Mike Zwerin writing for the International Herald Tribune titled "Murdering silence with bad music" sums up my feelings regarding the noise that Dwell makes:
In his novel "Victory," Joseph Conrad's hero hears a sad female orchestra in a dour hotel on a remote South Sea island. "The Zangiacomo band was not making music," Conrad wrote: "It was simply murdering silence with a vulgar, ferocious energy. One felt as if witnessing a deed of violence ..."
And I'm finishing up a book about housing in America for Viking that will be published, I think, in early '06 that will incorporate many of the ideas that I explored in the first two years of Dwell, and that I expressed in the Fruitbowl Manifesto.
First I would like to let you know that I love Dwell Magazine and care enough about it to make the commentary and open a discussion as I did. I loved it much more at the beginning than I currently do now. As you have read everyones comments above, many would love the magazine more if it were to feature a few stories/ projects that showed respect for its humbler past. The current content presumes that modernism is only for the moneyed consumers-its attempt at design “within a budget and with the occasional aesthetic lapse†has been all but forgotten.
When the first comment was initially posted, an e-mail invite and link to this discussion was sent to both allison @ dwellmag. com and andrew @ dwellmag.com so that they could be part of the discussion
--Dear Dwell,
--
--I posted the note below to the above forum. it would be nice
--to get a 'nice modernist' reply. Nicer yet to see the Manifesto
--soon re-published as a way to re-ground the magazine to its old
--but hearty roots.
--
--Regards,
--Suture
And it would be nice to get a more substantial “nice modernist†comment from you. Else I understand your suggestions to be that we instead turn to the pages of Metropolis and your new book. Has Dwell become merely a palimpsest as vehicle for commercialising the latest soulless stainless steel widgets and ethically challenged Hummer2 SUV? Are we far beyond the point of nostalgia for Dwell magazine and its Fruit Bowl Manifesto since you also refer to the “first 2 years of Dwell†as a historical cutoff? Should all these people here give up on the hopes of anytime soon seeing some old-school Dwell stories back in its pages? Should we simply move on?
Yes nice Modernism lives many places. But has it moved on and left Dwell a dark empty abandoned structure?
It kind of sinks their idea of affordable modern, when the house they tauted as costing $250,000 is for sale at $650,000. And it's being flipped at speculator speed. I understand that this is the first test case house and all, but was it really sitting on a $400k chunk of land? Or does all the gear that the sponsors gave donated to the project do it?
I have been disappointed by Dwell's rapid decline as well. I loved the fruit bowl manifesto and the illustrated plans they had at the beginning, gave me great hope, but they quickly abounded them, I think even before the change in the masthead. I still read it though, and I do like that it broadens the client base and turns their taste more toward my own.
^^ i don't know why they had to seperate the house so much from nice level ground. and that space below the deck is a little nasty for all the fanfare.
I saw the first Dwell House. The most interesting thing about this house is that they paid a permium to have it manufactured. It would have been much cheaper stick built. I would hate to have been there when the module truck drivers and crane operator had to get up the steep hill, my car could barely make it. Also there is so much work done at the site (siding, railings) that the benefit of manufacturing, especially any cost savings, was totally lost. The spaces are all cramped except the living room, so the trade off to have it 14' wide was a design sacrifice. I'm guessing some lessons were learned for Dwell Houses 2, 3, 4...
But the turnout at the open house was amazing, several hundred people. Dwell has done a great thing to help popularize the Modern with the middle class.
*sigh* probably right. But how many calls did you get after this asking for a $250k design? I know my office got a few. My point is that they weren't being entirely forthright in the projects costs.
I don't know any real architects that will take a project under $500,000 (this is excluding "designers" who knock out CAD drawings for mass developers). Let's face it, architects now only design houses if they are for the rich. We may get a chance now and then to do more affordable housing at a large scale, but I have not seen an architect-designed afforadable single-family house in years. Do we need to come to terms with the fact that we are largely hired guns for rich clients who want to be cool?
the dwell project was always a prototype for a house under $250k. the project they developed depends on volume of production: the more made, the more savings. you can imagine why a volume manufacturer couldn't make this one-off meet cost expectations.
a lot about it was an experiment on the part of resolution:4. 'how can we leverage all of these manufacturing, delivery, and builder systems that are already in place?'
so far they've done well in using this model in other places, learning from things which didn't work out exactly right in nc, and making deals for production with manufacturers in various places across the country. the dwell house must be assessed based on the physical artifact, yes - to a point. it will also have to be assesses based on its legacy.
