ICON says pomo's back. It all revolves around their feature on FAT. Is this pomo's fat elvis phase? But did pomo ever really leave? What and who are going to characterize the new-pomo? is the new-POMO linked to the post-critical? Should we be nervous.
read some of their writing, look at some of their installation art, and give the blue house a good looking-over; these guys are not corporate whores like graves and johnson. they do sensitive, incredibly thoughtful work. the work looks pomo because one of their mottos is 'taste not space,' (space in this instance being mies' pure, clean, boxy space), and, since their most notable built work is the home of one of the principals, and his tastes allign with the kitsch aesthetic of a lot of post-modern work, it makes sense that the work would look this way. they do not go very far afield to describe the forms they choose to use, and why should they (as in, who cares), since their interiors are gorgeous, with tons of daylight? i, for one, love their work and applaud their emphasis on individual, quirky tastes over the elitist, dated forms of Modernism.
and if you check my old posts, you'll notice i've been with these guys way before icon magazine. just to let you know that i liked them before they got 'cool.' it's very important for me to maintain my rep.
they really are pomo. their blue house is hideous and they are pretentious too:
"FAT is a company that makes architecture and art (and all kinds of things in between). We are interested in making work that explores the experiences, contradictions and possibilities of the modern world. Charting a course that engages creatively with the choppy waters of commerce - finding tactics and solutions that are simultaneously conceptually interesting, culturally relevant, and aesthetically engaging. Most importantly we work in the culture bunker, rather than the ivory tower."
how is that pretentious? i swear to god, some of you folks here on archinect are the most curmudgeony curmudgeons. they are making a legitimate artist's statement, and following through on it with their work.
j-turn, as far as i perceive the intent of their work, it is to engage architectural language in a manner similar to the postmodernists of previous decades, but in a more site-specific, user-oriented manner. for example, venturi's house for his mom was built in the middle of a field and had nothing to respond to but itself. fat's blue house is on the boundary of a weird warehouse/residential district and uses iconic forms and scaled elements in a cheeky way (beautifully detailed, if i do say so myself): taking the 'cookie cutter' metaphor pretty literally, with the blue siding trimmed neatly into different parapet, and tree (/cloud?) forms with a metal edge.
i personally think it is a beautiful house, both exterior and interior. the fact that the 'warehouse windows' on the front facade are actually a wall of windows in the bedroom is spectacular. i could go on and on, but i think, ultimately, it is a matter of taste (as they intend it to be). and so many architects are trained in such a closed-minded manner that any architecture that tries to be fun or (god forbid) funny or cute, or to just be anything other than "pure form" is automatically "hideous," as brooklyn boy so insightfully commented.
In order to really get FAT, I think you have to understand how earnest English architectural culture is, and as a result just how badly it needs to be satired.
Fat's bulidings are thoughtful and good on their own terms, just with a different language than most modernists are accustomed to. I mean what the hell... formalism is formalism, and if Preston Scott Cohen's shapes can be considered legitimate (no matter how essentially vacuous), so can work that references the vernacular and comments on culture.
Looks like interesting work. I've always been intrigued by pomo, seduced by it even. It's theory appeals alot to me, unfortunately its excecution is often bad IMO. So, while i've been intrigued, I've also tired to distance myself from it. But this new brand of pomo seems to actually live up to the bold claims laid down in the theory of it. The blue house actually seems like a decent project, the spaces speak with a sectional complexity, are alluring and seem well though out. What I can't get over, is the pomo part of it, the kitchy "country kitchen" detailing and symbolic facade, but that's simply because it dosen't fit my taste. It will be interesting to see what they make for a client that does share my taste, these could actually be the first pomoists im not afraid of.
Why does Po-Modernism always re-show its filthy face in so-called developed countries? like long decayed corpses which are dug out and displayed on the graves as re-ornament..
why is the chewed and re-chewed being put back in the mouth to be chewed ?
Is there so much of an intellectual-creative impoverishment .Im sorry I dont get it.
I'm looking at these spaces in the blue house, and they sem totally generic, developer spec PTD GWB. Is that all it takes to get a free pass?
Joed, you might want to look at , lets see... almost any other project by Venturi Scott Brown, before say that Venturi and Pomo didn't respond to site issues.
Graves at least did some interesting things with space and materials (although, yes, eventually he became the corporate whore). I consider his early work pretty good (and I think most would, particularly when he was part of the gang - Eisenman, Gwathmey, etc.).
My stomach truns every time I see FAT's work. I am sorry, but to me this looks about as superficial as it can possibly get. Looks like they intended it that way. Maybe they have some good thoughts and critiques, but if that makes ugly architecture I fail to see the point (and no, I never liked anything that Venturi has done, either).
