So, I'm trying to throw a competition entry together for the 'mosque thing.'
I'm a little disappointed in myself for investing the amount of time given the caliber of the other submissions. Not to say mine is spectacular but I would have just photoshopped something and got it over with in 15 minutes.
Well, I had started doodling around with something before the competition was announced and am recycling. I took 4 or 5 ideas and ran with them. I realized that these would never pan out to something "good" under the general concept of good aesthetics.
So, I started designing it to be ugly. Like really ugly and gaudy. I would say it is "well-executed trash."
I wanted to hear anyones opinions or see any examples of intentionally ugly architecture. And while deconstructionism and brutalism are ugly in their own ways, I don't think respective designers of each ideology really started out with the intent to make your eyes bleed.
I always thought I'd love to design a gaudy interior. I used to fantasize about doing the South Philly rowhouse of a mobster, a place with way more money than taste, with the goal of flaunting that wealth.
But I think in the end it would be like eating a whole can of sweetened condensed milk - stomach ache.
Yeah, I'll have to look into that if I can find it around here.
LB, my concept for this was "Half-timber + glass&steel + post-modernism + mosque + central European church architecture." I swear I can hear the sound of a thousand hands rubbing corduroy pants coming from Graves' office.
Yeah, mosques are pretty much ugly no matter what iteration you'll get stuck in. The Hagia Sofia wasn't ugly until it was converted into a mosque.
Constantine should have avoided the mess in the first place and banned minarets like Sweden.
Perhaps Sweden recently gave itself another couple of decades before becomming another barbaric islamic outpost.
I'm sure that Itally and particularly Spain eternally regret not banning the insidious, relentless establishment of the muslim invasion centuries prior to their taking root in that portion of Europe.
Love the West or leave it. Don't subvert and destroy it. Your ancestors will not be proud of you when you shall meet them on the other side. A westerner hating the west and accomodating the invasion of all things foreign is merely projecting self hate onto an altruistic, complicitly defenseless Christian West. Might as well dig up the decomposed bodies of your most recent dead ancestors and piss on their skeletal remains. Of course, anyone with any remnant of western blood running in their veins ought to be ashamed for any degree of accomodation of the invasion but shame is in short supply these days as most people's consciences have been seared by a peculiarly contemporary accomodation of all manner of beastial debauchery and wickedness.
To destroy it from within and supplant it with all manner of alien cultures and corresponding architecture is the cheapest version of expressing hate imaginable and the lowest from of unhumanity.
Part II of Learning from Las Vegas is entitled "Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed" with a specific essay therein entitled "Heroic and Original, or Ugly and Ordinary".
Regarding the architecture of FAT, the Gooding House* may be a major precedent.
*designed 1977, same year as the publication of The Language of Post-Modern Architecture where the image at the bottom of page 115 offers an interesting coincidence.
The first firm that comes to my mind is "fashion, architecture, taste" (FAT). I am pretty sure some of the sheer ugliness is fully intentional and/or ironic.
Scogin Elam and Bray...while many of their designs are indeed awkward, some of their homes are gorgeous
Can I ask a naive question? Why in the world would someone intentionally create an ugly building? Never understood that.
It would seem to be the epitome of self serving design. Unlike fashion or art, a building is something the public has to experience on a regular basis.
Must just be me...I don't particularly care for ugly objects in general.
I don't mind ugly at all when there is intention behind it. In the case of FAT I think a lot of it is satire, the architectural version of Monty Python. Though I don't know that I would want to live or work in such a place, there is certainly a place for it.
what if i find erin andrews a pig, and actually like padma lakshmi, i mean come on, another white chick being photographed for some white guy's masturbatory fantasies? puhlease.
b3tadine[sutures] : then move to India to experience her and stop importing them for their stealth takeover of the West.
India has been biologically incapable of producing Erin Andrew's since the ancient forebearers of the Indian's white component began dabbling with miscegenation and then veered into a completely out of control mass miscegenation.
Get your fill of ugly alien's in their territory but keep them there.
Sorry, Orochi, I like you and I usually agree with you, but I can't let this one fly.
Irony: the use of words [or forms, etc.] to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.
Hipster: I'm not gonna go here, I'm sure you can figure it out.
Ironic hipster design: Ugly architectural plans that are intended to convey some higher value, but in actuality are nothing but poorly-veiled tactile narcissism (this usually doesn't occur to the designer).
The reason why hipster culture is such a failure is because it is entirely based on this principle: I the creator know better than to use vinyl siding on my house or to decorate my den with antlers and paintings of owls, THUS, I do so in order to communicate my superior value system. I know exactly what NOT to wear, see? I'm wearing it ironically?
