Wait, you can't stand it/are repelled by it, but still find it awesomely beautiful?

― Girlfriend, you've been scooped like ice cream (mehlt), Friday, January 2, 2009 9:27 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

No, I find it awesomely ugly, I was asking if anyone else found it awesome beautiful.

Postmodernism breaks my heart, it's architecture's loss of innocence. Before that there had always been a utopian bent to the profession - even if the buildings were failures there was at least a continual hope and search for a better way to do things and a desire to lift society. Postmodernism purposefully stepped away from that in the face of modernism's defeat and didn't aspire to anything greater than a series of classical reference punchlines without the dignity of proportion. The buildings were never going to be awesomely beautiful because they weren't even trying to be, which is sad. I love beaux arts neoclassicism because it was at least made with a real BELIEF in classicism, I don't think postmodernists believed in anything.

Hrm, well, I think that varies a bit...one thread of postmodernism was certainly the "Collage City"/Jane Jacobs line (that eventually leads to new urbanism) where there's an active project of trying to save the city, move away from the monumental and embrace the fabric - that seems like a project with social ambition to me. Or in the Bofill posted above, maybe those images don't quite get it across but there was a clear desire to give "palaces to the people," quoting history specifically to create something that the residents would recognize as grand and honorific.

I used to think that the only thing unifying about postmodernist thought (or the only thing postmodernists "believe in") is a rejection of enlightenment ideals, but that's obviously glossing over a lot. For me, it is easy to view Modernism as truly beautiful as applied to one building, but equally as easy to view it as one-note as an archtectural movement, and even potentially oppressive. One manifestation of post-modernism's "social concern" (lol) would be multivalence, and the presentation of a variety (I was going to say "of aesthetic sensibilities", but I think "variety" is enough).

Yes - and then you have even more severe examples like Lucien Kroll (I think it's Kroll) where the architect's office has an open door, serving soda to the people who are going to live in the building and inviting them to make design decisions. Or Leon Krier, who believed that industrial building practice was so dehumanizing that it was better not to build, so as to avoid participating in the alienation of the worker. Postmodernism was a big umbrella, for a while there - I mean if you read an early edition of Jencks's Language of Post-Modern Architecture it really seems exciting. By the fifth or sixth edition all the photos look like the late Graves and the jig is up.

Oh, and I finally posted my pics of WORKac's Public Farm 1. On the previous thread, I wrote:

"re: P.F.1 - Yeah, it was great - particularly in light of the kind of stuff that typically wins. They seem to feel that the committee or jury or whoever realized they were getting really tired of atmospheric projects. "We could have won last year, but not ten years ago." It was refreshing to me as a living example of Dutch-ness here on our shores (they both worked at OMA) by architects young enough that you could imagine "hey, that could be me!" So that's always going to be encouraging. But I also loved how much it was filled in with fun little gimmicks and gizmos - the periscope, the audio and video of working farms, the chicken coop...it was cool."

Extended, archi-nerd ramblings here.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3088/3168274579_7f3be8bd3d.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3261/3168038169_3319f1dd4e.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1144/3167947285_c3d182ea3f.jpg

Jencks's Language of Post-Modern Architecture

This is what got me into architecture in the first place!

Haha! Just read it last year after it seemed to keep coming up. Good stuff, I read a later-ish edition that was starting to really drag by the end though. Needed a fresh edit I think, got repetitious, but as a showcase of just neat stuff and ideas the first half is essential. The "Death of Modern Architecture" chapter is classic.

I still remember where I was when I read that.

...don't leave us hanging!

Well, it's not exciting in re: this thread, but I was in Nashville sitting on a couch at Douglas Corners waiting to go play a show. It's just a vivid memory because I enjoyed the reading so much.

Know just what you mean - although in these grad school years there's pretty much one of three places I'm ever reading anything.

i got the other thread locked, i hope no one objects to this? i think it's just confusing having 2 threads being revived and it's more of a rolling discussion thread at this point so it makes sense. if you do i'm sure we can get it reopened.

last post on the previous thread was hyggeligt helpfully linking us to SpaceInvading

http://www.spaceinvading.com/

thanks for that, it's actually a great link and saves quite a bit of trawling around various different blogs although it still has links to those blogs for more description, which is cool.

Sou Fujimoto Architects' Wooden House. love it or hate it, you've never seen anything like it.

http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/293969968_13.jpg

http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/636003070_02.jpg

http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/1789314738_01.jpg

http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/1483004884_detailed-section.jpg

!!!

I think anybody who ever had blocks as a kid has seen something like it.

ha, i was just about to add a similar caveat.

BLOOMFRAME®
The BLOOMFRAME® breaks out of the 2-dimensional facade to add to the usable space in this innovative design by Hofman Dujardin Architects.

prototype that is expected to go into actual production early this year:

http://www.architecture-page.com/assets/images/content/prd_hofm_bloo/2.jpg
http://www.architecture-page.com/assets/images/content/prd_hofm_bloo/3.jpg
http://www.architecture-page.com/assets/images/content/prd_hofm_bloo/1.jpg

Bloomframe® is an innovative window frame that can be transformed into a balcony allowing an increase in usable space with minimal intervention.

Bloomframe® offers the user a flexible living environment. By opening the window frame, it is possible to walk out through the facade and to enjoy a comfortable balcony. The dynamic balcony enables adding outdoor space to compact apartments in urban high-rise areas.

The Bloomframe® balcony can be operated automatically with a simple push of the button. The system includes provisions to guarantee collapse safety during opening and closing.

The drive consists of an rpm-controlled electric motor that operates the balcony at two points via an auto-braking reduction (drop safety). The movement is transferred by tie rods from these linear guides.

The fully open position is limited mechanically, which guarantees optimum safety of the converted balcony. The application of a combined powered/mechanical movement makes the system user-friendly and easy to open and close for everyone.

I don't think I really understand the Bloomframe? It creates a not very attractive half-window when closed and doesn't seem to offer any advantages over a regular building other than potentially animating the building facade more - and you have to keep your patio furniture inside when you're not using it. I think I'd like it more with a glass bottom panel since it'll be up 80% of the time.

SpaceInvading is one of my favorite things about 2009

I'm glad so many designers are doing these weird 3D circulation intensive tiny houses/follies, but I'd sure like to see some upholstery in them or at least first aid kits for the inevitable bloody heads.

bloomframe would be cooler if the patio furniture folded out with it, like a pop-up book.

I'd like that! Or if the patio furniture was permanently secured to it so it stuck out from the inside wall of your house when closed.

and if it wasn't the color of an HVAC component.

haha yeah it looks like a big access panel.

well, i love it. obviously it doesn't have to be khaki/grey, it can be any colour, i would imagine. the bottom half could possibly be glass but people have vertigo. white steel is fine by me. also you just sit on a chair that you have in your lounge, or whatever. i wouldn't imagine you would have specific furniture for it unless it was some cheap folding deck chair you could keep in a cupboard?

haterz

I'm getting one

me too, on m4ryhi11 road end.

Yay new thread!

Doctor Casino, though you are a medical man with a gambling problem so far as I can tell from login name, I do like your flickr. It has been very good recently.

Jencks's Language of Post-Modern Architecture

Which edition is the better one to start with? Is this book the same one under a different name?

I like the Bloomframe! I think it could be a real boon to new apartments. I loathe buildings like the blocky ones upthread. They are just grotesque monoliths hammering the pedestrian down with sheer BLOCK COLOURS. Just awful.

I'm glad so many designers are doing these weird 3D circulation intensive tiny houses/follies, but I'd sure like to see some upholstery in them or at least first aid kits for the inevitable bloody heads.

Ha!

hi architects

looking at going on a solo field trip in march. probably europe. have been thinking of istanbul but that's just because I'd like to go there. where would you go? for like six days or so. money is an object but where would you go?

Where to begin! I've only really done Western Europe (no further east than Vienna) and with huge swaths of untouched territory in there. My gut says you kind of can't screw it up in terms of travel, life experience, food, all that kind of stuff - are you trying to see the maximum amount of architecture possible or just have a great trip where you also see some fab buildings?

hyggeligt - thanks! It'll be dormant again for a while, I am now entering my last studio at school and am busy, plus obviously not traveling.

re: That 2002 Jencks - it certainly SOUNDS like a revised edition of the original - Now rewritten and with two new chapters, the seventh edition brings the history up to date with the latest twists in the narrative, and the turn to a new complexity in architecture. Rewritten with new chapters didn't really serve the previous editions all that well - just started to feel aimless and tacked-on-to. But enough time had passed that I could imagine the 2002 volume being interesting, and I appreciate anything that calls out and explores the fundamentally postmodern qualities of 90s computer projects (Greg Lynn et al). Dunno... haven't read the new bits so I dunno if it's worth it or not.

Is okay, jealousy at fancy locations was eating in to my soul anyway. Could do with the spiritual break! (xpost)

Thanks for that Dr Cas, will chance it and see when I'm flush.

I should have said - have been to budapest, vienna, brno, prague, zurich, basel, madrid, barcelona, rome, florence, naples, berlin, munich, paris, krakow, amsterdam, rotterdam, brussels and others and places in between like leon in spain and vals in switzerland etc. and some UK stuff (I'm in scotland)

so, having never been up to copenhagen/oslo/stockholm/gothenberg/helsinki/tallinn/riga...I'm interested but don't have a ready idea of what's the best destination. not limited to europe other than in terms of the money issue

was looking at v cheap flights to oslo but hostels there seem on the expensive side. cheap flights and accommodation for gdansk but...I don't know if there's that much to see and can't seem to find good info

great trip w/ fab buildings would be fine but as much architecture as poss would be more justifiable in a way

that's a lot of places. are you in glasgow?

i hear Lisbon is lovely (and cheap on easyjet)

what about croatia? supposed to be gorgeous.

in glasgow yes (I mentioned conrad to you at a party on new years morning but it was early and late so I don't blame you for forgetting!)

had thought about lisbon and about porto too but was looking for something direct hoping to minimise cost and travel time

marseille? venice??

I should have found a better thread to ask this stuff as I obviously haven't been thinking about enough architects

I love the Bloomframe and I would sit in a Panton chair in it.

ah yes, i remember conrad.

venice yeah, go there. march is a good time to go, i think. i want to go back because i was only there for a day and a half but i loved it.

marseille i remember being quite rough but it's good to go and see the unité.

I would say Copenhagen is well worth the visit!

Copenhagen is rich with stuff - see the Flickr stream and sets of user seier_seier_seier. Really interested in going myself. Here's an email seier wrote me when I was considering a trip:

****

difficult question, copenhagen in two days...

copenhagen is pretty expensive (as is the rest of scandinavia) especially when coming from the u.s., so I'll recommend you a youth hostel which opened recently in a central office tower (not a tower by american standards, but by danish...you'll see).

www.danhostel.dk/composite-185.htm?HostelId=144&RegionAbb=SN

the same site mentions an even more central hostel opening in april. might be worth checking out:

www.danhostel.dk/composite-185.htm?HostelId=2068&RegionAbb=SN

helsinki and stockholm has some OK hostels too, I would look for the hostel in the olympic stadium in helsinki and the hostel on an old boat in stockholm, if I were you.

stockholm, btw, is my favourite city in scandinavia - it is beautiful, has great nature, landscape, architecture, and wom...its a nice place.

