If I didn’t sit on a jury with a great educator like Sir Peter Cook, in USC the day before, perhaps this conversation would never materialize. Most certainly, the comments inserted during that studio review made me wanting to talk with Sir Peter Cook on the state of the architectural education and continue my own ‘slide presentation’ of distinguished educators, seeking ‘the empirical truth’ about the incredible shrinking of free thought, mainly in N. America’s great white architecture schools.
In the end, if you think I am all over the place, you might be right, I am... But, then again...
OA- Yesterday you have briefly commented on the state of architectural education via student projects. What are your thoughts, as an educator, about it? You can start from United States or Europe...
PC- I think architecture education is in a predicament, which it does not want to recognize... Many people officially in architecture education as professionals do not want to recognize this predicament--because many of them are not really so dedicated to make architecture. When I start to study architecture, people teaching were primarily architects, who also were involved in education. Most schools in North America are involved in the academics side of architecture and only secondarily interested in architecture. What I couldn’t bare, people who can teach architecture, are politically sidelined by the university types...
And, I think this is a tragedy...
I can’t see any likely reversal of it, because in a sense, those people hold the reigns of power... It’s in their interest to perpetuate a system by which you get seniority and power to decide who could come in to teach, through being ‘an architecture school person...’
Unfortunately, people like John Hejduk are not there anymore. And the majority of people running the schools are career academics who found a safe haven in the university.
OA- How do you describe teaching architecture in the American university?
PC- In America, over the years, ‘the theory’ became the central pillar of the school system. Many architects have a sense of inferiority as intellectuals and this is rather rubbed down their throats. They’re made to feel inferior, their own paranoia and frustrations as creative artists, played back to them by the intellectuals who are not architects. In a sense, this is happening all over the world. Also, some of the brightest designers are not interested in schools. They are too busy with their work. And they are also kept away from the schools, because they might inspire the students too much with their views and practical knowledge...
There seems to be a conspiracy. At least I'd like to massage the conversation with that terminology, merely to draw attention to it.
OA- Architecture schools used to be more liberal in terms of housing different ideologies and ideas. Professors and students used to argue for opposing ideals. Nowadays, they are more geared towards a safe education where only the proven ways are thought. Very specialized areas turned into departments within the school. Instead of creating buildings, people are creating departments. Even then, almost every 'fabrication' is similar to the next one. How has that happened?
PC- The architecture schools are not liberal at all... I think architects walked into the trap themselves by allowing this to happen. In order to feel more respectable, they have created this extra credibility road map by being attracted to the ambiance of the teaching position. I also think the nature of the schools has changed. Like in every field, people want to get complications... Like complicated Master’s courses etcetera. When I went to school, you had one objective, which was to become an architect. A minimal diploma was sufficient. Now you hear people say, I have my first degree here and second degree there, I even know these very interesting designers in London at the age of 34-35, who are doing their PhD’s. They are very good designers but in fact their architectural work slowed down in last few years. Having PhD puts them in a strong position of surviving by teaching but they are giving away the best time to do their best work. This is not atypical. Going back to what you were saying yesterday, I think you are quite right, a lot of interesting people are sidelined because they are little bit off-the-wall, suggesting different conversations frankly puts them out.
OA- What I saw being around students recently, they are very good on certain computer skills. They get this instant self-gratification from computed renderings. I saw students programming a building like shape and continuously working the 'form' by orbiting on the computer screen, round-and-round. Like a nervous tick and wierd obsession... Eventually, I had to ask them to stop turning the object and let’s look at it for a minute as a building design. It took a lot of effort on their part to connect the 'piece' to real city. There is this big reality compromise for the sake of form. I really don't think architecture has a shortage of form, I also think it should be a very outdated way of designing buildings at this day and age. Computer generated or not, 'form for form' really bores me.
Do you have any comment on this area?
PC- Yes I do. On one hand, I am excited by some of digital tools, like the three-dimensionality that is made possible, but I am also bored by its instant results. It is like making an instant suit, which everybody gets an instant satisfaction. Actually, a real good suit requires some special ingredients. There is also the possibility that in five years time, everybody will suddenly get bored of these familiar forms of computer generated images. About 100 years ago plate glass became extensively used in architecture, I love plate glass but it became a main ingredient of architecture. Maybe the digital design is the plate glass of our times. I think there are some wonderfully exotic digital designs.
