leave Johnson out of it. He really didn't invent anything and even admitted that he was a whore. Of course, most contemporary architects are uninventive whores, so maybe he is representative in that sense.
yeah -- Johnson was all that (& more) but he was a real force/supporter of modern architecture in America. As I'm in StL & we actually have a Johnson building here (though not a great one) I feel compelled to leave him IN regardless of the detractions -- which I am certainly sympathetic to.
I would also add Mckim Meade White to the beginning of that lineage (btwn Richardson and Sullivan) and talk about their contributions to large public buildings and Beauxe Arts.
The line from Schindler to Gehry is more important than the one from Venturi... What can some Philly architect tell an Angeleno about "pop" architecture?? We have Randy's Donuts and Tail of the Pup. What do they have in Philly?
The more people know about Schindler, the better the world will be...
an alternative suggestion :if you draw up categories of architecture-architectural thought that are canonically US/north american (Organic/Midwestern, International Style, L.A School...) ,that would guide you in evaluating the prominence of architects .. a less arbitrary approach
...first, that would give more unity and continuity in discussing different architects-as opposed to a kaleidescope of big names- and give a chapter-by-chapter narrative for your audience ..secondly, it would centralize your course around a contextually discriminant focus ...American(US) Architecture (give year-give year)
"trajectory of modern (somewhat American)" seems rather vague and unstudied .. it does not matter if your audience is not composed of architects...are they intelligent?are you ready to insult their intelligence if they are so?
1-either your topic almost-exclusively concerns north american (US) architecture or is argued with that as a denominator (the influx of european/other architects and what they brought to the US). Thus not digressing into a catalogue of exhausted random listings of buildings for no other purpose that to stupify your audience with a captioned variety of architecture.
2-or it is not so. ..either go completely cosmpolitan and uncritical...A magazine-lifestlye-wow factor ... at least you would hope that the audience will feel that you took that randomness to heart...'honesty of the fashionista' ..I like...be sure you either die-hard minimalist or funky (browns, reds, rough textures played agains the smooth) and choose gorgeous pictures with Barcelona,Wassily and Basculant chairs ,Eileen Gray Tables ...
3-or start with europe modernism..then immigrate to america with Mies, Gropius, Kandinsky, Breuer...and pick up your tale from there..and etc etc
Jun 30, 04 9:52 pm ·
·
perhaps it's the line from Gordon Matta-Clark to Frank Gehry that should be more recognized.
some good points, and one glaring omission on my part (Gropius), and anoth which I'm suprised hasn't been mentioned (Aalto). And yes, the world would be better if more people knew about Shindler.
uneDITed: this is not attempting to be vague and certainly not unstudied. your assertion in *3* is probably closest to where I'm heading with this, though I would state it more as the synergy and transferrals between European/American modernism in the early 20th century. Not only Morris' impact on Sullivan/Wright, but also then Wright's impact on Gropius, etc.
and while I agree that audiences (no matter their level) should not be condescended to, it's in fact difficult to NOT do so (or else lose them completely, which is worse) unless some basic foundations are established. This is perhaps the most valuable role for a "canon" -- but not as an end all be all, but as a viable starting point upon which to build. It's difficult to talk about -say- Mendehlson without having first talked about Gropius, even though most may reverse that order and it in a lot of ways makes more sense to do so.
I ceretainly don't mean for this to be yet another overly-simplistic list trying to distill a complex history into a few main points -- well, maybe I do -- but to also think about the value of such a list for non-academics and non-architects -- some of whom frankly, are not that intelligent and won't do the work (even passively) to make some of the connections you suggest meaningful.
a new list might look like this (and here's the danger -- it's getting big):
Richardson -- Sullivan -- Wright -- Gropius -- Neutra/Shindler -- Corbusier -- Aalto -- Mies -- Johnson -- Kahn -- Venturi -- Meier -- Gehry -- Holl
(and yes, I know I'll get slammed for that last one)
Delete Venturi. I'd delete Aalto, too, but I guess he had his place. I'd put Johnson on there before Venturi, simply because he's been a powerplayer for so long (although not a good architect). His influence on Frank Israel comes to mind.
I'd get rid of Holl, too. He's great, but then you might as well add Hadid, Eisenman, and a few others. I'd think about adding Hadid. She's brought the abstract imagery far beyond anyone else.
