Wolf Prix lectured last night at the Cooper Union and Thomas Mayne was on hand to make the introduction and lead the Q&A after.
Overall, I enjoyed the lecture but I went away thinking that Thomas Mayne and Wolf Prix both seemed pathetic. Anthony Vidler (played by Richard Attenborough) started with a mini introduction for Mayne and Prix by emphasizing their rebellious, anti establishment attitude. Thomas Mayne introduced Prix by calling him an optimist and a provocateur that attacks complacency--he also mentioned Lincoln, Galileo and Einstein. There was much praise for Prix.
Throughout the lecture and discussion afterward they kept touching on the idea of rebellion and made the occasional reference to Rock n'Roll. Prix ended his lecture by playing Purple Haze. Mayne played the air guitar! It was a nice touch but it just reminded me of how old they are and that this auditorium filled with young architects exists in a very different period--Prix seems detached from that. Mayne seems like the one in between. He is the aging architect and it seemed like he was trying to get Prix to talk about the apparent contradictions between his work and philosophy and the technologies and methods of today. They also had the word "NOW" projected behind them during the Q&A--nice touch but "REMEMBER WHEN" would have been more appropriate. The lecture was called "And Also Now" - or something like that.
It seemed like Prix didn't want to address the contradictions head on. What is he rebelling against now? What was strange to me was that even as a young architect he decided to rebel against gravity. Really? Gravity? As a student I enjoyed the thought that architecture is a political act. Is gravity political? That seems just poetic, but unlike poetry, architecture is real. Architecture is even more real than legislation. Maybe someone can clear this up for me.
Someone in the audience asked a question linking Brancusi (Prix mentioned in the lecture) and Calatrava. I think Coop-immelblau's rooftop falkestrasse can be compared to some work by Calatrava. "oh don't get him started on that" Mayne said. Of course Prix doesn't like Calatrava--and didn't want to be linked at all to him--but it was a good point to bring up. Prix called Calatrava a "kitschist" but didn't address his own kitsch and why its better.
I'm wondering if what I noticed wasn't so much pathetic hypocrisy or denial but just what happens to the sincere and unwavering architect as he/she ages.
Also, post lecture conversation with friends circled around rebellion. As a young architect what is my agenda and does it require a rebellion? Perhaps in 1968 change could come from marches and protest. Now we are more likely to seek change through technology or new media. Today we are more likely to make a facebook group, or blog. Maybe the cathartic protests of the 60s were replaced by new nerdier media savvy ways or organizing. Even our premier agent of change, Obama, is so very polished and disciplined and a little nerdy.
i've continually thought that one of the severe deficiencies of the architecture profession is that most, from starchitects to local guys, develop a methodology and then become too busy to ever think about changing it. Most even stop paying attention to the world outside of the world they've created for themselves.
it's made us extremely slow to adapt to shifts is cultural context, which is piss.
I've never bought into Wolf Prix's arguments? They are visions for an architecture that is not yet understood and realized, his work certainly doesn't realize what he "envisions." Sometimes I wonder how anti-establishment these guys are, especially when they are producing such high-profile work that someone has to pay for. It's also ridiculous to mention Wolf Prix in the same sentence as Galileo and Newton
great commentary, davvid. i could imagine myself thinking the exact same things at that lecture.
i always found it amusing that dave hickey wrote a book called "air guitar." everytime i try to imagine that old stodge playing air guitar i chuckle a little bit to myself. also, the term "bad boy" should never be applied to architects of any age.
Good interesting write-up. I could sadly not attend due to having the luxury of being employed, and overly so.
Perhaps it is not that Prix has aged, but that he remained the same.
Bjarke Ingels as well as the principals of SHoP have had some interesting thoughts on the notion of rebellion and how to affect change in today's environment. Is it through standing up against the establishment - be it the architectural such or society in general - or is it through working from within and accepting economics as a guiding principle?
I totally disagree with the repeated opposing - here at archinect and elsewhere - of two aspects of creativity as:
young=rebellious/new ideas vs. old=conservative/set in your ways/no new ideas
this is a total oversimplification. i've already quoted lines in other threads as to why age is really irrelevant, so i won't here.
true, as one ages, one can become more inflexible and set in their ways, but i know young architects who are already inflexible and unimaginative and older ones who are fresh and exciting. it takes courage to "shoot the moon", to totally change your approach and go another way in mid-career: the truly great ones can do it at any age (picasso, dylan, jimmy carter) and it has nothing to do with whether they listen to hendrix or arcade fire.
"the truly great ones can do it at any age (picasso, dylan, jimmy carter)"
maybe putting together a whole building is not so easy as writing a song or painting by the Mediterranean... plus, these people doesn't have codes to follow and no one's paying for their "experimental" new ways of creating new work. all bobby needs is a pen and a guitar, and Picasso just needed a dozen canvas.. you need some more things to build a, let's say, hospital in a new, completely different way...
I guess it's "cheaper" to change your musical direction than changing your architectural direction
wow, medit, talk about an oversimplification.
so that's all that dylan and picasso did, huh? it was just that easy. dylan was almost KILLED for going electric, and people like picasso and wright (and dylan) had lean years when they almost went under. it's not easy for anyone in the creative arts, and if you describe painting as simply "sitting by the mediterrenean" then you've never sat in front of a blank canvas, trying to come up with any idea, much less a radical one, with no program or codes or budget or client to set the parameters. your argument is specious at best.