[re copenhagen:]

now, what to see....if the weather is good, I would go for places rather than buildings, in bad weather (of which we have plenty) vice versa...

places to see would be:

strandvejen north of copenhagen, the coastal road leading through the well off suburbs to the north, great on a summers day, will take you past lots of fine sites, including good buildings like arne jacobsen in klampenborg:

www.flickr.com/photos/seier/515032609/in/set-72157600269237235/
www.flickr.com/photos/seier/515004940/in/set-72157600269237235/
www.flickr.com/photos/seier/515030853/in/set-72157600269237235/
www.flickr.com/photos/seier/515031363/in/set-72157600269237235/

and utzon's related housing projects in fredensborg and elsinore:

www.flickr.com/photos/andrewpaulcarr/319888268/
www.flickr.com/photos/seier/1544636977/in/set-72157600103941003/

there is a fine renaissance castle in elsinore which inspired shakespeare a few years ago...can't miss it.

the louisiana museum of modern art in humlebæk is a hugely influential building from the fifties, taking the formal out of the museum and putting in nature instead. lots of contemporary architects has named this building as an inspiration, including nouvel, foster and herzog + de meuron.

oh, hang on, from elsinore the thing to do would be to take the ferry to sweden (30 minutes) and drive to klippan to see the lewerentz church

www.flickr.com/photos/seier/528487325/in/set-72157600288780668/

now, that's a whole day in a rented car, so maybe you'll prefer to stay in the city...

there's christiania free town, www.flickr.com/photos/seier/1244185274/in/set-72157603843053592/, a good place to see in the evening, food and bars and a very different street scene.

should the sun shine, the island of amager, formerly known as the ass hole of copenhagen, is seeing some very interesting change these years...on a sunny afternoon, former working class and industrial neighbourhood "islands brygge" is full of young copenhageners sunbathing and swimming in the habour. it is really lively and some of the gir...MVRDV has one of their best buildings nearby:

www.flickr.com/photos/feil/113830815/

further east, on the amager coast facing sweden, is another interesting industrial area undergoing radical change. surrounded by large scale infrastructure like a wind mill park, the airport and the bridge to sweden is a new beach, a huge piece of landscaping very popular with the locals already.

and there's the old town, of course, lots of cafés and shops and the odd arne jacobsen building...

if you are just going for the buildings, I would not miss:

- the foyer of the national bank, arne jacobsen 1961-1978. central copenhagen.
- bagsværd church, utzon. 20 minutes by train from copenhagen.
- klippan church, klippan, sweden. about 2 hours by train, I think.

thanks for that - going to weigh up copenhagen further but it would involve two flights. venice seems like the right choice for a lot of reasons and might be possible w/ some juggling but oslo currently £11 return for four nights is going to be hard to beat even though a cheap hostel has yet to make itself known

strandvejen north of copenhagen, the coastal road leading through the well off suburbs to the north, great on a summers day, will take you past lots of fine sites, including good buildings like arne jacobsen in klampenborg:

Very true. Try and end up at Ordrupgaard. Recently reopened with new wing. Bakken in the Dyrhaven nearby is trippy and good fun (I also think it might be the world's oldest fairground, I spent far too much time there growing up as it was free in unlike Tivoli).

there is a fine renaissance castle in elsinore which inspired shakespeare a few years ago...can't miss it.

Merely a legend alas. The crown jewels are there so well worth a look.

the louisiana museum of modern art in humlebæk is a hugely influential building from the fifties, taking the formal out of the museum and putting in nature instead. lots of contemporary architects has named this building as an inspiration, including nouvel, foster and herzog + de meuron.

Yes. Avoid visiting if there's a rehang because the permanent collection isn't huge for the trip involved. Another good gallery is the Glyptotek near Radhuspladset. Carlsberg money built and filled it. Lovely stuff.

there's christiania free town, www.flickr.com/photos/seier/1244185274/in/set-72157603843053592/, a good place to see in the evening, food and bars and a very different street scene.

Sadly not any more. They've closed down the drug stalls on pusher street and basically developers are moving in. Very sad now. I was there recently and was followed by four police officers. I am obviously sketchy looking.

A harbour tour is also a good idea. That way you get to see the Black Diamon of the royal library from the water and get closer to the new opera house. Rosenborg slot is a baroque palace in the centre of town near Norreport. It was one of Christian IV's vanity projects and well worth seeing.

seier_seier_seier

Check his shots of Venice for more inspiration Conrad. Again, thanks to Doctor Casino I have been following for the past few months. It is a great stream!

I have some Venice and surroundings here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorcasino/sets/72157601373054872/

this is my favorite thing in the world at the moment:

http://www.spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/0401091231094892leoniestair.jpg
http://www.spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/0401091231094893leoniestair3.jpg
http://www.spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/0401091231094893leoniestair2.jpg

by Levitate Architects

haha I thought that first shot was an elevation and was like "whaaaaaaat?"

That design is a really fantastic thing.

haha, did the same thing!

that stairbookcase is insanely beautiful: the top image reminds me of this mad dream i used to have as a child about a rabbit-warren library with walls made of earth ane books.

i posted that stairbookcase to the What do your books look like? thread on ILB and stet said:

That looks great, but is functionally crap: you'll kick dirt into the books as you climb, and the ones at eye level are furthest from your eyes.

which kinda boggled me.

well yeah but it's more of a limited space solution than it is a most perfectly accessible behind glass eye level book collection solution.

dezeen maybe needs to work on the color balance for those video interviews they're doing - ross lovegrove looks like a DEMON! I was going to post the pic here but it's actually too frightening so I'll link instead.

http://www.dezeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/rosslovegrove.jpg

ross lovegrove IS a demon. did you watch the Aranda\Lasch one? fancy themselves a bit, don't they?

I just watched it - my gosh I hate it when designers think they're doing something scientific when they're just aping the aesthetics of science.

well exactly. so they do some actually quite beautiful faceted tiles etc. that's good enough! the introduction where one of them keeps reiterating how serious they are actually made me feel quite depressed.

I would be so supportive of them if they said "We like triangles and crystals because they are pretty! We make very expensive things that kind of look like them."

Yeah, the thing is in twenty or thirty years it'll be quite clear that some designers were aggressively interrogating the possibilities of new materials and computer-aided-manufacturing, and others were picking up on the look...but while the former MAY end up more valorized, it's the pretty-looking stuff (from either camp) that will rack up big prices at vintage stores.

Thinking specifically of midcentury furniture here - some of it was made by material geeks trying to figure out how to do things that were never possible before, and some of it was made by people who thought outer space was super neat, but all of it's kind of great.

i couldn't actually work out whether they were trying to take the piss by going on about how serious they were? or do they just have zero sense of humour?

xpost

also, i still don't get the Bloomframe exactly - why not just...have a balcony?

I think they were taking the piss, but trying to be funny by talking about how serious you are only works if you're funny.

i just see it as another way to have a balcony. it's neat and clever and seductive!

Well yeah, transforming stuff is kind of guaranteed to be cool in my book.... but would you ever actually have it in the closed-up position?

I guess it depends on climate really..

if you were in glasgow the question would be - would you ever actually have it in the open position?

No, the question would be - why do you actually live in Glasgow? Ba-dum-CH!

i'd laugh at that if i didn't take myself so seriously.

I beg your pardon; I know next to nothing about Glasgow and am just free-zinging.

;)

http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/1789314738_01.jpg

ok were the designers of Jenga paid off for this

also, "free-zinging"! cute.

I blogged about Michael Graves :/
http://theskyscraperblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/something-about-hating-michael-graves.html

Great Blog Name!

THANKS!

hi, what's happening in architecture? has spaceinvading replaced our lovely thread?

Frozen skyline

And I guess things have got worse since then. Mentions Newhall in Essex, which has some quite interesting smaller houses.

Reversible Destiny Housing by Arakawa and Madeline Gins

Neo-Hundertwasser?

Ooooh speaking of Spaceinvading these are great: http://www.space-invaders.com/ I saw a good few in Paris (including on Picasso's chimney). Great fun!

http://www.space-invaders.com/images/pa636gp.jpg

I've a few on the flickr account thingy but can't post private pics to ILX sadly...

Ha, I've seen a few such things too, never realized it was a movement (or whatever)!

http://www.freewebs.com/jannekevanderlinden/Central-Chinese-Television-CCTV-Beijing%20Rem%20koolhaas.jpg = http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/2/9/1234201284213/Mandarin-Oriental-hotel-f-001.jpg

wtf?!

It's not the actualy 'square' that went up in flames, no? 'Just' one of the buildings next/across it?

Anyway, a sad thing. They had Rem Koolhaas on Dutch TV and he was pretty gutted.

ah yes, the news reports on this are pretty confusing. still an unfinished koolhaas building goes up/down. sad.

this one:

http://www.eikongraphia.com/wordpress/wp-content/OMA%20-%20TVCC%20Exterior.jpg

which i think is hideous but there's little point in discussing that now.

It looks like an uncomfortable chair. Still RIP and all that...

ha, yes it does!

symbol of 2008 starchitect culture inadvertently becomes symbol of 2009 starchitect culture

I've a few on the flickr account thingy but can't post private pics to ILX sadly...

I think you can. At least I have in the past.

guys, teach me about Lebbeus Woods and where to start with his work

Anarchitecture: Architecture is a Political Act is good.

He's a good thinker and a great draftsman - he started out doing renderings in Saarinen's office! Super radical unusable proposals, but at heart he's a big classical softie with all the attendant ideas about the shape of a city reflecting the shape of a culture that you see in Boullee or Alberti's work.

I should look him up - I know him only from the rather stiff treatment Neal Leach gives him in Anaesthetics of Architecture for, I guess, taking formal inspiration from the devastation of Sarajevo? Or something? It's been a little bit and I was reading it in a hurry.

should be 'neil'

guys, teach me about Lebbeus Woods and where to start with his work

― mh, Monday, February 9, 2009 8:18 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^fuckin huge stan of this guy

haha my friend texted me "did you hear about rem's building getting butthaased"

I've a few on the flickr account thingy but can't post private pics to ILX sadly...

I think you can. At least I have in the past.

― The Unbelievably Insensitive Baroness Vadera (Ned Trifle II), Monday, 9 February 2009 21:53

Okay will try.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3163/3062664793_1f0307997b.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3139/3063521590_968bf57fe0.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3069/3063525894_0ab706feb2.jpg?v=0
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3165/3062688335_bce423a48b.jpg?v=0

Yay!

That Q-Bert is great!

This is my favorite that I've seen:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3047/2792887465_d5236d8239.jpg

http://coolboom.net/en/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/house-k-3.jpg

Understated but ratjer cool I think (and reminds me of the Langston Hughes Library that was posted in another thread).

And this house in Paris looks interesting. Although you can't really tell from this pic...
http://static.wallpaper.com/images/98_LIP_jp060209_a.jpg
Lots of pictures at the architects website...
http://www.new-territories.com/lostinparis.htm

Maybe that should be in the fantastic buildings thread...

I love that house! The glass pine cones do look like willies though so A- as final result.

I am jealous of Doc Cas' space invader! My first was on the chimney of that old studio in Montmartre. Too lazy too google it I'm afraid, Picasso did his thang there.

Oh yeah, Francois Roche (the "duck blind" house in Paris) has some great stuff. Check out this project for a museum in Bangkok that would be covered in an ionized mesh that would pull pollution out of the sky and turn the building into a giant fuzzball:

http://www.new-territories.com/images/B_mu_013.jpg

http://www.new-territories.com/images/poussiere.jpg

hyggeligt has obviously seen some stranger willies than i have.

http://www.dezeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/television-cultural-centre-by-oma-squ-3269109950_816e180b9a_b.jpg
http://www.dezeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/television-cultural-centre-by-oma-3268281835_12df22f2da_b.jpg

"The structure was set on fire by stray fireworks fired by revellers celebrating Chinese New Year."

i feel bad about it but i had to stifle a laugh when i read this sentence.

