To add to that, he's apparently a networking king, and has the CEO of Fox on his buttered side of the bread, "21st Century Fox and News Corp, wanted BIG founder Bjarke Ingels to redesign the tower – reportedly because it felt the 79-storey design by London-based Foster + Partners 'was more suited for an investment bank than a modern media company'".
I mean, if the CEO has a personal affection for you, that certainly helps aid in gaining the commission...
Norman Foster in an architectural master though. As a replacement, this is unfortunate. Wish they coulda just told Foster to redesign it.
chosunone
Jun 10, 15 1:01 pm
That's what I was wondering why Norman wasn't asked to redesign it..unless Norman Foster refused to do so.
sameolddoctor
Jun 10, 15 7:09 pm
And, Bjarke has a HUGE ASS.
Good comparison though, I expect the BIG reality show to start sometime soon.
karts
Jan 17, 22 2:25 am
Haha yes I agree, also in Quora website I read that he has very minimal idea of what sustainable design is really...
no_form
Jun 11, 15 12:28 am
Someday all that will come out of his mouth are weird looking symbols and pictograms. Then a spring will pop out of the back of his head and we will all know the truth. He was a robot invented by gramazio and kohler.
zonker
Jun 11, 15 4:25 pm
the 3D diagrammatic is what we did in the video game world for level and environment design - I crossed this over to architecture and one day my professor showed me the PLOT(pre BIG) website - Oh I get it, it's a video game - seems like Bjarke wants to turn NYC into one big game level - Grand_theft Architect anyone? I tried to apply this diagrammatic oversimplification in arch school and got bashed for it("go back to your Video games") - - we did try this at SOM with Park Merced in SF, and there was a huge protest at city hall.
but no, BIG.dk gets away with it. - Not fair
zonker
Jun 11, 15 5:04 pm
WTF - no fireproofing on the Wide Flanges? what a sitting duck - let FDNY see this and or Homeland Security
you just need to show up with tight trousers and a european accent - oh, and be good looking, that helps.
chosunone
Jun 14, 15 11:51 am
Xenakis...
I tried different techniques at school and it seems professors have different preferences on diagrams. It can be unhealthy...but I realized in my grad studies that you can pretty much do anything as long your drawings explains the concept...we often as students get trapped by images we see on the internet without really reading what the architect is trying to achieve. Images are quite seductive...such as BIG diagrams.
I wonder how Bjarke Ingels time at GSD went...I heard Preston Scott Cohen torn him apart at a lecture he gave while at GSD.
zonker
Jun 14, 15 4:29 pm
The Diagrams need to have substance in order for the process to be functional at achieving the design - I am not surprised Preston Scott Cohen tore apart Bjarke - The diagrams are to represent a substantiated system of process not be a "bag of tricks" to wowie zowie people on a selection committee or Jury.
snooker-doodle-dandy
Jun 14, 15 6:10 pm
Dude gets some major commissions....so he is doing something right. Even if his firm name id "BIG".....I always think of his firm as "GIB"......now can you figure that one out?
toasteroven
Jun 14, 15 9:53 pm
I heard Preston Scott Cohen torn him apart at a lecture he gave while at GSD.
if I ever gave a lecture at the GSD and Preston decided to launch into me, I'd spend a chunk of time talking about all the weird shit with his own house renovation.
chosunone
Jun 17, 15 10:06 pm
@Toasteroven..
Speaking of houses.
I know Preston did a debate with Nader Tehrani entitled "my house is better than your house"
It is what it is both Preston and Nader show their work and critic each other.
A big portion was about sloped / truncated bricks.
I was recently at a lecture by Fumihiko Maki at Japan Society regarding his world trade center project and we all end up talking on how crappy BIG project was....poor Maki..he had to experience all that.
really quite amazing how similar this is to the WTC proposal. quite lazy.
shifted boxes, relating to something about the program being a box. somehow a person at street level is supposed to relate to the scale of the shift. it's really version 2.0.
bobaforastro
Aug 2, 18 7:56 pm
Bjarke does no design work. He’s just a sales man selling fluff. He is literally just a figurehead of the company. It is deceptive to take your employees work and present it as your own doing drawings and pretending to make models of building you didn’t even design. Wake up people.