Watch it, jafidler: Dave Hickey may not be a "bad boy" but he is a 100% true-dude badass and will kick yours for you if you'd like!
In a drastically oversimplified take on it: back in the 60's people were very self-consciously "rebelling against authority". The act of rebelling was as important as the product of the rebellion was (this is in architecture, not areas like civil rights, which were more revolution than rebellion).
kungapa raises an excellent point that architects like BIG and SHoP are working the system from within rather than simply "rebelling" in a shallow, adolescent reading of that word. Economics - achievement - being the driver.
I guess I think that we are quicker to call bullshit on an idea that is "new" but not good these days, which means one has to rebel while remaining serious. Someone else is typically paying for it, and unless you're a jerk you want to give that entity something for their money.
The sad truth is the current generation (and I'll very loosely lump this to anyone under 30) lacks rebellion, or a cause for one at least. There's no counter-culture of substance. We're the generation of excess, and that's made us lazy, and I daresay uninspiring.
Poor Prix is definitely living in a bubble, but at least his generation had Hendrix.
i'm rebelling against rebellion. not excess but simplification. not countercultural but intracultural. inspired but maybe not inspiring. not lazy, but not willing to give up life for work.
"We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
... the great T.Durden
good points davvid and i agree with much of your insight.
i attended with high hopes of being inspired for a current studio project and left rather deflated. prix contradicted himself a few times (i.e. the work is not program driven, but later, it is program driven, etc. . .) and danced around a lot with images, music, etc. but without much more.
it was also undeniable that coop's earlier work is far stronger than what the office is producing today. but to a certain degree, isn't every office/architect from that era in the same condition?
wow, medit, talk about an oversimplification.
so that's all that dylan and picasso did, huh? it was just that easy. dylan was almost KILLED for going electric, and people like picasso and wright (and dylan) had lean years when they almost went under. it's not easy for anyone in the creative arts, and if you describe painting as simply "sitting by the mediterrenean" then you've never sat in front of a blank canvas, trying to come up with any idea, much less a radical one, with no program or codes or budget or client to set the parameters. your argument is specious at best.
wow, Emilio, talk about arrogancy.
Dylan killed? what? Newport? are you serious? murdered by a bunch of folkies? were you there? or you just have been told?
you didnt' get my point, in fact, I actually have been with a blank canvas in some of the places where Picasso was at in Barcelona. He drew terraces, I drew buildings (for arch school). Of course my drawings were complete mediocrity compared to what he did, but we both spent the same $ to do that. And that's what I was saying: it's way cheaper (in cash) to be "radical" in music and painting than in built architecture (not paper arch), so, wether you accept it or not-, it's easier.
i also agree that both Mayne and Coop's earlier work is much more engaging... you can amost feel the will in the projects. it seems that technology has perhaps only helped them pursue bigger and more ambitious programs with quicker production turnarounds perhaps only articulating more "clumsy" forms and in doing so, took a tumble down the quality shithole with much of the rest of our profession.
as has already been said, at some point, the rebel MUST question himself in order to re validate (if to none other than themselves which is arguably the most important) the essence of their original "rebellious" positions... but how exhausting and confusing is it to constantly rebel against oneself and your already established (accepted) positions. such is the danger/thrill/purpose/challenge of having manifesto's.
I don't understand some of the incessant and focused need and attempt to understand why any architect "goes bad", how they have lost their methodology, or aren't in tune with today. Why the high expectations of "our starchitects"? Truly, what are we, as students, to gain from a starchitect?
We can all agree that the methodology of a starchitect today might not work for the next generation. As a grad student of architecture, I believe that we need to focus to learn what we can do build our own methodology. Sure, it includes learning past and current architects to with the pure intention of understanding, not ranting.
rambleon: your sentiments of our generation can be exactly the cause of our rebellion. At least, it's mine.
cowgill, as a genx/y, or however you would like to categorize me, someone who was born in 1980, I wholeheartedly disagree with that pessimistic quote. If no one can see the historical events and achievements made in the last 25-30 years, then that individual is surely blind, living in a bitter, microeconomic bubble.
Heh! These guys should do the Dancing with Stars next season as the first same sex couple!!!!!
Really embarrassing, are you sure they weren't on Viagra?
I haven't read any of the responses yet, back to work for me; but one comment.
I saw Prix talk about the new Performing Arts HS here in LA with LA Forum. The conflict in the ideas discussed with themselves and with physical realities was so great that I'm up to 1,500 words trying to work it out. I and still don't know anything except that it uses land very poorly, uses money very poorly, and might or might not be a failure.
BUT there's so much going on ideologically that even though it's a potential failure as a school, it doesn't mean it's a failure as a building... But what's not negotiable is if you're using Eli Broad's money to make a school, you're not a rebel.
And of course, that's just the reflection that one building makes; not a whole oeuvre.
I'll make sure to share any conclusion / further thought process I come to.