They were either quite some fireworks or the building was not up to code...

well, the building wasn't finished and anyway who knows what chinese building codes are like or if they even have any.

Rem has never been known for his build quality.

His Prada store caught on fire a few years ago, too.

I know that Chinese building codes have been strengthened in the last 30 years (post Tangshan) so, er, building still standing even though burnt to a crisp.

looks better burnt than it ever would have otherwise

Remember that building codes would only have a partial impact in this situation - before occupancy, systems like sprinklers and smoke detectors probably wouldn't have been operational yet, and things like fire doors may not have been installed at this point. There's also a lot of (possibly flammable) construction material (propane tanks!) that may have been around that wouldn't have been in after the building was finished.

Gad! Will they bother trying to finish it do you think or tear it down and start all over again?

It depends on how severe the structural damage is - if the main supports have been warped or otherwise compromised they'll tear it down, if not they'll probably remove the damaged cladding and re-skin it.

i'd be amazed if the stuctural steels weren't buckled out of shape, no?

ps dont know much about this, it's just a guess.

It's quite possible - the smaller exposed members show buckling but the main structure would probably have had all the fire retardants and enclosures in place at this point, and the duration of the fire wasn't that long. I'd imagine they're already testing it to determine structural integrity for immediate safety purposes and for long-term use, and we should know fairly soon.

http://www.dezeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/squclo-wine-bar-by-2x4-08july065521.jpg

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/02/11/clo-wine-bar-by-2x4/

my least favorite project of the year so far - cooooold as hell.

http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/lantern_02_11/l23_17915275.jpg

http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/lantern_02_11/l22_17910347.jpg

http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/lantern_02_11/l24_17910405.jpg

http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/lantern_02_11/l25_17910619.jpg

http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/lantern_02_11/l26_17917969.jpg

http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/lantern_02_11/l27_17917937.jpg

Oh wow!

From the ever great Big Picture blog.

not feeling that clo bar at all. maybe i just need to see more photos.

Srsly, that last pic looks like CGI.

it looks like one of those computer game things.

jed I hope you don't change your mind when you see more photos of Clo - it's terrible! I might have to go see it in person just to confirm.

I DIED, i blanked out the "least" in the "least favorite project" part of your post. and stared at the pictures for a while wondering just what you could like about it...

yes, i find it utterly dated and, as you said, cold as hell.

Anyone interested in prefab LEED certified housing? I know I am!

yep, get me a spacebox while you're at the shop.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/feb/08/adaptation-or-disaster/

what??? Not quite buying this story.

I think there were maybe some errors that wouldn't have been super expensive to fix but somehow it was quite convenient cut out the condo portion which hadn't been selling at all.

this rem koolhaas thing, lord love him, has provided me with more architecture lols than anything ever has iirc

also would smash francois roche, pretty sure

+ would like more info on this pollution house, google is tough on me here

http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/lantern_02_11/l22_17910347.jpg

looks like the end stages of a robot fight

pair of pants beats balled-up chair, sorry dude

"Clash of the Chair titans!" (xpost)

the stonework on this is pretty awe inspiring. the second photo is like o_O

http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/1167062845_wang-shu-ningbo-museum-4124.jpg
http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/470058299_wang-shu-ningbo-museum-4278.jpg
http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/1213211655_wang-shu-ningbo-museum-4405.jpg
http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/982224247_wang-shu-ningbo-museum-4391.jpg

Saw that the other day on SpaceInvading - pretty wicked. What IS it, again? That ramp in the last photo is pretty monumental considering it goes just nowhere at all.

some kind of regional chinese historic museum.

i think the reason it impresses me so much is that i can never think this way, i'm too rigid and reasoned in my thinking but i really admire the look of this. not so sure about the overall context and the interiors.

the Ningbo Historic Museum designed by Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio.

Great firm name!

Thanks for the info. And yeah - I have a tough time bringing in the irrational and the miscellaneous. It's my first instinct to do so, but I can never keep it under control so I end up simplifying the stuff I like best right out of the project.

(This is my last quarter of studio as I may have mentioned and I'm sort of burnt out anyway, don't mind me if the above sounds sort of tragic.)

well overall it's the most useful and productive way to work so i wouldn't get depressed about it.

Comment by roxy lost in the discussion of pomo upthread:

also, are there any wittgenstein/popper-esque stories about famous architects beefing? i never encounter these. are architects just chill?

There are some good ones! Off the top of my head:

* Bernini versus Borromini - the former said the latter had been "sent to destroy architecture." Lots of cute anecdotes about how a project by one would be a deliberate attempt to upstage a project by another - Bernini's fountains in Piazza Navona featuring a statue arguably recoiling in horror from the Borromini building it faces, etc. They were also stereotypical Hollywood opposites - He's a genteel, suave, theatrical architect - he's a low-born geometry nut who bludgeons workmen to death for bad craft!

* Frank Lloyd Wright versus everybody. Ego a-go-go and he didn't take well to the long years of being considered a has-been, eg "the greatest architect of the 19th century" according to MOMA. Refused to meet with Gropius when the latter came to America, and I think there's some story of a really awkward meeting with Mies. There are also some perceived betrayals by his students, I think - I'm pretty sure he fired Soleri for some reason.

* More recently - there was some kind of falling out among the New York Five, possibly relating to the pomo tendencies of some of its members? But they all still support each other's work. Supposedly the generation just after them (Stephen Holl, Williams & Tsien et al) are much more fractious generally but this is just repeating things said by professors; I have no details because, y'know, it's a generational thing to really care. If I'd been following it at the time, it'd probably be as clear to me as Eminem's beef with Triumph the puppet dog, but, well, LOL 1980s u old.

Oh, and not to be missed, Adolf Loos vs. Josef Hoffmann. I'm not sure the latter ever really shot back but Loos couldn't stand Jugendstil/Art Nouveau, and Ornament and Crime is more or less an anti-Hoffmann screed. Great little read, too, if you haven't done it - should be easily found in full-text online. Any architectural text that accuses people of being "either a criminal or a degenerate" has to be good. (Warning, icky early-20th century racism is in full force.)

casino, i love you

hahah, well, I love being in TA mode, so thanks!

Ornament and Crime is probably my next favorite piece of architectural writing after the Futurist Manifesto.

I am now thinking about Frank Gehry because I just saw him on Arthur - complete with Arthur-esque ears.
http://13.media.tumblr.com/1195466_400.jpg
He was also on The Simpsons iirc, which must make him unique among architects I think.

So while we're at it - this is one of his buildings I really like - much less...er...ornamental than his more well known stuff.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Hannover_Gehry-Tower.jpg

What I like about it is that he hasn't really done that much but it's enough. If that makes sense.

haha, he WAS on The Simpsons - note the letter box.
http://blog.davidteoh.com/archives/simp5.jpg
OK, enough Gehry already.

Huh, didn't know about that one in Hannover, or the Arthur appearance...nice!

http://www.dezeen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/kvadrat-showroom-by-peter-saville-and-david-adjaye-2-kvadrat-1.jpg

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/03/20/kvadrat-showroom-by-peter-saville-and-david-adjaye/

awesome what can be done with a showroom that doesn't display anything!

that project is utterly gorgeous.

just drooling over it, makes me happy to have specified mostly Kvadrat fabrics on my current project.

I am not much of a fan which is odd because normally I'm all about the "ooh shiny"!

Has anyone been to Le Courboisier exhibition in The Barbican? I am wondering if it's worth travelling over for.

Eldridge Smerins
http://www.eldridgesmerin.com/img/projects/hampsteadvillage_large6.jpg
http://www.eldridgesmerin.com/img/projects/kithouse_large1.jpg
http://www.eldridgesmerin.com/img/projects/highgatecem_large2.jpg

Lots more pix at the architects website.
I really like the first two there, but the third one I'm in two minds about - firstly the glass corners look a bit awkward i think and second it replaces a fine house by John Winter (which I am struggling to find a photo of sadly). In fact I'm pretty sure it was Winter's own house, which was a lovely floating glass box of a house.

http://www.eldridgesmerin.com/img/projects/hampsteadvillage_large6.jpg

^ prefer the one on the left

i like them both, i think. i would probably prefer to live in the new one.

the middle one was the subject of last week's grand designs (a UK TV show that follows the construction of a house from plans to completion.)

Where did I read about that one on the end? I think NYT or Dezeen. Still. I likes it.

I like all of his things. I don't like Grand Designs. The host (and people responsible for some of the monstrosities) make me v v angry.

the middle one was the subject of last week's grand design

Damn, really? I have given up with the programme specifically because of Kevin McCloud. "When that huge piece of granite fell on your head - how did that feel?" and his constant tone of impending disaster - but I would have liked to have seen more of that house. It's described as "low cost" by the architects, but I notice it has a price tag of £650k on the Grand Designs site. I suppose these things are relative.

^ prefer the one on the left

I lived in a house v. similar to that and it was great in many ways, character, lots of wood, lots of space but it was terrible to heat, terrible to keep clean and bits kept falling off it. I don't know if it's everyone's experience but once a house gets to about 100 years old it really starts to feel it's age. I would have given anything to have moved into "the house next door" there. Also check out this inside wall.
http://www.eldridgesmerin.com/img/projects/hampsteadvillage_large4.jpg

yeah "Low Cost" my arse. the building looked like it was going to be great but the interior was pretty poor, i have to say.

Talking of ceder cladding (I know we weren't but the hpuse on the middle there is) I went to see a housing scheme in Birmingham the other day built in 1917 from pre-fabricated cedar clad houses made in Michigan. A little bit of Americana in the heart of England.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3297/3332809131_ca78a0ffb8.jpg

fwiw, i don't mind kevin mcleod it's the clients that make me mad. more often that not it's a childless couple building a six bedroom house or something. cunts, usually.

I always shout at the TV - WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING!!!??? - and it always turns out to be "consultant" or "interior designer".

I think when an architect says a project is "low cost" it means the client didn't spend as much as the architect wanted them to.

Ha! Everyone OTM.

I used to (as penance for my sins) be responsible for an historically very important Georgian building for more than five years (on top of my day job). Having dealt in parts with conservationists, architects and general "ooh the past was so great why would you ever need CAT-5 cabling?" types of people I now err on the side of modern. Case in point: I'm off in May to check out the Vitra design museum on a visit to the parental units. Why is this a case in point? Well, if I ever have to deal with another sacrosanct building again at least I'll know what fun can be had with a hangar and a bit of money. Bloody architectural sacred cows...

I will admit that I am now a total wood snob. It behoves on on such occasions to be able to spot one's cuban mahogany (phwoar!!!) from one's stained oak.

I will admit that I am now a total wood snob. It behoves on on such occasions to be able to spot one's cuban mahogany (phwoar!!!) from one's stained oak.

co-sign! I'd be lost without my American Woodwork Institute Quality Standards Handbook.

http://spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/resized/2603091238108405frame_bar.05.jpg
http://spaceinvading.com/entry/project_id/Frame_Bar200903261238108397

okay, this seems to be a nice enough design but descriptions like this...

The main aim of the design was to recreate the usual typologies of chairs, benches, bars stands, tables and coffee tables using forms that morph from one geometry to the other, thus denying determined typology - activity associations.

...make me insanely angry. You mean the main aim of the design wasn't to create an enjoyable gathering place or a successful business? The client came to you and said "we are seeking to deny determined typology - activity associations, what do you suggest?" Fuck designers who describe their built projects as anything other than the result of a set of very real client, financial, and regulatory requirements.

I don't mean to dismiss larger design concepts - I just want designers to acknowledge that the concept serves the project rather than the other way around.

