Seems to me we had a thread going on this topic a while back -- but searching for those terms didn't uncover it. This recent article (one in a series called Architext, by Bay Area architect Arrol Gellner, not at all an architectural Luddite) got my attention. Does he have a valid point ? If so, are these concerns being met better by the current generation of architects ?
WHY SOME BUILDINGS AGE MORE GRACEFULLY THAN OTHERS
There are two ways to build. One way is to strive for absolute visual perfection and then wage a desperate and invariably losing battle to preserve it. The other is to accept that perfection is not just unattainable but also unnecessary, thereby making time's passage an ally instead of an enemy.
Much of modern architecture, and especially the work of International-style architects, was predicated upon the former approach.
Worshiping at the altar of the machine, modernist architects strove for flawless surfaces and absolute precision of detail. Alas, in the case of many modernist works - including some of the most renowned examples - any state of perfection that may have existed began to decay the moment the buildings were completed.
After a few short years of sullying by weather and the ordinary wear and tear of human habitation, those sparkling white walls and razor-sharp corners came to look more than a little tatty. It's been the good fortune of many modernist icons - say, Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion or Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye - to be known mainly through old documentary photographs in which, frozen in time, they can remain forever crisp, clean and stunning.
Which brings us to the other approach: the idea of building timelessly. If it really can be done, why do we architects manage to do it so seldom?
Perhaps it's because building in sympathy with time's effects, rather than being eternally at war with them, requires us to give up the cherished ideal of visual perfection and to accept the disturbing fact that no matter how hard we try to forestall it, Mother Nature eventuallv has the last word over everything we build.
Despite such rather daunting opposition, however, many architects still seem hell-bent on flouting time and nature. With expectations bordering on delusion, they specify glossy paint over steel that's ineludibly doomed to rust, demand great swaths of flawless stucco that's bound to become laced with cracks and devise complicated color schemes whose maintenance will soon be neglectcd by generations with different tastes.
The modernist faith seems to die hard, however. Many architects continue to subscribe to the idea that buildings can and should feature flawless, mechanistic finishes. It may help explain why so many relatively new buildings seem to have weathered their brief years so badly. Ironically, it's been the very buildings that were held in contempt by "serious" modernist architects -- the Revivalist designs of the early 20th century -- that have aged most gracefully.
Some were painstakingly authentic copies of historical styles, while others were carried out with a theatrical flourish bordering on caricature. However, in no case did their architects regard perfection as an ideal, or natural aging as an enemy to be overcome. Today, despite the passage of so many decades -- many of them spent in neglect -- these buildings have lost none of their original vitality.
On the contrary, time has been very kind to them, burnishing many into a state of venerable grace that even their architects could never have imagined. Or could they?
COPYRIGHT 2008 ARROL GELLNER
DISTRIBUTED BY INMAN NEWS
Arrol Gellner is an Emeryville CA architect, lecturer and author of several books on architecture. E-mail him at home@sf chronicle.com.
also, her 2 examples (mies in barcelona, villa savoye) were destroyed for reasons other than weathering. both were eventually rebuilt/repaired.
knock
Feb 21, 08 5:20 pm
I really wonder what gellner thinks of the deYoung museum in SF. I'm guessing Arrol hates it, although I could be wrong. That would really get to the heart of the argument, wether this discussion is really about buildings aging, or about style. The deYoung exterior is defined in 4 dimensions, which gellner claims to design in.
Interesting. I confess to being surprised by Gellner's work, after reading a number of his columns. His bent has usually been toward defending the aims and results of modernist architects. To look at his work one would think him not to be sympathetic to those aims and ideals.
Nevertheless, he raises a valid question, doesn't he ? Of course, he is thinking of ugly images like these, I suppose:
Yes, that's the Villa Savoye, before restoration
Sanatorium Zonnestraal (1926-1931)
J Duiker, B Bijvoet, J G Wiebenga
Hilversum, Netherlands
Is all of this just deferred maintenance ? Maybe it is. The Dutch certainly knew how to detail more traditional materials.
I'm guessing any deficit in detailing experience has long since been corrected, and that today's work will not be prone to such sad appearance. (Fallinwater's exterior plaster-work showed the bad effect of lack of drips in the necessary locations -- but we know how indifferent Wright seemed to be to matters of building longevity.) But are new and unfamiliar materials going to present some of the same problems all over again ? Isn't our friend Gehry struggling with irregular discoloration of titanium panels at Bilbao ?
The lovely wood-clad houses that we are seeing now can be expected to change color, surely. But will they stain irregularly ? Have they been detailed in such a way as to assure consistent weathering and longevity of their rain-screen exteriors ? I suspect they have, but the question isn't in impertinent one. . .
SDR
Feb 21, 08 5:46 pm
In reading Mr Gellner's piece I assumed he was questioning not whether modernist architecture could be detailed to weather well, but whether it in fact is being well-made in that regard. Looking at his portfolio makes me wonder whether he is sincere in his question. . .
mdler
Feb 21, 08 5:49 pm
SDR
Feb 21, 08 5:53 pm
The photos above are taken from that book. The cover is a shot of Breuer and Elzas's De Bijenkorf Department Store (1955-1957) in Rotterdam. (There's an unmolested copy of the photo inside.) All weathering should be so beautiful. . .!