I think that the reason it is not so easy to change/be nimble in architecture is that it takes so damn long. If you are interested in actually building your work, how many substantial projects do you think that you can do to explore/vet even one idea? And how many years do you think it takes to even get those substantial projects?
well, medit, "killed" was creative exaggeration, and why the fuck is it arrogant to point out that no original creative pursuit is easy? the arrogancy was more in your voice which so easily dismisses those two great artist's difficulty at what they did achieve, just because it wasn't architecture.
but you are not seeing the forest for the trees. what you are pointing out is what real, built architecture has to go through to get built, not any particular's architect creative approach.
what i responded to was davvid's insinuation that maine and prix are played out creatively because they are old (and they may in fact be played out, but i submit that age is not the issue). now you may argue that architects have a harder time changing creative approach or ways of designing because it costs a lot of money to design something...and i will completely disagree with you. what i said is in no way "arrogant": i simply said that any creative act is difficult and true originality is rare, and to wipe the slate and go in a different directiontion after you've succeeded with an initial one is even rarer. now, you may argue that it's rarest in architecture, to which i responded, and will respond: it's just as rare and difficult in those other creative fields.
the fact is, once someone is known for something and that something has sold well, the temptation is to do that thing over and over...and that has not a wit to do with the difficulty of getting the thing to reality (as we know, maine and prix were already creative at this oh so difficult field, so why should it be so difficult for them to be creative with a slightly newer approach?).
if you are pounding the pavement day after day trying to get a recording or playing gig for your band, or an acting gig, or your work in a gallery, that's the practical end of the profession, the nuts and bolts, and it ain't easy for anyone: but it doesn't mean that with the next song you write, or the next bit of acting you do, or the next canvas you paint, you can't bring a new or different approach than what you were doing before, no matter what your age is...and that goes for your next architectural design, never mind if you're a starchitect or not.
"all bobby needs is a pen and a guitar, and Picasso just needed a dozen canvas" if that's true, then we should have dylans and picassos coming out of the wazoo, but, to my eyes, it's just the opposite now, there's more groundbreaking and radical architects around than in those other fields (to me, art and popular music are in a dismal state right now), and they get stuff built: how is that so, if it's as difficult as you say to build in a new and completely different way? seems like it's being done all over the world. so, whether you accept it or not, it's not easier or harder for architects than other creative fields.
"We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
... the great T.Durden
Steven Ward
11/21/08 12:24
^^^ written by a gen-x-er i think. sounds familiar.
It's from the movie "Fight Club." Tyler Durden was Brad Pitt's character. And I completely agree. But me thinks that times are quickly changing....
"The sad truth is the current generation (and I'll very loosely lump this to anyone under 30) lacks rebellion, or a cause for one at least. There's no counter-culture of substance. We're the generation of excess, and that's made us lazy, and I daresay uninspiring."
Wow, this just isn't true.
Maybe if you're privileged enough not to have a cause, you could remain ignorant of the counter-cultural spirit that definitely still goes on at a very, very large scale. Though I can see how it is not exactly rebellion or necessarily a "counter-culture" movement en masse in the same way that it was in the 1960s. There's been a huge evolution but the idea that "we" don't have a CAUSE for rebellion against oppressive/dominant culture is just silly.
i was born in the 60's so missed all the fun of that time. not that there was so much going on in my prairie kingdom anyway.
but i do remember the 80's and the sex and drugs and the stupid hair. it was pretty superficial. so being over thirty right now does not recommend too much to me based on my experience of the youth culture back when us old (er) folks were young.
i think it is easy to dismiss other people, for lacking vision; for being old and boring; for being young and boring; for just BEING (stop breathing MY air!).
which is not particularly interesting. if there were a rebellion today i would hope that it would be one that is FOR something without being against something else. that would be radical. otherwise its just politics and a lot of hard work put into making a place to stand where you can feel comfortable being self-righteous. frankly, a waste of time in my book.
so i am content to admire prix and mayne, and be awed by folks like cameron sinclair. the rest? well, you know most of the above is pretty obnoxious rubbish really. I would be more intrigued to hear what yall have done rather than how crappy this person is or how misinformed that person is. its the old put up or shuttup, really.
I'm sick and tired of starchitects too, but at least they did something back in 80-s. They're not relevant anymore. We have to think of our own ways to rebel if possible at all in such a field.
Unfortunately architecture as a profession has always been for rich kids, and they never have a cause to rebel. Boring.
I'm also interested who do you think can be called a rebel these days, I mean someone working as an architect?
i don't exactly have an opinion of coop himmelblau. some work is exciting to me, some less so. but i don't understand the 'not relevant' critiques of star architects. mayne is certainly among those pushing the work of the profession forward into new territory - getting work built that we could only draw and talk about before. now that i think about it, himmelblau is doing this as well. i don't love the bmw world because i think it's unnecessary/unsubstantive - all flash with very little reason - but it's certainly a realization of forms and tectonics that we've admired in unbuilt projects of the past.
these architects are warranted in their self-congratulation. they've done well in a profession in which it's hard to do well. they've gained the admiration of the profession, the public, and the academics. how can they not be relevant?
i read something last night about transitions from generation to generation. i'll have to find and post it. bottom line: just because there is new work and a new generation to promote it doesn't make the old work and the continuing work of a slightly older generation less valuable or less 'relevant'. that word gets thrown around a lot and i think it's used irresponsibly.
relevant to whom? students? developers? the construction industry? clients?
