I've been thinking about posting this thread after reading and seeing a few other posts in random places. It seems that the architecture that we are used to seeing on the internet, and in publications are glossy renderings or newly-builts. I've tried to search for images of the same buildings 5-10 years after they are built, but they're hard to find. It seems like architects don't seem to be accounting for aging of their structures very well. Perhaps it's the use of the building that "greys" it, or when materials begin to fall apart or separate. I wish i could find some pictures to post with this, but i remember seeing images of one of Hadid's buildings, where a piece of the exterior was smashed in, and trash was scattered around the exterior. It's interesting to see these images, so if anyone knows of any such projects, here's the place to post them.
What does this aging mean for the building? What happens to them after the press-coverage? What happens to materials after a few seasons? I'm mainly talking about "famous" (for lack of a better term) buildings by well-known architects. I want to see what poor detailing and poor planning does to these buildings because it's just as pertinent, if not more, than the "concept" that is so heavily addressed for alot of projects.
Any literature or links or images would be helpful. Go!
exactly, architects such as ando clearly address this, and i think alot of swedish/scand designers and architects do too, their structures are beautiful, and the aging process enhances them, they look like they were built to age. but where is this in projects by morphosis or hadid, gehry and most other "star-chitects?"
thats true, zumthor is one of my favorite architects, my materials professor would constantly show his work.
what i'm trying to get at is this: i'm not trying to discredit these architects, i'm just trying to justify the difference between the presentation of these projects through literature or the internet where they are heavily talked about, and the reality of these projects. I'm only in my third year of architecture and i knew relatively little about it before college so i haven't had the chance to visit many of the "big" projects and "big" buildings. When i see images of a Hadid's work decaying, it leaves me wondering about the condition of alot of projects.
threeewizman, one of the now-gone architecture monthlies - was it Architecture Magazine? - had a short-lived feature in which they revisited an important project ten or so years later. I loved that feature. Your school library might have back copies of the magazine on file - this would be from maybe 1997-98 or so?
And I love the idea of this thread - if anyone has good personal shots of poor aging of buildings, it would be educational to see them.
I saw an image once of Villa Savoye when it was dilapidated and covered in graffiti. I actually prefered it in that state. I'm sorry I can't find the photo online.
yeah i've seen that image too, and i found this when i did a google search
"Stinking of urine, smeared with excrement and covered with obscene graffiti,” he [Tschumi] wrote, “the Villa Savoye was never so moving as when the plaster fell off its concrete blocks.” The experience he had there at the ruined Villa Savoye was what he called “the moment of architecture” – he explained – “that moment when architecture is life and death at the same time, when the experience of space becomes its own concept.” This “moment”, he went on, was achieved when a building, paradoxically, reached the point of collapse.
This is a great topic. I bought the Mostafavi and Leatherbarrow book mentioned above, and was quite disappointed; too much philosophy and too little usable (or even interesting) factual information. The cover photo is nice. I have seen no other volumes on this important subject -- surprisingly.
Pictures exist of Villa Sovoye with hay bales stored in it. One was sure that it was doomed. . .
i searched for those photos for about an hour earlier today, and all that i found was a written account of a photographer that visited the site in the mid-1960's, I believe that it was renovated towards the beginning of the 1980's. Architecture is so completely different than anything else. It has a very artistic and theoretical aspect, that is clearly evident with works by Corbu or Hadid, but the work also has to last the ages, and many don't. But there is something beautiful about "dead" or "dying" structure. I love those pictures that agfa posted, it doesn't take a long time at all for these structures to appear completely abandoned, while they could be only ten years old.
kahn asked that we imagine the buildings we design as future ruins.
besides that, wasn't entropy a common theme in architecture schools in the late 80s/early 90s? did nobody write about it? i think this was an extension of the fact that the phenomenology folks were fans of materials that rusted, cracked, patinaed, or rotted and became set pieces. we still are, i guess.
clients, of course, want it to look new forever - and with no maintenance.
hmm, everyone seems to want to wrap their projects in foil now, like Augusten Burroughs... my studio has been criting monday and today, and most of the rendered images have such a high reflection value that they appear virtually white, or as distorted images of the context.
and another thing that i noticed at crits today, at least 5 or so presentations had boxes of text in 36 font with words like
innovative
open
connection
community
horizontal
vertical
transparent
(I'm being serious, i jotted these down in my sketch from a girls board.)
some people just don't have any presentation skills...sorry about being off topic, i side-track easily
Eeep...jurors hate that filler crap. When I see it on a presentation, I switch off. A presentation should be able to convey its intent through drawings and strong graphic layout.