SDR
Feb 21, 08 6:22 pm
"On Weathering" by Mostafavi and Leatherbarrow (MIT Press, 1993).
noci
Feb 22, 08 4:08 pm
.. is a way better text than Leatherbarrow's "Uncommon Ground", where he inexpertly talks about many, many things he clearly has no clue about but doesn't give a damn, obviously.
Philarch
Feb 22, 08 6:47 pm
I talked about this town called Heyri on another thread - to be able to build something in that town, the architect HAS TO consider how the building will age and weather. I don't remember exactly, but that meant no paints, plastics/vinyl, certain metals & etc. So a lot of concrete, Corten, wood, and......Moss?
Thats my awkwardly composed picture - its called the 'Torque' House next to the one that looks like a boat.
kevinenos
Jan 31, 19 1:10 pm
A building's ability to age gracefully or not so often comes down to choice of materials. Concrete or masonry always fares best when exposed to the elements. Many of the works of Carlos Scarpa look timeworn right out of the gate. Alvar Aalto's Summer House de Muuratsalo is another good example, partly because of the use of brick but also because it, like much of Scarpa's buildings, was designed to evoke building ruins. Many of Mario Botta's buildings also do well with age, Casa Bianchi and the Chapel of Santa Maria degli Angeli in particular but even some of his more crisp, platonic forms age fairly well because his love of masonry. The same goes for many works by Louis Kahn, again because he often designed with the intent of evoking building ruins and even his simple, crisp geometric forms look ancient in large part because of his use of large, simple openings that are devoid of glass or doors. Even the later works of Corbusier, after he had graduated to brick and, stone, or raw concrete, age well, at least physically. Ronchamps, La Tourette, Maisons Jaoul, and Villa le Sextant are good examples. The buildings at the Indian capital in Chandigarhhave aged well physically but maybe not so well in some other aspects - recent photos of many of the buildings shows that many of the cells of the brise soleils have been populated by air conditioning units. At Chandigarh, Corbusier also largely missed the mark because by attemptung to impose his architectural and urban planning ideas on an ingrained culture. Many of the buildings now reveal chaotic adaptations and adjustments made by the residents.
Volunteer
Jan 31, 19 2:56 pm
Look at the materials landscape architects use when they design new 'ruins' in their gardens. They use stone and brick, the older and weathered the better. Nobody is going to put part of a crumbling Villa Savoye in their back yard. Also many architects try to find used wide-plank flooring from old houses and factories for flooring in new homes. The scratched and dented the more desirable it is. Ironwork can also be recycled sometimes. Used slate shingles from a old torn down building can often be recycled.
Seems to me we had a thread going on this topic a while back -- but searching for those terms didn't uncover it. This recent article (one in a series called Architext, by Bay Area architect Arrol Gellner, not at all an architectural Luddite) got my attention. Does he have a valid point ? If so, are these concerns being met better by the current generation of architects ?
WHY SOME BUILDINGS AGE MORE GRACEFULLY THAN OTHERS
There are two ways to build. One way is to strive for absolute visual perfection and then wage a desperate and invariably losing battle to preserve it. The other is to accept that perfection is not just unattainable but also unnecessary, thereby making time's passage an ally instead of an enemy.
Much of modern architecture, and especially the work of International-style architects, was predicated upon the former approach.
Worshiping at the altar of the machine, modernist architects strove for flawless surfaces and absolute precision of detail. Alas, in the case of many modernist works - including some of the most renowned examples - any state of perfection that may have existed began to decay the moment the buildings were completed.
After a few short years of sullying by weather and the ordinary wear and tear of human habitation, those sparkling white walls and razor-sharp corners came to look more than a little tatty. It's been the good fortune of many modernist icons - say, Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion or Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye - to be known mainly through old documentary photographs in which, frozen in time, they can remain forever crisp, clean and stunning.
Which brings us to the other approach: the idea of building timelessly. If it really can be done, why do we architects manage to do it so seldom?
Perhaps it's because building in sympathy with time's effects, rather than being eternally at war with them, requires us to give up the cherished ideal of visual perfection and to accept the disturbing fact that no matter how hard we try to forestall it, Mother Nature eventuallv has the last word over everything we build.
Despite such rather daunting opposition, however, many architects still seem hell-bent on flouting time and nature. With expectations bordering on delusion, they specify glossy paint over steel that's ineludibly doomed to rust, demand great swaths of flawless stucco that's bound to become laced with cracks and devise complicated color schemes whose maintenance will soon be neglectcd by generations with different tastes.
The modernist faith seems to die hard, however. Many architects continue to subscribe to the idea that buildings can and should feature flawless, mechanistic finishes. It may help explain why so many relatively new buildings seem to have weathered their brief years so badly. Ironically, it's been the very buildings that were held in contempt by "serious" modernist architects -- the Revivalist designs of the early 20th century -- that have aged most gracefully.
