Koolhaas's wife is an artist. Karim Rashid can be called an artist, since he designs objects.. Hani Rashid's an architect. Anyway, architecture's a lot more complicated than art, because it has to be USED. You can't take free reign and expect to be able to express yourself thoroughly in your architectural designs.

.... thank goodness you can't do that.

i like that manug used 'free reign' instead of 'free rein'. maybe in honor of the lordship thread?

Architecture is an art. That it has to be used is just a condition of that art.
Art isn't necessarily about freedom of expression.

manu, by your definition "architecture's a lot more complicated than art, because it has to be USED," karim would not be considered an artist either. while he designs object, they must also be used.

art isnt useful. its useless. -richard serra (and he ought to know)

I disagree that art is useless.
I would say that art can always be made redundant.

Another way of looking at it might be to distinguish between use and function.

It's all subjective. In my opinion (and that's all each of us has) is that great architecture transcends 'usefulness' and becomes art.

Just depends on how good it is. I've seen useless 'art' that I'd consider more trash than art.
Also, I don't think just because it's a 'building' and serves a purpose it should be considered architecture.

But I strongly disagree with anyone that says architecture can't be art, especially because it has a use. I mean, is the Statue of Liberty architecture or art? How about that spire on the Empire State Building or the gargoyles on the Chrysler building - them architecture or art?

There is no answer.

The problem with saying architecture 'transcends' usefulness and thereby becomes art is that is suggests that use is of less value than art, and that architecture has to start with use and hope for art.

The Statue of Liberty starts might be an example of architecture which starts with art and then attains use (as an inhabitable space, a viewpoint, an urban marker).

I don't consider either art or use to be transcendent. Art and use are both concerns proper to architecture.

e: Hehe, that was just a typo.. a result of too little sleep and small, but significant, amounts of alcohol.

NPC: You're right, that was an over-simplified definition.. I guess there is no black and white when it comes to art, products and architecture.. just shades of grey.

It is more than a question of use - is more of an attitude, in my oppinion. but what is really interesting is that in the current avantgarde- a kinky word - practice is/are some similarryties in making architecture and making art?

Like performance or installations - they are using space to...
Or the methods used by the dutch architects - analizing, data processing - can be found in the world of art?

...and the object of creation is in relation withe our world in both cases.

i keep meaning to read this book but all my money keeps going to supplies

by an acclaimed curator, i heard there was a show by the same title somewhere in europe. this may be a little too historical, theoretical, and not enough contemporary

germano celant
art & archticture

ive been talking to a prof here at grad school about this very topic, so ill let you know if i find out any good reading material. or otherwise.

agfax you sound like a philosopher discussing art

coming from a contemporary arts background, i think it is safe to say that most contemporary artists work with very formal aspects of space, even with installation or performance. artists are more concerned with effect and feel.

my experience with arch so far (1st yr grad) is that archictecture is so much more analytical that art doesnt even approach addressing the same issues.

but i dont mean that in a bad way, i just think the two are very interesting animals.

When you ask what the similarities between art and architecture are, you have already decided that they are seperate things, even if they have points of contact. I am more interested in trying to see what differences there are, in order to see how much seperation there actually is, apart from their being taught in different faculties in the academy.


anotherquestion, you may find that your school particularly emphasises the analytical. Art is a pretty big thing. Why can't analysis be part of it?

Art exists in and of itself. It exists on its own rules and terms and is immune to outside influence.

On the other hand, Architecture is a craft - it is a made thing that responds to a particular purpose. As is industrial design, textile design, graphic design et al.

Which is just restating the Kantian presumption that art is and must remain essentially useless. Which I disagree with.

I am not saying that art is useless, just that the rules that govern its creation are contained within itself.

But you distinguished architecture on the grounds that it had a purpose, and it was this that set it apart from art.

Well, usefulness and purposefulness are two different things.

The creation of architecture is a response to an external logical system.

Art <em>responds</a> to its own internal logic.

Everything has a use, even if it is only to teach us how not to do things.

without alcohol these discussions get old so fast.

vado:
yeah, you're right...

What external logical system is architecture a response to?

A brief, a set of needs from particular users, the turning-circle of a car, appropriate column grids for caprparks and how they may meet appropriate column grids for workstations, tile patterns, the length and gradient of a ramp that the average person in a wheelchair is willing to navigate before they tire, local councils with aesthetic control over developments (in australia at least), the risk managment assessment excel spreadsheet nonsense of the people with the money, the position of the sun at 9am, 12pm, 3pm relative to neighbouring properties, the range of a wireless home network, the spanning capabilities of steel over timber...I dunno.

I've run out.

...and if I understand you correctly, responding to these conditions in any way would disqualify something from being art?

art can respond to those conditions, but unlike architecture it doesn't have to.

art can do whatever the hell it wants.



ok. thats friday done with...time for a beer!

This is my first post here, cause this got me interested.

What got me interested is the claim that all those so-called external logic systems somehow makes architecture not art.

I mean, to me, this is excactly what makes it art. The turning radius of the cant-remember-which-model car in the villa savoye, tells us a story of how corbousier idealized the car industry, technology, cruiseliners and whatnot (you know the deal) - and to me, that story or message is what makes (or part of what makes) this particular building something more than just a building. Its Architecture with capital A, and its art.

To me, the best art if not the only art the kind that carries a message, and i dont think im alone thinking so. the message, or story it wants to tell could be anything, its really up to your own interpretation. it could be about lost love, infatiuation or some clishé like that, it could try to make you feel hurt, touched, or whatever. but that doesnt have to be the only story possible to tell through art. corbousier told us a story about relating to nature, industry, and the like.

Relating to the subject manner, i personally think Hani Rashid is an artist, because of the way the buildings are designed. To generate shape by motion detecting brazilian fightingdance through some hightech computeralgoritme program, is telling a story of the 21st century architecture, where for the first time (yes, there are lots others doing the same kind of stuff as well, he may not be the first) the computer is an active player in shaping something, something not possible before. it can be compared to the revolutionary construction systems of the gothic cathedrals, to make a bold statement.

Telling the story of the 21st century computerage through a building for future generations, is to me, a work of art, and its also what makes rashid and his likes important in contemporary architecture, and the futures past.

So in short, yes Rashid is an artist.

And to say all other art can do what it wants is just stupid. Doesnt the painter have to rely on his paints, canvases, not to mention getting the sunlight to hit his paintings so its visible, just like the architect? every artform has some medium, that relies on some "external logic system". In some cases its just more obvious and in your face.

Oh and sorry for my long post, i kinda got carried away.

anything can be art. art is the relations between relations,not the relations between objects. joseph kosuth

continuing with the conceptual art take on this: sol lewitt's paragraphs on conceptual art

cp. with eisenmann's response to this...some essay of his somewhere responds to this article. house of cards was it?


also what do you make of people like vito acconci?

also, chris burden was trained as an architect. mel bochner's volumetric studies are an architectual process.


and what about michaelangelo

my usual worthless thoughts (nihilsm! nihilism! nihilism!...spot the musical quote here)

Architecture is not AN art.
some Architecture can have artistic value, and therefor be art, but no, Architecture is not an art.
as mngs said, you can consider something as a work of art, that could be a picture, a building, or a slice of apple pie.that doesn't make coocking an art form.
I think it's much more that that.
a quote from banksy's "wall and piece" book

"the art we look at is made only by a selected few. A small group creates, promotes, purchase and distribute art. When you go to an art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires"

I think Architecture has a much larger impact and is generated by far more people than art (even in its non-Architect-designed forms).