I didn't get a chance to go, but the title (The Autonomous Language of Architecture is Doomed, and Why Architecture School Should Teach More About Contracts) sounds dead-on. Can you provide your impressions of the lecture? I'd like to hear more, since the standard line ('the AIA is your friend! use the standard contracts and everything will be OK!') delivered to students in schools is just stupid and naive.
actually, i'd like to think i'm an autodidact.
i feel that the 5 years i was immersed in school actually might not have been enough.
throw in spec writing, contracts, rfq's... my design quals would have taken a significant hit.
and you just answered my thoughts on spec writing: between those three, you should eventually figure it out. that's what an internship is for. maybe the question for princess-ramus is why he's hiring people right out of school to do that instead of using his prestige, good looks and wealth to have some lawyer he went to harvard with, work that out for him.
So he's hiring people right out of school who have overvalued their "design quals" and have had no instruction in "spec writing, contracts, rfq's". Wow, if only schools could teach us something...useful in the real world?! CRAZY. Let's all just hire lawyers using the income from the business that we also don't know how to run!
anybody got a report on the talk? i'm curious. there was an article about him here in louisville that talked about museum plaza and jpr/rex's approach to architecture:
a lot of words about practice and getting into the reality of construction and being hyper-rational, etc. they actually suggested that architects rarely get into the realities of getting a project built! but that that was their intention - how they would position themselves.
made me realize how little jpr knows about the profession at large, how isolated he's been from any but the design office culture. especially since he's saying these things related to museum plaza, for which there will be an architect of record that will do the docs and handle construction administration.
so this lecture, which sounds like it wants to be about the realities and complexities of practice, makes me curious. is 'practice' his theory? and is he merely floating along the surface of it? 'cause i'm designing, budgeting, managing production of cds, reviewing submittals, and on the job site at least once a week. i feel that i'm pretty involved in the reality of it.... has mr ramus even done these things?
reminds me of a liz diller lecture i recently attended in which she discussed the lincoln center work. she structured the entire lecture as a sort of rehearsal in which she re-presented the work to the various interests/consultants that they had to work with on the job. in the beginning it was clever. by the end, it was clear that she (and her office) just wasn't very familiar with the level of consultant/client/benefactor coordination that is necessary on almost any project of a significant size. nothing she said was surprising to anyone who knew better.
in short, if starchitects want to embrace the practical aspects of the profession, they should feel welcome. but when starchitects fetishize practice, its a disappoitment and a total bore. aren't they supposed to help us imagine better alternatives, as opposed to reinforcing the status-quo?
that said, the DS+R lincoln center work is going to be GREAT.
in short, if starchitects want to embrace the practical aspects of the profession, they should feel welcome. but when starchitects fetishize practice, its a disappoitment and a total bore. aren't they supposed to help us imagine better alternatives, as opposed to reinforcing the status-quo?
very well put. exactly where i was coming from, but not as eloquently.
Ramus gave a similar talk at CCA in SF last month. Far more provocative than all the talk about business/contract/BIM issues and claims that REX don't really 'design' the work but that it just 'happens' as a direct response to the givens/data, was the incredible Quicktime VR type interactive panaoramas in the Powerpoint show -- both built work (Seattle) and unbuilt (Dallas, Kentucky, Cal Tech)...actually an awesome way to present architectural space.
A Day In The Life (sung to the tune A Day In The Life by the Beatles)
I read archinect today, oh boy
About this lucky man who split from Rem
And though the news was rather lame...
well, I just had to laugh...
At the captions added to that photograph...
He blew his nose out in his car
He keeps Kleenex there for such a thing...
Several people also sneezed
But not a single one of them was the famous Zaha Hadiiiid...
I saw a film today, oh joy
About a guy named Frank, who designed with paper wads
A crowd of people said "oh that's so cool"
A few of them even drooled
Odds are that all of them were from
Architecture schooool...
I'd love to tur ur ur n the television on...
Woke up but stayed in bed
With the cat sleepin on my head...
Went to Starbuck's and had a cup
and lookin up, I saw that I was late.
Grabbed my cell and made the call,
No I won't be in at all
I soon got over feigning ill
and got myself a scone and a refill
I read archinect today, oh boy
Something about three thousand posts
And although most are trite and superficial
At least now its official
Vado has 3000 posts...
bothlands, that's the exact same talk and PowerPoint he presented at Penn. He was very provocative and entertaining. It was one of the most enjoyable archi-lectures I've ever been to.