Some were painstakingly authentic copies of historical styles, while others were carried out with a theatrical flourish bordering on caricature. However, in no case did their architects regard perfection as an ideal, or natural aging as an enemy to be overcome. Today, despite the passage of so many decades -- many of them spent in neglect -- these buildings have lost none of their original vitality.
On the contrary, time has been very kind to them, burnishing many into a state of venerable grace that even their architects could never have imagined. Or could they?
COPYRIGHT 2008 ARROL GELLNER
DISTRIBUTED BY INMAN NEWS
Arrol Gellner is an Emeryville CA architect, lecturer and author of several books on architecture. E-mail him at home@sf chronicle.com.
also, her 2 examples (mies in barcelona, villa savoye) were destroyed for reasons other than weathering. both were eventually rebuilt/repaired.
I really wonder what gellner thinks of the deYoung museum in SF. I'm guessing Arrol hates it, although I could be wrong. That would really get to the heart of the argument, wether this discussion is really about buildings aging, or about style. The deYoung exterior is defined in 4 dimensions, which gellner claims to design in.
http://www.gellner.net/
Interesting. I confess to being surprised by Gellner's work, after reading a number of his columns. His bent has usually been toward defending the aims and results of modernist architects. To look at his work one would think him not to be sympathetic to those aims and ideals.
Nevertheless, he raises a valid question, doesn't he ? Of course, he is thinking of ugly images like these, I suppose:
Yes, that's the Villa Savoye, before restoration
Sanatorium Zonnestraal (1926-1931)
J Duiker, B Bijvoet, J G Wiebenga
Hilversum, Netherlands
Is all of this just deferred maintenance ? Maybe it is. The Dutch certainly knew how to detail more traditional materials.
I'm guessing any deficit in detailing experience has long since been corrected, and that today's work will not be prone to such sad appearance. (Fallinwater's exterior plaster-work showed the bad effect of lack of drips in the necessary locations -- but we know how indifferent Wright seemed to be to matters of building longevity.) But are new and unfamiliar materials going to present some of the same problems all over again ? Isn't our friend Gehry struggling with irregular discoloration of titanium panels at Bilbao ?
The lovely wood-clad houses that we are seeing now can be expected to change color, surely. But will they stain irregularly ? Have they been detailed in such a way as to assure consistent weathering and longevity of their rain-screen exteriors ? I suspect they have, but the question isn't in impertinent one. . .
In reading Mr Gellner's piece I assumed he was questioning not whether modernist architecture could be detailed to weather well, but whether it in fact is being well-made in that regard. Looking at his portfolio makes me wonder whether he is sincere in his question. . .
The photos above are taken from that book. The cover is a shot of Breuer and Elzas's De Bijenkorf Department Store (1955-1957) in Rotterdam. (There's an unmolested copy of the photo inside.) All weathering should be so beautiful. . .!
"On Weathering" by Mostafavi and Leatherbarrow (MIT Press, 1993).
.. is a way better text than Leatherbarrow's "Uncommon Ground", where he inexpertly talks about many, many things he clearly has no clue about but doesn't give a damn, obviously.
I talked about this town called Heyri on another thread - to be able to build something in that town, the architect HAS TO consider how the building will age and weather. I don't remember exactly, but that meant no paints, plastics/vinyl, certain metals & etc. So a lot of concrete, Corten, wood, and......Moss?
Thats my awkwardly composed picture - its called the 'Torque' House next to the one that looks like a boat.
A building's ability to age gracefully or not so often comes down to choice of materials. Concrete or masonry always fares best when exposed to the elements. Many of the works of Carlos Scarpa look timeworn right out of the gate. Alvar Aalto's Summer House de Muuratsalo is another good example, partly because of the use of brick but also because it, like much of Scarpa's buildings, was designed to evoke building ruins. Many of Mario Botta's buildings also do well with age, Casa Bianchi and the Chapel of Santa Maria degli Angeli in particular but even some of his more crisp, platonic forms age fairly well because his love of masonry. The same goes for many works by Louis Kahn, again because he often designed with the intent of evoking building ruins and even his simple, crisp geometric forms look ancient in large part because of his use of large, simple openings that are devoid of glass or doors. Even the later works of Corbusier, after he had graduated to brick and, stone, or raw concrete, age well, at least physically. Ronchamps, La Tourette, Maisons Jaoul, and Villa le Sextant are good examples. The buildings at the Indian capital in Chandigarhhave aged well physically but maybe not so well in some other aspects - recent photos of many of the buildings shows that many of the cells of the brise soleils have been populated by air conditioning units. At Chandigarh, Corbusier also largely missed the mark because by attemptung to impose his architectural and urban planning ideas on an ingrained culture. Many of the buildings now reveal chaotic adaptations and adjustments made by the residents.
Look at the materials landscape architects use when they design new 'ruins' in their gardens. They use stone and brick, the older and weathered the better. Nobody is going to put part of a crumbling Villa Savoye in their back yard. Also many architects try to find used wide-plank flooring from old houses and factories for flooring in new homes. The scratched and dented the more desirable it is. Ironwork can also be recycled sometimes. Used slate shingles from a old torn down building can often be recycled.