Perhaps it's superficial of me to judge a building by its space, by its materials, but that's what I care about.
If this is a sign of what is to come, it makes blobs look like the best thing to come in 50 years (and yeah, I hated most of those too). If this is an example of 'thoughtful' architecture and where things are going I will be happy to to let the profession dissolve into nothingenss.
Thankfully, I think that the vast majority of architects, and certainly the public, will not care for any of this either.
And, trace, it's funny how you fail to understand the fundamental issue presented by the Blue House: the relevance and importance of an architecture of taste; if an architectural work pleased everyone it would ultimately fail to please anyone in a meaningful, personal way.
You say the house is "ugly architecture," which is fine as it is your opinion, but then you go on to speak for "the vast majority of architects, and certainly the public," as if you could speak for any person other than yourself. It is the traditional arrogance of the architect/visionary who thinks he knows what's best for everyone. It is unsettling that such a thoughtful steward of my profession would "be happy to let [it] dissolve into nothingness" merely because he is unhappy with a design trend.
You seem to hate (/be afraid of) a lot of stuff (FAT, Venturi, most blobs)... let me guess... you have a subscription to Dwell and a poster of the Farnsworth House in your bedroom?
Having seen FAT's work since the mid-nineties little has changed. They are good at what they do but it ain't PoMo - the best way to describe it is snark-itecture. and I mean that in a nice way.
Both the FAT and Strangeharvest site freak me out. talking of odd sites -- http://www.architectureandhygiene.com/ (check out Adams' day trading project - too funny)
To me, architecture is about space and experience. It's not about fashion, it's not about a 'movement'. I love designs that are a hundred years old and ones that would be called avant garde today.
"Its communicative qualities are a reaction against the abstraction of most so-called “serious†architecture."
So their solution is to make a joke? I fail to see the humor (although I admit I did laugh) in something that is a permanent piece of 'architecture'.
well what is missed is actualy what the issue- a good one,- was talking about-
it wasnt really saying post modernism was back- it was saying can we, and how do we define the spirit or ideals of our age. There was modernism, which has passed, and we are therefore post-modernists- it was asking again what and how that term can be used- not so much saying stick a crap pediment on every building you design, and that a post modern revival is due because we have had an eighties revival.
there is a weakness to using fat because they seem so (traditional use of the word) post modern- and one of them is quite heavily involved with the magazine (a minor weakness- like the fact TOM DIXON appears on every other page(who is also heavily involved))- which is partly why they are in it.
basically they work as theorists to shake things up- but their collaboration with Alsop in manchester- well not strictly a collaboration- is pretty 2 dimensional and crap. I love their ideas and their glee- and the manifesto for how to become a famous architect, but i think there is a reason they havent built much. and it shows....
It would be easy not to take Fat seriously. Their acronym alone, which stands for Fashion Architecture Taste, suggests a certain irreverence for their profession, and it isn't a profession that enjoys being mocked. We demand that our buildings deliver us happiness, quality of life and even fun, but an architect with a sense of humour is like a doctor in a comedy tie. Yet Fat have consistently questioned the high-minded, quasi-scientific position architects have cultivated for themselves, particularly in Britain.
At first glance, Islington Square's exaggerated exteriors would appear to support those critics who see Fat as superficial provocateurs, but there is substance beyond the facades, in every sense.
Fashion is nessessary for the expression of the age. Fashion is dialouge between then and when, and defines right now. This said postmodernism is not fashion or fashionable. Postmodernism is the attempt to destroy the idea of universal truths of time, space, ethics and virtue. The postmodern thinker while I applaud them for their exploration, is just a thinker. Its no wonder that postmodernism fit so neatly into the vocabulary of corporate marketingtecture - a need to rdefine all building types that came before for the sake of redefinement, but what do you expect from those who beleive that time is a myth, that the horizon is artificial, and that iconography is physically tangible because it exists in the electrons whirling around in our brains? The cure is fashion. Dress you up and take you out. Fashion is ephemeral, tactile, and fashionable buildings should be sensory experiances. Thats how I judge them - do they move me. And how does the postmodernist borrow vocabulary without fashion? Every epoch in building has produced it's fashion, only after did someone turned vocabulary thinker make it a spelling test.
was pomo around long enough to be even consider as an architectural movement? it seems to me that pomo was just a placeholder after moderism was abandoned. i am living the dream that moderism is still alive and all the bullshit that has followed since strenghtens this idea.