YAY PRITZKER

http://mamariapapoila.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/peter_zumthor1.jpg

Nice. I'm pretty sure his chapel was put up somewhere else here(perhaps it was on the other thread) but here's another view of it anyway...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3265/3122721913_bcb11d573d.jpg

Lots of detail on it on the flickr page from whence it came. The photographer,seier+seier+seier, has a big set of architecture photos worth seeing.

Yeah, Seier is the man! Great photos, really selective with what he posts, and obviously a thoughtful writer. Definitely learned a lot from him.

At this point AFAICT the Pritzker is a kind of honorary award for living long enough and doing at least two or three buildings nobody dislikes. It helps that Zumthor lives in a hermit hut in the middle of the Alps (or something to that effect) and hasn't made any enemies. I don't mean to diminish him because I love his buildings - but it's interesting to ask who HASN'T gotten it by now that arguably "should" have... if I ever remember my Archinect login info maybe I'll take it over there though.

^otm

My reaction on hearing who won the Pritzker every year is usually "What? They didn't already have one?"

sure that's partly it but i'm such a staunch fan of zumthor. i really do think he's the best in the world!

plus he was the first architect posted on the 10+ architects thread and that was surely taken into consideration by the panel when they made the decision.

well yeah I mean Zumthor A+ good job well deserved glad it wasn't Pelli etc. etc.

Agreed with all the above.

So perhaps an interesting question would be: who DOESN'T have one yet? The list to date:

1979 Philip Johnson (1906–2005)
1980 Luis Barragán (1902–1988)
1981 Sir James Stirling (1924–1992)
1982 Kevin Roche
1983 Ieoh Ming Pei
1984 Richard Meier
1985 Hans Hollein
1986 Gottfried Böhm
1987 Kenzo Tange (1913–2005)
1988* Gordon Bunshaft (1909–1990)
1988* Oscar Niemeyer
1989 Frank Gehry
1990 Aldo Rossi (1931–1997)
1991 Robert Venturi
1992 Álvaro Siza Vieira
1993 Fumihiko Maki
1994 Christian de Portzamparc
1995 Tadao Ando
1996 Rafael Moneo
1997 Sverre Fehn
1998 Renzo Piano
1999 Lord Norman Foster
2000 Rem Koolhaas
2001 Herzog & de Meuron
2002 Glenn Murcutt
2003 Jørn Utzon (1918-2008)
2004 Zaha Hadid
2005 Thom Mayne
2006 Paulo Mendes da Rocha
2007 Lord Richard Rogers
2008 Jean Nouvel
2009 Peter Zumthor

(Not sure what's up with the two winners in '88 - it's a Wikipedia footnote that doesn't go anywhere.)

Of all these the only complete ???s to me are Portzamparc, Mayne and Murcutt - they just seem a little out of their league, but that might just be my personal taste.

Who's missing? Eisenman obv, but the sense I get is that he's made too many enemies. My friend Evan is betting on Steven Holl...

good bets in the next 10 years:

Ito
Botta
Ban
Diller & Scofidio
Maki
Calatrava

btw today it was announced today that the group led by Adjaye won the Smithsonian African American Museum competition! Official group is Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup which is too many collaborators to ensure a good project.

Still, glad they beat out the others and excited about the building

http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2009/04/14/PH2009041401230.jpg

maybe Predock also for upcoming Pritzker

also adjaye? maybe in ten years.

morphosis?

I'm really thrilled by Adjaye's work but he's at a really critical point in his career where he's got more on the boards than he's built in total - can he keep up the quality control and the material/light sensitivity that have made him so good so far or it he growing much too fast? If he comes out of the next three or so years without a dropoff in quality he's a lock for pretty much every award there is.

i can't see him going all zaha.

don't insult zaha she's a very good painter.

changing the subject... this thing is unbelievably hideous:

http://www.spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/02040912387166573395621835_c7680bfa1a_b.jpg

i knid of didn't want to sully the thread with it but wtf?

Oh god I don't want to see/talk about that thing. There was a time when I wanted Ito to break out of his neat white geometric solid/void facade thing, but be careful what you wish for...

wtf is that?

it looks like an office building that got drunk at the christmas party and is trying to do a mean impression of Torre Agbar because it's jealous.

it looks like a red plastercast

cozwn: http://www.spaceinvading.com/index/page/9

I DIED - i'm guessing that ice-cold bar thing upthread that you hated so much has been usurped as an unfavourite?

Botta = missed his chance I think - last ten years have not been sympathetic to this kind of stuff

Ban = agreed, total lock

Diller & Scofidio = after a few more buildings, yeah

Maki = already got one

Calatrava = oh god please no

Predock = plausible but not adding much

Morphosis = Thom Mayne, already got one

I DIED - i'm guessing that ice-cold bar thing upthread that you hated so much has been usurped as an unfavourite?

nope! I think my intense hatred of that wine bar is based on the fact that I do a lot of bar/restaurant/nightclub design, so I know damn well I can do and have done better than that. When I look at even the ugliest 30 story building I think "well, it got built, it's standing up and it's probably waterproof, got me beat".

I agree that Holl is almost certainly getting a Pritzker in the next few years.

"well, it got built, it's standing up and it's probably waterproof, got me beat".

qft.

When I look at even the ugliest 30 story building I think "well, it got built, it's standing up and it's probably waterproof, got me beat".

I really should print this out and pin it up at my desk as a reminder to be humble..

c'mon, it's not like he did it himself.

can someone explain all the massive ooohing and aaahing that goes on whenever someone builds a catilevered stair? sometimes it seems like the only reason a design gets any attention. it doesn't always look bad, sometimes the more blocky ones look very good but when i see something like this

http://materialicious.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/08/17/samalot_4.jpg

i find it not only unsafe-seeming but actually fairly ugly too. also i kind of wonder to what end the trick is being performed in the first place. it just seems so one-note and joyless to me.

oops - like this:

http://www.stairporn.org/images/2008/08/17/samalot_4.jpg

OOOOH:

http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/650127592_em2n-022-lie-070720-047023-cg-0720-047035-hannes-henz.jpg

http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/1961022048_em2n-022-lie-070720-046546-cg-0720-04655830-hannes-henz.jpg

incredible

Yeah that stair is sexy as hell. The room, of course, is playing a big part in that - not so bad to be surrounded by a striated wall cove lit from top and bottom.

I would love a video compilation of the first time people with new badass cantilevered stairs in their house have to carry something heavy on them or try to navigate them while drunk.

omg

http://www.spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/30040912411331892017396872_selgascanooffice2381.jpg
http://www.spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/30040912411331901035034548_selgascanooffice2507.jpg
http://www.spaceinvading.com/bookmarklet/Images/3004091241133192339777624_selgascanooffice2885.jpg

i'm in love again. and i can't rise above it. i'm in love again. and i love, love, love it.

!!!!

just imagine... working there!

http://www.archdaily.com/21049/selgas-cano-architecture-office-by-iwan-baan/

So, I been a-travelin' again. As always, continuing coverage at my Flickr, and links below take you to lengthy babble by me...

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3647/3491589926_62d4dea3d4.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3304/3491547738_b1e76c3630.jpg

Future Systems - Metropolis Tower

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3301/3495061524_bc508c3ea3.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3623/3494992794_8e30934402.jpg

PLOT (now BIG and JDS) - VM-Husene

(More and better to come! A lot of this batch are kind of dingy and gray - Copenhagen weather turns on a dime, so I have tons of gorgeous photos of buildings I wasn't in love with, and then by the time I got to the real treats the clouds had swung overhead.)

love this! http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3302/3494169041_a1f622eb9f.jpg?v=0p9

Ouroussoff brings the hammer down on the latest version of Calatrava's WTC transit hub:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/arts/design/11calatrava.html

God I loathe Calatrava, honestly, one of my least favorite architects. Instinctive challops to some degree, but also I just have never been stirred by the soaring poetry of big white strutty things. It just doesn't do anything for me, and it's always the same damn thing. That said, I wouldn't wish the WTC quagmire on my worst enemy - see the very accessible popular-press book Sixteen Acres for a painfully thorough discussion of that...

Oh, and

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3415/3514820228_03f34d05f5.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3539/3514982637_679d55fa30.jpg

Sigurd Lewerentz, St. Petri Church in Klippan, 1962-1966

My exterior photos are mostly kind of cruddy, the light was coming and going and I'm still getting used to this camera. Seier and jmtp both have really nice ones though.

(xpost) I'm the same way - with the complexity of the site and Calatrava's tendency toward simple solutions and poor grasp of circulation mechanics (hello Milwaukee!) it seems like the transportation hub would have been much better suited to an SOM or OMA.

OMA would have been amazing - they stayed the fuck away from Ground Zero, though; the author of that book speculates that it's because Rem knew a no-win scenario when he saw one.

If the competition were happening now I suspect a few of the form/blob/"flows" types might be big enough names to take it on - FOA post-Yokohama for example, or UN Studio (inevitably with SOM or somebody else who really knows train stations). Might have still ended up a signature piece with too many cooks in the kitchen... but there is a whole school of architecture that has been trying to reckon with paths/vectors, motion in form, blah blah, it would have been an interesting moment for them. For better or worse. Instead, oh boy, another Calatrava building...

http://blog.archpaper.com/wordpress/2009/05/11/hadid-opera-house-burns/

lol china?

result!

maybe they have a starsonist

agh thats killing me about hadid's

yeah, good laugh.

Wrapping up my recent trip, here's two AWESOME churches in/near Copenhagen...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2108/3542480664_26cd66a0a8.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2034/3541688721_e6e267b1ab.jpg

Jørn Utzon, Bagsværd Community Church, 1968-1976

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3368/3538731797_f0f44e3b87.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2443/3538927007_b1617ff9c4.jpg

Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint, Grundtvig's Church, 1913-1940

Absolute musts if you're ever in CPH. Both are within ~5 minute walks of metro stops, maximum 15-20 minutes out of town on the metro. And they're gorgeous.

waht?

http://www.designboom.com/cms/images/andrea/neto04.jpg
http://www.designboom.com/cms/images/andrea/neto09.jpg

They are filled with spices and stuff. Very fun.

I have been thinking about Patrick Gywnne because I went on a tour around his house in at the weekend. A (quite big) bit of modernism in the Surrey suburbs.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3404/3597899338_e037d6f2db.jpg

VG

Quit my job. Starting my own firm. Full time bar/club/restaurant/retail design. It's about to get stressy!

woah good luck!

what are u calling it?

Yeah, well done and good luck. Let us see the results!

http://img36.picoodle.com/img/img36/2/6/21/brianm/f_EDITm_e12afd4.jpg

Provisional, pending approval of my LLC registration.

I'm not licensed and I don't intend to be, so I'm labeling myself as a hospitality design consultant but it pretty much just means I'm not the one who stamps drawings (working w/ a friend for that). Got five projects underway and solid leads on another half dozen, all the numbers seem to make sense so far but we'll see how it goes. I've put in my notice and I've got another month at my current job while I get everything set up . It's going to be nice going from 200,000sf interior projects to 2,000sf ones.

it will be great working on a small team on a small project, more direct contact with clients. love the name. mine is called coh (my initials). or coh design i guess.

wow, I DIED, good luck! That's really exciting.

Can anyone identify this building?

http://butdoesitfloat.com/media/39141/11_o.jpg

^No-one? I searched around but there are a surprising number of buildings with that colour glass.

Meanwhile...here's some nice prefabs...
http://www.marmolradzinerprefab.com/images/new_landing.jpg

By Marmol Radziner - see more/ read more here.

hey ned, do you know of any other residential houses in the UK with that gwynne homewood pre-war modernist vibe?