He was basically abolishing the idea of the great starchitect and the magic sketch and replacing that with great design being the outcome of team-work effort.
I saw it, and really enjoyed it. First, that dude is diesel! haha
A lot of what he was saying also was that, if we as architects don't take control of the whole process from design to construction, our ideas don't get built the way we want. We give it over to someone else. He started with an example of equating architecture to child birth. Currently, architecture is like the 3 minutes of sex. But really, in child birth, you don't skip the 9 months of pregnancy, and the 24 hours of labor. But we forget that stuff when we just think of the magic sketch.
He also talked about how a lot of their projects really just come from budgets and program constraints. I really like OMA and REX, they make ugly, smart projects that are beautiful in their ugliness. The discussion about the Seattle Library was really cool. Just really smart.
Bet lecture I've seen. Made some Penn-ites squirm, and that was funny.
"currently, architecture is like the 3 minutes of sex."
this is what i have a problem with. architecture is a hard process and a long process and is more like 2-3 years than 3 minutes. most of us don't skip the pregnancy, labor, and delivery.
maybe [b]in his experience in the rarefied air of oma[/i] it was like the 3 minutes of sex.
Did a man really say that sex only takes 3 minutes? I don't know whether to applaud his honesty or be offended by his ineptitude!
But truthfully, that is one of the best analogies of architectural practice I've ever heard. The pregnancy (design development and CD's) is truly the most interesting and challenging part in my opinion, and surviving the labor (construction) makes one feel enormously proud, and the whole process is saturated with the memory of the 3 minutes of heaven that ignited the whole thing. Hey, I'm talking about architectural practice here!!
Excellent short write up, Hasselhoff. "Ugly and smart" is a good way to describe their work, too.
kinda wierd that the video showing the process for designing the louisville tower, and the photos showing the several iterations, dont show the real show: an old diagrammatic building scheme for south korea by oma. stick a fork in it, its done! their work (or whats left of oma's) is better and more compelling than most, but hes a steroidal mess trying too hard to make smart soundbites: hyper-rational? thanks for the late 90s terminology, too bad it sounds dumb. 'rationality' is a construction, on many different levels. and what are constructions, class? you, in the back.....
Joshua Prince-Ramus' Lecture at Penn
For those who have attended it, any thoughts? impressions?
I didn't get a chance to go, but the title (The Autonomous Language of Architecture is Doomed, and Why Architecture School Should Teach More About Contracts) sounds dead-on. Can you provide your impressions of the lecture? I'd like to hear more, since the standard line ('the AIA is your friend! use the standard contracts and everything will be OK!') delivered to students in schools is just stupid and naive.
DOOOOOMED!!!
why should the schools teach about contracts?
shouldn't the students teach themselves?
here's the TrAnScRiPt!
actually, i'd like to think i'm an autodidact.
i feel that the 5 years i was immersed in school actually might not have been enough.
throw in spec writing, contracts, rfq's... my design quals would have taken a significant hit.
and you just answered my thoughts on spec writing: between those three, you should eventually figure it out. that's what an internship is for. maybe the question for princess-ramus is why he's hiring people right out of school to do that instead of using his prestige, good looks and wealth to have some lawyer he went to harvard with, work that out for him.
So he's hiring people right out of school who have overvalued their "design quals" and have had no instruction in "spec writing, contracts, rfq's". Wow, if only schools could teach us something...useful in the real world?! CRAZY. Let's all just hire lawyers using the income from the business that we also don't know how to run!
anybody got a report on the talk? i'm curious. there was an article about him here in louisville that talked about museum plaza and jpr/rex's approach to architecture:
a lot of words about practice and getting into the reality of construction and being hyper-rational, etc. they actually suggested that architects rarely get into the realities of getting a project built! but that that was their intention - how they would position themselves.
made me realize how little jpr knows about the profession at large, how isolated he's been from any but the design office culture. especially since he's saying these things related to museum plaza, for which there will be an architect of record that will do the docs and handle construction administration.
so this lecture, which sounds like it wants to be about the realities and complexities of practice, makes me curious. is 'practice' his theory? and is he merely floating along the surface of it? 'cause i'm designing, budgeting, managing production of cds, reviewing submittals, and on the job site at least once a week. i feel that i'm pretty involved in the reality of it.... has mr ramus even done these things?
