I recently saw the Xefirotarch/Hernan Diaz Alonso exhibit at the SFMoMA. It is very small but spectacular. I am generally very critical about blobs but was very intrigued by the quality of the work. More so on the model stand/sculpture that is maybe 12' x 8'. The other models are crafted very well also. So, how are these built?
I bought the catalogue and briskly read through all the exaggerated text. But it kept mentioning that his work is BUILDABLE, and was left with no explanation of what they deem it to be or how. I saw Fuchs in one project acknowledgements, maybe he can shed a light on this. I was also disappointed with how underderveloped the projects were. Especially the U2 tower, all the renderings show are floor slabs. What about all the other program requirements that go into influencing the form and aesthetic that is mentioned. The tower could be anything and for anything. I know they revel in this but it just seems as a new form of brutalism.
I am not sure how blobs can still exist at all. I guess it's all much closer to art than to architecture. I'd be much more content with blobs if they'd just admit that there is nothing practical or realistic about them and they are purely formal experiments, albeit mostly ugly. I could respect them for that, at least.
I haven't seen the exhibit, so I could be mistaken, but it looks exactly like the blobs from 10 years ago (and still nothing, really, is built).
I respect a lot more the countless architects who struggle every day to improve the built environment of our cities in a viable manner-- and i just hate how the blobitects propose buildings that completely disregard their environment and thus remain solitary, vain, arrogant expressions of their designers' stupidity.
yup. It'd be one thing if they, like Lynn, actually worked towards advancing the real aspects of their ideas. Lynn has always had photovoltaic cells on his designs, but I've never seen anything that suggests they are any more than (oh, yeah, and all that shiny stuff is pv cells) a random thought.
I do wish they'd just say it's art, with some architectural ideas.
i agree on the art part, if it was just that i'd happily look at that stuff, but as it is, it just gets stuck in my throat, somehow.
ha, photovoltaic cells.. once my boss, while in a meeting discussing how to evaluate the submittals of a competition we managed, just laughed and said "everyone just slaps rectangles with the label "solar collector" on their roofs nowadays and sells us the stuff as green design".
Blobitecture, or whatever you want to call it, will be another phenomena in architectural history similar to that "Deconstructivism". There will be a few thinkers that push the envelop and change the ways in which we approach architecture. Others will tag a long for the ride. However, credit is given where it is due. Lynn, Timberlake, and others are participants in a change, be it a paradigm shift or not, that has affected all of us in the profession. Never should ideas about rethinking architecture be dismissed.
GVG how come?? i thought Hernan was argentinian..and between his collaborators i dunno any of my paisanos there, so no mexican thing there
i respect Hernan...there million of worst jerks than him...he's just in the spotlight and thats why we can (or not) be critical about his work....byt there r sooo many others, which hide behind pseudo-architecture firms, and that are really filling up our cities with crap...
i dont really like xefirotach work, but i respect their "search" and i apreciate he/them do it... keeps me thinking i can also keep "searching", the crappy guys f*c* off...
True, I agree respect is due to those that are pursuing experimentation and actually paying the bills doing it (bs or not, they've made a business out of teaching and making pretty things, which is fairly admirable).
I just wish they'd choose a direction and stick to it. I think Lynn's ideas are great, or at least they were, but he never did anythign with them and that's what seems to be happening here.
It's like they've got this hyposthesis but are too scared to blemish the experiment by concluding the test. It doesn't have to be buildt, but how about some renderings show real materials, scale, assembly, etc.
Any PLEASE try something besides Maya's default plastic material (pretty while it is, it's a large part why it all looks the same).
I'd certainly like to see more of it simply for graphic/artistic inspiration. God knows a lot of us would take a job making pretty pictures (if only you didn't have to spew the bs).
isn't the "pradigm shift" more about the (digital) tools than the stuff that is created with them? sure, many of us started incorporating advanced 3d applications in our workflow, but that doesn't mean all we end up with is blobs.
"pushing the envelope" is good, sure, but frankly I don't see where xefirBla are exactly pushing anything.. but splines.
trace said " but how about some renderings show real materials, scale, assembly, etc."
that's spot on! i'd like to see some structural analysis done on some of these blobs.