Spencer, that building is here:

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=29.805983,-95.446998&spn=0.001974,0.004085&t=h&z=19

hey ned, do you know of any other residential houses in the UK with that gwynne homewood pre-war modernist vibe?

Hmmm, tricky. Not so much that they don't exist but that photos are sometimes hard to find.

There are Gwynne's own houses - all post war and (unless you happen to have a copy of this - difficult to find photos of.

There's this Breuer/Yorke house from 1937, not much glass though, but on stilts!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/moxette/134436773

The Lubetkin bungalows at Whipsnade are terrific.
You can see some great photos of them in this book - along with lots of others. This is the book to get for this type of thing I think.

This house in Bristol has a kind of Gywnne feel to it, for me.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fray_bentos/238595277/

Erm...Landfall by Oliver Hill? (one of my favourite architects)

Stuff by Connell, Ward and Lucas, especially 66 Frognall.
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/Pictures/468xAny/y/k/i/Frognell_ready.jpg

And so on!

Oh, that last one reminds me I should probably mention Greenside by Connell, Ward and Lucas.
http://www.c20society.org.uk/images/casework/greenside01.jpg
but the whole saga of that house is so maddening that it makes me want to cry. This is what is there now.
http://www.c20society.org.uk/images/casework/greenside_demol.jpg

thanks ned, that's great! a lot of that is going on my list. i'm researching architecture helping out on a friend's movie. he's asked me to find stuff like falling water in the uk. am i right in thinking falling water is "mid-century modernism", which is different to "modernism"?

We already have a pretty good idea of era and atmosphere of suburban/semi-rural offices for institutional architecture we need:

e.g. http://www.flickr.com/photos/seier/2987839224/

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2012/2987839224_9db0166c6e.jpg

Barbican Centre, Union Carbide HQ, etc.

http://www.krjda.com/images/UnionCarbide_1.jpg

Also been looking at things like St Catherine's College, Oxford. The US side of this type of quasi-academic campus/building/institution/corporation is covered well in http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/02Rlandmark.html.

For the residential houses our archetype is Falling Water, at least partly because it's in a forest, but we haven't thought as much about materials, styles, scales, etc.

"There's this Breuer/Yorke house from 1937, not much glass though, but on stilts!"

The flickr photo is set to private. Do you have it's name or any other links?

Here's another photo of the Breuer/Yorke house.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10208807@N04/3599792205/

Again, though, best views are in Modern book by Alan Powers.

Slightly different but may be interesting to you is the Dorich House from the 1930s.
http://www.kingston.ac.uk/includes/img/about-ku/events/ExteriorDorichHouse.jpg

thanks!

Went and checked out "Modern" in the library today. some great stuff in there, thanks for the tip.

p.s. don't care if I saw this hotel in esquire magazine, I still want to visit juvet hotel:

http://www.archdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/105362233_juvetlandskapshotel-0335.jpg

looking forward to this (out in the fall, festivals first presumably): http://www.coastmodernfilm.com/

Shed KM (for Urban Splash) - award winning housing.
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/Pictures/468xAny/e/m/s/Chimney_pot_st_ready.jpg
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/Pictures/web/q/m/h/chimneypotpark01_c_in_houseWEB.jpg

low ceilings : (, but otherwise would much rather live there than barratt home.

Well, they're the original ceilings!

maybe it's the photos?

I have been in India the last little while, haven't been able to do as much architourism as I'd like yet, but I have definitely been thinking quite a lot about B.V. Doshi. This is his IIM campus here in Bangalore:

<img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2661/3973805857_479835e0b4.jpg";>

Great stuff - the building is like 90% these exterior spaces, a grid of what would be cramped crappy little corridors in near any institutional building I've ever been. Really great sense of indoor/outdoor overlap, breezes going by, rain falling right next to you, etc. I have tons more photos but won't really be in a position to scan them for a longish while, but you can find some good ones Googling.

For academic archi-dorks I've done some initial blogging on this guy <A HREF="http://codename-albacore.blogspot.com/2009/10/doshi-primer-iim-bangalore.html";>here</A>, but I'm really hoping to see more of his stuff and revise/expand those thoughts, in a month or two.

god damn bbcode

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2661/3973805857_479835e0b4.jpg

Is it just me or have these groupings of square off-kilter skylight things been popping up EVERYWHERE in the last couple years?

http://whatwedoissecret.org/madebyblog/2009/12/barnacles/
http://whatwedoissecret.org/madebyblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/fujitsubo2.jpg

Ha, reminds me of this in my own fair city. Although obv. completely different.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2408/2075945998_9c1157d43a.jpg

I know it's not really something a fact check would cover, but I can't believe the New Yorker profile on Zaha Hadid has the line "There is no single Hadid style", especially when the rest of the paragraph exactly describes that style.

Thanks for the ID upthread I DIED!

lenny kravitz

SANAA wins Pritkzer. Given Pritzker discussion upthread I figured I'd put it here rather than Let's talk Architecture . What do we think?

I'm pretty surprised that SANAA got it - usually firms are much more established/have a much larger body of work before they get a Pritzker. It's nice to see a firm getting the award while they're on the upswing. Also it's the second time the prize has gone to more than an invidual/individually headed firm (Herzon & de Meuron were the other), and I think it's healthy to steer the public away from the notion that great architecture is the product of a single mind.

I wasn't sure from the renderings, but from the way it's turning out Heatherwick's British Pavillion at Expo 2010 is about to make him the next starchitect:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2706/4453490777_6e731d2964.jpg

^ the photo makes it look small, but it's about 20m tall

Yeah, is there a website anywhere with complete Shanghai pavilion coverage/photos/data? I've found a few blog posts that show a few of them haphazardly but I'd really like some kind of overall who-did-what sheet. Some of them look amazing.

I haven't seen anything like that, just random stuff popping up on Flickr and elsewhere. I'm sure a lot of the magazines will do full rundowns w/ the opening of the Expo.

there are some amazing british pavilion photos at http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/03/shanghai_prepares_for_expo_201.html

http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/expo_03_15/e02_22287287.jpg

Decent collection of Expo shots here - nothing near comprehensive, but the most I've seen in one place

http://www.dezeen.com/2010/04/28/shanghai-expo-2010-pavilions/

Some pretty cool things in there, I kinda wish North American would get the Expo bug again, I think it would be really cool to see what would come out of one.

Thanks, I DIED. Serbian Pavilion ftw!

http://en.expo2010.cn/participation/pop/moren.htm comprehensive. Check out the spectacularly bad SketchUp renderings of the Nepal Pavilion! There's hope for the rest of us.

I am thinking about Richard Meier because his first house in the UK (for one Rowan Atkinson) has passed the planning stage.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/07/16/article-1295246-0A73EE14000005DC-986_634x286.jpg

It's not a dramatic departure or anything but it's good that it's finally got permission. It was quite a battle.

richard meier and rowan atkison can fuck off both

guys, teach me about Lebbeus Woods and where to start with his work

― mh, Monday, February 9, 2009 8:18 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^fuckin huge stan of this guy

― lol (roxymuzak), Tuesday, February 10, 2009 5:58 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

Anyone? I've been curious for ages but a lot of the important work seems to be out of print or otherwise unavailable...

speaking of meier, there's a pretty rad series about various star architect projects once they've vacated and left it to the tenants; i think it's touring at the moment: http://www.living-architectures.com/html/filmseries.html
meier's church & neighborhood in rome figures

the guggenheim film has this great strand with the windowcleaners.

Quit my job. Starting my own firm. Full time bar/club/restaurant/retail design. It's about to get stressy!

― It's set in "Kazakhstan" not Kazakhstan. (I DIED), Sunday, June 21, 2009 2:33 PM (1 year ago)

This is going pretty well! Opened 4 places, got another 4 under construction and 5 in design. Working with a James Beard award-winning chef on one and taking a bar and restaurant research trip to Tokyo for another. Keeping me and a good friend employed full time. Gotta get a photoshoot done soon. Interesting thing is that the keystone project that I quit my old job to work on went to shit but everything else had been filling in nicely, knock on FSC-certified wood.

It's incredibly stressful and there's a lot of work I really don't like doing (billing, permitting, wringing money out of clients, etc.), but I can't imagine going back to a day job at this point.

Based on what I see on design blogs, I'm expecting Tokyo to have a minimalist but playful white plaster single family home on a small, oddly shaped lot on every block.

Congrats on all that work. What are chefs like to work for I wonder? (I want a really really big work station and fuck the rest!)

Take lots of pics in Tokyo!

I DIED, congrats. That's wonderful news. Can you direct us to any of your work?

That is truly awesome!

That's awesome news- seconding the request for pictures (of Tokyo and of your work).

...and throwing another name out there- does anyone know a good resource on Shin Takamatsu? Read about him in a book on architecture and film ages ago (he was cited as an influence on Anton Furst's designs for the first Tim Burton Batman movie), had it itching at the back of my brain for years, finally remembered his name about a week ago...

High fives to I DIED!

great to hear that, ID. I would love to see some work too.

We all have to face him down eventually: the last couple days I have been thinking about Louis KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHN

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5057/5429628367_847ba05e39_z.jpg

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5134/5429604381_f395555325_z.jpg

Rushed, already-somewhat-regretted thoughts on Flickr.

Great essay. I've never spent a whole lot of time with Kahn, beyond a cursory study of the Salk Institute and the First Unitarian Church. The majority of my other knowledge of his work came from a screening of My Architect where his son spoke. I think now is a good time to dive into the IIM project a little more.

He's an interesting guy, more than I've given him credit for. I've also basically never looked at him, which seems like an enormous blind spot. My Architect drove me up a wall though...

Yeah, I don't think I would have made it through it if it weren't for the promise of a Q&A at the end.

yeah i thought it was really horrible. the son was a dick.

Too, too many awkward scenes that seemed staged not because he was on a quest to find his father, but because he knew he was making a movie about a guy on a quest to find his father. Ill-conceived, and disappointingly shot if you really were hoping to see these buildings done justice.

That's true and, looking back, I think that may have been a bit part of why I've sort of ignored Kahn over the past few years. Remedying that this week though.

Doctor Casino - are there any decent, regularly updated architecture blogs you might recommend?

i'd recommend archdaily as well as designboom & dezeen which both have mixed design content.

http://www.archdaily.com/
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/index.php
http://www.dezeen.com/

I've been really O_o lately at some of the shitty projects/competition entries that have gotten published on seemingly every big daily design blog. I guess when there's pressure to put up half a dozen posts a day it can't all be great but sometimes it'll just be some uninteresting student pipe dream and it's just baffling.

oh and I FINALLY got some of my projects photographed - there's a lot of processing to do on them but I'll post the ones I have up here

i totally agree with that, I D.

this is the one that photographed best (due to mostly indirect lighting) and probably the most "architectural" in sensibility

http://i56.tinypic.com/fogeth.jpg
http://i56.tinypic.com/2824936.jpg
http://i56.tinypic.com/v3zki1.jpg

http://i54.tinypic.com/1z2lx51.jpg
http://i52.tinypic.com/5ceicg.jpg

That looks gorgeous! Would love to be working on that kind of project.

"Gorgeous" was the word I was going to use! Nice stuff, and great use of lighting as well.

I actually don't read any archi-blogs at all except the Flickr of seier_seier_seier and a few others in the commenting circle around his. I just can't keep up with stuff!

I have a boatload of arch bookmarks on my laptop, but half of them are constantly updated with pointless stuff and the rest have been dormant for long periods of time.

