So, the most useful architecture history books would feature nothing more than page after page of photos of buildings and their respective build dates.
"So, the most useful architecture history books would feature nothing more than page after page of photos of buildings and their respective build dates."
No, it means that no amount of theoretical bullshit is going to make people like your building. they either do or they don't. Now if you can layer on a whole lot of meaning and intent, goody gum drops, maybe you'll go down in the pantheon of great architects, but if your building doesn't speak to the public, while it goes for archispeak gold, it ain't worth the paper you wrote your manifesto on. If you want to take this as an anti-intellectual screed, by all means, but if you know how music, food, literature, and just about any other art actually works on our imaginations, then you might understand the impatience many people have with architects.
saint, its not about being anti-intellectual, its about the division and detachment that lies between intellectual architecture as idea and as a physical reality. The key is to make your ideas integral to the physical object not to rely on text and other suplimental materials of different media. If the work in its respective media cannot convey what its supposed to convey in the absence of the architects narrative, then its value is soley contingent upon 2 things. First, the precieved credibility of the author, and second, the availabilty of the supplimental text.
Archeologists will have no problem coming to the convlusion that the LHC is a very important structure. They will likely also be able to determine that Falling water is important. The Guild house however losses most of its importance in the absence of the literary fluff surrounding it and its maker.
if your building doesn't speak to the public . . .
the public wants to spend $350k on the house in the OP. the truth of that statement should be obvious. if you want to design what the public wants, let go of your 'traditional' dogma and design houses like the one in the OP, which people want to pay $350k for. no amount of your theoretical bullshit is going to change what 'speaks to the public' any more than venturi's theoretical bullshit. if you want to try to be intellectual, perhaps try explaining why the public likes the house in the OP.
for starters, explain this statement
but if you know how music, food, literature, and just about any other art actually works on our imaginations, then you might understand the impatience many people have with architects.
do you understand how music, food, literature, and other art works on our imaginations? do you know why more people are listening to katy perry than something that sucks less? do you know why mcdonalds and chipotle are so popular? do you know why 50 shades of grey is ahead of dostoevsky on amazon's best seller list? (probably because everyone who is now reading 50 shades of grey already read crime and punishment? i doubt it.)
based on your misguided attempt to understand how various 'works' you have decided fall under the guise of 'art', the initial premise of your suggestion that we can come to an understanding of why people are impatient with architects is flawed. in my experience, most people are not that impatient with architects, and those that are get so because people like you keep telling them what they want instead of listening to what they want.
^ what is consumed and what is desired are two very different things. The consumer is not free. The illusion of choice is the problem. Demand is 100% top down. I have some mild hope that with technology we can begin to decentralize production which will then result in a liberation from the corporate pupet masters. a very mild hope...Until then, try to find a house to buy that is "what you want". Unless you can build ground up, which is not possible for 99% of americans, you get whats being sold- cheap styrofoam crap made to taste somewhat edible for the widest possible market. You get mc donalds....or chipotle (for the environmentally conscious lol) at best.
I don't think that's entirely true jla. whoever ends up buying this $350k monstrosity is probably going to be making the biggest investment of their life. housing is a much more significant decision that going to mcdonalds or chipotle, and whoever ends up making the purchase will likely put a fairly significant amount of time and concern into making sure it's the right house for them.
however, i bet their priorities when making that decision are far different than what my priorities would be. if they wanted traditional detailing that was detailed with a better sense of history or whatever, then the market would provide that. if they wanted a modern house with alucobond panel siding, then the market would provide that. in the end, thinking through the spring line or the arch curvature and designing it right wouldn't have really cost the developer or builder much more. but, the priorities of the homebuyer looking for a house in longview texas aren't focused on those things.
the future owner of this house cares. they probably care a lot. it's just that they probably care about something different than what we're focused on.
