Nouvel is a superstar, and he has some good buildings for sure, and I hate to sound mean but I just don't think this is very good. The tower form itself is cool and might be ok as a mass, but the fenestration is uncomfortably chaotic AND looks cheap, both the window units themselves and the way they punch into the brick. The brick is blue, as is the interior:
which the article claims is a nod to the police officers who inhabit the building. I hope this isn't true, as if it is that makes the tower form seem monumentally overbearing, like a prison guardhouse/watchtower. But also the relentless blue on the interior is just overbearing, too. And the interior spaces of the offices (click the article) with their sloping walls feel crushing.
I visited the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis recently, also by Nouvel, and frankly felt kind of the same about it. It did have a great presence on the skyline, really effective at announcing a district, but the interior spaces were dark, confusing, and monotonous. Granted I was there in the afternoon, and I imagine the spaces that felt too dark and narrow for daytime would feel glamorous and svelte at night for an opera, with everyone dressed in glittery gowns, but overall I found the building to be unfriendly and trying too hard to be cool.
Nouvel's Institut du Monde Arabe, tho. Damn, it's gorgeous.
Miles Jaffe
Nov 30, 15 1:07 pm
You asked us not to say Nouvel sucks ass and then posted this?!
archiwutm8
Nov 30, 15 1:09 pm
Shit buildings are needed, so we know what not to do and what is good.
Donna Sink
Nov 30, 15 1:10 pm
Grrr. I adore you guys but come on. 700 years in architecture school has taught you how to reasonably and eloquently critique both good and bad projects, yes?
Volunteer
Nov 30, 15 1:13 pm
That's the guard tower that goes in the middle of the Apple headquarters building under construction. They will disassemble it and reassemble it in Cali.
archiwutm8
Nov 30, 15 1:15 pm
It's looks like a finished toilet roll with squares.
Is it yum or baaah?
gwharton
Nov 30, 15 1:20 pm
The simplest critique is that the building is ugly, probably intentionally and aggressively so: a gigantic "fuck you" to its surroundings and inhabitants.
A broader critique is that it perfectly embodies the sterility, inhumanity, and insanity of modern culture.
JLC-1
Nov 30, 15 1:23 pm
The problem appears when you try to fit a program into an "urban landmark", especially when you design such landmark to look good in plan only, and then just add a vertical dimension to be "in dialogue" with some stuff we don't see in the pictures. Kind of what Gehry does too, but his are even more messed up, not even a plan to start with.
And Donna is right, the material resolution seems cheap, which is understandable for a police budget; it just shouldn't be subject to publication, the facade detail is as pedestrian as can be.
Donna Sink
Nov 30, 15 1:27 pm
Agree, JLC. The site plan actually seems good and workable, and the renovation of the historic buildings around it is laudable. But the canopy over the entry is not well-resolved. I imagine there's a big-ass caulk joint around it, too.
Nam Henderson
Nov 30, 15 1:32 pm
Donna, I actually kind of like this. The fenestration is a bit chaotic (in that the rows don't even line up completely and are weirdly offset in a few places), but apparently this is intentionally "highly varied". It would be nice if there was some logic (formal or otherwise to it) but it's not clear to me that this is the case. However, I really like some of the interior spaces (see below) and the fact that it is (at least partially) a reuse/renovation project.
Plus, while the tower may seem overbearing within the context of the other brick buildings from some views, within the context of the adjacent highway/slope it seems more appropriate somehow...
Finally, while I have never experience the Guthrie in person as you have, it would seem as if based on form and site alone, the Torre Agbar would be a better comparison?
,,,,
Nov 30, 15 1:33 pm
A billy club.
Non Sequitur
Nov 30, 15 1:34 pm
This reminds me of Philip Johnson's lipstick building in NY and I always enjoy it every-time I visit Manhattan
Perhaps if Nouvel's cylinder lived next to a bunch of equally tall towers, then the blandness of the facade would be less obvious.
My favorite Nouvel building remains the Lyon Opera House.
