Oops - make that RossellinO.

The City Hall reminds me more of classic fascist Italian architecture, like this:

But more casual. Fascist-distractivist casual.

If you go down this route, I hope there are no Italians in your lecture. They will pummel you with tomatoes.  

Hahaha Brilliant Rusty.  Important to note the talk is on CITY CONTEXT, and Murcia is Spanish not Italian, so I think the whole notion of Fascism is one I'll try to ignore….

fascism or no, it's hard NOT to see italian rationalists filtered through rossi in the moneo project. 

moneo did this one in logrono, too:

http://www.freestockphotos.es/World_Locations_g30-City_hall_by_Rafael_Moneo_Logro%C3%B1o_La_Rioja_Spain_p779.html

http://www.google.com/search?q=logrono+city+hall+moneo&hl=en&prmd=imvnsb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=UWo2T535EcHrggf5_oDoBQ&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CAsQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=653#hl=en&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=logrono+moneo&oq=logrono+moneo&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=0l0l0l8414l0l0l0l0l0l0l0l0ll0l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=6fa96aebed11192d&biw=1366&bih=653

You do know that Franco's Spain was fascist-lite until the 80's right? So 'fascist-distractivist casual-lite' for the title of the presentation. You can improvise the content. 

Thing about piazzas is that they are always awesome. Any combination of building will do. It's hard to fuck up a piazza. Boy, does this building try hard to do that. No discernible way to enter the building? Check. Out of whack windows that look ashamed to be there? Check. Complete disregard for the vernacular?  Check. No wonder the unwashed masses hate us. Isn't this building loathed by the locals? 

Perhaps that's your take on the project... a building that is so self aware of its surroundings that it breaks every single rule. It's like James Dean of buildings. But with an afternoon nap thrown into the mix. 

"Moneo thought about a musical score for the order of the columns, and about a glass balcony to break the symmetry, and from which the mayor could appear to the city."

OK, I feel like I look at those Fascisty buildings like a dieting person looks at a huge cupcake: mmmmmmmmyumyumyum NO! BAD!!!!!

But more to the point of architectural discussion: the doors to the City Hall are on the sides out of deference to the religious buildings on the Plaza: the Cardinal's palace and the cathedral.  At Pienza the buildings all open to the plaza but the public building is smaller, less grand, and pointedly has a much shorter tower out of deference to the cathedral's bell tower.  The Pope's house is potentially AS grand as the church, which could be trouble for anyone not the pope, but the paving aligns to the church.

And in reference to the idea that it's hard for any building to fuck up a plaza: this one?

From a different angle, the city hall does occupy a focal point. Almost in defiance to the church:

re: Boston: I was originally going to go with that one, but went with the fascists instead for comic relief. There is nothing funny about Massachusetts brutalism.

moneo's project is also an annex, i.e. not the main city hall. the fact that an expansion of the city hall leveraged the opportunity to address the square is admirable, and the criticism that it's not a front door is irrelevant. why would it need to be? this facade provides an elegant, formal backdrop for the life on the square.

One article I read said the City Hall's best feat was hiding the banal modern buildings beyond from the views out of the plaza.

I agree Steven that it's a very elegant, very FLAT composition that acts as a backdrop.  It's also monochromatic, which is deferential to the colorful facade of the adjacent palace.  

The discussion of "appropriate" roles for public, religious, and private buildings on a civic square is sadly aligned in my mind right now with public policy discussions about religious institutions and labor laws.  But I'd rather talk about buildings!

the fact that an expansion of the city hall leveraged the opportunity to address the square is admirable, and the criticism that it's not a front door is irrelevant. why would it need to be?

Because having a front door, used or not, to a plaza is what makes a plaza a plaza.

The transition between loosely arranged settlements and formal development is demarcated by the developments of open public space— a feature found in nearly all societies with the modern plaza, a maintained and often paved area, dating back to nearly 6,000-8,000 BCE.