FEM software that's relatively easy to use is becoming available, and why the results it outputs are to be taken with a big grain of salt and never to be evaluated without an engineer if you actually wanna build stuff, it still seems to me that in that area, we are moving forward and at least start to be bridging the gap between curved spline and the actual hot rolled steel member which may be its physical counterpart.
n
sorry about any incoherences, heat's getting to me
" but how about some renderings show real materials, scale, assembly, etc."
exactly, that was what I was trying to say. Hernan says they are buildable but I can hardly believe that. The renderings look developmentally flawed. A guy sitting by me on the airplane thought I was reading a book on deep sea fish.
I will not dismiss Hernan's ideas and vision but there should be some reality to call it architecture and not art. It seems to me, if he built (a functional building, not PS1) the results would be dissappointing.
The best part of the whole exhibition was the stupid labels that were added on. "Oh yeah that form could be anything so I think I'll call it a U2 concert venue. Brilliant - No wait - paint that thing as shinny as possible red! - and can we get some mirror to put on the ground so it can reflect like the rendering one of my students did 3 years ago? Or was it last year? Shit it's getting confussing because all my students work looks the same.
MAD, knowing Hernan, you should know his involvement in the fabrication was standing 20 ft away and pointing at things. Not only did students build it, they figured out how to build it.
What it means is when you get a fabrication shop in orange county to promise free milling of large foam pieces on their next available free weekend, and that weekend is 4 months in the future, and you need the foam to be the centerpiece of an exhibition all the way across the country in 1 week, you get a bunch of students (not necessarily Mexican ones), into a shop to carve the foam by hand. It's a joke on the assumption that in Mexico all fabrication is primitive and laborious. The irony is that one of the best and most professional 3d printing outfits we've been able to find is in Tijuana.
Paradigm shift in the tools transform the products. But it's important to note the change in process due to this transformation.
and yep
Perhaps, your statement about the similarity shows the seduction of forms and graphic representation that we, as a "visual" profession, fall victims to. However, I'd like to argue that the values of this new paradigm shift have not been properly disseminated nor communicated. Seductive forms as a result of a graphic process (maya) is not the same as exploring pressure fields (Rahim) or gradience (Reiser).
*GVG im not surprise his comment was a little bit racist, bottom line he's an argentinian who lives outside argentina...they tend to get like that (i worked for another argentinian architect stablished in Barcelona, and the guy always was making racist comments to all latin americans, and his family/wife etc r all latin americans), anyways i dont care, i was just not getting the comment..and i believe TJ has one of the best 3d print things in the area, TJ is actually quite a strange social/economical phenomena, it was the last 10 years the city in latin america with the biggest growth (in inhabitants and economical) and its al due to illegal inmigration, since the electronical manufacturers couldn't get plenty of worker at the states, they just decided to put the factory on the mexican side, pay less and get the same workers they will have to employ illegally (and if legal with better healthcare, larger taxes, etc) and pay them less for the same job.... and my point was, since a lot of the products (TVs, electronic stuff, etc) done in TJ are actually also developed there by mexican engineers so i suppose they need a quite good rapid prototyping company close by, and at a mexican rates....
"...It's a joke on the assumption that in Mexico all fabrication is primitive and laborious..."
well can be a joke sometimes, and maybe i had used it myself, but also for example im finding out than here in europe most of projects (any scale) takes double of time to get aproved and built than in mexico (and like triple the money)...
:-) anyways, i still respect the bearded fat guy with cigar stink (no pun intended, just pointing out facts) ;-)
TNARCH or anyone... im curious, has anyone seen images of the competition just won by REISER + UMEMOTO in China?? something to do with like a tourism developing startegy/plan whatever???
and i respect Rahim as one of the best renderers i know (i dunno if is he or who does his renderings but) i remember first time i saw the images of the reebok store, i thought it was already built...
wow..large entry (i get appasionated when someone points out racism or racist behaviours) haha
LOL...bla bla bla. aren't you people tired of blabbing about the same stuff over and over again? isn't this the 134678th thread that turns into ann "i love/hate blobs" discussion? enough!
me too. nothing gives me more modelling satisfaction than filletting edges in rhino...but still, what the fucvk, it's only a building! get over it you boxy chipperfieldian zumthorian motherfuckers!:)
You guys are idiots. Everybody should be happy that there are firms out there that do non-normative work... like them or not.
Who gives a crap if it means anything or not (structural or otherwise)? Architecture is something that should happen at the discression of the architect. If you have a problem with a blob because it can't stand up, make yourself useful and go figure it out for the rest of us.