Jul 1, 04 9:58 am ·
·
Why not compose a modern trajectory based on individual buildings/designs and events (such as building expositions, publications, schools, symposiums, etc.) intwined with historical events, instead of dealing with architects themselves as a datum?
Is the course on architecture or is it on architects?
A Venturi and Rauch building of the 1960s, for example, is not the same as a Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates building of now-a-days. The same goes for Gehry's career trajectory. An early Mies building is not the same as a late Mies building (although most late Mies buildings are just like each other). Note what building design Kahn was working on while Wright was designing Beth Sholom Synagogue.
A chronological trajectory of buildings/designs will be much more informative than a more or less speculative list of what architects may have succeeded or followed what other architect.
i'll second rita novel's suggestion re exhibits and actually suggest you consider using the moma architecture exhibits. they are not all-encompassing but they are helpful and they relate what the non-arch public was being shown at the time.
1932 the international style
1972 five architects.
los blancos: eisenman, graves, gwathmey, hedjuk y meier
los grises: venturi, stern, jencks, moore
1975 the beux arts exhibition
1979 transformations
charles jencks: the language of postmodern architecture
1988 deconstructivist architecture
peter eisenman, bernard tschumi
frank gehry, steven holl, coop himmelblau
Is it just me, or shouldn't Hadid be in the above group? Just wondering, as I am a huge fan, so I may not offer the best opinion, but I don't know many people that have a Holl book, but most have her work.
Jul 1, 04 3:23 pm ·
·
MoMA also had a Japanese Design exhibition in 1954 (I think that's the right year).
The Language of Post-Modern Architecture was first published in 1977.
1966: Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture - Venturi
1966: Achitecture of the City - Rossi
Not only were Le Corbusier's executed works always news-worthy, but each consequtive publication of his Complete Works lead to widespread (ie, global) emulation throughout the field of architecture.
The necessity of rebuilding Europe after WWII lead to an enormous proliferation of modern design.
1925: Towards a New Architecture - Le Corbusier.
The coeval-ness of Art Deco and Esprit Nouveau.
The works of Stirling and Gowen as the ultimate manifestation of Russian Constructivism.
Stalinist Architecture as the ultimate manifestation of Piranesi's Ancient Roman fantasies.
its fascinatingly naive that Meier or Gehry makes it on this list and NOT Hejduk. the last 30 years or so of architecture more architects, students and theorists owe more to this man than many on that tree ever did or will....
I like the suggestion about exhibitions. That could be a good one worth trying.
I think my attempt is to try to place familiar architects (ones that non-architects non-academics may have heard of) in a linage/context. From this trajectory, others (like Hejduk and Breuer) can certainly be brought into the fold, but to include them outright simply makes it all too cumbersome.
The old movement-countermovement view might be good. showing the different movements (and architects) as a balancing act. That would keep it simple & chronological, and there would be some content/idea in the choices.
I would round the thing off with Koolhaas' projects from the 90' - today. His clear references to - and 'bending' and distorting of modernism could be interesting even for non-architects.
Maybe Educatorium - simple folding and warping of modernistic style.
or the CCTV - a looped and warped ressurection of the ultra-modernistic WTC towers.
your list, as you mentioned later, is getting too long. and being long it is bumpy and wrinkled. By wrinkled I mean putting uneven focus on certain lines/vestiges. As you say it is an introductory course whose crevices can be filled in later with more studies and personal research. My suggestion:
Richardson/Sullivan -- Corbusier -- Mies -- Kahn -- Venturi -- and finally contemporary trajectories (Gehry, OMA, and whomever you want; doesn't matter since you're talking about people who aren't as settled into the so-called cannon).
Kahn..as in Albert Kahn.. L.Kahn might make some architects rave bleed and weep, but Albert Kahn's architecture has had more spatial &organizational effect on architecture through (but not simply contained within) the expanding early 20th century industry.
what do we mean when we say 'poetics of pragmatism'?
is it a poetic of filtration, a poetic of keeping poetics at bay?
Keeping them at bay... A.Kahn would be a good addition to the "modernism from Europe to the US"-topic, but as a synthetizer, nothing spatially innovative there.