JCArchi
Aug 3, 18 10:00 am
Wake up sheeple*
bobaforastro
Aug 4, 18 12:57 am
Bjarke even outs himself as fraud in his 2016 rolling stone interview. " ... he’d been the subject of a largely laudatory 60 Minutes segment, and he felt the piece portrayed him as a “salesman.” Later, he elaborated, “I think the biggest backhanded criticism-compliment I get is that I’m ‘good at communicating.’ Which implies that you’re bad at doing. To me, it’s a strength that there’s clarity. We know what we’re doing, and that’s why we can also explain it. The fact that something is actually understandable and relatable doesn’t mean that it’s unsophisticated or banal. It just means that it’s crystal-clear. And if you can’t explain it, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s so brilliant that ordinary mortals can’t fathom it. It might just mean that it makes no sense.”
at no point the in the interview does he say he does any design work himself.
In his documentary BIG time it shows a young employee who is the one who designs the serpentine pavilion. Yet here he is making a model of the serpentine pavilion and challenging other young architects to build your own pavilion when he isn't even the one who designed it.
Also in the documentary " BIG time " during his 40th birthday his nyc office is linked up with a video feed of his Copenhagen office. His employees in the copenhagen office all come on screen all wearing bjarke ingles masks to make fun of him on his birthday. Its like the employees in copenhagen are saying they are the real bjarke ingles. the documentary is out now btw you can watch/download it yourself.
Bjarke is the biggest fraud in architectural history. He knows it and his employees and know it. It can't be pleasant being Bjarke. He is constantly selling other peoples works and passing them off as his own. It is like he is a pop star who is constantly on tour lip syncing to other peoples voices and getting congratulated for it. Im still sure there are definitely some talented people working at his firm though. I just find him repulsive as an architect and as a person because I am bombarded with all his bs pr all the time when I visit architecture websites with most people none the wiser who are subjected to it.
randomised
Aug 4, 18 4:07 am
H8ers gonna h8.
bobaforastro
Aug 4, 18 4:55 am
update. the neftlix version of his documentary big time is 1:30 while imdb says the documentary is 1:33. I saw the 1:33 version at a flim festival. The 3 minutes footage of the young employee making the serpentine pavilion has been cut from the documentary in the nextflix and dvd version.
joseffischer
Aug 6, 18 9:03 am
HAH, that's awesome, thanks
bobaforastro
Aug 4, 18 6:11 am
sorry the abstract bjarke ingles documentary for netflix is actually one that shows he didn't design the serpintine pavilion.
randomised
Aug 4, 18 9:33 am
And your point is? You think principals do all the designing, detailing and site visits of the projects their studio produces? You must be either simply delusional or you're a former BIG intern with a grudge that didn't got a job offered even though you foamed a couple of concept models or did a sketchup solar path study or two.
Dangermouse
Aug 4, 18 10:42 pm
work comes from everywhere and authorship is never singular; this is true for literally every design practice and project in existence. even the god-hermit Zumthor relies on an army of staff and interns to do 99% of the lifting
JLC-1
Aug 5, 18 7:03 pm
I dont like most of BIG's work, but if you want recognition bring some dam clients!
bobaforastro
Aug 5, 18 5:09 pm
No Sir Batshit Crazy, i was never fired from BIG. I just dont like being lied to and really dislike inefficiency. Theres always been something off about Bjarke and the things he says and does now theres proof. Bjarke Ingles is that you randomised.
randomised
Aug 6, 18 2:12 am
So you are the whiny intern that didn't get a contract, glad that's cleared up. Now I know why you thought I was Bjarke. But no, I'm Winy Koolmaaskant.