I could go even further about value systems, classism, hipsters, etc., but shouldn't we use our precious time to design productive things instead? It's not all about getting revenge on the teabaggers.
PS: I get it, from a conceptual art standpoint --- circa 1998. Or maybe an architectural standpoint a la Isozaki Arata 1978.
Okay here is the downlow: the nazis were defeated three generations ago. Old story. No, they are not coming back either.
However the philosphies of those who would rule one world under an iron fist are definately alive and well. The practicioners of the intentions behind national socialism are embodied in the democratic party of the USSA and in many ways the republican party as well. Different name, same color poop. same policies that lead to the subversions and attempted exterminations of people in order to facilitate their replacement with others. Talk about racists! libertards are the most unrepentedly bigoted morons of all time. The key to bigotry as implemented by communists and bigots themselves is to just yell bigot and racist at the other party as loud as you can and hope it sticks.
Architecture is currently under the thumb of the one force that I can think of that is worse than national socialism: communism. sure it goes by a different name but the contemporary poop color matches the poop of the nazi fascists.
The profession is saturated and controlled by libertard bigotted commie morons. THe AIA would put the SS to shame as an agent of cultural metamorphosis from freedom to fascism to communist dicatorship. The professional body has got to be at least 10x as complacent as the average German was in their accomodations of national socialism leading up to WWII.
I loathe the neocons moreso than the current communist in chief and his hacks. Without the contemporary reincarnations of treasonous benedict arnolds like Bush I and Bush II (closet communists) the current out and out communist in chief wouldn't have had a chance.
Strip malls are ghastly and offensive to any human being, individual or group, that likes to develop their intelligence. Those that want to exist on the level of the common sewer rat and scrounge for survival...they love the strip mall and the house for every 1/4 acre suburb and their stupid hummer parked next to their stupid, retardiculous "smart" car.
Is that Ayn Rand I see in the chart above...now I'll have to give it a closer inspection.
Congratulations for coming out of the closet! Although I've known all along...funny how you try to steer every thread into this direction. Maybe you can create an architecture discussion on stormfront.org and don't bother us here anymore.
As far as I know the only communist dictatorships are in Belarus, Cuba, North-Korea and I think Moldova. But then again what do I know, I've lost my marbles.
Can we now talk about architecture again please...
"The reason why hipster culture is such a failure is because it is entirely based on this principle: I the creator know better than to use vinyl siding on my house or to decorate my den with antlers and paintings of owls, THUS, I do so in order to communicate my superior value system. I know exactly what NOT to wear, see? I'm wearing it ironically?"
I'm having trouble understanding MiddleAmerica's comment. Is it the use of irony or the sense of superiority that is so offensive? And how is your "i'm not a hipster" stance any less of a failure than their "i'm not a suburbanite"?
"I could go even further about value systems, classism, hipsters, etc."
Please do go further. Is Rem Koolhaas a hipster architect?
What I meant about value systems is the way someone interprets value.
I believe someone posted a youtube video essay essentially summarizing the value system museum's employ. It's a gross simplification based on how a museum works. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaFbmuEUdwI
(Thanks toasteroven!)
Now, this is my gross simplification of value systems in architecture pieced together from various concepts taken from architecture, arts and the humanities:
Real Estate evaluation is fine art at best and a soft science at worst.
Typical a building as a focus of "object worship" can only be valued as an "object" as much as an individual is willing to "worship it." Now excluding some other more obvious architects aside, I think a perfect example for this concept is the work of Neutra.
Because Neutra's work has limited "confounding factors" to it, it makes it easier to make this point.
The only difference between a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom 1600 sq ft home and a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom 1600 sq ft home designed by Neutra was that the latter was designed by Neutra. Because his designs lack "confounding factors," the only way the Neutra house is considered more valuable is because of object worship.
So, if you were to remove his name from the equation... both houses should have roughly the same real value. That is, there is nothing intrinsically special about either home to make it of any special value.
The "confounding factors" I was talking about is how features of a particular building give it a real "tangible" value. I summarize tangible values as the following:
1) Material value: The value gained in an object through the application of expensive and or rare materials. This one is pretty obvious and not so obvious. Expensive materials can also include materials with high labor costs (molding, ornamentation, fixtures) as properties can often be stripped down and reapplied to other properties.
2) Cultural value: The value gained in an object through its apparent cultural value. This is the least tangible value an object can hold that can be measured. But properties with apparent cultural value, either by cultural representations or by history taking place on the property itself, can be given rough tangible values. Some cultural applications require material applications (high material values and high labor costs) to produce or reproduce.