One way would be to choose a historian and follow his path, for an example Curtis or for a decisively American viewpoint Scully. Or fuck with them by using Tafuri...
but of course, his marriage with Fordism. What more of a synthetizer do you want? Space as a flow of production within time. The horizontal span for an uninterrupting process and functional adaptability and a vertical stacking of differentiated functions with the vertical junctions if floor openings acting as material circulation and exchange....an exchange of labour (Highland Park plant) . These floors then migrate (out of the need to accomodate more complexity and a further breaking down of tasks) into distinct pieces of architectures(River Rouge)...the notion of an industrial complex...an actual urban machine before Le Corb's machine matephors And then a further jump in industrial space per urban space...a decentralization of factories across distinct geographies linked by a linking infrasctructural network.
From the interiority of a building's spatial organization to the bird eye's view of the city, Albert Kahn's rigorous abstractions of efficiency and production, space as evidence of production...
This is largely Kahn's legacy. Much of trendy neo-pragmatist rhetoric and concerns (Koolhas, Stan Allen,FOA, UN, OCEAN...) regarding 'material production' 'infrastructural urbanism' and the designed space as a preempted economic-efficient imprint of connections, transitions, nodes..etc..that channel flow of people or material have soaked in much, wittingly or not, from industrial architecture and from Albert Kahn. And even elevating his direct pragramitism into a language of metaphors and ghostly apparitions,,, a form of religion..NeoPragmatism turns to the silence of the Pragmatist and makes that silence into a divine and loud language. Rem Koolhas' books after Delirious are all Testaments of that..with the plethora of colours images and diagrams he wants to scribble magical incantations all over dry monotone pragmatism to catholicize it. these are books of totems. It can either be seen as a bit vulgar like bible bashing..or evidence of his sardonic irony...using the language of religion to describe dull dry agnostic reality..thus mocking both and the reader as well. ouch
I was being rhetorical in my 'questions' : )..if I wanted anything out of that question, it would have been a jolt away from it..not a a recocheting echo over its cliff : )
i agree with rita novel. a trajectory based on architects would be endless and inaccurate, as many of us have their own favorite trajectory. this sounds like a popularity contest and it is mostly subjective. i can not argue for or against any of the posts or names mentioned above. other than that, let the historians continue their work.architects as individuals are part of trajectories based on socio-economic conditions and building technology.
choosing to highlight certain conspiracies between architecture and 'socioeconomic' situations/conditions calls for subjectivity (using this word in ur sense) on par with highlighting architects and their lineage. It will evoke the same 'randomness'. I also gather that you did not read the part where the Novel character stipulates
"(such as building expositions, publications, schools, symposiums, etc."
In other words..make db's trajectory into a catalogue of other trajectories' catalogues. This is more a flat historiography than a history..and is twice removed (once by time, and second by opinion) from 'socioeconomic conditions'. So..not only do I not understand why you concur with Novel...but I also think its very lazy/escapist in attempting to be utterly noninvestigative towards its material. Ideally..Novel's way is to present not the architect..not his or her buildings..but snippets of programs that feature his name is a list of selection to recognize his importance (ergo his existence) within db's discussion...the whole purpose of which is (outside the frilly architectural details) is to justify itself and not its content.
also ironic..keeping in mind that db's mostly-unitelligent (his assumption not mine) audience might not care so much any way.
"So..not only do I not understand why you concur with Novel..."
of course, this is not proof of any liking or dislikings on my part (of persons or their opinions)..but merely that your post contradicts hers on the same grounds on which you claim complicity.
"A chronological trajectory of buildings/designs will be much more informative than a more or less speculative list of what architects may have succeeded or followed what other architect."
rita novel
this was what i was referring to.
Jul 3, 04 3:57 pm ·
·
It is incorrect for uneDITed to state that:
Novel's way is to present not the architect..not his or her buildings..but snippets of programs
because what I suggested was:
compose a modern trajectory based on individual buildings/designs and events (such as building expositions, publications, schools, symposiums, etc.) intwined with historical events
(such as building expositions, publications, schools, symposiums, etc.)..there are clearly given directions to where db can find her/his buildings and architects. I bracketed architecture "(outside the frilly architectural details)" because the choice of buildings was bracketed within previous set of 'choices' (publications, expositions..etc). I was being slightly more cheeky with 'snippets of programs' to draw attention to that unstudied twist in your suggestion to db.
