How do I know what the average person would like? Of course, we are talking about the person who has no design background or experience with what we would refer to as an aesthetic education. Now these people have opinions on design and aesthetics but they are usually referenced through what they like, or what they think they like, based on a narrow exposure to mcmansions while living in a tract house. The design education that we value, in fact, is seen as superfluous and aloof.
My personal experience is that I lived in one of those tract houses and all of my family seem to suffer Stendahl syndrome when they experience a double height entry and living room when visiting my brother's stucco clusterfuck in Phoenix. I also live in bumfuck Louisiana and just had a talk with the matriarch of a famous t.v. family who shoot ducks for a living. So, yeah, my street cred for knowing what the average joe may or may not like is pretty legit.
Now these people have opinions on design and aesthetics but they are usually referenced through what they like, or what they think they like, based on a narrow exposure to mcmansions while living in a tract house.
I think that while this has accuracy to it, it's too limited a viewpoint to ascribe to people. I would guess that the average person uses as a frame of reference the following (plus probably more that I'm not thinking of at the moment): all of their current and former houses, viewed through the lens of their station in life and income during those time periods, the houses of their friends and relatives which probably offer some more diversity in terms of geography and appearance, as well as houses they see in media (both real and fictional). The apartment on Friends or The Big Bang Theory is probably as much of a touchstone for their perceptions on design as the homes they see on House Hunters, and either of those expand their POV beyond their own living room. They may think nostalgically of the houses their grandparents or great-grandparents had (as do I, for that matter), or they may simply relate to things in ways they don't fully understand based on these touchpoints—ascribing better taste to people with higher incomes without realizing why they think that for example. Additionally, don't discount the role of hotels they've stayed in or even the offices they work at—I'm seeing the lines blurred between the two more and more, and conversely heard someone describe a modern home as being "like living in your office," which sounded silly to me at the time but really that's where most people see metal framing, smooth surfaces, expansive glass, etc. so why wouldn't they think that... Anyway, all this is to say, I think you're not giving the average person enough credit vado. Certainly there are a lot of viewpoints that we'd regard as backwards out there, but I'd rather try to understand where they come from than oversimplify it like that.
sorry but not all opinions are equal. there are people who have the opinion that jesus rode dinosaurs 2000 years ago. some people think coke is a replacement for water. is that opinion equal to one of a nutritionist? Some things just suck. this house is one of those things. the people who like it are entitled to, but their opinion is stupid. It doesn't take a phd in film history to know when a movie sucks.
also, the house is the furthest thing from "traditional" that I can imagine for one simple reason...traditionally, people gave a shit about the things they made. this mess is actually 100% in tune with the zeitgeist. a style of quick, cheap, flashy, crap.
I like bad music. I like bad movies. I haven't been trained in these arts nor have I spent years slaving away to mastering their creation. So, I blissfully absorb these stimuli without the baggage and critical eye that an acclaimed director would have. I hate to break it to everyone but we're average people too.
That was my point. We are all average people with average likes and dislikes, including those who spent 8 years studying architecture. Why is the average builder home of the 1910's or Sears bungalow of the 1920's more attractive than this average builder home of today?
I like average music and wine. I don't like average architecture; my 8 years of school mean I appreciate and prefer *better than average* architecture. A trained musician likes better than average music; a oenophile likes better than average wine. Your refusal to accept the existence of a qualitative difference is baffling, Thayer.
On the other hand, your question about stock builder homes from 100 years ago is intriguing. Can you post some images of what one looks like? Beyond just the typically pleasing patina of most old buildings, I suspect that 100 year old buildings just have overall proportional relationships that we find more pleasing.
I don't understand why builders don't just copy stuff that works verbatim. Used to get a magazine called Builder filled with solid stuff... just copy it... why all the "monkey"?
As for 4Squares, Sears and homes of that era, ever notice that these homes are never altered? Rarely added on to.... because they work.... created by architects. Ever since then its been a millennium of crap... so bad and unlivable that its spawned big box remodeling centers on 1 mile centers... billions spent tinkering to scrub out the misery.
Because builders are now offering "custom homes". A client goes into a showroom and picks a plan and a salesman with no interest, talent or training in architecture sits down with the client and adds features that the client wants. The result is exactly what you would expect given those involved.
Donna, thanks for engaging with something more than snark. Of course you're training gives you more of an eye, as does mine and many others on this site. What I hope isn't too baffling is that I accept that when it comes down to simple taste, not how one can intellectualize taste, but actual instinctual taste, I don't assume mine is better. If you have 8 years of studying and I have 12, does that mean I have better taste? Or if someone has a doctorate in architecture and can recite the lineage of a building's ideas to within an inch of it's ancestry, does that mean they have a better eye than someone who's been decorating their whole life and intuitively understands the play of light on color and texture?
