"according to trip, modernism is a new start. according to thayer, it's a bunch of "revivalist" styles."
Trip said they tried to wipe the slate clean, but if you paid attention, it had very clear roots in history, as does everything. Thus why modernists are so naive about their "unique" station in history. I said the new stuff is as revivalist as anyother thing that seems to make you dizzy.
ghwharton, this obviously is an issue with some deep roots, so I think it is well worth the discussion. I also think this discussion is unlikely to change anyone's mind. GH I don't know if you are an architect or not, but I think the public is interested in this discussion as well. After all this thread was begun by a member of the public.
Thayer you have a hard time with comprehension sometimes. I guess the spittle of vehemence hits the keyboard a bit too hard. You completely read past everything I wrote in order to selective clip and then pull the Hitler card. When you've pulled that everything that follows went downhill.
And considering your lack of comprehension in order to make no point you trip over yourself in defense of nothing really. Corbusier's radiant city was in fact a response to the rebuilding of Paris in 1924. WW2 was in the 40s incase you were wondering. Of course Hitler wanted everything to look like an oversized Roman city thanks to his Classically trained architect Albert Speers. I can see how you would confuse the two.
As I wrote earlier, the rebuilding of Europe comprised both reconstructing what had been before - curly-cue by curly-cue and "modernist" buildings that were an effort to move past the destruction of (as much as it pains you to admit it) the architectural and institutional language of the previous regimes. How each country chose to rebuild says much about how they collective desired to recover from WW2 as it does their national identities. The Poles were dealing with something very different culturally and physically than France or England were after WW2. The Poles were struggling to get out from being under the boot heels of Nazism and Communism. Of course, if you grew up under a regime where classical architecture had come to represent Fascism or Nazism, you might try something different too. Just because Poland rebuilt in a particular style doesn't prove the superiority of "classical" over "modern" and vice versa. Regardless of how much you pound the keyboard in frustration.
________
"Yeah, cause when they wrote our founding documents they said fuck Locke, Hume, Rouseau, and all those pasty Europeans with their enlightment crap. Let's pull our selves up by our own bootstraps. Hey, France, could you lend us a hand? Or FLW, and his birthing the Prairie style out of thin air."
That tirade illustrates my point. When, in your fit of keyboard rage, you misread what is written and then with indignation get angry that I would imply that "they" said fuck to Locke, Hume and all those pasty Europeans. Why yes, oftentimes "they" did say fuck to the pasty Europeans. Had they not, we'd be a collective of European colonies still. Sometimes the conservative mind had a hard time holding two contradictory ideas in the mind at the same time.
That our Founding Fathers, would respectfully study the European philosophers and ancient histories as a foundation in their effort to create a new and unique representative democracy in the world and at the same time, discard with particular traditions and political norms of that time in order to forge a new identity and governance for America separate from but in conversation with Europe isn't a hard concept to grasp. But maybe it is for some folks.
And my last point was that America and Americans have the capacity to be contradictory in what they desire and want and what they actually do. We've been doing that since we became a distinct nation. It's not a smear, it's a recognition. The duality of the American psyche is what makes us feel we're exceptional and act borish as well. It must bother you to acknowledge that America, collectively, is that way otherwise my last paragraph wouldn't have set you off so much.
gruen, I like many art nouveau and art deco buildings, I also like frank lloyd wright and some other modern architects.
I think it's important to note (again) what a previous poster said: That the bad buildings are often lost to time and only the good remain.
In some ways, what you are asking the profession to do, is produce only good buildings (with the definition of "good" being a moving target).
This is kinda like asking all high tech products to be as nice as my iphone.
I think you would do well to watch the entire process of producing a building. As an architect, I'm often saddened by where the building ends up based on influences beyond my control. Ironically enough, it's often the budget, the public and the tastes of the individual client decision makers that drive design.
It does not help that the design budgets we are given have become razor thin. We spend a lot of the time just making sure the buildings are code legal, will stand up and not leak.
Then, you get some project like a police station in cape cod, a "colonial" "community" that protects it's assets by demanding 'traditional' design with a 'residential' character and wants it on a budget. You find yourself trying to design something that will 'fit' with the surrounding homes (all god awful monstrosities themselves) and the decision maker is actually a board made up of people from all walks of life, who have one thing in common, they wouldn't know good design if it hit them over the head. Does not matter, because they sure aren't paying for all that expensive stuff anyways. Maybe you show them some awesome design, but you probably don't, because every time you've done that you've just had to tear it up and redo it, and your firm sure does not have the cash to be redoing designs.
Anyway, that's probably what happens.
I would challenge you to hire an architect. Pick a good one. Have them design exactly what you want. Make sure to pay them enough, then pay the cost of construction.
I like the spittle reference. You're right about Villa Radisuse, I got it confused with just about every other capital Corb wanted to flatten. But your point about the archietcture coming from a desire to quell the horrors of WWII is all the more laughable, becasue it was the same shit as before the war. The modernists just saw the opportunity to go for it, and considering Hitler liked columns, they got the best propaganda they could have dreamed of. Unfortunatley, we where the dumb asses who went crazy tearing down our unscathed cities, which are only now coming back.
I'm glad you seem to understand that our founding fathers did indeed build on the best of the European past.
"That our Founding Fathers, would respectfully study the European philosophers and ancient histories as a foundation in their effort to create a new and unique representative democracy in the world and at the same time,..."
Thus reinforcing the whole point of this post that one can learn from the past without worrying about provenance, if there's something to be learned.
"The duality of the American psyche is what makes us feel we're exceptional and act borish as well"
Ahh, good old American exceptionalism. Whilst I love my country and its founding fathers, I'll have to take a pass on all that exceptional crap. The duality of the American psyche...where do you come up with that?
I wouldn't take any of this too personally imus, it's great fun hearing your version of history.
Well the Bauhaus pretty much ignored several thousand years of "modern design". What were the old Greek and Italian seaside houses tumbling down to the sea if not simple and modern? What about the Pueblo and Anasazi cultures and their dwellings? How about the Shakers in America happily hammering out beautifully simple furniture forms long before the Bauhaus? Hell, even the Jefferson Cup is a "modern" design, rarely, if ever, equalled.
The Bauhaus was a complete fraud from start to finish.
Don't forget the "universal" space of the New England mills, or the skeletal construction with infill of medeaval barns, or the stamped out metal facades of the cast Iron districts, or the glass fronted office building in San Francisco in 1913. This is one of the biggest pitfalls of trying to lable everything to know what to do with it. It's irrelevant to design.
the bauhaus did things different because they were working with different materials and in a different time. at least that's how i see it. saying they have to put keystones on their steel lintels because that's how the greeks did it is pretty stupid.
i don't think modernists really ignore the past. maybe that's in some of the marketing, but as far as i'm concerned the difference between modern and traditional is that modernists live in the present while respecting the past, and traditionalists try to live in the past while ignoring the present.
you still think glass is being made the same way it was 100 years ago. learning from history is great. refusing to learn from the present is not.