Worse when they misspell the filler crap words. End of rant.
i mean, the building itself doesn't appear in bad shape except for the graffiti, what makes it look so bad is all of the weeds and plants that are overgrown, otherwise all of the glass looks intact etc.
After reading that post threeewiz, I feel like the best thesis project one could possibly present is just an actual built construct, maybe I should go see if rural studio takes transfer credits.
yeah i would love to do a design build, psu is doing the Solar D competition now in Washington, but i was only a first year when we started building the house, and i had no idea what was going on so i didn't hop on board. I'm going to look for something this summer, it's easy to sit behind a computer and criticize these architects (as i've been doing) but i really want to know how to put this stuff together. I know that i can design and do the whole glossy presentation, i have it pretty well down, but i need to know how the "brick is meetin' the steel" (as my mat. prof always put it).
by critiquing these building i'm not trying to be smug, it's good to learn from other's mistakes, especially the well-publicized ones....
That's all we have: learning form the successes and failures of others. That's surely in the tradition of architecture. As a cabinetmaker I used to suggest that those who run, and work in, a shop should take field trips to see how the work is holding up.
Longevity of buildings i think has come up on discussion board before..
It certainly seems as if on a basic level a structure like all things needs to age...
Whether it does poorly or not, i would think is a by product perhaps not so of the design process but the build process.
Of course there is also Bilboa..Didn't Ballard just revist it in the news
Does longevity include style??? and Aesthetic or just durability?..And arent we simply talking about factors of sustainability..as well as what is beautiful architecture?
I've taken this subject on as a sideline to my studio work this year. It's for personal interest, nothing more. We don't have a ton of starchitecture up here in Winnipeg, so the majority of the photos I've collected are of everyday buildings. I've been trying to 'record' the decay of the built environment.... I think it speaks of our (designers) constant battle with the natural environment (weather, people, etc).
It's amazing what you can find when you're looking for it. A constant drip of water onto a concrete foundation will ruin it faster than you could know. It's amazing. It's also similar to engineering - you can only know how strong a structure actually is by causing it to fail. Buildings can only fight weather for so long before it starts crumbling.
I do have a bunch of photos, but I can't post them at the moment. I love this topic so I'll post some pics when I get the chance.
that's a beautiful facade. It seems like structures most prone to decay tend to be located in Rural areas, where it is easier for plants and weeds to grow, also property values are typically lower there so there is a chance for abandonment.
i cringed the first time that i saw this image, i think it has to do with the structure seemingly rising out of the parking lot, weird. I have a feeling this will fair poorly.
and yes that third image is almost entirely concrete, the roof, stairs, floors ceilings, even the window mullions were all concrete, its a beautiful building, and it was built almost 100 years ago. The castle is called Fonthill, in Doylestown, PA, and it's one of the first uses of reinforced concrete. Henry Mercer (builder) basically piled up dirt mounds and poured concrete over it (obviously a little more technical than that, but you'd be surprised), and all of the ceilings on the interior are covered with bright hand-made tiles from all over the world. I can't find any interior shots but its crazy, there are something like 30+ staircases and 20 balconies. He just kept adding to it, i just thought that i would show it because it realy is one of the most interesting buildings i've ever been in
I think we had a similar concrete castle in northern Massachusetts or southern New Hampshire. Don't know if it was built as this one was.
The shot of Chandigarh reminds me that some masonry buildings do well with an occasional pressure-washing or steam-cleaning. I wonder if concrete would respond well to similar treatment. Somehow, stone seems to be able to look all right even when dirty or discolored -- or maybe I mean rough-faced stone only ?
ando's buildings do not all age well. Some of his early houses look quite nice still, but when i went to see rokko housing it was literally black with whatever stains had accumulated on its surface over the years. ugly as hell. the reason for this was that ando refused to use caps (what you call them in english?) on his parapets cuz they would spoil the architectural purity. don't let the romance of his work fool you, he is as willfully stubborn about form as thom mayne or steve holl. recent works seem to be doing better, i think cuz the waterproof coatings available for concrete now are just better.
i have pics somewhere in a closet, back in canada, or i would post.