I don't think it has to mean a thing but don't try to add shit on at the end - Plus what was up with the broken stereoluthograph models - They still put those shards out there - With some red velvet -
oh c'mon cyborg, i dare say non of us are pro mindless-box architecture, call it "normative" or whatnot... the whole discussion is about *content*, excuse my usage of that over-strained term-- and what's with the "who gives a crap if it means anything.. structural or otherwise" part? you've got to be kidding me.
if it's "art", fine, noone needs to care- if it's "architecture", well, i beg to differ.
what's the basis of our profession if not to produce at least a residual trace of meaning?
and no!- why should *others* figure out how the darn thing can be built? it's precisely the at the discretion of the designer to figure out how stuff comes together.
nice provocation, btw :)
HDA builds/designs what he finds beautiful and stimulating....nothing more. he makes no apologies for the fact that he is truly interested in form because he believes in the philosophy that we all relate to form, space and texture on a much more emotional level, be it positive or negative. the fact that this discussion is even happening would give hernan much pleasure, and he would take more interest in the negative comments! this is because he is only interested in creating "affect", that is a human response. he openly admits that he would never want to live in his own designs, not because of the form, but simply because he would get bored of those ideas in a few years and wouldn't be able to afford to build new houses that often. there actually is a very sophisticated discourse behind his work, but he doesn't claim to be a pseudo-scientist or mathematician with data-driven designs. yes, the guy can be a bit crude, and personally i don't care for his work, but i appreciate his ideas for being ideas. there are many different kinds of blobs, but i don't think i would call hernan's work 'blobitecture'. and besides, as hernan always says in reviews 'architects are not capable of producing anything new because everything has already been done in nature....architects can only make something different, at best."
no, i said what i meant. affect and effect are two different things. look it up to see the difference:
affect
n. (fkt)
Feeling or emotion, especially as manifested by facial expression or body language: “The soldiers seen on television had been carefully chosen for blandness of affect†(Norman Mailer).
Obsolete. A disposition, feeling, or tendency.
he is not trying to produce "effect" through his work, per se.......rather he is trying to make "affect" as the work itself, then allowing the work to cause "effect". it's sort of a semantic issue, but i think it's a unique way of thinking about what design actually behaves as a device.
i think that cynic needs to read the definition of affect himself...
"the fact that this discussion is even happening would give hernan much pleasure, and he would take more interest in the negative comments! this is because he is only interested in creating "affect""
The content of this discussion is not a result of affect...It is criticsim, which is different than non-rational emotion, or affect
yes, criticism is different than affect....but what i glean from this discussion is not criticism because probably most people here have either not seen the exhibit, know nothing of the work except by perhaps an image on the screen, or have mindsets that are far too closed to consider architectural possibility....or a combination of the three. criticism arises from an informed standpoint, at least in some sense. this discussion is generated by the way hernan's work immediately, and non-rationally affects people....which in most peoples' cases, tends to be negative and skeptical off-the-cuff.
"we fear what we don't understand." and that same fear generally tends to morph into hate, and thus the problems of the world....
don't you see how it all comes full circle.....i'm ok, you're ok.
"GVG how come?? i thought Hernan was argentinian..and between his collaborators i dunno any of my paisanos there, so no mexican thing there"_MADianito
One of the guys who made a lot of renderings you can see on the show, were done by a mexican that currently works for us, he goes by Roberto Mezquiti. Also he is now TAing one of Hernan studios. So yes there's was a mejicano in there.
"You guys are idiots. Everybody should be happy that there are firms out there that do non-normative work... like them or not.
Who gives a crap if it means anything or not (structural or otherwise)? Architecture is something that should happen at the discression of the architect. If you have a problem with a blob because it can't stand up, make yourself useful and go figure it out for the rest of us."
This is the same bs that has been plaguing the architectural world for sometime. How much longer can we overintellectualize architecture and call 98% of the world a bunch of idiots for not understanding? Keep on alienating!
I'm not against Hernan at all, I would just like to see architecture and not art. 20 years of paper architecture is just pornography to architects. There really is no impact caused by it. So build damn it, build!
I can see both sides. On the one hand, paper architecture allows experimentation without constraints, and to those that can afford to do it (read - wealthy or marry wealth), it is a wonderful contribution. Without it, we stagnate and build spec crap. Most of the famous folk, with the unique exception of Gehry, began this way and they all have contributed greatly to the profession.
