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icon 058: The Twenty Essential Young Architects

From their website

"icon names its 20 essential young architects – the rising practices who are achieving more than ever, earlier than ever. Some are putting up skyscrapers in their 30s, others are changing the way the profession works without building a thing, and they're all in icon 058."



Has anyone read this issue yet? I am very inclined to buy it, just so i can toe the party line....

Any thoughts on their list if you have read it?


 
Mar 12, 08 12:01 pm
simples

"essential"...curious choice of words...

Mar 12, 08 1:07 pm  · 
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holz.box

essential for whom?

let's make our own list...

olgiati
Jan Olav Jensen
adjaye
bjarke ingels

Mar 12, 08 1:22 pm  · 
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dammit. you mean i'm not essential?

Mar 12, 08 2:02 pm  · 
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every year it gets more essential and soon after that it is not necessary...
what did i just said?

Mar 12, 08 2:10 pm  · 
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what a tease...

who are they?

Mar 12, 08 8:15 pm  · 
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Wish i knew...
I hopefully can find somewhere to buy the issue..

Mar 13, 08 12:34 pm  · 
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cracker

engineers are essential
architects are desirable

Mar 13, 08 12:40 pm  · 
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wurdan freo

All you really need is a good contractor

Mar 13, 08 3:24 pm  · 
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vado retro

so by putting up a nonessential building you become essential?

Mar 13, 08 3:47 pm  · 
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fine line

Screw the metaphysical ruminations, here's the list...

REX (whether they now exist or not...)
Alejandro Arevena
Estudio Barozzi Veiga
FAT
Jesko Fezer
BIG
Architecture For Humanity
Serie
Philippe Rahm
6a
MAD
Work Architecture Company
Junya Ishigami
JDS Architects
Information Based Architecture
Limited Design
Carmody Groarke
Dorrel Gotmeh Tane
Sou Fujimoto
Feld 72

It seems that having a three letter acronym as a name improves the chances of your office become 'essential'.

Mar 13, 08 6:24 pm  · 
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holz.box

1/2 these firms are OMA brats!

Mar 13, 08 6:31 pm  · 
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farwest1

That's Bjarke Ingals (BIG) on the cover. I can tell by the fact that he looks 13.

Mar 13, 08 6:38 pm  · 
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fine line

"Interestingly, of those who do build, by far the most successful in business terms are the practices who were nurtured by Rem Koolhaas at OMA."

- Says Icon Magazine

Mar 13, 08 6:40 pm  · 
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farwest1

Also, there are hundreds of young firms doing good work.

Why don't these magazines ever call the article "A Few Young Firms Doing Interesting Work"?

Instead of "The One and Only Definitive Guide to Who's Essential Under Forty (For Now...But Buy Our New Issue Next Month To Find out Who Will Be Essential Then)"

Mar 13, 08 6:41 pm  · 
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fine line

Yes it is. He's pretty succesful (read 'big' - pun intended) at just 33. Didn't realise he was that young.

Mar 13, 08 6:41 pm  · 
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farwest1

i love their web address, too: www.big.dk

Mar 13, 08 6:58 pm  · 
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Cameron

wha? we are on the list? weird.

I wonder if they realize AFH represents 20+ designers and 3700+ volunteers. Doesn't that make the list 'the essential 3740'?

/decent contractors and great clients are 'essential'.

Mar 13, 08 10:03 pm  · 
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Cameron, good point spread the accolades..I am surprise you didn't even know that AFH was included.

I should have guessed that the Bjarke. Looks like him even without a face.
Also, i must say i do dig a number of the listed. although i only recognize perhaps 1/3 of them.

Mar 13, 08 10:54 pm  · 
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aspect

essential usually means something good for u but taste like shit.

Mar 14, 08 6:54 am  · 
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Louisville Architect
Some are putting up skyscrapers in their 30s, others are changing the way the profession works without building a thing...

amazingly misleading copy.

rex, (i.e., 'putting up a skyscraper in their 30s') are depending on a huge team of consultants, including a skyscraper-specializing-architecture firm in tx, to make this thing work. they're simply the brand.

and i wonder if 95% of professionals in the profession know that some kids in manhattan or rotterdam are 'changing the way the profession works'? more likely these guys are developing a different profession, one that doesn't require the construction industry at all...just curators.