Yes, this building is laughably bad, as are it's millions of breatheren (or sisteren?) But why do these homeowners and builders continue to want or aspire to some aesthetic that can vaguely be associated with traditional design? Why, after 70 years of modernist training in the field of architecture do we still see this kind of aspiration, and more importantly, why haven't the schools accounted for what is clearly an innate feeling or desire?
I'm not saying abandon Carlo Scarpa or Louis Khan, or even the playful manner of an early Frank Gehry. But rather than spending 170 comments kicking a stupid looking house, why not put up an excellent traditional house and start analyizing it's proportions, materials, and function? Maybe because we are not trained to look at these buildings with anything more than condescension. And if that's the case, young architects will continue to miss out on the piles of work available to them and leave it to builders who have no good examples to follow because we're all to busy hoping we nab one of those few and far between clients who'd rather live in an intellectually rigorous but cold glass box on 100 acres. In the mean time, our landscape continues to get shit on by this kind of crap.
" I suspect that 100 year old buildings just have overall proportional relationships that we find more pleasing."
Agreed. So why don't we do what artists have done for 1000's of years and simply study these pleasing proportions? We'd have to throw out the biases of or schooling and maybe even listen to a client and builder's perspectives, but who knows...after another 100 years, a house we designed for lill'old Ms. Smith might be appreciated by our great grand child for it's pleasing proportions and old patina (natural materials always helps here).
100 years ago, builders looked to architects for the models of what to do. Sure they didn't always master the proportions, etc, but they got closer than not having a model to emulate. And surely you would admit that if the Modernist revolution hasn't convinced Ms. Smith at this point, it most likely won't in the next 100 years. Something about purchasing and living in a home is very different than your next handy dandy I-phone, that's all I'm saying.
I have a client now that likes modernism. It's going to be fun because after so many traditional plans and facades, even an old fart like me who designs with a pencil (produces with a comupter) likes to mix it up. So please don't get me wrong, it doesn't have to be either or (you should see my tastes in music and food!) But as a profession, we're not doing ourselves any favors by omitting the study of proportions, massing, and even traditional design. Let's have a laugh at some of these train wreck houses, sure, they even had then 100 years ago (see Herbert Chivers). But let's also get off our high horse once and a while and try to understand a homeowner or builder's perspective and design something that they truly might like, if they commit the unpardonable crime of liking traditional design.
from the "Theory of Mouldings" by C. Howard Walker first published in 1926 (2007 copy qouted here) foreword by Richard Sammons:
"Fewer subjects in architecture have been given less attention during the last near century than the study of mouldings (a word more familiar to modern American eyes as moldings). To the adherents of the modern movement they reeked of superfluous and decadent ornament and were therefore banned. Over the decades the rationale behind the origin, use and sequence of mouldings has eroded to less than a memory."
------
Thayer-D I have a much different theory.
Although the PROFESSIONALS abandoned decades ago the use of moldings, this did not mean the financial and industrial market for moldings disappeared and therefore manufacturers and craftsmen continued to make and install moldings without any theoretical guidance from the PROFESSIONALS.
The nostalgic taste of home owners has maintained this market, but since there is no proper education essentially anywhere about their employment you get pilasters holding up crown moldings like this house.
why not put up an excellent traditional house and start analyizing it's proportions, materials, and function? Maybe because we are not trained to look at these buildings with anything more than condescension.
I suspect that the arguments would essentially be the same - stylistic preferences and historically correct nomenclature.
The debate over traditional vs modern goes on, so too this thing about “school”. There is a place for all forms of architecture based on context & execution….there is no place for claiming that “school” = architecture. Many of our greatest architects never attended “school” including: Eileen Gray, FLW, Eiffel, Corbusier, Louis Sullivan and even Mies. “School” is a modern day hurdle and at best a seed and seeds don’t bare fruit. When architects cite their schooling they largely have little else to cite.
But as a profession, we're not doing ourselves any favors by omitting the study of proportions, massing, and even traditional design.
Thayer I think one thing we agree on is that schools don't seem currently to be teaching this and they should. I don't think students should have to actually design a building in a Beaux Arts style, but if they had to study the style then apply that conceptual framework to a contemporary building I think it would be excellent. And honestly I think a class based on this very thread (!), in which you look at bad examples and then compare them to the tradition from which they were born - both formal and socio-cultural - would be a fun class to teach and very valuable.
When I say it's a matter of proportion I mean that I feel like almost every bit of the built world we lay eyes on is at 4'x8', 16"oc proportions, and it's tiresome. Italianate houses had tall thin windows of proportions you rarely see in contemporary buildings. I love standards, but especially in residential construction I feel like it's mainly led to ungraceful blandness.
“Most of the complexities and contradictions we relished thinking about we did not use, because we did not have the opportunity. Venturi and Rauch did not get big commissions whose programs and settings justified complex and contradictory forms, and as artists we could not impose on our work inapplicable ideas that we liked as critics. A building should not be a vehicle for an architect’s ideas, etc. Also our budgets were low, and we did not want to design a building twice – once to fit some heroic idea of its importance to society and the worlds of art and, after the bids came in, a second time to reflect the client’s and society’s restricted idea of our architecture’s value. Whether society was right or wrong was not for us at that moment to argue.”
from "Theory of Ugly and Ordinary and Related and Contrary Theories" (Venturi, Scottt Brown, Izenour)
This is why we can't have nice things.