another thought: why is rebellion good? because their generation made it so. you might recognize that mayne and prix are settling in and enjoying the ride they created.
are you trying to repeat the spirit of their generation? so who's nostalgic?
i'll toss this into the mix. for what it's worth. the more things change...
the following is a passage from 'lotte in weimar', a book written by the great author thomas mann about the legacy of another great author, goethe, in 1939.
a young, modern female writer describes her contemporaries attitudes toward goethe:
"we are here...once more arrived at the subject of tyranny. not a harsh tyranny, but a natural one, probably inseparable from a certain dominating greatness; one does well to condone and respect it, while not actually yielding to its behests. he is great, and old, and little inclined to value what comes after him. but life goes on, it does not stop even at the greatest, and we are children of the new life...
we are independent and progressive minds, with the courage of the new times and new tastes. already we have found and love new gods...
they do not rival him...and yet - forgive me - they surpass him; simply because they are farther on in time, because they represent a new stage, nearer to us, more familiar, more akin, have things to tell us that are closer to our hearts than we can get from a commanding and forbidding greatness towering up like some ancient granite boulder amid the new life of the time. i beg you not think us irreverent. it is the time which is that, rejecting the old and bringing in the new. certainly, what comes after is a smaller growth. but it fits the time and the children of the time, the living and present; and with that we must deal, with an immediacy that leaves no room for reverence, but speaks to the hearts and nerves of those who are of it because it has brought them forth with itself."
Lame but appropriate quote of the thread: If I can see further it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants in Isaac Newton's use of the phrase, not Nietzsche's.
If anything, architecture proves that age is irrelevant. Buildings exist for decades, possibly centuries, and are still looked at as great architecture.
I think a lot just depends on what you've seen growing through school. When I started, Morphosis had one book, SMLXL hadn't been written, Hadid had one small El Croquis and Coop didn't really have much beyond ramblings and that rooftop conference room.
Everything was just ideas. The younger folk see all that has been done in the last 15 years and takes it for granted that we can always do something extraordinary and build it.
I'll wait to be proven wrong, but I'd guess that it will be a while before we have 'revolutionary' architects on caliber with the current crop of stararchitects.
If those stars were relevant at the moment, this topic would have never arisen. As I said before, I highly respect them for everything they did in the past, I personally love Morphosis, especially their early period, but now I just can’t stand their work anymore. It just resembles each other’s. It wasn’t like this before, when all the starchitects had their own face.
Do you really think that what they're doing now is great?
Actually they weren’t the first generations of rebels. They were developing the ideals of the Modernist’s Movement.
dismissing a good conversation by saying you've hurt my feelings, what? cheap.
this has nothing to do with me. MY work is irrelevant because it's not even part of the discussion. as long as these guys are an integral part of the teaching of architecture and the conversations among architects, i simply don't understand how they can be irrelevant.
what is relevant to you? who is relevant and how are they not derivative of these irrelevants? with what will you fill the void?
is it relevant that you personally 'just can't stand their work anymore'?
and, no, the post-68ers weren't the first generation of rebels. neither were the moderns.
each successive generation attempts a rebellion of some sort, attempting to push past their forbears to something more 'relevant'. but each rebellious generation is ultimately subsumed into the flow of history and becomes absorbed into the system against which they rebelled. at least partly the point of the mann excerpt i posted earlier.
one thing notable about the post-68ers, though, is that they did somehow think that they were BREAKING history. similar maybe to the turn-of-the-20thC russians. corb, by contrast, thought that his 'new spirit' in architecture was a next step - a part of the evolution of architectural and social history.
I can say that it was much more interesting for me to see not only the stars work, but work of other architects as well at the Venice biennale. I am sorry, but I’ve seen a lot of their stuff in the magazines, that’s enough. And I was happy not to see it again. Yes, this is my irrelevant personal opinion.
But people attending the lectures also feel there is something wrong with the stars. I think people’re disappointed. And the cause of this disappointment is that the stars are all respectable bourgeois now and that doesn’t correlate with their views.
"each successive generation attempts a rebellion of some sort, attempting to push past their forbears to something more 'relevant'. but each rebellious generation is ultimately subsumed into the flow of history and becomes absorbed into the system against which they rebelled."
~ Steven Ward
would it then also suffice to say that there is no such thing as rebellion and that it is just a label to differentiate a change in style and thus the flow of history has progressed to the next step? Why does progress and the evolution of something always have to be labeled a rebellion?
I mean, yes, they have changed the world, but going to their lectures is like going to a Jethro Tall gig, isn't it? You can even sing along with your favorite song, but isn't it sentimental?
watching old architects talk to each other
Wolf Prix lectured last night at the Cooper Union and Thomas Mayne was on hand to make the introduction and lead the Q&A after.
Overall, I enjoyed the lecture but I went away thinking that Thomas Mayne and Wolf Prix both seemed pathetic. Anthony Vidler (played by Richard Attenborough) started with a mini introduction for Mayne and Prix by emphasizing their rebellious, anti establishment attitude. Thomas Mayne introduced Prix by calling him an optimist and a provocateur that attacks complacency--he also mentioned Lincoln, Galileo and Einstein. There was much praise for Prix.
