Warning: a crash course on the sorry current state of affairs in architecture. Read on if you know, or want to know who Frank Gehry is, and does he suck or not?
One of my favorite magazines, Esquire, published a thought provoking article in their December 2008 issue entitled, "Burying Frank Gehry" by Mr. Scott Raab, one of my favorite contributors at the publication. The article focused on Joshua Prince-Ramus, the president and principal at Rex, a New York City-based architecture and design firm http://www.rex-ny.com/ and his counter-intuitive approach to architecture, that frankly shouldn't be so revolutionary.
In architecture it is a commonly held, though rarely voiced, thought that in order to be a famous architect one has to be over 50 and male. So as you're on your way out your star is rising.* For example, Frank Gehry will be 80 on February 28th. Santiagio Calatrava is 57, (58 on July 28th), and my personal favorite, Daniel Libeskind is 62 (63 on May 12th) and not just because he won the commission for the memorial for the World Trade Center Towers. But more gushing praise on him in another blog.
An exception to the rule is the exceptional Zaha Hadid, who, though she is 58 (59 on October 31st) is one of the most prolific female architects of our time. This is not to say that female architects do not exist, but none of them have the household name status that Ms. Hadid has earned, if your family is on a working knowledge of contemporary architecture. If not, consider this your new topic to introduce at the dinner table tonight. But be prepared for some blank stares.
* I am also kidding about the on the way out part of course, but by 55 isn't everyone eyeing that door that leads to retirement with just a little bit of longing? I'd hate to wait that long to get my dues.
Another rarely voiced though commonly held belief in the realm of architecture is that architects exist to project their "vision"on the unsuspecting, and probably ignorant world. This is all fine and good. Being an artist as well as a (future) planner I understand the need to express one's self creatively. But being an architect is not like being an artist, at least not in the traditional sense of the word.
An architect is also not a painter. This seems rather obvious. Yes, both possess an inner vision of their final creation. But it's a lot easier to shelve a painting that no one wants to buy versus a building that remains vacant because it just doesn't fit any client's needs and will take up a lot of valuable space.
An architect is also not a graphic designer. A graphic designer is given an idea or concept by a client and then given creative freedom to bring it to life and profit. Obviously, if the client hates what the designer comes up with, it's back to the drawing board or no paycheck. In theory, an architect collaborates with a client to marry a project that suits the client's needs coupled with the architect's personal take on what the building, etc., will look like. However, if the client is unhappy with the architect's drawings, theoretically, an architect will scrap it and start over until they have reached a mutual agreement.
An architect is not a photographer, an architect is not an illustrator, an architect is not a cartoonist, etc., Continuing my list by ticking off all of the other majors at my alma mater would risk turning this blog turning into an unpublished Dr. Seuss rhyme.
However, as the budding architects are sitting at their drafting desks, slaving away, feverishly gluing together bits of Bristol board and toothpicks, they are also having lies cooed in their ears like a faithless lover. "Don't forget that you're number one. ""The client is just ignorant.""Above all else, make sure it's what you want, not what they need."
As much as I am a proponent for artistic integrity and all that stuff, I cannot in good conscience advocate architects, planners, or any designer obstinately sticking to their creative "visions" when someone else is paying you.
Obviously, given the opportunity almost architect would like to be endowed with celebrity-like status and be given free will to design whatever the heck they want client needs be damned. Unfortunately, this is reality and such notions cannot plausibly exist.
This brings me to the article on Mr. Joshua Prince-Ramus. Mr. Prince-Ramus understands that architecture really boils down to no client = no work.
Yes it'd be nice to have clients come cowering and groveling to have one of your inspired visions hosue one of their lowly places of business. But it'd also be nice to build houses made of gingerbread and gumdrops and provide air conditioning to people in Third World countries without any impact on the environment.
Mr. Prince-Ramus is not some dour, unsuccessful architect who wants to spit in everyone else's drink. In fact, he is highly educated and highly successful. His undergrad was from Yale in philosophy and his Master's in Architecture is from Harvard. His firm has worked on the Guggenheim Las Vegas, (Gehry designed the Guggie in Bilbao, Spain) the U of L Business School, and the Seattle Library, among other impressive projects.
But he's also a realist who understands that there is a rift between form and function. The famous architect, Louis Sullivan, who brought us the earliest form of the skyscraper and mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, once, "Form follows function."
Prince-Ramus says that, "Starting in the 1920s, the modernist agenda made a schism between form and function. Terrible idea- terrible for architects. [emphasis author's own] They sided with functionalism; they failed. Architects in their infinite wisdom didn't stitch them back together; we went all the way the other way, to formalism. And now we're at the height of a formalist agenda- total failure, terrible idea.
You need to heal two things as an architect. You need to heal form and function. It's a useless, irrelevant distinction. Form performs, function performs- forget about it [emphasis author's own] And you need to heal the whole concept of the design architect" -the sketching artiste- "and the executive architect. It's a totally unproductive distinction. You can't design without knowing schedules and contracts. You can't do schedules and contracts without knowing how to design.