It maybe generally assumed that people will worship an object more if that object has cultural familiarity-- familiarity meaning it displays patterns, forms and ideas tangible to the owner or general population.
3) Performance/tool value: The value gained in an object through the use of the object itself. While often cheap and poorly made (an inadequate stereotype), farm properties hold more value than their non-farm equivalents. This is because the property has performance value and can generate its own value.
The contemporary representation of value maybe construed as a system like LEED or its British equivalent. That properties deemed "higher performance" have more value due to their own individual inherent performance qualities.
4) Technical value: The value gained in an object through the application of technological processes and ideas. Value gained in this concept maybe from all of the above. A property can have more technical value if it doesn't fall over or that it can withstand being on fire. It may have cultural value as some processes of ornamentation and decoration require technical skill to achieve and the application of materials may also require technical value.
Many objects in contemporary architecture often lack on any tangible value because basic expectations in performance and technical value are legally mandated. Once an object is forced to be liked, it no longer has a "worship" value.
Other objects in contemporary architecture often lack material and cultural value-- they are often devoid of tangible cultural symbols and devoid of desired materials.
Hipsterism, while often expressing appreciation desire of objects through irony and mocking, can be boiled down to a very small concept.
Hipsterism is the rejection of "mainstream" and "middle-of-the-road" object person worship in favor of a regurgitation of historical and classical concepts through modern applications. One could assume that hipsterism is "avant garde based in economics."
As an reactionary cultural movement, one cannot simply define "hipster shit" as an regular or common definition of the word.
So, while an architecture firm might be "Hipster shit," its "Hipster shit" technically gives it more value. Now, whether individuals will pay for or "worship" that object is a different question altogether.
But a hundred years from now, people may see a firm like FAT has having more "value" than your typical office building because a FAT design lends it self better to "object" worship.
And that's one tenet of hipsterism is that one cannot criticize "hipster shit" without criticizing themselves as "hipster shit" is a funhouse mirror reflection of one's own culture.
Here is a riddle for anyone that dares to name the unmentionable:
What do Karl Marx, Stalin, Wolfowitz, Rahm Emmanuel, Walter Gropius, Ayn Rand, Hugh Hefner, Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Peter Eisenman, Louis Kahn, Moshe Safdie, Scarpa, Denise Scott Brown, Robert Stern, Rupert Murdoch, Bernake, the owners of all the major media outlets from CBS to CNN, all the major purveyors of porn and the European women sex slavery industry, and the entire shadow leadership of the neoconservative movement have in common?
(and no the answer is not that they all hate Christmas or that they all speak "happen" to speak yiddish).
began as a means of consolation for the artist after the death of a friend, but now presents a wide range of possible readings, including a meditation on loss and mortality. The fruit skins—emptied, dried, faded, repaired, and ornamented—have the feel of relics, almost like photographs. Transformed by the artist's delicate mending, they are subject to effects of time that are as unpredictable as they are inevitable.
Taking its title from a song by Billie Holiday, Strange Fruit is unique in its materials but not in its themes. It recalls the venerable tradition of vanitas still-life paintings, which show objects that suggest the fleeting nature of life, such as a flickering candle or a wilting flower. Far more direct than a picture, Strange Fruit actually will decay. By introducing the natural rhythms of a work of art's life into the museum setting, Strange Fruit raises questions about the permanence of art, and whether it resides in objects, ideas, or people's experiences and memories.
I'm a fan of the ATT Building in NYC.....for being the largest piece of Shit Furniture ever designed....and executed by and architect and I think we all know who he is.
Yeah, let's just ignore thread hijacks. Annnyway...
davvid: "I'm having trouble understanding MiddleAmerica's comment. Is it the use of irony or the sense of superiority that is so offensive? And how is your "i'm not a hipster" stance any less of a failure than their "i'm not a suburbanite"?"
"I could go even further about value systems, classism, hipsters, etc."
"Please do go further. Is Rem Koolhaas a hipster architect? "
----
Ok, maybe this shouldn't be called "hipster architecture" and I never should have brought the h-word into this discussion in the first place. Irony in design/art/literature/anything is fine with me, as long as it's used to do something other than put down the culture of low-taste (usually low-income) people. They don't really hurt anybody- why not use the same tool to attack the powerful people who really cause trouble? This is the classism connection.
I have NEVER seen ironic art that attacks global capitalists with impeccable taste in design, fashion, urban affairs, etc.