That's Chicago - "I don't know any real architects that will take a project under $500,000"
hmm, I don't know any architects that are doing projects over $500,000. Not sure what alternate reality you are living in but it is certainly more fun not hanging out with cool kids. cross over from the dark side.
Steven-
Good point, but Empyrean (the manufacturer Dwell has licenced) has never been able to do so. Hopefully there will be enough genuine interest to get it going. I'm a little cynical though and suspect that once they sell a few at one price they won't see any reason to lower it because there is greater demand. Back when they were Deck Houses my mother looked into having one built and there wasn't any price difference, supposedly they were of a much better quality. The way Americans live these days quality doesn't seem to be their primary concern.
I'm not sure what we can do to make the jump from the legacy of false starts towards genuine affordable pre fab homes. Everyone from Henry Ford on has tried to do it without much success. Maybe affordability isn't what prefab should be trying to offer, I don't know.
I'm ready to jump over to that developer thread and maybe with architects at the reins maybe affordable design will happen.
Cameron-
Many of us are living in the alternate reality called "Urban America." (or at least NYC, SF, LA, Boston, and I surmise from the post above, Chicago.) It's a strange topsy turvy world where anything under $500k is a dingy 1 bedroom condo.
But now I'm confusing project costs with real estate prices. Still a straightforward renovation can hit 500k pretty quick. I'll have to go buy your book and learn how to cross over to the light side cause all this makes me want to put on my "Architecture Sucks" T-shirt and go out int the back yard and eat worms.
FOG lite - it was more the snarkyness of the post refering to 'real architects'. I know the average house price in LA just tipped 1/2 Million this week but most of the country do not live in over-priced cities. I thought it was just flamebait.
you don't need to buy the book, just challenge the status quo.
e - easy off the drinks, isn't it lunchtime in seattle?
like a lot of other people i have a love/hate relationship with "dwell." it was the first magazine my then-girlfriend now-wife and i ever bought together. and we like magazines. no, we love magazines. it was great that someone took a risk that perhaps middle-class people might like modern architecture.
nowadays, the wolf ranges and hummer ads aren't too middle-class. and it's still a little too coast-centric.
but. what i started to see was that projects that i had previously seen in lectures and expensive monographs were starting to creep into dwell. sure, they were all expensive and modish and not even a reality for most of the readers. but that's what shelter mags do. they entice their readers to dream beyond their means. only instead of original chippendale chairs and neo-rococo ornamentalism dwell began to present minimalism and modernism as things to be striven for.
and frankly, people are starting to see that there IS an alternative to tract homes and ethan allen. i don't care if i can't afford the valcucine and the hummer and the poliform closet. i like to think i can.
difference is, when they start comparing teakettles i actually CAN afford one of those. and entries in the spec lists are starting to find themselves into the "specs" folder of my firefox bookmarks. those bartels sliding-door hardware and tracks...christ almighty, those are gorgeous.
hasn't dwell always been commercialized? dwell has always been a design + fashion magazine and has never really made much of a useful contribution to the profession itself, save for the promotion of modernism as a style [if that is to be considered a good thing] and the occasional eye candy projects which accompany that.
Is it? I don't think so. We just need one successful development for it all to work. If it can be proven there's a market, that it's very profitable, etc., then it'll be copied. Until then, though, it is all a fantasy.
I wasn't necessarily referring to the Dwell house project with the unattainable fantasy, that was more on the entire genre of shelter porn of which Dwell has now joined the ranks.
And the modern development project has happened several times, some with more success than others. Eichler homes seemed to be pretty successful out in San Francisco, Ain tried it in Mar Vista without much luck. And pre-fab has been tried by everyone from Henry Ford on down the line.