Ignoring the very qualities of what plazas are is just a big "Fuck You!" to entire notion of modern humanity.

i don't agree at all that *every* building having its entry onto the space is required in order to make a plaza. it's perfectly legitimate for a building to serve as a backdrop, especially when other buildings DO have their fronts onto the space. i expect this space was just as much a plaza before moneo's building and it certainly hasn't been compromised because of it.

i'm not even sure that i agree that multiple buildings presenting their entries to a space is a necessary part of a plaza's definition. in cities where buildings hug the street/walk edge and the positive/negative relationship is mostly positive/solid threaded through with narrow streets, the plaza is an opening in this pattern, a relief.

usually a single, hierarchical structure opens onto it, giving the space strong definition and directionality. more entrances reinforce it, certainly, helping generate activity, but i don't believe that these additional entrances are part of the essence of the typology.   

Steven, lack of front door in this case is a very simple observation. It's a public building that provides a 20 foot elevation of a blank wall before it kinda sorta opens up. It's modernism at its most antisocial, vein self. It's neither an active participant, nor a curious observer. It's a dinner guest who came all dressed up but won't eat nor converse.  

Maybe they can put some bleachers up against the wall so that at least poor architecture students can sit and sketch.  

I don't hate this building. It's an admirable effort that delivers on all the contemporary archibabble talking points. It falls short on the humane front though.

Well Rusty doesn't every dinner party need someone fabulously dressed who does nothing more than raise the fashion aesthetic content of the entire gathering?!  I used to sort of be that person, before everyone started wearing OUR glasses.

We're looking at this building in reference to Frampton - the theorist, not the rocker - and I think, despite the lack of entry and supposed blankness of the ground level wall, that this building has a beautiful tectonic warmth in its material, the dissipation of mass on the way up, and the rhythms of the openings.  That is what differentiates from the Pallazzo della Civilta.

Donna, in response to "the idea that it's hard for any building to fuck up a plaza: this one?", I don't think the building is the culprit there, but the plaza itself. In fact, I'm not even sure you can call it that. Plaza would imply a defined urban fabric that attracts people to the place; that reminds me more of a Walmart parking lot with the cars removed.

I totally agree, Ben.  Just needed an image to mess with Rusty.  As Steven said, a plaza is generally an opening in a dense field; Boston City Hall is an object in a disperse field, IMO.

Ah. Sarcasm is hard to decipher over the internet...

now that we've got all that out of our systems: donna, i'm curious what you see as parallels between the two buildings you originally posted. there is some relationship, but not enough unique resonance that i would have picked those two.

Donna, I can't picture you not eating or staying quiet during any form of social dining event.

I was gonna say more about the off-topic, but Steven closed the ticket. Damn you Steven!!1!

Well it's not so much the individual buildings as the urban spaces seem similar: I studied the Pienza piazza in grad school (never been to it) so it may just be that to me it's the ideal historic Italian piazza.  It *is* ideal in that it was pretty much built from the ground up - a serious re-working of an existing village square, when the Pope, who was born in Pienza, rebuilt the town when he became pope.  It's called the first Renaissance urban design plan, and it is a careful balance of power: the Cathedral is dominant, but the Pope's residence is actually grander, so the paving pattern helps establish the hierarchy of church over person (even the pope), and the public building (town hall) has a place at the table but definitely below the religious structures.  It's important because the buildings are not orthogonal on the piazza, so the paving orients the whole thing to make one look at the church.  The other buildings on the piazza are the town hall, a residence for visiting cardinals, and a fountain that forms a single figurative point against the backdrop of walls.

So the first time I saw Murcia (photographs only, never been to Spain except the Madrid Airport by Rogers holy crap so gorgeous) it looked to me like a similar bold building facing the square, but the paving pattern originates from elsewhere - the Cathedral.  The buildings aren't orthogonal on the plaza, which is common.  But something about the scale and careful arrangement of paving to religious/public institutions seemed parallel, to me, to Pienza.

