Wolf Prix lectured last night at the Cooper Union and Thomas Mayne was on hand to make the introduction and lead the Q&A after.
Overall, I enjoyed the lecture but I went away thinking that Thomas Mayne and Wolf Prix both seemed pathetic. Anthony Vidler (played by Richard Attenborough) started with a mini introduction for Mayne and Prix by emphasizing their rebellious, anti establishment attitude. Thomas Mayne introduced Prix by calling him an optimist and a provocateur that attacks complacency--he also mentioned Lincoln, Galileo and Einstein. There was much praise for Prix.
Throughout the lecture and discussion afterward they kept touching on the idea of rebellion and made the occasional reference to Rock n'Roll. Prix ended his lecture by playing Purple Haze. Mayne played the air guitar! It was a nice touch but it just reminded me of how old they are and that this auditorium filled with young architects exists in a very different period--Prix seems detached from that. Mayne seems like the one in between. He is the aging architect and it seemed like he was trying to get Prix to talk about the apparent contradictions between his work and philosophy and the technologies and methods of today. They also had the word "NOW" projected behind them during the Q&A--nice touch but "REMEMBER WHEN" would have been more appropriate. The lecture was called "And Also Now" - or something like that.
It seemed like Prix didn't want to address the contradictions head on. What is he rebelling against now? What was strange to me was that even as a young architect he decided to rebel against gravity. Really? Gravity? As a student I enjoyed the thought that architecture is a political act. Is gravity political? That seems just poetic, but unlike poetry, architecture is real. Architecture is even more real than legislation. Maybe someone can clear this up for me.
Someone in the audience asked a question linking Brancusi (Prix mentioned in the lecture) and Calatrava. I think Coop-immelblau's rooftop falkestrasse can be compared to some work by Calatrava. "oh don't get him started on that" Mayne said. Of course Prix doesn't like Calatrava--and didn't want to be linked at all to him--but it was a good point to bring up. Prix called Calatrava a "kitschist" but didn't address his own kitsch and why its better.
I'm wondering if what I noticed wasn't so much pathetic hypocrisy or denial but just what happens to the sincere and unwavering architect as he/she ages.
Also, post lecture conversation with friends circled around rebellion. As a young architect what is my agenda and does it require a rebellion? Perhaps in 1968 change could come from marches and protest. Now we are more likely to seek change through technology or new media. Today we are more likely to make a facebook group, or blog. Maybe the cathartic protests of the 60s were replaced by new nerdier media savvy ways or organizing. Even our premier agent of change, Obama, is so very polished and disciplined and a little nerdy.
Jethro Tull are fun to watch: Ian Anderson is a fucking amazing entertainer, whether he's singing songs from today or from 30 years ago. There's nothing sentimental about watching a craftsman perform his/her work, be they 15 years old or 70. Quality stands.
And: there is something to be learned from seeing a person "in person" that you can't learn form a book/magazine/etc. Otherwise the presidential candidates would just publish where they stand on issues and not go visit every little podunk town in the Midwest.
archiwhat
Nov 22, 08 1:31 pm
I thought architecture is more than just entertainment and self-promotion. It can inspire you.
liberty bell
Nov 22, 08 1:36 pm
...and some architects are craftsmen at inspiring people while others aren't.
Steven Ward
Nov 22, 08 1:41 pm
good question, abc. maybe people have to believe they're doing something as extreme as rebelling in order to push forward?
somebody looking to make change is not always going to be satisfied with being a simple step in a progression. and, since the post-modern, many have stopped believing in a progression anyway -the discussion is now about whether time itself is linear or cyclical or non-existent/perceived, etc.
the moderns still believed that they could make something 'new'. do we still believe that?
is anything at this year's biennale 'new'? i remember saul steinberg-like pencil drawings on walls and superstudio like set pieces of naked people on open plinths. not meaning to be dismissive, because i also admire betsky and would be interested to know what people found most compelling. but what i know about seemed more reinterpretation than forward-thinking. and not much about architectural propositions as much as abstract re-presentations of architectural ideas.
Oh dear. Me, vado, and Steven all posting - it's the title of the thread come to life.....
vado retro
Nov 22, 08 1:58 pm
that was an inside joke between me and another "mature" architect who freqeunts archinect.
vado retro
Nov 22, 08 1:59 pm
lb how's this cold weather on your joints?
