when i say exposure i mean all kinds of medium... the non-star firm rely on the same strategie too. as u say marketing, reputation, networking... etc.
architecture business unlike others like fashion designer/hair dresser, mostly clients do not come back for more... therefore exposure is part of the survival technic to expand the network... some become more "loud or stylistic" in the market and become label as star... i wouldn't blame the market nor someone being a star for producing work which i do not like... that's reality!
maybe true, but i don't envy the big ones. rem hasn't even lived in the same city as his wife for years (though i think i've heard that he's moved to london recently?). what kind of life is a life given over COMPLETELY to architecture?
the burdens may be different. maybe they don't have to hunt down the work, but they have to pick the projects that will keep them going, maintaining the reputation. they have to make each project measure up to the previous work and the expectations that work has created.
the best 'ride' metaphor i can think of is surfing/floating. these guys don't just float along on everybody else's work and generosity. they've built careers, they've got the skills, they're surfing the wave that they've caught. as evidenced by my few futile attempts, surfing is hard.
my comment of 16:12 yesterday was phrased facetiously, but i do think its pointless to discuss the stars from ONLY the point of few of those of us with budding careers and time to talk on discussion boards.
thanks to all who posted such penetrating comments on this topic - it's great reading.
to seek fame for fame's sake - is it ever a respectable path? but to spend our time fretting, if that is what we are doing, cannot be worth much at all either...
thanks treekiller for the names of those who have gained notoriety not by seeking to dazzle, but by setting out to improve and educate.
i think of the image of setting out a blanket for a picnic - taking out a basket of provisions and mindfully preparing a meal on that blanket for those who are hungry to eat together and be nourished.
the other image is the trough.
t...
Jun 22, 07 8:44 am ·
·
It's funny when you read Nobel's article and watch The Devil Wears Prada in the same day. It's like soup d'jour becomes déjà vu.
fly buzz: The Starchitect Wears Prada meets Oedipus Rex meets like, I don't know, The Ten Commandments for Driving? And by all means don't skimp on the montage!
So what's it called?
"Stop Hogging the Oxygen"
No, no, not the movie. What's the color of your hair called?
i have a feeling we are all just being anti-startchitect chic...someone wrote: "If somebody's doing good work, whether they're a media darling or not, I'm interested." I think admiration to one's work is natural in architecture. I don't think there is anything wrong with that.
Also, media and marketing is everywhere today...architects choosing to ignore opportunities for public exposure for a sense of "integritry" just reflects our profession inability to function in today's world...the starving mysterious missunderstood eccentric artists...
and except for maybe phillip johnson, i doubt any architect or starchitect " seeks fame for fame's sake", the seek fame so they can get commissions with less restrictions than we do.
and toroid, why can't we improve and educate, but also Dazzle!?
Jun 22, 07 9:47 am ·
·
Hey, give Phillip Johnson a break! If only everybody used their money so well.
über, this topic also reminds me of Artschool Confidential.
I understand what people are saying about starchitecting being the way the game is played (at least for now) and if we withdraw from it architecture itself may suffer, but still I can’t help but long for another way.
the devil wears prada sucked. even with the lovely miss hathaway.i fast forwarded through it. if you work for someone like that you are an idiot or a masochist or both.
Jun 22, 07 10:19 am ·
·
Not that we're sexist out here, but we do like Phillip's museum of architecture a lot better than Phyllis'. Virtual museum peices all over the place in real 3D. I mean, who else has done that?!?
Q: what comes after museum?
A: pre-shrine.
Phillip hadn't heard that joke until he died. Do you know what it's now like to hear Phillip laughing constantly?
qullian...there is a lot of longing in our profession...
re.(st)architecture, i agree that things are turning quickly...when libeskind started being kitchy just to be marketable, i knew something was terribly wrong ("the tower shall be 1776ft high...")
i heard somewhere (arch.mith) that when designing the pavillion for the millenium park in chicago, gehry didn't want to use the "curved stainless steel ribbon sculpture" motif, but that's what the client came for...not architecture, a "gehry"...
simples this is my greatest fear, and libeskind is a great example of innovation turned to kitsch. Seems like the question that arises is: What is worse for the profession; not playing the PR game, or becoming kitschy?