jayc.whitecloud
Jan 15, 22 12:13 am
I am personally shocked that more professionals can't see the fraud that Bjarke presents with most projects...Anyone that employes the amount of modern concrete and steel he proposes in projects could never call themselves a legitimately concerned environmentalist or designer with a focus on the well-being of this planet. He is the epidemy of "greenwashing!"
karts
Jan 17, 22 2:35 am
Yea many people do say that he has no idea what "Hedonistic Sustainability" is ........at least from the quora posts I've read....
randomised
Jan 17, 22 3:18 pm
…good times…
Ricardo Chavez
Jan 19, 22 11:00 am
Gensler and bigger corporate firms are the kardashians of architecture. BIG had its role in our culture, just like another firm will , and another. It happened with zaha, then the zaha hate came.
monosierra
Jan 19, 22 2:20 pm
Stylistically, BIG and Heatherwick are very much designing in the spirit of the brualist architects decades ago. They all sculpt buildings with the pixels of their time, carving a singular mass rather than assembling parts into a cohesive whole that nonetheless cannot be reduced to a simple form (or diagram). Whereas the brutalist era had to work with concrete, BIG and Heatherwick's more varied palette consists of glass boxes, metal tents, wooden beams and other materials assembled as discrete units into a singular form. Their poor man's alter egos, ODA etc, do the same. To their credit, OMA in its transitional stylistic stage (Culminating in the Seattle Public Library) still managed to collage a singular form out of a rich (albeit ugly at times) pallete of materials mashed into one. They didn't assemble blocks and pixels into whole buildings. Neither does ZHA and their craft shines in their best works.
whistler
Jan 19, 22 8:21 pm
but he is going to save the world with his newest prefab products, https://www.dezeen.com/2021/08... pretty much snake oil sales when you consider who he is teamed up with!
After the recent proposal of the World Trade Center Tower by BIG I will state my reasons why people should hate BIG:
1.BIG is over rated.
2.BIG is over rated.
3.BIG projects look so bland. (looks like an amateur school projects..he should present them at the Apollo)
4.BIG projects have no sense of construction ( ex. 57st courtyard tower has messy construction details)
5.BIG projects have no sense for materials and its integrity. (too much use of metals & conc.)
6. Bjarke Ingels explain design well but the outcome is ugly as hell. (Ex. recent world trade center proposal...seriously)
7.Bjarke Ingels is a bad role model for architectural students because they see his work acceptable.
8.Clients are dumb enough to buy into his designs.
9.People are dumb enough to follow his work...including myself...otherwise I wouldn't be writing this.
10. Bjarke Ingels accent makes him annoying and that's an extra flavor that makes him comparable to Kim Kardashian.
Thank You,
The only thing I admire about this guy is that he get things done no matter what it takes.
Thank You
Pros: big.dk
ninja chop!
BIG is gonna break the internet.
Seriously though that dude is a dickhole.
He has some political power too.....unfortunately
for example he was able to get the Danish mermaid transfer to Shanghai for the Expo.
http://archinect.com/news/article/59648/typical-school-time-bitching-scabs
Good article Vado..
nagi26,
To add to that, he's apparently a networking king, and has the CEO of Fox on his buttered side of the bread, "21st Century Fox and News Corp, wanted BIG founder Bjarke Ingels to redesign the tower – reportedly because it felt the 79-storey design by London-based Foster + Partners 'was more suited for an investment bank than a modern media company'".
I mean, if the CEO has a personal affection for you, that certainly helps aid in gaining the commission...
Norman Foster in an architectural master though. As a replacement, this is unfortunate. Wish they coulda just told Foster to redesign it.
That's what I was wondering why Norman wasn't asked to redesign it..unless Norman Foster refused to do so.
And, Bjarke has a HUGE ASS.
Good comparison though, I expect the BIG reality show to start sometime soon.
Haha yes I agree, also in Quora website I read that he has very minimal idea of what sustainable design is really...