On the other hand, I understand the intention of borrowing the visual language of, oh, say Middle America to create something that really IS intended to be beautiful, thought-provoking, etc in a completely sincere way. This happens sometimes (rarely).
It doesn't matter if I'm a hipster/suburbanite/both/neither because we aren't applying these labels to people, we're talking about places, things, or ideas.
"Hipsterism is the rejection of "mainstream" and "middle-of-the-road" object person worship in favor of a regurgitation of historical and classical concepts through modern applications. One could assume that hipsterism is "avant garde based in economics."
But a hundred years from now, people may see a firm like FAT has having more "value" than your typical office building because a FAT design lends it self better to "object" worship."
I guess we disagree about what 'hipsterism' is, and it's a bad idea to use that word anyway because who the f*ck [are we allowed to use 'bad words' on this forum?] DOES know? I think it was never one movement or process - it only became that after it was given a name and 'discoursed' about by academics and media people who truly have no idea.
'Hipsterism' is really a collection of very different value systems that grew out of youth cultures in different regions. In the late '90s there were no hipsters, in the Bed-Stuy 2009 sense, where I'm from (the Midwest) or anywhere else. There were a mixture of train-hopping punks, anarcho-vegans, and christian metal-hardcore groupies. As the latter started getting into anarchism and Satan in the 2000s, the former two changed their image to '70s electro in order to distinguish themselves from this. Now that the 'uncool' groups are into 70s/80s stuff, the original anarco-vegan-punks are into black metal. I just saw that there was an academic conference on black metal in Williamsburg, so it's come full circle.
The point of all of that is to prove that hipsterism is nothing but a bunch of high school cliques that are perpetually inter-marrying, breeding, mutating, and getting discussed by cultural theorists as if this is new or actually matters.
What's the difference between hipsters and yuppies? They both worship people and objects in the conventional sense. They are all slaves to consumerism, whether it involves Crystal Lite or Comme des Garcons. The only true avant-garde economic thinkers are the '90s punks who are as divorced as possible from consumption.
FAT is not revolutionary. From their website:
"Shopping allowed the culturally aware person to indulge in the joys of aesthetic enlightenment free of charge, whilst simultaneously keeping one step ahead in the fashion stakes. Shopping muddied the waters of art and advertising, clouding cultural credibility and commercial reality, and confused the angst of modern art with the pleasure of consumption."
Thanks for the response Middle America. I really appreciate your point about using irony to attack the powerful. It seems as though Koolhaas and others have sort of done this by taking the appearance of global luxury to the point of absurdity.
I never really considered the use of low-brow or nostalgic references by hipsters or other elitist groups to be an attack on low-culture. It seems like the references are made because of a genuine appreciation for pop-culture. If it is an attack, it might be an attack on the high-brow seriousness of academia. I'm sure each person has a slightly different motivation though.
And by the way, I like the original idea of using ugly architecture to communicate a certain idea, and have thought about it before. So, how can this be productive?
Borrow the visual language of "high design" - Dwell, expensive urban entertainment districts (ex: Power and Light District in Kansas City), etc
Pentagram occasionally does this, from what I can see. Note the anarcho-Satan element - aging punks?
Ugly Architecture (purposefully so)
So, I'm trying to throw a competition entry together for the 'mosque thing.'
I'm a little disappointed in myself for investing the amount of time given the caliber of the other submissions. Not to say mine is spectacular but I would have just photoshopped something and got it over with in 15 minutes.
Well, I had started doodling around with something before the competition was announced and am recycling. I took 4 or 5 ideas and ran with them. I realized that these would never pan out to something "good" under the general concept of good aesthetics.
So, I started designing it to be ugly. Like really ugly and gaudy. I would say it is "well-executed trash."
I wanted to hear anyones opinions or see any examples of intentionally ugly architecture. And while deconstructionism and brutalism are ugly in their own ways, I don't think respective designers of each ideology really started out with the intent to make your eyes bleed.
orochi, i am reading eco's book on ugliness, so you might get something from that.
I always thought I'd love to design a gaudy interior. I used to fantasize about doing the South Philly rowhouse of a mobster, a place with way more money than taste, with the goal of flaunting that wealth.
But I think in the end it would be like eating a whole can of sweetened condensed milk - stomach ache.
Yeah, I'll have to look into that if I can find it around here.
LB, my concept for this was "Half-timber + glass&steel + post-modernism + mosque + central European church architecture." I swear I can hear the sound of a thousand hands rubbing corduroy pants coming from Graves' office.
That Swiss Chocolate one is rad.
Yeah, mosques are pretty much ugly no matter what iteration you'll get stuck in. The Hagia Sofia wasn't ugly until it was converted into a mosque.