Just because glass is made differently now doesn't mean that I have to hang giant sheets of it off the side of my buildings. We are not our technology. We may make glass differently, we may have the ability to forge structural steel and cantilever huge structures great distances. That doesn't mean that these features are a recipe for creating humane and beautiful buildings, places and cities. That we can do this doesn't at all mean that we should or we must do that. Our technology and ourselves are not synonymous. We may have elevators and iphones and microwaves, but we are still fundamentally the same human beings we were 2000 years ago, with the same core needs and desires.
Here's Curt bringing up his favourite pet peeve again: "saying they have to put keystones on their steel lintels because that's how the greeks did it is pretty stupid."
Of course, no one said "they" have to put keystones on their steel lintels. That is not the essence of traditional design, and refusing to learn from the present, as Curt seems to be doing by ignoring the fact that there are architects in the present who are, in fact, designing in a traditional manner, and doing a good job of it. You may not like all of Bob Stern's office's designs, but generally they do a rather good job at traditional design.
Sorry, didn't finish my thought there, Curt. Refusing to learn from the present is what it seems you are doing by believeing that all traditional design has to do with fake keystones/lintels. Actually, in one of suri's examples, the fake keystones are exactly what was pointed out as the opposite of good traditional design in the present.
If you don't want to do traditional design we understand and hope, therefore, thast you don't do it, unless what you might design given that request by a client, was well-done traditional design, which you may be quite capable of. The architect of the police station appeared not to be capable of it, and any thoughts that client meddling or planning board requirements produced that disaster of a building gives them too much credit, and the architect not nearly enough credit for failing to give the client what they were apparently asking for.
No wonder architects have such a terrible reputation among non-architects.
And each other. Especially now that thread has devolved to prove Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies.
Well the Bauhaus pretty much ignored several thousand years of "modern design".
As if there is *anything* that isn't built upon what preceded it. LOL
The Bauhaus was a complete fraud from start to finish.
Bauhaus philosophy was utopian with emphasis on efficiency and functionality executed artistically with industrial technology and production, making it ideal for improving the lot of the masses. This was in direct response to the horrors and destruction of WWI.
i've already said that i respect what eke does. if he has clients who are hiring him to develop traditional designs, it's great that he can do a good job of providing that for them.
i have no reason to believe that police station became a train wreck because of the architect. granted, the architect probably did have the right to walk out when they knew what was happening and chose not to do that. other than that, any speculation as to what happened is just speculation. accusing the architect of being a bad designer based on speculation is rude. i've worked with quite few clients, and to be honest, i don't think it's that hard to imagine that someone actually wanted the building to look that way. most of us here have educations in architecture. most of us should probably think that particular architect was not enthusiastic about the design, since they had a similar education.
you can use any glass system you want. if you use a small pane of glass because that's what they did 100 years ago, that's fine, that option is available to you. if you're using the same framing methods, those are not very energy efficient and you might want to think through the implications. still, you can do that if you want. if you deviate from the commonly available commercial products to frame that window, it will probably cost a bit extra, but that's fine. there is nothing wrong with that.
you're still using modern materials to imitate the way those materials were used. i'll use the keystone as an example again, but when the romans put keystones in an arch, it was because the keystone was necessary. it served a function, and without it there would be no arch. the decision to include the keystone was not solely aesthetic, it was necessary. when you choose to put a keystone on the facade of a building today, it is an aesthetic choice. there are some situations where that keystone is actually holding up an arch, but your brick wall is still probably being held up by something along the lines of metal or wood studs, which is not how the romans did it. in the environment we live in today, the keystone is pretty much always going to come from a decision based on looks, and based on trying to imitate what the keystone once was.
what i would consider a "modern-style" architect isn't going to feel the need to imitate the way these materials behaved in the past. we're not really building brick buildings like the monadnock building anymore. as a "traditional" architect, i would think it's important that you understand the materials your using to design a building, and how they go together. i think eke does know that. not sure about thayer. anyway, the design decisions for a 'traditional' architect will be how today's materials can imitate yesterday's materials. the 'modern' architect will try to get today's materials to express how they work today.
to be a good architect, you should understand the nature of the materials you are using in the building you are designing today. if you want to understand what the nature of those materials were 100 years ago, that's fine, but i'm just saying, the nature of those materials has changed.
our buildings are built with the technology we have today, no matter how much we try to hide it. things have changed. we are not the same people we were 100 years ago. we live longer, we get fatter, we have air conditioners, TVs, and penicillin. the life of the average person today is very different from the life of the average person 100 years ago.
I didn't say our lives were identical to the lives of people in the past. I said that the core things that really matter, the aspects that make is human, haven't changed. TVs and air conditioners are not who we are.
when i woke up this morning, i wasn't worried about dieing in childbirth. i wasn't worried about an infection killing me. i wasn't worried about any sort of struggle to get food, or preserve food for winter. i wasn't worried about how to keep warm or cool. all of the basic needs that would have likely filled my mind when i woke up this morning have been met, and then some. my life, at is core, is completely and fundamentally different than the life of most people living 100 years ago. i have struggles in my life now, but nowhere near the same struggles a normal person would have faced 100 years ago. every thought i have, and pretty much everything that occupies my day is different.
you could say there are similarities. i like my dog. people liked their dogs 100 years ago. if i'm scratched, i still bleed. those things, in my opinion, have no bearing on how i react to the ornament on a traditionally designed building. if i want to relive what life could have been like a long time ago, i can watch mayberry on TV (that's not 100 years, but still a fun illustration). i don't need to have a city designed around how things worked back then.
of course, my view of life 100 years ago without modern medicine and such is a lot more dismal than some people's notion of a simpler time without any problems. the time we're living in is actually quite interesting.
Does the prospect of dying during childbirth, or the relative ease with which you can procure food have bearing on how you react to the ornament on a traditionally designed building?
How about the human need for a feeling of security, or the values of family and trust, or love? Or our aspirations for truth, or justice, or compassion, or honesty? How about beauty, or our relationship with God, or nature? How about the thirst for and the pursuit of knowledge? Might these have a bearing on how you react to the ornament on a traditionally designed building?
By the way I have absolutely no interest in reliving what life could have been like 100 years ago. For me, building contemporary classical architecture has nothing at all to do with nostalgia.
If the Bauhaus wasn't employing parametric designs wih Grasshopper and 3D printing blob buildings, how could we begin to consider them modern. You can count out Piano's NYT building while you're at it.
