The 'door' room from Koolhaas's Fundamentals show has life-size replicas of various historical doors from China, India, Italy and USA, plus an airport security scanner. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
An exploded false ceiling and a lineup of lavatories become the stars as Koolhaas delves into the overlooked innards of today's buildings – and shows how architecture has become nothing more than cardboard
— theguardian.com
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Oh my goodness this is almost everything I think about architecture:
"The ceiling used to be decorative, a symbolic plane, a place invested with intense iconography," says Rem Koolhaas, the Dutch director of this year's architecture extravaganza, standing beneath his exploded ceiling. "Now, it has become an entire factory of equipment that enables us to exist, a space so deep that it begins to compete with the architecture. It is a domain over which architects have lost all control, a zone surrendered to other professions."
Such is the message of Fundamentals, an exhibition that describes the evolution of architecture through its "essential elements" – from the door and floor to window and wall – and with it, the progressive eradication of the discipline of architecture itself. It is a story of mutation from things that were once heavy and hefty, thick with the meaning of their making, to a world of skins and screens, flimsy surfaces made "smart" with the slippery magic of technology.
Look at this image! Wish I could go to Venice this year!
The Four Elements of Architecture by Gottfried Semper is related to this.
Also would like to know how you all think The Pompidou would fit into this?
Is this really a lack of creativity...or a misalignment between the clean aesthetic values of modernism and the messy complex reality of modern buildings. An unwillingness to express the building in an honest way.
Modernism wasn't the only global architecture trend; media distributed Palladian orders, Islamic architecture, Pagodas across Asia. They were then modified for a particular culture and people. What Rem the nihilist keeps trying to say is that there is no critical regionalism and no particular places. But how modernism looks in a picture is different from how they fit next to older buildings, and form a timeline. You don't need to go to venice to see this juxtaposition.
I'm sure there was a renaissance rem that lamented the frescos painted as a violation of the structural purity. At the same time, many architects strip the ceiling tile and expose the a/v components. I've worked on both sides here and architects do deal with these issues. Rem thinks that he is the first one to think these things up.
This is old philosophical concept, one that ask whether the particular is true or the general (brand). I appreciate his focus on particular elements, but as all museums do it takes them out of context, experience, and life. They lose their connections with people and place and therefore uninteresting.
The big question is what use all of this cleverness will have? The great international style exhibitions at least offered a way forward, but we seem to have devolved into a past looking cycle of intellectual masturbation. Call is amusement art.
its no wonder why the toilet room is already the most popular.
Instead of taking the fundamentals out of context it would have been truly revolutionary to examine how these particulars exist in the real, ethical world of gravity and consequence.
Donna, I'd like to add an image to the one above...(image 3 of 5 for Fair Tale Entry)
DECEIVE?
Quondam - I believe Koolhaas may be suggesting architecture is now ornament, the 20mm of sheet rock hiding everything else. the fashionable cover of everything that "matters" for the building to function mechanically.
Darkman - I would agree with most your points, but isn't the security scanner a door as far as society, security, terrorism, big brother, etc...and the Airport are concerned? Isn't this the point of the whole 'parametric' door exhibit. Door's have a few parameters and they are all the same right? The doors parameters have varied throughout history and by culture - But then along comes - modern global society, internet, etc... and a security scanner appears as a means for entry to ride a plane to get to another location on planet earth. Is it a door? It has length, width, height, but the door leaf is transparent in appearance but electromagnetic radiation can prevent a person from passing through if a third party 'panopticon' force detects at threat ...
Koolhaas is an artist if he wasn't aware of what he was doing according to this definition from the “The Thing Itself is Such a Secret and so Unapproachable” (Walker Evans) (archinect blog) - "artists are being worked through with forces that they’re not quite aware of. They are transmitters of sensitivities that they’re not aware of having, of forces that are in the air at the time."
He may be an architect because I am pretty sure he is aware of his observations being exhibited clearly through his work...a little more like Hunter S. Thompson I would think...aware of the global conditions, expresses the global conditions, and takes the condition to it's absurd state with his work. Some of you may hate him because you hate what clearly exists.
Quondam? Anyway to tie this together with the most popular exhibit as Darkman puts it.
"The big question is what use all of this cleverness will have?"