Constantine should have avoided the mess in the first place and banned minarets like Sweden.
Perhaps Sweden recently gave itself another couple of decades before becomming another barbaric islamic outpost.
I'm sure that Itally and particularly Spain eternally regret not banning the insidious, relentless establishment of the muslim invasion centuries prior to their taking root in that portion of Europe.
Love the West or leave it. Don't subvert and destroy it. Your ancestors will not be proud of you when you shall meet them on the other side. A westerner hating the west and accomodating the invasion of all things foreign is merely projecting self hate onto an altruistic, complicitly defenseless Christian West. Might as well dig up the decomposed bodies of your most recent dead ancestors and piss on their skeletal remains. Of course, anyone with any remnant of western blood running in their veins ought to be ashamed for any degree of accomodation of the invasion but shame is in short supply these days as most people's consciences have been seared by a peculiarly contemporary accomodation of all manner of beastial debauchery and wickedness.
To destroy it from within and supplant it with all manner of alien cultures and corresponding architecture is the cheapest version of expressing hate imaginable and the lowest from of unhumanity.
OMA has consistently produced awkward forms with tacky materials. I'm thinking of the Transformer, Hyperbuilding, and Taipei Performing Arts Center.
Bernard Tschumi's Blue building also comes to mind.
i knew IT, those damn Swedes!
I'm pretty sure Michael Graves designed some ugly buildings on purpose.
Ba-Dump... Cha!!!!
Not to mention Scoogin elam merrill... what ever they are called.
Then of course there are the Best Buy, Ikea, IHOP retail, "I'm a cheap icon and a warehouse" at the same time crap.
How about the T for Taste aspect of FAT. I can think of no tackier and funnier firm.
Blasphemy! How dare you screw up the name of the dirty south's finest! Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam.
Discrimination?
Part II of Learning from Las Vegas is entitled "Ugly and Ordinary Architecture, or the Decorated Shed" with a specific essay therein entitled "Heroic and Original, or Ugly and Ordinary".
Regarding the architecture of FAT, the Gooding House* may be a major precedent.
*designed 1977, same year as the publication of The Language of Post-Modern Architecture where the image at the bottom of page 115 offers an interesting coincidence.
The first firm that comes to my mind is "fashion, architecture, taste" (FAT). I am pretty sure some of the sheer ugliness is fully intentional and/or ironic.
Scogin Elam and Bray...while many of their designs are indeed awkward, some of their homes are gorgeous
Can I ask a naive question? Why in the world would someone intentionally create an ugly building? Never understood that.
It would seem to be the epitome of self serving design. Unlike fashion or art, a building is something the public has to experience on a regular basis.
Must just be me...I don't particularly care for ugly objects in general.
I don't mind ugly at all when there is intention behind it. In the case of FAT I think a lot of it is satire, the architectural version of Monty Python. Though I don't know that I would want to live or work in such a place, there is certainly a place for it.
Their bathroom sweet is fantastic.
Thanks, FAT was exactly what I was looking for!
Trace...
Creating an intentionally ugly building is pure in terms of art. It's the equivalent of purposefully getting a perfect zero on a test.
The only way to be able to absolutely fail a test is to be able to get a perfect score in the first place.
Like FAT's work, repetition and playing with scale can take what are perfectly acceptable aesthetic concepts and warp them to a point of discomfort.
The real travesty in architecture comes about when someone makes unintentionally ugly designs.
Ugly is Ugly.
Why foist a Rosie Odonnel on the public when you can just as easily with the same amount of energy expended, create an Erin Andrews?
A lot of people have lost their marbles.
what if i find erin andrews a pig, and actually like padma lakshmi, i mean come on, another white chick being photographed for some white guy's masturbatory fantasies? puhlease.
^^never heard of feeders?
What's the point of daydreaming about ironic hipster designs? Please, God, not another ugly sweater party --- in architectural form.
What's an "ironic" "hipster" design?
One of the biggest things about architects is they don't understand value systems.
b3tadine[sutures] : then move to India to experience her and stop importing them for their stealth takeover of the West.
India has been biologically incapable of producing Erin Andrew's since the ancient forebearers of the Indian's white component began dabbling with miscegenation and then veered into a completely out of control mass miscegenation.
Get your fill of ugly alien's in their territory but keep them there.
Sorry, Orochi, I like you and I usually agree with you, but I can't let this one fly.
Irony: the use of words [or forms, etc.] to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning.
Hipster: I'm not gonna go here, I'm sure you can figure it out.