It's one thing if this statement came from a practicing firm that works to pay their bills and have lives very much outside architecture, but its another coming from architects who paraded around as architects in the world of architecture with a capital A and peddled this retreat and surrender to the forces of finances as a legitimate theory on architecture.
What is the difference between the Guild House and this Texas home?
alright EKE, find a Traditional Car Dealership that sales new affordable vehicles like Toyota or Hyundai? I get it, I work in NYC, the wealthy often confuse traditional with affluence and culture....but how rich can you be using EIFS instead of stone?
The reason we can't have "nice" things is very simple - the deliberate commercial industrialization of everything. And we are all the poorer for it, in many ways.
I find Guild House a very important piece of work for all the reasons. I toured the building in 1980 as a student, I saw it worked very well too. From beautiful community room behind the arc to little impromptu hallways, lobby, gardens, etc., they created a nice sense of energy, activity and happiness among the residents. It is quite radical and contrasting in its context too. Good thing, there are a lot of writing and recording of it to be forgotten. Architecture of the exterior is pure meaning in every sentence and very reflectively narrated. A fully applied piece of architecture, wall to wall, and page to page. Unfortunately, it is often dismissed and lumped together with whatever architectural dissing one might have.
"alright EKE, find a Traditional Car Dealership that sales new affordable vehicles like Toyota or Hyundai? I get it, I work in NYC, the wealthy often confuse traditional with affluence and culture....but how rich can you be using EIFS instead of stone?"
That dealership was built in 1937. EFIS didn't exist in 1937.
"I don't think students should have to actually design a building in a Beaux Arts style, but if they had to study the style then apply that conceptual framework to a contemporary building I think it would be excellent."
Fully agree. I'm not hung up over what style one employs to teach these lessons of composition as I think you would tell the students right off that the lessons are stylistically agnostic. In fact, it would be a useful exercise to reproduce a certain scheme in a variety of styles. But it's worth noting that good classical architecture carries many of these proportioning systems in its DNA, all be it of the more symmetrical variety. For nice modernist compositions, I might recommend abstracting picturesque designs like the shingle style and other medieval derived vocabularies. Not just in 2-d, but in the round. Those charming towers can be converted into the iconic vertical 'piece' that anchors a composition. Fuzzy symmetry where by a disparate composition holds together is another good exercise.
Industrialization does indeed give us certain geometries that economy does make attractive, especially at the lower end of the market, but beauty does sell. It just takes time to study and theories sometimes only cloud the effort of what is essentially a craft exercise. In fact, one of the origins of modernism was to rely on mass production to give us the honest expression of modern industrialized man. Modernism long ago moved away from this idea with its current high level of expressionism, but this tends to be cost prohibitive for the likes of Ms. Smith, assuming she wanted to live in a sculpture.
If there where a way of introducing this idea to schools with out provoking a political firestorm, I'd be all for it. I like working in a variety of ,styles, and don't think they have an ethical, social, or political implication, all though most will disagree with this based on their own biases. But when one sees every style employed for competing ideologies, I don't know how one can hold that position. Either way, always a pleasure to find common ground because I know we both mean the best regardless of frustrations.
I remember the empty blocks and the Guild house being 5-6 storeys drew a lot of criticism. Perhaps it was a new beginning for its context. It was gutsy to develop that building for the senior citizens. But the scene was different than behind the Boardwalk or Trumps casino in Atlantic City the same year. How is the area now? I haven't seen the Guild House since.
So let me get this straight, EKE, you find a dealership that is 78 years old to prove a point? You don't find your example mildly irrelevant?What did a Mercedes look like 78 years ago? Fortunately for humanity the car industry is progressive...........nice pic Miles. I wonder if the exposed conduit and outlet box is a nod to High-tech architecture like the Centre Pompidou or just poor and lazy planning and detailing ? How is the Guild House any better then this Texas house, I don't see the difference?
I knew that question would come up. Sure I have been involved in projects that just didn't work out as best as possible. (500+ projects in my 13 year career so far) My guess is the electrical was added for heating later because the glass didn't perform well in the winter......but here is major difference - I don't pawn off run of the mill day to day projects as Architecture with a capital A, write a book about it and teach at an Institution like Yale on what amounts to poor design and detailing and bending over to finances or just trying to make a living is somehow righteous? I show like what 3 projects on Archinect out of 500+ I have worked on and don't even bother theorizing them because I was lucky enough they worked out mildly....see my point about writing a essay on this Texas house, I could totally do it and then maybe Yale would hire me to teach?