I agree that the homeowner has priorities that are different and valid. Space, number of bathrooms, resale value, etc. The RE appraisal culture has perpetuated the quality problem by comp. appraising, giving value to quantitative things over qualitative ones...etc. I get that. Thats a big hurdle to get past. These homes are the equivolant of "empty calories". Most people (myself invluded) seek empty calorie foods because they are filling, cheap, easily available. These houses are a big investment and buying a house of twice the quality and half the size is not a good investment for the average home owner who will likely sell in several years... Its a difficult problem to deal with because the solution "quality" is completely in oposition to the RE markets culture of valuation based on "quantity".
jla_x: "what is consumed and what is desired are two very different things. The consumer is not free. The illusion of choice is the problem."
An interesting point of view, and - at first blush - one that many here might tend to accept. However, it seems the comment assumes the buying public has better taste and more sophisticated desires than might really be the case.
For example, during my many years in the profession I've observed time and again that many, many custom homes designed by architects, with design features that generally would appeal to most architects, often remain on the market for exceptionally long periods of time once the original owner decides to sell. And, when they do sell, they often do so at way below the asking price -- and the new owner often undertakes extensive remodeling that destroys the original character of the home.
How can that be explained in the context of the comment provided at the head of this post ?
(ps: your 3:02 post arrived while I was writing the above and, in part, it addresses the question I pose. Still, I think my post deserves an airing.)
One possible solution is mixed income planning. If we create areas that are less homogenous in regards to home size we can possibly start to see more of a quality driven valuation. maybe that would disolve the comp culture enough to make small/efficient/well-crafted an economically viable option.
file, dont know. It could be that they are too far on the otherside of the spectrum to attract the average homeowner? Maybe after eating mcdonalds for so long we actually start to like it? Maybe there are connotations to a certain lifestyle and cultural norm in the aesthetic and home style? just guesses. All I know is that good design and style are not the same. a well designed chair is clearly more comfortable than a poorly designed chair. a house that will last 30 years is clearly less desirable than one that will last 300 years if all else is the same with price etc. I believe that a really good burger made from really good meat will be clearly identified by the average person as being "better" than a 99 cent burger from mcdonalds. The average person knows a porshe is better than a mazda even blindfolded. This is not Rocket science. The average person understands enough (as a consumer not a designer) to discern good design from cheap design. In a food desert, as in an architectural desert, we eat whats we can afford and what is easily available. This is why obesity is more prevelant in poor areas. Same taste bud different "choices."
Architects have failed not because "we don't know what people want" but because we have not found ways to make these "wants" accesible by providing viable "options" in the consumer market place. We are stuck in a service oriented business model which is fine for commercial and institutional, but fails to meet the needs of residential "consumers".
I assume people like Katy Perry and McDonalds because they like it. The difference between you and me might be I don't lose sleep over these kind of questions. Actually, to jla-x's point, they are starting to turn away from McDonalds, and as a fan of Katy Perry, her songs are catchy. This is how you can define me. As for intellectualizing architecture though, this video is interesting as far as how urban elevations work. Disclaimer, this is only an opinion, and not fact, so don't feel any need to learn from it.
what is consumed and what is desired are two very different things. The consumer is not free. The illusion of choice is the problem. Demand is 100% top down.
Indeed. Unless you are very clever.
I have some mild hope that with technology we can begin to decentralize production which will then result in a liberation from the corporate pupet masters.
Decentralization competes with corporate industrial finance, so their primary goal is to destroy it.
oh and forgot, meeting a designer for a 7 floor New Building that I am AOR and technical detail consultant, (1) garage repair job - draftsmen... (2) new house jobs over the weekend, (1) new townhouse potential job over weekend, and (2) potential restaurant jobs over the week. I have drafting staff who moonlight, people who run stuff to DOB for me etc....
anyway I am not the only one, from Work update on Architect.
