By you I don't mean the average mcmansion builder, and by what we want I don't mean wrestle some traditional features into your contemporary designs. I am asking you as the experts of the field, why won't you build what we want, traditional architecture, and build it excellently. Certainly I wouldn't expect all of you to do this, or even half of you, just some you, or any of you....
Yes this is kind of a troll thread but with the best intentions, to hear your points of view.
chatter of clouds
Nov 10, 13 2:40 pm
I would not think of that firestation as traditional though. Its postmodern. Its consciously and symbolically communicating itself discretely. yes its more elegant than that clunky stern Stern massing which is anything but classical or traditional as well. Clunky. The memorial proposal , Duany (?), is depressing. I understand the mystery box intention (one can see this in a lot of tadao ando's work, a revealed theatrical staging exagerrated by the obscurity of the mute treasure box) but...no, its depressing. There is no sensibility of elegant proportioning, i would think its actually done by someone without an eye for beauty. I vote firfirestation as well. i would also not call it traditional, neoclassical...etc. its also postmodern. depressing though.
chatter of clouds
Nov 10, 13 3:56 pm
By the way, I added my last sentence with reference to the Duany (?) Design. I mwant tge duany was depressing not the rather pleasant firestation.
Fish
Nov 10, 13 6:22 pm
Shitty traditional design is not lacking out there. Neither is shitty contemporary.
However, if excellent architects can be found among those who produce "traditional architecture," (BTW architects trained much the same way the "rest of us" are) but their work is not widespread enough for OP, maybe OP should be funneling more work their way? OP seems to know what OP likes and it is available.
A client rarely builds a contemporary structure if he/she wants to spend money on something traditional. If the client doesn't want what the architect is peddling, the client will look elsewhere. In fact, I worked at a firm where this very thing happened when our design was a bit too innovative for the client. In another case, the firm was able to sell a very contemporary design as contextual and a design that was originally rejected by the neighborhood became well-liked. No one's arm was twisted into accepting the less traditional-looking solution.
My point is just that clients are quite savvy and get what they want. All those looking for traditional get it. Maybe OP should be taking his/her grievance to our client base instead of us?
Miles Jaffe
Nov 10, 13 7:22 pm
Arguing the differences between two awful buildings and one bad design? This thread is fully baked now. Ha. Time to put some icing on that cake.
The question was which building do you think was designed by a traditionally trained architect.
Stern graduated Yale in 1960 under Dean James Grote Van Derpool (Bachelor of Science in Architecture from MIT, 1927), who among other things conducted graduate research in architectural history in the late 1920's at the American Academy in Rome and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. He taught history of architectural at Renssalaer Polytechnic and earned an MFA in Architecture from Harvard in 1940. He was also Executive Director of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, President of the New York and National Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, Chairman of the Advisory Committee for the Historic American Building Survey for the National Parks Service and Trustee of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. Grote Van Derpool authored 'A Comparison of Byzantine Planning at Constantinople and in Greece' and 'New York Landmarks: An Index of Architecturally Historic Structures in New York City'.
So much for the argument that classical training improves the quality of architecture.
disastrous proportions and detailing and a poor use of materials combine to make an awful building. An architect trained in traditional or classical design could easily have avoided the first two problems.
LOL Correctly proportioned according to what period and style? And even cheap materials can be used with sensitivity.
I've studied plenty of traditional architecture (most likely more than you, even), and built (by myself) some traditional architeture in my prior home.
Bragging anonymously on an internet forum. I'm impressed. How about some pictures of that project?
trip to fame
Nov 10, 13 10:09 pm
Thanks for sharing your project, Quondam.
Miles Jaffe
Nov 10, 13 11:12 pm
What - no capitals? A little baseboard trim with a quarter-round shoe molding does not make traditional.
And what's with the posts in front of the doors?
trip to fame
Nov 10, 13 11:56 pm
MIles, I hope you are more courteous in person than you are here.
Quondam, is this in a basement?
Fish
Nov 11, 13 10:10 am
I think it is a little sad that what could be an interesting discussion - a discussion about architectural style as practiced and the perception of that at large - has instead devolved into a you-know-what wagging contest about who knows and can reproduce traditional best.
It's really easy to tear down the work of others to reinforce your point, but are those comments really valuable?
Miles Jaffe
Nov 11, 13 1:56 pm
Nobdy ever been in a crit before? LOL I didn't even begin to get into it.
Quondam mentioned this work as part of a demonstration of superior knowledge of traditional architecture. You want to talk the talk you'd better be able to walk the walk (another cliche for tammuz).
I'd still like to know why the posts block the doors.
Miles Jaffe
Nov 11, 13 6:43 pm
The columns didn't block the doors.