i've seen the FAT crew lecture twice in the last couple of years and... the important thing to remember is that they are funny *funny* dudes. ("ha ha" funny, not kooky funny). play and mockery are essential ingredients in their projects. uhmmm, i guess i'm drawing a dividing line between their work and "traditional" pomo by saying that they are intentionally humorous. (where pomo is funny without meaning to be funny).
there's a big difference between being a good comedian, as opposed to being just someone who gets laughed at.
whatever... my studio instructor told us recently that "architecture is never humorous". he's wrong. as emma goldman put it, "if i can't dance i don't want to be a part of your revolution"
actually you're misremembering pomo, mission st. a lot of it was meant to be funny - sometimes overtly, sometimes in a more smirking, ironic, i-know-more-about-the-hidden-references-than-you-do kind of way.
come on, tigerman did a pet clinic shaped like a dog!
I really fail to see why FAT would in some way be less "elitist" than any London-based minimalist architecture office. We are supposed to see the Islington Square project as the result of some democratic process. But isn't there a contradiction found in the extremely rigorous facade (which the inhabitants apparently didn't choose for anyway, judging from the Guardian article) or the embrace of some kind of fake "anything-goes" attitude which makes all projects end up looking very similar anyway? Only a good joke can handle being repeated, I'm afraid. The problem with what is often labelled as post-modern architecture, is that it only sees architecture as the fashion of facades, while a project involves much more than that - a long process, the involvement of many parties, political decisions and institutions, a long lifespan, use, program, regulations, and a lot of investments.
the new POMO: it's BAAAACK!
ICON says pomo's back. It all revolves around their feature on FAT. Is this pomo's fat elvis phase? But did pomo ever really leave? What and who are going to characterize the new-pomo? is the new-POMO linked to the post-critical? Should we be nervous.
link
well elvis never died either...
neither did tupac or biggie...
and FAT is not POMO like Graves et al.
it's an evolved thing that they do, POMO or otherwise...
yes, it's back and it's gonna stay
AP- could you qualify how FAT is sn evolution over 80's pomo?
read some of their writing, look at some of their installation art, and give the blue house a good looking-over; these guys are not corporate whores like graves and johnson. they do sensitive, incredibly thoughtful work. the work looks pomo because one of their mottos is 'taste not space,' (space in this instance being mies' pure, clean, boxy space), and, since their most notable built work is the home of one of the principals, and his tastes allign with the kitsch aesthetic of a lot of post-modern work, it makes sense that the work would look this way. they do not go very far afield to describe the forms they choose to use, and why should they (as in, who cares), since their interiors are gorgeous, with tons of daylight? i, for one, love their work and applaud their emphasis on individual, quirky tastes over the elitist, dated forms of Modernism.
and if you check my old posts, you'll notice i've been with these guys way before icon magazine. just to let you know that i liked them before they got 'cool.' it's very important for me to maintain my rep.
that would mean more if i knew what the icon was...
joed ... i see ... but couldn't one say they are replacing the the elitist dated tastes of one generation with the elitis dated tasted of another?
they really are pomo. their blue house is hideous and they are pretentious too:
"FAT is a company that makes architecture and art (and all kinds of things in between). We are interested in making work that explores the experiences, contradictions and possibilities of the modern world. Charting a course that engages creatively with the choppy waters of commerce - finding tactics and solutions that are simultaneously conceptually interesting, culturally relevant, and aesthetically engaging. Most importantly we work in the culture bunker, rather than the ivory tower."
how is that pretentious? i swear to god, some of you folks here on archinect are the most curmudgeony curmudgeons. they are making a legitimate artist's statement, and following through on it with their work.
j-turn, as far as i perceive the intent of their work, it is to engage architectural language in a manner similar to the postmodernists of previous decades, but in a more site-specific, user-oriented manner. for example, venturi's house for his mom was built in the middle of a field and had nothing to respond to but itself. fat's blue house is on the boundary of a weird warehouse/residential district and uses iconic forms and scaled elements in a cheeky way (beautifully detailed, if i do say so myself): taking the 'cookie cutter' metaphor pretty literally, with the blue siding trimmed neatly into different parapet, and tree (/cloud?) forms with a metal edge.
i personally think it is a beautiful house, both exterior and interior. the fact that the 'warehouse windows' on the front facade are actually a wall of windows in the bedroom is spectacular. i could go on and on, but i think, ultimately, it is a matter of taste (as they intend it to be). and so many architects are trained in such a closed-minded manner that any architecture that tries to be fun or (god forbid) funny or cute, or to just be anything other than "pure form" is automatically "hideous," as brooklyn boy so insightfully commented.
pomo is a strange word. it makes me laugh.
i'm with joed on this. it may be kitsch in some respects...
but I'm alright with that. the spaces are nice. period.
elitist? no way. I believe the "not from the ivory tower" bit.
the work doesn't suggest otherwise...