I enjoy reading Iqbal Aalam.
http://iqbalaalam.wordpress.com/
Don't let the excess of stuff about Milton Keynes put you off, it's interesting stuff.

i keep an eye on owen hatherly since i read this great post http://nastybrutalistandshort.blogspot.com/2010/08/steel-yourself.html

Iqbal is great for sure.

I think I bookmarked Hatherly a long time ago but have never actually sat down to read much of him! Nice reminder to finally take a stab at it.

Thanks guys!

ID, that is absolutely terrific, the lighting is amazing. you should be proud.

Thanks for the kind words, y'all.

In terms of project-based architecture blogs, I really pine for the all too brief glory days of Space Invading.

ha - was just about to recommend space invading, but with the proviso that it is kinda absurd rendering/neat pamphlet-heavy these days

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4100/4776588551_6c170cb055_b.jpg

Ajami ibn Abubakr Nakhchivani (Azerbaijani: Əcəmi Naxçıvani, Persian: عجمی ابن ابوبکر نخجوانی) - (life: 12th-13th centuries) is a Muslim architect. He is also the founder of the Nakhchivan school of architecture. The influence, which he has rendered on his contemporaries and followers, is reflected in monuments of Nakhchivan architecture.

new Kevin Roche exhibit at Yale, I probably won't make it up to see it but I'd like to:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/arts/design/23roche.html

Nice! I am convinced there is a looming, overpowering Postwar Revival ahead. I took a seminar my last year of grad school that took a left turn halfway through when we decided to focus for a few weeks on "Pritzker Winners We've Never Heard Of Before." There was a real enthusiasm in the room for Roche and company (and the rest of the seminar program involved a lot of postwar British stuff of similarly ill repute). I don't know if it's so much the envy for an age of bold gestures and unrepentant Modernism that Ouroussoff suggests... for us at least it was just the excitement of fabulous-looking buildings that had been sort of kept from us in our educations up to that point.

I have also been positing a giant Team X revival for a while (briefly titled Team Twenty-Ten before that started to seem instantly dated) as a succession of graduating students here have done their terminal projects on figures like Aldo Van Eyck and Hertzberger. Mat buildings have been in vogue for a while, I believe. Perhaps the appeal is antidote to the exuberant fussiness of blobulism (the existence of which surely proves that bold gestures aren't exactly a thing of the past) in favor of the Calvinist fussiness of precisely joined concrete and Cor-Ten?

I don't know if it's so much the envy for an age of bold gestures and unrepentant Modernism

It is for me! I think that describes my feelings on Roche et al. to a tee. It may have been the last time that architects believed their work really mattered. The failures of modernism and the rise of post-modernism introduced a general cynicism that still lingers in even the most ambitious planning today.

Early contender for worst project of the decade? Horrible even by abysmally low Karim Rashid standards.

http://www.dezeen.com/2011/04/01/university-of-naples-metro-station-by-karim-rashid/

mindbogglingly awful. i was going to revive the thread a few days ago to post this very thing but i had just revived the designer furniture thread to hate on his contributions to that "objectified" documentary (have you seen it, I DIED?).

I love Helvetica but fell asleep while watching Objectified - it's on Netflix so I guess I should give it another shot if only to be able to commiserate in hate.

eesh, the poor ppl who have to commute through that every day. would be interesting to see, but it'd probably feel like being trapped inside a pinball machine after a few minutes.

http://www.joindes.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Awesome-Fogo-Island-Studios-in-Canada-by-Saunders-Architecture.jpg
http://www.contemporist.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/ls_221210_07-940x621.jpg

six artists in residence studios by todd saunders in fogo, a tiny island off the north coast of newfoundland:

http://www.saunders.no/work/item/30-fogo-studios

Some of you guys might be interested in this. I heard the rumors, but here it is. Can't believe AutoDesk is actually going to give this out for free. They're pretty notorious for squeezing out every penny they can get from us:

If you’re a designer, architect, or construction contractor (or know someone who is) then there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of AutoCAD. For those that haven’t – AutoCAD is software made for 2D/3D design and drafting – and now it’s coming to Android. There has been a version available for iOS under the name AutoCAD WS for some time now, and with the increasing number of requests for an Android version, AutoDesk decided that it was time to oblige.

The mobile versions of the AutoCAD software is not meant for exclusive use, though – it’s more of a "lite" version. You will be able to open CAD files, make basic edits, and send the changes back to the original file.

One of the big things that AutoDesk incorporated into the Android version of AutoCAD was tablet support, which wasn’t an easy task according to SVP Amar Hanspal. "We’ve had to test it across something like 15 different devices and tweak it a little to run on then all" he said, noting that they had hoped to get it out the door sooner, but "the complicated part of developing for Android is not developing itself. It’s the testing."

AutoDesk is expected to make the official announcement today and the app should hit the Market (for Android 2.2+ devices only) on April 20th for the low price of free.

I just don't understand why Autodesk, having pretty much committed to Revit as the CAD platform of the future, is porting AutoCAD to Macs and Android instead.

Who the hell knows with them, its pretty much right in line with them usually doing things 5-10 years late. It is super annoying that they are just now bringing AutoCAD to Mac just in time for no one to want to use it anymore.

I worked for a couple of architecture firms that were using autocad on macs years ago, then switched to archicad when autodesk stopped supporting mac, then one of them switched to revit on pc's a couple years before autodesk brought autocad back to macs. Out of all those options, revit's the way to go but you'd think the company that makes it would see that too.

what do people use instead then? i'm still using a 5 y o copy of powercadd, i can't afford anything else!

Yeah, it is, but I've long ago stopped expecting them to do the sensible thing. My firm has jumped to Revit, but 95% of our projects are still done in CAD because we do so many renovations that its way easier when you have existing drawings.

Firms and software are so weird. A friend of mine worked for a little two-person firm that did all their work in something called "3D Home Architect," a copy of which I recently saw for sale at Staples on the $5 shelf. Whatever works, I guess...

Stirling Prize shortlist is out.

http://www.architecture.com/Awards/RIBAStirlingPrize/RIBAStirlingPrize2011/RIBAStirlingPrize2011.aspx

I feel bad picking on something so small & pointless, but I guess if you send it to design blogs it's fair game. Worst project/proposal of the year?

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/16418/lava-digital-origami-emergency-shelter.html

Weird, you JUST posted that link but it seems like design boom is down right now.

It wouldn't mind having it at the top of my garden but as an emergency shelter?
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/images/images_2/lauren/origami%20cave/oc01.jpg

‘the project plays with ideas of prefabrication and personalised inhabitation, as well as stacking of multiple units,
while giving an opportunity for individual expression.' - chris bosse, founder and director of LAVA

That's just what you need in an emergency.

the form is fine but i've seen a lot of that. the problem is that as a shelter it doesn't shelter. it's, like, made of holes. you can't lie down in it. you can probably barely sit down in it.

You can express your individuality though, while trying to put it together in a hurricane.

They can do projects like this if they want to of course, but when it's put on public display it gives the whole profession a bad name. I don't understand why people just can't say "we generated this form because we think it looks cool, it doesn't really have a purpose".

Also it's pretty stunning that design blogs post this kind of utter shit without considering it for a second. Gotta find a way to make those 20 posts a day I guess.

Yeah, that last is a real problem - there's a real absence of critical thinking on most design blogs. Not that I want people to be knee-jerk negative, or offer really sophisticated consideration of every project that crosses their desks, but, like, have some sort of opinion beyond 'Looks cool! Pass it on!,' y'know?

This is a good reason why I end up looking at design blogs for a week or two, then give up on them completely. To be fair, I encountered the same type of shit thinking in design school as well. Like, here are some really fantastic programs to work with, that are going to generate some really good looking models and renderings, but not one of them could ever be feasibly built in the real world. It was like my school was afraid of introducing concepts of "budgets", "structural engineering", and "buildability" for fear of stifling creativity. Which, is fine for your first couple of semesters of design, but by senior year you should be learning to work with clients and real-world challenges. Which is why when it came time to choose a focus in grad school, I went with "construction administration" over "design" because I wanted reall, applicable experience and not another two years of designing in a vacuum.

Anyway, I digress. Its a gorgeous object of art, but an utter failure at the function with which the program called for, so in my mind it should be getting lambasted instead of praised.

http://www.dezeen.com/2012/01/27/wood-old-house-by-tadashi-yoshimura-architects/

Oh my god this is a beautiful project. So rare to see such a great richness of texture, space, and lighting all in one place.

http://api.ning.com/files/9oSHtbFPPBubV43B2AZXsD*61Cqikm32bnt486xEPRKxE6Z1GA*RNCmE4iL*CxDobhDMaC*GJAVitas4J6Yd2xniTGS0Imzb/mosesbridge5.jpeg

This bridge is pretty cool.

Not completely the right place, but I wanted to admit that I've been using one of Doctor Casino's flickr albums as the screensaver on my Apple TV for a bit. I hope that's OK and non-creepy, but it's one with a lot of amazing building pictures.

Some day I hope to be able to weigh in on this thread more knowledgably!

Love that bridge project, but could never quite figure out how they manage to regulate the water level. I guess it must be a pond with overflow drains? So ballsy to make it out of wood, too!

mh - Awww, no, that is super flattering! Which album, if I may ask?

I'm currently in the midst of a CHINA BARRAGE, haven't been writing as much since I just want to get out from under the photo backlog. Might post a few choice things to this thread once I get my ideas a little more organized.

Doctor Casino, please publish a monograph titled CHINA BARRAGE: THEY ARE JUST MAKING A SHITLOAD OF BUILDINGS OVER THERE

hahaha yeah pretty much. We're actually kicking around some homebrewed book ideas, depends how much spare time I end up having next quarter. "THIS IS CHINA" is kind of recommending itself, after being used by our good Cantonese buddy in response to any time we got too uppity and demanding of explanations for things. "T. I. C."

I'll have to check which album! I think I just had it set to your photostream for a bit it's obviously all your pictures including personal ones and I felt like a creepy stalker. Think I grabbed some of the "archictecture by architect" ones, naturally

omg Doctor Casino, please get him to start saying "Forget it, Jake. It's China."

mh - Ha, well, I'm flattered in any case!

I DIED - hahahaha, I need to pitch that. Would also make a good subtitle for the book, eg "THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SUPERCITY: FORGET IT JAKE, IT'S CHINA"

(Although we were kind of thinking along the lines of THIS IS CHINA: ARCHITECTURE & URBANISM IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SUPERCITY...but who knows?)

I would buy that book

doctor casino, your flickr is like a walk down memory lane. salut!

Woohoo, thanks for the support, y'all!

China trip was 16 days and I'm on Day, uh, 3...but the point is, much more coming soon!!

I always thought that the hsbc building was just really ugly. cheers for the write-up! NB: I've never been inside it.

Just wrote a longish blog giving props to URBANUS, definitely one of the 10+ firms I've been thinking about. Here's a Flickr set, and here's some choice imagery:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7145/6769031077_c2c21438fc.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7006/6769075413_b45a253808.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7018/6773897569_823935a947.jpg

how the hell have I not been following your blog?

btw what is your opinion of bjarke ingels & co?

thanks mh!

Ingels... man, I've struggled to come to grips with that guy. It's tempting to see him as a cynical salesperson who masks a lack of critical ambition behind a positive "Yes Is More" attitude - - - in which reading, reading, his tenure at OMA was spent learning form-making and salesmanship tactics rather than absorbing any of the social polemic that (at one time anyway) seemed to be behind the OMA stuff. In other words, they're basically MVRDV, but much more eager to get work.