However, we have all seen in the last 10 or so years the proliferation of 'architectural' experiments that do not ever get tested against reality. So really, they are not truly experiments, but art or virtual sculpture (so become cnc'd foam, but that only makes them real sculpture).
This is where I have a problem with much of the experimental side of the profession. I love formal work and I love experiments, but without the final test (even if it's in a virtual environment) it's still just art and/or sculpture, nothing more, regardless of how much over-intellectualized bs is thrown at it.
This is also where the early paper architects differ from the more recent gang. At least you can look at early Morphisis, Eisenman, Libeskind, Hadid, etc., and see how things would be built - that it was thought of in the design process.
So I have no problems with formal, artistic, sculptural expressions, in fact, I love it and woudl love to see the exhibit (although I can't say I care for anything I have seen, I am open to learning more).
the amount of attention he's received seems disproportionate to his contribution. it seems he's simply reiterating lynn's form-finding techniques under the justification of kipnis' theory. what am i missing?
think francis bacon and jeff koons....not kipnis or derrida. it's much less rational (or pseudo-rational) than the previous generation. i think the controversy with xefirotarch is that people have a difficult time just taking it for what it is.....stop trying to intellectualize or classify it.
Xefirotarch- SFMoMA
I recently saw the Xefirotarch/Hernan Diaz Alonso exhibit at the SFMoMA. It is very small but spectacular. I am generally very critical about blobs but was very intrigued by the quality of the work. More so on the model stand/sculpture that is maybe 12' x 8'. The other models are crafted very well also. So, how are these built?
I bought the catalogue and briskly read through all the exaggerated text. But it kept mentioning that his work is BUILDABLE, and was left with no explanation of what they deem it to be or how. I saw Fuchs in one project acknowledgements, maybe he can shed a light on this. I was also disappointed with how underderveloped the projects were. Especially the U2 tower, all the renderings show are floor slabs. What about all the other program requirements that go into influencing the form and aesthetic that is mentioned. The tower could be anything and for anything. I know they revel in this but it just seems as a new form of brutalism.
Over-rated Johnny Come Lately of the Blob Wankers
I am not sure how blobs can still exist at all. I guess it's all much closer to art than to architecture. I'd be much more content with blobs if they'd just admit that there is nothing practical or realistic about them and they are purely formal experiments, albeit mostly ugly. I could respect them for that, at least.
I haven't seen the exhibit, so I could be mistaken, but it looks exactly like the blobs from 10 years ago (and still nothing, really, is built).
I respect a lot more the countless architects who struggle every day to improve the built environment of our cities in a viable manner-- and i just hate how the blobitects propose buildings that completely disregard their environment and thus remain solitary, vain, arrogant expressions of their designers' stupidity.
yup. It'd be one thing if they, like Lynn, actually worked towards advancing the real aspects of their ideas. Lynn has always had photovoltaic cells on his designs, but I've never seen anything that suggests they are any more than (oh, yeah, and all that shiny stuff is pv cells) a random thought.
I do wish they'd just say it's art, with some architectural ideas.
i agree on the art part, if it was just that i'd happily look at that stuff, but as it is, it just gets stuck in my throat, somehow.
ha, photovoltaic cells.. once my boss, while in a meeting discussing how to evaluate the submittals of a competition we managed, just laughed and said "everyone just slaps rectangles with the label "solar collector" on their roofs nowadays and sells us the stuff as green design".
"I do wish they'd just say it's art, with some architectural ideas."
I guess you've never heard Hernan speak.
.mm
I have not. Is there anything on the web?
damn those blobitects!
Did you buy the t-shirt?
no, but they looked graphically cool. Instead i bought the 2x4 catalogue.
how they got it built?
three words my friend,
Mexican milling technique
Xefirotarch is a clumsy name for an architectural practice.
damn 2 years ago, badmouthing Hernan would spur the rage of all the archinect gods.
Im glad people realize now he is just a cigar smoking blob wanker.
"cigar smoking blob wanker" is worthy of its own acronym ... C.S.B.W.