Someday all that will come out of his mouth are weird looking symbols and pictograms. Then a spring will pop out of the back of his head and we will all know the truth. He was a robot invented by gramazio and kohler.
the 3D diagrammatic is what we did in the video game world for level and environment design - I crossed this over to architecture and one day my professor showed me the PLOT(pre BIG) website - Oh I get it, it's a video game - seems like Bjarke wants to turn NYC into one big game level - Grand_theft Architect anyone? I tried to apply this diagrammatic oversimplification in arch school and got bashed for it("go back to your Video games") - - we did try this at SOM with Park Merced in SF, and there was a huge protest at city hall.
but no, BIG.dk gets away with it. - Not fair
WTF - no fireproofing on the Wide Flanges? what a sitting duck - let FDNY see this and or Homeland Security
http://www.big.dk/#projects-2wtc
I think Family is the Kardashian of Architecture. Literally.
http://archinect.com/people/cover/1887656/oana-stanescu
With Dong Ping? lol.
but no, BIG.dk gets away with it.
you just need to show up with tight trousers and a european accent - oh, and be good looking, that helps.
Xenakis...
I tried different techniques at school and it seems professors have different preferences on diagrams. It can be unhealthy...but I realized in my grad studies that you can pretty much do anything as long your drawings explains the concept...we often as students get trapped by images we see on the internet without really reading what the architect is trying to achieve. Images are quite seductive...such as BIG diagrams.
I wonder how Bjarke Ingels time at GSD went...I heard Preston Scott Cohen torn him apart at a lecture he gave while at GSD.
The Diagrams need to have substance in order for the process to be functional at achieving the design - I am not surprised Preston Scott Cohen tore apart Bjarke - The diagrams are to represent a substantiated system of process not be a "bag of tricks" to wowie zowie people on a selection committee or Jury.
Dude gets some major commissions....so he is doing something right. Even if his firm name id "BIG".....I always think of his firm as "GIB"......now can you figure that one out?
I heard Preston Scott Cohen torn him apart at a lecture he gave while at GSD.
if I ever gave a lecture at the GSD and Preston decided to launch into me, I'd spend a chunk of time talking about all the weird shit with his own house renovation.
@Toasteroven..
Speaking of houses.
I know Preston did a debate with Nader Tehrani entitled "my house is better than your house"
It is what it is both Preston and Nader show their work and critic each other.
A big portion was about sloped / truncated bricks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UbCtia_nII
I was recently at a lecture by Fumihiko Maki at Japan Society regarding his world trade center project and we all end up talking on how crappy BIG project was....poor Maki..he had to experience all that.
?
When Preston Scott Cohen torn BIG apart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lc0-SAITq0
Preston Scott Cohen is a bigger douche than BIG. I think he is just mad that BIG builds more than him
http://www.archdaily.com/us/769425/big-chosen-to-build-185-meter-tall-tower-in-frankfurt
really quite amazing how similar this is to the WTC proposal. quite lazy.
shifted boxes, relating to something about the program being a box. somehow a person at street level is supposed to relate to the scale of the shift. it's really version 2.0.
Bjarke does no design work. He’s just a sales man selling fluff. He is literally just a figurehead of the company. It is deceptive to take your employees work and present it as your own doing drawings and pretending to make models of building you didn’t even design. Wake up people.
Wake up sheeple*
Bjarke even outs himself as fraud in his 2016 rolling stone interview. " ... he’d been the subject of a largely laudatory 60 Minutes segment, and he felt the piece portrayed him as a “salesman.” Later, he elaborated, “I think the biggest backhanded criticism-compliment I get is that I’m ‘good at communicating.’ Which implies that you’re bad at doing. To me, it’s a strength that there’s clarity. We know what we’re doing, and that’s why we can also explain it. The fact that something is actually understandable and relatable doesn’t mean that it’s unsophisticated or banal. It just means that it’s crystal-clear. And if you can’t explain it, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s so brilliant that ordinary mortals can’t fathom it. It might just mean that it makes no sense.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/c...
at no point the in the interview does he say he does any design work himself.