On the other hand, if you take him at his word that the "yes" thing has to do with inserting the architect into normally non-architectural decision-making, offering out-of-left-field policy solutions, then maybe there actually is more of a social activist component to the work than there is in Koolhaas's at this point. The idea that the architect can actually shape the debate is pretty appealing, and the kinds of things BIG seems to want to create suggest a sort of nonpartisan but forward-looking utopianism. The architect, judging from the renderings, can make people party in the streets and so on. Always happy to see these 60s throwbacks but sometimes they just seem so stock and auto-pilotish.

Taken purely on its own terms, though, I think the form-making and program analysis stuff is totally brilliant. Not sure every apartment in the building would benefit from being a bizarre one-off in response to supposed advantages discovered in the loopholes of zoning and sun angles (etc), but as far as applications of the OMA formula go, I think they have a better knack than most. The buildings are striking and memorable and often in despite of crap budgets and restrictive circumstances. I dunno. I think the material sensibility is kind of ghastly though.

Man, I definitely shouldn't try to write about architecture after a few drinks...

Btw, you might be interested that my friend is a contractor on a Steven Holl project right now and the stuff coming from his office sucks. No follow-through, details or lack thereof probably being fleshed out by cheap apprentices.

Huh, that's interesting! I really did find the Chinese projects to be the best-built "foreign starchitect" things we saw there. But I think a lot of that might actually be down to Li Hu, who was at the time the head of Holl's Beijing office....

To be fair, it seems like it's pretty common on non-flagship projects. Said friend is an architect who is working as the head of the engineering department of a company that does curtain walls for a variety of projects and it seems like he runs into constant headaches due to either poor planning or a lack of actual engineering follow-through on plans.

http://bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/02/12/how-boston-city-hall-was-born/DtfspyXVbKBIKi8iSXHX6J/story.html

^^^ great read.

^ yes loved that article. So many people don't realize that the failures of grand scale brutalism were largely due to the lack of adherence to the initial plans in terms of pedestrian access, ground level retail, etc.

And I agree that there's something good in BIG's work in the utopian suggestion that we're finally moving away from the post-modernism mindset that buildings don't really matter. But at the same time his unique one off responses to sites tend to generate sloped buildings in the same way that Diller Scofidio Renfro's responses to a site tend to generate broad public stair sitting areas and viewing windows.

I certainly don't see him having the vision of even aesthetic range of OMA or H&dM, but maybe BIG's best contribution will be that if they can get a bunch of crazy looking buildings built that still have a programmatic sobriety then it might help break down the public perception of architecture as either flash or substance with little middleground.

Generally agree with the above - although I think DS+R are a pretty darn good firm and have less of a "branded" feel to their work. There are certain devices that recur, yeah, but they do seem to actually care about the specificities of site, or at least of architectural context. Landscape maybe not so much, but they seem to favor urban contexts, at least in the stuff that I've seen.

Absolutely! With DS+R I think it's more a case of "we did this before and it worked really well" rather than a branding element.

Here are before & after images of a high end restaurant I finished this past summer. It's in a former auto garage in an alley and it's hard to tell from the photo but the kitchen is a series of open islands in the middle with tables all around, so no seat is more than about 10 feet from the cooking. One of the goals was trying to figure out how to make a 4 star experience in a raw space and we decided to keep the shell as rough as possible while everything at a tactile level during the course of the meal (chairs, carpet, table finish) would be very refined. Got a bunch of other projects I need to have shot and some more opening soon.

http://i41.tinypic.com/23kw6ld.jpg

http://i41.tinypic.com/vg4gns.jpg

I DIED, that's lovely! The exposed ductwork seems like a nice mediator between the raw oldness of the wall surfaces and the shiny newness of the kitchen hood etc. Adds up well to me.

thanks!

I may slap the next client who says they're going for a "farmhouse aesthetic". Unless they're doing a farm.

Have these people actually been in farmhouses? I could unload some genuine farmhouse paraphernalia if they need some.

Amateur Architecture principal Wang Shu won the Pritzker Prize! First winner I've really been stoked for in my time of being an archinerd - we got to visit a bunch of their stuff on this last trip and it was all awesome.

So unexpected and great! Glad the Pritzker committee seems to have moved to recognizing people doing great work when it's actually being done rather than as a lifetime achievement award.

Yeah, I think this was a pretty great choice for pretty much the exact reason I DIED mentioned.

http://places.designobserver.com/feature/how-to-be-an-architecture-critic/32278/

So I made a point of uploading all my Amateur Architecture (Wang Shu/Lu Wenyu) photos last week to celebrate/capitalize upon the Pritzker excitement... full set here and here's a few faves...

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7178/6940309289_d3907f59e2.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7043/6950798251_ebe54391b6.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7040/6937397041_75ef3bc94b.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7196/6940260785_778fbe38f1.jpg

(If you follow the link, my apologies - I've recently gone digital and while I love lots of things about it, it seems to be weakening me as an editor, that's a lot of pictures!)

Photos still great! I showed some of your recent pics to an architect friend at the bar last week. On my phone so... not the presentation they deserved, but good.

Aw gee thanks! I hope to soon be famous at bars across the nation.

great photos. particularly like the bottom two.

Thanks - yeah, their firm has a really nice handle on texture, for lack of a better way of putting it.

http://furrrocious-forms.tumblr.com/ geeeenius

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1xz1p2Gfa1rsiucno1_500.jpg

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1w1ca9Kyv1rsiucno1_500.jpg

Meaohaus

put a cat on it

Is Daniel Libeskind the worst major contemporary architect? Cheap looking if not cheap to build structures that are notorious for user complaints. A few decent projects mixed in with a ton of shlock.

http://daniel-libeskind.com/sites/default/files/styles/fixed_width_10/public/Key%20The%20Ascent%20at%20Roeblings%20Bridge.jpg
http://daniel-libeskind.com/sites/default/files/styles/fixed_width_10/public/sm1%20%28c%29%20Kim%20yong%20Wong.jpg

http://daniel-libeskind.com/sites/default/files/styles/fixed_width_10/public/Key%20Denver%20Art%20Museum%20Residences.jpg
http://daniel-libeskind.com/sites/default/files/styles/fixed_width_10/public/IMG_3031%28c%29%20Zumtobel%20Lighting%20GmbH_0.jpg

fyi that last lighting sculpture is called "masterpiece"

Libeskind is such a tragedy to me because the Jewish Museum is kind of great (kind of badly flawed but kind of great), and at the very least a kind of definitive study on the idea of trying to use a building to produce certain emotional and perhaps bodily effects - - - and each subsequent piece that reuses the language to no effect at all just cheapens the impact of the one good building. That one in Cincy just blows IMO although I've talked to people that liked it.

Worst major name, I'd have to think about for a bit. There's plenty of people where they are just not to my taste at all but I believe they are competent builders who have something interesting they're trying to do so it's hard to say they should just be tarred and feathered. Hmm.

yes he's the worst by some distance. "competent builder" is the last way to describe him.

I think part of it may be that he just tends to accept the types of projects with questionable clients and budgets that others at his level turn down. But only a part of it.

I do not like those buildings.

so it may read different in person but the photos of the H&dM/Al Weiwei Serpentine pavilion sure are disappointing :(

it looks totally joyless from the pics. i could have forgiven the somewhat forced/undergrad nature of the "excavation" (even though there was nothing to excavate, as it turns out, which should have been obvious) if the result had some sense of fun or any other spatial interest.

having said that the nouvel pavillion seemed fun from the images but was kind of oppressive to spend time in.

architecture photography is a hell of a field

I'm pretty stoked by the concept of the pavilion but it definitely pushes up against the limits of a "statement" versus material/space/promenade/detail/whatever else might actually make up an architectural experience. I'm a fan of everybody involved so I want to give it a fair shake... we're taking the students to see it later this month hopefully.

^ yeah I think my high expectations where part of why I found the result so disappointing. Seems like they felt the need to create a sort of anti-pavilion but SANAA already stripped it back about as far as it could go.

I'm breaking my own rule of trying to ignore things called pavilions or viewing towers in architectural discourse as I generally think just providing shade or a platform is too low a bar to clear in terms of dealing with actual challenges of buildings.

Ha yeah - - they can be nice experiments for ideas though, and at their best they really can have as much thinking and care as a building, in the way that, I dunno, a haiku can take as long to write as a novel (or whatever) but it really is a whole different order of challenges.

(Viewing towers are the worst though, somehow!)

architecture photography is a hell of a field

― mh, Thursday, 7 June 2012 20:27 (2 months ago)

Might I recommend the pretty (if boring) Julius Shulman Documentary Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman?

Also since I've spent a couple of days up and down by this building this weekend I have been thinking about (and cussing the budget panel that approved such an ugly monolithic building):

http://www.theccd.ie/images/rotate/ccd-day.jpg

Kevin Roche, you should be ashamed. Actually that entire stretch at the moment is a bit shameful with the empty Anglo Irish building...

http://politico.ie/images/politico/economy/anglo-shell.jpg

I really loved the Kevin Roche exhibit I saw at the National Building Museum last month but it really glosses over some of the terrible things he's done and influenced (on the planning side even more than the aesthetic side).

http://www.dezeen.com/2012/09/01/united-states-pavilion-at-the-venice-architecture-biennale-2012/

USA pavilion at the Biennale is I guess a wry commentary on the difficulties wheelchair users face in the built environment

I already hawked this to I Love Photography, but FWIW I am finally starting in with the 2012 "adventure" photos, this time beginning with a chronologically-organized look at Alvar Aalto. This means opening with the "awkward early stuff for fans only" material but maybe it'll be of interest to some people here. First image here, following ones to the "left" in the Flickr interface. (I only recently realized you could just use the arrow keys to get around - whee!)

Highlights of the limited stuff posted so far:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8456/8025427165_2ccc1065a0_z.jpg

Seinäjoki Defense Corps Buildings, 1924-1926

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8456/8025614912_27c6e26a16_z.jpg

Villa Väinölä, 1926

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8038/8030089021_488d462781_z.jpg

Turun Sanomat Building, 1928-1930

(2010 and 2011 "Adventure" collections coming, uh, someday. Just ordered a new film scanner the other day...)

that Turun Sanomat photo is great! Did you make it to the Savoy restaurant?

Thanks! And nope, sadly. On the trip it felt like we must have seen every Aalto building known to man, but, turns out, guy built a LOT....

I watched this film over the weekend: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1233611/

I'm kind of considering a desert/Palm Springs road trip/architecture tour sometime. Has anyone been out that way? It looks like a lot of Palm Springs city buildings are of the period.

I also ended up watching Urbanized (finally) and the contrast between people in the two films who have a love of architecture and an interest in its relation to the surrounding environment juxtaposed with a Phoenix, Arizona house arrangement is depressing.

There is a Modernism Week they hold out there, next one is Feb 2013. this past one included a lautner house tour that looked good, but i just couldn't work up the enthusiasm to go out there (also, the weekend tour sold out pretty quickly).

https://www.modernismweek.com/

thinking of taking my ridiculous architect friend, doing the reverse F&L In Las Vegas drive, go see some architecture

Looks like a lot of the home tours are already sold out. There's probably a guide (or maybe use the Gerbhard/Winter So Cal one) that you could do on your own.

Gebhard, that is. It's about a 2-2.5 hour drive for me, but I've never tried just driving out and looking around.

Sounds like a good thing to do if you're bored on a Saturday!

http://www.sfmoma.org/exhib_events/exhibitions/509

upcoming Lebbeus Woods exhibit at SF MOMA

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/oscar-niemeyer-brazilian-architect-died-17890045

Rest in peace, Oscar Niemeyer - 1907-2012. The last heroic Modern.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/arts/design/ada-louise-huxtable-architecture-critic-dies-at-91.html

damn, Niemeyer and now Ada Louise Huxtable, all the greats I thought would live forever are going. When all is said and done I don't know if there will be any 20th century architects seen to have changed architecture more than Huxtable's writing.