Susan Diann Dyer, M. Arch, Assoc-AIA ~ 55 projects ..... in 1.5 years.... by myself....! but i am ADHD/OCD so ... that is how I do it in only 7.5 hrs a day. ... with no overtime... :-D ›› posted: Dec 31 '14 | see all
so....this will tie into this post I swear. If I and many architects can do this much at once, why are we NOT doing everything, including this Texas house?
to note it appears for a good part the following 2 pages of this thread - three (3) people are in agreement: Thayer-D, Miles, and jla-X. This is a very rare moment.
It's kind of like Venturi doesn't make anyone happy? Except Quondam, who has considerably closer connection to Venturi than all of us. I'm still researching those other projects.
Which is why I brought up the, work on 500 projects, but maybe only care about 3....I am sure Venturi did a lot of work, and to get to a level of teaching at Yale and writing very popular books is remarkable, and then we talk about say the Guild House or his Mom's house as Architecture with an A?
Compare this to Peter Eisenman...you might hate him and find his Wexner Center just as much a fail as the Guild House (or not)....but his philosophy whether unintentionally or not led to some cutting edge stuff with computers, former employees such as Greg Lynn and Thomas Leeser (not bothering to verify that, but pretty sure), and a translation whether you like it or not of Derrida among many other contemporary deep thinkers to architecture...Kipnis even wrote an essay about this (twist of the separatix/or something)... I mean if you are going to be detached from the public and talk about Architecture with a capital A, go all out right?
Olaf -- just saw your week's schedule... in your project tally, what do items like "new house jobs over the weekend" mean? I have a house project I've been working on for months, in addition to other things of course, but I've been pouring time into it. Can I ask -- how do you do "new house jobs (and plural, no less!) over the weekend"?
To your point Nam, I think I know why we can't have nice things. See the post on Amsterdam's public housing and how any substantive discussion is closed down. We're not allowed to discuss architecture if it disrupts preconceived ideological view points.
sounds to me like you're just pouting because other people are designing in a style you don't like.
Man curtkram, you really don't get out much, do you? Simply because you confine your media diet to ideologically sanctioned fare you think that's what the worlds on? Wow.
It was supposed to be some kind of long-term medical recovery unit but was never finished. It is ugly all right, but if finished and landscaped to the nth degree it might not look as bad as some hospitals. They could put a four foot diameter column immediately in front of the main entry door and call it the Guilder House.
Southampton Town did after Ira Rennert built 65-70,000 sq.ft. plus another 30-40,000 sq.ft. of accessory buildings. They set a limit at 20,000. Meanwhile there was a 'superstore' law that limits commercial construction to 15,000 sq.ft., which I think was overturned. Various municipalities are now struggling - but not very hard - to contain both size and lot conglomeration. In Sag Harbor the latest craze is buying up multiple small lots, clearing them of existing construction (no vacant land there) and merging them to build Frankenhouses.
There is so much money here that people just do whatever they want and let their lawyers duke it out later.
This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
So, the most useful architecture history books would feature nothing more than page after page of photos of buildings and their respective build dates.
They certainly wouldn't be filled with glowing critiques of buildings written by the architects who designed them.
"So, the most useful architecture history books would feature nothing more than page after page of photos of buildings and their respective build dates."
No, it means that no amount of theoretical bullshit is going to make people like your building. they either do or they don't. Now if you can layer on a whole lot of meaning and intent, goody gum drops, maybe you'll go down in the pantheon of great architects, but if your building doesn't speak to the public, while it goes for archispeak gold, it ain't worth the paper you wrote your manifesto on. If you want to take this as an anti-intellectual screed, by all means, but if you know how music, food, literature, and just about any other art actually works on our imaginations, then you might understand the impatience many people have with architects.
kisses
Thayer-De'Aroungemeant
Not sure that speaking to the public is as important as speaking to the critics. "Food chain" is the concept that applies here.
saint, its not about being anti-intellectual, its about the division and detachment that lies between intellectual architecture as idea and as a physical reality. The key is to make your ideas integral to the physical object not to rely on text and other suplimental materials of different media. If the work in its respective media cannot convey what its supposed to convey in the absence of the architects narrative, then its value is soley contingent upon 2 things. First, the precieved credibility of the author, and second, the availabilty of the supplimental text.