It is irrelevant which you put first unless that firstness is of "first this or then this" order. . It is the whole syntactical thing together that adds up. I assume that is elementary...
so it is not 'incorrect' of me to state etc...as this is my reading :)
I did not contradict facts to be incorrect...it would be neighbourly if you could be less righteous with your Novel language please. :)
here is a snippet of a program.
how would you house a 1000 strong labor force working in a steel mill around the clock? year? let's say 1890.
would you;
a. give them enough salary to roam around and buy a farm?
b. exploit them, so with the increased profits, you can further develope your empire and seek new markets?
c. keep them in the vicinity,usually walking distance, of the factory, provide multi unit/story living quarters with running water and electicity?
d. hire that fellow who figured out how to build these units no problem?
b,c,d are correct.
some results;
birth of a new program, density, changes in spatial perception and use, increase in numbers of professionals who practice the construction of such buildings, variations in architectural expression for the same program, adaptation of this new technology and methods to one of a kind lavish houses of the "leaders of the industry" and so on.
another trajectory;
year 1980's, lets say. usa.
philip johnson and his five architects. delirious new york is out and it is also tragy comic. kaos in the house. some guy in west coast named gehry. overseas, mitterand is rebuilding paris glam. many leaders of the the industry everywhere. if you buy a richard serra piece you've got to talk so and so's architect.
and now;
trajectories are abundant. some student names are in the custom trajectories. you are in if you can scream. tv shows about architecture and design. everybody is an architect. media heavy, milestone monument building (monument for every blood shed is popular now). do i dare to say socio political?
i believe, there is a number of names behind each architects name in trajectories. it is complex from now on. perhaps it is time for a different type of configuration for architectural trajectories.
Modern Trajectory
trying to distill a trajectory of modern (somewhat American) architecture for my students; heres the lineage I've got so far:
Richardson -- Sullivan -- Wright -- Corbusier -- Mies -- Johnson -- Kahn -- Venturi -- Gehry --
I know I'm skipping a LOT here, but please keep in mind this is for an intro class of non-architects.
Thanks for your input.
leave Johnson out of it. He really didn't invent anything and even admitted that he was a whore. Of course, most contemporary architects are uninventive whores, so maybe he is representative in that sense.
yeah -- Johnson was all that (& more) but he was a real force/supporter of modern architecture in America. As I'm in StL & we actually have a Johnson building here (though not a great one) I feel compelled to leave him IN regardless of the detractions -- which I am certainly sympathetic to.
gropius? intro'd the modern movement at Harvard including students such as IM Pei and Rudolph
Neutra??? Might want to discuss 60's 'corporate modernism' and the effect that it had on Venturi writing Complexity and Contradiction.
I would include more examples of current Modernists. Possible HdeM, Zumthor, TWBTA, Ando. I know they aren't American...
Richard Meijer
I would also add Mckim Meade White to the beginning of that lineage (btwn Richardson and Sullivan) and talk about their contributions to large public buildings and Beauxe Arts.
The line from Schindler to Gehry is more important than the one from Venturi... What can some Philly architect tell an Angeleno about "pop" architecture?? We have Randy's Donuts and Tail of the Pup. What do they have in Philly?
The more people know about Schindler, the better the world will be...
an alternative suggestion :if you draw up categories of architecture-architectural thought that are canonically US/north american (Organic/Midwestern, International Style, L.A School...) ,that would guide you in evaluating the prominence of architects .. a less arbitrary approach
...first, that would give more unity and continuity in discussing different architects-as opposed to a kaleidescope of big names- and give a chapter-by-chapter narrative for your audience ..secondly, it would centralize your course around a contextually discriminant focus ...American(US) Architecture (give year-give year)
"trajectory of modern (somewhat American)" seems rather vague and unstudied .. it does not matter if your audience is not composed of architects...are they intelligent?are you ready to insult their intelligence if they are so?
1-either your topic almost-exclusively concerns north american (US) architecture or is argued with that as a denominator (the influx of european/other architects and what they brought to the US). Thus not digressing into a catalogue of exhausted random listings of buildings for no other purpose that to stupify your audience with a captioned variety of architecture.
2-or it is not so. ..either go completely cosmpolitan and uncritical...A magazine-lifestlye-wow factor ... at least you would hope that the audience will feel that you took that randomness to heart...'honesty of the fashionista' ..I like...be sure you either die-hard minimalist or funky (browns, reds, rough textures played agains the smooth) and choose gorgeous pictures with Barcelona,Wassily and Basculant chairs ,Eileen Gray Tables ...