Peter Normand
Nov 30, 15 1:35 pm
Interesting that they chose to spare the plaza by making a tall slender thing. The brick is a nod to the historical context but the blue glazing and lack of any visible architectural detailing don't help and the link is in name or concept only. I hate the 5 layers of fenestration and how they apparently have no relation to the floor lines inside the building or any hint of the function. The way the tower lords over the plaza and is a cork in the once wider entry will probably make this an unpleasant space to be in. But if you want to conceal the functions of the police and present an image of irrational but somewhat constrained authority I think this may have done it. It is alien and out of place in this context and it occupies and controls the space with brute force just like we would expect the police to do. Or at least that is my impression. Someone on the council probably like blue someone else liked brick and someone wanted a tower to stand on top of an look out over their jurisdiction, public space designed by committee strikes again.
and it is a huge dick with the two other buildings representing the spread legs. Big dick no balls.
Over and OUT
Peter N
gwharton
Nov 30, 15 1:37 pm
More like a panopticon tower:
Donna Sink
Nov 30, 15 1:51 pm
Non Seq, I like that comparison and do agree - in a context of many boxy, regular towers the Nouvel tower would be interesting by comparison. Right now it just looks like gwharton's panopticon!
nam that Torre Agbar is a self-contained form that one might like or not but at least it's understandable in a glance. This tower is more complex and IMO therefore more jarring.
Zaina
Nov 30, 15 2:02 pm
I would like to suggest by chance a book that is (relevant to the post) and very interesting called "architecture depends"Jeremy till..
archiwumt +++
funny
,,,,
Nov 30, 15 2:06 pm
The fact that it is aggressive formally and spatially is oddly apposite. Perfectly awful but apposite.
I wonder if that was intentional.
archiwutm8
Nov 30, 15 2:07 pm
Donna, I actually think the building is very successful for it's program. It is oppressive, it lacks any sense of democracy by the way it's shaped, the materials used. You can clearly see that it was built with the intention that it wasn't going to merge with the environment, look at the ground it clearing doesn't want to merge otherwise you wouldn't have such shitty ground work.
It's overbearing, oppressive, doesn't want to play nice, it's meant to show that its above you and telling you it reigns over you. Its an all seeing obelisk of death,
chigurh
Nov 30, 15 2:20 pm
the windows suck - not the pattern but the inset detail is weird looking - in addition those white floor plate lines that bisect the taller low windows look clunky as shit - horrible expression of the internal workings of the building - I also don't like the open air top fenestration - looks like you can see the ugly ass mechanical equipment up there - not sure - there are about 20 lines of something - structure? not sure what but it looks wack. The building finish is nice - had the windows and top been better detailed - less lines - more abstract and clean I think the building would be a success.
tduds
Nov 30, 15 2:29 pm
It's overbearing, oppressive, doesn't want to play nice, it's meant to show that its above you and telling you it reigns over you. Its an all seeing obelisk of death,
Justifications like this really bother me. Architecture should, above all, enhance the public experience. Just because a building contains people who carry out oppressive tasks doesn't mean the building itself need be oppressive. That's a childishly simple metaphor, and the cynicism and irony it displays (from the Architect more than the client) is dull.
Miles Jaffe
Nov 30, 15 2:35 pm
700 years in architecture school has taught you how to reasonably and eloquently critique both good and bad projects, yes?
I'm terribly sorry, but I can find nothing good to say about this building. It seems to violate every principle of architecture as if that in itself would earn a merit badge. 700 years of architectural education apparently counts for nothing other than a list of things that either shouldn't be done or should be poorly imitated, or in extreme cases such as this - both simultaneously.
Now if you will excuse me ...
<barf>
Donna Sink
Nov 30, 15 2:36 pm
<sigh> archiwutm8 I'm afraid you've hit the nail on the head. This building feels like it was supposed to be oppressive, controlling, and representative of a police state. I guess I've been tiptoeing around the problem: that I'm afraid the building IS a success, and that says something very ugly about contemporary society and the role of the architect in society that produced it, and the role of an architectural press that lauds it.
But on the other hand, to keep this convo away from politics: the Guthrie, that's just a weird-ass building, right?! Most architects build their erections upward, this one goes out:
Jokes about erections aside, the "eternal walkway" or whatever it's called was overall unimpressive. It was trying too hard to be cool, while the reality is the coolest thing about it - big surprise - is the view it affords down the river valley. But that same view, essentially, could have been achieved without being so aggressively weird about it.
I'd love for some people with closer knowledge of these projects - perhaps someone from Nouvel's office, or Jean Nouvel himself?! - to weigh in and tell me I'm wrong. Schumacher does it, and it's very welcome when it happens.
