looks like a parasitic light curvilinear steel and glass shard slipping up the side of its host, a heavy stone armature, or some such. but there must be more than just a description. you need a larger narrative into which it can be integrated. : )
The form of the building is inspired by the dhows that traditionally plied the Creek (and still do, though without sails). The tower is supported at the sides by two massive granite columns, and faced with glass curtain walls; on the Creek side this curtain wall curves gracefully from top to bottom, like a billowing sail.
Beneath this tower, with an air gap between that reinforces the sail image, is the horizontal banking hall, projecting to the front and back of the building. The hall itself, faced with green glass, represents the sea. The curved aluminum roof of the hall takes the shape of the glass sail above, rotated horizontally to represent the hull of the dhow.
The shapes are simple and powerful, particularly the relationship between ‘hull’ and ‘sail’, which is an elegant interpretation of the established block-and-slab model (see Lever House). As a bank, though, it is definitely from the era of communicating power and wealth, rather than anything more personal or friendly.
All I can think is title of the piece that might be published in one of kiss ass design / advertisement / industry beat magazines or in the corporate office's website news section.
"And the Ship Sails On" definitely venturing into a familiar artistic flair by the editors who have done thousands of these pay per article corporate content for the magazines and who just saw the Fellini film in Netflix. Of course it would start with more song and dance version of FRaC's first paragraph.
Awesome to some and shitty to some others. But at the end, all the soul of the form is flattened and squeezed out with by corpo-scrutinized design clientship like the company logo displayed on the facade.
The headquarters of the National Bank of Dubai is an imagery of the dhow, a regional boat centuries old used in the Indian Ocean, and the establishment of Dubai as a market place. It's curved curtain wall represents the billowing sail, supported by two granite columns. The base of the building, the banking hall, is clad in green glass representing the water and it's roof of aluminum, the hull of the boat. The curved facade gives a reflection of the air and the Dubai Creek, although the most impressive show is at sundown when the unique sunsets allow for shades of gold and silver to shine off the curved mirror.
The main banking hall and trading space is located on the ground floor, under the metaphorical hull of the dhow. Above, separated by a vertical gap of 30 feet from the banking hall, are the offices of the bank. These office floors, clad in a gold-colored glass, swell outwards metaphorically alluding to a billowing sail. The triumph of this building is not its height, a factor of great importance in this part of the world, but its proportional execution.
I'm totally with snook - looks like a pregnant building. Except the path of exit is represented in the graphic on the side. The designer must not have much experience with...forget it.
I was a guest critic last year for final reviews. One of the instructors kept referring to a building's "couture" when discussing elevations. He also openly derided some of his students, which is even worse than uttering pompous babble. I wanted to punch him. But I didn't.
"Intern #421 at the SOM modelshop was grossly disillusioned. What was it worth, this phd in Advanced Bullshi---er Design? Sure, he had gotten a foot in the corporate door, but in his case, it felt more like he had only wedged it in that dangerous hinge-side slot created by offset pivots. So here he was, having courageously survived the first 22 days, but feeling more and more like that promotion to Principal-with-facist-authorty-over--all-design would never come. So on day 24, in an act of desperate unleashed genius, he spun his aeron 180 and grabbed the first shopside tool he saw, his trusty sandpaper holder. He dipped Excalibur in gorilla glue and stood it on end, the plinth no more than his bare naked shop-worn palm. And with a ferocious march down that long, certainly non-compliant corridor, he stormed the executive lounge, slipped through the blast doors, skid across the shagreen, and thrust forward his dayjob waiter arm pose. (insert sword being quickly withdrawn from sheath sound here) Excalibur reinterpreted, Mr. Childs orgasm'd immediately.
113 non-union days later, #421's model would be a built reality, our young hero's baby born!
Childs would later recall, "the JUXTAPOSITION of that sandpaper holder, this tool meant to make smooth, with the otherwise gnarly, worn, bleeding, palm of that intern was so phenomenologically beautiful. I gave the boy a raise up to minimum wage and even threw in a metrocard allowance."
The intern however was on his own for getting the tool surgically removed from his hand, because of course, this job came with no health insurance.
jmanganelli "this thread clarifies something for me. i see there are two distinct classes of arch speak: marketing-speak and criticism-speak:" this is a very insightful point.....
Please translate to archi-speak for me?
If a building is all blocky and squarish, and then suddenly there's a curvy shape on one side, how is that expressed in super complicated archi-speak?
Much appreciated, folks. I refer to the Bank of Dubai building, below.
You've come to the right profession. Nobody outdoes architectural writers for pompous babble.
looks like a parasitic light curvilinear steel and glass shard slipping up the side of its host, a heavy stone armature, or some such. but there must be more than just a description. you need a larger narrative into which it can be integrated. : )
The Flair.
Nice start, Steven!
make sure you mention:
"tension"
"hegemonic order" or "hegemony"
the ways it represents constructs " in circulation"
"emergent"
"autopoesis"
"angle of the dangle"
The prevailing capitalist zeitgeist of the pre-recessionary real estate bubble brought about this shit turd of a building.
[oops, might have slipped into won and done-ese at the end there.]
"angle of the dangle" is also nice.
"...like a launching pad. Into the future!"