OA- Certainly... Like the work of Marcos Novak who was with us yesterday. I wouldn’t call his work exotic or digital, but he utilizes digital technology with substantial ideas about future. If any, I’d like to learn from him... He is one of the few with the vision beyond the ‘form’ orbiting...
(silence)
Let’s talk about your work in Austria. Have you employed digital technology during early design?
PC- It didn’t start out as a digital work. It got carried through as a digital work, but it is done in the same way of doing normal piece of architecture.
OA- It has a certain mediatic feel to it. With all the information systems integrated on the skin, it makes me see it as daily updated newspaper--like building as an information source.
PC- It was not digitally generated. I had the idea and I’ve developed it. And, the means were whatever means came to hand at the time.
OA- I like the idea that the building acts as a communicative device, in a media sense. Have you taken your students there to see it?
PC- It is funny you mentioned that. The first time it was opened, I was teaching at Bartlett and I had my Masters group and they all went to visit Graz. It was the first time I was in a position to have a building built with my students observing it. That puts you in a very funny role, which I have never been before. I have taken earlier students to a small building I did in Berlin, but that was after the building had been opened for a while, so it was less dramatic. But here, a larger group, they all went to see this freshly completed building and saw it in the beginning of their academic year. Half of them tried to do buildings just like it. “Aha this is what Professor Cook does and that’s what we must do.”
I found that tiresome because I don’t want clones...
OA- That brings another issue to my mind. They have this portfolio day at a local architecture school here in Los Angeles. The students put their books on the tables, now that students can print books under their name. Self-publishing has become very common. You can publish your own book. Anyway, you look at these things and without reading; you recognize who the professor is. And while looking at those, I said to the director who was in charge of the graduate school, “What is going on here, you can recognize all the teachers but where is the student?” And she looked at me and said, “Yes that is a problem.”
PC- This has happened recently?
OA- Yes... I have no doubt it happens in a lot of schools elsewhere.
I think going back to our conversation earlier; it is very common now for schools to hire certain name brand teachers for luring new students. It became a business. I am wondering which school will be the first one to open an architecture branch in Abu Dhabi, following the steps of NYU? I would speculate the planning of it is underway.
PC- Franchising...
OA- Architecture education has become a business. By the time a student graduates from one of these well known schools, they can be up to 150K in debt if they are not financed by their families…
PC- It makes them wanting a guaranteed product... There is this smart student culture in schools who will choose certain studios, computer software, classmates, even girlfriends and boyfriends. But they don’t do anything from the gut. They do everything after certain profiling and then they go into certain unit, because it gives them good connections with certain architects or designers. And they all follow a certain path where it will eventually take them into Zaha’s office. Same thing in Bartlett, they do it to get a job at Foster’s...
AA is directed to Zaha and Bartlett directed to Foster. And these are rich students.
OA- What happens to a student who has some kind of agenda in his/her mind to criticize the system, question few things?
PC- Well, actually the most interesting studios do attract the oddballs and encourage and celebrate them. And, this puzzles some of the more organized students. Good teachers like and support oddball students because they are stimulating. Boring teachers want imitations of themselves. And, you have teachers walking around and saying, “Look I am good because I got thirty students I got in my class.”
OA- I have also noticed that the diversity of economic backgrounds in expensive top schools is out the door. You have students flying from Los Angeles to Dubai for the two weeks research part of their studio project, coming back, designing apartheid supportive condominiums. A rounded tower with expensive units on the outer core and servant quarters in the inner core, specifically designed so there is no interaction and chance meeting between ‘the master’ and ‘the servant,’ outside the master's orders. They utilize soundproof walls to inner core and completely separated circulation systems with different entries and exits. It reminded me the awful slave ships, where the slaves kept below and separated from the deck. The students, who are designing these scenarios, and feeling zero social embarrassment.
I mean, it is good they can go to Dubai, but it would be nice to see some social consciousness in their efforts. Some of them kept saying, “Well, they are (laborers) better off making $150 per month as servants than starve in their home country.” We are talking about designing a dominant situation for somebody buying a multimillion-dollar condo and feeling no remorse of paying 150 dollars-a-month to somebody to be their full time servant on call. This is now an okay mindset for developing condos for architecture students and there is no one saying, “Wait a minute guys...”