There's a bit in news about the old Penn Station that is pertinent to this thread. Specifically:
GBANY, the Action Group for Better Architecture in New York,
believed that there would be much public support for the preservation of Penn Station, a building that had become a national icon. However, the average New Yorker did not seem to care about the destruction of the railroad station. Elliot Willensky, a founding member of AGBANY, had described most people’s attitudes toward the demolition, saying “There was no consciousness among most New Yorkers of the value of old architecture. It wasn’t so much a desire to wipe out the old. It was simply a lack of recognition of the old having any kind of wealth.” People placed more value on modernity and efficiency.
trip, i live *now,* in the time and place where i exist in real life. i learn from the past, look to the future, and accept the real life that exists around me for what it is. why would that be hard to understand? even when talking about modern architecture, you have to cling to the past, as if some big snake-monser i going to eat you if you let go. it's ok. real-life can be hard sometimes, but you're welcome to join the rest of us whenever you're ready.
eke, the modern infrastructure other people built make it much less likely that i will die from child birth. also, the fact that i'm a guy makes that unlikely. it was forward-thinking people who built on the past rather that dwelling in the past that made that happen.
sprinkler systems, fire proofing, and aisc manuals make feel secure. i tall gothic church that has been standing for hundreds of years is secure, but a newly built big-ass stone church that didn't have an engineer or any plan approvals definitely does not make me feel secure. i don't know if you read this in your history books, but sometimes they went bad and people died.
i'm fairly certain doric columns will not make a family for me. honesty is using a keystone the way a keystone was meant to be used, and using steel the way steel was meant to be used. compassion should encompass all architecture, be it traditional or modern. justice is more in the hands of the representatives i elect. what we're doing isn't working. they're in a traditional building, maybe moving them somewhere more modern would help. couldn't hurt. well designed modern architecture is more beautiful than copying the stuff i've already seen in magazines (and sometimes in real life), especially since our new stuff isn't aged, and is often built from inferior materials and used only as cladding. nature doesn't make keystones or composite columns. people make those. god's city has pearly gates and gold streets. he actually goes into some detail in revelations. that shit is outside my budget, and i don't want his aristocratic bullshit anyway. i love the thirst for and pursuit of knowledge. history is great to learn about. but we should be building on that history, not dwelling on it and not repeating it. that's what 'stand on the shoulders of giants' means to me. it means we take what they've built in the past, and do better. steel is better than stone, float glass is better than blown glass for windows. we shouldn't abandon all we know about blown glass, but we also should not be using it in architecture since it really doesn't work as well.
i went to dresden once. they're still rebuilding after the war. it is a beautiful city, and i'm glad they're restoring it. i also went to roterdam. i loved blom's cube houses and the erasmus bridge. i'm glad they didn't try to put the city back the way it was. i don't think there has ever been a moment in my life when i saw some sort of classic ornamentation that made me feel better about myself. beer does that. for people who do feel they need to be surrounded by stuff that represents old stuff to feel better about themselves, they have you and i think that's great.
How about the human need for a feeling of security, or the values of family and trust, or love? Or our aspirations for truth, or justice, or compassion, or honesty? How about beauty, or our relationship with God, or nature? How about the thirst for and the pursuit of knowledge? Might these have a bearing on how you react to the ornament on a traditionally designed building?
There is no single language more or less capable of achieving these things just like there is no genre of music any more or less capable of achieving a certain emotion. It all comes down to composition, programmatic relationships, tectonic expression, materiality, scale, relationship to site/nature, performance, light, shadow...
I really believe that this lack of those things you mention in much of the contemporary work out there has to do with the design process itself, and the shift towards more collaborative design. Large offices seem to have too many cooks in the kitchen. Good design requires a good design process, and all the best architecture shows the hand of an author. Much of the work today is identified with a firm rather than a person, or its part of a "brand."
One needs to imagine walking through the spaces, touching the walls, the sun rising and casting shadows on the architecture, etc....You need to really get inside of the thing in your mind to achieve those things we all love. I cant see how this is possible when 30 people are working on a project passing it back and forth.
"There is no single language more or less capable of achieving these things just like there is no genre of music any more or less capable of achieving a certain emotion."
So, for example, Swedish death metal is just as capable as, say, gentle classical music of capturing the feeling I get when I look at my five year old daughter asleep. Or classical chamber music is just as capable as punk rock of capturing the feeling of rage one experiences in a street fight.
I'm unsure where to start to reply. We're so far apart that we are really talking completely past each other. Of course nature doesn't make the elements of classical architecture. But classical elements are based on natural forms, they reference natural geometries, and classical ornamental elements often depict nature. Throughout history, buildings have symbolically referenced all of the universal human values I mentioned, and many, many more. In my opinion one of the sad things about the modern movement in architecture is that it has banished symbolism from the discourse, and replaced it with functionalism.
I think I'm going to respectfully bow out of this dialogue, since it's pretty clear we have no common ground in our views on the meaning of architecture.
You paint a provocative image of what goes into architecture. It makes me think of something I've long suspected about the circular nature of this argument. One's work and opinions tend to reflect one's personality. In other words, if they are anal and fact oriented, they might get off on the curtain wall connections and conversely look at those kinds of details when appreciating other work. If they are romantic, they might get off on patterns and textures, or even historical allusions. If they are followers, they might uphold the status quo unquestioningly or if they seek attention, they might be iconoclasts.
What seems evident though is that whatever one's stylistic preferences, be they religious, agnostic, whatever, their personality will determine their philosophical stance and their experiences will determine their personality, and as such it will be impossible to determine an approach that we can all agree on. All the more reason to allow for the most open minded and inclusive approach to teaching architecture, to expose students to all the strands of thinking on an equal footing. Naturally, one ought to have standards though, and to teach a grab bag of stuff might in the end be too 'catholic' an approach, but the least we could do is acknowledge that tastes will always vary without stooping to condescension.
Another thing that comes across in many of the comments is that the modernist perspective seems more defensive towards allowing traditionalists in the mix as traditionalists seem in sharing the stage with modernists. This is true with most power relationship where by the minority tends to be more accommodating than the majority, even though I'm sure many of the sentiments represented here are sincerely held.
In the end the best we can hope for is that ones own passion for their work ought to be preserved and nurtured as much as possible, because we've all seen work of almost every style that makes one say, I'm glad to be an architect.
this whole thread is like some strange re-enactment of this passage: " The guardian of the regal library, a person of great valour, but chiefly renowned for his humanity, had been a fierce champion for the Moderns, and, in an engagement upon Parnassus, had vowed with his own hands to knock down two of the ancient chiefs who guarded a small pass on the superior rock, but, endeavouring to climb up, was cruelly obstructed by his own unhappy weight and tendency towards his centre, a quality to which those of the Modern party are extremely subject; for, being light-headed, they have, in speculation, a wonderful agility, and conceive nothing too high for them to mount, but, in reducing to practice, discover a mighty pressure about their posteriors and their heels.
Having thus failed in his design, the disappointed champion bore a cruel rancour to the Ancients, which he resolved to gratify by showing all marks of his favour to the books of their adversaries, and lodging them in the fairest apartments; when, at the same time, whatever book had the boldness to own itself for an advocate of the Ancients was buried alive in some obscure corner, and threatened, upon the least displeasure, to be turned out of doors.
Besides, it so happened that about this time there was a strange confusion of place among all the books in the library, for which several reasons were assigned. Some imputed it to a great heap of learned dust, which a perverse wind blew off from a shelf of Moderns into the keeper's eyes. Others affirmed he had a humour to pick the worms out of the schoolmen, and swallow them fresh and fasting, whereof some fell upon his spleen, and some climbed up into his head, to the great perturbation of both. And lastly, others maintained that, by walking much in the dark about the library, he had quite lost the situation of it out of his head; and therefore, in replacing his books, he was apt to mistake and clap Descartes next to Aristotle, poor Plato had got between Hobbes and the Seven Wise Masters, and Virgil was hemmed in with Dryden on one side and Wither on the other. " bonus points only go to those who didn't need google to find out WTF
and the Seagram is clad with bronze members. It's a real mystery to me how this thread got to 10 pages without a single architect saying something about the Seagram facade not being made of steel.
nope, Thayer calls 'decoration' on Mies on page five, for 'steel beams stuck onto the Seagram' (paraphrase). Fast forward 200+ posts, and not a single architect catches that unbelievable mistake.
why is it relevant to the topic? I personally always thought the bronze was a strategy to underscore the decorative aspect of the Seagram's facade, while simultaneously allowing for a material authenticity that would not be possible with steel. I am talking about the patination, which is not attainable in steel without structural decay (Corten being the notable exception).