Jun 22, 07 10:38 am ·
·
You know, maybe the best thing about architecture is its enormous potential of kitsch. Anyway, that's were the real entertainment lies. Oh, and as far as "fuck context" is concerned, don't be fooled. The only real context for architecture is money, and you can't really fuck that.
To postopolize this:
is "kitsch", architecture's "idiot"? We should not fear it and move towards its edge, and only by doing that real architecture can happen?
there might be value in "kitsch" in the sense of making architectural concept accessible to the public (as a starting point)...but i think simplified semiotics does that...(gehry uses it all the time...the pavillion at millenium park symbolizes sails on a boat b.s.), but that in itself is a kitsch...
i prefer to believe that a lot of known architects that receive exposure use it for good rathen than evil...the herzog+demeurons, the sizas, the andos, maybe zumthros and academic stars...
even morphosis recent shift into public buildings can be inserted here as a tangent...
perhaps any "style" refined over time becomes kitsch ie gehry on the simpson's. the over mediazation of the starchitect subsequently kitschicizes his/her work because the only way in which the work can reach a large audience is to be de-contented and packaged for a mass audience. one manner in which the work is de-contented is by promoting the "personalibrandity" of the starchitect as celebrities are more accessible and less dangerous than ideas.
I have no problem with architects attaining celebrity status, in fact i think it will help the profession. however, it is the mystique and romanticism that some starchitects perpetuate to help their own fame that in the end destroys the competitiveness of architects working as "anonymous" professionals. (unfortunately academia tends to perpetuate this.) But in the end, i think that the newer generation of architects that includes a lot of us, archinecters, are interested in far more than the traditional scope of architecture, hence we'd rather read blogs than architecture magazines. Starchitects, with the exception of Rem are still pretending like only the 'talented' can 'design spaces' or understand materials, and that, i think is sad and dangerously complacent.
simples: to respond to your comment abou the 1776ft high tower... I heard from a very reliable source (one of people who worked on the competition entry in Danny's office) that the figure came out of the blue.
Apparently Danny finished his schpeil about light/shards etc and they ask him 'how tall is the tower?'. Danny looks it up and down, and comes out with the 1776 figure. No one had heard it before that moment. According to the design team, it was improvised and took them all by suprise (inc. his wife).
Danny then returned to Berlin to share the good news that they had won the commission, and - as a reward - they would relocate to NY and apart from *points* you, you, you and you, you're all fired. Lovely.
that is a rediculous comment. first of all, the only reason i got into this field was for the fame. i don't understand how the myths perpetuated by star architects reduces competitiveness. most nonarchitects have never heard of any of these guys. i also don't think people here are more interested in reading blogs than arch magazines, i think what you are seeing is people more interesting in reading blogs than working.
well in the photographers defense he is probably too old to be a war correspondant and also you cant take pictures like that in iraq these days due to a thing called censorship.
Jun 22, 07 12:08 pm ·
·
Quilian, I understand your longing "for another way," but what exactly is that other way? And what exactly is the way that you long to be other than? The answer might just be in the most objective answers to these questions.
Otherwise, been busy celebrating Sebastian and Gordon's 64th birthday. Chop! Chop!
Like I said before, let go of the idiot myth, and look at what's really going on.
Kitsch, like taste, is completely relative anymore. Maybe that will actually sink in one day.
über, i am not entirely sure what the other way is, but if you look at the beginning of the thread (the discussion with nam specially) you will see my thoughts on it. I guess I want a way other than both the current starchitecture system and a uncritical return to the anonymity that Nobel calls for.
What is really going on?
I hope that it never sinks in...
Jun 22, 07 1:49 pm ·
·
Here's what's going on:
1. The star system is shrouded with lots of myth. The reality has more to do with PR, paying a publicist, designer labeling business, etc.