I used the project Stat to make a point, and to be clear by 'work on' I mean in any capacity,so calm down its not all new buildings....I work in NYC mainly which means for the most part NOT new buildings......anyway what you don't really know in school when studying these architects is how much of their work that never gets published or talked about. The projects that are published and talked about are therefore presumably representative of the Architects design approach or theory and life's work.............Venturi chose these projects because I am sure given his approach his firm did a lot of stuff since it works well with standard stuff, but these were the important ones that represented what he thinks about Architecture Best? So as noted I have like 3 projects so far in my career but I still don't think they are worth representing what I believe. So Venturi is essentially saying the Guild House is one of his best works. Now look at this Texas house and compare a famous architects best work? What is the difference?
You asked me to find an example of a traditional car dealership, and I gave you an example of one.
If I were trying to make a point here, it would only be that the 1937 car dealership has survived to 2015 because people valued the design of it and wanted to maintain and keep it. By the way, it was originally a Packard dealership.
Ok fineprint will look into....EKE I would argue they kept the building because it was cheaper, but I see your point with Packard........Fineprint no one represents the Texas house as far as we know Venturi represents the Guild House and is a very famous architect. The Texas house can't pretend unless we pretend for it.
From an architectural point of view that spec house isn't pretending to be anything. It's simply a product designed for sale. Or so one would think. They must like that sort of thing down in Texas, they wouldn't build them if they didn't sell.
On the other hand Venturi's Guild House has been written about as if it were some ground-breaking moment in architecture. Which it was if you count the triumph of bullshit over anything that really matters.
It's assholes like this that have destroyed the profession.
Here is a house in Austin, Texas, similar to the earlier one in that it has limestone and brick front siding, eyebrow windows, garage to the side, small sheltered porch, round topped front door, and similar roof lines.
Oops on the round-topped door, I was looking at another photo of a Texas Hill country house that had limestone siding. This one stood out because of the brick and limestone siding which don't seem to clash here
The Texas house is all pretense in the same sense that masquerade/costuming is pretense.
So the Guild House is not masquerade? It's all masquerade.
According to Venturi: "In Guild House the ornamental-symbolic elements are more or less literally appliqué ... The symbolism of the decoration happens to be ugly and ordinary ..."
Venturi describes his own work as shit as if that was a feature. You can't make this stuff up.
von Moos: "emblamatic of an architectural philosophy that tries both to embrace the conventions of the classical tradition and to be ‘ugly and ordinary’. What a great philosophy!
Meanwhile, a spec house in a subdivision in Texas is built without such pseudo-esoteric justification. People like paint and trim. Imagine what Guild House would look like if it had some ...
At base, the Texas house is dressed up as a work of architecture without actually being a work of architecture.
Whether you like it or not, Guild House is a work of architecture.
By simple definition both buildings are architecture: the art or practice of designing and building structures.
again, its about "intent". For those of us who dont give a shit about ones intent the difference between this house and the Guild house is minimal. Would a archeologist in a post apocalyptic future (where all the texts full of archibabble have been incinerated) think the Guild house is a great work of architecture?
Im sure they would piss in Duchamps urinal and not think twice. Our bullshit is separate from the physical artifacts we create. Remove that and the true value reveals itself.
So, you agree that the Texas house is all pretense?
Quondam, you're grasping at straws here. Is that the best you've got?
No, it's only pretense to the extent that any application of ornament (and thus virtually all architecture) is pretense.
The Texas house is actually far more honest than Guild House because it doesn't pretend to be great architecture. The architect hasn't written volumes of bullshit philosophy in an failed attempt to justify it. Although if they did it would certainly make for much better reading than Ventur's high-brow low-brow less is a bore. Talk about pretentious ...
Anyone who studies the early Hill Country houses that were built by German and French (Alsace) settlers in Texas and then looks at the OPs house and the Austin house I posted earlier will see many similarities. To assume that these architects (or designers) just tossed random architectural features into a blender is incredibly naive. The OPs house is very poorly executed, to be sure. The Austin house I posted is much better executed. In any case these forms were not conjured up out of thin air.
still looks like a cheap mcmansion volunteer. certainly not as bad though. brick and stone clashes less because it's similar in color and pattern, but it still clashes.
This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
How do I know what the average person would like? Of course, we are talking about the person who has no design background or experience with what we would refer to as an aesthetic education. Now these people have opinions on design and aesthetics but they are usually referenced through what they like, or what they think they like, based on a narrow exposure to mcmansions while living in a tract house. The design education that we value, in fact, is seen as superfluous and aloof.
My personal experience is that I lived in one of those tract houses and all of my family seem to suffer Stendahl syndrome when they experience a double height entry and living room when visiting my brother's stucco clusterfuck in Phoenix. I also live in bumfuck Louisiana and just had a talk with the matriarch of a famous t.v. family who shoot ducks for a living. So, yeah, my street cred for knowing what the average joe may or may not like is pretty legit.
Now these people have opinions on design and aesthetics but they are usually referenced through what they like, or what they think they like, based on a narrow exposure to mcmansions while living in a tract house.