Then either the plan is inaccurate or you've never tried to move anything as wide as the door into that room. The photo clearly shows a post in front of the closet door, making the space between the post and the wall narrower than the width of the door opening. The plan indicates the same condition on the other side.
The work was mentioned to demonstrate that I was not entirely without some experience in "practicing" traditional architecture.
Bullshit. Reread the chain of comments that starts with trip challenging your experience and knowledge of traditional architecture. Quondam: I've studied plenty of traditional architecture (most likely more than you, even) , and built (by myself) some traditional architeture in my prior home.
Is that experience the extent of your built work?
marisco
Nov 11, 13 7:06 pm
Miles, looking at Quondam's floor plan, it looks like that door leads to a closet, and looking at the plan it appears to leave enough for the swing, so I would blame the angle of the photo.
I'm not sure I agree with the spacing/placement myself, but as indicated this was for Quondam's own home, so whatever.... the client wants what he wants right ;)
FWIW I think that space could have been utilized to build a built-in of sorts (full height or otherwise, that incorporated the support needed (inferred) above while providing storage/visual interest. Without knowing what the room is purposed for, makes it hard to speculate alternatives.
aojwny
Nov 11, 13 11:42 pm
Sorry I have been away from the thread for a bit. I'm afraid i cannot agree with Quondom and tammuz about the fire station being the best of the three Quondom illustrated. I doubt that the architect had in mind being post-modern at all. And I apologize that I don't know who it was, although I would say with near certainty that he had not gone to one of the very few schools teaching traditional and/or classical architecture today.
Regarding proportional systems, I do not believe one was used for the fire station, it appears entirely circumstantial. On the other hand, if you study proportion you will find that there do seem to be immutable rules based in naturally occurring systems (such as the nautilus shell/Fibonacci sequence/golden rectangle). Here is a mathematician's critical take on some of these proportional ideas, which I found tonight just googling Fibonacci sequence looking for an image of the spiral: ttp://yabhm.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/phi/
It is interesting to me to see architect's on this thread preferring the anonymous architect's to me clumsily designed fire station preferred over others more informed designs. But if you want to see true contemporary classical design a good example would be Quinlan Terry's Maitland College Library at Oxford, of 1993: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60197026@N00/10813072173/in/photostream/ Kallman MckInnell and Woods Washington U. Social Sciences and Law building of 2008 is Gothic in style, so I wouldn't call it classical design, but certainly traditonal design: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60197026@N00/10812812736/in/photostream/
To my eye, some of Venturi's university work is a good example of contemporary traditional architecture in that the designs are clearly based in the collegiate gothic tradition found on the Princeton campus, but with a contemporary sensibility, e.g., Fisher Hall: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60197026@N00/10813072173/in/photostream/
"the sad reality is that those buildings will not last. how can they? They have no meaning outside of the present."
I'm sure any residential architecture can be date stamped with that philosophy. Lets not innovate as architects and therefore gain a respectability in the safe conservative nostalgia that the public adores so much. Now wheres my fee.
well, just as their are architectures that are not worthy of a lot of attention, there are also articles that are not worthy more than a glance, aowjny. that article is fatally flawed. I find the Downing College porte cochère as ill proportioned as he claims the William College Musuem of Art Addition stucco box - where the latter is a deliberate postmodern jarring of proportions, the former just looks like it takes its awkward proportions too seriously.
and i find the International Storytelling Center as elegantly proportioned (and in fact, shares a fundamental way of thinking about massing) as our firehouse. if anything, i think the author of that article is necessarily elitist and irrationally picky about what he likes. Furthermore, he should know better- as has been suggested within his article- that his usage of the term traditional architecture is also fatally flawed. its a term that means even less than neclassicism. the term traditional might as well front nothing but a myth of "something we say earlier". Otherwise, can you call the Downing College and the Archer and Buchnan buildings both ...traditional.
i would suggest that the term traditional means very little. behind is a great dumbness (muteness, stupod, catatonia...) that discloses more absurdity than meaning and is generated retroactively against modernism and not something that has a valour on its own. in other words, you inherently and paradoxically need modernism to define traditionalism against. traditionalism, in itself, means little outside a substanceless surge of regression and negativity. please understand that by that i don't mean to denigrate the architects practicing in modes or paradigms outside modernism (however you define or accept-or not- that). but to gather in a clump all - divergent, stylistically different, some tending towards the anglosaxonic vernacular as their model and yet others tending towards the greco-roman- is simply void of meaning, an anti-school.
surixurient
Nov 12, 13 12:26 pm
If you recognize modernism for what it is, then it makes perfect sense and has plenty of meaning to gather pre-modern architecture into a clump all.
chatter of clouds
Nov 12, 13 12:26 pm
corrections:
but a myth of "something we saw earlier"
(muteness, stupor, catatonia...)