[http://www.sfmoma.org/exhib_events/exhibitions/509

upcoming Lebbeus Woods exhibit at SF MO MA

We are almost finished with this show, it is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G

opens saturday
please don't touch, the models are disturbingly fragile (every one arrived broken)

how can you even tell if a Lebbeus Woods model is broken

It made for a very difficult conservation task.

Planning on seeing this when I'm in SF on vacation in March (please do not break them before then)

Guys, this Woods thing at SF MOMA is so awesome

lebbeus?

Of course!

http://www.archdaily.com/346374/can-we-please-stop-drawing-trees-on-top-of-skyscrapers/

TRUTH

Hahaha, totally. Also I would live in terror of branches, or whole trees, ripped loose and careening down 50 stories to the street. Would make a good moment in a disaster, superhero, or shit Transformer movie, but otherwise, yikes.

Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas in the 1970s

http://25.media.tumblr.com/a4f39c2e50dad17a667faa6a63776b38/tumblr_mlf9qcFGoD1qdi0ydo1_500.jpg

DEMONS

haha yeah, love young Rem

http://www.tomorrowstarted.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Architects-rem-koolhaas-young-480x651.jpg

late 60s?

http://www.dorothyalexander.com/assets/architects/Koolhaas%20Harrison/Harrison%20Koolhaas500px.jpg

with dear old Wallace Harrison, 1977

http://archpaper.com/uploads/arch_institute_07.jpg

Ken Frampton & Peter Eisenman, 1970

http://sma.sciarc.edu/wp-content/uploads/video_pimages/1528_tschumi_bernard-1978_2of2.jpg

Bernard Tschumi, 1978

http://www.marvin.com/images/architectchallenge/2013/showdown/0873/02_Vermont-Mountain-House-2_412x273.jpg

My best friend’s firm is competing in the following contest.

I think about her work a lot. If you like it, you should vote for M4rcu5 Gl3y5t33n Architects.

My ongoing obsession with Roosevelt Island has put Josep Lluís Sert back on my radar:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5530/9217686723_9148b604b6_z.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7342/9226352450_5e005300f2_z.jpg

Lots more pics linked from my sprawling Roosevelt Island Flickr project starting here but also check out his buildings at Harvard - best kind of Brutalism perhaps. Real presence in these, good sense of relief and texture.

Cool photos. I have a vague obsession with Roosevelt Island too - probably from watching Nighthawks as a kid. It's the only place in the states I've been that feels Soviet - especially in winter.

Thanks! Yeah, it's so unusual as a world in the States, even most other big urban renewal schemes of that period don't have that kind of sequence of spaces. Apparently it also was a shooting location for the Bruce Willis/Tracy Morgan picture Cop Out but I haven't seen that so I have no idea what exactly it looks like. The tramway seems to figure incidentally in a lot of movies (notably Spider-Man) but I think the only thing really "set" on the island is Dark Water which I've heard good things about...?

check out his buildings at Harvard - best kind of Brutalism perhaps. Real presence in these, good sense of relief and texture.

Can totally get behind this - love the Holyoke Center and Peabody Terrace (skip-stops, neighborhood hatred, and all). It was a great experience to interact with these places long before, during, and after a design education - what seemed like some uneasy but mysteriously lively spaces came to seem like little miracles of civility wrought out of HVD hegemony.

I think the only thing really "set" on the island is Dark Water which I've heard good things about...?

I haven't seen the original version to compare, but i liked it. Check it out, especially with the R.I. connection.

Thanks! Yeah, it's so unusual as a world in the States, even most other big urban renewal schemes of that period don't have that kind of sequence of spaces.

It has much more of a European feel to it. I think the (lack of) topography just forces the design to be far more mindful of space (horizontal and vertical). Most big urban projects of that era had the advantage of sprawl - and a "blight" rubber stamp to make what space you needed.

By the way, I'm reading this:

http://www.bloomberg.com/image/iWrpVwiTNT0I.jpg

and it's pretty great. Recommended if you're at all interested in this type of thing. Some background...

How RAND Program, Fire Chief, New York Elites Burned Down Bronx

Back in the 1970s, celebrities of all stripes, from President Jimmy Carter to Mother Teresa, would visit the South Bronx to shake their heads over how the greatest city in the U.S., or a significant part of it, all of a sudden looked like Berlin in 1945.

Fires and demolition took such a toll, as Joe Flood recounts in his book “The Fires,” that the police station once known as Fort Apache was dubbed “Little House on the Prairie.” It was as if some unseen lumberjack had clear-cut entire neighborhoods.

“The Fires” is the latest book to explain how New York City got that way. Ken Auletta’s “The Streets Were Paved With Gold” (1979) is another one. The grand-daddy of them all is Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker” (1974).

The focus of Flood’s book is how fire chief John O’Hagan used computer technology to determine which firehouses to close during the administrations of John V. Lindsay and Abraham Beame. Curiously enough, they were almost all in poor neighborhoods.

This is promising new ground -- I’m not sure I ever read about the RAND Corp.’s foray into urban planning before. Yet it is a small story, almost a footnote, compared with Flood’s main theme, which is the destruction of a city by its elites, dating as far back as the days of police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt and muckraking journalist Jacob Riis.

That sounds good!

Roosevelt Island is something of a special case from the get-go though - the planners and the policy-makers (not to say the financiers) were committed to doing Something Different from most urban renewal. The thinking was that the island's desirable location and lack of an existing population to piss off made it possible to do something - close proximity of lower- and middle-income housing - that would not have been possible elsewhere. And Johnson & Burgee's master plan wasn't forced into the 'main street' concept - it was something they wanted to do as a corrective to mainstream modern planning. (Johnson would later call it his "Jane Jacobs phase"). There was definitely space to do more of a towers-in-a-perk thing; Victor Gruen actually proposed an alarming wall-of-slabs a few years earlier.

Some good background in terms of design/urbanism is online here: http://www.rioc.com/devhist/New-York-1960s-Chap-8-1977.pdf

And if you have ProQuest access or the equivalent, look for Yonah Freemark's "Roosevelt Island: Exception to a City in Crisis," in the Journal of Urban History - great background on the public policy issues, the evolving financial situation, Lindsay vs. Rockefeller vs. Nixon vs. George Romney etc. Good stuff.

Thanks for the leads.

BTW, the Pruitt-Igoe Myth is streaming on Netflix. If you're at all interested in this stuff, it's an amazing documentary.

Agreed, that is well worth a watch. I really appreciate how non-architectural it is - really avoids blaming the buildings for what happened and focuses on the money, the structure of the program, etc.

V. excited to be teaching a studio on P-I this year - that film will definitely be a key source.

The essay it takes its title from is also super good, I'm sure you know about that one though.

Can anyone here recommend some history of architecture grad programs in the US? I have a friend, a young Chilean architect, who is interested. She's mostly into modern and contemporary stuff, and also digs urban studies. If she had her way, it would be either in the northeast, California, or Chicago.

Sorry if this isn't exactly on topic, but I could think of no better place to ask.

Is your friend looking for a masters or a PhD? There are a lot of the latter, fewer of the former. Every so often I wonder if I should have looked into one of the two-year (ish) masters of criticism/history/theory/curation (they tend to be kind of catch-all programs), however you'd need to shop around carefully with those. Most of them are not funded in anything like the way PhD programs tend to be, and you have to be ready to aggressively mobilize the degree into some kind of funky hybrid career, although if you also had a convincing career as a designer then that might be enough to get a teaching position. Many of them really are pitched as pre-PhD programs. On the one hand I think that would have really helped me now as I'm working on my PhD - good way to get up to speed on a lot of the key names, debates, intellectual frameworks etc., so that your head's not spinning and you can get down to business. Also it would help you come in the door with a project already fleshed out. On the other hand, it's two more years of school. Anyway, if she was interested in something like that, I don't know where all of them are, but the sensible thing would be to look for schools that offer the PhD since that suggests they'd have the back bench of faculty to support the masters.

If she's thinking PhD, there are plenty of options and it depends on the intellectual climate she's interested in, which means scouring the faculty listings and the recent dissertations to feel out the milieu. I've settled into my program well (C0lumb14) but there was a little bit of whiplash at first and if I'd had infinite time in the year before applying I would have liked to at least skim a few articles by all the PhD committee members at all the schools on my shortlist just to really understand what the vibes were there. But realistically that's very hard to do.

Thanks Doctor, that's actually quite helpful. She was leaning more towards the masters, but may end up having to look at PhD's, due to the scarcity of the former. She's got an uphill road it looks like, esp. because she's looking to get a scholarship, and she's a foreign student.

FWIW I would say offhand that my program has a substantial foreign contingent and that all students have the same base level of funding, plus what people pick up through teaching gigs additional to what's required in the first few years. I can't speak to other schools but generally PhD programs have some kind of base funding package based on teaching or other assistantship work.

The real thing to think about is exactly what kind of career she's imagining herself having, or put in less ugly terms, why she thinks she needs the degree. I don't say that to discourage anyone because I think everybody should have graduate degrees in architecture! This might just be a hangover from the "what am i getting myself into" grad school thread and various associated bummed-out education/career prospects/debt threads.

The real thing to think about is exactly what kind of career she's imagining herself having, or put in less ugly terms, why she thinks she needs the degree.

Good question, DC. She wants to be a professor!

worst project of the year nominee

http://knstrct.com/2013/08/22/intoxicating-swagger-torontos-king-blue-condominiums/

Have any ilxors been to or are planning to go to Palm Springs Modernism Week? I want to, one of these days.

I haven't been but a friend is going for a 3rd time in a row, loves it

is your friend a cool person who would like a modernist friend

I'm strongly considering heading to modernism week myself, trying to decide whether I'd rather do that or explore Palm Springs when it's a little calmer.

all the DS+R / Williams & Tsien drama is HILARIOUS btw

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/nyregion/building-faces-wrecking-ball-so-does-couples-friendship.html

I think the main reason to go during that week is that there are tours of the inside of some homes that are normally not open to the public?

re: Folk Art, the whole thing is really awful. Really sad to see DS+R just happily parroting the clients' line that the Folk Art Museum's interior was so 'quirky' that it could not be adapted into anything, no way no how... and people who should know better acquiescing to the desperate claim that if you could just save the facade, you'd be saving the building. I mean, that is just not an architect talking. Annoyed that this will also now become the stock narrative around the building, which had a fabulous interior section, a real jewelbox of steppy levels. Yeah, it would have been tricky to make it a 'wing' of MOMA, but there's no reason it should have been written off as impossible.

Between Folk Art, MoMA, and the Barnes it just shows that both firms care a lot more about their own commissions more than any kind of broader artistic or cultural good. Which is fine, but at that point just admit there's no real line between firms getting big artistic commissions and the RTKLs of the world.

Also I think Folk Art was a fascinating space that showed Williams and Tsien didn't give a fuck about their client.

Hrmm. I thought it served the objects very well, but do you mean just in terms of running up a huge bill? I dunno. Would love to be able to visit it one last time and re-judge, I only got to see it once.

I think it served the objects well but was really inefficient in the way galleries and circulation worked, which limited how the collection was shown. Sure the site was touch but part of the architect's responsibility is to say "you're going to go broke building something that won't work very well as a museum."

The facade is beautiful but could have been a part of any project - I don't think it served the museum well (and neither do Williams & Tsien, from later interviews!) and it says something about the museum that 90% of the photos online are of the facade and not the collection, galleries, or interior.