I think that while this has accuracy to it, it's too limited a viewpoint to ascribe to people. I would guess that the average person uses as a frame of reference the following (plus probably more that I'm not thinking of at the moment): all of their current and former houses, viewed through the lens of their station in life and income during those time periods, the houses of their friends and relatives which probably offer some more diversity in terms of geography and appearance, as well as houses they see in media (both real and fictional). The apartment on Friends or The Big Bang Theory is probably as much of a touchstone for their perceptions on design as the homes they see on House Hunters, and either of those expand their POV beyond their own living room. They may think nostalgically of the houses their grandparents or great-grandparents had (as do I, for that matter), or they may simply relate to things in ways they don't fully understand based on these touchpoints—ascribing better taste to people with higher incomes without realizing why they think that for example. Additionally, don't discount the role of hotels they've stayed in or even the offices they work at—I'm seeing the lines blurred between the two more and more, and conversely heard someone describe a modern home as being "like living in your office," which sounded silly to me at the time but really that's where most people see metal framing, smooth surfaces, expansive glass, etc. so why wouldn't they think that... Anyway, all this is to say, I think you're not giving the average person enough credit vado. Certainly there are a lot of viewpoints that we'd regard as backwards out there, but I'd rather try to understand where they come from than oversimplify it like that.
sorry but not all opinions are equal. there are people who have the opinion that jesus rode dinosaurs 2000 years ago. some people think coke is a replacement for water. is that opinion equal to one of a nutritionist? Some things just suck. this house is one of those things. the people who like it are entitled to, but their opinion is stupid. It doesn't take a phd in film history to know when a movie sucks.
also, the house is the furthest thing from "traditional" that I can imagine for one simple reason...traditionally, people gave a shit about the things they made. this mess is actually 100% in tune with the zeitgeist. a style of quick, cheap, flashy, crap.
I like bad music. I like bad movies. I haven't been trained in these arts nor have I spent years slaving away to mastering their creation. So, I blissfully absorb these stimuli without the baggage and critical eye that an acclaimed director would have. I hate to break it to everyone but we're average people too.
That was my point. We are all average people with average likes and dislikes, including those who spent 8 years studying architecture. Why is the average builder home of the 1910's or Sears bungalow of the 1920's more attractive than this average builder home of today?
On the other hand, your question about stock builder homes from 100 years ago is intriguing. Can you post some images of what one looks like? Beyond just the typically pleasing patina of most old buildings, I suspect that 100 year old buildings just have overall proportional relationships that we find more pleasing.
I don't understand why builders don't just copy stuff that works verbatim. Used to get a magazine called Builder filled with solid stuff... just copy it... why all the "monkey"?
As for 4Squares, Sears and homes of that era, ever notice that these homes are never altered? Rarely added on to.... because they work.... created by architects. Ever since then its been a millennium of crap... so bad and unlivable that its spawned big box remodeling centers on 1 mile centers... billions spent tinkering to scrub out the misery.
Because builders are now offering "custom homes". A client goes into a showroom and picks a plan and a salesman with no interest, talent or training in architecture sits down with the client and adds features that the client wants. The result is exactly what you would expect given those involved.
Donna, thanks for engaging with something more than snark. Of course you're training gives you more of an eye, as does mine and many others on this site. What I hope isn't too baffling is that I accept that when it comes down to simple taste, not how one can intellectualize taste, but actual instinctual taste, I don't assume mine is better. If you have 8 years of studying and I have 12, does that mean I have better taste? Or if someone has a doctorate in architecture and can recite the lineage of a building's ideas to within an inch of it's ancestry, does that mean they have a better eye than someone who's been decorating their whole life and intuitively understands the play of light on color and texture?
Yes, this building is laughably bad, as are it's millions of breatheren (or sisteren?) But why do these homeowners and builders continue to want or aspire to some aesthetic that can vaguely be associated with traditional design? Why, after 70 years of modernist training in the field of architecture do we still see this kind of aspiration, and more importantly, why haven't the schools accounted for what is clearly an innate feeling or desire?
I'm not saying abandon Carlo Scarpa or Louis Khan, or even the playful manner of an early Frank Gehry. But rather than spending 170 comments kicking a stupid looking house, why not put up an excellent traditional house and start analyizing it's proportions, materials, and function? Maybe because we are not trained to look at these buildings with anything more than condescension. And if that's the case, young architects will continue to miss out on the piles of work available to them and leave it to builders who have no good examples to follow because we're all to busy hoping we nab one of those few and far between clients who'd rather live in an intellectually rigorous but cold glass box on 100 acres. In the mean time, our landscape continues to get shit on by this kind of crap.
" I suspect that 100 year old buildings just have overall proportional relationships that we find more pleasing."