Mies was a master of paradoxes, after all...
It clear there is some hypocrisy in the modernist notion of honesty of materials. I think that went off the rails long ago. Look at any hovering blob building done by the avant garde.
Meis was actually rubbing up against the classical notion of structural logic. Classical buildings tell a story about the physics in play within them. The classical architect doesn't really care whether the actual structural elements are exposed. The language of the order displays a structural logic, showing the observer how the forces might be transmitted to the ground. Its one of the important tests a classical architect must use every step of the design process: does this configuration convey a structural logic? It seems to me Meis was doing the same thing. He's telling a story. Stories are good.
eke, are you saying the modernists learned from the classicists, and built on their work to create something new that represented the materials and methods of the time they were designing in? sounds like what i've been trying to tell you....
i do not see that as hypocrisy at all. of course i've also repeated a few times that it's great you're doing what you do, so when thayer says "the modernist perspective seems more defensive towards allowing traditionalists in the mix," i can't help but think that's backwards.
i do find thayer's presentation of his views on "traditional" architecture to be far weaker than yours, so maybe he's just bent out of shape about that. also i don't think there is any sort of 'natural' preconception of shapes and form people gravitate towards. i believe a person that likes traditional design likes it because that's what they learned, not because it's instinctual. that's not how the id works, that's how the ego works.
That's where we differ. I do believe that we are hardwired to find certain geometries beautiful. If you take a child into a forest, and they gaze up into that canopy of old trees, do we need to teach the child that it's beautiful? Of course not.
I've read most of the comments generated by suri's questions and the truth is that "beaut is in the eye of the beholder". A true architecture critic can not dismiss the fact that today's architecture is completely driven by the past. It doesn't matter how you look at it we have studied and learned the work of our predecessors and we're either learning from their mistakes or applying the techniques that were most successful.
We all respond to what the client wants and when the client doesn't know we show them what they want.
Architecture responds to the human form, necessities and behavior. Every building out there serves the purpose for which it was designed and once it has finished serving its purpose it is either reconditioned or demolished to leave room for a new building.
Just like art, there are many styles, forms, shapes, materials and textures and everybody has their favorite.
The truth is that throughout history we've built with the materials at hand and the materials that have proven to be the best lasting are the most expensive. Another point to consider is that every building has its due date and the older they get the sicker they get as well.
Let's enjoy the different shapes and forms, let's celebrate the authenticity of the new work and lets keep in mind that architecture is an art and it has its cycles and movements. You might have to suffer for a time but maybe a movement towards that style that you like is around the corner.
if people have evolved to have an actual genetic sequence telling them classic ornamentation is more beautiful than the simplicity in modern design, and i prefer modern design, does than mean i'm a flawed person with a mental disability, or does it mean i'm just the next evolutionary step for humans?
my opinion is of course that this is not genetic or evolutionary, and sometimes people like different things. so if you prefer classical detailing, i'm not saying you're mentally disabled. i'm just saying i like something different.
I'm not saying that people have evolved to have a preference for classical design in their DNA. I am saying that classical design has evolved to emulate what people naturally find to be beautiful. It employs many strategies for this, notably aligning with the natural world with its proportion and geometry.
I think modernist design is capable of doing this as well, and, although I regard it as a less steadfast path, it occasionally succeeds. I can't possibly explain why you like it - that's for you to decide. You seem pretty lucid, so I'm ruling out mental disability. :)
I was trained a modernist, and I used to be an exclusively modernist architect. But my view on aesthetics and the philosophy of design evolved over my career, and buildings I once saw as great I now see as misguided. It took a long time to shake off the programming I received at the university.
my opinion is of course that this is not genetic or evolutionary, and sometimes people like different things. so if you prefer classical detailing, i'm not saying you're mentally disabled. i'm just saying i like something different.
Well, if that's all your saying, why not allow for all kinds of architecture to be taught on an equal footing in schools and save people like EKE from having to ditch all the ideological bagage that most schools seem to promote? Personally, I couldn't get over the distance between what the priests where advocating and how they actually lived thier lives. Plus, when you go to school in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, how can you fight the lure William Tubby's Archbishop House when they are showing you Villa Savoye, a white box on sticks? (sorry, piloties!)
Had you been so liberal minded, this this thread might have ended in the 200's.
thayer, they do teach historical design in architecture school. i'm pretty sure history is required by NAAB, though i don't know their specific requirements. school was obviously structured in a such a way that eke was allowed to choose a profession designing in a traditional style of his choosing. we know that, because it happened.
what is it you're asking for? in a 6 year program, assuming you're not really working on buildings until 3rd year, that's about 6 semester long studios. should we really be spending those studios learning (1) roman, (2) gothic, (3) renaissance, (4) baroque, (5) neoclassic, and then (6) modern, so your traditional styles get even footing? anything non-western, like islamic architecture or eastern architecture, would be covered in history classes i suppose.
if this is the case, you're going to stop teaching how to design buildings in studio, and instead focus on copying other people's ornamentation. that will not teach kids to think critically, it won't teach them how buildings go together, and it won't teach them to be better architects.
1. I received no training in classical design in school. I was trained in a modernist school. The history classes that are taught in most architecture programs are not a training in classical architecture. I am almost entirely self-taught.
2. Teaching classical architecture is not a history class, although studying the great architecture of the past is certainly part of it. When you say "they do teach historical design in architecture school" you are mistaken. They usually teach a history of architecture survey class. This is not teaching classical design.
3. I don't think it is possible to teach both a Bauhaus/modernist approach and a classical/Beaux Arts approach in the same program. These are completely different worldviews. I think there should be programs offering one discipline or the other, and people should choose their path.
4. I'd be very happy with, say, 10% of the architecture programs teaching classical and traditional design as a discipline in a thoughtful way. Although that would in no way match the market demand for people with that kind of training, at least there would be a choice. Right now, so determined are the architectural educators to keep traditional training out of the marketplace, the monopoly of modernist programs is nearly total.
I don't think it is possible to teach both a Bauhaus/modernist approach and a classical/Beaux Arts approach in the same program. These are completely different worldviews.
But the Bauhaus wouldn't exist without Beaux Arts ... in fact Beaux Arts training was the foundation of the Bauhaus School and remains the foundation of all education at RISD and many prestigious and well-regarded art and design schools.
A world view is a broad vision that is not constrained by a particular stylistic dogma.
Why won't you design what we (the public) want?
"according to trip, modernism is a new start. according to thayer, it's a bunch of "revivalist" styles."
Trip said they tried to wipe the slate clean, but if you paid attention, it had very clear roots in history, as does everything. Thus why modernists are so naive about their "unique" station in history. I said the new stuff is as revivalist as anyother thing that seems to make you dizzy.
man... focus for a second.