So it's happened, several times. I guess I'm amazed it never took.
I think one of my beefs with the magazine is they perpetuate the idea that design and an architect's time is free. Dwell doesn't serve the architectural community (or anyone) for that matter when they have articles where someone's brother designed the house addition for free or my friend did it for free. Design costs money. Architects perform a valuable service and deserve to be compensated for their time. Dwell needs to be more responsible and make sure that they inform their readers of the costs and benefits of what an architect can do for them.
I paged thru the latest Dwell at the Grocery Store while the Mrs was
looking for something special in the Produce Section of the Store....
I didn't buy it.....wonder if they will give free subscriptions again to Architects. I thought that was kinda cool since you know the advertizing is really where the money is in producing magazines...and us architects we be suckkas for advertising.
Dwell Magazine: A Slow Commercialised Descent? Has it stoped being a "Nice Modernist?"
Mike Zwerin writing for the International Herald Tribune titled "Murdering silence with bad music" sums up my feelings regarding the noise that Dwell makes:
In his novel "Victory," Joseph Conrad's hero hears a sad female orchestra in a dour hotel on a remote South Sea island. "The Zangiacomo band was not making music," Conrad wrote: "It was simply murdering silence with a vulgar, ferocious energy. One felt as if witnessing a deed of violence ..."
rest of article is here
Someone clued me in to the discussion you've been having about the changes that have occurred in the pages of Dwell over the last couple of years.
I don't really want to comment. I think you've all said pretty much everything that can be said.
I do, however, want to point out that I am currently writing a regular column for Metropolis called "America."
http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/mag_subsection.php?secid=5&subsecid=28
And I'm finishing up a book about housing in America for Viking that will be published, I think, in early '06 that will incorporate many of the ideas that I explored in the first two years of Dwell, and that I expressed in the Fruitbowl Manifesto.
Nice Modernism lives.
--Karrie Jacobs
Hello Karrie,
First I would like to let you know that I love Dwell Magazine and care enough about it to make the commentary and open a discussion as I did. I loved it much more at the beginning than I currently do now. As you have read everyones comments above, many would love the magazine more if it were to feature a few stories/ projects that showed respect for its humbler past. The current content presumes that modernism is only for the moneyed consumers-its attempt at design “within a budget and with the occasional aesthetic lapse†has been all but forgotten.
When the first comment was initially posted, an e-mail invite and link to this discussion was sent to both allison @ dwellmag. com and andrew @ dwellmag.com so that they could be part of the discussion
--Dear Dwell,
--
--I posted the note below to the above forum. it would be nice
--to get a 'nice modernist' reply. Nicer yet to see the Manifesto
--soon re-published as a way to re-ground the magazine to its old
--but hearty roots.
--
--Regards,
--Suture
And it would be nice to get a more substantial “nice modernist†comment from you. Else I understand your suggestions to be that we instead turn to the pages of Metropolis and your new book. Has Dwell become merely a palimpsest as vehicle for commercialising the latest soulless stainless steel widgets and ethically challenged Hummer2 SUV? Are we far beyond the point of nostalgia for Dwell magazine and its Fruit Bowl Manifesto since you also refer to the “first 2 years of Dwell†as a historical cutoff? Should all these people here give up on the hopes of anytime soon seeing some old-school Dwell stories back in its pages? Should we simply move on?
Yes nice Modernism lives many places. But has it moved on and left Dwell a dark empty abandoned structure?
Regards,
Suture
bong...
thats when a smoke was a smoke...
thai stick was also beautifully presented.
I never wasted any time even looking at Dwell.
Of course I'm a snob.
http://www.quondam.com/14/1377.htm
vado, your posts and mine were a whole lot more thought-out when this thread was first running.
have we gone too casual?
nah.
when the going gets rough...
excellent idea, pull up old threads. antidote to the school mania.
And now a message from our sponsor:
i think these are my first posts. now i just ask if anyone knows shite about dwell...well do you???