The form of the building is inspired by the dhows that traditionally plied the Creek (and still do, though without sails). The tower is supported at the sides by two massive granite columns, and faced with glass curtain walls; on the Creek side this curtain wall curves gracefully from top to bottom, like a billowing sail.
Beneath this tower, with an air gap between that reinforces the sail image, is the horizontal banking hall, projecting to the front and back of the building. The hall itself, faced with green glass, represents the sea. The curved aluminum roof of the hall takes the shape of the glass sail above, rotated horizontally to represent the hull of the dhow.
The shapes are simple and powerful, particularly the relationship between ‘hull’ and ‘sail’, which is an elegant interpretation of the established block-and-slab model (see Lever House). As a bank, though, it is definitely from the era of communicating power and wealth, rather than anything more personal or friendly.
All I can think is title of the piece that might be published in one of kiss ass design / advertisement / industry beat magazines or in the corporate office's website news section.
"And the Ship Sails On" definitely venturing into a familiar artistic flair by the editors who have done thousands of these pay per article corporate content for the magazines and who just saw the Fellini film in Netflix. Of course it would start with more song and dance version of FRaC's first paragraph.
Awesome to some and shitty to some others. But at the end, all the soul of the form is flattened and squeezed out with by corpo-scrutinized design clientship like the company logo displayed on the facade.
i must admit i cheated
oh man i can't stand those punny titles in magazines 'sail of the century' or some other blah blah blug
is there an architectural term for Liposuction
The headquarters of the National Bank of Dubai is an imagery of the dhow, a regional boat centuries old used in the Indian Ocean, and the establishment of Dubai as a market place. It's curved curtain wall represents the billowing sail, supported by two granite columns. The base of the building, the banking hall, is clad in green glass representing the water and it's roof of aluminum, the hull of the boat. The curved facade gives a reflection of the air and the Dubai Creek, although the most impressive show is at sundown when the unique sunsets allow for shades of gold and silver to shine off the curved mirror.
The main banking hall and trading space is located on the ground floor, under the metaphorical hull of the dhow. Above, separated by a vertical gap of 30 feet from the banking hall, are the offices of the bank. These office floors, clad in a gold-colored glass, swell outwards metaphorically alluding to a billowing sail. The triumph of this building is not its height, a factor of great importance in this part of the world, but its proportional execution.
Juxtaposition. It's archi-speak 101 - what you heard every student say in every sentence about every project.
don't forget to mention "topology" and how the two moves "start to have a conversation".
3 months with baby building...
is there an architectural term for Liposuction
throw "armature" and "materiality" in there, too
throw "armature" and "materiality" in there, too
there really needs to be an archi-speak version of bacon ipsum
I'm totally with snook - looks like a pregnant building. Except the path of exit is represented in the graphic on the side. The designer must not have much experience with...forget it.
It's not archi-speak, it's archibabble.
I was a guest critic last year for final reviews. One of the instructors kept referring to a building's "couture" when discussing elevations. He also openly derided some of his students, which is even worse than uttering pompous babble. I wanted to punch him. But I didn't.
for all you bullshitting needs... http://www.ruderal.com/bullshit/bullshit.htm
You are all so far off.
"Intern #421 at the SOM modelshop was grossly disillusioned. What was it worth, this phd in Advanced Bullshi---er Design? Sure, he had gotten a foot in the corporate door, but in his case, it felt more like he had only wedged it in that dangerous hinge-side slot created by offset pivots. So here he was, having courageously survived the first 22 days, but feeling more and more like that promotion to Principal-with-facist-authorty-over--all-design would never come. So on day 24, in an act of desperate unleashed genius, he spun his aeron 180 and grabbed the first shopside tool he saw, his trusty sandpaper holder. He dipped Excalibur in gorilla glue and stood it on end, the plinth no more than his bare naked shop-worn palm. And with a ferocious march down that long, certainly non-compliant corridor, he stormed the executive lounge, slipped through the blast doors, skid across the shagreen, and thrust forward his dayjob waiter arm pose. (insert sword being quickly withdrawn from sheath sound here) Excalibur reinterpreted, Mr. Childs orgasm'd immediately.
113 non-union days later, #421's model would be a built reality, our young hero's baby born!
Get yours today:
http://paint-and-supplies.hardwarestore.com/50-268-sanding-blocks/rubber-sanding-block-261321.aspx
this thread clarifies something for me. i see there are two distinct classes of arch speak: marketing-speak and criticism-speak
put another way (by way of analogy), there's what you say to get to hook up and then there is what you tell your friends afterward
peace 77, that was FANTASTIC! I knew I'd seen that curve somewhere before, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading that dramatic story!
jmanganelli LOL.
don't forget "juxtaposition "
de rigueur in first year design studios
Epilogue:
Childs would later recall, "the JUXTAPOSITION of that sandpaper holder, this tool meant to make smooth, with the otherwise gnarly, worn, bleeding, palm of that intern was so phenomenologically beautiful. I gave the boy a raise up to minimum wage and even threw in a metrocard allowance."
The intern however was on his own for getting the tool surgically removed from his hand, because of course, this job came with no health insurance.
That does sound just like Mr. Childs...recall listening to him in a lecture a long time ago and thinking, "I could never ever work for that Man."
jmanganelli "this thread clarifies something for me. i see there are two distinct classes of arch speak: marketing-speak and criticism-speak:" this is a very insightful point.....