PC- I was in Russia just around the time social and political change was taking a place, and I was expecting to deal with students from the working class. To my surprise, all the students were from the ruling class, the sons and daughters of the party elite. This is nothing new.
OA- I guess not. But, really, where do you see this leading? Is this a vicious circle of architecture as an upper-class profession, eventually subservient to the same?
PC- I think so, but the interesting thing is, architecture might takeoff quite differently. Architecture might break away from the academy. It might be from elsewhere that the interesting architecture work might come. It is quite possible in the future, the architecture might come from other sources, like commercially supported research groups, from odd corners or from funny places, you know? Or it might come from people who don’t call themselves architects... It is quite conceivable. And, academies remain academies. Similar to English departments, where the graduates become English teachers, but not to write books, necessarily... Sure, there are parallels. It is like being devil’s advocate but I do hope this happens--would rather it did happen. The academies, sort of, pull architecture into this feeble and boring condition. Architecture is more important than the schools for architecture. Schools are at this point merely service industries.
OA- I think they are a bit disconnected right now...
PC- Maybe they have to become more disconnected.
OA- Maybe completely disconnected? (laughing)
PC- Could be, but I would rather not... Most intelligent developments in architecture are happening where there is a progressive laboratory. I am not very hopeful of American scene in this respect. There is no real feeling for invention in America anymore. There is no great feel for eccentricity or random occurrence.
OA- Maybe America became one big complying society.
PC- Europe is becoming the same way... I like certain positive aspects of the EU but there is also this unbearable aspect of the sameness. There is Starbucks in Vienna. Each time I go to Vienna, there are more Starbucks you know...
So how are the things in Turkey?
OA- You mean 'my beautiful and lonely country.' It’s okay, summertime, tensions are high!! Have you been there?
PC- No, but I drew the plans and sections of Hagia Sophia when I was a student. I love to go there soon.
OA- I have never been in England, but when I was a student, I drew the elevation of Jim Sterling's University of Leicester Engineering building.
Let’s meet in Istanbul and let’s meet in London and compare notes...
PC- We can meet at Starbucks in Vienna to compare the notes...
A long-time contributor to Archinect as a senior editor and writing about architecture, urbanism, people, politics, arts, and culture. The featured articles, interviews, news posts, activism, and provocations are published here and on other websites and media. A licensed architect in ...
20 Comments
Orhan as always poignant.
I particularly like his quote;
"Maybe the digital design is the plate glass of our times."
More seriously though. I think the point made about the academy and professional disconnect is interesting. Personally i find the idea of a forced split enticing.
Much of the real fantastic architecture is private and non-academic based anyway.
By this i mean not even necessarily digital form but also via the nsta-urbanity and fantasy-Petro-dollar cities where the worlds; tallest, biggest, etc are built.
But what i mean to get at is the idea that perhaps through such a disconnect the more inclusive, humanistic and perhaps non-theoretical designers who are actually building (even if only on the small and local scale, or temporary shelters post-disaster relief) instead of postulating form get more focus.
Rural studio, Teddy Cruz, Architecture for Humanity or even just the members of the local chapter of your AIA...
Also, i recently posted on my own blog a interview i did awhile back that touched on some similar themes; specifically re: education and the connection between theory and form, You might find it interesting...
i thought that was a very provocative interview orhan, and i would like to chime in from a student's perspective. i agree with some of the statements above and am witness to a lot of these transformations on the ground, but i want to ask, how can we transform the model of education without resorting to nostalgia?
killing your master is easier said than done, meaning you cannot pursue education without taking something from the teachers you pay to teach you, but hopefully it is a two way street in that the teacher learns something as well, and uses it to propel his/her work, which leads to the discussion of democratic collaborative work vs genius-renegade designer, neither of which i think truly exists.
i also want to point out the irony in the fact that one of the institutions that you call out (indirectly) was founded on the principle of breaking away from the academy, but has evolved into another one of these worldwide commercial businesses, which leads me to question whether such a break is even possible in this day and age. Mr. Cook proposes that the change will come from places such as corporately sponsored research labs (i'm assuming as in the case of stanford's d-lab or MIT's media lab), but do you think this type of atmosphere will lead to more individual expression if most interests are commercially driven?