Corb's building in Chandigarh is awesome. His concrete buildings have fared extraordinarily well. I have a book on his buildings specifically written about how they have weathered over the decades. Can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but the photography is very impressive. Corb's use of color is surprising, especially when you visit his buildings in person.
In a much more vernacular way, UCSD's modernist campus is a good study... done by multiple architects in the late '60s, it's been re-appropriated and adapted multiple times.. sometimes badly, sometimes amazingly well. Check out how the new Women's Center relates to the Quincy Jones' Mandeville Center, creating a new set of courts spaces... or, less sucessfully, how Geisel Library's base has recently become partially buried into a landscape architecture scheme
Aging Architecture
I've been thinking about posting this thread after reading and seeing a few other posts in random places. It seems that the architecture that we are used to seeing on the internet, and in publications are glossy renderings or newly-builts. I've tried to search for images of the same buildings 5-10 years after they are built, but they're hard to find. It seems like architects don't seem to be accounting for aging of their structures very well. Perhaps it's the use of the building that "greys" it, or when materials begin to fall apart or separate. I wish i could find some pictures to post with this, but i remember seeing images of one of Hadid's buildings, where a piece of the exterior was smashed in, and trash was scattered around the exterior. It's interesting to see these images, so if anyone knows of any such projects, here's the place to post them.
What does this aging mean for the building? What happens to them after the press-coverage? What happens to materials after a few seasons? I'm mainly talking about "famous" (for lack of a better term) buildings by well-known architects. I want to see what poor detailing and poor planning does to these buildings because it's just as pertinent, if not more, than the "concept" that is so heavily addressed for alot of projects.
Any literature or links or images would be helpful. Go!
Great book on this subject - "On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time" by Mohsen Mostafavi.
Ando's work is forever...
exactly, architects such as ando clearly address this, and i think alot of swedish/scand designers and architects do too, their structures are beautiful, and the aging process enhances them, they look like they were built to age. but where is this in projects by morphosis or hadid, gehry and most other "star-chitects?"
maybe it's who you define as a "Starchitect"
fehn, herzog + de meuron, zumthor all have projects that age gracefully.
and i'm digging how foster's project in st. moritz is aging...
thats true, zumthor is one of my favorite architects, my materials professor would constantly show his work.
what i'm trying to get at is this: i'm not trying to discredit these architects, i'm just trying to justify the difference between the presentation of these projects through literature or the internet where they are heavily talked about, and the reality of these projects. I'm only in my third year of architecture and i knew relatively little about it before college so i haven't had the chance to visit many of the "big" projects and "big" buildings. When i see images of a Hadid's work decaying, it leaves me wondering about the condition of alot of projects.
A proper building is like a fine wine, it should only get better with age.
threeewizman, one of the now-gone architecture monthlies - was it Architecture Magazine? - had a short-lived feature in which they revisited an important project ten or so years later. I loved that feature. Your school library might have back copies of the magazine on file - this would be from maybe 1997-98 or so?
And I love the idea of this thread - if anyone has good personal shots of poor aging of buildings, it would be educational to see them.
I saw an image once of Villa Savoye when it was dilapidated and covered in graffiti. I actually prefered it in that state. I'm sorry I can't find the photo online.
Not aging so well.
I thought that building was practically new?
was it gropius who said, "wait until the vines grow"?
Whoa, that building has really let itself go....
yeah i've seen that image too, and i found this when i did a google search
"Stinking of urine, smeared with excrement and covered with obscene graffiti,” he [Tschumi] wrote, “the Villa Savoye was never so moving as when the plaster fell off its concrete blocks.” The experience he had there at the ruined Villa Savoye was what he called “the moment of architecture” – he explained – “that moment when architecture is life and death at the same time, when the experience of space becomes its own concept.” This “moment”, he went on, was achieved when a building, paradoxically, reached the point of collapse.