Emilio
Nov 22, 08 2:11 pm
this, in a nuthshell, is what i was trying to say in my wordy response to medit:
even an old dog can learn some new tricks, and that goes for architects, musicians, craftsmen, accountants, plumbers, etc. etc.
but this issue of relevance is tricky. why do you have to continue to be relevant, and as steven pointed out, and relevant to who? it's practically impossible to stay "on the top" very long, and most people never see the view from there.
rent "amadeus" and watch the scene were he absolves all the mediocre people in the world. the realization that he is mediocre compared to mozart has made him lose his mind (in this fictional take of history). now, mediocre comes from "middle", and it's come to mean something truly awful, but what's so bad about the middle? it might just be hard enough to even reach the middle, never mind stay there, and never mind the top. and even those who do attain relevant and radical status only stay there a few years: then they have to try to come back, and some can do it once or twice again (i mentioned dylan, picasso, and wright, but there are many others).
the five year rule is pretty good for a period where you stay relevant (the beatles did barely ten, and that's rare). but that's only the period that you're a celebrity or in the news: you can stay relevant long after that if people care about what you did (shakespeare anyone?) and even just getting to the middle is very hard. try to finish in the middle standings of the tour de france...but everyone wants to be or talk about lance armstrong.
and this top, middle, bottom, scale is arbitrary anyway (other than in sports): when exactly are you on top? how do you know when the moment you're relevant begins and ends? as someone i tend to quote ad-nauseum wrote "you'll find out when you reach the top...you're on the bottom".
Emilio
Nov 22, 08 2:15 pm
and, lb, i'm getting the drift here, and it's a drift i've gotten before, that many of the posters here think that if something is not in the news now, or if an architect or performer has some gray hairs, then he cannot possibly be relevant. i pity the fools. what you said about tull is RIGHT ON.
Emilio
Nov 22, 08 2:16 pm
and include me in the thread title...
archiwhat
Nov 22, 08 2:26 pm
you have to be relevant to your own beliefs, first of all
Emilio
Nov 22, 08 3:05 pm
just heard this fats domino nugget on "american routes" on npr that fits very well
i hate that show: all they play is irrelevant music...
Steven Ward
Nov 22, 08 3:12 pm
relevant to your own beliefs
: not being sarcastic - i don't know what this means.
originally you were talking about a 'we' that needed to redefine the idea of 'rebel' or 'rebellion', archiwhat, so this is a dialogue - a conversation among a generation, right? i take 'relevant' to be in that context. something relevant is going to be pertinent to our larger conversation about architecture, not just an individual's beliefs.
because an individual's beliefs are not likely to be negotiable, establishment of relevance to those beliefs is a solitary matter. no discussion, no larger audience, a static condition. no larger relevance beyond that person.
i thought we were talking about a work relevant for the times, relevant to a group of us who think and carry on discourse about contemporary work...
Nov 22, 08 3:15 pm
"Architects, for the most part, are not particularly convincing (especially viewed amongst themselves)." excerpt from "Operation a Success, Patient Dead"
Emilio
Nov 22, 08 3:19 pm
hmm, i'm not convinced by that quote...
Nov 22, 08 3:45 pm
...hence "Eternal Wrest".
crowbert
Nov 22, 08 3:52 pm
The real question to me is; would you rather have these guys practicing architecture or giving speeches and lectures about practicing architecture?
archiwhat
Nov 22, 08 3:57 pm
Steven, I was just trying to say that I'm not so interested in the people that became brands. This has NOTHING to do with age, of course.
To be or not to be a rebel is a choice of an individual, anyone decides those things for him/herself. So how can I discuss this?
It's your opinion that it's not necessary to be a rebel in the profession. I can only ask you what do you think would be a better choice?