Say what you want about the tenets of modernism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.
Are you saying that you don't think there is an ethos behind classicism?
Wow. This thread...
No wonder architects have such a terrible reputation among non-architects.
ghwharton, this obviously is an issue with some deep roots, so I think it is well worth the discussion. I also think this discussion is unlikely to change anyone's mind. GH I don't know if you are an architect or not, but I think the public is interested in this discussion as well. After all this thread was begun by a member of the public.
Thayer you have a hard time with comprehension sometimes. I guess the spittle of vehemence hits the keyboard a bit too hard. You completely read past everything I wrote in order to selective clip and then pull the Hitler card. When you've pulled that everything that follows went downhill.
And considering your lack of comprehension in order to make no point you trip over yourself in defense of nothing really. Corbusier's radiant city was in fact a response to the rebuilding of Paris in 1924. WW2 was in the 40s incase you were wondering. Of course Hitler wanted everything to look like an oversized Roman city thanks to his Classically trained architect Albert Speers. I can see how you would confuse the two.
As I wrote earlier, the rebuilding of Europe comprised both reconstructing what had been before - curly-cue by curly-cue and "modernist" buildings that were an effort to move past the destruction of (as much as it pains you to admit it) the architectural and institutional language of the previous regimes. How each country chose to rebuild says much about how they collective desired to recover from WW2 as it does their national identities. The Poles were dealing with something very different culturally and physically than France or England were after WW2. The Poles were struggling to get out from being under the boot heels of Nazism and Communism. Of course, if you grew up under a regime where classical architecture had come to represent Fascism or Nazism, you might try something different too. Just because Poland rebuilt in a particular style doesn't prove the superiority of "classical" over "modern" and vice versa. Regardless of how much you pound the keyboard in frustration.
________
"Yeah, cause when they wrote our founding documents they said fuck Locke, Hume, Rouseau, and all those pasty Europeans with their enlightment crap. Let's pull our selves up by our own bootstraps. Hey, France, could you lend us a hand? Or FLW, and his birthing the Prairie style out of thin air."
That tirade illustrates my point. When, in your fit of keyboard rage, you misread what is written and then with indignation get angry that I would imply that "they" said fuck to Locke, Hume and all those pasty Europeans. Why yes, oftentimes "they" did say fuck to the pasty Europeans. Had they not, we'd be a collective of European colonies still. Sometimes the conservative mind had a hard time holding two contradictory ideas in the mind at the same time.
That our Founding Fathers, would respectfully study the European philosophers and ancient histories as a foundation in their effort to create a new and unique representative democracy in the world and at the same time, discard with particular traditions and political norms of that time in order to forge a new identity and governance for America separate from but in conversation with Europe isn't a hard concept to grasp. But maybe it is for some folks.
And my last point was that America and Americans have the capacity to be contradictory in what they desire and want and what they actually do. We've been doing that since we became a distinct nation. It's not a smear, it's a recognition. The duality of the American psyche is what makes us feel we're exceptional and act borish as well. It must bother you to acknowledge that America, collectively, is that way otherwise my last paragraph wouldn't have set you off so much.
suri sez:
gruen, I like many art nouveau and art deco buildings, I also like frank lloyd wright and some other modern architects.
I think it's important to note (again) what a previous poster said: That the bad buildings are often lost to time and only the good remain.
In some ways, what you are asking the profession to do, is produce only good buildings (with the definition of "good" being a moving target).
This is kinda like asking all high tech products to be as nice as my iphone.
I think you would do well to watch the entire process of producing a building. As an architect, I'm often saddened by where the building ends up based on influences beyond my control. Ironically enough, it's often the budget, the public and the tastes of the individual client decision makers that drive design.
It does not help that the design budgets we are given have become razor thin. We spend a lot of the time just making sure the buildings are code legal, will stand up and not leak.
Then, you get some project like a police station in cape cod, a "colonial" "community" that protects it's assets by demanding 'traditional' design with a 'residential' character and wants it on a budget. You find yourself trying to design something that will 'fit' with the surrounding homes (all god awful monstrosities themselves) and the decision maker is actually a board made up of people from all walks of life, who have one thing in common, they wouldn't know good design if it hit them over the head. Does not matter, because they sure aren't paying for all that expensive stuff anyways. Maybe you show them some awesome design, but you probably don't, because every time you've done that you've just had to tear it up and redo it, and your firm sure does not have the cash to be redoing designs.
Anyway, that's probably what happens.
I would challenge you to hire an architect. Pick a good one. Have them design exactly what you want. Make sure to pay them enough, then pay the cost of construction.
I like the spittle reference. You're right about Villa Radisuse, I got it confused with just about every other capital Corb wanted to flatten. But your point about the archietcture coming from a desire to quell the horrors of WWII is all the more laughable, becasue it was the same shit as before the war. The modernists just saw the opportunity to go for it, and considering Hitler liked columns, they got the best propaganda they could have dreamed of. Unfortunatley, we where the dumb asses who went crazy tearing down our unscathed cities, which are only now coming back.
I'm glad you seem to understand that our founding fathers did indeed build on the best of the European past.
"That our Founding Fathers, would respectfully study the European philosophers and ancient histories as a foundation in their effort to create a new and unique representative democracy in the world and at the same time,..."
Thus reinforcing the whole point of this post that one can learn from the past without worrying about provenance, if there's something to be learned.
"The duality of the American psyche is what makes us feel we're exceptional and act borish as well"
Ahh, good old American exceptionalism. Whilst I love my country and its founding fathers, I'll have to take a pass on all that exceptional crap. The duality of the American psyche...where do you come up with that?
I wouldn't take any of this too personally imus, it's great fun hearing your version of history.
Well the Bauhaus pretty much ignored several thousand years of "modern design". What were the old Greek and Italian seaside houses tumbling down to the sea if not simple and modern? What about the Pueblo and Anasazi cultures and their dwellings? How about the Shakers in America happily hammering out beautifully simple furniture forms long before the Bauhaus? Hell, even the Jefferson Cup is a "modern" design, rarely, if ever, equalled. The Bauhaus was a complete fraud from start to finish.
Don't forget the "universal" space of the New England mills, or the skeletal construction with infill of medeaval barns, or the stamped out metal facades of the cast Iron districts, or the glass fronted office building in San Francisco in 1913. This is one of the biggest pitfalls of trying to lable everything to know what to do with it. It's irrelevant to design.
the bauhaus did things different because they were working with different materials and in a different time. at least that's how i see it. saying they have to put keystones on their steel lintels because that's how the greeks did it is pretty stupid.
i don't think modernists really ignore the past. maybe that's in some of the marketing, but as far as i'm concerned the difference between modern and traditional is that modernists live in the present while respecting the past, and traditionalists try to live in the past while ignoring the present.
you still think glass is being made the same way it was 100 years ago. learning from history is great. refusing to learn from the present is not.