2. What you are really "longing" for is to be "published" without having to be a starchitect.
2a. By all means do not self-publish! That will render 'publishing' obsolete and all standards would be lost in the process--so much for the reality of relativity. [But don't be fooled, it's more just that the powers-that-be want to keep holding the power--the devil wears Prada and takes best care of itself.]
3. if you really want to make a change within the field of architecture, make sure you bring lots of money to the table first.
but aren't i being published in archinect without being a starchitect? we all are, and publishing IS beginning to become obsolete. The BOOK and MAGAZINE will begin to dematerialize into media, (thoughtful) editing and compiling of media (from you tube to flickr, to...) is all that's left to be done. What happens when that hits architecture?
Well, it looks like something is starting to sink it. So "being published" is what this is all really about. Good.
Just hit architecture with it and see what happens.
I've been hitting architecture with it for over a decade now. Generally, architecture pretends it's not happening, though all the while "appropriating" the hit ideas, and Architecture will definitely hit back if it has to.
Breaking the ice is the hardest part, but don't worry, that's already been done. What are you still waiting for?
good pr can rehabilitate anybody - all it takes is money. Most people forget that Phillip Johnson was a published anti-semite supporter of hitler in his youth- now all we do is celebrate his coming out of the glass closet and curating a few shows at moma.
le bossman, honestly I'm not sure what you mean, nor what vado means. Not that your necessarily saying something uncomprehendable or even wrong, I'd just don't want to second guess what you mean. What treekiller means (to do) I understand completely.
Is Johnson's published "anti-semite support of hitler" anywhere available online? Let's all see it.
i'm by no means an expert on philip johnson, but i did read his biography and if i recall correctly, his interest in germany had more to do with the nightlife of berlin than political involvement. he was a rather young man at that time (and quite wealthy too) so it's no surprise that he coasted along with some of the excitment in germany at the time...but i don't think it was ever documented that he was a "supporter" of hitler. in fact, he later served in the u.s. army during world war II after finishing school at harvard...and much of that time was spent cleaning toilets.
Jun 22, 07 5:08 pm ·
·
From "Form Follows Fascism", published 31 January 2005 in the NY Times:
Philip Johnson did not just flirt with fascism. He spent several years in his late 20's and early 30's - years when an artist's imagination usually begins to jell - consumed by fascist ideology. He tried to start a fascist party in the United States. He worked for Huey Long and Father Coughlin, writing essays on their behalf. He tried to buy the magazine American Mercury, then complained in a letter, "The Jews bought the magazine and are ruining it, naturally." He traveled several times to Germany. He thrilled to the Nuremberg rally of 1938 and, after the invasion of Poland, he visited the front at the invitation of the Nazis.
He approved of what he saw. "The German green uniforms made the place look gay and happy," he wrote in a letter. "There were not many Jews to be seen. We saw Warsaw burn and Modlin being bombed. It was a stirring spectacle." As late as 1940, Mr. Johnson was defending Hitler to the American public. It seems that only an inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation - and, presumably, the prospect of being labeled a traitor if America entered the war - led him to withdraw completely from politics.
Today, any debate over an important figure with a fascist or Communist background easily becomes an occasion for blame games between right and left. Mr. Johnson is no exception. Morally serious people can have different views of his personal culpability.
=====
So, did Johnson use his money to "rehibilitate" himself? Was he a shameless person? Was he really evil? What lead him to architecture?
incredible... i did not know this, but somehow it doesn't really shock me either. For now i am speechless, will have to let it settle.
Jun 22, 07 5:40 pm ·
·
And don't forget George Washington, the first president of the United States, was the largest slave-owner in Virginia. Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and amateur architect, bred his own servents, literally a fucking business.