Steven Ward
Nov 22, 08 4:08 pm
people becoming brands - i'll agree there. while i don't think it makes the work less good, it is an annoying by-product of good work.
we all choose our roles in the profession. mine is more nurturing, i suppose. i try to make quiet work, work that deserves to stay where it is for a long time, work that will encourage people to like/love it enough to keep it around. i give a lot of design responsibility to those around me and i try to help them realize their own design goals while also making work worth keeping around. radical architecture with a short shelf-life will never be something in which i'm much interested.
i've never rebelled in my life, not even why young, and i'm still not sure it's productive. a lot of energy spent rebelling verbally could simply be poured into the work.
i was only partly kidding above when i said i'm rebelling against rebellion...
archiwhat
Nov 22, 08 4:30 pm
But sometimes good work itself is a rebellion – against meaningless, against bad taste or unfavourable circumstances.
Nov 22, 08 4:38 pm
rebel without a because
Emilio
Nov 22, 08 4:46 pm
touche'
i've even known people that were mediocre at being mediocre...
trace™
Nov 22, 08 6:21 pm
Brands are a necessary part of our society. Any business needs branding. Personally, I think it is great that Hadid, Mayne and others are 'brands'. This gives them more negotiating power, sells products (and books, of course), buildings, etc., etc.
I've enjoyed watching the show. From boutique designers with no one but the arch circles supporting them to international powerhouses.
Any well known brand puts out a dud here and there, but overall the quality is pretty consistent (like or dislike is up to you)
Nov 22, 08 6:58 pm
Re: nano stuff
2002.05.20 14:49
While corporate/designer 'branding' on a broad commercial basis is at least as old as the early 1970s, especially in terms of humans wearing logos, etc., it really is no surprise that branding is a hyper virtuality involving hyper size.
On 60 Minutes last night one saw teenagers of Sierra Leone, Africa that were branded by the rebel forces that abducted them and then forced them to fight the government (and often their own families). A Kansas City plastic surgeon is now their to remove the flesh brands so that the teenagers have a future, otherwise the teenagers are signified enemies.
Despite the great tragedy of the youth of Sierra Leone, branding in Africa is not exactly something to be surprised at. Could it be that body modification, like within so much of African tribal culture, may have indeed had its archaic origins within the same kind of reasoning that the Sierra Leone rebels employed? It wouldn't surprise me at all if many US citizens would gladly accept modified cells (etc.) from Disney.
In case you haven't noticed, identity is a big commodity that many (if not most) US citizens buy into. I am what I wear. I am what I drive. I am the neighborhood I live in. I am the amount of times I visit DisneyWorld [or archinect]. I am my plastic surgeon. I am a branded cell (finally?!?). QBVS3, p. 59.
fays.panda
Nov 23, 08 4:01 am
soemtimes, it seems to me, that there is a big difference between trying to be relevant, and attempting to do architecture, at other times, i think they are inseprable. I'm confused
I guess one needs to understand what it is that being relevant helps achieve, and what it is that in the continuum of archtiectural practice, history, theory etc that is useful, to make good architecture, today, that will enter this continuum. Synthesis, thats my keyword, but its extremely vague
nomadologist
Nov 23, 08 5:56 pm
the good old sixties, the Himmelblaus' blazing wing in Vienna and the Rolling Stones soundtrack - Prix even featured them in his lecture at the Black Cat Cafe in Perth in 1986, arranged undoubtedly at great expense and with great effort by Billl Busfield and Geoff Warn of Conversations Inc...
I was the lucky student who was operating the two Kodak Carousel slide projectors for Prix' talk - when the inebriated presenter ordered a change in the order of slides and something went wrong, he just walked out.
such was the nature of 'rebellion' in Perth Australia, the world's most isolated city in the 80s.. nothing's changed!
Emilio
Nov 23, 08 7:13 pm
Mildred: What're you rebelling against, Johnny?
Johnny: Whaddya got?
fays.panda
Nov 23, 08 11:27 pm
against tomato
david yang
Nov 24, 08 10:22 am
I am reminded of Bjarke Ingels's manifesto in ICON mag:
BIGamy (you can have both)
The traditional image of the radical architect is the angry young man rebelling against the establishment. The avant-garde is defined more by what it is against than what it is for. This leads to an oedipal succession of contradictions where each generation says the opposite of the previous. And if your agenda is dependant on being the opposite of someone else’s, you are simply a follower – in reverse.
Rather than being radical by saying fuck the establishment, fuck gravity, fuck the neighbours, fuck the budget, fuck the context – we want to try to turn pleasing into a radical agenda.