define traditionalism against. modernism
Otherwise, how can you call the Downing College and the Archer and Buchnan buildings both ...traditional.
there might be others. sorry, i was typing with my toes :/
curtkram
Nov 12, 13 12:52 pm
suri, are you suggesting that you think you recognize modernism for what it is?
you just want to build a paper tiger so you can attack something. that's it. you created a fictional 'traditional' style that has no actual root in history so you could frame a duality and pick a fight. but there is no duality. it's not a black and white issue with one right and one wrong. the idea that actual educated architects would fall for such a simplification is sad. we should have all received enough education to know that "modernism" as a style is not as simple or all-inclusive as you're making it, and "traditional" is not a single style that encompasses the broad range you're giving it.
Fish
Nov 12, 13 2:13 pm
Certainly I wouldn't expect all of you to do this, or even half of you, just some you, or any of you....
This mythological architect you seek does exist. Follow link...
This is neo-classicalism by Albert Speer. Why not post a photo of the Rotunda at the Unoversity of Virginia to see what really is possible and achievable and stunning and effective?
That's silly! That is a federal courthouse in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It opened just 2 years ago and has nothing to do with Nazis. And just the same, couldn't Speer's work be seen as "traditional?" I'm pretty sure that's how his client wanted it to be seen.
I don't think Thomas Jefferson has produced much work in the past 80 years so he isn't "one of us," unless the discussion was meant to include the long dead among us. He might not even fit the bill as traditional enough, as fond as he was of taking building facades from antiquity and appropriating them for contemporary purposes without slavish adherence.
I suppose at that point traditional becomes even more difficult to define since it was all new at some point. Today's nostalgia was yesterday's reviled, degenerate avant garde, I suppose.
trip to fame
Nov 12, 13 3:04 pm
Leon Krier's rather recent building housing Agape Cafe in Serris, France. To me it qualifies as traditional, contemporary, and rather touching if I may say so.
surixurient
Nov 12, 13 3:04 pm
Fish, it is a nice courthouse, I am glad to see that such a courthouse was funded. A few hundred more traditional courthouses designed and built and then we might get a gem, an achievement of architecture that will be held up as a great work and be admired for hundreds of years. So yeah, my plea of "or any of you" was a bit of a stretch, that has been shown. One of the things I took away from this thread is that there is more interest professionally in traditional architecture than I knew, just not near enough.
jitter12
Nov 12, 13 3:34 pm
On the face of it, that courthouse is approximately $376/sf turn key (I assume it's turnkey, including fees and furnishings, etc..., not just construction). We should all be so lucky
surixurient
Nov 12, 13 4:12 pm
curtkram, modernism is the anti-traditional, there is no overlap. Its like deism and atheism.
I might add that traditional is not always a good solution.
For instance just down the road a ways from the courthouse in Tuscaloosa is Fraternity Row. Now, possibly the intention when designing these traditional structures was to recall Ancient Greece - Oh, the splendor! (insert stolen Flickr image)
I'm sure to many young African Americans the fraternities have recalled a much more recent and salient past. One with less bucolic associations.
Sometimes one person's grand historic allusions are fraught with more sinister associations for others - say, neoclassical courthouses recalling the Nazi regime. Looking to the past for inspiration isn't always as safe as it seems.
threadkilla
Nov 12, 13 4:32 pm
@ suri not to mention that all of Mies' later pavilion structures are basically re-interpretations of the Parthenon
curtkram
Nov 12, 13 4:36 pm
that's what i said. you made up crap that has no basis in real life so you could take something with lots of shades of gray, and turn it into a black and white issue that serves no purpose other than starting a fight. you know nothing about architecture styles or history, but for whatever reason you can't come to terms with your ignorance, so you developed a modernist v. traditionalist dichotomy.
an architect designing a richardsonian romanesque building is not doing the same thing as an architect designing a neoclassical building. lumping them into a single 'traditonal' category because you're too lazy to learn the difference is not useful to you or anyone else. designing in the international style is both modernist and traditional, but there is a fair chance you would not consider that traditional, since you don't allow an overlap. pomo is not modern or traditional, but you have to lump it in with modern because you don't like it. the way you categorize architecture into 2 mutually exclusive options based on your personal preference is just plain stupid and shows how you have no interest in studying architectural history.
the dual nature of traditional v. modern, as you've phrased it, doesn't exist. it's a way to simplify something that's just too difficult for you to comprehend. i'm not saying you're too dumb to comprehend it either. it's just as likely that you're too lazy to put in the effort to learn about the history of architecture. the stupidity of your stance has been pointed out but you refuse to even consider the possibility that you might not know as much as someone who has spent decades studying your passing fancy. you're nothing more than an internet troll trying to get a rise out the people of this forum. for you to pretend you're anything more than that is ridiculous.
trip to fame
Nov 12, 13 5:01 pm
While I also don't believe it's a black and white issue, I think there is more than a little bit of reality in what Suri has brought up.