Mr. Cook also mentions that some of the best designers that he knows did not come from the academy, but i am curious to know who these people are as most of the influential architects i know went through the academic process. i understand from the standpoint of commercial success, it would make sense that not spending time at school would benefit you if you were someone like bill gates or steve jobs, but i don't think that school takes away a person's best design years, but provides a place to harness their skills, should they feel they need to improve them. for me personally, i don't think i would have the same rigor or have the same opportunities i have today were it not for my temporary detachment from the working world and my immersion into academia.
i don't think we should look down on schools as inferior versions of practice in the 'real world' oustide, but should recognize and even embrace them for what they are - privileged spaces of experimentation. in the end, i believe the contributions that schools provide outweigh the negatives that the system perpetuates.
Society has always been manifested in the educational systems of patriarchy and scholarship.
In our time, when you go to franchised schools and when you study under a Brand architect, you are consumming knowledge.
but few can afford this commodity.
its very contoversial how the role of the architect is subverting into a person who instigates change and order to someone who follows orders.
I really admire how fortunate it can be to have with Peter Cook a master and apprentice realtionship instead of lambs and some preacher!!!
thank you Orhan for sharing 0.1% of this experience.
dear sirs
i must examine my views to warrant to present this remark, merely because of the fact I had most fortunately been taught by Sir Peter Cook, then worked for the late Sir Ron Herron, and thereafter went on to work for Zaha Hadid after a long stint with Sir Norman Foster [almost 8 years], and also briefly helped Sir Peter [and David Dunster] with studio work at the Bartlett, this was immediately after he left the AA where I was his student together with his then partner, Christine Hawley.
Peter has inspired every student to become himself, be more aggressive more extraordinary and more different, Sir Peter never vouched for any style, in fact it was always about what we brought to the studios, nothing more and not a thing less. Sir Peter read drawings, drawings and more drawings, it was never about what he prompted to propagate as any ideology, it was and I still believe, is, always a case of looking at buildings and reading one's drawings. Such is his incredible and profound simplicity, and only political stand, there was nothing between him and your drawings. Sir Peter Cook's teaching 'style' has been truly inimitable, he 'remembers' every sketch, every building and every person like there was nothing else to focus on except the work itself.
I must agree with his statement that teaching has always been looked about as separately constituted from professional practice, from his own work, Sir Peter has finally, like Zaha and Rem Koolhaas proven that these seemingly opposing positions are indeed not mutually exclusive. For being an Architect myself, with a passion for theory and education, and having many mouths to feed and company to run, it has been mostly challenges to put forward a theory however simple in the midst of presenting commercially successful projects. One in every ten clients want to engage conversations' less theory of Architecture. i cherish to strike a balance between the two, as has been remarkably and beautifully accomplished by Sir Peter and Zaha Hadid and so many Architects of late. I believe Zaha still lectures, like many others who have attained this most desireable state. it is hardly envious, its almost necessary. Even conversations, are necessary practical means to the practice.
Sir Peter, thank you for bringing education and practice together, and perhaps for initiating and inventing the concept that 'conversations' is a necessary precursor to good Architecture.
Huat LIM
www.zlgdesign.com
Great interview! as usual, this type of far reaching speculation is less conclusive as to potential results. I love the notion of the institution for being at fault, but I must argue the idea that it is the fault of the superinstitution/starchitect. Students with means have the ability to choose and do so with the hopes of greatest inspiration and professional opportunity as was stated so clearly. it seems the clearest notion to derive from this interesting discussion is that the grass roots universities and their noble hearted faculty have to continue to produce studio environments that foster the thoughts/ theories we find so lacking from the magazines. The young aspiring eyes who gaze on the publications and dream of their name replacing the starchitects. they are part of our society, the shallow youth will be allowed to remain shallow if we cant bring the faults of the institutions to light. We need probably to highlight smaller programs working to produce a more concious graduate. instead of the glossy names and well rendered institutions producing clones we can only hope live up. thanks for listening, great interview!
very nice orhan.