What if design could be the opposite of conflict? Not by ignoring it, but by feeding off it. A way to incorporate and integrate differences – not through compromise or by choosing sides, but by tying conflicting interests into a Gordian knot of new ideas.
We propose to let the forces of society decide which of our ideas can live, and which must die. Surviving ideas will evolve through mutation and crossbreeding into an entirely new species of architecture.
An inclusive rather than exclusive architecture. An architecture unburdened by conceptual monogamy. An architecture where you don’t have to choose between public or private, dense or open, angled or curved, blond or brunette etc. An architecture where you can have both.
Ah, rather than progress based on discontent, it's progress based on contentment.
vado retro
Nov 24, 08 11:07 am
bjaarke ingalls finds himself trapped between some old architects....
207moak
Nov 24, 08 11:32 am
Our culture is based on valuing the new and seeing everything with an obsolescence. That doesn't mean the old is without value, we are just culturally unable to acknowledge it. Current mind set seems to indicate that to make the present relevant we must destroy the past.
This discussion reminds me of friends who must listen to music nobody else has heard of. Their self worth depends on it.
Orhan Ayyüce
Nov 26, 08 3:11 pm
the thing is though, certain generation was less selfish, risked more for their ideals, had more meaningful music, and yes, they had more style about them.
Youngun
Apr 23, 09 10:03 pm
i dont know if its jealousy.. but you guys need to understand that he is still creating groundbreaking work.
why are architects the most critical people on earth? has there ever been a "good" architect? everyone seems to HAVE to express their opinion and trash peoples work. its ridiculous. relax everyone.
a lecture is a lecture. listen. absorb.
thats one thing i would love to change about our profession. get rid of all the jealousy/hate.
aldorossi
Apr 24, 09 1:41 pm
A few thoughts:
As an old guy myself, the air guitar thing is just really...well, are you youngsters familiar with the expression "douche chills"?
Even the most banal, cheap and poorly considered buildings are both "relevant" and a "political act". We may not like what they signify, and may be opposed to the politics they represent, but we pretend that "bad" architecture has no cultural significance or meaning at our own peril.
I think that design talent and aesthetic virtuosity are far down the list of those aspects of the act of building which are relevant or political. If one considers the political context in which many of the great monuments of Architectural history were conceived...
How are the massive apartment complexes east of downtown LA, collectively named with nostalgic Italianate names (Piero/Orsini/etc) not "relevant"? They are the worst type of banal grind-it-out suburban mall dreck, too ugly to be considered even kitsch. But they also provide a relatively dense concentration of living units within walking distance of downtown and transit stops. And from interviews with the developer I've read, he really thinks his faux Tuscan piles are, in their own way, a rebellion against what he perceives to be a superficial and short lived vogue for cold, impersonal modernism. Rebellion is one of those terms that I think has to be measured against the speaker who uses it.
The $250,000,000 (yes, that's a quarter of a billion dollars) Performing Arts High School in Los Angeles by Wolf Prix is being completed just as massive budget cuts are requiring the layoffs of hundreds of teachers in the LAUSD. Even in more flush times, the school was considered a wild extravagance, with a large part of its budget better spent on textbooks and teachers. The selection of Coop Himellblau was pushed by billionaire Eli Broad (the Lorenzo Medici of LA), who insisted that LAUSD should have one "World Class Architecture Caliber" school as it undertook its building program.
A question then: How does "rebellion" and "architecture as a political act" fit into this scenario, and what part could have/should have/would have Coop Himmelblau played?
nurbie
Jul 25, 15 1:14 pm
How are BIG and SHoP rebelling? Their clients are mainly developers who build for the rich or the super-rich, and they mainly use curtain wall technology made in China. Sure, SHoP sometimes does things like wrap someone else's arena design in rusting steel, or design a modular system that doesn't work very well, but that's not rebelling. The client for Atlantic Yards is a crook, and the project was strongly opposed by the artists in the neighborhood. Jonathan Lethem wrote a good piece about it.
BIG's client is the company that hacked phones in England and lied about it (BIG's direct client had to leave England for the sake of his career) and they are designing a big hulking glass tower that looms over TriBeCa, where the artists who can afford to remain there have signed a petition against all the glass towers going up. The (mainly young) employees in Silicon Alley don't like glass towers either. FOX acknowledged that when they first went to BIG.