Observe:
"The Americans, however, are the people, who, having done most for progress, remain for the most part timidly chained to dead traditions."
- Le Corbusier
"The new times demand their own expressions."
- Gropius
"Today we have got our Modern Architecture and very soon it will be absolutely inescapable. It has the loyalty of the young; it is established, with different degrees of firmness, in every school of architecture in the country. Soon it will not Modern Architecture any longer. It will just be Architecture."
- Sir John Summerson
"Architecture is stifled by custom....the 'styles' are a lie."
- Le Corbusier
"In Europe, there is a sharp division into two camps. To the humanistic camp of the New Traditionalists...a previous article was devoted. There remains the more difficult task of discussing those modern architects who stand opposed. If I have called them, accepting perhaps too much their own estimate of themselves, the New Pioneers, it is because I at least believe in Europe, Traditionalism old or new is already wearing itself out...In calling these younger me Pioneers I have also wished to indicate that even though the future may be theirs, they have today but made a beginning, hewn a first path away from the settlement of the Traditionalist..."
Henry-Russell Hitchcock
Donna Sink
Nov 12, 13 5:18 pm
curtkram your stamina is amazing. And of course you're right.
I can't believe this thread is still going!
surixurient
Nov 12, 13 5:25 pm
threadkilla, whether modernist buildings acknowledge or incorporate the traditional is irrelevant when the fundamental tenets of modernism are anti-traditional. There is no overlap. Traditional elements or vernacular executed as modernist architecture are modernist, it is not traditional, it is not half traditional, its just modernist, by the very nature of modernism.
curtram, i'm not interested in humoring you anymore, its been obvious that your juvenile and obtuse characterizations of my points are intellectually dishonest and only meant to annoy. Any substance in them is overshadowed by the schoolboy attacks and purposeful misinterpretations.
Volunteer
Nov 12, 13 5:34 pm
'A house is a machine for living'
A. LeCorbusier
B. George Orwell
C Both
D. Either
surixurient
Nov 12, 13 5:54 pm
the Sir John Summerson quote says it all.
Nam Henderson
Nov 12, 13 6:39 pm
i finally had to thumbs up this thread.
I mean 18 pages y'all!
curtkram
Nov 12, 13 7:21 pm
i should focus more on working on architecture instead of theorizing architecture.
Thayer-D
Nov 12, 13 7:34 pm
Suri, you're a good man for bringing this whole subject up. All the venom you stirred up shows just how wrong sir Summerson was. For all the times they tried to blow you off as irrelevant, it's amazing how many times they kept responding. I can't vouch for every detail in your arguments, but imagine how they would have responded had they thought you relevant? Simply sharing the stage with traditional architecture seems too much for them to bare. This has been a wonderful psychological portrait on so many levels. Thank you.
curtkram
Nov 12, 13 8:37 pm
thayer, are you really just trying to say you're an internet troll that doesn't understand there are more than 2 styles in the history of architecture?
trip to fame
Nov 12, 13 9:14 pm
Some more examples of modern traditional work that I think stand out:
Seaside Chapel by Merrill, Pastor and Colgan
trip to fame
Nov 12, 13 9:17 pm
Eishin School in Tokyo by Christopher Alexander
Miles Jaffe
Nov 12, 13 9:23 pm
After starting one (and only one, thank dog) thread , and posting 111 times in it (so far), suri finally speaks the truth:
my points are intellectually dishonest and only meant to annoy
OCD anyone?
trip to fame
Nov 12, 13 9:27 pm
Private Residence in Holland by Michael Graves
chatter of clouds
Nov 12, 13 9:30 pm
trip to fame , seasides chapel is cute and so are other projects you're showing us. i wouldn't call it traditional. traditionally inspired if you wish but not traditional. but its come down to semantics and well that its own topic. but fundamentally, you might find many people here actually liking this chapel (or not) ergo liking what you deem to be traditional (and i deem not to be traditional) ergo...there are people doing good what-you-call-traditional-and-i-wouldn't work and there are people appreciating what-you-call-traditional-and-i-wouldn't work. ergo, there was no point for all this drama and lamentation and fake nostalgia.
eishen school is not. and not nice. no, no.no
chatter of clouds
Nov 12, 13 9:33 pm
ok now semantically, stop faking! postmodernism. stop being silly. this is silly what you're doing. come back before you reach the point of no return. ok bye
trip to fame
Nov 12, 13 9:35 pm
I respect you opinion. Politely disagree with your rather rambling post, however, Tammuz. I stand by these being examples of modern traditional architecture, but you can label it as you wish.