If you can't design a great contract, it doesn't matter how good an idea you have- you won't build it. It's as simple as that. With this other schism, architects started to act more and more like artists- and to treat the business as beneath them. And I find that absolutely absurd. No wonder we're so impotent." -all quotes Joshua Prince-Ramus, from "Burying Frank Gehry" by Scott Raab, Esquire, December 2008, 144.
There is no room for ego in Prince-Ramus's world.
"Author a process; [emphasis author's own] if you author a process, you actually are losing control; you don't know what's gonna evolve. . .We don't care who authors something- if it's the most senior person on our team, a student who just came that morning, or the janitor. We don't care where the idea comes from. The ideas get torn apart, and the more interesting an idea, the more aggressive the tearing apart gets. Authoring a process is much more successful than authoring an object- regardless of the project. If you look at our work, you'll see an underlying current of thought, not an underlying current of architectural solutions." -Prince-Ramus, Esquire, 145.
Therefore, when people look upon one of Gehry's swirling, writhing sculptures of titanium, yes, titanium they want to see fingerprints of his genius. They want to see the vision bursting forth. However, the final vision may not always be what suits the client's needs.
To be fair, one of Gehry's works, the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago on Michigan Avenue is one of the U.S.'s coolest outdoor venues.
The title of this blog comes from Le Corbusier, or Corb if you really want to sound in the know. He was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century.
Corb was and is a visionary. The problem was that a lot of his visions weren't exactly grounded in practicality. He had an unwavering faith in technology, which proved to be more of a deterrent than a benefit.
For example, he designed a city center crammed full of skyscrapers with expressways that zoomed and wrapped themselves around the buildings, providing the sole source of transportation of peoples and goods and eclipsing the need for sidewalks.
It sounds rather Jetsons-like and kinda cool at first glance. The only problem is that if you take away the sidewalks, you also take away the potential for additional revenue to be generated by foot traffic, window shopping, etc., not to mention basic human interaction. The result is a mashup of Blade Runner and the Jetsons.
However, Corb was designing in the time when architects were trying to break free of the stuffy conventions set forth by Victorian architecture. He was a pioneer in the (now love it or hate it) International Style, you know those very era-specific buildings that sprung up in the 1960's and know look kind of weird and "dated" ?
And he said that we needed "architecture or revolution." So, why he may have been slightly left of center for his own ideas his belief still holds true.
One of my favorite magazines, Esquire, published a thought provoking article in their December 2008 issue entitled, "Burying Frank Gehry" by Mr. Scott Raab, one of my favorite contributors at the publication. The article focused on Joshua Prince-Ramus, the president and principal at Rex, a New York City-based architecture and design firm http://www.rex-ny.com/ and his counter-intuitive approach to architecture, that frankly shouldn't be so revolutionary.
In architecture it is a commonly held, though rarely voiced, thought that in order to be a famous architect one has to be over 50 and male. So as you're on your way out your star is rising.* For example, Frank Gehry will be 80 on February 28th. Santiagio Calatrava is 57, (58 on July 28th), and my personal favorite, Daniel Libeskind is 62 (63 on May 12th) and not just because he won the commission for the memorial for the World Trade Center Towers. But more gushing praise on him in another blog.
An exception to the rule is the exceptional Zaha Hadid, who, though she is 58 (59 on October 31st) is one of the most prolific female architects of our time. This is not to say that female architects do not exist, but none of them have the household name status that Ms. Hadid has earned, if your family is on a working knowledge of contemporary architecture. If not, consider this your new topic to introduce at the dinner table tonight. But be prepared for some blank stares.
* I am also kidding about the on the way out part of course, but by 55 isn't everyone eyeing that door that leads to retirement with just a little bit of longing? I'd hate to wait that long to get my dues.
Another rarely voiced though commonly held belief in the realm of architecture is that architects exist to project their "vision"on the unsuspecting, and probably ignorant world. This is all fine and good. Being an artist as well as a (future) planner I understand the need to express one's self creatively. But being an architect is not like being an artist, at least not in the traditional sense of the word.
An architect is also not a painter. This seems rather obvious. Yes, both possess an inner vision of their final creation. But it's a lot easier to shelve a painting that no one wants to buy versus a building that remains vacant because it just doesn't fit any client's needs and will take up a lot of valuable space.
An architect is also not a graphic designer. A graphic designer is given an idea or concept by a client and then given creative freedom to bring it to life and profit. Obviously, if the client hates what the designer comes up with, it's back to the drawing board or no paycheck. In theory, an architect collaborates with a client to marry a project that suits the client's needs coupled with the architect's personal take on what the building, etc., will look like. However, if the client is unhappy with the architect's drawings, theoretically, an architect will scrap it and start over until they have reached a mutual agreement.