(sorry for the late response, j-turn...lazy sunday...)
it's about being outrageuous and provoking response. easy to get a rise out of people and have people take note. otherwise it's empty.
i won't say they're not good at what they do. they're very skilled fashion designers. let's hope next season is less cartoony.
i'm prehensile...
but thats not why im in a cage...
Sam Jacob lectured here earlier this semester ... funny guy.
In order to really get FAT, I think you have to understand how earnest English architectural culture is, and as a result just how badly it needs to be satired.
Fat's bulidings are thoughtful and good on their own terms, just with a different language than most modernists are accustomed to. I mean what the hell... formalism is formalism, and if Preston Scott Cohen's shapes can be considered legitimate (no matter how essentially vacuous), so can work that references the vernacular and comments on culture.
Looks like interesting work. I've always been intrigued by pomo, seduced by it even. It's theory appeals alot to me, unfortunately its excecution is often bad IMO. So, while i've been intrigued, I've also tired to distance myself from it. But this new brand of pomo seems to actually live up to the bold claims laid down in the theory of it. The blue house actually seems like a decent project, the spaces speak with a sectional complexity, are alluring and seem well though out. What I can't get over, is the pomo part of it, the kitchy "country kitchen" detailing and symbolic facade, but that's simply because it dosen't fit my taste. It will be interesting to see what they make for a client that does share my taste, these could actually be the first pomoists im not afraid of.
I hated the old pomo ...
something too deliberate about it !!
lets see how the "new" one works out
Why does Po-Modernism always re-show its filthy face in so-called developed countries? like long decayed corpses which are dug out and displayed on the graves as re-ornament..
why is the chewed and re-chewed being put back in the mouth to be chewed ?
Is there so much of an intellectual-creative impoverishment .Im sorry I dont get it.
I'm looking at these spaces in the blue house, and they sem totally generic, developer spec PTD GWB. Is that all it takes to get a free pass?
Joed, you might want to look at , lets see... almost any other project by Venturi Scott Brown, before say that Venturi and Pomo didn't respond to site issues.
Graves at least did some interesting things with space and materials (although, yes, eventually he became the corporate whore). I consider his early work pretty good (and I think most would, particularly when he was part of the gang - Eisenman, Gwathmey, etc.).
My stomach truns every time I see FAT's work. I am sorry, but to me this looks about as superficial as it can possibly get. Looks like they intended it that way. Maybe they have some good thoughts and critiques, but if that makes ugly architecture I fail to see the point (and no, I never liked anything that Venturi has done, either).
Perhaps it's superficial of me to judge a building by its space, by its materials, but that's what I care about.
If this is a sign of what is to come, it makes blobs look like the best thing to come in 50 years (and yeah, I hated most of those too). If this is an example of 'thoughtful' architecture and where things are going I will be happy to to let the profession dissolve into nothingenss.
Thankfully, I think that the vast majority of architects, and certainly the public, will not care for any of this either.
So, j-turn, GWB makes a "space" generic?
And, trace, it's funny how you fail to understand the fundamental issue presented by the Blue House: the relevance and importance of an architecture of taste; if an architectural work pleased everyone it would ultimately fail to please anyone in a meaningful, personal way.
You say the house is "ugly architecture," which is fine as it is your opinion, but then you go on to speak for "the vast majority of architects, and certainly the public," as if you could speak for any person other than yourself. It is the traditional arrogance of the architect/visionary who thinks he knows what's best for everyone. It is unsettling that such a thoughtful steward of my profession would "be happy to let [it] dissolve into nothingness" merely because he is unhappy with a design trend.
You seem to hate (/be afraid of) a lot of stuff (FAT, Venturi, most blobs)... let me guess... you have a subscription to Dwell and a poster of the Farnsworth House in your bedroom?
now now...no need to get catty...
the concept is easy...do everything opposite of modernism
"there are two kinds of music - good music, and the other kind."
- Duke Ellington
Having seen FAT's work since the mid-nineties little has changed. They are good at what they do but it ain't PoMo - the best way to describe it is snark-itecture. and I mean that in a nice way.
Both the FAT and Strangeharvest site freak me out. talking of odd sites -- http://www.architectureandhygiene.com/ (check out Adams' day trading project - too funny)
I'll just ignore the comments about my walls.
To me, architecture is about space and experience. It's not about fashion, it's not about a 'movement'. I love designs that are a hundred years old and ones that would be called avant garde today.
"Its communicative qualities are a reaction against the abstraction of most so-called “serious†architecture."