i should also say thanks to peter, but it is much harder to ask the good questions than to make the good answers. ;-)
i guess i am one of those guys in his 30's doing a phd instead of designing. maybe even talented enough that it is silly for me to be in school. i think there is an idea here that school is a retreat, a safe place to escape to from the real world. maybe. though it doesn't feel so to me. life is more of a struggle for having gone this way than if i had stayed in an office somewhere. it was a huge risk on so many levels that i can't imagine why he thinks it is so easy. maybe for the rich kids it is. personally i am here for the education, not the job at the end of the ride. i doubt i am the only one.
there are some, i think, pre-canned answers in there. it feels very familiar territory for peter at least and i guess shows some of his frustrations as an educator. which is actually very interesting to read. if a guy like him gets frustrated can you imagine how it must be for the rest of the archi-world educators?
i love the idea of having more outsider students. we have none in my school. they aren't allowed to be outsiders here. the loss of the liberal is also very interesting as observation. i wonder if that is a symptom of culture in general or really a result of an inferiority complex as peter suggests...hopefully the latter, cuz thatis easier to fix than the former.
anyway....very nicely done.
thanks for all the thoughtful responses.
killer opening photo of Cook!!!
its very funny reading about Peter Cook building, and worse being critical about architects that teach without practice. A new privelage one might say.
it is interesting to hear from a respecful avant-garde architect like sir peter cook about architecture school culture, which i think gets carried through the profession. personally, i would like to thank him for intersting views in the architectural review issues. i enjoy reading them very much.
the issue seems to be that of peers vs. you is not my peers attitude and/or the issue of networks whether with which one is fortunate enough to be born or which are getting conceived vs. people outside them. it is great to see that orhan is bold enough to challenge sir peter cook about digital stuffs knowing that he spent some thirty years working with imageries before getting into building stuffs. i guess as long as we can dodge choking monsters with their narrowing sentences by making new connections and ideas, i.e. the london effects, we can stay creative and make our environments better, keeping those utopian spirits alive.
i love architectural education. the crits whether you get your ass kicked or occasionally get credits for submitting interesting ideas and rigorous imagery/model productions after pulling a few all nighters suggest potentials for personal developments of students as individuals, with unique characters. i pay attention to what is going on in studios, and aa has to be one of them. recently, it seems that much has been devoted to corporate sponsorship and computer generated architectonic productions, which are very interesting and beautiful as well. at the same time, i read a book 'before object, after image: koshirakura landscape 1996-2006' documenting real experiences of building rather primitive architecture in opposition to digitally designed fabrications. nevertheless, i find myself asking a question: is this sort of realization going to be enough to offset the emptiness felt by the majority of population or are we going to be able to use that void to sustain what used to be thought to be endlessly nurturing nature which started to look damaged and to create more lively cultures through architecture and architectural education? it has to be communication and the power of media.
p.cook is always enlightening and entertaining.
but just a few side thoughts:
- was there any irony at the point where peter notes that taking students to his building in Graz is this first time in his career (in the 43rd year of a 48 year life as an architect) that he has an actual building to show to students. and his complaint is about academic architects?
- his is now, after all, a "Sir". nothing says radical outsider, like "Sir".
- in Peter's studio (certainly at the AA and then the Barlett), he had a very ingenious way of running a crit. being Peter, he was always able to have a wide array of critics for the reviews, so he would often have (for a class of 14) a row of critics that included Zaha, Nigel Coates, Peter Wilson, Bernard Tschumi, Dalibor, Ron Herron, Christine H, Will Alsop, Cedric Price, and one or two more. the students usually got a great discussion out of this this, but also, once everyone one had had their say, more often than not, the students had too many opinions, too many directions to look at, so the next day they would go back to Peter and he would set them on the way that he always intended them to follow.
From: Glen Small <______________________>
Subject: PETER COOK
To: "Orhan Ayyuce" <____________________>
Date: Wednesday, June 25, 2008, 9:44 AM
DEAR ORHAN,
READ THE INTERVIEW WITH PETER.
PETER HAS ENJOYED THE WORLD FAMOUS PAPER ARCHITECT FOREVER. NOW THAT HE BUILT A COUPLE OF THINGS HE IS MORE COMFORTABLE THAN EVER. A GOOD GLASS OF WINE SUITS HIM AND HE IS WEARING CORBU GLASSES.HERRON ,CHALK AND OTHERS WERE THE MOTIVATORS, PETER WAS THE GRAPHIC MOUTH PIECE.