An architect is not a photographer, an architect is not an illustrator, an architect is not a cartoonist, etc., Continuing my list by ticking off all of the other majors at my alma mater would risk turning this blog turning into an unpublished Dr. Seuss rhyme.
However, as the budding architects are sitting at their drafting desks, slaving away, feverishly gluing together bits of Bristol board and toothpicks, they are also having lies cooed in their ears like a faithless lover. "Don't forget that you're number one. ""The client is just ignorant.""Above all else, make sure it's what you want, not what they need."
As much as I am a proponent for artistic integrity and all that stuff, I cannot in good conscience advocate architects, planners, or any designer obstinately sticking to their creative "visions" when someone else is paying you.
Obviously, given the opportunity almost architect would like to be endowed with celebrity-like status and be given free will to design whatever the heck they want client needs be damned. Unfortunately, this is reality and such notions cannot plausibly exist.
This brings me to the article on Mr. Joshua Prince-Ramus. Mr. Prince-Ramus understands that architecture really boils down to no client = no work.
Yes it'd be nice to have clients come cowering and groveling to have one of your inspired visions hosue one of their lowly places of business. But it'd also be nice to build houses made of gingerbread and gumdrops and provide air conditioning to people in Third World countries without any impact on the environment.
Mr. Prince-Ramus is not some dour, unsuccessful architect who wants to spit in everyone else's drink. In fact, he is highly educated and highly successful. His undergrad was from Yale in philosophy and his Master's in Architecture is from Harvard. His firm has worked on the Guggenheim Las Vegas, (Gehry designed the Guggie in Bilbao, Spain) the U of L Business School, and the Seattle Library, among other impressive projects.
But he's also a realist who understands that there is a rift between form and function. The famous architect, Louis Sullivan, who brought us the earliest form of the skyscraper and mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, once, "Form follows function."
Prince-Ramus says that, "Starting in the 1920s, the modernist agenda made a schism between form and function. Terrible idea- terrible for architects. [emphasis author's own] They sided with functionalism; they failed. Architects in their infinite wisdom didn't stitch them back together; we went all the way the other way, to formalism. And now we're at the height of a formalist agenda- total failure, terrible idea.
You need to heal two things as an architect. You need to heal form and function. It's a useless, irrelevant distinction. Form performs, function performs- forget about it [emphasis author's own] And you need to heal the whole concept of the design architect" -the sketching artiste- "and the executive architect. It's a totally unproductive distinction. You can't design without knowing schedules and contracts. You can't do schedules and contracts without knowing how to design.
If you can't design a great contract, it doesn't matter how good an idea you have- you won't build it. It's as simple as that. With this other schism, architects started to act more and more like artists- and to treat the business as beneath them. And I find that absolutely absurd. No wonder we're so impotent." -all quotes Joshua Prince-Ramus, from "Burying Frank Gehry" by Scott Raab, Esquire, December 2008, 144.
There is no room for ego in Prince-Ramus's world.
"Author a process; [emphasis author's own] if you author a process, you actually are losing control; you don't know what's gonna evolve. . .We don't care who authors something- if it's the most senior person on our team, a student who just came that morning, or the janitor. We don't care where the idea comes from. The ideas get torn apart, and the more interesting an idea, the more aggressive the tearing apart gets. Authoring a process is much more successful than authoring an object- regardless of the project. If you look at our work, you'll see an underlying current of thought, not an underlying current of architectural solutions." -Prince-Ramus, Esquire, 145.
Therefore, when people look upon one of Gehry's swirling, writhing sculptures of titanium, yes, titanium they want to see fingerprints of his genius. They want to see the vision bursting forth. However, the final vision may not always be what suits the client's needs.
To be fair, one of Gehry's works, the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago on Michigan Avenue is one of the U.S.'s coolest outdoor venues.
The title of this blog comes from Le Corbusier, or Corb if you really want to sound in the know. He was born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century.
Corb was and is a visionary. The problem was that a lot of his visions weren't exactly grounded in practicality. He had an unwavering faith in technology, which proved to be more of a deterrent than a benefit.
For example, he designed a city center crammed full of skyscrapers with expressways that zoomed and wrapped themselves around the buildings, providing the sole source of transportation of peoples and goods and eclipsing the need for sidewalks.
It sounds rather Jetsons-like and kinda cool at first glance. The only problem is that if you take away the sidewalks, you also take away the potential for additional revenue to be generated by foot traffic, window shopping, etc., not to mention basic human interaction. The result is a mashup of Blade Runner and the Jetsons.
However, Corb was designing in the time when architects were trying to break free of the stuffy conventions set forth by Victorian architecture. He was a pioneer in the (now love it or hate it) International Style, you know those very era-specific buildings that sprung up in the 1960's and know look kind of weird and "dated" ?
And he said that we needed "architecture or revolution." So, why he may have been slightly left of center for his own ideas his belief still holds true.
In my lame attempt to join the 21st century I've included some pictures I took of some of the structural details from the Pritzker Pavilion, or how does a Gehry stay up. Enjoy!
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