There is rebellion going on today. Occupy Wall Street didn't like glass towers either. Black Lives Matter is talking about more important things. Rebelling would be doing work that supported protests and change. Go on a march with Black Lives Matter and you'll find they don't give a shit about most of the arcane issues debated here.
chigurh
Jul 26, 15 10:09 am
rebellion my ass...like this is punk rock in the early 70s? no fucking way...
architects like mayne and prix and eric owen moss (constantly talking about the fucking rebellion), shop, BIG and whoever...are dealing with multimillion dollar projects and extremely sophisticated high end clients, they are suckling the teet of the system, that is not rebellion, they are just trying to do somewhat unique work working within the parameters of a highly structured capitalist system.
that is fucking the most ridiculous shit I ever heard...mayne playing out the lecture in air guitar...gg allin was rebellion...and people avoided that dude like the plague...true punk, true rebellion.
Wolf Prix lectured last night at the Cooper Union and Thomas Mayne was on hand to make the introduction and lead the Q&A after.
Overall, I enjoyed the lecture but I went away thinking that Thomas Mayne and Wolf Prix both seemed pathetic. Anthony Vidler (played by Richard Attenborough) started with a mini introduction for Mayne and Prix by emphasizing their rebellious, anti establishment attitude. Thomas Mayne introduced Prix by calling him an optimist and a provocateur that attacks complacency--he also mentioned Lincoln, Galileo and Einstein. There was much praise for Prix.
Throughout the lecture and discussion afterward they kept touching on the idea of rebellion and made the occasional reference to Rock n'Roll. Prix ended his lecture by playing Purple Haze. Mayne played the air guitar! It was a nice touch but it just reminded me of how old they are and that this auditorium filled with young architects exists in a very different period--Prix seems detached from that. Mayne seems like the one in between. He is the aging architect and it seemed like he was trying to get Prix to talk about the apparent contradictions between his work and philosophy and the technologies and methods of today. They also had the word "NOW" projected behind them during the Q&A--nice touch but "REMEMBER WHEN" would have been more appropriate. The lecture was called "And Also Now" - or something like that.
It seemed like Prix didn't want to address the contradictions head on. What is he rebelling against now? What was strange to me was that even as a young architect he decided to rebel against gravity. Really? Gravity? As a student I enjoyed the thought that architecture is a political act. Is gravity political? That seems just poetic, but unlike poetry, architecture is real. Architecture is even more real than legislation. Maybe someone can clear this up for me.
Someone in the audience asked a question linking Brancusi (Prix mentioned in the lecture) and Calatrava. I think Coop-immelblau's rooftop falkestrasse can be compared to some work by Calatrava. "oh don't get him started on that" Mayne said. Of course Prix doesn't like Calatrava--and didn't want to be linked at all to him--but it was a good point to bring up. Prix called Calatrava a "kitschist" but didn't address his own kitsch and why its better.
I'm wondering if what I noticed wasn't so much pathetic hypocrisy or denial but just what happens to the sincere and unwavering architect as he/she ages.
Also, post lecture conversation with friends circled around rebellion. As a young architect what is my agenda and does it require a rebellion? Perhaps in 1968 change could come from marches and protest. Now we are more likely to seek change through technology or new media. Today we are more likely to make a facebook group, or blog. Maybe the cathartic protests of the 60s were replaced by new nerdier media savvy ways or organizing. Even our premier agent of change, Obama, is so very polished and disciplined and a little nerdy.
Any thoughts?
Jethro Tull are fun to watch: Ian Anderson is a fucking amazing entertainer, whether he's singing songs from today or from 30 years ago. There's nothing sentimental about watching a craftsman perform his/her work, be they 15 years old or 70. Quality stands.
And: there is something to be learned from seeing a person "in person" that you can't learn form a book/magazine/etc. Otherwise the presidential candidates would just publish where they stand on issues and not go visit every little podunk town in the Midwest.
I thought architecture is more than just entertainment and self-promotion. It can inspire you.