Steven-
reminds me of a liz diller lecture i recently attended in which she discussed the lincoln center work. she structured the entire lecture as a sort of rehearsal in which she re-presented the work to the various interests/consultants that they had to work with on the job. in the beginning it was clever. by the end, it was clear that she (and her office) just wasn't very familiar with the level of consultant/client/benefactor coordination that is necessary on almost any project of a significant size. nothing she said was surprising to anyone who knew better.
in short, if starchitects want to embrace the practical aspects of the profession, they should feel welcome. but when starchitects fetishize practice, its a disappoitment and a total bore. aren't they supposed to help us imagine better alternatives, as opposed to reinforcing the status-quo?
that said, the DS+R lincoln center work is going to be GREAT.
very well put. exactly where i was coming from, but not as eloquently.
Ramus gave a similar talk at CCA in SF last month. Far more provocative than all the talk about business/contract/BIM issues and claims that REX don't really 'design' the work but that it just 'happens' as a direct response to the givens/data, was the incredible Quicktime VR type interactive panaoramas in the Powerpoint show -- both built work (Seattle) and unbuilt (Dallas, Kentucky, Cal Tech)...actually an awesome way to present architectural space.
the autonomous language of Vado from 05/18/06...
A Day In The Life (sung to the tune A Day In The Life by the Beatles)
I read archinect today, oh boy
About this lucky man who split from Rem
And though the news was rather lame...
well, I just had to laugh...
At the captions added to that photograph...
He blew his nose out in his car
He keeps Kleenex there for such a thing...
Several people also sneezed
But not a single one of them was the famous Zaha Hadiiiid...
I saw a film today, oh joy
About a guy named Frank, who designed with paper wads
A crowd of people said "oh that's so cool"
A few of them even drooled
Odds are that all of them were from
Architecture schooool...
I'd love to tur ur ur n the television on...
Woke up but stayed in bed
With the cat sleepin on my head...
Went to Starbuck's and had a cup
and lookin up, I saw that I was late.
Grabbed my cell and made the call,
No I won't be in at all
I soon got over feigning ill
and got myself a scone and a refill
I read archinect today, oh boy
Something about three thousand posts
And although most are trite and superficial
At least now its official
Vado has 3000 posts...
I think I'll go and tu ur ur n myself on....
bothlands, that's the exact same talk and PowerPoint he presented at Penn. He was very provocative and entertaining. It was one of the most enjoyable archi-lectures I've ever been to.
He was basically abolishing the idea of the great starchitect and the magic sketch and replacing that with great design being the outcome of team-work effort.
I saw it, and really enjoyed it. First, that dude is diesel! haha
A lot of what he was saying also was that, if we as architects don't take control of the whole process from design to construction, our ideas don't get built the way we want. We give it over to someone else. He started with an example of equating architecture to child birth. Currently, architecture is like the 3 minutes of sex. But really, in child birth, you don't skip the 9 months of pregnancy, and the 24 hours of labor. But we forget that stuff when we just think of the magic sketch.
He also talked about how a lot of their projects really just come from budgets and program constraints. I really like OMA and REX, they make ugly, smart projects that are beautiful in their ugliness. The discussion about the Seattle Library was really cool. Just really smart.
Bet lecture I've seen. Made some Penn-ites squirm, and that was funny.
this is what i have a problem with. architecture is a hard process and a long process and is more like 2-3 years than 3 minutes. most of us don't skip the pregnancy, labor, and delivery.
maybe [b]in his experience in the rarefied air of oma[/i] it was like the 3 minutes of sex.
damn.
maybe in his experience in the rarefied air of oma it was like the 3 minutes of sex.
three minutes of sex. it takes me that long to get her bra off.
Did a man really say that sex only takes 3 minutes? I don't know whether to applaud his honesty or be offended by his ineptitude!
But truthfully, that is one of the best analogies of architectural practice I've ever heard. The pregnancy (design development and CD's) is truly the most interesting and challenging part in my opinion, and surviving the labor (construction) makes one feel enormously proud, and the whole process is saturated with the memory of the 3 minutes of heaven that ignited the whole thing. Hey, I'm talking about architectural practice here!!
Excellent short write up, Hasselhoff. "Ugly and smart" is a good way to describe their work, too.
kinda wierd that the video showing the process for designing the louisville tower, and the photos showing the several iterations, dont show the real show: an old diagrammatic building scheme for south korea by oma. stick a fork in it, its done! their work (or whats left of oma's) is better and more compelling than most, but hes a steroidal mess trying too hard to make smart soundbites: hyper-rational? thanks for the late 90s terminology, too bad it sounds dumb. 'rationality' is a construction, on many different levels. and what are constructions, class? you, in the back.....
lb:
Look at the guy. It'd be a 3 minutes not to soon forget.
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