Anti-Starchitecture Chic
when i say exposure i mean all kinds of medium... the non-star firm rely on the same strategie too. as u say marketing, reputation, networking... etc.
architecture business unlike others like fashion designer/hair dresser, mostly clients do not come back for more... therefore exposure is part of the survival technic to expand the network... some become more "loud or stylistic" in the market and become label as star... i wouldn't blame the market nor someone being a star for producing work which i do not like... that's reality!
maybe true, but i don't envy the big ones. rem hasn't even lived in the same city as his wife for years (though i think i've heard that he's moved to london recently?). what kind of life is a life given over COMPLETELY to architecture?
the burdens may be different. maybe they don't have to hunt down the work, but they have to pick the projects that will keep them going, maintaining the reputation. they have to make each project measure up to the previous work and the expectations that work has created.
the best 'ride' metaphor i can think of is surfing/floating. these guys don't just float along on everybody else's work and generosity. they've built careers, they've got the skills, they're surfing the wave that they've caught. as evidenced by my few futile attempts, surfing is hard.
my comment of 16:12 yesterday was phrased facetiously, but i do think its pointless to discuss the stars from ONLY the point of few of those of us with budding careers and time to talk on discussion boards.
oops, my last is a response to wall...
i agree then...with steven
thanks to all who posted such penetrating comments on this topic - it's great reading.
to seek fame for fame's sake - is it ever a respectable path? but to spend our time fretting, if that is what we are doing, cannot be worth much at all either...
thanks treekiller for the names of those who have gained notoriety not by seeking to dazzle, but by setting out to improve and educate.
i think of the image of setting out a blanket for a picnic - taking out a basket of provisions and mindfully preparing a meal on that blanket for those who are hungry to eat together and be nourished.
the other image is the trough.
t...
It's funny when you read Nobel's article and watch The Devil Wears Prada in the same day. It's like soup d'jour becomes déjà vu.
fly buzz:
The Starchitect Wears Prada meets Oedipus Rex meets like, I don't know, The Ten Commandments for Driving? And by all means don't skimp on the montage!
So what's it called?
"Stop Hogging the Oxygen"
No, no, not the movie. What's the color of your hair called?
Oh, pure roots.
i have a feeling we are all just being anti-startchitect chic...someone wrote: "If somebody's doing good work, whether they're a media darling or not, I'm interested." I think admiration to one's work is natural in architecture. I don't think there is anything wrong with that.
Also, media and marketing is everywhere today...architects choosing to ignore opportunities for public exposure for a sense of "integritry" just reflects our profession inability to function in today's world...the starving mysterious missunderstood eccentric artists...
and except for maybe phillip johnson, i doubt any architect or starchitect " seeks fame for fame's sake", the seek fame so they can get commissions with less restrictions than we do.
and toroid, why can't we improve and educate, but also Dazzle!?
Hey, give Phillip Johnson a break! If only everybody used their money so well.
uber...i didn't mean it as an insult...but then again, i like phillip johnson more as a character than an architect...but i do like(d) him...
über, this topic also reminds me of Artschool Confidential.
I understand what people are saying about starchitecting being the way the game is played (at least for now) and if we withdraw from it architecture itself may suffer, but still I can’t help but long for another way.
Read Dr. Garry’s funny yet serious take on all this:
http://www.archsoc.com/kcas/brilliantarchitect.html
the devil wears prada sucked. even with the lovely miss hathaway.i fast forwarded through it. if you work for someone like that you are an idiot or a masochist or both.
Not that we're sexist out here, but we do like Phillip's museum of architecture a lot better than Phyllis'. Virtual museum peices all over the place in real 3D. I mean, who else has done that?!?
Q: what comes after museum?
A: pre-shrine.
Phillip hadn't heard that joke until he died. Do you know what it's now like to hear Phillip laughing constantly?
qullian...there is a lot of longing in our profession...
re.(st)architecture, i agree that things are turning quickly...when libeskind started being kitchy just to be marketable, i knew something was terribly wrong ("the tower shall be 1776ft high...")
i heard somewhere (arch.mith) that when designing the pavillion for the millenium park in chicago, gehry didn't want to use the "curved stainless steel ribbon sculpture" motif, but that's what the client came for...not architecture, a "gehry"...
simples this is my greatest fear, and libeskind is a great example of innovation turned to kitsch. Seems like the question that arises is: What is worse for the profession; not playing the PR game, or becoming kitschy?