This is a great topic. I bought the Mostafavi and Leatherbarrow book mentioned above, and was quite disappointed; too much philosophy and too little usable (or even interesting) factual information. The cover photo is nice. I have seen no other volumes on this important subject -- surprisingly.
Pictures exist of Villa Sovoye with hay bales stored in it. One was sure that it was doomed. . .
i searched for those photos for about an hour earlier today, and all that i found was a written account of a photographer that visited the site in the mid-1960's, I believe that it was renovated towards the beginning of the 1980's. Architecture is so completely different than anything else. It has a very artistic and theoretical aspect, that is clearly evident with works by Corbu or Hadid, but the work also has to last the ages, and many don't. But there is something beautiful about "dead" or "dying" structure. I love those pictures that agfa posted, it doesn't take a long time at all for these structures to appear completely abandoned, while they could be only ten years old.
kahn asked that we imagine the buildings we design as future ruins.
besides that, wasn't entropy a common theme in architecture schools in the late 80s/early 90s? did nobody write about it? i think this was an extension of the fact that the phenomenology folks were fans of materials that rusted, cracked, patinaed, or rotted and became set pieces. we still are, i guess.
clients, of course, want it to look new forever - and with no maintenance.
i prefer the kids who made their new houses look like dilapidated old sheds. sweetness
hmm, everyone seems to want to wrap their projects in foil now, like Augusten Burroughs... my studio has been criting monday and today, and most of the rendered images have such a high reflection value that they appear virtually white, or as distorted images of the context.
and another thing that i noticed at crits today, at least 5 or so presentations had boxes of text in 36 font with words like
innovative
open
connection
community
horizontal
vertical
transparent
(I'm being serious, i jotted these down in my sketch from a girls board.)
some people just don't have any presentation skills...sorry about being off topic, i side-track easily
yeah, studio poetry...
nuthin' but filler and a distraction from the [lack] of development in the project
Eeep...jurors hate that filler crap. When I see it on a presentation, I switch off. A presentation should be able to convey its intent through drawings and strong graphic layout.
Worse when they misspell the filler crap words. End of rant.
Great flickr set, agfa.
Hey, no fair photographing when surfaces are partially wetted with rain. . .!
haha i know i realized that too and it definitely adds to the decrepit look, but they're really nice photos
i mean, the building itself doesn't appear in bad shape except for the graffiti, what makes it look so bad is all of the weeds and plants that are overgrown, otherwise all of the glass looks intact etc.
After reading that post threeewiz, I feel like the best thesis project one could possibly present is just an actual built construct, maybe I should go see if rural studio takes transfer credits.
yeah i would love to do a design build, psu is doing the Solar D competition now in Washington, but i was only a first year when we started building the house, and i had no idea what was going on so i didn't hop on board. I'm going to look for something this summer, it's easy to sit behind a computer and criticize these architects (as i've been doing) but i really want to know how to put this stuff together. I know that i can design and do the whole glossy presentation, i have it pretty well down, but i need to know how the "brick is meetin' the steel" (as my mat. prof always put it).
by critiquing these building i'm not trying to be smug, it's good to learn from other's mistakes, especially the well-publicized ones....
That's all we have: learning form the successes and failures of others. That's surely in the tradition of architecture. As a cabinetmaker I used to suggest that those who run, and work in, a shop should take field trips to see how the work is holding up.
Rural Studio, Mason's Bend
gah, that's a great piece of architecture, good stuff SDR, it still looks brand new on the interior
I think these were taken when new. Just trying to encourage Apurimac.
Now THAT, is a thesis project!
Yeah -- this is such a sweet little building.
Le's all build something. Nothing feels better.
i think i'm out of place in the center of PA...
Wow,
I love Rural Studio....and this thread.
@ Steven love that Kahn quote!
Longevity of buildings i think has come up on discussion board before..
It certainly seems as if on a basic level a structure like all things needs to age...
Whether it does poorly or not, i would think is a by product perhaps not so of the design process but the build process.
Of course there is also Bilboa..Didn't Ballard just revist it in the news
http://archinect.com/news/article.php?id=65751_0_24_0_C
Does longevity include style??? and Aesthetic or just durability?..And arent we simply talking about factors of sustainability..as well as what is beautiful architecture?