Face the facts, all magazines (as opposed to journals) are advertising mediums, and content is pretty much secondary.
is it obscene to reference myself?
ARCHINECT SURE DOES GET AROUND..
lol
not at all suture i do it all the time...
I may not have BP's "muscle" but i want to be just as famous.
google yerself...
many vado retro googles. zero under my real name...
Anyone seen this?
It kind of sinks their idea of affordable modern, when the house they tauted as costing $250,000 is for sale at $650,000. And it's being flipped at speculator speed. I understand that this is the first test case house and all, but was it really sitting on a $400k chunk of land? Or does all the gear that the sponsors gave donated to the project do it?
I have been disappointed by Dwell's rapid decline as well. I loved the fruit bowl manifesto and the illustrated plans they had at the beginning, gave me great hope, but they quickly abounded them, I think even before the change in the masthead. I still read it though, and I do like that it broadens the client base and turns their taste more toward my own.
^^ i don't know why they had to seperate the house so much from nice level ground. and that space below the deck is a little nasty for all the fanfare.
Hmmm, guess they didn't have a sponsor for the landscaping...
I saw the first Dwell House. The most interesting thing about this house is that they paid a permium to have it manufactured. It would have been much cheaper stick built. I would hate to have been there when the module truck drivers and crane operator had to get up the steep hill, my car could barely make it. Also there is so much work done at the site (siding, railings) that the benefit of manufacturing, especially any cost savings, was totally lost. The spaces are all cramped except the living room, so the trade off to have it 14' wide was a design sacrifice. I'm guessing some lessons were learned for Dwell Houses 2, 3, 4...
But the turnout at the open house was amazing, several hundred people. Dwell has done a great thing to help popularize the Modern with the middle class.
650k is affordable these days mac...
*sigh* probably right. But how many calls did you get after this asking for a $250k design? I know my office got a few. My point is that they weren't being entirely forthright in the projects costs.
I don't know any real architects that will take a project under $500,000 (this is excluding "designers" who knock out CAD drawings for mass developers). Let's face it, architects now only design houses if they are for the rich. We may get a chance now and then to do more affordable housing at a large scale, but I have not seen an architect-designed afforadable single-family house in years. Do we need to come to terms with the fact that we are largely hired guns for rich clients who want to be cool?
the dwell project was always a prototype for a house under $250k. the project they developed depends on volume of production: the more made, the more savings. you can imagine why a volume manufacturer couldn't make this one-off meet cost expectations.
a lot about it was an experiment on the part of resolution:4. 'how can we leverage all of these manufacturing, delivery, and builder systems that are already in place?'
so far they've done well in using this model in other places, learning from things which didn't work out exactly right in nc, and making deals for production with manufacturers in various places across the country. the dwell house must be assessed based on the physical artifact, yes - to a point. it will also have to be assesses based on its legacy.
That's Chicago - "I don't know any real architects that will take a project under $500,000"
hmm, I don't know any architects that are doing projects over $500,000. Not sure what alternate reality you are living in but it is certainly more fun not hanging out with cool kids. cross over from the dark side.
Steven-
Good point, but Empyrean (the manufacturer Dwell has licenced) has never been able to do so. Hopefully there will be enough genuine interest to get it going. I'm a little cynical though and suspect that once they sell a few at one price they won't see any reason to lower it because there is greater demand. Back when they were Deck Houses my mother looked into having one built and there wasn't any price difference, supposedly they were of a much better quality. The way Americans live these days quality doesn't seem to be their primary concern.
I'm not sure what we can do to make the jump from the legacy of false starts towards genuine affordable pre fab homes. Everyone from Henry Ford on has tried to do it without much success. Maybe affordability isn't what prefab should be trying to offer, I don't know.
I'm ready to jump over to that developer thread and maybe with architects at the reins maybe affordable design will happen.
Cameron-
Many of us are living in the alternate reality called "Urban America." (or at least NYC, SF, LA, Boston, and I surmise from the post above, Chicago.) It's a strange topsy turvy world where anything under $500k is a dingy 1 bedroom condo.