That Moneo facade has been copied in new york and london, by non-plaza facing buildings

if its about urbanism i agree with steven, can't see the connection.

the church is an extension of the plaza and vice versa, both spaces public and activities on the threshold can move either way.  this moneo building does not offer anything as useful.

while i almost never agree with jjr in this case i find the blank wall reminiscent of a wallmart facade and a horrible choice for a public building facing onto a plaza.  the idea of being submissive to earlier inhabitants of the place and their supposed higher position in the social hierarchy is on the face of it absurd.  was that imposed on the architect, like the irony-blind concrete bunker at the base of the freedom tower?  if not then gotta wonder what moneo was thinking?  it does seem a good place to plant a firing squad.  bleachers also a good idea.

the problem, as i see it, is that we're looking at pictures in which the camera was focused on this building because it's by a famous architect. i think it's a beautiful building but - from an urban standpoint - i don't think it can sustain that pressure. it's not intended to be so important in that space.

if you look at the picture rusty posted at 'feb 11, 12 9:09 am', you can see that it's taken from over the shoulder of the church which dominates the wide end of this plaza: the building the plaza opens up to and which the paving points to.

the flanking buildings apparently do have functions which open to the plaza. the one on the right even occupies it with tables.

moneo's building, in contrast, has what appears to be an automobile ramp leading to a lower level, causing it to present a low wall (at the base of the tall wall) to the space. so you can't approach the tall wall as a pedestrian like you can when you're walking along a bare walmart split-face block expanse. 

what i appreciate here is that moneo held the edge of the city block. the job of this building - as an annex - was possibly that it houses back-of-house functions anyway. (does someone know?) is it fair to pick on this project for not doing what it's not intended to do? i'd argue that he generously gave the plaza something that the brief of his project probably didn't ask for.  

how often do we focus our camera on the least important building (hierarchically) in a public space and try to hold it responsible for the job of anchoring the space? in this case, the architectural photographer has created a false prominence for this building. better that it be compared to the 'pal. ammanati' in donna's plan posted at 'feb 11, 12 8:59 am', because that better reflects its role on this space. 

the facade onto the plaza is uncharacteristic in that, being a sort of side elevation, it doesn't signify a frontal 'grand entrace' .  the  lack of symmetry and central granduer is mitigated by the "scatter" but still harmonious effect of the viods.   i would say that the overall effect is therefore one of calculated ambiguity: neither trully/ functionally frontal nor aesthetically a side elevation and yet  a dilution of both. this suits the nature of the building as an addition as well...neither aesthetically extending the building proper and thus pushing out a nondescript or at least self confessed side elevation onto the plaza nor by creating, rather banally and expectedly, an overt secondary face looking out onto the plaza. its an interesting essay in casually turning around the corner where the corner happens to be right where the most significantly punctuated space (plaza) is.

it's a handsome building but not really contextual.  that pit makes it even worse.  wal-mart with moat!

somehow not the right comparison that donna was suggesting, at least not for me...then again i've always found this kind of mute (possibly autistic) architecture hard to understand. 

&#8201, I can't find a plan of the Murcia plaza, though Google Earth does show that's it's more complex than the images of the Moneo building would present.

from a satellite view it's clear that the plaza isn't limited to the space between the church  and the moneo building (as moneo's sketch suggests) but that it wanders around the church, definitely/clearly making the church the central figure. 

the plans and pix in that link you posted, #8201, make it clear that the moneo building is a lot more complex than the frontal views communicate. even the 'moat' gives more opening and pedestrian accommodation than i realized. this wasn't a typical urban infill project, but a very layered and porous and multi-directional design solution. i'm appreciating it more and more! 

Steven Ward, professional architectural apologist. :)

apologist, hell. just go ahead and call me 'cheerleader', at least when someone as skilled as moneo engages the cityscape this way. compare to the floating objects that most of the big names drop in cities.

While I wouldn't be happy about that excuse from a student, &#8201, I had that one already.  And I have this one, from a 1999 article in Architecture Magazine.  Hard to read, and not a plan, really, but it gives a good sense of the overall plaza.

And thanks for the Lotus suggestion, but I had no luck there.

i saw that one too donna.  convinces me the project is at best one of those instances where the correct quote is "it could've been worse".  not that every building needs to be amazing, but since money was obviously spent to make it look nice, why not go the extra inch or two?

it's very similar to tokyo architecture of the 80's and 90's, very nice-looking introverted anti-urban stuff grown out of fear of the city and acknowledgement that context is in flux so best answer is to fuck it all.  leading edge architects here don't do that anymore - instead focus on making use of the city even if it is changeable.  too many european architects  worry about being inoffensive and for the sake of context refuse to create a new one - starting with still-birth instead of squalling new-born..

so we get pits on plazas leading to sunken fields of more blank walls even from world class architects...not inspirational for me at least, even if the facade looks nice once you get above the dead zone.  he did however create a much need place to put the garbage bins.  hurray for contextual design!