Not sure what fake nostalgia even means.
chatter of clouds
Nov 12, 13 9:39 pm
you know this is starting to look like gay pornography.
men who star in "straight men paid for sex" films actually look gay and pretend to have a bad time
and men who star in "gay men take it up the ..." films look like they're straights pretending to have a good time
there is no traditionalism in such a scenario.
trip to fame
Nov 12, 13 9:40 pm
Tammuz, not sure why you need to get uptight about trying to fit things into little boxes like Po Mo.
By you I don't mean the average mcmansion builder, and by what we want I don't mean wrestle some traditional features into your contemporary designs. I am asking you as the experts of the field, why won't you build what we want, traditional architecture, and build it excellently. Certainly I wouldn't expect all of you to do this, or even half of you, just some you, or any of you....
Yes this is kind of a troll thread but with the best intentions, to hear your points of view.
I would not think of that firestation as traditional though. Its postmodern. Its consciously and symbolically communicating itself discretely. yes its more elegant than that clunky stern Stern massing which is anything but classical or traditional as well. Clunky. The memorial proposal , Duany (?), is depressing. I understand the mystery box intention (one can see this in a lot of tadao ando's work, a revealed theatrical staging exagerrated by the obscurity of the mute treasure box) but...no, its depressing. There is no sensibility of elegant proportioning, i would think its actually done by someone without an eye for beauty. I vote firfirestation as well. i would also not call it traditional, neoclassical...etc. its also postmodern. depressing though.
By the way, I added my last sentence with reference to the Duany (?) Design. I mwant tge duany was depressing not the rather pleasant firestation.
Shitty traditional design is not lacking out there. Neither is shitty contemporary.
However, if excellent architects can be found among those who produce "traditional architecture," (BTW architects trained much the same way the "rest of us" are) but their work is not widespread enough for OP, maybe OP should be funneling more work their way? OP seems to know what OP likes and it is available.
A client rarely builds a contemporary structure if he/she wants to spend money on something traditional. If the client doesn't want what the architect is peddling, the client will look elsewhere. In fact, I worked at a firm where this very thing happened when our design was a bit too innovative for the client. In another case, the firm was able to sell a very contemporary design as contextual and a design that was originally rejected by the neighborhood became well-liked. No one's arm was twisted into accepting the less traditional-looking solution.
My point is just that clients are quite savvy and get what they want. All those looking for traditional get it. Maybe OP should be taking his/her grievance to our client base instead of us?
Arguing the differences between two awful buildings and one bad design? This thread is fully baked now. Ha. Time to put some icing on that cake.
The question was which building do you think was designed by a traditionally trained architect.
Stern graduated Yale in 1960 under Dean James Grote Van Derpool (Bachelor of Science in Architecture from MIT, 1927), who among other things conducted graduate research in architectural history in the late 1920's at the American Academy in Rome and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. He taught history of architectural at Renssalaer Polytechnic and earned an MFA in Architecture from Harvard in 1940. He was also Executive Director of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, President of the New York and National Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, Chairman of the Advisory Committee for the Historic American Building Survey for the National Parks Service and Trustee of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. Grote Van Derpool authored 'A Comparison of Byzantine Planning at Constantinople and in Greece' and 'New York Landmarks: An Index of Architecturally Historic Structures in New York City'.
So much for the argument that classical training improves the quality of architecture.
disastrous proportions and detailing and a poor use of materials combine to make an awful building. An architect trained in traditional or classical design could easily have avoided the first two problems.
LOL Correctly proportioned according to what period and style? And even cheap materials can be used with sensitivity.
I've studied plenty of traditional architecture (most likely more than you, even), and built (by myself) some traditional architeture in my prior home.
Bragging anonymously on an internet forum. I'm impressed. How about some pictures of that project?
Thanks for sharing your project, Quondam.
What - no capitals? A little baseboard trim with a quarter-round shoe molding does not make traditional.
And what's with the posts in front of the doors?
MIles, I hope you are more courteous in person than you are here.
Quondam, is this in a basement?
I think it is a little sad that what could be an interesting discussion - a discussion about architectural style as practiced and the perception of that at large - has instead devolved into a you-know-what wagging contest about who knows and can reproduce traditional best.
It's really easy to tear down the work of others to reinforce your point, but are those comments really valuable?
Nobdy ever been in a crit before? LOL I didn't even begin to get into it.
Quondam mentioned this work as part of a demonstration of superior knowledge of traditional architecture. You want to talk the talk you'd better be able to walk the walk (another cliche for tammuz).
I'd still like to know why the posts block the doors.
The columns didn't block the doors.
Then either the plan is inaccurate or you've never tried to move anything as wide as the door into that room. The photo clearly shows a post in front of the closet door, making the space between the post and the wall narrower than the width of the door opening. The plan indicates the same condition on the other side.