Throughout the lecture and discussion afterward they kept touching on the idea of rebellion and made the occasional reference to Rock n'Roll. Prix ended his lecture by playing Purple Haze. Mayne played the air guitar! It was a nice touch but it just reminded me of how old they are and that this auditorium filled with young architects exists in a very different period--Prix seems detached from that. Mayne seems like the one in between. He is the aging architect and it seemed like he was trying to get Prix to talk about the apparent contradictions between his work and philosophy and the technologies and methods of today. They also had the word "NOW" projected behind them during the Q&A--nice touch but "REMEMBER WHEN" would have been more appropriate. The lecture was called "And Also Now" - or something like that.
It seemed like Prix didn't want to address the contradictions head on. What is he rebelling against now? What was strange to me was that even as a young architect he decided to rebel against gravity. Really? Gravity? As a student I enjoyed the thought that architecture is a political act. Is gravity political? That seems just poetic, but unlike poetry, architecture is real. Architecture is even more real than legislation. Maybe someone can clear this up for me.
Someone in the audience asked a question linking Brancusi (Prix mentioned in the lecture) and Calatrava. I think Coop-immelblau's rooftop falkestrasse can be compared to some work by Calatrava. "oh don't get him started on that" Mayne said. Of course Prix doesn't like Calatrava--and didn't want to be linked at all to him--but it was a good point to bring up. Prix called Calatrava a "kitschist" but didn't address his own kitsch and why its better.
I'm wondering if what I noticed wasn't so much pathetic hypocrisy or denial but just what happens to the sincere and unwavering architect as he/she ages.
Also, post lecture conversation with friends circled around rebellion. As a young architect what is my agenda and does it require a rebellion? Perhaps in 1968 change could come from marches and protest. Now we are more likely to seek change through technology or new media. Today we are more likely to make a facebook group, or blog. Maybe the cathartic protests of the 60s were replaced by new nerdier media savvy ways or organizing. Even our premier agent of change, Obama, is so very polished and disciplined and a little nerdy.
Any thoughts?
Dont these guys have jobs and businesses to attend to? How is it they are always lecturing, holding a teaching post somewhere and book writing?
i've continually thought that one of the severe deficiencies of the architecture profession is that most, from starchitects to local guys, develop a methodology and then become too busy to ever think about changing it. Most even stop paying attention to the world outside of the world they've created for themselves.
it's made us extremely slow to adapt to shifts is cultural context, which is piss.
I've never bought into Wolf Prix's arguments? They are visions for an architecture that is not yet understood and realized, his work certainly doesn't realize what he "envisions." Sometimes I wonder how anti-establishment these guys are, especially when they are producing such high-profile work that someone has to pay for. It's also ridiculous to mention Wolf Prix in the same sentence as Galileo and Newton
great commentary, davvid. i could imagine myself thinking the exact same things at that lecture.
i always found it amusing that dave hickey wrote a book called "air guitar." everytime i try to imagine that old stodge playing air guitar i chuckle a little bit to myself. also, the term "bad boy" should never be applied to architects of any age.
Good interesting write-up. I could sadly not attend due to having the luxury of being employed, and overly so.
Perhaps it is not that Prix has aged, but that he remained the same.
Bjarke Ingels as well as the principals of SHoP have had some interesting thoughts on the notion of rebellion and how to affect change in today's environment. Is it through standing up against the establishment - be it the architectural such or society in general - or is it through working from within and accepting economics as a guiding principle?
I totally disagree with the repeated opposing - here at archinect and elsewhere - of two aspects of creativity as:
young=rebellious/new ideas vs. old=conservative/set in your ways/no new ideas
this is a total oversimplification. i've already quoted lines in other threads as to why age is really irrelevant, so i won't here.
true, as one ages, one can become more inflexible and set in their ways, but i know young architects who are already inflexible and unimaginative and older ones who are fresh and exciting. it takes courage to "shoot the moon", to totally change your approach and go another way in mid-career: the truly great ones can do it at any age (picasso, dylan, jimmy carter) and it has nothing to do with whether they listen to hendrix or arcade fire.
"the truly great ones can do it at any age (picasso, dylan, jimmy carter)"
maybe putting together a whole building is not so easy as writing a song or painting by the Mediterranean... plus, these people doesn't have codes to follow and no one's paying for their "experimental" new ways of creating new work. all bobby needs is a pen and a guitar, and Picasso just needed a dozen canvas.. you need some more things to build a, let's say, hospital in a new, completely different way...
I guess it's "cheaper" to change your musical direction than changing your architectural direction
The real act of rebelion is to not be a cliche rebel
wow, medit, talk about an oversimplification.
so that's all that dylan and picasso did, huh? it was just that easy. dylan was almost KILLED for going electric, and people like picasso and wright (and dylan) had lean years when they almost went under. it's not easy for anyone in the creative arts, and if you describe painting as simply "sitting by the mediterrenean" then you've never sat in front of a blank canvas, trying to come up with any idea, much less a radical one, with no program or codes or budget or client to set the parameters. your argument is specious at best.
and sounds more like an excuse for why an architect can't rethink the way he designs than a reason.
Watch it, jafidler: Dave Hickey may not be a "bad boy" but he is a 100% true-dude badass and will kick yours for you if you'd like!