I THOUGHT YOU DID A GOOD JOB OF GETTING HIM TO SPEAK OUT. BUT I FOUND YOUR COMMENTS BETTER THAN HIS.
ARCHIGRAM WAS ALWAYS ABOUT SHOCK AND IMAGE. THEY COULD CARE LESS ABOUT PROPOSING A POSITIVE FUTURE. THEY WERE THE PLAYBOYS.
I WOULD LOVE TO BE ON A PANEL WITH PETER AND SHAKE HIM UP. HE STAYED WITH US IN OUR VENICE HOUSE IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES. HE WAS AT MY FAMOUS DRY ICE MOTORCYCLE LECTURE WITH BUNNY RABBITS AT SCI-ARC.
YOU NEED TO FIGURE OUT HOW YOU WANT TO MAKE ARCHITECTURE IMPROVE THE WORLD AND CREATE A DIRECTION TO CHAMPION.
GREAT INTERVIEW,
GLEN
On Jun 26, 2008, at 10:24 AM, Orhan Ayyuce wrote:
Hi Glen, can you tell about DRY ICE MOTORCYCLE LECTURE WITH BUNNY RABBITS? I think I was in New York at the time, missing the lecture.
Re: DRY ICE MOTORCYCLE LECTURE WITH BUNNY RABBITSThursday,
From: "Glen Small"
To: orhan
I THINK IT WAS THE WINTER OF 1982.
JAN MARDIAN AND ERIC SHOT A VIDEO OF THE LECTURE, BUT THE QUALITY WAS REALLY BAD. JAN HAS THE TAPE.
IT WAS PART OF A LECTURE SERIES, AND AT THE SAME TIME, I HAD AN EXHIBT OF MY TOTAL WORK IN THE SCI ARC GALLERY OFF OLYMPIC.
THE FORMAT WAS A SPOOF ON A BAPTIST SERMON. PAT KONRAD WAS THE ASSISTANT PASTOR.
THE FORMAT WAS THE MACHINE AGE AND NATURE.
THE LECTURE WAS IN THE MAIN SPACE AT SCI-ARC.
IT STARTED WITH A WALL OF DRY ICE THAT I DROVE THE MOTOR CYCLE THROUGH WITH MEHRAN AND JERRY AND INTO THE AUDIENCE AND DOWN THE MAIN ISLE TO DOOR BEHIND THE SCEEN TO THE ALLEY. NEXT FOLLOWED MY KIDS, CARRYING BASKETS OF LIVE OBJECTS. THE BIG ITEM WAS A COUPLE OF BUNNY RABBITS.
THE OPENING SONG WAS HOME ON THE RANGE.
OH GIVE ME A HOME WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM
WHERE DEAR AND ANTELOPE PLAY,
WHERE SELDOM IS HEARD A DISCOURAGING WORD AND THE SKIES ARE NOT CLOUDY ALL DAY.
KONRAD GOT UP, DID A PRAYER AND SAID WE ARE GOING TO PASS THE HAT. AT THAT POINT A COUPLE OF WOMEN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AUDIENCE GOT UP AND LEFT, CLUELESS TO WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY. THE BASKETS WERE PASSED WITH THE LIVING OBJECTS IN THEM SO THE PEOPLE COULD GET IN TOUCH WITH NATURE.
THEN CAME MY SERMON ON HOW TO CHANGE THE EARTH CLIMAXED WITH THE BIOMORPHIC BIOSPHERE.
IT WAS A FUN LIVELY TIME, PETER COOK WAS THERE. HE ALWAYS HAD THE CURIOSITY TO OBSERVE ME. ( I REMEMBER AT THE AA IN LONDON WHEN ALVIN BOYARSKY DIED, MY TEACHER AND THE HEAD OF THE AA AT THE TIME. PETER MENTIONED THAT GLEN SMALL IS HERE.) HE KNEW WHAT I WAS DOING. I AM PRETTY SURE RAY WAS THERE TOO.