Just because glass is made differently now doesn't mean that I have to hang giant sheets of it off the side of my buildings. We are not our technology. We may make glass differently, we may have the ability to forge structural steel and cantilever huge structures great distances. That doesn't mean that these features are a recipe for creating humane and beautiful buildings, places and cities. That we can do this doesn't at all mean that we should or we must do that. Our technology and ourselves are not synonymous. We may have elevators and iphones and microwaves, but we are still fundamentally the same human beings we were 2000 years ago, with the same core needs and desires.
Here's Curt bringing up his favourite pet peeve again: "saying they have to put keystones on their steel lintels because that's how the greeks did it is pretty stupid."
Of course, no one said "they" have to put keystones on their steel lintels. That is not the essence of traditional design, and refusing to learn from the present, as Curt seems to be doing by ignoring the fact that there are architects in the present who are, in fact, designing in a traditional manner, and doing a good job of it. You may not like all of Bob Stern's office's designs, but generally they do a rather good job at traditional design.
Sorry, didn't finish my thought there, Curt. Refusing to learn from the present is what it seems you are doing by believeing that all traditional design has to do with fake keystones/lintels. Actually, in one of suri's examples, the fake keystones are exactly what was pointed out as the opposite of good traditional design in the present.
If you don't want to do traditional design we understand and hope, therefore, thast you don't do it, unless what you might design given that request by a client, was well-done traditional design, which you may be quite capable of. The architect of the police station appeared not to be capable of it, and any thoughts that client meddling or planning board requirements produced that disaster of a building gives them too much credit, and the architect not nearly enough credit for failing to give the client what they were apparently asking for.
If you don't want to do traditional design we understand and hope ...
"We?" No doubt you mean me, myself, and I.
Wow. This thread...
No wonder architects have such a terrible reputation among non-architects.
And each other. Especially now that thread has devolved to prove Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies.
Well the Bauhaus pretty much ignored several thousand years of "modern design".
As if there is *anything* that isn't built upon what preceded it. LOL
The Bauhaus was a complete fraud from start to finish.
Bauhaus philosophy was utopian with emphasis on efficiency and functionality executed artistically with industrial technology and production, making it ideal for improving the lot of the masses. This was in direct response to the horrors and destruction of WWI.
i've already said that i respect what eke does. if he has clients who are hiring him to develop traditional designs, it's great that he can do a good job of providing that for them.
i have no reason to believe that police station became a train wreck because of the architect. granted, the architect probably did have the right to walk out when they knew what was happening and chose not to do that. other than that, any speculation as to what happened is just speculation. accusing the architect of being a bad designer based on speculation is rude. i've worked with quite few clients, and to be honest, i don't think it's that hard to imagine that someone actually wanted the building to look that way. most of us here have educations in architecture. most of us should probably think that particular architect was not enthusiastic about the design, since they had a similar education.
you can use any glass system you want. if you use a small pane of glass because that's what they did 100 years ago, that's fine, that option is available to you. if you're using the same framing methods, those are not very energy efficient and you might want to think through the implications. still, you can do that if you want. if you deviate from the commonly available commercial products to frame that window, it will probably cost a bit extra, but that's fine. there is nothing wrong with that.
you're still using modern materials to imitate the way those materials were used. i'll use the keystone as an example again, but when the romans put keystones in an arch, it was because the keystone was necessary. it served a function, and without it there would be no arch. the decision to include the keystone was not solely aesthetic, it was necessary. when you choose to put a keystone on the facade of a building today, it is an aesthetic choice. there are some situations where that keystone is actually holding up an arch, but your brick wall is still probably being held up by something along the lines of metal or wood studs, which is not how the romans did it. in the environment we live in today, the keystone is pretty much always going to come from a decision based on looks, and based on trying to imitate what the keystone once was.
what i would consider a "modern-style" architect isn't going to feel the need to imitate the way these materials behaved in the past. we're not really building brick buildings like the monadnock building anymore. as a "traditional" architect, i would think it's important that you understand the materials your using to design a building, and how they go together. i think eke does know that. not sure about thayer. anyway, the design decisions for a 'traditional' architect will be how today's materials can imitate yesterday's materials. the 'modern' architect will try to get today's materials to express how they work today.
to be a good architect, you should understand the nature of the materials you are using in the building you are designing today. if you want to understand what the nature of those materials were 100 years ago, that's fine, but i'm just saying, the nature of those materials has changed.
our buildings are built with the technology we have today, no matter how much we try to hide it. things have changed. we are not the same people we were 100 years ago. we live longer, we get fatter, we have air conditioners, TVs, and penicillin. the life of the average person today is very different from the life of the average person 100 years ago.
Oh my, how can Rem Koolhass ever possibly survive in his Victorian home? He doesn't even own a horse and buggy. Sheesh.
when i woke up this morning, i wasn't worried about dieing in childbirth. i wasn't worried about an infection killing me. i wasn't worried about any sort of struggle to get food, or preserve food for winter. i wasn't worried about how to keep warm or cool. all of the basic needs that would have likely filled my mind when i woke up this morning have been met, and then some. my life, at is core, is completely and fundamentally different than the life of most people living 100 years ago. i have struggles in my life now, but nowhere near the same struggles a normal person would have faced 100 years ago. every thought i have, and pretty much everything that occupies my day is different.
you could say there are similarities. i like my dog. people liked their dogs 100 years ago. if i'm scratched, i still bleed. those things, in my opinion, have no bearing on how i react to the ornament on a traditionally designed building. if i want to relive what life could have been like a long time ago, i can watch mayberry on TV (that's not 100 years, but still a fun illustration). i don't need to have a city designed around how things worked back then.
of course, my view of life 100 years ago without modern medicine and such is a lot more dismal than some people's notion of a simpler time without any problems. the time we're living in is actually quite interesting.
I wonder which iPhone model Mies was using while he modeled on Rhino the massing studies for Seagram.
Does the prospect of dying during childbirth, or the relative ease with which you can procure food have bearing on how you react to the ornament on a traditionally designed building?
How about the human need for a feeling of security, or the values of family and trust, or love? Or our aspirations for truth, or justice, or compassion, or honesty? How about beauty, or our relationship with God, or nature? How about the thirst for and the pursuit of knowledge? Might these have a bearing on how you react to the ornament on a traditionally designed building?
By the way I have absolutely no interest in reliving what life could have been like 100 years ago. For me, building contemporary classical architecture has nothing at all to do with nostalgia.