In a drastically oversimplified take on it: back in the 60's people were very self-consciously "rebelling against authority". The act of rebelling was as important as the product of the rebellion was (this is in architecture, not areas like civil rights, which were more revolution than rebellion).
kungapa raises an excellent point that architects like BIG and SHoP are working the system from within rather than simply "rebelling" in a shallow, adolescent reading of that word. Economics - achievement - being the driver.
I guess I think that we are quicker to call bullshit on an idea that is "new" but not good these days, which means one has to rebel while remaining serious. Someone else is typically paying for it, and unless you're a jerk you want to give that entity something for their money.
The sad truth is the current generation (and I'll very loosely lump this to anyone under 30) lacks rebellion, or a cause for one at least. There's no counter-culture of substance. We're the generation of excess, and that's made us lazy, and I daresay uninspiring.
Poor Prix is definitely living in a bubble, but at least his generation had Hendrix.
i'm rebelling against rebellion. not excess but simplification. not countercultural but intracultural. inspired but maybe not inspiring. not lazy, but not willing to give up life for work.
Rebelling against gravity?! Thats hilarious...
I'm sorry but I just can't take anything Wolf Prix says seriously. His work is soooo bad.
Clumsy, clumsy forms one after another...
my sentiments on being under 30:
"We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
... the great T.Durden
^^^ written by a gen-x-er i think. sounds familiar.
good points davvid and i agree with much of your insight.
i attended with high hopes of being inspired for a current studio project and left rather deflated. prix contradicted himself a few times (i.e. the work is not program driven, but later, it is program driven, etc. . .) and danced around a lot with images, music, etc. but without much more.
it was also undeniable that coop's earlier work is far stronger than what the office is producing today. but to a certain degree, isn't every office/architect from that era in the same condition?
so that's all that dylan and picasso did, huh? it was just that easy. dylan was almost KILLED for going electric, and people like picasso and wright (and dylan) had lean years when they almost went under. it's not easy for anyone in the creative arts, and if you describe painting as simply "sitting by the mediterrenean" then you've never sat in front of a blank canvas, trying to come up with any idea, much less a radical one, with no program or codes or budget or client to set the parameters. your argument is specious at best.
wow, Emilio, talk about arrogancy.
Dylan killed? what? Newport? are you serious? murdered by a bunch of folkies? were you there? or you just have been told?
you didnt' get my point, in fact, I actually have been with a blank canvas in some of the places where Picasso was at in Barcelona. He drew terraces, I drew buildings (for arch school). Of course my drawings were complete mediocrity compared to what he did, but we both spent the same $ to do that. And that's what I was saying: it's way cheaper (in cash) to be "radical" in music and painting than in built architecture (not paper arch), so, wether you accept it or not-, it's easier.
slightly pre-genXer but no matter.
i also agree that both Mayne and Coop's earlier work is much more engaging... you can amost feel the will in the projects. it seems that technology has perhaps only helped them pursue bigger and more ambitious programs with quicker production turnarounds perhaps only articulating more "clumsy" forms and in doing so, took a tumble down the quality shithole with much of the rest of our profession.
as has already been said, at some point, the rebel MUST question himself in order to re validate (if to none other than themselves which is arguably the most important) the essence of their original "rebellious" positions... but how exhausting and confusing is it to constantly rebel against oneself and your already established (accepted) positions. such is the danger/thrill/purpose/challenge of having manifesto's.
[me thinks of lebbeus]
i would like to chime in for a moment...
I don't understand some of the incessant and focused need and attempt to understand why any architect "goes bad", how they have lost their methodology, or aren't in tune with today. Why the high expectations of "our starchitects"? Truly, what are we, as students, to gain from a starchitect?
We can all agree that the methodology of a starchitect today might not work for the next generation. As a grad student of architecture, I believe that we need to focus to learn what we can do build our own methodology. Sure, it includes learning past and current architects to with the pure intention of understanding, not ranting.
rambleon: your sentiments of our generation can be exactly the cause of our rebellion. At least, it's mine.
cowgill, as a genx/y, or however you would like to categorize me, someone who was born in 1980, I wholeheartedly disagree with that pessimistic quote. If no one can see the historical events and achievements made in the last 25-30 years, then that individual is surely blind, living in a bitter, microeconomic bubble.
Heh! These guys should do the Dancing with Stars next season as the first same sex couple!!!!!
Really embarrassing, are you sure they weren't on Viagra?
But much more entertaining than any genex I have seen.
I haven't read any of the responses yet, back to work for me; but one comment.
I saw Prix talk about the new Performing Arts HS here in LA with LA Forum. The conflict in the ideas discussed with themselves and with physical realities was so great that I'm up to 1,500 words trying to work it out. I and still don't know anything except that it uses land very poorly, uses money very poorly, and might or might not be a failure.
BUT there's so much going on ideologically that even though it's a potential failure as a school, it doesn't mean it's a failure as a building... But what's not negotiable is if you're using Eli Broad's money to make a school, you're not a rebel.
And of course, that's just the reflection that one building makes; not a whole oeuvre.
I'll make sure to share any conclusion / further thought process I come to.