I COULD DIG UP ALL THE STUFF ON THE LECTURE. IT IS SOMEWHERE. YOU COULD CALL PAT KONRAD IN FLORIDA AND ERIC COULD FILL YOU IN TOO.
GLEN
From:eric
Subject: Glen's motorcycle lecture.
To: orhan
O,
Glen's lecture was memorable. He WAS a rock star. He began his lecture crusing on stage on a motorcycle with smoke effects as Vahalla warrior or was it Zarathustra. Very spectacular entry. The crowd went wild.
I tried to out-do Glen when I hired Ant Farm's Doug Michaels to inaugrate my lecture series.
Michael's lecture THE POST MODERN HOAX includued the post-rock backup band VENOM HANTA coupled with multiple ant farm short film projections.
More than 600 people crowded SCI-ARCs small hall. Ray said this better be good or he would have to kill me.
Remember you and I sang along with Angie Pitts, as we recorded random segments.
They were edited into background electronic 'sounds' composed by 'blind' Frank G. The ambient multitrack sounds filled the hall for about an hour, echoing over the PA . The crowd was getting impatient stomping feet.
Micheal and the band jumped on the the stage, a disaster. The sound system got unplugged, no Doug Michael's vocals, no rock band sound, no audible lecture. The 300 lb massive speaker buzzing full power slid off the balcony and almost crushed some students.
Michaels went ballistic, cursing me, cursing SCI_ARC and going nuts cursing Frank G, "That the guys who fucked this up, he's the one, he's to blame".
Doug Michaels never recoved and sank into oblivion, his coming out neo-debut party turned into a sinkhole.
Don't trust Eric w/ mics.
Frank also dissolved. He was on adreniline with no sleep for and three days, with headphones taped to his ears, he never heard the screaming. He was exhausted, worn to the bone, frazzeled. We packed up the gear in the van, drifted home and collasped.
Frank had a breakdown, ended up the next day in an asylum and never fully recovered and is now a wholly schizo, talking to the radio, sending commands and instructions to the CIA, KGB and the Aliens inside his head.
Frank's last sane act was the 'electronic concert' recorded as planned on 2" recording tape! and played weeks later as a 15 min radio segment on NPR. A kinda waiting for Godot waiting for ant farm waiting for nothing to begin. The 2" multi-track tape mixed ambient crowd chatter, electronic sound effects and voice over the show, described SCI-ARC, the building, the teachers and the students. But Michaels prelude was the most memorable.
eric
oooooo
I see you got D Michaels PM Hoax piece pinned to Peter Cooks after-comments. Much thanks, I need to feel my pulse. Does looks good coupled with Glens recollect , sort of a sounds of the seventies ;; sic eighties, spectacular. Makes everday feel like an orgy.
eeeeee
orhan, thanks for sharing rare bootleg recordings of rock star architects for mothership connection. archinect is getting p. funked with international dance party from another feature. 'sweet chariot stop and let me ride.'
.;))) you are welcome egoist. that is a rare recording...
o-
great questions- most are worthy of their own discussion threads.
yeah, we've discussed ... Los Angeles to Dubai for the two weeks research part of their studio project, coming back, designing apartheid supportive condominiums already. but the lack of economic diversity at the better known schools hasn't yet been probed.
man, i went to the wrong school (not really, but). in the late 80s we tried stunts like those described above a few times and were met with silence and disdain by the faculty.
i had to learn to be much more managed in what i called 'architectural work' before i could be taken seriously. and learn that architecture was form not performative.
It is a great pity that Peter has only to blame teachers to be "only" academics, with personal frustrations. As if he has never theorized, and is exempt from frustrations.
The problem with schools (higher education cannot ever be practical, in any known field) is that they have forgotten the context of building, which has always been the City. To this context each designer adds a small piece, to sustain the whole. 99% of buildings today are copied anyway, and the designer becomes redundant. The context is the main issue, its urbanity as opposed to the suburban culture the world is infested with. I proposed in a paper to the last congress in Oxford that schools be closed and reopened with a program of urban studies , building being a subtext only. My paper was rejected, and instead handed over (despite my protest) to the opening panel of famous architects, Peter Cook one of them, and they made the usual mess out of my idea.
thanks for the attention, Nahoum Cohen, educator, writer, planner.
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