The work was mentioned to demonstrate that I was not entirely without some experience in "practicing" traditional architecture.
Bullshit. Reread the chain of comments that starts with trip challenging your experience and knowledge of traditional architecture. Quondam: I've studied plenty of traditional architecture (most likely more than you, even) , and built (by myself) some traditional architeture in my prior home.
Is that experience the extent of your built work?
Miles, looking at Quondam's floor plan, it looks like that door leads to a closet, and looking at the plan it appears to leave enough for the swing, so I would blame the angle of the photo.
I'm not sure I agree with the spacing/placement myself, but as indicated this was for Quondam's own home, so whatever.... the client wants what he wants right ;)
FWIW I think that space could have been utilized to build a built-in of sorts (full height or otherwise, that incorporated the support needed (inferred) above while providing storage/visual interest. Without knowing what the room is purposed for, makes it hard to speculate alternatives.
Sorry I have been away from the thread for a bit. I'm afraid i cannot agree with Quondom and tammuz about the fire station being the best of the three Quondom illustrated. I doubt that the architect had in mind being post-modern at all. And I apologize that I don't know who it was, although I would say with near certainty that he had not gone to one of the very few schools teaching traditional and/or classical architecture today.
Regarding proportional systems, I do not believe one was used for the fire station, it appears entirely circumstantial. On the other hand, if you study proportion you will find that there do seem to be immutable rules based in naturally occurring systems (such as the nautilus shell/Fibonacci sequence/golden rectangle). Here is a mathematician's critical take on some of these proportional ideas, which I found tonight just googling Fibonacci sequence looking for an image of the spiral: ttp://yabhm.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/phi/
It is interesting to me to see architect's on this thread preferring the anonymous architect's to me clumsily designed fire station preferred over others more informed designs. But if you want to see true contemporary classical design a good example would be Quinlan Terry's Maitland College Library at Oxford, of 1993: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60197026@N00/10813072173/in/photostream/ Kallman MckInnell and Woods Washington U. Social Sciences and Law building of 2008 is Gothic in style, so I wouldn't call it classical design, but certainly traditonal design: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60197026@N00/10812812736/in/photostream/
To my eye, some of Venturi's university work is a good example of contemporary traditional architecture in that the designs are clearly based in the collegiate gothic tradition found on the Princeton campus, but with a contemporary sensibility, e.g., Fisher Hall: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60197026@N00/10813072173/in/photostream/
Other examples of poorly designed contemporary buildings done for clients clearly looking for traditional design: http://www.flickr.com/photos/60197026@N00/10813072323/in/photostream/ or http://www.flickr.com/photos/60197026@N00/10812813216/in/photostream/
Sorry I'm not internet savvy enough to know how to have the actual images appear in this thread!
Oh, and here is the paper I mentioned earlier that I have now added to my website:
http://anthonyojamesarchitect.com/en/files/Contemporary%20Traditional%20Architecture%20and%20Why%20We%20Should%20Consider%20It.pdf
"the sad reality is that those buildings will not last. how can they? They have no meaning outside of the present."
I'm sure any residential architecture can be date stamped with that philosophy. Lets not innovate as architects and therefore gain a respectability in the safe conservative nostalgia that the public adores so much. Now wheres my fee.
http://i.imgur.com/ry4viY3.png
well, just as their are architectures that are not worthy of a lot of attention, there are also articles that are not worthy more than a glance, aowjny. that article is fatally flawed. I find the Downing College porte cochère as ill proportioned as he claims the William College Musuem of Art Addition stucco box - where the latter is a deliberate postmodern jarring of proportions, the former just looks like it takes its awkward proportions too seriously.
and i find the International Storytelling Center as elegantly proportioned (and in fact, shares a fundamental way of thinking about massing) as our firehouse. if anything, i think the author of that article is necessarily elitist and irrationally picky about what he likes. Furthermore, he should know better- as has been suggested within his article- that his usage of the term traditional architecture is also fatally flawed. its a term that means even less than neclassicism. the term traditional might as well front nothing but a myth of "something we say earlier". Otherwise, can you call the Downing College and the Archer and Buchnan buildings both ...traditional.
i would suggest that the term traditional means very little. behind is a great dumbness (muteness, stupod, catatonia...) that discloses more absurdity than meaning and is generated retroactively against modernism and not something that has a valour on its own. in other words, you inherently and paradoxically need modernism to define traditionalism against. traditionalism, in itself, means little outside a substanceless surge of regression and negativity. please understand that by that i don't mean to denigrate the architects practicing in modes or paradigms outside modernism (however you define or accept-or not- that). but to gather in a clump all - divergent, stylistically different, some tending towards the anglosaxonic vernacular as their model and yet others tending towards the greco-roman- is simply void of meaning, an anti-school.