Ironic hipster design: Ugly architectural plans that are intended to convey some higher value, but in actuality are nothing but poorly-veiled tactile narcissism (this usually doesn't occur to the designer).
The reason why hipster culture is such a failure is because it is entirely based on this principle: I the creator know better than to use vinyl siding on my house or to decorate my den with antlers and paintings of owls, THUS, I do so in order to communicate my superior value system. I know exactly what NOT to wear, see? I'm wearing it ironically?
I could go even further about value systems, classism, hipsters, etc., but shouldn't we use our precious time to design productive things instead? It's not all about getting revenge on the teabaggers.
PS: I get it, from a conceptual art standpoint --- circa 1998. Or maybe an architectural standpoint a la Isozaki Arata 1978.
PS: When did neo-Nazis get into architecture? OneFella4?
Okay here is the downlow: the nazis were defeated three generations ago. Old story. No, they are not coming back either.
However the philosphies of those who would rule one world under an iron fist are definately alive and well. The practicioners of the intentions behind national socialism are embodied in the democratic party of the USSA and in many ways the republican party as well. Different name, same color poop. same policies that lead to the subversions and attempted exterminations of people in order to facilitate their replacement with others. Talk about racists! libertards are the most unrepentedly bigoted morons of all time. The key to bigotry as implemented by communists and bigots themselves is to just yell bigot and racist at the other party as loud as you can and hope it sticks.
Architecture is currently under the thumb of the one force that I can think of that is worse than national socialism: communism. sure it goes by a different name but the contemporary poop color matches the poop of the nazi fascists.
The profession is saturated and controlled by libertard bigotted commie morons. THe AIA would put the SS to shame as an agent of cultural metamorphosis from freedom to fascism to communist dicatorship. The professional body has got to be at least 10x as complacent as the average German was in their accomodations of national socialism leading up to WWII.
I'd love to see your architecture - I bet you do a great strip mall.
funny how most of the neo-cons of the for Bush administration are seen as children of Trotsky...funny, as in haha...
Trotsky's Demented Family Tree
I loathe the neocons moreso than the current communist in chief and his hacks. Without the contemporary reincarnations of treasonous benedict arnolds like Bush I and Bush II (closet communists) the current out and out communist in chief wouldn't have had a chance.
Strip malls are ghastly and offensive to any human being, individual or group, that likes to develop their intelligence. Those that want to exist on the level of the common sewer rat and scrounge for survival...they love the strip mall and the house for every 1/4 acre suburb and their stupid hummer parked next to their stupid, retardiculous "smart" car.
Is that Ayn Rand I see in the chart above...now I'll have to give it a closer inspection.
Congratulations for coming out of the closet! Although I've known all along...funny how you try to steer every thread into this direction. Maybe you can create an architecture discussion on stormfront.org and don't bother us here anymore.
As far as I know the only communist dictatorships are in Belarus, Cuba, North-Korea and I think Moldova. But then again what do I know, I've lost my marbles.
Can we now talk about architecture again please...
"The reason why hipster culture is such a failure is because it is entirely based on this principle: I the creator know better than to use vinyl siding on my house or to decorate my den with antlers and paintings of owls, THUS, I do so in order to communicate my superior value system. I know exactly what NOT to wear, see? I'm wearing it ironically?"
I'm having trouble understanding MiddleAmerica's comment. Is it the use of irony or the sense of superiority that is so offensive? And how is your "i'm not a hipster" stance any less of a failure than their "i'm not a suburbanite"?
"I could go even further about value systems, classism, hipsters, etc."
Please do go further. Is Rem Koolhaas a hipster architect?
What I meant about value systems is the way someone interprets value.
I believe someone posted a youtube video essay essentially summarizing the value system museum's employ. It's a gross simplification based on how a museum works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaFbmuEUdwI
(Thanks toasteroven!)
Now, this is my gross simplification of value systems in architecture pieced together from various concepts taken from architecture, arts and the humanities:
Real Estate evaluation is fine art at best and a soft science at worst.
Typical a building as a focus of "object worship" can only be valued as an "object" as much as an individual is willing to "worship it." Now excluding some other more obvious architects aside, I think a perfect example for this concept is the work of Neutra.
Because Neutra's work has limited "confounding factors" to it, it makes it easier to make this point.
The only difference between a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom 1600 sq ft home and a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom 1600 sq ft home designed by Neutra was that the latter was designed by Neutra. Because his designs lack "confounding factors," the only way the Neutra house is considered more valuable is because of object worship.
So, if you were to remove his name from the equation... both houses should have roughly the same real value. That is, there is nothing intrinsically special about either home to make it of any special value.