Archeologists will have no problem coming to the convlusion that the LHC is a very important structure. They will likely also be able to determine that Falling water is important. The Guild house however losses most of its importance in the absence of the literary fluff surrounding it and its maker.
if your building doesn't speak to the public . . .
the public wants to spend $350k on the house in the OP. the truth of that statement should be obvious. if you want to design what the public wants, let go of your 'traditional' dogma and design houses like the one in the OP, which people want to pay $350k for. no amount of your theoretical bullshit is going to change what 'speaks to the public' any more than venturi's theoretical bullshit. if you want to try to be intellectual, perhaps try explaining why the public likes the house in the OP.
for starters, explain this statement
but if you know how music, food, literature, and just about any other art actually works on our imaginations, then you might understand the impatience many people have with architects.
do you understand how music, food, literature, and other art works on our imaginations? do you know why more people are listening to katy perry than something that sucks less? do you know why mcdonalds and chipotle are so popular? do you know why 50 shades of grey is ahead of dostoevsky on amazon's best seller list? (probably because everyone who is now reading 50 shades of grey already read crime and punishment? i doubt it.)
based on your misguided attempt to understand how various 'works' you have decided fall under the guise of 'art', the initial premise of your suggestion that we can come to an understanding of why people are impatient with architects is flawed. in my experience, most people are not that impatient with architects, and those that are get so because people like you keep telling them what they want instead of listening to what they want.
^ what is consumed and what is desired are two very different things. The consumer is not free. The illusion of choice is the problem. Demand is 100% top down. I have some mild hope that with technology we can begin to decentralize production which will then result in a liberation from the corporate pupet masters. a very mild hope...Until then, try to find a house to buy that is "what you want". Unless you can build ground up, which is not possible for 99% of americans, you get whats being sold- cheap styrofoam crap made to taste somewhat edible for the widest possible market. You get mc donalds....or chipotle (for the environmentally conscious lol) at best.
again and again "detachment" seems to be the reuccuring theme
I don't think that's entirely true jla. whoever ends up buying this $350k monstrosity is probably going to be making the biggest investment of their life. housing is a much more significant decision that going to mcdonalds or chipotle, and whoever ends up making the purchase will likely put a fairly significant amount of time and concern into making sure it's the right house for them.
however, i bet their priorities when making that decision are far different than what my priorities would be. if they wanted traditional detailing that was detailed with a better sense of history or whatever, then the market would provide that. if they wanted a modern house with alucobond panel siding, then the market would provide that. in the end, thinking through the spring line or the arch curvature and designing it right wouldn't have really cost the developer or builder much more. but, the priorities of the homebuyer looking for a house in longview texas aren't focused on those things.
the future owner of this house cares. they probably care a lot. it's just that they probably care about something different than what we're focused on.
I agree that the homeowner has priorities that are different and valid. Space, number of bathrooms, resale value, etc. The RE appraisal culture has perpetuated the quality problem by comp. appraising, giving value to quantitative things over qualitative ones...etc. I get that. Thats a big hurdle to get past. These homes are the equivolant of "empty calories". Most people (myself invluded) seek empty calorie foods because they are filling, cheap, easily available. These houses are a big investment and buying a house of twice the quality and half the size is not a good investment for the average home owner who will likely sell in several years... Its a difficult problem to deal with because the solution "quality" is completely in oposition to the RE markets culture of valuation based on "quantity".
jla_x: "what is consumed and what is desired are two very different things. The consumer is not free. The illusion of choice is the problem."
An interesting point of view, and - at first blush - one that many here might tend to accept. However, it seems the comment assumes the buying public has better taste and more sophisticated desires than might really be the case.
For example, during my many years in the profession I've observed time and again that many, many custom homes designed by architects, with design features that generally would appeal to most architects, often remain on the market for exceptionally long periods of time once the original owner decides to sell. And, when they do sell, they often do so at way below the asking price -- and the new owner often undertakes extensive remodeling that destroys the original character of the home.