Miles Jaffe
Nov 30, 15 2:40 pm
When Shomuncher tells you you're wrong he just reinforces your point.
Volunteer
Nov 30, 15 2:44 pm
It has the proportions of a nuclear plant cooling tower, which may one reason it induces so much dread. There are attractively proportioned round towers, the Cape Lookout lighthouse on the Outer Banks of North Carolina come to mind. If you were to extend this to match the proportions of the Cape Lookout lighthouse it would improve the proportions even though the top stories might be impractical to finish off right away. The windows have got to be changed as well, as to what I am not sure. While you are at it put an observation platform for the public on top. Might have a weird building but it would be gracefully proportioned and not be intimidating.
tduds
Nov 30, 15 2:44 pm
My problem with Nouvel in general, which extends to this building specifically, is that his strength seems to exist only in detail. He's a master of interesting (and sometimes responsive) facades and materiality. But his strengths in micro only highlight his weakness in macro. His massings are simplistic (not in the good way) and often oppressive or ignorant of context. Even his masterpieces look good only in closeup.
As contrast I'd offer H&deM, who combine a similar mastery of wrapping with a much more mature understanding of scale and context.
Herzog & deMeuron are writing poetry, while Nouvel is just winning spelling bees.
gwharton
Nov 30, 15 3:02 pm
As a follow-up on tduds comment above, Nouvel has a lot of problems with resolution of building scale and aesthetic balance. There is a proportionality threshold in human perception which our brains use to parse internal organization of objects and perceptual identity, which Nouvel's work largely ignores. Briefly, if there is a scale jump from overall composition to compositional component greater than 7:1, the smaller objects are either not read by the eye as integral parts of the whole, or only as minor texture. Nouvel sometimes uses this effect to exaggerate the total mass/form of his buildings by having only two compositional scales: Whole and Texture. A successful example of this can be found in his 100 Eleventh Avenue project. A less successful example would be the Burj Doha. The difference in success between the two is that the scale discontinuity intended to exaggerate emphasis on form is calling attention to an awkward form in the latter but not the former.
If you look closely at the Philip Johnson project referenced above, you'll notice that there are compositional steps within the building that create subdivisions in the critical perceptual threshold range (7:1 to 2:1 from the whole), to enhance the perception of compositional integrity of parts. The steps and non-uniform curvature of Johnson's project also serve to further soften and unify the whole.
With the OP project by Nouvel, there is no intermediate perceptual step in the critical threshold range between the overall form (which is itself a bit boring and awkwardly proportioned), and the compositional subcomponents (basically, the windows, since there isn't much else there). The only other textural element, the brick, is yet another too-large step down in compositional proportion, and is applied so uniformly that the discontinuity is extreme and relentless.
Donna Sink
Nov 30, 15 3:24 pm
That's a really good analysis, tduds, and an excellent explanation of why, gwharton! So much better than the "it's ugly and sucks ass!" comments we often get around here! Thank you!
tduds
Nov 30, 15 3:55 pm
gwharton++
Never quite thought of scale-jumping in those terms before but you are correct.
Miles Jaffe
Nov 30, 15 4:03 pm
Nuclear cooling towers have far more pleasing proportions - the corseted shape creates a subtle interplay of light and shadow.
The exterior of this building lacks any play on light and shadow (an effect further accentuated [negated?] by the charcoal color), the elements that by nature define everything we do. The entry is non-existent, the relationship to the site thoughtless - except possibly as a rude interruption for effect. All the 'plaza' needs to be complete is some large cracks and upheavals to further accentuate where this nail was pounded in. The project seems to have been done with complete disregard for the existing architecture and the space it inhabits. Essentially it's a giant fuck you.
The interiors seem to represent a variety of architectural style ranging from PoMo to reinterpreted historical mash-up (not-Doric colonnade holding up steel holding up vaulted brick) to some kind of minimalist earth holistic (slatted wood). Schizophrenic would probably be the best way to describe it.
Non Sequitur
Nov 30, 15 4:16 pm
Miles... I just love that red hydrant in the photograph.
gwharton
Nov 30, 15 4:32 pm
sameolddoctor
Nov 30, 15 4:38 pm
What I like about Nouvel is that he does not give a fuck.