The "confounding factors" I was talking about is how features of a particular building give it a real "tangible" value. I summarize tangible values as the following:
1) Material value: The value gained in an object through the application of expensive and or rare materials. This one is pretty obvious and not so obvious. Expensive materials can also include materials with high labor costs (molding, ornamentation, fixtures) as properties can often be stripped down and reapplied to other properties.
2) Cultural value: The value gained in an object through its apparent cultural value. This is the least tangible value an object can hold that can be measured. But properties with apparent cultural value, either by cultural representations or by history taking place on the property itself, can be given rough tangible values. Some cultural applications require material applications (high material values and high labor costs) to produce or reproduce.
It maybe generally assumed that people will worship an object more if that object has cultural familiarity-- familiarity meaning it displays patterns, forms and ideas tangible to the owner or general population.
3) Performance/tool value: The value gained in an object through the use of the object itself. While often cheap and poorly made (an inadequate stereotype), farm properties hold more value than their non-farm equivalents. This is because the property has performance value and can generate its own value.
The contemporary representation of value maybe construed as a system like LEED or its British equivalent. That properties deemed "higher performance" have more value due to their own individual inherent performance qualities.
4) Technical value: The value gained in an object through the application of technological processes and ideas. Value gained in this concept maybe from all of the above. A property can have more technical value if it doesn't fall over or that it can withstand being on fire. It may have cultural value as some processes of ornamentation and decoration require technical skill to achieve and the application of materials may also require technical value.
Many objects in contemporary architecture often lack on any tangible value because basic expectations in performance and technical value are legally mandated. Once an object is forced to be liked, it no longer has a "worship" value.
Other objects in contemporary architecture often lack material and cultural value-- they are often devoid of tangible cultural symbols and devoid of desired materials.
Hipsterism, while often expressing appreciation desire of objects through irony and mocking, can be boiled down to a very small concept.
Hipsterism is the rejection of "mainstream" and "middle-of-the-road" object person worship in favor of a regurgitation of historical and classical concepts through modern applications. One could assume that hipsterism is "avant garde based in economics."
As an reactionary cultural movement, one cannot simply define "hipster shit" as an regular or common definition of the word.
So, while an architecture firm might be "Hipster shit," its "Hipster shit" technically gives it more value. Now, whether individuals will pay for or "worship" that object is a different question altogether.
But a hundred years from now, people may see a firm like FAT has having more "value" than your typical office building because a FAT design lends it self better to "object" worship.
And that's one tenet of hipsterism is that one cannot criticize "hipster shit" without criticizing themselves as "hipster shit" is a funhouse mirror reflection of one's own culture.
(That wasn't meaning to sound like an asshole to you, middleamerica. I like you too.)
I'm surprised the Wash Post dared to print that.
Here is a riddle for anyone that dares to name the unmentionable:
What do Karl Marx, Stalin, Wolfowitz, Rahm Emmanuel, Walter Gropius, Ayn Rand, Hugh Hefner, Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Peter Eisenman, Louis Kahn, Moshe Safdie, Scarpa, Denise Scott Brown, Robert Stern, Rupert Murdoch, Bernake, the owners of all the major media outlets from CBS to CNN, all the major purveyors of porn and the European women sex slavery industry, and the entire shadow leadership of the neoconservative movement have in common?
(and no the answer is not that they all hate Christmas or that they all speak "happen" to speak yiddish).
Capturing Strange Fruit (for David) 002
Capturing Strange Fruit (for David) 003
Strange Fruit
began as a means of consolation for the artist after the death of a friend, but now presents a wide range of possible readings, including a meditation on loss and mortality. The fruit skins—emptied, dried, faded, repaired, and ornamented—have the feel of relics, almost like photographs. Transformed by the artist's delicate mending, they are subject to effects of time that are as unpredictable as they are inevitable.
Taking its title from a song by Billie Holiday, Strange Fruit is unique in its materials but not in its themes. It recalls the venerable tradition of vanitas still-life paintings, which show objects that suggest the fleeting nature of life, such as a flickering candle or a wilting flower. Far more direct than a picture, Strange Fruit actually will decay. By introducing the natural rhythms of a work of art's life into the museum setting, Strange Fruit raises questions about the permanence of art, and whether it resides in objects, ideas, or people's experiences and memories.
I'm a fan of the ATT Building in NYC.....for being the largest piece of Shit Furniture ever designed....and executed by and architect and I think we all know who he is.
i think its time to move to architizer.
Yeah, I think so too.