3-or start with europe modernism..then immigrate to america with Mies, Gropius, Kandinsky, Breuer...and pick up your tale from there..and etc etc
perhaps it's the line from Gordon Matta-Clark to Frank Gehry that should be more recognized.
http://freespace.virgin.net/robert.holloway/start.html
[and don't forget the line from Goldberg to Gehry]
guess where Matta-Clark hangs out these days
http://www.quondam.com/06/0537.htm
some good points, and one glaring omission on my part (Gropius), and anoth which I'm suprised hasn't been mentioned (Aalto). And yes, the world would be better if more people knew about Shindler.
uneDITed: this is not attempting to be vague and certainly not unstudied. your assertion in *3* is probably closest to where I'm heading with this, though I would state it more as the synergy and transferrals between European/American modernism in the early 20th century. Not only Morris' impact on Sullivan/Wright, but also then Wright's impact on Gropius, etc.
and while I agree that audiences (no matter their level) should not be condescended to, it's in fact difficult to NOT do so (or else lose them completely, which is worse) unless some basic foundations are established. This is perhaps the most valuable role for a "canon" -- but not as an end all be all, but as a viable starting point upon which to build. It's difficult to talk about -say- Mendehlson without having first talked about Gropius, even though most may reverse that order and it in a lot of ways makes more sense to do so.
I ceretainly don't mean for this to be yet another overly-simplistic list trying to distill a complex history into a few main points -- well, maybe I do -- but to also think about the value of such a list for non-academics and non-architects -- some of whom frankly, are not that intelligent and won't do the work (even passively) to make some of the connections you suggest meaningful.
a new list might look like this (and here's the danger -- it's getting big):
Richardson -- Sullivan -- Wright -- Gropius -- Neutra/Shindler -- Corbusier -- Aalto -- Mies -- Johnson -- Kahn -- Venturi -- Meier -- Gehry -- Holl
(and yes, I know I'll get slammed for that last one)
Eames's possibly...actually definitely
i imagine the are pretty integral to modern design in general
Delete Venturi. I'd delete Aalto, too, but I guess he had his place. I'd put Johnson on there before Venturi, simply because he's been a powerplayer for so long (although not a good architect). His influence on Frank Israel comes to mind.
I'd get rid of Holl, too. He's great, but then you might as well add Hadid, Eisenman, and a few others. I'd think about adding Hadid. She's brought the abstract imagery far beyond anyone else.
Why not compose a modern trajectory based on individual buildings/designs and events (such as building expositions, publications, schools, symposiums, etc.) intwined with historical events, instead of dealing with architects themselves as a datum?
Is the course on architecture or is it on architects?
A Venturi and Rauch building of the 1960s, for example, is not the same as a Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates building of now-a-days. The same goes for Gehry's career trajectory. An early Mies building is not the same as a late Mies building (although most late Mies buildings are just like each other). Note what building design Kahn was working on while Wright was designing Beth Sholom Synagogue.
A chronological trajectory of buildings/designs will be much more informative than a more or less speculative list of what architects may have succeeded or followed what other architect.
i'll second rita novel's suggestion re exhibits and actually suggest you consider using the moma architecture exhibits. they are not all-encompassing but they are helpful and they relate what the non-arch public was being shown at the time.
1932 the international style
1972 five architects.
los blancos: eisenman, graves, gwathmey, hedjuk y meier
los grises: venturi, stern, jencks, moore
1975 the beux arts exhibition
1979 transformations
charles jencks: the language of postmodern architecture
1988 deconstructivist architecture
peter eisenman, bernard tschumi
frank gehry, steven holl, coop himmelblau
Is it just me, or shouldn't Hadid be in the above group? Just wondering, as I am a huge fan, so I may not offer the best opinion, but I don't know many people that have a Holl book, but most have her work.
MoMA also had a Japanese Design exhibition in 1954 (I think that's the right year).
The Language of Post-Modern Architecture was first published in 1977.
1966: Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture - Venturi
1966: Achitecture of the City - Rossi
Not only were Le Corbusier's executed works always news-worthy, but each consequtive publication of his Complete Works lead to widespread (ie, global) emulation throughout the field of architecture.
The necessity of rebuilding Europe after WWII lead to an enormous proliferation of modern design.
1925: Towards a New Architecture - Le Corbusier.
The coeval-ness of Art Deco and Esprit Nouveau.
The works of Stirling and Gowen as the ultimate manifestation of Russian Constructivism.