Marc Miller
Nov 30, 15 4:49 pm
Regarding the OP building:
I can't recall where I saw it (I think it was on architect?), but I think he prefers to design in a lucid dream state. Perhaps this is the result of a more unsettled set of dreams.
RE the Guthrie:
The cool thing about the walkway is how it organizes everything from the scene shop across the street to the view across the river. To wax poetically, you get an interesting connection between two work spaces at different scales. Some of the entries into the theatre spaces are interesting, but the narrow space for the escalator to exit is a little uncomfortable.
In addition, building is not really meant to be experienced from the immediate streets. The wall with the super graphics is positioned to be read from the light rail stop near the former stadium site. The led smoke stacks (my favorite part of the project), reenforces looking at the project from downtown.
awaiting_deletion
Nov 30, 15 6:39 pm
its offensively funny to its surroundings.
tduds
Nov 30, 15 7:32 pm
^^ why? ...how?
gruen
Nov 30, 15 7:46 pm
On my eye phone I kinda like this. Nothing lines up but it looks like the floors should rotate like a cylinder lock, then the form aligns. It's really brutal and is just like the police, a good critique and FU to them. Maybe I need a bigger screen.
,,,,
Nov 30, 15 7:50 pm
It looks bereft of humanity to me, so in that sense it could be described as non-mediocre, although not in a good way.
awaiting_deletion
Nov 30, 15 7:51 pm
you can't be serious when you make a drawing like this to be published on the internet in 2015, it's offending the traditional brick buildings in proportions and plans.
Marc Miller
Nov 30, 15 8:00 pm
Suddenly it makes more sense. But the shape...
x-jla
Nov 30, 15 8:14 pm
I think it is intentionally bad, like when ugly cosby sweaters are worn by the hip kids to be "not hip" while really being "hip".
x-jla
Nov 30, 15 8:20 pm
either that or he handed it off to one of his north korean interns.
no_form
Nov 30, 15 8:26 pm
The Guthrie was great. It's like a magic box. The escalator was great. like alice in wonderland. It seemed really contextual with the site. It's framed views of the surrounding factories and the Mississippi River were amazing. The shiny dark interiors really felt mysterious like anything could happen. Being an occupant was like being a performer.
It's probably one of nouvel's better buildings. Arab institute is an hi tech orientalist broken ass piece of technology.
Carrera
Nov 30, 15 8:32 pm
A cylinder with punched windows….why didn’t I think of that?
situationist
Nov 30, 15 8:35 pm
exterminate?
Donna Sink
Nov 30, 15 10:07 pm
no_form, I can somewhat understand what you're saying about Guthrie, but on the other hand: the cool penetrations that allow bizarre views of the surrounding park all have little signs on them that say "Please do not crawl into the windowsill" or something like that. IMO little explanatory signs mean you've failed as a designer.
And the "endless walkway" or whatever has at its end a totally predictable guardrail: a vertical slab of glass that's supposed to disappear. This detail never works, and only calls attention to the fact that it *isn't* invisible.
Miles Jaffe
Nov 30, 15 10:30 pm
Guthrie, bah. Typical starchitect trash - over-stylized and functionally deficient. Nouvel should be dong sets for Star Wars instead of real buildings. At least those would get built cheaply and torn down quickly.
I saw this Jean Nouvel project in Architect Magazine while flying to Phoenix last week.
Link here.
Nouvel is a superstar, and he has some good buildings for sure, and I hate to sound mean but I just don't think this is very good. The tower form itself is cool and might be ok as a mass, but the fenestration is uncomfortably chaotic AND looks cheap, both the window units themselves and the way they punch into the brick. The brick is blue, as is the interior:
which the article claims is a nod to the police officers who inhabit the building. I hope this isn't true, as if it is that makes the tower form seem monumentally overbearing, like a prison guardhouse/watchtower. But also the relentless blue on the interior is just overbearing, too. And the interior spaces of the offices (click the article) with their sloping walls feel crushing.
I visited the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis recently, also by Nouvel, and frankly felt kind of the same about it. It did have a great presence on the skyline, really effective at announcing a district, but the interior spaces were dark, confusing, and monotonous. Granted I was there in the afternoon, and I imagine the spaces that felt too dark and narrow for daytime would feel glamorous and svelte at night for an opera, with everyone dressed in glittery gowns, but overall I found the building to be unfriendly and trying too hard to be cool.