Mar 14, 08 7:51 am  · 
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Not-per....

Interesting point about many of these firms creating a new profession without contractors or the construction industry. One wherein architecture =installation art. Sure the same creative processes and methodologies and technologies may and are (at least in some limited fashion).

Mar 14, 08 8:18 am  · 
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liberty bell

Work AC continues to rock - I adore them.

Cameron, congrats and yes you are right - every volunteer counts, and in real life are likely far more essential than we regular practitioners.

farwest, love your alternate and far more truthful headline!!

Mar 14, 08 9:00 am  · 
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liberty bell

Oh and fine line - big thank you for lifting the veil!!!

Mar 14, 08 9:01 am  · 
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Cameron

Alejandro Arevena is awesome FYI. huge fan.... There are also a couple of firms that entered our recent challenge that are pretty rocking. Don't know who they are yet...

Mar 14, 08 9:23 am  · 
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Yeah Fine line..
Thanks for posting the list!

Mar 14, 08 10:25 am  · 
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AP

work ac does rock. saw them lecture last week for the arch league emerging voices series (i like that term "title" better - emerging voices vs. essential blablabla). dan wood and amale andraos are an entertaining and intelligent pair. the play well off of each other (personality, sensibility).
the co-presentation garnered plenty of laughs and the work (built - more than i expected - and unbuilt) impressed. they seem to be delivering quality architectural service to a variety of client types, all while successfully making quality architecture. big ups.

the other 3 firms that have presented in this series so far were really good too, and all for different reasons:
El Dorado, Inc. (5 guys +)
Onion Flats (4 guys +)
Stoss LU (Chris Reed)

one thing that is clearly evident from the 8 young practices selected for this year's emerging voices series is that they are all following their own very specific paths....perhaps defining or developing a number of hybrid professions along the way (architecture + fabrication, design+build+develop++)...

Mar 14, 08 10:28 am  · 
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AP

* i like that "title" or "term" better...

Mar 14, 08 10:29 am  · 
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n_

^ Good call on Onion Flats. I'm a big fan of their work.

Mar 14, 08 7:24 pm  · 
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holz.box

werd. very nice.

Mar 14, 08 7:30 pm  · 
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willisimon

The diagram from the article is now online here

May 2, 08 2:28 pm  · 
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The full article is now up on Icon's website...


[url=http://www.iconeye.com/index.php?view=article&catid=403%3A+ICON-058-april-2008&layout=default&id=3370%3Athe-20-essential-young-architects&option=com_contentThe 20 Essential Young Architects[/url]

Aug 11, 08 10:48 pm  · 
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Ahhhhh

20 Essential Young Architects

Aug 11, 08 10:49 pm  · 
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There we go.

Aug 11, 08 10:50 pm  · 
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Damm spawn of OMA.

Aug 11, 08 10:58 pm  · 
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holz.box

i didn't know sauerbruch + hutton were OMA brats. damn...

Aug 12, 08 2:06 am  · 
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holz.box

and bjarke's manifesto:

BIGamy (you can have both)


The traditional image of the radical architect is the angry young man rebelling against the establishment. The avant-garde is defined more by what it is against than what it is for. This leads to an oedipal succession of contradictions where each generation says the opposite of the previous. And if your agenda is dependant on being the opposite of someone else’s, you are simply a follower – in reverse.

Rather than being radical by saying fuck the establishment, fuck gravity, fuck the neighbours, fuck the budget, fuck the context – we want to try to turn pleasing into a radical agenda.

What if design could be the opposite of conflict? Not by ignoring it, but by feeding off it. A way to incorporate and integrate differences – not through compromise or by choosing sides, but by tying conflicting interests into a Gordian knot of new ideas.

We propose to let the forces of society decide which of our ideas can live, and which must die. Surviving ideas will evolve through mutation and crossbreeding into an entirely new species of architecture.

An inclusive rather than exclusive architecture. An architecture unburdened by conceptual monogamy. An architecture where you don’t have to choose between public or private, dense or open, angled or curved, blond or brunette etc. An architecture where you can have both.

Aug 12, 08 2:08 am  · 
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Yeah!
Bigamy.
But in all seriousness it is an interesting proposal. Why create or perpetuate conflict for style's sake. When resolution of conflict is so much more interesting and useful.

Aug 12, 08 8:44 am  · 
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