I saw this guy on a crit last semester ... silly
Blobitecture, or whatever you want to call it, will be another phenomena in architectural history similar to that "Deconstructivism". There will be a few thinkers that push the envelop and change the ways in which we approach architecture. Others will tag a long for the ride. However, credit is given where it is due. Lynn, Timberlake, and others are participants in a change, be it a paradigm shift or not, that has affected all of us in the profession. Never should ideas about rethinking architecture be dismissed.
GVG how come?? i thought Hernan was argentinian..and between his collaborators i dunno any of my paisanos there, so no mexican thing there
i respect Hernan...there million of worst jerks than him...he's just in the spotlight and thats why we can (or not) be critical about his work....byt there r sooo many others, which hide behind pseudo-architecture firms, and that are really filling up our cities with crap...
i dont really like xefirotach work, but i respect their "search" and i apreciate he/them do it... keeps me thinking i can also keep "searching", the crappy guys f*c* off...
True, I agree respect is due to those that are pursuing experimentation and actually paying the bills doing it (bs or not, they've made a business out of teaching and making pretty things, which is fairly admirable).
I just wish they'd choose a direction and stick to it. I think Lynn's ideas are great, or at least they were, but he never did anythign with them and that's what seems to be happening here.
It's like they've got this hyposthesis but are too scared to blemish the experiment by concluding the test. It doesn't have to be buildt, but how about some renderings show real materials, scale, assembly, etc.
Any PLEASE try something besides Maya's default plastic material (pretty while it is, it's a large part why it all looks the same).
I'd certainly like to see more of it simply for graphic/artistic inspiration. God knows a lot of us would take a job making pretty pictures (if only you didn't have to spew the bs).
tnarch--
isn't the "pradigm shift" more about the (digital) tools than the stuff that is created with them? sure, many of us started incorporating advanced 3d applications in our workflow, but that doesn't mean all we end up with is blobs.
"pushing the envelope" is good, sure, but frankly I don't see where xefirBla are exactly pushing anything.. but splines.
trace said " but how about some renderings show real materials, scale, assembly, etc."
that's spot on! i'd like to see some structural analysis done on some of these blobs.
FEM software that's relatively easy to use is becoming available, and why the results it outputs are to be taken with a big grain of salt and never to be evaluated without an engineer if you actually wanna build stuff, it still seems to me that in that area, we are moving forward and at least start to be bridging the gap between curved spline and the actual hot rolled steel member which may be its physical counterpart.
n
sorry about any incoherences, heat's getting to me
" but how about some renderings show real materials, scale, assembly, etc."
exactly, that was what I was trying to say. Hernan says they are buildable but I can hardly believe that. The renderings look developmentally flawed. A guy sitting by me on the airplane thought I was reading a book on deep sea fish.
I will not dismiss Hernan's ideas and vision but there should be some reality to call it architecture and not art. It seems to me, if he built (a functional building, not PS1) the results would be dissappointing.
The best part of the whole exhibition was the stupid labels that were added on. "Oh yeah that form could be anything so I think I'll call it a U2 concert venue. Brilliant - No wait - paint that thing as shinny as possible red! - and can we get some mirror to put on the ground so it can reflect like the rendering one of my students did 3 years ago? Or was it last year? Shit it's getting confussing because all my students work looks the same.
MAD, knowing Hernan, you should know his involvement in the fabrication was standing 20 ft away and pointing at things. Not only did students build it, they figured out how to build it.
MADianito,
"Mexican Milling technique" is a joke term Hernan came up with. It's probably a bit racist, you can listen to him referencing/ half-apologizing for it here:
http://archrecord.construction.com/features/LA/podcasts-wiscombe_HDA.asp
What it means is when you get a fabrication shop in orange county to promise free milling of large foam pieces on their next available free weekend, and that weekend is 4 months in the future, and you need the foam to be the centerpiece of an exhibition all the way across the country in 1 week, you get a bunch of students (not necessarily Mexican ones), into a shop to carve the foam by hand. It's a joke on the assumption that in Mexico all fabrication is primitive and laborious. The irony is that one of the best and most professional 3d printing outfits we've been able to find is in Tijuana.
noci
Paradigm shift in the tools transform the products. But it's important to note the change in process due to this transformation.
and yep
Perhaps, your statement about the similarity shows the seduction of forms and graphic representation that we, as a "visual" profession, fall victims to. However, I'd like to argue that the values of this new paradigm shift have not been properly disseminated nor communicated. Seductive forms as a result of a graphic process (maya) is not the same as exploring pressure fields (Rahim) or gradience (Reiser).