Nouvel's Institut du Monde Arabe, tho. Damn, it's gorgeous.
You asked us not to say Nouvel sucks ass and then posted this?!
Shit buildings are needed, so we know what not to do and what is good.
Grrr. I adore you guys but come on. 700 years in architecture school has taught you how to reasonably and eloquently critique both good and bad projects, yes?
That's the guard tower that goes in the middle of the Apple headquarters building under construction. They will disassemble it and reassemble it in Cali.
It's looks like a finished toilet roll with squares. Is it yum or baaah?
The simplest critique is that the building is ugly, probably intentionally and aggressively so: a gigantic "fuck you" to its surroundings and inhabitants.
A broader critique is that it perfectly embodies the sterility, inhumanity, and insanity of modern culture.
The problem appears when you try to fit a program into an "urban landmark", especially when you design such landmark to look good in plan only, and then just add a vertical dimension to be "in dialogue" with some stuff we don't see in the pictures. Kind of what Gehry does too, but his are even more messed up, not even a plan to start with.
And Donna is right, the material resolution seems cheap, which is understandable for a police budget; it just shouldn't be subject to publication, the facade detail is as pedestrian as can be.
Agree, JLC. The site plan actually seems good and workable, and the renovation of the historic buildings around it is laudable. But the canopy over the entry is not well-resolved. I imagine there's a big-ass caulk joint around it, too.
Donna, I actually kind of like this. The fenestration is a bit chaotic (in that the rows don't even line up completely and are weirdly offset in a few places), but apparently this is intentionally "highly varied". It would be nice if there was some logic (formal or otherwise to it) but it's not clear to me that this is the case. However, I really like some of the interior spaces (see below) and the fact that it is (at least partially) a reuse/renovation project.
Plus, while the tower may seem overbearing within the context of the other brick buildings from some views, within the context of the adjacent highway/slope it seems more appropriate somehow...
Finally, while I have never experience the Guthrie in person as you have, it would seem as if based on form and site alone, the Torre Agbar would be a better comparison?
A billy club.
This reminds me of Philip Johnson's lipstick building in NY and I always enjoy it every-time I visit Manhattan
Perhaps if Nouvel's cylinder lived next to a bunch of equally tall towers, then the blandness of the facade would be less obvious.
My favorite Nouvel building remains the Lyon Opera House.
Interesting that they chose to spare the plaza by making a tall slender thing. The brick is a nod to the historical context but the blue glazing and lack of any visible architectural detailing don't help and the link is in name or concept only. I hate the 5 layers of fenestration and how they apparently have no relation to the floor lines inside the building or any hint of the function. The way the tower lords over the plaza and is a cork in the once wider entry will probably make this an unpleasant space to be in. But if you want to conceal the functions of the police and present an image of irrational but somewhat constrained authority I think this may have done it. It is alien and out of place in this context and it occupies and controls the space with brute force just like we would expect the police to do. Or at least that is my impression. Someone on the council probably like blue someone else liked brick and someone wanted a tower to stand on top of an look out over their jurisdiction, public space designed by committee strikes again.
and it is a huge dick with the two other buildings representing the spread legs. Big dick no balls.
Over and OUT
Peter N
More like a panopticon tower:
Non Seq, I like that comparison and do agree - in a context of many boxy, regular towers the Nouvel tower would be interesting by comparison. Right now it just looks like gwharton's panopticon!
nam that Torre Agbar is a self-contained form that one might like or not but at least it's understandable in a glance. This tower is more complex and IMO therefore more jarring.
I would like to suggest by chance a book that is (relevant to the post) and very interesting called "architecture depends"Jeremy till..
archiwumt +++
funny
The fact that it is aggressive formally and spatially is oddly apposite. Perfectly awful but apposite.
I wonder if that was intentional.
Donna, I actually think the building is very successful for it's program. It is oppressive, it lacks any sense of democracy by the way it's shaped, the materials used. You can clearly see that it was built with the intention that it wasn't going to merge with the environment, look at the ground it clearing doesn't want to merge otherwise you wouldn't have such shitty ground work.