In his documentary BIG time it shows a young employee who is the one who designs the serpentine pavilion. Yet here he is making a model of the serpentine pavilion and challenging other young architects to build your own pavilion when he isn't even the one who designed it.
Also in the documentary " BIG time " during his 40th birthday his nyc office is linked up with a video feed of his Copenhagen office. His employees in the copenhagen office all come on screen all wearing bjarke ingles masks to make fun of him on his birthday. Its like the employees in copenhagen are saying they are the real bjarke ingles. the documentary is out now btw you can watch/download it yourself.
Bjarke is the biggest fraud in architectural history. He knows it and his employees and know it. It can't be pleasant being Bjarke. He is constantly selling other peoples works and passing them off as his own. It is like he is a pop star who is constantly on tour lip syncing to other peoples voices and getting congratulated for it. Im still sure there are definitely some talented people working at his firm though. I just find him repulsive as an architect and as a person because I am bombarded with all his bs pr all the time when I visit architecture websites with most people none the wiser who are subjected to it.
H8ers gonna h8.
update. the neftlix version of his documentary big time is 1:30 while imdb says the documentary is 1:33. I saw the 1:33 version at a flim festival. The 3 minutes footage of the young employee making the serpentine pavilion has been cut from the documentary in the nextflix and dvd version.
HAH, that's awesome, thanks
sorry the abstract bjarke ingles documentary for netflix is actually one that shows he didn't design the serpintine pavilion.
And your point is? You think principals do all the designing, detailing and site visits of the projects their studio produces? You must be either simply delusional or you're a former BIG intern with a grudge that didn't got a job offered even though you foamed a couple of concept models or did a sketchup solar path study or two.
work comes from everywhere and authorship is never singular; this is true for literally every design practice and project in existence. even the god-hermit Zumthor relies on an army of staff and interns to do 99% of the lifting
I dont like most of BIG's work, but if you want recognition bring some dam clients!
No Sir Batshit Crazy, i was never fired from BIG. I just dont like being lied to and really dislike inefficiency. Theres always been something off about Bjarke and the things he says and does now theres proof. Bjarke Ingles is that you randomised.
So you are the whiny intern that didn't get a contract, glad that's cleared up. Now I know why you thought I was Bjarke. But no, I'm Winy Koolmaaskant.
I am personally shocked that more professionals can't see the fraud that Bjarke presents with most projects...Anyone that employes the amount of modern concrete and steel he proposes in projects could never call themselves a legitimately concerned environmentalist or designer with a focus on the well-being of this planet. He is the epidemy of "greenwashing!"
Yea many people do say that he has no idea what "Hedonistic Sustainability" is ........at least from the quora posts I've read....
…good times…
Gensler and bigger corporate firms are the kardashians of architecture. BIG had its role in our culture, just like another firm will , and another. It happened with zaha, then the zaha hate came.
Stylistically, BIG and Heatherwick are very much designing in the spirit of the brualist architects decades ago. They all sculpt buildings with the pixels of their time, carving a singular mass rather than assembling parts into a cohesive whole that nonetheless cannot be reduced to a simple form (or diagram). Whereas the brutalist era had to work with concrete, BIG and Heatherwick's more varied palette consists of glass boxes, metal tents, wooden beams and other materials assembled as discrete units into a singular form. Their poor man's alter egos, ODA etc, do the same. To their credit, OMA in its transitional stylistic stage (Culminating in the Seattle Public Library) still managed to collage a singular form out of a rich (albeit ugly at times) pallete of materials mashed into one. They didn't assemble blocks and pixels into whole buildings. Neither does ZHA and their craft shines in their best works.
but he is going to save the world with his newest prefab products, https://www.dezeen.com/2021/08... pretty much snake oil sales when you consider who he is teamed up with!
man in glass house throwing rocks