Stalinist Architecture as the ultimate manifestation of Piranesi's Ancient Roman fantasies.
and let's not forget loos' ornament and crime
err, crime and ornament.
its fascinatingly naive that Meier or Gehry makes it on this list and NOT Hejduk. the last 30 years or so of architecture more architects, students and theorists owe more to this man than many on that tree ever did or will....
I agree Charles Eames is a modernist, but an architect on only one building?
How about A. Quincy Jones?
marcel breuer - the structure.
I like the suggestion about exhibitions. That could be a good one worth trying.
I think my attempt is to try to place familiar architects (ones that non-architects non-academics may have heard of) in a linage/context. From this trajectory, others (like Hejduk and Breuer) can certainly be brought into the fold, but to include them outright simply makes it all too cumbersome.
The old movement-countermovement view might be good. showing the different movements (and architects) as a balancing act. That would keep it simple & chronological, and there would be some content/idea in the choices.
I would round the thing off with Koolhaas' projects from the 90' - today. His clear references to - and 'bending' and distorting of modernism could be interesting even for non-architects.
Maybe Educatorium - simple folding and warping of modernistic style.
or the CCTV - a looped and warped ressurection of the ultra-modernistic WTC towers.
ap
your list, as you mentioned later, is getting too long. and being long it is bumpy and wrinkled. By wrinkled I mean putting uneven focus on certain lines/vestiges. As you say it is an introductory course whose crevices can be filled in later with more studies and personal research. My suggestion:
Richardson/Sullivan -- Corbusier -- Mies -- Kahn -- Venturi -- and finally contemporary trajectories (Gehry, OMA, and whomever you want; doesn't matter since you're talking about people who aren't as settled into the so-called cannon).
Kahn..as in Albert Kahn.. L.Kahn might make some architects rave bleed and weep, but Albert Kahn's architecture has had more spatial &organizational effect on architecture through (but not simply contained within) the expanding early 20th century industry.
what do we mean when we say 'poetics of pragmatism'?
is it a poetic of filtration, a poetic of keeping poetics at bay?
Keeping them at bay... A.Kahn would be a good addition to the "modernism from Europe to the US"-topic, but as a synthetizer, nothing spatially innovative there.
One way would be to choose a historian and follow his path, for an example Curtis or for a decisively American viewpoint Scully. Or fuck with them by using Tafuri...
I think grip has the right idea; so now, what would be the shortest list -- ?
Wright -- Corbusier -- L.Kahn -- Gehry -- Koolhaas
As far as historians go, I tend to prefer Frampton.
db, no mies?
but of course, his marriage with Fordism. What more of a synthetizer do you want? Space as a flow of production within time. The horizontal span for an uninterrupting process and functional adaptability and a vertical stacking of differentiated functions with the vertical junctions if floor openings acting as material circulation and exchange....an exchange of labour (Highland Park plant) . These floors then migrate (out of the need to accomodate more complexity and a further breaking down of tasks) into distinct pieces of architectures(River Rouge)...the notion of an industrial complex...an actual urban machine before Le Corb's machine matephors And then a further jump in industrial space per urban space...a decentralization of factories across distinct geographies linked by a linking infrasctructural network.
From the interiority of a building's spatial organization to the bird eye's view of the city, Albert Kahn's rigorous abstractions of efficiency and production, space as evidence of production...
This is largely Kahn's legacy. Much of trendy neo-pragmatist rhetoric and concerns (Koolhas, Stan Allen,FOA, UN, OCEAN...) regarding 'material production' 'infrastructural urbanism' and the designed space as a preempted economic-efficient imprint of connections, transitions, nodes..etc..that channel flow of people or material have soaked in much, wittingly or not, from industrial architecture and from Albert Kahn. And even elevating his direct pragramitism into a language of metaphors and ghostly apparitions,,, a form of religion..NeoPragmatism turns to the silence of the Pragmatist and makes that silence into a divine and loud language. Rem Koolhas' books after Delirious are all Testaments of that..with the plethora of colours images and diagrams he wants to scribble magical incantations all over dry monotone pragmatism to catholicize it. these are books of totems. It can either be seen as a bit vulgar like bible bashing..or evidence of his sardonic irony...using the language of religion to describe dull dry agnostic reality..thus mocking both and the reader as well. ouch
I was being rhetorical in my 'questions' : )..if I wanted anything out of that question, it would have been a jolt away from it..not a a recocheting echo over its cliff : )
i agree with rita novel. a trajectory based on architects would be endless and inaccurate, as many of us have their own favorite trajectory. this sounds like a popularity contest and it is mostly subjective. i can not argue for or against any of the posts or names mentioned above. other than that, let the historians continue their work.architects as individuals are part of trajectories based on socio-economic conditions and building technology.