You know, maybe the best thing about architecture is its enormous potential of kitsch. Anyway, that's were the real entertainment lies. Oh, and as far as "fuck context" is concerned, don't be fooled. The only real context for architecture is money, and you can't really fuck that.
But oh how they try.
To postopolize this:
is "kitsch", architecture's "idiot"? We should not fear it and move towards its edge, and only by doing that real architecture can happen?
for more on the idiot theory:
http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=58556_100_42_0
there might be value in "kitsch" in the sense of making architectural concept accessible to the public (as a starting point)...but i think simplified semiotics does that...(gehry uses it all the time...the pavillion at millenium park symbolizes sails on a boat b.s.), but that in itself is a kitsch...
i prefer to believe that a lot of known architects that receive exposure use it for good rathen than evil...the herzog+demeurons, the sizas, the andos, maybe zumthros and academic stars...
even morphosis recent shift into public buildings can be inserted here as a tangent...
perhaps any "style" refined over time becomes kitsch ie gehry on the simpson's. the over mediazation of the starchitect subsequently kitschicizes his/her work because the only way in which the work can reach a large audience is to be de-contented and packaged for a mass audience. one manner in which the work is de-contented is by promoting the "personalibrandity" of the starchitect as celebrities are more accessible and less dangerous than ideas.
I have no problem with architects attaining celebrity status, in fact i think it will help the profession. however, it is the mystique and romanticism that some starchitects perpetuate to help their own fame that in the end destroys the competitiveness of architects working as "anonymous" professionals. (unfortunately academia tends to perpetuate this.) But in the end, i think that the newer generation of architects that includes a lot of us, archinecters, are interested in far more than the traditional scope of architecture, hence we'd rather read blogs than architecture magazines. Starchitects, with the exception of Rem are still pretending like only the 'talented' can 'design spaces' or understand materials, and that, i think is sad and dangerously complacent.
simples: to respond to your comment abou the 1776ft high tower... I heard from a very reliable source (one of people who worked on the competition entry in Danny's office) that the figure came out of the blue.
Apparently Danny finished his schpeil about light/shards etc and they ask him 'how tall is the tower?'. Danny looks it up and down, and comes out with the 1776 figure. No one had heard it before that moment. According to the design team, it was improvised and took them all by suprise (inc. his wife).
Danny then returned to Berlin to share the good news that they had won the commission, and - as a reward - they would relocate to NY and apart from *points* you, you, you and you, you're all fired. Lovely.
that is a rediculous comment. first of all, the only reason i got into this field was for the fame. i don't understand how the myths perpetuated by star architects reduces competitiveness. most nonarchitects have never heard of any of these guys. i also don't think people here are more interested in reading blogs than arch magazines, i think what you are seeing is people more interesting in reading blogs than working.
ha!
Also, as a slight tangent, I came across this rather depressing reflection of how the media's coverage has changed over past decades.
Here is 1 photographer, his 2 'iconic' photos, 35 years apart. Here's the one from this year:
This is the one that the same photographer took 35 years ago
It's rather depressing what makes the news these days.
wow almost poetic... in a sad way
wow is right...chch, thanks for those links -> "a depressing reflection on the media"...
nice story on danny too (i can believe it)
well in the photographers defense he is probably too old to be a war correspondant and also you cant take pictures like that in iraq these days due to a thing called censorship.
Quilian, I understand your longing "for another way," but what exactly is that other way? And what exactly is the way that you long to be other than? The answer might just be in the most objective answers to these questions.
Otherwise, been busy celebrating Sebastian and Gordon's 64th birthday. Chop! Chop!
Like I said before, let go of the idiot myth, and look at what's really going on.
Kitsch, like taste, is completely relative anymore. Maybe that will actually sink in one day.
über, i am not entirely sure what the other way is, but if you look at the beginning of the thread (the discussion with nam specially) you will see my thoughts on it. I guess I want a way other than both the current starchitecture system and a uncritical return to the anonymity that Nobel calls for.
What is really going on?
I hope that it never sinks in...
Here's what's going on:
1. The star system is shrouded with lots of myth. The reality has more to do with PR, paying a publicist, designer labeling business, etc.