But, ugh, headshots and names and portfolios.
Why has that clown not been banned yet?
Yeah, let's just ignore thread hijacks. Annnyway...
davvid: "I'm having trouble understanding MiddleAmerica's comment. Is it the use of irony or the sense of superiority that is so offensive? And how is your "i'm not a hipster" stance any less of a failure than their "i'm not a suburbanite"?"
"I could go even further about value systems, classism, hipsters, etc."
"Please do go further. Is Rem Koolhaas a hipster architect? "
----
Ok, maybe this shouldn't be called "hipster architecture" and I never should have brought the h-word into this discussion in the first place. Irony in design/art/literature/anything is fine with me, as long as it's used to do something other than put down the culture of low-taste (usually low-income) people. They don't really hurt anybody- why not use the same tool to attack the powerful people who really cause trouble? This is the classism connection.
I have NEVER seen ironic art that attacks global capitalists with impeccable taste in design, fashion, urban affairs, etc.
On the other hand, I understand the intention of borrowing the visual language of, oh, say Middle America to create something that really IS intended to be beautiful, thought-provoking, etc in a completely sincere way. This happens sometimes (rarely).
It doesn't matter if I'm a hipster/suburbanite/both/neither because we aren't applying these labels to people, we're talking about places, things, or ideas.
"Hipsterism is the rejection of "mainstream" and "middle-of-the-road" object person worship in favor of a regurgitation of historical and classical concepts through modern applications. One could assume that hipsterism is "avant garde based in economics."
But a hundred years from now, people may see a firm like FAT has having more "value" than your typical office building because a FAT design lends it self better to "object" worship."
I guess we disagree about what 'hipsterism' is, and it's a bad idea to use that word anyway because who the f*ck [are we allowed to use 'bad words' on this forum?] DOES know? I think it was never one movement or process - it only became that after it was given a name and 'discoursed' about by academics and media people who truly have no idea.
'Hipsterism' is really a collection of very different value systems that grew out of youth cultures in different regions. In the late '90s there were no hipsters, in the Bed-Stuy 2009 sense, where I'm from (the Midwest) or anywhere else. There were a mixture of train-hopping punks, anarcho-vegans, and christian metal-hardcore groupies. As the latter started getting into anarchism and Satan in the 2000s, the former two changed their image to '70s electro in order to distinguish themselves from this. Now that the 'uncool' groups are into 70s/80s stuff, the original anarco-vegan-punks are into black metal. I just saw that there was an academic conference on black metal in Williamsburg, so it's come full circle.
The point of all of that is to prove that hipsterism is nothing but a bunch of high school cliques that are perpetually inter-marrying, breeding, mutating, and getting discussed by cultural theorists as if this is new or actually matters.
What's the difference between hipsters and yuppies? They both worship people and objects in the conventional sense. They are all slaves to consumerism, whether it involves Crystal Lite or Comme des Garcons. The only true avant-garde economic thinkers are the '90s punks who are as divorced as possible from consumption.
FAT is not revolutionary. From their website:
"Shopping allowed the culturally aware person to indulge in the joys of aesthetic enlightenment free of charge, whilst simultaneously keeping one step ahead in the fashion stakes. Shopping muddied the waters of art and advertising, clouding cultural credibility and commercial reality, and confused the angst of modern art with the pleasure of consumption."
Really? By putting art on shopping bags?
Thanks for the response Middle America. I really appreciate your point about using irony to attack the powerful. It seems as though Koolhaas and others have sort of done this by taking the appearance of global luxury to the point of absurdity.
I never really considered the use of low-brow or nostalgic references by hipsters or other elitist groups to be an attack on low-culture. It seems like the references are made because of a genuine appreciation for pop-culture. If it is an attack, it might be an attack on the high-brow seriousness of academia. I'm sure each person has a slightly different motivation though.
And by the way, I like the original idea of using ugly architecture to communicate a certain idea, and have thought about it before. So, how can this be productive?
Borrow the visual language of "high design" - Dwell, expensive urban entertainment districts (ex: Power and Light District in Kansas City), etc
Pentagram occasionally does this, from what I can see. Note the anarcho-Satan element - aging punks?
the first four guys (including the guy who forgot his sign) have it right.
<img src="http://fivenonblondes.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/powerandlight.jpg/>
<img src="http://www.macalester.edu/english/images/InfiniteIsland1.jpg"/>
<img src="http://pentagram.com/en/Weeds_Dining_800.php"/>
Can we just stop using the word Hipster already? Isnt that thing dead yet?
<img src=http://www.antisteez.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/divine1.jpg>
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