Agreed. So why don't we do what artists have done for 1000's of years and simply study these pleasing proportions? We'd have to throw out the biases of or schooling and maybe even listen to a client and builder's perspectives, but who knows...after another 100 years, a house we designed for lill'old Ms. Smith might be appreciated by our great grand child for it's pleasing proportions and old patina (natural materials always helps here).
100 years ago, builders looked to architects for the models of what to do. Sure they didn't always master the proportions, etc, but they got closer than not having a model to emulate. And surely you would admit that if the Modernist revolution hasn't convinced Ms. Smith at this point, it most likely won't in the next 100 years. Something about purchasing and living in a home is very different than your next handy dandy I-phone, that's all I'm saying.
I have a client now that likes modernism. It's going to be fun because after so many traditional plans and facades, even an old fart like me who designs with a pencil (produces with a comupter) likes to mix it up. So please don't get me wrong, it doesn't have to be either or (you should see my tastes in music and food!) But as a profession, we're not doing ourselves any favors by omitting the study of proportions, massing, and even traditional design. Let's have a laugh at some of these train wreck houses, sure, they even had then 100 years ago (see Herbert Chivers). But let's also get off our high horse once and a while and try to understand a homeowner or builder's perspective and design something that they truly might like, if they commit the unpardonable crime of liking traditional design.
from the "Theory of Mouldings" by C. Howard Walker first published in 1926 (2007 copy qouted here) foreword by Richard Sammons:
"Fewer subjects in architecture have been given less attention during the last near century than the study of mouldings (a word more familiar to modern American eyes as moldings). To the adherents of the modern movement they reeked of superfluous and decadent ornament and were therefore banned. Over the decades the rationale behind the origin, use and sequence of mouldings has eroded to less than a memory."
------
Thayer-D I have a much different theory.
Although the PROFESSIONALS abandoned decades ago the use of moldings, this did not mean the financial and industrial market for moldings disappeared and therefore manufacturers and craftsmen continued to make and install moldings without any theoretical guidance from the PROFESSIONALS.
The nostalgic taste of home owners has maintained this market, but since there is no proper education essentially anywhere about their employment you get pilasters holding up crown moldings like this house.
Dykes Lumber Molding Archive
Commercial construction tends to be Modern....find me a Tradionally designed New Car Dealership!
It appears the average Joe can connect sleek cars to Modern architecture and Corporate environments to Modern office buildings.
but somewhere within the "Cultural" or "Personal" we often get Traditional architecture requests or the cutting edge stuff.
why not put up an excellent traditional house and start analyizing it's proportions, materials, and function? Maybe because we are not trained to look at these buildings with anything more than condescension.
I suspect that the arguments would essentially be the same - stylistic preferences and historically correct nomenclature.
Also this is much more fun.
The debate over traditional vs modern goes on, so too this thing about “school”. There is a place for all forms of architecture based on context & execution….there is no place for claiming that “school” = architecture. Many of our greatest architects never attended “school” including: Eileen Gray, FLW, Eiffel, Corbusier, Louis Sullivan and even Mies. “School” is a modern day hurdle and at best a seed and seeds don’t bare fruit. When architects cite their schooling they largely have little else to cite.
But as a profession, we're not doing ourselves any favors by omitting the study of proportions, massing, and even traditional design.
Thayer I think one thing we agree on is that schools don't seem currently to be teaching this and they should. I don't think students should have to actually design a building in a Beaux Arts style, but if they had to study the style then apply that conceptual framework to a contemporary building I think it would be excellent. And honestly I think a class based on this very thread (!), in which you look at bad examples and then compare them to the tradition from which they were born - both formal and socio-cultural - would be a fun class to teach and very valuable.
When I say it's a matter of proportion I mean that I feel like almost every bit of the built world we lay eyes on is at 4'x8', 16"oc proportions, and it's tiresome. Italianate houses had tall thin windows of proportions you rarely see in contemporary buildings. I love standards, but especially in residential construction I feel like it's mainly led to ungraceful blandness.
Plan B http://www.donnahomesblog.com/image_store/uploads/7/0/1/4/3/ar12052486434107JPG
Plan C http://www.donnahomesblog.com/image_store/uploads/7/0/1/4/3/ar12052486434107.JPG
hope this link works!
"Find me a Tradionally designed New Car Dealership!"
Right around the corner from me!
“Most of the complexities and contradictions we relished thinking about we did not use, because we did not have the opportunity. Venturi and Rauch did not get big commissions whose programs and settings justified complex and contradictory forms, and as artists we could not impose on our work inapplicable ideas that we liked as critics. A building should not be a vehicle for an architect’s ideas, etc. Also our budgets were low, and we did not want to design a building twice – once to fit some heroic idea of its importance to society and the worlds of art and, after the bids came in, a second time to reflect the client’s and society’s restricted idea of our architecture’s value. Whether society was right or wrong was not for us at that moment to argue.”
from "Theory of Ugly and Ordinary and Related and Contrary Theories" (Venturi, Scottt Brown, Izenour)
This is why we can't have nice things.