How can that be explained in the context of the comment provided at the head of this post ?
(ps: your 3:02 post arrived while I was writing the above and, in part, it addresses the question I pose. Still, I think my post deserves an airing.)
One possible solution is mixed income planning. If we create areas that are less homogenous in regards to home size we can possibly start to see more of a quality driven valuation. maybe that would disolve the comp culture enough to make small/efficient/well-crafted an economically viable option.
file, dont know. It could be that they are too far on the otherside of the spectrum to attract the average homeowner? Maybe after eating mcdonalds for so long we actually start to like it? Maybe there are connotations to a certain lifestyle and cultural norm in the aesthetic and home style? just guesses. All I know is that good design and style are not the same. a well designed chair is clearly more comfortable than a poorly designed chair. a house that will last 30 years is clearly less desirable than one that will last 300 years if all else is the same with price etc. I believe that a really good burger made from really good meat will be clearly identified by the average person as being "better" than a 99 cent burger from mcdonalds. The average person knows a porshe is better than a mazda even blindfolded. This is not Rocket science. The average person understands enough (as a consumer not a designer) to discern good design from cheap design. In a food desert, as in an architectural desert, we eat whats we can afford and what is easily available. This is why obesity is more prevelant in poor areas. Same taste bud different "choices."
Architects have failed not because "we don't know what people want" but because we have not found ways to make these "wants" accesible by providing viable "options" in the consumer market place. We are stuck in a service oriented business model which is fine for commercial and institutional, but fails to meet the needs of residential "consumers".
curtkram,
I assume people like Katy Perry and McDonalds because they like it. The difference between you and me might be I don't lose sleep over these kind of questions. Actually, to jla-x's point, they are starting to turn away from McDonalds, and as a fan of Katy Perry, her songs are catchy. This is how you can define me. As for intellectualizing architecture though, this video is interesting as far as how urban elevations work. Disclaimer, this is only an opinion, and not fact, so don't feel any need to learn from it.
http://www.seznam.name/video/?type=vimeo&watch=64911763&title=Re-Inventing+The+Urban+Fa%C3%A7ade&search=soa
what is consumed and what is desired are two very different things. The consumer is not free. The illusion of choice is the problem. Demand is 100% top down.
Indeed. Unless you are very clever.
I have some mild hope that with technology we can begin to decentralize production which will then result in a liberation from the corporate pupet masters.
Decentralization competes with corporate industrial finance, so their primary goal is to destroy it.
i'll catch up later, but for Saint in the City - here is the list for this week
(2) additions, architect, (1) high-end showroom city, AOR, CD's, CA', international design architect, (4) expediting code consulting close-outs two for a MEP engineer 2 for me (cafe and roof deck job), (1) forensic project, reports, (2) legalizations, architect, (1) consulting A/E project manager high-end residential, (1) close-out of 6 year legalization job as drafter/project archtiect, (1) competition submitted last night, (1) apt conversion Architect and Engineer....
that's it for now...oh and my damn books for tax season....married, two kids, dog...yada yada...
oh and forgot, meeting a designer for a 7 floor New Building that I am AOR and technical detail consultant, (1) garage repair job - draftsmen... (2) new house jobs over the weekend, (1) new townhouse potential job over weekend, and (2) potential restaurant jobs over the week. I have drafting staff who moonlight, people who run stuff to DOB for me etc....
anyway I am not the only one, from Work update on Architect.
Susan Diann Dyer, M. Arch, Assoc-AIA ~ 55 projects ..... in 1.5 years.... by myself....! but i am ADHD/OCD so ... that is how I do it in only 7.5 hrs a day. ... with no overtime... :-D ›› posted: Dec 31 '14 | see all
so....this will tie into this post I swear. If I and many architects can do this much at once, why are we NOT doing everything, including this Texas house?
to note it appears for a good part the following 2 pages of this thread - three (3) people are in agreement: Thayer-D, Miles, and jla-X. This is a very rare moment.