I think that the reason it is not so easy to change/be nimble in architecture is that it takes so damn long. If you are interested in actually building your work, how many substantial projects do you think that you can do to explore/vet even one idea? And how many years do you think it takes to even get those substantial projects?
well, medit, "killed" was creative exaggeration, and why the fuck is it arrogant to point out that no original creative pursuit is easy? the arrogancy was more in your voice which so easily dismisses those two great artist's difficulty at what they did achieve, just because it wasn't architecture.
but you are not seeing the forest for the trees. what you are pointing out is what real, built architecture has to go through to get built, not any particular's architect creative approach.
what i responded to was davvid's insinuation that maine and prix are played out creatively because they are old (and they may in fact be played out, but i submit that age is not the issue). now you may argue that architects have a harder time changing creative approach or ways of designing because it costs a lot of money to design something...and i will completely disagree with you. what i said is in no way "arrogant": i simply said that any creative act is difficult and true originality is rare, and to wipe the slate and go in a different directiontion after you've succeeded with an initial one is even rarer. now, you may argue that it's rarest in architecture, to which i responded, and will respond: it's just as rare and difficult in those other creative fields.
the fact is, once someone is known for something and that something has sold well, the temptation is to do that thing over and over...and that has not a wit to do with the difficulty of getting the thing to reality (as we know, maine and prix were already creative at this oh so difficult field, so why should it be so difficult for them to be creative with a slightly newer approach?).
if you are pounding the pavement day after day trying to get a recording or playing gig for your band, or an acting gig, or your work in a gallery, that's the practical end of the profession, the nuts and bolts, and it ain't easy for anyone: but it doesn't mean that with the next song you write, or the next bit of acting you do, or the next canvas you paint, you can't bring a new or different approach than what you were doing before, no matter what your age is...and that goes for your next architectural design, never mind if you're a starchitect or not.
"all bobby needs is a pen and a guitar, and Picasso just needed a dozen canvas" if that's true, then we should have dylans and picassos coming out of the wazoo, but, to my eyes, it's just the opposite now, there's more groundbreaking and radical architects around than in those other fields (to me, art and popular music are in a dismal state right now), and they get stuff built: how is that so, if it's as difficult as you say to build in a new and completely different way? seems like it's being done all over the world. so, whether you accept it or not, it's not easier or harder for architects than other creative fields.
video killed the radio star...
cowgill
11/21/08 12:23
my sentiments on being under 30:
"We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
... the great T.Durden
Steven Ward
11/21/08 12:24
^^^ written by a gen-x-er i think. sounds familiar.
It's from the movie "Fight Club." Tyler Durden was Brad Pitt's character. And I completely agree. But me thinks that times are quickly changing....
ah we have two wars going on. go sign up. they're hiring.
in games without frontiers, war without fear
war without tears
or
"The sad truth is the current generation (and I'll very loosely lump this to anyone under 30) lacks rebellion, or a cause for one at least. There's no counter-culture of substance. We're the generation of excess, and that's made us lazy, and I daresay uninspiring."
Wow, this just isn't true.
Maybe if you're privileged enough not to have a cause, you could remain ignorant of the counter-cultural spirit that definitely still goes on at a very, very large scale. Though I can see how it is not exactly rebellion or necessarily a "counter-culture" movement en masse in the same way that it was in the 1960s. There's been a huge evolution but the idea that "we" don't have a CAUSE for rebellion against oppressive/dominant culture is just silly.
hmmm.
i was born in the 60's so missed all the fun of that time. not that there was so much going on in my prairie kingdom anyway.
but i do remember the 80's and the sex and drugs and the stupid hair. it was pretty superficial. so being over thirty right now does not recommend too much to me based on my experience of the youth culture back when us old (er) folks were young.
i think it is easy to dismiss other people, for lacking vision; for being old and boring; for being young and boring; for just BEING (stop breathing MY air!).
which is not particularly interesting. if there were a rebellion today i would hope that it would be one that is FOR something without being against something else. that would be radical. otherwise its just politics and a lot of hard work put into making a place to stand where you can feel comfortable being self-righteous. frankly, a waste of time in my book.
so i am content to admire prix and mayne, and be awed by folks like cameron sinclair. the rest? well, you know most of the above is pretty obnoxious rubbish really. I would be more intrigued to hear what yall have done rather than how crappy this person is or how misinformed that person is. its the old put up or shuttup, really.
any takers?
fight the power....yeaahhh boyyeeeeee
for some reason, i never really got into the 'discussions' of architecture. am i missing anything?
I'm sick and tired of starchitects too, but at least they did something back in 80-s. They're not relevant anymore. We have to think of our own ways to rebel if possible at all in such a field.
Unfortunately architecture as a profession has always been for rich kids, and they never have a cause to rebel. Boring.