...and some architects are craftsmen at inspiring people while others aren't.
good question, abc. maybe people have to believe they're doing something as extreme as rebelling in order to push forward?
somebody looking to make change is not always going to be satisfied with being a simple step in a progression. and, since the post-modern, many have stopped believing in a progression anyway -the discussion is now about whether time itself is linear or cyclical or non-existent/perceived, etc.
the moderns still believed that they could make something 'new'. do we still believe that?
is anything at this year's biennale 'new'? i remember saul steinberg-like pencil drawings on walls and superstudio like set pieces of naked people on open plinths. not meaning to be dismissive, because i also admire betsky and would be interested to know what people found most compelling. but what i know about seemed more reinterpretation than forward-thinking. and not much about architectural propositions as much as abstract re-presentations of architectural ideas.
where was this venice biannual?
i don't know. france?
here
Oh dear. Me, vado, and Steven all posting - it's the title of the thread come to life.....
that was an inside joke between me and another "mature" architect who freqeunts archinect.
lb how's this cold weather on your joints?
this, in a nuthshell, is what i was trying to say in my wordy response to medit:
even an old dog can learn some new tricks, and that goes for architects, musicians, craftsmen, accountants, plumbers, etc. etc.
but this issue of relevance is tricky. why do you have to continue to be relevant, and as steven pointed out, and relevant to who? it's practically impossible to stay "on the top" very long, and most people never see the view from there.
rent "amadeus" and watch the scene were he absolves all the mediocre people in the world. the realization that he is mediocre compared to mozart has made him lose his mind (in this fictional take of history). now, mediocre comes from "middle", and it's come to mean something truly awful, but what's so bad about the middle? it might just be hard enough to even reach the middle, never mind stay there, and never mind the top. and even those who do attain relevant and radical status only stay there a few years: then they have to try to come back, and some can do it once or twice again (i mentioned dylan, picasso, and wright, but there are many others).
the five year rule is pretty good for a period where you stay relevant (the beatles did barely ten, and that's rare). but that's only the period that you're a celebrity or in the news: you can stay relevant long after that if people care about what you did (shakespeare anyone?) and even just getting to the middle is very hard. try to finish in the middle standings of the tour de france...but everyone wants to be or talk about lance armstrong.
and this top, middle, bottom, scale is arbitrary anyway (other than in sports): when exactly are you on top? how do you know when the moment you're relevant begins and ends? as someone i tend to quote ad-nauseum wrote "you'll find out when you reach the top...you're on the bottom".
and, lb, i'm getting the drift here, and it's a drift i've gotten before, that many of the posters here think that if something is not in the news now, or if an architect or performer has some gray hairs, then he cannot possibly be relevant. i pity the fools. what you said about tull is RIGHT ON.
and include me in the thread title...
you have to be relevant to your own beliefs, first of all
just heard this fats domino nugget on "american routes" on npr that fits very well
i'm gonna be a wheel someday
i hate that show: all they play is irrelevant music...
: not being sarcastic - i don't know what this means.
originally you were talking about a 'we' that needed to redefine the idea of 'rebel' or 'rebellion', archiwhat, so this is a dialogue - a conversation among a generation, right? i take 'relevant' to be in that context. something relevant is going to be pertinent to our larger conversation about architecture, not just an individual's beliefs.
because an individual's beliefs are not likely to be negotiable, establishment of relevance to those beliefs is a solitary matter. no discussion, no larger audience, a static condition. no larger relevance beyond that person.
i thought we were talking about a work relevant for the times, relevant to a group of us who think and carry on discourse about contemporary work...
"Architects, for the most part, are not particularly convincing (especially viewed amongst themselves)."
excerpt from "Operation a Success, Patient Dead"
hmm, i'm not convinced by that quote...
...hence "Eternal Wrest".
The real question to me is; would you rather have these guys practicing architecture or giving speeches and lectures about practicing architecture?
Steven, I was just trying to say that I'm not so interested in the people that became brands. This has NOTHING to do with age, of course.
To be or not to be a rebel is a choice of an individual, anyone decides those things for him/herself. So how can I discuss this?
It's your opinion that it's not necessary to be a rebel in the profession. I can only ask you what do you think would be a better choice?
people becoming brands - i'll agree there. while i don't think it makes the work less good, it is an annoying by-product of good work.
we all choose our roles in the profession. mine is more nurturing, i suppose. i try to make quiet work, work that deserves to stay where it is for a long time, work that will encourage people to like/love it enough to keep it around. i give a lot of design responsibility to those around me and i try to help them realize their own design goals while also making work worth keeping around. radical architecture with a short shelf-life will never be something in which i'm much interested.
i've never rebelled in my life, not even why young, and i'm still not sure it's productive. a lot of energy spent rebelling verbally could simply be poured into the work.
i was only partly kidding above when i said i'm rebelling against rebellion...