But now I'm confusing project costs with real estate prices. Still a straightforward renovation can hit 500k pretty quick. I'll have to go buy your book and learn how to cross over to the light side cause all this makes me want to put on my "Architecture Sucks" T-shirt and go out int the back yard and eat worms.
mmm, worms. i think i need a shot of mezcal.
FOG lite - it was more the snarkyness of the post refering to 'real architects'. I know the average house price in LA just tipped 1/2 Million this week but most of the country do not live in over-priced cities. I thought it was just flamebait.
you don't need to buy the book, just challenge the status quo.
e - easy off the drinks, isn't it lunchtime in seattle?
cs, it's 5pm somewhere. :+)
like a lot of other people i have a love/hate relationship with "dwell." it was the first magazine my then-girlfriend now-wife and i ever bought together. and we like magazines. no, we love magazines. it was great that someone took a risk that perhaps middle-class people might like modern architecture.
nowadays, the wolf ranges and hummer ads aren't too middle-class. and it's still a little too coast-centric.
but. what i started to see was that projects that i had previously seen in lectures and expensive monographs were starting to creep into dwell. sure, they were all expensive and modish and not even a reality for most of the readers. but that's what shelter mags do. they entice their readers to dream beyond their means. only instead of original chippendale chairs and neo-rococo ornamentalism dwell began to present minimalism and modernism as things to be striven for.
and frankly, people are starting to see that there IS an alternative to tract homes and ethan allen. i don't care if i can't afford the valcucine and the hummer and the poliform closet. i like to think i can.
difference is, when they start comparing teakettles i actually CAN afford one of those. and entries in the spec lists are starting to find themselves into the "specs" folder of my firefox bookmarks. those bartels sliding-door hardware and tracks...christ almighty, those are gorgeous.
are there any project under 500k in chicago??? im working on a house estimated price tag 1.5 million ducats. its not for me...
hasn't dwell always been commercialized? dwell has always been a design + fashion magazine and has never really made much of a useful contribution to the profession itself, save for the promotion of modernism as a style [if that is to be considered a good thing] and the occasional eye candy projects which accompany that.
shelter porn?
yes, definitely spank material...
It's all an unattainable fantasy....
Is it? I don't think so. We just need one successful development for it all to work. If it can be proven there's a market, that it's very profitable, etc., then it'll be copied. Until then, though, it is all a fantasy.
I am amazed it's not happened.
I wasn't necessarily referring to the Dwell house project with the unattainable fantasy, that was more on the entire genre of shelter porn of which Dwell has now joined the ranks.
And the modern development project has happened several times, some with more success than others. Eichler homes seemed to be pretty successful out in San Francisco, Ain tried it in Mar Vista without much luck. And pre-fab has been tried by everyone from Henry Ford on down the line.
So it's happened, several times. I guess I'm amazed it never took.
Bump
Because I'm still conflicted about subscribing.
that dwell fetishes a certain category of style in my opinion destoys it's ability to have a serious discussion about architecture in the first place.
oh i already said that. two years ago.
my first comments were on this thread! good times.
I think one of my beefs with the magazine is they perpetuate the idea that design and an architect's time is free. Dwell doesn't serve the architectural community (or anyone) for that matter when they have articles where someone's brother designed the house addition for free or my friend did it for free. Design costs money. Architects perform a valuable service and deserve to be compensated for their time. Dwell needs to be more responsible and make sure that they inform their readers of the costs and benefits of what an architect can do for them.
so how much will this improve some of the content? I'm going to remain optimistic until i see the issue.
I recently re-sucbribed specifically because of Geoff. Haven't received my first issue yet, but I hope it's the March one.
i resubscribed because lb resubscribed. what else should i do lb? i need direction!!!
I paged thru the latest Dwell at the Grocery Store while the Mrs was
looking for something special in the Produce Section of the Store....
I didn't buy it.....wonder if they will give free subscriptions again to Architects. I thought that was kinda cool since you know the advertizing is really where the money is in producing magazines...and us architects we be suckkas for advertising.
i thiink anyone with over ten thousand posts on archinect should get a free subscription.
i gots the dewellomania!!
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