If you recognize modernism for what it is, then it makes perfect sense and has plenty of meaning to gather pre-modern architecture into a clump all.
corrections:
but a myth of "something we saw earlier"
(muteness, stupor, catatonia...)
define traditionalism against. modernism
Otherwise, how can you call the Downing College and the Archer and Buchnan buildings both ...traditional.
there might be others. sorry, i was typing with my toes :/
suri, are you suggesting that you think you recognize modernism for what it is?
you just want to build a paper tiger so you can attack something. that's it. you created a fictional 'traditional' style that has no actual root in history so you could frame a duality and pick a fight. but there is no duality. it's not a black and white issue with one right and one wrong. the idea that actual educated architects would fall for such a simplification is sad. we should have all received enough education to know that "modernism" as a style is not as simple or all-inclusive as you're making it, and "traditional" is not a single style that encompasses the broad range you're giving it.
Certainly I wouldn't expect all of you to do this, or even half of you, just some you, or any of you....
This mythological architect you seek does exist. Follow link...
http://www.architectmagazine.com/government-projects/tuscaloosa-federal-building-and-courthouse.aspx
Problem solved. Whew!
This is neo-classicalism by Albert Speer. Why not post a photo of the Rotunda at the Unoversity of Virginia to see what really is possible and achievable and stunning and effective?
www.http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File.University-of-Virginia-Rotunda.jpg
That's silly! That is a federal courthouse in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It opened just 2 years ago and has nothing to do with Nazis. And just the same, couldn't Speer's work be seen as "traditional?" I'm pretty sure that's how his client wanted it to be seen.
I don't think Thomas Jefferson has produced much work in the past 80 years so he isn't "one of us," unless the discussion was meant to include the long dead among us. He might not even fit the bill as traditional enough, as fond as he was of taking building facades from antiquity and appropriating them for contemporary purposes without slavish adherence.
I suppose at that point traditional becomes even more difficult to define since it was all new at some point. Today's nostalgia was yesterday's reviled, degenerate avant garde, I suppose.
Leon Krier's rather recent building housing Agape Cafe in Serris, France. To me it qualifies as traditional, contemporary, and rather touching if I may say so.
Fish, it is a nice courthouse, I am glad to see that such a courthouse was funded. A few hundred more traditional courthouses designed and built and then we might get a gem, an achievement of architecture that will be held up as a great work and be admired for hundreds of years. So yeah, my plea of "or any of you" was a bit of a stretch, that has been shown. One of the things I took away from this thread is that there is more interest professionally in traditional architecture than I knew, just not near enough.
On the face of it, that courthouse is approximately $376/sf turn key (I assume it's turnkey, including fees and furnishings, etc..., not just construction). We should all be so lucky
curtkram, modernism is the anti-traditional, there is no overlap. Its like deism and atheism.
suri, you are patently ignorant.
http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Modesty-Modernist-Architecture-Vernacular/dp/1442612827
I might add that traditional is not always a good solution.
For instance just down the road a ways from the courthouse in Tuscaloosa is Fraternity Row. Now, possibly the intention when designing these traditional structures was to recall Ancient Greece - Oh, the splendor! (insert stolen Flickr image)
I'm sure to many young African Americans the fraternities have recalled a much more recent and salient past. One with less bucolic associations.
Sometimes one person's grand historic allusions are fraught with more sinister associations for others - say, neoclassical courthouses recalling the Nazi regime. Looking to the past for inspiration isn't always as safe as it seems.
@ suri not to mention that all of Mies' later pavilion structures are basically re-interpretations of the Parthenon
that's what i said. you made up crap that has no basis in real life so you could take something with lots of shades of gray, and turn it into a black and white issue that serves no purpose other than starting a fight. you know nothing about architecture styles or history, but for whatever reason you can't come to terms with your ignorance, so you developed a modernist v. traditionalist dichotomy.
an architect designing a richardsonian romanesque building is not doing the same thing as an architect designing a neoclassical building. lumping them into a single 'traditonal' category because you're too lazy to learn the difference is not useful to you or anyone else. designing in the international style is both modernist and traditional, but there is a fair chance you would not consider that traditional, since you don't allow an overlap. pomo is not modern or traditional, but you have to lump it in with modern because you don't like it. the way you categorize architecture into 2 mutually exclusive options based on your personal preference is just plain stupid and shows how you have no interest in studying architectural history.
the dual nature of traditional v. modern, as you've phrased it, doesn't exist. it's a way to simplify something that's just too difficult for you to comprehend. i'm not saying you're too dumb to comprehend it either. it's just as likely that you're too lazy to put in the effort to learn about the history of architecture. the stupidity of your stance has been pointed out but you refuse to even consider the possibility that you might not know as much as someone who has spent decades studying your passing fancy. you're nothing more than an internet troll trying to get a rise out the people of this forum. for you to pretend you're anything more than that is ridiculous.