But sometimes good work itself is a rebellion – against meaningless, against bad taste or unfavourable circumstances.
rebel without a because
touche'
i've even known people that were mediocre at being mediocre...
Brands are a necessary part of our society. Any business needs branding. Personally, I think it is great that Hadid, Mayne and others are 'brands'. This gives them more negotiating power, sells products (and books, of course), buildings, etc., etc.
I've enjoyed watching the show. From boutique designers with no one but the arch circles supporting them to international powerhouses.
Any well known brand puts out a dud here and there, but overall the quality is pretty consistent (like or dislike is up to you)
2002.05.20 14:49
While corporate/designer 'branding' on a broad commercial basis is at least as old as the early 1970s, especially in terms of humans wearing logos, etc., it really is no surprise that branding is a hyper virtuality involving hyper size.
On 60 Minutes last night one saw teenagers of Sierra Leone, Africa that were branded by the rebel forces that abducted them and then forced them to fight the government (and often their own families). A Kansas City plastic surgeon is now their to remove the flesh brands so that the teenagers have a future, otherwise the teenagers are signified enemies.
Despite the great tragedy of the youth of Sierra Leone, branding in Africa is not exactly something to be surprised at. Could it be that body modification, like within so much of African tribal culture, may have indeed had its archaic origins within the same kind of reasoning that the Sierra Leone rebels employed? It wouldn't surprise me at all if many US citizens would gladly accept modified cells (etc.) from Disney.
In case you haven't noticed, identity is a big commodity that many (if not most) US citizens buy into. I am what I wear. I am what I drive. I am the neighborhood I live in. I am the amount of times I visit DisneyWorld [or archinect]. I am my plastic surgeon. I am a branded cell (finally?!?).
QBVS3, p. 59.
soemtimes, it seems to me, that there is a big difference between trying to be relevant, and attempting to do architecture, at other times, i think they are inseprable. I'm confused
I guess one needs to understand what it is that being relevant helps achieve, and what it is that in the continuum of archtiectural practice, history, theory etc that is useful, to make good architecture, today, that will enter this continuum. Synthesis, thats my keyword, but its extremely vague
the good old sixties, the Himmelblaus' blazing wing in Vienna and the Rolling Stones soundtrack - Prix even featured them in his lecture at the Black Cat Cafe in Perth in 1986, arranged undoubtedly at great expense and with great effort by Billl Busfield and Geoff Warn of Conversations Inc...
I was the lucky student who was operating the two Kodak Carousel slide projectors for Prix' talk - when the inebriated presenter ordered a change in the order of slides and something went wrong, he just walked out.
such was the nature of 'rebellion' in Perth Australia, the world's most isolated city in the 80s.. nothing's changed!
Johnny: Whaddya got?
against tomato
I am reminded of Bjarke Ingels's manifesto in ICON mag:
BIGamy (you can have both)
The traditional image of the radical architect is the angry young man rebelling against the establishment. The avant-garde is defined more by what it is against than what it is for. This leads to an oedipal succession of contradictions where each generation says the opposite of the previous. And if your agenda is dependant on being the opposite of someone else’s, you are simply a follower – in reverse.
Rather than being radical by saying fuck the establishment, fuck gravity, fuck the neighbours, fuck the budget, fuck the context – we want to try to turn pleasing into a radical agenda.
What if design could be the opposite of conflict? Not by ignoring it, but by feeding off it. A way to incorporate and integrate differences – not through compromise or by choosing sides, but by tying conflicting interests into a Gordian knot of new ideas.
We propose to let the forces of society decide which of our ideas can live, and which must die. Surviving ideas will evolve through mutation and crossbreeding into an entirely new species of architecture.
An inclusive rather than exclusive architecture. An architecture unburdened by conceptual monogamy. An architecture where you don’t have to choose between public or private, dense or open, angled or curved, blond or brunette etc. An architecture where you can have both.
icon mag
Ah, rather than progress based on discontent, it's progress based on contentment.
bjaarke ingalls finds himself trapped between some old architects....