2. What you are really "longing" for is to be "published" without having to be a starchitect.
2a. By all means do not self-publish! That will render 'publishing' obsolete and all standards would be lost in the process--so much for the reality of relativity. [But don't be fooled, it's more just that the powers-that-be want to keep holding the power--the devil wears Prada and takes best care of itself.]
3. if you really want to make a change within the field of architecture, make sure you bring lots of money to the table first.
KITSCH IS THE ZEITGEIST.
Haven't you heard, Zeitgeist is so yesterday!
but aren't i being published in archinect without being a starchitect? we all are, and publishing IS beginning to become obsolete. The BOOK and MAGAZINE will begin to dematerialize into media, (thoughtful) editing and compiling of media (from you tube to flickr, to...) is all that's left to be done. What happens when that hits architecture?
?
Well, it looks like something is starting to sink it. So "being published" is what this is all really about. Good.
Just hit architecture with it and see what happens.
I've been hitting architecture with it for over a decade now. Generally, architecture pretends it's not happening, though all the while "appropriating" the hit ideas, and Architecture will definitely hit back if it has to.
Breaking the ice is the hardest part, but don't worry, that's already been done. What are you still waiting for?
"...starting to sink in."
(sorry +q, that was for über œuvred e suicidal)
good pr can rehabilitate anybody - all it takes is money. Most people forget that Phillip Johnson was a published anti-semite supporter of hitler in his youth- now all we do is celebrate his coming out of the glass closet and curating a few shows at moma.
say what you will about the national socialist party but at least they had an ethos, dude.
no, its say what you want about the tenants of national socialism, at least it's an ethos
tenets.
heh.
whatever you know what i meant
thanks for the correction!
le bossman, honestly I'm not sure what you mean, nor what vado means. Not that your necessarily saying something uncomprehendable or even wrong, I'd just don't want to second guess what you mean. What treekiller means (to do) I understand completely.
Is Johnson's published "anti-semite support of hitler" anywhere available online? Let's all see it.
i'm by no means an expert on philip johnson, but i did read his biography and if i recall correctly, his interest in germany had more to do with the nightlife of berlin than political involvement. he was a rather young man at that time (and quite wealthy too) so it's no surprise that he coasted along with some of the excitment in germany at the time...but i don't think it was ever documented that he was a "supporter" of hitler. in fact, he later served in the u.s. army during world war II after finishing school at harvard...and much of that time was spent cleaning toilets.
From "Form Follows Fascism", published 31 January 2005 in the NY Times:
Philip Johnson did not just flirt with fascism. He spent several years in his late 20's and early 30's - years when an artist's imagination usually begins to jell - consumed by fascist ideology. He tried to start a fascist party in the United States. He worked for Huey Long and Father Coughlin, writing essays on their behalf. He tried to buy the magazine American Mercury, then complained in a letter, "The Jews bought the magazine and are ruining it, naturally." He traveled several times to Germany. He thrilled to the Nuremberg rally of 1938 and, after the invasion of Poland, he visited the front at the invitation of the Nazis.
He approved of what he saw. "The German green uniforms made the place look gay and happy," he wrote in a letter. "There were not many Jews to be seen. We saw Warsaw burn and Modlin being bombed. It was a stirring spectacle." As late as 1940, Mr. Johnson was defending Hitler to the American public. It seems that only an inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation - and, presumably, the prospect of being labeled a traitor if America entered the war - led him to withdraw completely from politics.
Today, any debate over an important figure with a fascist or Communist background easily becomes an occasion for blame games between right and left. Mr. Johnson is no exception. Morally serious people can have different views of his personal culpability.
=====
So, did Johnson use his money to "rehibilitate" himself? Was he a shameless person? Was he really evil? What lead him to architecture?
incredible... i did not know this, but somehow it doesn't really shock me either. For now i am speechless, will have to let it settle.
And don't forget George Washington, the first president of the United States, was the largest slave-owner in Virginia. Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and amateur architect, bred his own servents, literally a fucking business.
these were different times
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