It's overbearing, oppressive, doesn't want to play nice, it's meant to show that its above you and telling you it reigns over you. Its an all seeing obelisk of death,
the windows suck - not the pattern but the inset detail is weird looking - in addition those white floor plate lines that bisect the taller low windows look clunky as shit - horrible expression of the internal workings of the building - I also don't like the open air top fenestration - looks like you can see the ugly ass mechanical equipment up there - not sure - there are about 20 lines of something - structure? not sure what but it looks wack. The building finish is nice - had the windows and top been better detailed - less lines - more abstract and clean I think the building would be a success.
It's overbearing, oppressive, doesn't want to play nice, it's meant to show that its above you and telling you it reigns over you. Its an all seeing obelisk of death,
Justifications like this really bother me. Architecture should, above all, enhance the public experience. Just because a building contains people who carry out oppressive tasks doesn't mean the building itself need be oppressive. That's a childishly simple metaphor, and the cynicism and irony it displays (from the Architect more than the client) is dull.
700 years in architecture school has taught you how to reasonably and eloquently critique both good and bad projects, yes?
I'm terribly sorry, but I can find nothing good to say about this building. It seems to violate every principle of architecture as if that in itself would earn a merit badge. 700 years of architectural education apparently counts for nothing other than a list of things that either shouldn't be done or should be poorly imitated, or in extreme cases such as this - both simultaneously.
Now if you will excuse me ...
<barf>
<sigh> archiwutm8 I'm afraid you've hit the nail on the head. This building feels like it was supposed to be oppressive, controlling, and representative of a police state. I guess I've been tiptoeing around the problem: that I'm afraid the building IS a success, and that says something very ugly about contemporary society and the role of the architect in society that produced it, and the role of an architectural press that lauds it.
But on the other hand, to keep this convo away from politics: the Guthrie, that's just a weird-ass building, right?! Most architects build their erections upward, this one goes out:
Jokes about erections aside, the "eternal walkway" or whatever it's called was overall unimpressive. It was trying too hard to be cool, while the reality is the coolest thing about it - big surprise - is the view it affords down the river valley. But that same view, essentially, could have been achieved without being so aggressively weird about it.
I'd love for some people with closer knowledge of these projects - perhaps someone from Nouvel's office, or Jean Nouvel himself?! - to weigh in and tell me I'm wrong. Schumacher does it, and it's very welcome when it happens.
When Shomuncher tells you you're wrong he just reinforces your point.
It has the proportions of a nuclear plant cooling tower, which may one reason it induces so much dread. There are attractively proportioned round towers, the Cape Lookout lighthouse on the Outer Banks of North Carolina come to mind. If you were to extend this to match the proportions of the Cape Lookout lighthouse it would improve the proportions even though the top stories might be impractical to finish off right away. The windows have got to be changed as well, as to what I am not sure. While you are at it put an observation platform for the public on top. Might have a weird building but it would be gracefully proportioned and not be intimidating.
My problem with Nouvel in general, which extends to this building specifically, is that his strength seems to exist only in detail. He's a master of interesting (and sometimes responsive) facades and materiality. But his strengths in micro only highlight his weakness in macro. His massings are simplistic (not in the good way) and often oppressive or ignorant of context. Even his masterpieces look good only in closeup.
As contrast I'd offer H&deM, who combine a similar mastery of wrapping with a much more mature understanding of scale and context.
Herzog & deMeuron are writing poetry, while Nouvel is just winning spelling bees.
As a follow-up on tduds comment above, Nouvel has a lot of problems with resolution of building scale and aesthetic balance. There is a proportionality threshold in human perception which our brains use to parse internal organization of objects and perceptual identity, which Nouvel's work largely ignores. Briefly, if there is a scale jump from overall composition to compositional component greater than 7:1, the smaller objects are either not read by the eye as integral parts of the whole, or only as minor texture. Nouvel sometimes uses this effect to exaggerate the total mass/form of his buildings by having only two compositional scales: Whole and Texture. A successful example of this can be found in his 100 Eleventh Avenue project. A less successful example would be the Burj Doha. The difference in success between the two is that the scale discontinuity intended to exaggerate emphasis on form is calling attention to an awkward form in the latter but not the former.
If you look closely at the Philip Johnson project referenced above, you'll notice that there are compositional steps within the building that create subdivisions in the critical perceptual threshold range (7:1 to 2:1 from the whole), to enhance the perception of compositional integrity of parts. The steps and non-uniform curvature of Johnson's project also serve to further soften and unify the whole.