Our culture is based on valuing the new and seeing everything with an obsolescence. That doesn't mean the old is without value, we are just culturally unable to acknowledge it. Current mind set seems to indicate that to make the present relevant we must destroy the past.
This discussion reminds me of friends who must listen to music nobody else has heard of. Their self worth depends on it.
the thing is though, certain generation was less selfish, risked more for their ideals, had more meaningful music, and yes, they had more style about them.
i dont know if its jealousy.. but you guys need to understand that he is still creating groundbreaking work.
why are architects the most critical people on earth? has there ever been a "good" architect? everyone seems to HAVE to express their opinion and trash peoples work. its ridiculous. relax everyone.
a lecture is a lecture. listen. absorb.
thats one thing i would love to change about our profession. get rid of all the jealousy/hate.
A few thoughts:
As an old guy myself, the air guitar thing is just really...well, are you youngsters familiar with the expression "douche chills"?
Even the most banal, cheap and poorly considered buildings are both "relevant" and a "political act". We may not like what they signify, and may be opposed to the politics they represent, but we pretend that "bad" architecture has no cultural significance or meaning at our own peril.
I think that design talent and aesthetic virtuosity are far down the list of those aspects of the act of building which are relevant or political. If one considers the political context in which many of the great monuments of Architectural history were conceived...
How are the massive apartment complexes east of downtown LA, collectively named with nostalgic Italianate names (Piero/Orsini/etc) not "relevant"? They are the worst type of banal grind-it-out suburban mall dreck, too ugly to be considered even kitsch. But they also provide a relatively dense concentration of living units within walking distance of downtown and transit stops. And from interviews with the developer I've read, he really thinks his faux Tuscan piles are, in their own way, a rebellion against what he perceives to be a superficial and short lived vogue for cold, impersonal modernism. Rebellion is one of those terms that I think has to be measured against the speaker who uses it.
The $250,000,000 (yes, that's a quarter of a billion dollars) Performing Arts High School in Los Angeles by Wolf Prix is being completed just as massive budget cuts are requiring the layoffs of hundreds of teachers in the LAUSD. Even in more flush times, the school was considered a wild extravagance, with a large part of its budget better spent on textbooks and teachers. The selection of Coop Himellblau was pushed by billionaire Eli Broad (the Lorenzo Medici of LA), who insisted that LAUSD should have one "World Class Architecture Caliber" school as it undertook its building program.
A question then: How does "rebellion" and "architecture as a political act" fit into this scenario, and what part could have/should have/would have Coop Himmelblau played?
How are BIG and SHoP rebelling? Their clients are mainly developers who build for the rich or the super-rich, and they mainly use curtain wall technology made in China. Sure, SHoP sometimes does things like wrap someone else's arena design in rusting steel, or design a modular system that doesn't work very well, but that's not rebelling. The client for Atlantic Yards is a crook, and the project was strongly opposed by the artists in the neighborhood. Jonathan Lethem wrote a good piece about it.
BIG's client is the company that hacked phones in England and lied about it (BIG's direct client had to leave England for the sake of his career) and they are designing a big hulking glass tower that looms over TriBeCa, where the artists who can afford to remain there have signed a petition against all the glass towers going up. The (mainly young) employees in Silicon Alley don't like glass towers either. FOX acknowledged that when they first went to BIG.
There is rebellion going on today. Occupy Wall Street didn't like glass towers either. Black Lives Matter is talking about more important things. Rebelling would be doing work that supported protests and change. Go on a march with Black Lives Matter and you'll find they don't give a shit about most of the arcane issues debated here.
rebellion my ass...like this is punk rock in the early 70s? no fucking way...
architects like mayne and prix and eric owen moss (constantly talking about the fucking rebellion), shop, BIG and whoever...are dealing with multimillion dollar projects and extremely sophisticated high end clients, they are suckling the teet of the system, that is not rebellion, they are just trying to do somewhat unique work working within the parameters of a highly structured capitalist system.
that is fucking the most ridiculous shit I ever heard...mayne playing out the lecture in air guitar...gg allin was rebellion...and people avoided that dude like the plague...true punk, true rebellion.