It's one thing if this statement came from a practicing firm that works to pay their bills and have lives very much outside architecture, but its another coming from architects who paraded around as architects in the world of architecture with a capital A and peddled this retreat and surrender to the forces of finances as a legitimate theory on architecture.
What is the difference between the Guild House and this Texas home?
alright EKE, find a Traditional Car Dealership that sales new affordable vehicles like Toyota or Hyundai? I get it, I work in NYC, the wealthy often confuse traditional with affluence and culture....but how rich can you be using EIFS instead of stone?
or is that dealership built like a Mercedes?
more like the new ford thunderbirds that look like the old thunderbirds but made on an assembly line with robotic arms and cheap parts.
The reason we can't have "nice" things is very simple - the deliberate commercial industrialization of everything. And we are all the poorer for it, in many ways.
I find Guild House a very important piece of work for all the reasons. I toured the building in 1980 as a student, I saw it worked very well too. From beautiful community room behind the arc to little impromptu hallways, lobby, gardens, etc., they created a nice sense of energy, activity and happiness among the residents. It is quite radical and contrasting in its context too. Good thing, there are a lot of writing and recording of it to be forgotten. Architecture of the exterior is pure meaning in every sentence and very reflectively narrated. A fully applied piece of architecture, wall to wall, and page to page. Unfortunately, it is often dismissed and lumped together with whatever architectural dissing one might have.
"alright EKE, find a Traditional Car Dealership that sales new affordable vehicles like Toyota or Hyundai? I get it, I work in NYC, the wealthy often confuse traditional with affluence and culture....but how rich can you be using EIFS instead of stone?"
That dealership was built in 1937. EFIS didn't exist in 1937.
Nice one EKE!
Donna,
"I don't think students should have to actually design a building in a Beaux Arts style, but if they had to study the style then apply that conceptual framework to a contemporary building I think it would be excellent."
Fully agree. I'm not hung up over what style one employs to teach these lessons of composition as I think you would tell the students right off that the lessons are stylistically agnostic. In fact, it would be a useful exercise to reproduce a certain scheme in a variety of styles. But it's worth noting that good classical architecture carries many of these proportioning systems in its DNA, all be it of the more symmetrical variety. For nice modernist compositions, I might recommend abstracting picturesque designs like the shingle style and other medieval derived vocabularies. Not just in 2-d, but in the round. Those charming towers can be converted into the iconic vertical 'piece' that anchors a composition. Fuzzy symmetry where by a disparate composition holds together is another good exercise.
Industrialization does indeed give us certain geometries that economy does make attractive, especially at the lower end of the market, but beauty does sell. It just takes time to study and theories sometimes only cloud the effort of what is essentially a craft exercise. In fact, one of the origins of modernism was to rely on mass production to give us the honest expression of modern industrialized man. Modernism long ago moved away from this idea with its current high level of expressionism, but this tends to be cost prohibitive for the likes of Ms. Smith, assuming she wanted to live in a sculpture.
If there where a way of introducing this idea to schools with out provoking a political firestorm, I'd be all for it. I like working in a variety of ,styles, and don't think they have an ethical, social, or political implication, all though most will disagree with this based on their own biases. But when one sees every style employed for competing ideologies, I don't know how one can hold that position. Either way, always a pleasure to find common ground because I know we both mean the best regardless of frustrations.
1937 exactly.
Yes. 1937. Exactly.
I remember the empty blocks and the Guild house being 5-6 storeys drew a lot of criticism. Perhaps it was a new beginning for its context. It was gutsy to develop that building for the senior citizens. But the scene was different than behind the Boardwalk or Trumps casino in Atlantic City the same year. How is the area now? I haven't seen the Guild House since.
That is one ill-proportioned ugly-ass building. But the gorgeous interior detailing more than makes up for it.
The lights would be good for open-heart surgery.
So let me get this straight, EKE, you find a dealership that is 78 years old to prove a point? You don't find your example mildly irrelevant?What did a Mercedes look like 78 years ago? Fortunately for humanity the car industry is progressive...........nice pic Miles. I wonder if the exposed conduit and outlet box is a nod to High-tech architecture like the Centre Pompidou or just poor and lazy planning and detailing ? How is the Guild House any better then this Texas house, I don't see the difference?
I knew that question would come up. Sure I have been involved in projects that just didn't work out as best as possible. (500+ projects in my 13 year career so far) My guess is the electrical was added for heating later because the glass didn't perform well in the winter......but here is major difference - I don't pawn off run of the mill day to day projects as Architecture with a capital A, write a book about it and teach at an Institution like Yale on what amounts to poor design and detailing and bending over to finances or just trying to make a living is somehow righteous? I show like what 3 projects on Archinect out of 500+ I have worked on and don't even bother theorizing them because I was lucky enough they worked out mildly....see my point about writing a essay on this Texas house, I could totally do it and then maybe Yale would hire me to teach?
^ Well I feel pretty lazy right now.