*GVG im not surprise his comment was a little bit racist, bottom line he's an argentinian who lives outside argentina...they tend to get like that (i worked for another argentinian architect stablished in Barcelona, and the guy always was making racist comments to all latin americans, and his family/wife etc r all latin americans), anyways i dont care, i was just not getting the comment..and i believe TJ has one of the best 3d print things in the area, TJ is actually quite a strange social/economical phenomena, it was the last 10 years the city in latin america with the biggest growth (in inhabitants and economical) and its al due to illegal inmigration, since the electronical manufacturers couldn't get plenty of worker at the states, they just decided to put the factory on the mexican side, pay less and get the same workers they will have to employ illegally (and if legal with better healthcare, larger taxes, etc) and pay them less for the same job.... and my point was, since a lot of the products (TVs, electronic stuff, etc) done in TJ are actually also developed there by mexican engineers so i suppose they need a quite good rapid prototyping company close by, and at a mexican rates....
"...It's a joke on the assumption that in Mexico all fabrication is primitive and laborious..."
well can be a joke sometimes, and maybe i had used it myself, but also for example im finding out than here in europe most of projects (any scale) takes double of time to get aproved and built than in mexico (and like triple the money)...
:-) anyways, i still respect the bearded fat guy with cigar stink (no pun intended, just pointing out facts) ;-)
TNARCH or anyone... im curious, has anyone seen images of the competition just won by REISER + UMEMOTO in China?? something to do with like a tourism developing startegy/plan whatever???
and i respect Rahim as one of the best renderers i know (i dunno if is he or who does his renderings but) i remember first time i saw the images of the reebok store, i thought it was already built...
wow..large entry (i get appasionated when someone points out racism or racist behaviours) haha
LOL...bla bla bla. aren't you people tired of blabbing about the same stuff over and over again? isn't this the 134678th thread that turns into ann "i love/hate blobs" discussion? enough!
i love BIG(ness) blurps....i mean, blobs
me too. nothing gives me more modelling satisfaction than filletting edges in rhino...but still, what the fucvk, it's only a building! get over it you boxy chipperfieldian zumthorian motherfuckers!:)
i love MAD(ianito) shapes
;-) thanks, its summer i've been working on them...
haha
I hate both Value-Free-Blobs and Inconsequential-Critical-Cultural-Readings.
you have to fill me in on that last bit, tyler
yeas...tyler, can you expand on the Readings.
You guys are idiots. Everybody should be happy that there are firms out there that do non-normative work... like them or not.
Who gives a crap if it means anything or not (structural or otherwise)? Architecture is something that should happen at the discression of the architect. If you have a problem with a blob because it can't stand up, make yourself useful and go figure it out for the rest of us.
And no, this is not Hernan posting this reply.
I don't think it has to mean a thing but don't try to add shit on at the end - Plus what was up with the broken stereoluthograph models - They still put those shards out there - With some red velvet -
Stop saying blob too - its so 90's
Don't respond to that last post
Sounds like somebody needs a hug...
oh c'mon cyborg, i dare say non of us are pro mindless-box architecture, call it "normative" or whatnot... the whole discussion is about *content*, excuse my usage of that over-strained term-- and what's with the "who gives a crap if it means anything.. structural or otherwise" part? you've got to be kidding me.
if it's "art", fine, noone needs to care- if it's "architecture", well, i beg to differ.
what's the basis of our profession if not to produce at least a residual trace of meaning?
and no!- why should *others* figure out how the darn thing can be built? it's precisely the at the discretion of the designer to figure out how stuff comes together.
nice provocation, btw :)
HDA builds/designs what he finds beautiful and stimulating....nothing more. he makes no apologies for the fact that he is truly interested in form because he believes in the philosophy that we all relate to form, space and texture on a much more emotional level, be it positive or negative. the fact that this discussion is even happening would give hernan much pleasure, and he would take more interest in the negative comments! this is because he is only interested in creating "affect", that is a human response. he openly admits that he would never want to live in his own designs, not because of the form, but simply because he would get bored of those ideas in a few years and wouldn't be able to afford to build new houses that often. there actually is a very sophisticated discourse behind his work, but he doesn't claim to be a pseudo-scientist or mathematician with data-driven designs. yes, the guy can be a bit crude, and personally i don't care for his work, but i appreciate his ideas for being ideas. there are many different kinds of blobs, but i don't think i would call hernan's work 'blobitecture'. and besides, as hernan always says in reviews 'architects are not capable of producing anything new because everything has already been done in nature....architects can only make something different, at best."
should be "effect" not "affect"
should be "not" not "dot".....
no, i said what i meant. affect and effect are two different things. look it up to see the difference:
affect
n. (fkt)
Feeling or emotion, especially as manifested by facial expression or body language: “The soldiers seen on television had been carefully chosen for blandness of affect†(Norman Mailer).