Will, are you saying that not having a door - or better yet a Starbuck's!  lol - on every surface of a building is automatically anti-city?  What about ma, the space between things?

Love this - more discussions of this kind please!

I know, Janosh - it's fun!

boston city hall isn't on a true plaza - it's next to a maze of steps on some kind of windswept brick park (with a subway stop that looks like a bunker plopped in the middle of it) - with the building as this singular corbusian object at one end.  plazas aren't completely separate from the street.

i would agree, for the sake of intrigue, that there are a few issues.

one is probably not overtly a fault of design but a given, the expected proportion of the building facade at that end  relative to (from all the pictures i saw) the elongated facades. i'm not sure if that could have been mitigated by introducing a different strategy of somehow segregating the facade (upper from lower part) through some extrusion or change of texture or... but that might result in weakening the already rather narrow facade and might be seen as gimmicky. 

 related to that is the mute lower almost-half part of the building facade. i would have understood it better if there was an ascending staircase abutting that bit;  or something of that sort....but, somehow, although the ground level of one of the elongated buildings next to it is pretty sparse in  erms of apertures, still the distinction drawn between the ground floor and upper levels is distinct and lively, in addition to the effect of patina of course (but patina is a marginal point that shouldnt be levied as criticism) .

also related to that is the rather indifferent way thebuilding sits on the ground at that end. yet another strategy could have benefitted the overall composition i think. perhaps, rather than a base, the opposite could occur. a sort of an exaggerated shadow gap returning to an elegant base that could afford seating and a place of pedestrian interactivity or somesing.

aside from this, the composition is very elegant and the upper part is truly poetic especially when seen from side elevation in terms of relating to the original facades.

one more point, if you google you'll find other pictures and you'll notice that the seeming contextual incompatibility is related to the angle of camera lens. the wider it is, the more it seems like the building proportion is vertically prejudiced and narrower - the weaker the composition appears and the more it appears in contradisctinction to the other buildings. the building is much better served by a pedestrian view angle, which is how its seen anyway

having mentioned patina above, i think that with time the stone (limestone?) will lose its lustre and bring it closer to  its surrounding

for me what it looks like is just architecture and not so important.  it's nice looking.  not timeless like the fascist stuff above but a nice disney version of those crazy architecture rockers.  madness tamed for ease of consumption (ok, i know i'm just being mean now).

but urbanistically, yeah i think the presence of a public space invites some kind of decision and the one taken here is half-assed.  most likely that was prescribed, but even so....anti-urban seems fitting enough....although now i look again at that (rape) pit, it is not even bold enough to be anti-anything.  it's indifferent. 

i liked it better when i thought it was a flat wall that shouted fuck you all at the public realm.  now it's just a leftover, barely an after-thought.  so many place like that here in tokyo, but here it all adds up to something quirky, something that speaks about wilful disinterest in stage-managing the public realm.  in this (european) space it doesn't say anything as interesting.

and yes a starbucks would probably liven up that place.  it could use a bit of humanity.  even the fascists knew that ;-)

This week on "Fuck you Building! with Will Galloway", firing squad wall or a rape pit? Zoom in to find out.

OK, is "rape pit" a common term in architecture?  I thought only my clinically insane Means and Methods professor from 1987 actually used that term.  It's legendary in my graduating class.

Ok not technical term. Just my not so safe living environment of youth coming back to haunt me. Looking at the photos of the stair pit it's not what I would call a defensible space - sunken space without site lines and bound by blank walls and blank steel doors. I'm not a big fan of those kinds of places especially when architects design them on purpose. Perhaps the connection to public function is supposed to make the pit safe? what happens after hours? Why would anyone design that kind of place especially with a plaza inviting all kinds of other choices? Urbanisticaly I think that decision is enough to move the building from a pretty backdrop to bad urban architecture. It's about as far from that church example you started with as is possible Donna Perhaps there is a background story that makes sense of it all ?