With the OP project by Nouvel, there is no intermediate perceptual step in the critical threshold range between the overall form (which is itself a bit boring and awkwardly proportioned), and the compositional subcomponents (basically, the windows, since there isn't much else there). The only other textural element, the brick, is yet another too-large step down in compositional proportion, and is applied so uniformly that the discontinuity is extreme and relentless.
That's a really good analysis, tduds, and an excellent explanation of why, gwharton! So much better than the "it's ugly and sucks ass!" comments we often get around here! Thank you!
gwharton++
Never quite thought of scale-jumping in those terms before but you are correct.
Nuclear cooling towers have far more pleasing proportions - the corseted shape creates a subtle interplay of light and shadow.
The exterior of this building lacks any play on light and shadow (an effect further accentuated [negated?] by the charcoal color), the elements that by nature define everything we do. The entry is non-existent, the relationship to the site thoughtless - except possibly as a rude interruption for effect. All the 'plaza' needs to be complete is some large cracks and upheavals to further accentuate where this nail was pounded in. The project seems to have been done with complete disregard for the existing architecture and the space it inhabits. Essentially it's a giant fuck you.
The interiors seem to represent a variety of architectural style ranging from PoMo to reinterpreted historical mash-up (not-Doric colonnade holding up steel holding up vaulted brick) to some kind of minimalist earth holistic (slatted wood). Schizophrenic would probably be the best way to describe it.
Miles... I just love that red hydrant in the photograph.
What I like about Nouvel is that he does not give a fuck.
Regarding the OP building:
I can't recall where I saw it (I think it was on architect?), but I think he prefers to design in a lucid dream state. Perhaps this is the result of a more unsettled set of dreams.
RE the Guthrie:
The cool thing about the walkway is how it organizes everything from the scene shop across the street to the view across the river. To wax poetically, you get an interesting connection between two work spaces at different scales. Some of the entries into the theatre spaces are interesting, but the narrow space for the escalator to exit is a little uncomfortable.
In addition, building is not really meant to be experienced from the immediate streets. The wall with the super graphics is positioned to be read from the light rail stop near the former stadium site. The led smoke stacks (my favorite part of the project), reenforces looking at the project from downtown.
its offensively funny to its surroundings.
^^ why? ...how?
On my eye phone I kinda like this. Nothing lines up but it looks like the floors should rotate like a cylinder lock, then the form aligns. It's really brutal and is just like the police, a good critique and FU to them. Maybe I need a bigger screen.
It looks bereft of humanity to me, so in that sense it could be described as non-mediocre, although not in a good way.
you can't be serious when you make a drawing like this to be published on the internet in 2015, it's offending the traditional brick buildings in proportions and plans.
Suddenly it makes more sense. But the shape...
I think it is intentionally bad, like when ugly cosby sweaters are worn by the hip kids to be "not hip" while really being "hip".
either that or he handed it off to one of his north korean interns.
The Guthrie was great. It's like a magic box. The escalator was great. like alice in wonderland. It seemed really contextual with the site. It's framed views of the surrounding factories and the Mississippi River were amazing. The shiny dark interiors really felt mysterious like anything could happen. Being an occupant was like being a performer.
It's probably one of nouvel's better buildings. Arab institute is an hi tech orientalist broken ass piece of technology.
A cylinder with punched windows….why didn’t I think of that?
exterminate?
no_form, I can somewhat understand what you're saying about Guthrie, but on the other hand: the cool penetrations that allow bizarre views of the surrounding park all have little signs on them that say "Please do not crawl into the windowsill" or something like that. IMO little explanatory signs mean you've failed as a designer.
And the "endless walkway" or whatever has at its end a totally predictable guardrail: a vertical slab of glass that's supposed to disappear. This detail never works, and only calls attention to the fact that it *isn't* invisible.
Guthrie, bah. Typical starchitect trash - over-stylized and functionally deficient. Nouvel should be dong sets for Star Wars instead of real buildings. At least those would get built cheaply and torn down quickly.
http://www.estatesgazette.com/blogs/london-residential-research/2015/11/7-year-old-flats-demolished-15-storey-tower/
archiwut its just money......what material is the new building made of?
No idea, It could be a giant condom with a steel frame.
so not stucco
That Alsop proposal is crap. God, how embarrassing for us. The renderings look like B-movie cheap special effects.