There's a bit in news about the old Penn Station that is pertinent to this thread. Specifically:
GBANY, the Action Group for Better Architecture in New York,
believed that there would be much public support for the preservation of Penn Station, a building that had become a national icon. However, the average New Yorker did not seem to care about the destruction of the railroad station. Elliot Willensky, a founding member of AGBANY, had described most people’s attitudes toward the demolition, saying “There was no consciousness among most New Yorkers of the value of old architecture. It wasn’t so much a desire to wipe out the old. It was simply a lack of recognition of the old having any kind of wealth.” People placed more value on modernity and efficiency.
trip, i live *now,* in the time and place where i exist in real life. i learn from the past, look to the future, and accept the real life that exists around me for what it is. why would that be hard to understand? even when talking about modern architecture, you have to cling to the past, as if some big snake-monser i going to eat you if you let go. it's ok. real-life can be hard sometimes, but you're welcome to join the rest of us whenever you're ready.
eke, the modern infrastructure other people built make it much less likely that i will die from child birth. also, the fact that i'm a guy makes that unlikely. it was forward-thinking people who built on the past rather that dwelling in the past that made that happen.
sprinkler systems, fire proofing, and aisc manuals make feel secure. i tall gothic church that has been standing for hundreds of years is secure, but a newly built big-ass stone church that didn't have an engineer or any plan approvals definitely does not make me feel secure. i don't know if you read this in your history books, but sometimes they went bad and people died.
i'm fairly certain doric columns will not make a family for me. honesty is using a keystone the way a keystone was meant to be used, and using steel the way steel was meant to be used. compassion should encompass all architecture, be it traditional or modern. justice is more in the hands of the representatives i elect. what we're doing isn't working. they're in a traditional building, maybe moving them somewhere more modern would help. couldn't hurt. well designed modern architecture is more beautiful than copying the stuff i've already seen in magazines (and sometimes in real life), especially since our new stuff isn't aged, and is often built from inferior materials and used only as cladding. nature doesn't make keystones or composite columns. people make those. god's city has pearly gates and gold streets. he actually goes into some detail in revelations. that shit is outside my budget, and i don't want his aristocratic bullshit anyway. i love the thirst for and pursuit of knowledge. history is great to learn about. but we should be building on that history, not dwelling on it and not repeating it. that's what 'stand on the shoulders of giants' means to me. it means we take what they've built in the past, and do better. steel is better than stone, float glass is better than blown glass for windows. we shouldn't abandon all we know about blown glass, but we also should not be using it in architecture since it really doesn't work as well.
i went to dresden once. they're still rebuilding after the war. it is a beautiful city, and i'm glad they're restoring it. i also went to roterdam. i loved blom's cube houses and the erasmus bridge. i'm glad they didn't try to put the city back the way it was. i don't think there has ever been a moment in my life when i saw some sort of classic ornamentation that made me feel better about myself. beer does that. for people who do feel they need to be surrounded by stuff that represents old stuff to feel better about themselves, they have you and i think that's great.
How about the human need for a feeling of security, or the values of family and trust, or love? Or our aspirations for truth, or justice, or compassion, or honesty? How about beauty, or our relationship with God, or nature? How about the thirst for and the pursuit of knowledge? Might these have a bearing on how you react to the ornament on a traditionally designed building?
There is no single language more or less capable of achieving these things just like there is no genre of music any more or less capable of achieving a certain emotion. It all comes down to composition, programmatic relationships, tectonic expression, materiality, scale, relationship to site/nature, performance, light, shadow...
I really believe that this lack of those things you mention in much of the contemporary work out there has to do with the design process itself, and the shift towards more collaborative design. Large offices seem to have too many cooks in the kitchen. Good design requires a good design process, and all the best architecture shows the hand of an author. Much of the work today is identified with a firm rather than a person, or its part of a "brand."
One needs to imagine walking through the spaces, touching the walls, the sun rising and casting shadows on the architecture, etc....You need to really get inside of the thing in your mind to achieve those things we all love. I cant see how this is possible when 30 people are working on a project passing it back and forth.
Now we're getting somewhere!
"There is no single language more or less capable of achieving these things just like there is no genre of music any more or less capable of achieving a certain emotion."
So, for example, Swedish death metal is just as capable as, say, gentle classical music of capturing the feeling I get when I look at my five year old daughter asleep. Or classical chamber music is just as capable as punk rock of capturing the feeling of rage one experiences in a street fight.
curtkram-
I'm unsure where to start to reply. We're so far apart that we are really talking completely past each other. Of course nature doesn't make the elements of classical architecture. But classical elements are based on natural forms, they reference natural geometries, and classical ornamental elements often depict nature. Throughout history, buildings have symbolically referenced all of the universal human values I mentioned, and many, many more. In my opinion one of the sad things about the modern movement in architecture is that it has banished symbolism from the discourse, and replaced it with functionalism.
I think I'm going to respectfully bow out of this dialogue, since it's pretty clear we have no common ground in our views on the meaning of architecture.
jla-x
You paint a provocative image of what goes into architecture. It makes me think of something I've long suspected about the circular nature of this argument. One's work and opinions tend to reflect one's personality. In other words, if they are anal and fact oriented, they might get off on the curtain wall connections and conversely look at those kinds of details when appreciating other work. If they are romantic, they might get off on patterns and textures, or even historical allusions. If they are followers, they might uphold the status quo unquestioningly or if they seek attention, they might be iconoclasts.
What seems evident though is that whatever one's stylistic preferences, be they religious, agnostic, whatever, their personality will determine their philosophical stance and their experiences will determine their personality, and as such it will be impossible to determine an approach that we can all agree on. All the more reason to allow for the most open minded and inclusive approach to teaching architecture, to expose students to all the strands of thinking on an equal footing. Naturally, one ought to have standards though, and to teach a grab bag of stuff might in the end be too 'catholic' an approach, but the least we could do is acknowledge that tastes will always vary without stooping to condescension.
Another thing that comes across in many of the comments is that the modernist perspective seems more defensive towards allowing traditionalists in the mix as traditionalists seem in sharing the stage with modernists. This is true with most power relationship where by the minority tends to be more accommodating than the majority, even though I'm sure many of the sentiments represented here are sincerely held.
In the end the best we can hope for is that ones own passion for their work ought to be preserved and nurtured as much as possible, because we've all seen work of almost every style that makes one say, I'm glad to be an architect.
this whole thread is like some strange re-enactment of this passage:
" The guardian of the regal library, a person of great valour, but chiefly renowned for his humanity, had been a fierce champion for the Moderns, and, in an engagement upon Parnassus, had vowed with his own hands to knock down two of the ancient chiefs who guarded a small pass on the superior rock, but, endeavouring to climb up, was cruelly obstructed by his own unhappy weight and tendency towards his centre, a quality to which those of the Modern party are extremely subject; for, being light-headed, they have, in speculation, a wonderful agility, and conceive nothing too high for them to mount, but, in reducing to practice, discover a mighty pressure about their posteriors and their heels.
Having thus failed in his design, the disappointed champion bore a cruel rancour to the Ancients, which he resolved to gratify by showing all marks of his favour to the books of their adversaries, and lodging them in the fairest apartments; when, at the same time, whatever book had the boldness to own itself for an advocate of the Ancients was buried alive in some obscure corner, and threatened, upon the least displeasure, to be turned out of doors.
Besides, it so happened that about this time there was a strange confusion of place among all the books in the library, for which several reasons were assigned. Some imputed it to a great heap of learned dust, which a perverse wind blew off from a shelf of Moderns into the keeper's eyes. Others affirmed he had a humour to pick the worms out of the schoolmen, and swallow them fresh and fasting, whereof some fell upon his spleen, and some climbed up into his head, to the great perturbation of both. And lastly, others maintained that, by walking much in the dark about the library, he had quite lost the situation of it out of his head; and therefore, in replacing his books, he was apt to mistake and clap Descartes next to Aristotle, poor Plato had got between Hobbes and the Seven Wise Masters, and Virgil was hemmed in with Dryden on one side and Wither on the other. "
bonus points only go to those who didn't need google to find out WTF
whoa! I am a little late to the party, but that "Bathtub Building" that the Bozo OP is talking about is loved a lot by the residents of Amsterdam...
and the Seagram is clad with bronze members. It's a real mystery to me how this thread got to 10 pages without a single architect saying something about the Seagram facade not being made of steel.