I'm also interested who do you think can be called a rebel these days, I mean someone working as an architect?
i don't exactly have an opinion of coop himmelblau. some work is exciting to me, some less so. but i don't understand the 'not relevant' critiques of star architects. mayne is certainly among those pushing the work of the profession forward into new territory - getting work built that we could only draw and talk about before. now that i think about it, himmelblau is doing this as well. i don't love the bmw world because i think it's unnecessary/unsubstantive - all flash with very little reason - but it's certainly a realization of forms and tectonics that we've admired in unbuilt projects of the past.
these architects are warranted in their self-congratulation. they've done well in a profession in which it's hard to do well. they've gained the admiration of the profession, the public, and the academics. how can they not be relevant?
i read something last night about transitions from generation to generation. i'll have to find and post it. bottom line: just because there is new work and a new generation to promote it doesn't make the old work and the continuing work of a slightly older generation less valuable or less 'relevant'. that word gets thrown around a lot and i think it's used irresponsibly.
relevant to whom? students? developers? the construction industry? clients?
another thought: why is rebellion good? because their generation made it so. you might recognize that mayne and prix are settling in and enjoying the ride they created.
are you trying to repeat the spirit of their generation? so who's nostalgic?
what about the tinkerers who take great ideas and turn them into ShIt?
i'll toss this into the mix. for what it's worth. the more things change...
the following is a passage from 'lotte in weimar', a book written by the great author thomas mann about the legacy of another great author, goethe, in 1939.
a young, modern female writer describes her contemporaries attitudes toward goethe:
"we are here...once more arrived at the subject of tyranny. not a harsh tyranny, but a natural one, probably inseparable from a certain dominating greatness; one does well to condone and respect it, while not actually yielding to its behests. he is great, and old, and little inclined to value what comes after him. but life goes on, it does not stop even at the greatest, and we are children of the new life...
we are independent and progressive minds, with the courage of the new times and new tastes. already we have found and love new gods...
they do not rival him...and yet - forgive me - they surpass him; simply because they are farther on in time, because they represent a new stage, nearer to us, more familiar, more akin, have things to tell us that are closer to our hearts than we can get from a commanding and forbidding greatness towering up like some ancient granite boulder amid the new life of the time. i beg you not think us irreverent. it is the time which is that, rejecting the old and bringing in the new. certainly, what comes after is a smaller growth. but it fits the time and the children of the time, the living and present; and with that we must deal, with an immediacy that leaves no room for reverence, but speaks to the hearts and nerves of those who are of it because it has brought them forth with itself."
Nice post, Steven.
Lame but appropriate quote of the thread: If I can see further it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants in Isaac Newton's use of the phrase, not Nietzsche's.
Thom Mayne rocks. He's a giant.
If anything, architecture proves that age is irrelevant. Buildings exist for decades, possibly centuries, and are still looked at as great architecture.
I think a lot just depends on what you've seen growing through school. When I started, Morphosis had one book, SMLXL hadn't been written, Hadid had one small El Croquis and Coop didn't really have much beyond ramblings and that rooftop conference room.
Everything was just ideas. The younger folk see all that has been done in the last 15 years and takes it for granted that we can always do something extraordinary and build it.
I'll wait to be proven wrong, but I'd guess that it will be a while before we have 'revolutionary' architects on caliber with the current crop of stararchitects.
the revolution's only a t-shirt away...
product placement is a revolutionary act.
Sorry to hurt your feelings, Steven.
If those stars were relevant at the moment, this topic would have never arisen. As I said before, I highly respect them for everything they did in the past, I personally love Morphosis, especially their early period, but now I just can’t stand their work anymore. It just resembles each other’s. It wasn’t like this before, when all the starchitects had their own face.
Do you really think that what they're doing now is great?
Actually they weren’t the first generations of rebels. They were developing the ideals of the Modernist’s Movement.
"They were developing the ideals of the Modernist’s Movement."
The aesthetic ones only, not the political.
dismissing a good conversation by saying you've hurt my feelings, what? cheap.
this has nothing to do with me. MY work is irrelevant because it's not even part of the discussion. as long as these guys are an integral part of the teaching of architecture and the conversations among architects, i simply don't understand how they can be irrelevant.
what is relevant to you? who is relevant and how are they not derivative of these irrelevants? with what will you fill the void?
is it relevant that you personally 'just can't stand their work anymore'?
since we're throwing the word around: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/relevant
and, no, the post-68ers weren't the first generation of rebels. neither were the moderns.
each successive generation attempts a rebellion of some sort, attempting to push past their forbears to something more 'relevant'. but each rebellious generation is ultimately subsumed into the flow of history and becomes absorbed into the system against which they rebelled. at least partly the point of the mann excerpt i posted earlier.
one thing notable about the post-68ers, though, is that they did somehow think that they were BREAKING history. similar maybe to the turn-of-the-20thC russians. corb, by contrast, thought that his 'new spirit' in architecture was a next step - a part of the evolution of architectural and social history.
I can say that it was much more interesting for me to see not only the stars work, but work of other architects as well at the Venice biennale. I am sorry, but I’ve seen a lot of their stuff in the magazines, that’s enough. And I was happy not to see it again. Yes, this is my irrelevant personal opinion.
But people attending the lectures also feel there is something wrong with the stars. I think people’re disappointed. And the cause of this disappointment is that the stars are all respectable bourgeois now and that doesn’t correlate with their views.
"each successive generation attempts a rebellion of some sort, attempting to push past their forbears to something more 'relevant'. but each rebellious generation is ultimately subsumed into the flow of history and becomes absorbed into the system against which they rebelled."
~ Steven Ward
would it then also suffice to say that there is no such thing as rebellion and that it is just a label to differentiate a change in style and thus the flow of history has progressed to the next step? Why does progress and the evolution of something always have to be labeled a rebellion?
great post by the way.
I mean, yes, they have changed the world, but going to their lectures is like going to a Jethro Tall gig, isn't it? You can even sing along with your favorite song, but isn't it sentimental?
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