13 years x 365 days/year = 4745 days in 13 years
4745 days / 500 projects = 9.49 days / project
...you're outpacing the prolific 70 year career of FLW by a friggin' mile.
I used the project Stat to make a point, and to be clear by 'work on' I mean in any capacity,so calm down its not all new buildings....I work in NYC mainly which means for the most part NOT new buildings......anyway what you don't really know in school when studying these architects is how much of their work that never gets published or talked about. The projects that are published and talked about are therefore presumably representative of the Architects design approach or theory and life's work.............Venturi chose these projects because I am sure given his approach his firm did a lot of stuff since it works well with standard stuff, but these were the important ones that represented what he thinks about Architecture Best? So as noted I have like 3 projects so far in my career but I still don't think they are worth representing what I believe. So Venturi is essentially saying the Guild House is one of his best works. Now look at this Texas house and compare a famous architects best work? What is the difference?
And yes Saint I work on typically 10-15 projects a week...at 20 projects my brain tends to fail.
What is the difference between the Guild House and this Texas home?
The Texas house doesn't pretend to be anything. I'd really like to hear someone defend Guild House as great architecture.
You asked me to find an example of a traditional car dealership, and I gave you an example of one.
If I were trying to make a point here, it would only be that the 1937 car dealership has survived to 2015 because people valued the design of it and wanted to maintain and keep it. By the way, it was originally a Packard dealership.
Ok fineprint will look into....EKE I would argue they kept the building because it was cheaper, but I see your point with Packard........Fineprint no one represents the Texas house as far as we know Venturi represents the Guild House and is a very famous architect. The Texas house can't pretend unless we pretend for it.
From an architectural point of view that spec house isn't pretending to be anything. It's simply a product designed for sale. Or so one would think. They must like that sort of thing down in Texas, they wouldn't build them if they didn't sell.
On the other hand Venturi's Guild House has been written about as if it were some ground-breaking moment in architecture. Which it was if you count the triumph of bullshit over anything that really matters.
It's assholes like this that have destroyed the profession.
And yes Saint I work on typically 10-15 projects a week.
What are the projects? What's your involvement?
Here is a house in Austin, Texas, similar to the earlier one in that it has limestone and brick front siding, eyebrow windows, garage to the side, small sheltered porch, round topped front door, and similar roof lines.
http://1drv.ms/1vwIKQr
Oops on the round-topped door, I was looking at another photo of a Texas Hill country house that had limestone siding. This one stood out because of the brick and limestone siding which don't seem to clash here
The Texas house is all pretense in the same sense that masquerade/costuming is pretense.
So the Guild House is not masquerade? It's all masquerade.
According to Venturi: "In Guild House the ornamental-symbolic elements are more or less literally appliqué ... The symbolism of the decoration happens to be ugly and ordinary ..."
Venturi describes his own work as shit as if that was a feature. You can't make this stuff up.
von Moos: "emblamatic of an architectural philosophy that tries both to embrace the conventions of the classical tradition and to be ‘ugly and ordinary’. What a great philosophy!
Meanwhile, a spec house in a subdivision in Texas is built without such pseudo-esoteric justification. People like paint and trim. Imagine what Guild House would look like if it had some ...
At base, the Texas house is dressed up as a work of architecture without actually being a work of architecture.
Whether you like it or not, Guild House is a work of architecture.
By simple definition both buildings are architecture: the art or practice of designing and building structures.
again, its about "intent". For those of us who dont give a shit about ones intent the difference between this house and the Guild house is minimal. Would a archeologist in a post apocalyptic future (where all the texts full of archibabble have been incinerated) think the Guild house is a great work of architecture?
Im sure they would piss in Duchamps urinal and not think twice. Our bullshit is separate from the physical artifacts we create. Remove that and the true value reveals itself.
First VSBA and now Duchamp, book burning next? Wait, that already happened in the apocalyptic future!
So, you agree that the Texas house is all pretense?
Quondam, you're grasping at straws here. Is that the best you've got?
No, it's only pretense to the extent that any application of ornament (and thus virtually all architecture) is pretense.
The Texas house is actually far more honest than Guild House because it doesn't pretend to be great architecture. The architect hasn't written volumes of bullshit philosophy in an failed attempt to justify it. Although if they did it would certainly make for much better reading than Ventur's high-brow low-brow less is a bore. Talk about pretentious ...
Anyone who studies the early Hill Country houses that were built by German and French (Alsace) settlers in Texas and then looks at the OPs house and the Austin house I posted earlier will see many similarities. To assume that these architects (or designers) just tossed random architectural features into a blender is incredibly naive. The OPs house is very poorly executed, to be sure. The Austin house I posted is much better executed. In any case these forms were not conjured up out of thin air.
still looks like a cheap mcmansion volunteer. certainly not as bad though. brick and stone clashes less because it's similar in color and pattern, but it still clashes.
"Our bullshit is separate from the physical artifacts we create. Remove that and the true value reveals itself. "
Pretty much.
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