Obsolete. A disposition, feeling, or tendency.
he is not trying to produce "effect" through his work, per se.......rather he is trying to make "affect" as the work itself, then allowing the work to cause "effect". it's sort of a semantic issue, but i think it's a unique way of thinking about what design actually behaves as a device.
damn..that last sentence should be "how" not "what"..........again, semantics :)
i think that cynic needs to read the definition of affect himself...
"the fact that this discussion is even happening would give hernan much pleasure, and he would take more interest in the negative comments! this is because he is only interested in creating "affect""
The content of this discussion is not a result of affect...It is criticsim, which is different than non-rational emotion, or affect
yes, criticism is different than affect....but what i glean from this discussion is not criticism because probably most people here have either not seen the exhibit, know nothing of the work except by perhaps an image on the screen, or have mindsets that are far too closed to consider architectural possibility....or a combination of the three. criticism arises from an informed standpoint, at least in some sense. this discussion is generated by the way hernan's work immediately, and non-rationally affects people....which in most peoples' cases, tends to be negative and skeptical off-the-cuff.
"we fear what we don't understand." and that same fear generally tends to morph into hate, and thus the problems of the world....
don't you see how it all comes full circle.....i'm ok, you're ok.
"GVG how come?? i thought Hernan was argentinian..and between his collaborators i dunno any of my paisanos there, so no mexican thing there"_MADianito
One of the guys who made a lot of renderings you can see on the show, were done by a mexican that currently works for us, he goes by Roberto Mezquiti. Also he is now TAing one of Hernan studios. So yes there's was a mejicano in there.
"You guys are idiots. Everybody should be happy that there are firms out there that do non-normative work... like them or not.
Who gives a crap if it means anything or not (structural or otherwise)? Architecture is something that should happen at the discression of the architect. If you have a problem with a blob because it can't stand up, make yourself useful and go figure it out for the rest of us."
This is the same bs that has been plaguing the architectural world for sometime. How much longer can we overintellectualize architecture and call 98% of the world a bunch of idiots for not understanding? Keep on alienating!
I'm not against Hernan at all, I would just like to see architecture and not art. 20 years of paper architecture is just pornography to architects. There really is no impact caused by it. So build damn it, build!
Thanks Peter Eisenman.
I can see both sides. On the one hand, paper architecture allows experimentation without constraints, and to those that can afford to do it (read - wealthy or marry wealth), it is a wonderful contribution. Without it, we stagnate and build spec crap. Most of the famous folk, with the unique exception of Gehry, began this way and they all have contributed greatly to the profession.
However, we have all seen in the last 10 or so years the proliferation of 'architectural' experiments that do not ever get tested against reality. So really, they are not truly experiments, but art or virtual sculpture (so become cnc'd foam, but that only makes them real sculpture).
This is where I have a problem with much of the experimental side of the profession. I love formal work and I love experiments, but without the final test (even if it's in a virtual environment) it's still just art and/or sculpture, nothing more, regardless of how much over-intellectualized bs is thrown at it.
This is also where the early paper architects differ from the more recent gang. At least you can look at early Morphisis, Eisenman, Libeskind, Hadid, etc., and see how things would be built - that it was thought of in the design process.
So I have no problems with formal, artistic, sculptural expressions, in fact, I love it and woudl love to see the exhibit (although I can't say I care for anything I have seen, I am open to learning more).
Just say it is what it is and I'll be happy.
the amount of attention he's received seems disproportionate to his contribution. it seems he's simply reiterating lynn's form-finding techniques under the justification of kipnis' theory. what am i missing?
think francis bacon and jeff koons....not kipnis or derrida. it's much less rational (or pseudo-rational) than the previous generation. i think the controversy with xefirotarch is that people have a difficult time just taking it for what it is.....stop trying to intellectualize or classify it.
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