choosing to highlight certain conspiracies between architecture and 'socioeconomic' situations/conditions calls for subjectivity (using this word in ur sense) on par with highlighting architects and their lineage. It will evoke the same 'randomness'. I also gather that you did not read the part where the Novel character stipulates
"(such as building expositions, publications, schools, symposiums, etc."
In other words..make db's trajectory into a catalogue of other trajectories' catalogues. This is more a flat historiography than a history..and is twice removed (once by time, and second by opinion) from 'socioeconomic conditions'. So..not only do I not understand why you concur with Novel...but I also think its very lazy/escapist in attempting to be utterly noninvestigative towards its material. Ideally..Novel's way is to present not the architect..not his or her buildings..but snippets of programs that feature his name is a list of selection to recognize his importance (ergo his existence) within db's discussion...the whole purpose of which is (outside the frilly architectural details) is to justify itself and not its content.
also ironic..keeping in mind that db's mostly-unitelligent (his assumption not mine) audience might not care so much any way.
"So..not only do I not understand why you concur with Novel..."
of course, this is not proof of any liking or dislikings on my part (of persons or their opinions)..but merely that your post contradicts hers on the same grounds on which you claim complicity.
"A chronological trajectory of buildings/designs will be much more informative than a more or less speculative list of what architects may have succeeded or followed what other architect."
rita novel
this was what i was referring to.
It is incorrect for uneDITed to state that:
Novel's way is to present not the architect..not his or her buildings..but snippets of programs
because what I suggested was:
compose a modern trajectory based on individual buildings/designs and events (such as building expositions, publications, schools, symposiums, etc.) intwined with historical events
Note that I put buildings/designs first.
(such as building expositions, publications, schools, symposiums, etc.)..there are clearly given directions to where db can find her/his buildings and architects. I bracketed architecture "(outside the frilly architectural details)" because the choice of buildings was bracketed within previous set of 'choices' (publications, expositions..etc). I was being slightly more cheeky with 'snippets of programs' to draw attention to that unstudied twist in your suggestion to db.
It is irrelevant which you put first unless that firstness is of "first this or then this" order. . It is the whole syntactical thing together that adds up. I assume that is elementary...
so it is not 'incorrect' of me to state etc...as this is my reading :)
I did not contradict facts to be incorrect...it would be neighbourly if you could be less righteous with your Novel language please. :)
my reading: you're a weasel
aww..On my part, I think you're quite sweet in a childlike manner.
How...subcontinental...no?
heh
here is a snippet of a program.
how would you house a 1000 strong labor force working in a steel mill around the clock? year? let's say 1890.
would you;
a. give them enough salary to roam around and buy a farm?
b. exploit them, so with the increased profits, you can further develope your empire and seek new markets?
c. keep them in the vicinity,usually walking distance, of the factory, provide multi unit/story living quarters with running water and electicity?
d. hire that fellow who figured out how to build these units no problem?
b,c,d are correct.
some results;
birth of a new program, density, changes in spatial perception and use, increase in numbers of professionals who practice the construction of such buildings, variations in architectural expression for the same program, adaptation of this new technology and methods to one of a kind lavish houses of the "leaders of the industry" and so on.
another trajectory;
year 1980's, lets say. usa.
philip johnson and his five architects. delirious new york is out and it is also tragy comic. kaos in the house. some guy in west coast named gehry. overseas, mitterand is rebuilding paris glam. many leaders of the the industry everywhere. if you buy a richard serra piece you've got to talk so and so's architect.
and now;
trajectories are abundant. some student names are in the custom trajectories. you are in if you can scream. tv shows about architecture and design. everybody is an architect. media heavy, milestone monument building (monument for every blood shed is popular now). do i dare to say socio political?
i believe, there is a number of names behind each architects name in trajectories. it is complex from now on. perhaps it is time for a different type of configuration for architectural trajectories.
Aldo Rossi needs to be mentioned
and maybe Pierre Charles L'Enfant on the planning of washington d.c. (via mandredo tafuri)
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