While I also don't believe it's a black and white issue, I think there is more than a little bit of reality in what Suri has brought up.
Observe:
"The Americans, however, are the people, who, having done most for progress, remain for the most part timidly chained to dead traditions."
- Le Corbusier
"The new times demand their own expressions."
- Gropius
"Today we have got our Modern Architecture and very soon it will be absolutely inescapable. It has the loyalty of the young; it is established, with different degrees of firmness, in every school of architecture in the country. Soon it will not Modern Architecture any longer. It will just be Architecture."
- Sir John Summerson
"Architecture is stifled by custom....the 'styles' are a lie."
- Le Corbusier
"In Europe, there is a sharp division into two camps. To the humanistic camp of the New Traditionalists...a previous article was devoted. There remains the more difficult task of discussing those modern architects who stand opposed. If I have called them, accepting perhaps too much their own estimate of themselves, the New Pioneers, it is because I at least believe in Europe, Traditionalism old or new is already wearing itself out...In calling these younger me Pioneers I have also wished to indicate that even though the future may be theirs, they have today but made a beginning, hewn a first path away from the settlement of the Traditionalist..."
Henry-Russell Hitchcock
curtkram your stamina is amazing. And of course you're right.
I can't believe this thread is still going!
threadkilla, whether modernist buildings acknowledge or incorporate the traditional is irrelevant when the fundamental tenets of modernism are anti-traditional. There is no overlap. Traditional elements or vernacular executed as modernist architecture are modernist, it is not traditional, it is not half traditional, its just modernist, by the very nature of modernism.
curtram, i'm not interested in humoring you anymore, its been obvious that your juvenile and obtuse characterizations of my points are intellectually dishonest and only meant to annoy. Any substance in them is overshadowed by the schoolboy attacks and purposeful misinterpretations.
'A house is a machine for living' A. LeCorbusier B. George Orwell C Both D. Either
the Sir John Summerson quote says it all.
i finally had to thumbs up this thread.
I mean 18 pages y'all!
i should focus more on working on architecture instead of theorizing architecture.
Suri, you're a good man for bringing this whole subject up. All the venom you stirred up shows just how wrong sir Summerson was. For all the times they tried to blow you off as irrelevant, it's amazing how many times they kept responding. I can't vouch for every detail in your arguments, but imagine how they would have responded had they thought you relevant? Simply sharing the stage with traditional architecture seems too much for them to bare. This has been a wonderful psychological portrait on so many levels. Thank you.
thayer, are you really just trying to say you're an internet troll that doesn't understand there are more than 2 styles in the history of architecture?
Some more examples of modern traditional work that I think stand out:
Seaside Chapel by Merrill, Pastor and Colgan
Eishin School in Tokyo by Christopher Alexander
After starting one (and only one, thank dog) thread , and posting 111 times in it (so far), suri finally speaks the truth:
my points are intellectually dishonest and only meant to annoy
OCD anyone?
trip to fame , seasides chapel is cute and so are other projects you're showing us. i wouldn't call it traditional. traditionally inspired if you wish but not traditional. but its come down to semantics and well that its own topic. but fundamentally, you might find many people here actually liking this chapel (or not) ergo liking what you deem to be traditional (and i deem not to be traditional) ergo...there are people doing good what-you-call-traditional-and-i-wouldn't work and there are people appreciating what-you-call-traditional-and-i-wouldn't work. ergo, there was no point for all this drama and lamentation and fake nostalgia.
eishen school is not. and not nice. no, no.no
ok now semantically, stop faking! postmodernism. stop being silly. this is silly what you're doing. come back before you reach the point of no return. ok bye
I respect you opinion. Politely disagree with your rather rambling post, however, Tammuz. I stand by these being examples of modern traditional architecture, but you can label it as you wish.
Not sure what fake nostalgia even means.
you know this is starting to look like gay pornography.
men who star in "straight men paid for sex" films actually look gay and pretend to have a bad time
and men who star in "gay men take it up the ..." films look like they're straights pretending to have a good time
there is no traditionalism in such a scenario.
Tammuz, not sure why you need to get uptight about trying to fit things into little boxes like Po Mo.
http://news.nd.edu/news/35734-2012-driehaus-prize-laureate-michael-graves-to-address-timeless-grammar-of-architecture/
As you can see, Graves is not at all afraid to learn from and build on on past lessons. AKA tradition.
when you call my posts rambling, you don't respect me you little ...shypocrite :o)
yes,crap anglosaxonic politeness. bring it on.
You seem to be reaching. Let's stay on point shall we?