I've taken this subject on as a sideline to my studio work this year. It's for personal interest, nothing more. We don't have a ton of starchitecture up here in Winnipeg, so the majority of the photos I've collected are of everyday buildings. I've been trying to 'record' the decay of the built environment.... I think it speaks of our (designers) constant battle with the natural environment (weather, people, etc).
It's amazing what you can find when you're looking for it. A constant drip of water onto a concrete foundation will ruin it faster than you could know. It's amazing. It's also similar to engineering - you can only know how strong a structure actually is by causing it to fail. Buildings can only fight weather for so long before it starts crumbling.
I do have a bunch of photos, but I can't post them at the moment. I love this topic so I'll post some pics when I get the chance.
As beautiful as the day it was finished....
zaha eat your heart out...
slantsix, don't you guys have a sick library?
antipodean, that building would be leed platinum++, if they used such a retarded system
Where is that building, and when was it built ? Is that a rain screen, or is the glass weathertight ?
zumthor's kunsthaus bregenz (AT). built in 90-97.
rain screen, there's an air tight clear glass layer behind the milchglas.
details avilable here eva.ac.at/publ/pdf/keepcool_bpp_austria4.pdf
that's a beautiful facade. It seems like structures most prone to decay tend to be located in Rural areas, where it is easier for plants and weeds to grow, also property values are typically lower there so there is a chance for abandonment.
i cringed the first time that i saw this image, i think it has to do with the structure seemingly rising out of the parking lot, weird. I have a feeling this will fair poorly.
and now for some pleasant images
and yes that third image is almost entirely concrete, the roof, stairs, floors ceilings, even the window mullions were all concrete, its a beautiful building, and it was built almost 100 years ago. The castle is called Fonthill, in Doylestown, PA, and it's one of the first uses of reinforced concrete. Henry Mercer (builder) basically piled up dirt mounds and poured concrete over it (obviously a little more technical than that, but you'd be surprised), and all of the ceilings on the interior are covered with bright hand-made tiles from all over the world. I can't find any interior shots but its crazy, there are something like 30+ staircases and 20 balconies. He just kept adding to it, i just thought that i would show it because it realy is one of the most interesting buildings i've ever been in
I think we had a similar concrete castle in northern Massachusetts or southern New Hampshire. Don't know if it was built as this one was.
The shot of Chandigarh reminds me that some masonry buildings do well with an occasional pressure-washing or steam-cleaning. I wonder if concrete would respond well to similar treatment. Somehow, stone seems to be able to look all right even when dirty or discolored -- or maybe I mean rough-faced stone only ?
zumthor makes some very fine architecture.
ando's buildings do not all age well. Some of his early houses look quite nice still, but when i went to see rokko housing it was literally black with whatever stains had accumulated on its surface over the years. ugly as hell. the reason for this was that ando refused to use caps (what you call them in english?) on his parapets cuz they would spoil the architectural purity. don't let the romance of his work fool you, he is as willfully stubborn about form as thom mayne or steve holl. recent works seem to be doing better, i think cuz the waterproof coatings available for concrete now are just better.
i have pics somewhere in a closet, back in canada, or i would post.
Ha spot the Zumthor detail!
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Corb's building in Chandigarh is awesome. His concrete buildings have fared extraordinarily well. I have a book on his buildings specifically written about how they have weathered over the decades. Can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but the photography is very impressive. Corb's use of color is surprising, especially when you visit his buildings in person.
Pavillion Suisse in Paris
La Tourette
Unite d'Habitation
So many early modern photos were monochrome; it still surprises me to see some of these buildings in color !
Corb was all about color, his interiors are shockingly bright, almost lurid. I liked them a lot.
There's a book -- possibly loose-leaf or ring-bound ? -- that has his colors and combinations. May have been reprinted not too long ago.
is that arthur ruegg's polychromie architecturale?
In a much more vernacular way, UCSD's modernist campus is a good study... done by multiple architects in the late '60s, it's been re-appropriated and adapted multiple times.. sometimes badly, sometimes amazingly well. Check out how the new Women's Center relates to the Quincy Jones' Mandeville Center, creating a new set of courts spaces... or, less sucessfully, how Geisel Library's base has recently become partially buried into a landscape architecture scheme
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