Threadkilla...I think it was mentioned somewhere on page 4 perhaps. Too lazy too look for it.
nope, Thayer calls 'decoration' on Mies on page five, for 'steel beams stuck onto the Seagram' (paraphrase). Fast forward 200+ posts, and not a single architect catches that unbelievable mistake.
why is it relevant to the topic? I personally always thought the bronze was a strategy to underscore the decorative aspect of the Seagram's facade, while simultaneously allowing for a material authenticity that would not be possible with steel. I am talking about the patination, which is not attainable in steel without structural decay (Corten being the notable exception).
Mies was a master of paradoxes, after all...
It clear there is some hypocrisy in the modernist notion of honesty of materials. I think that went off the rails long ago. Look at any hovering blob building done by the avant garde.
Meis was actually rubbing up against the classical notion of structural logic. Classical buildings tell a story about the physics in play within them. The classical architect doesn't really care whether the actual structural elements are exposed. The language of the order displays a structural logic, showing the observer how the forces might be transmitted to the ground. Its one of the important tests a classical architect must use every step of the design process: does this configuration convey a structural logic? It seems to me Meis was doing the same thing. He's telling a story. Stories are good.
eke, are you saying the modernists learned from the classicists, and built on their work to create something new that represented the materials and methods of the time they were designing in? sounds like what i've been trying to tell you....
i do not see that as hypocrisy at all. of course i've also repeated a few times that it's great you're doing what you do, so when thayer says "the modernist perspective seems more defensive towards allowing traditionalists in the mix," i can't help but think that's backwards.
i do find thayer's presentation of his views on "traditional" architecture to be far weaker than yours, so maybe he's just bent out of shape about that. also i don't think there is any sort of 'natural' preconception of shapes and form people gravitate towards. i believe a person that likes traditional design likes it because that's what they learned, not because it's instinctual. that's not how the id works, that's how the ego works.
I've read most of the comments generated by suri's questions and the truth is that "beaut is in the eye of the beholder". A true architecture critic can not dismiss the fact that today's architecture is completely driven by the past. It doesn't matter how you look at it we have studied and learned the work of our predecessors and we're either learning from their mistakes or applying the techniques that were most successful.
We all respond to what the client wants and when the client doesn't know we show them what they want.
Architecture responds to the human form, necessities and behavior. Every building out there serves the purpose for which it was designed and once it has finished serving its purpose it is either reconditioned or demolished to leave room for a new building.
Just like art, there are many styles, forms, shapes, materials and textures and everybody has their favorite.
The truth is that throughout history we've built with the materials at hand and the materials that have proven to be the best lasting are the most expensive. Another point to consider is that every building has its due date and the older they get the sicker they get as well.
Let's enjoy the different shapes and forms, let's celebrate the authenticity of the new work and lets keep in mind that architecture is an art and it has its cycles and movements. You might have to suffer for a time but maybe a movement towards that style that you like is around the corner.
if people have evolved to have an actual genetic sequence telling them classic ornamentation is more beautiful than the simplicity in modern design, and i prefer modern design, does than mean i'm a flawed person with a mental disability, or does it mean i'm just the next evolutionary step for humans?
my opinion is of course that this is not genetic or evolutionary, and sometimes people like different things. so if you prefer classical detailing, i'm not saying you're mentally disabled. i'm just saying i like something different.
I'm not saying that people have evolved to have a preference for classical design in their DNA. I am saying that classical design has evolved to emulate what people naturally find to be beautiful. It employs many strategies for this, notably aligning with the natural world with its proportion and geometry.
I think modernist design is capable of doing this as well, and, although I regard it as a less steadfast path, it occasionally succeeds. I can't possibly explain why you like it - that's for you to decide. You seem pretty lucid, so I'm ruling out mental disability. :)
I was trained a modernist, and I used to be an exclusively modernist architect. But my view on aesthetics and the philosophy of design evolved over my career, and buildings I once saw as great I now see as misguided. It took a long time to shake off the programming I received at the university.
my opinion is of course that this is not genetic or evolutionary, and sometimes people like different things. so if you prefer classical detailing, i'm not saying you're mentally disabled. i'm just saying i like something different.
Well, if that's all your saying, why not allow for all kinds of architecture to be taught on an equal footing in schools and save people like EKE from having to ditch all the ideological bagage that most schools seem to promote? Personally, I couldn't get over the distance between what the priests where advocating and how they actually lived thier lives. Plus, when you go to school in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, how can you fight the lure William Tubby's Archbishop House when they are showing you Villa Savoye, a white box on sticks? (sorry, piloties!)
Had you been so liberal minded, this this thread might have ended in the 200's.
i'm not saying you're mentally disabled
Though it would seem to be a prerequisite for a career in architecture. Or maybe it's just the result of a career in architecture
thayer, they do teach historical design in architecture school. i'm pretty sure history is required by NAAB, though i don't know their specific requirements. school was obviously structured in a such a way that eke was allowed to choose a profession designing in a traditional style of his choosing. we know that, because it happened.
what is it you're asking for? in a 6 year program, assuming you're not really working on buildings until 3rd year, that's about 6 semester long studios. should we really be spending those studios learning (1) roman, (2) gothic, (3) renaissance, (4) baroque, (5) neoclassic, and then (6) modern, so your traditional styles get even footing? anything non-western, like islamic architecture or eastern architecture, would be covered in history classes i suppose.
if this is the case, you're going to stop teaching how to design buildings in studio, and instead focus on copying other people's ornamentation. that will not teach kids to think critically, it won't teach them how buildings go together, and it won't teach them to be better architects.
A few brief comments-
1. I received no training in classical design in school. I was trained in a modernist school. The history classes that are taught in most architecture programs are not a training in classical architecture. I am almost entirely self-taught.
2. Teaching classical architecture is not a history class, although studying the great architecture of the past is certainly part of it. When you say "they do teach historical design in architecture school" you are mistaken. They usually teach a history of architecture survey class. This is not teaching classical design.
3. I don't think it is possible to teach both a Bauhaus/modernist approach and a classical/Beaux Arts approach in the same program. These are completely different worldviews. I think there should be programs offering one discipline or the other, and people should choose their path.
4. I'd be very happy with, say, 10% of the architecture programs teaching classical and traditional design as a discipline in a thoughtful way. Although that would in no way match the market demand for people with that kind of training, at least there would be a choice. Right now, so determined are the architectural educators to keep traditional training out of the marketplace, the monopoly of modernist programs is nearly total.
I don't think it is possible to teach both a Bauhaus/modernist approach and a classical/Beaux Arts approach in the same program. These are completely different worldviews.
But the Bauhaus wouldn't exist without Beaux Arts ... in fact Beaux Arts training was the foundation of the Bauhaus School and remains the foundation of all education at RISD and many prestigious and well-regarded art and design schools.
A world view is a broad vision that is not constrained by a particular stylistic dogma.
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