So their solution is to make a joke? I fail to see the humor (although I admit I did laugh) in something that is a permanent piece of 'architecture'.
Further evidence that architecture is subjective... for some, architecture is ONLY fashion and movements.
My guilty, indefensible belief about architecture: Richard Meier's work makes me wretch.
well what is missed is actualy what the issue- a good one,- was talking about-
it wasnt really saying post modernism was back- it was saying can we, and how do we define the spirit or ideals of our age. There was modernism, which has passed, and we are therefore post-modernists- it was asking again what and how that term can be used- not so much saying stick a crap pediment on every building you design, and that a post modern revival is due because we have had an eighties revival.
there is a weakness to using fat because they seem so (traditional use of the word) post modern- and one of them is quite heavily involved with the magazine (a minor weakness- like the fact TOM DIXON appears on every other page(who is also heavily involved))- which is partly why they are in it.
basically they work as theorists to shake things up- but their collaboration with Alsop in manchester- well not strictly a collaboration- is pretty 2 dimensional and crap. I love their ideas and their glee- and the manifesto for how to become a famous architect, but i think there is a reason they havent built much. and it shows....
FAT in the news
^built, like it or not.
intro to article:
It would be easy not to take Fat seriously. Their acronym alone, which stands for Fashion Architecture Taste, suggests a certain irreverence for their profession, and it isn't a profession that enjoys being mocked. We demand that our buildings deliver us happiness, quality of life and even fun, but an architect with a sense of humour is like a doctor in a comedy tie. Yet Fat have consistently questioned the high-minded, quasi-scientific position architects have cultivated for themselves, particularly in Britain.
EP on fashion...
Fashion is nessessary for the expression of the age. Fashion is dialouge between then and when, and defines right now. This said postmodernism is not fashion or fashionable. Postmodernism is the attempt to destroy the idea of universal truths of time, space, ethics and virtue. The postmodern thinker while I applaud them for their exploration, is just a thinker. Its no wonder that postmodernism fit so neatly into the vocabulary of corporate marketingtecture - a need to rdefine all building types that came before for the sake of redefinement, but what do you expect from those who beleive that time is a myth, that the horizon is artificial, and that iconography is physically tangible because it exists in the electrons whirling around in our brains? The cure is fashion. Dress you up and take you out. Fashion is ephemeral, tactile, and fashionable buildings should be sensory experiances. Thats how I judge them - do they move me. And how does the postmodernist borrow vocabulary without fashion? Every epoch in building has produced it's fashion, only after did someone turned vocabulary thinker make it a spelling test.
I'm not sure FAT is POMO either. I'd say they're responsive, like some sort of cultural input combine spitting designs.
its all niche marketing. buy the ticket, see the freakshow.
was pomo around long enough to be even consider as an architectural movement? it seems to me that pomo was just a placeholder after moderism was abandoned. i am living the dream that moderism is still alive and all the bullshit that has followed since strenghtens this idea.
FITP
[flash in the pan]
i've seen the FAT crew lecture twice in the last couple of years and... the important thing to remember is that they are funny *funny* dudes. ("ha ha" funny, not kooky funny). play and mockery are essential ingredients in their projects. uhmmm, i guess i'm drawing a dividing line between their work and "traditional" pomo by saying that they are intentionally humorous. (where pomo is funny without meaning to be funny).
there's a big difference between being a good comedian, as opposed to being just someone who gets laughed at.
whatever... my studio instructor told us recently that "architecture is never humorous". he's wrong. as emma goldman put it, "if i can't dance i don't want to be a part of your revolution"
actually you're misremembering pomo, mission st. a lot of it was meant to be funny - sometimes overtly, sometimes in a more smirking, ironic, i-know-more-about-the-hidden-references-than-you-do kind of way.
come on, tigerman did a pet clinic shaped like a dog!
I like funny ... just, not POMO funny
I really fail to see why FAT would in some way be less "elitist" than any London-based minimalist architecture office. We are supposed to see the Islington Square project as the result of some democratic process. But isn't there a contradiction found in the extremely rigorous facade (which the inhabitants apparently didn't choose for anyway, judging from the Guardian article) or the embrace of some kind of fake "anything-goes" attitude which makes all projects end up looking very similar anyway? Only a good joke can handle being repeated, I'm afraid. The problem with what is often labelled as post-modern architecture, is that it only sees architecture as the fashion of facades, while a project involves much more than that - a long process, the involvement of many parties, political decisions and institutions, a long lifespan, use, program, regulations, and a lot of investments.
now im left imagining what kind of designs could a 'maximalist " firm create ?
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