It's kind of like Venturi doesn't make anyone happy? Except Quondam, who has considerably closer connection to Venturi than all of us. I'm still researching those other projects.
Which is why I brought up the, work on 500 projects, but maybe only care about 3....I am sure Venturi did a lot of work, and to get to a level of teaching at Yale and writing very popular books is remarkable, and then we talk about say the Guild House or his Mom's house as Architecture with an A?
Compare this to Peter Eisenman...you might hate him and find his Wexner Center just as much a fail as the Guild House (or not)....but his philosophy whether unintentionally or not led to some cutting edge stuff with computers, former employees such as Greg Lynn and Thomas Leeser (not bothering to verify that, but pretty sure), and a translation whether you like it or not of Derrida among many other contemporary deep thinkers to architecture...Kipnis even wrote an essay about this (twist of the separatix/or something)... I mean if you are going to be detached from the public and talk about Architecture with a capital A, go all out right?
Learning from Las Vegas vs Chora l Works?
Olaf -- just saw your week's schedule... in your project tally, what do items like "new house jobs over the weekend" mean? I have a house project I've been working on for months, in addition to other things of course, but I've been pouring time into it. Can I ask -- how do you do "new house jobs (and plural, no less!) over the weekend"?
to EKE's point "I love it that the realtor and the home owners have no idea that their house has become a big deal on the internet"
anyone else noticed that the original link that started this thread is now dead?
saint, bad english, I meant New as in potential, my bad...
NAM, maybe it sold? do we get a commission?
To your point Nam, I think I know why we can't have nice things. See the post on Amsterdam's public housing and how any substantive discussion is closed down. We're not allowed to discuss architecture if it disrupts preconceived ideological view points.
http://archinect.com/news/article/121199869/amsterdam-s-ugly-architecture-from-the-70s-proves-resilient-against-gentrification
Thayer over simplistic and therefore bad
sounds to me like you're just pouting because other people are designing in a style you don't like.
I took some cold medicine before bed last night and you know how that can affect dreams, well I dreamt I was trapped in this house!
this house could be a movie!
Thayer over simplistic and therefore bad
sounds to me like you're just pouting because other people are designing in a style you don't like.
Man curtkram, you really don't get out much, do you? Simply because you confine your media diet to ideologically sanctioned fare you think that's what the worlds on? Wow.
to someone with more google-fu than me:
is the house link in the OP cached somewhere?
this image?
thayer still feels bad nobody cares what 'styles' he likes.
http://archinect.com/forum/thread/121302630/216-strait-lane-longview-texas
ODN, you prescient bastard!
Thx!
another charmer from Texas: Neo-georgian, 46+++ bedrooms, needs some TLC.
Is this stuff exempt down there? At least it speaks to us in the language of the people ;)
^ Abandonded commercial development.
^ Agreed. Unless the footprint is a U-shape that is open on the other side, there is too much interior space for this to be a house.
Maybe it's a warehouse for abandoned late twentieth century architectural cliches.
It was supposed to be some kind of long-term medical recovery unit but was never finished. It is ugly all right, but if finished and landscaped to the nth degree it might not look as bad as some hospitals. They could put a four foot diameter column immediately in front of the main entry door and call it the Guilder House.
Not as bad or as big as some McMansions around here ...
You would think the Hamptons would be one place where they have rules against excessive size, but I guess not?
Southampton Town did after Ira Rennert built 65-70,000 sq.ft. plus another 30-40,000 sq.ft. of accessory buildings. They set a limit at 20,000. Meanwhile there was a 'superstore' law that limits commercial construction to 15,000 sq.ft., which I think was overturned. Various municipalities are now struggling - but not very hard - to contain both size and lot conglomeration. In Sag Harbor the latest craze is buying up multiple small lots, clearing them of existing construction (no vacant land there) and merging them to build Frankenhouses.
There is so much money here that people just do whatever they want and let their lawyers duke it out later.
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