That seems to be the main currency of the current state of starchitecture that Rem embodies. He bemones the loss of regional culture while informing us that it's a lost paradise :( It's intellectual masturbation where by the best load of rhetoric stands in for architectural quality. It's been going on for years, yet just when the Baroque version of theoretical architecture seems to reach it's zenith, out comes the Rococco version. If these archtiects translated some of their pretty words onto the page, Rem might not be feigning sadness that the French in Saigon dissmissed the indiginous style. I wonder why the original multi-national English and Dutch gave up their gothic for those imperialist Italian classicists? Maybe Rem could shed some light on that, considering he's a local.
As jla-x asks..."Is this really a lack of creativity...or a misalignment between the clean aesthetic values of modernism and the messy complex reality of modern buildings?"
I love your questions, not because they deserve a clean answer, but becasue they make you think. Being critical is fine but "it would have been truly revolutionary to examine how these particulars exist in the real, ethical world of gravity and consequence." -Darkman
Maybe someone should forward Rem to an article on exactly this question that Archinect links to about what Witold Rybcynski refers to as Starchitecture vs. Locatecture. He might not be so dispondent afterall. Does he live in Rotterdam or Amsterdam???
"Is this really a lack of creativity...or a misalignment between the clean aesthetic values of modernism and the messy complex reality of modern buildings?"
here's me thinking it through, but only related to the hidden ceiling plane
ducts can be loud. SAT ceiling makes them not so loud, so if part of the function of the building is to allow people to communicate, said function becomes more practicable with a lay-in ceiling.
ducts collect dust. buildings without a/c, and thus without ducts, don't have the maintenance associated with having all that stuff as part of the building. while removing the air conditioning systems is a viable option (also the plumbing, since unconditioned space can cause pipes to freeze, depending on your locality), i think the resale value would be significantly lower, because people who pay to live in or work in buildings like comfortable environments. sprinkler heads also collect dust. if they put working sprinkler systems in all the commercial buildings before the rome or london fires, the damage would likely have been limited.
how is the sistine chapel lit? you don't see many pendant lights or chandeliers. i believe there are track lights of some sort screwed to the walls right? i guess you could ask if users today want buildings that are lit, both for function and safety, or if they want beautiful ceilings like they used to have.
just saying, it might not be an aesthetic issue at all. if modernism believes in 'form follows function,' then it isn't just a question of displaying the building systems, but a questions of creating an environment that meets the needs of the users. we didn't "lose" big beautiful open ceilings, we gained electric light. while you may say to yourself, "i like those ceilings," for whatever reason when people build buildings and have a choice between mechanical and electrical systems or not, they chose the mechanical and electrical systems. codes kind of influence that too of course.
Jun 13, 14 9:38 am ·
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11 Comments
Oh my goodness this is almost everything I think about architecture:
"The ceiling used to be decorative, a symbolic plane, a place invested with intense iconography," says Rem Koolhaas, the Dutch director of this year's architecture extravaganza, standing beneath his exploded ceiling. "Now, it has become an entire factory of equipment that enables us to exist, a space so deep that it begins to compete with the architecture. It is a domain over which architects have lost all control, a zone surrendered to other professions."
Such is the message of Fundamentals, an exhibition that describes the evolution of architecture through its "essential elements" – from the door and floor to window and wall – and with it, the progressive eradication of the discipline of architecture itself. It is a story of mutation from things that were once heavy and hefty, thick with the meaning of their making, to a world of skins and screens, flimsy surfaces made "smart" with the slippery magic of technology.
Look at this image! Wish I could go to Venice this year!
The Four Elements of Architecture by Gottfried Semper is related to this.
Also would like to know how you all think The Pompidou would fit into this?
Is this really a lack of creativity...or a misalignment between the clean aesthetic values of modernism and the messy complex reality of modern buildings. An unwillingness to express the building in an honest way.
Modernism wasn't the only global architecture trend; media distributed Palladian orders, Islamic architecture, Pagodas across Asia. They were then modified for a particular culture and people. What Rem the nihilist keeps trying to say is that there is no critical regionalism and no particular places. But how modernism looks in a picture is different from how they fit next to older buildings, and form a timeline. You don't need to go to venice to see this juxtaposition.
I'm sure there was a renaissance rem that lamented the frescos painted as a violation of the structural purity. At the same time, many architects strip the ceiling tile and expose the a/v components. I've worked on both sides here and architects do deal with these issues. Rem thinks that he is the first one to think these things up.
This is old philosophical concept, one that ask whether the particular is true or the general (brand). I appreciate his focus on particular elements, but as all museums do it takes them out of context, experience, and life. They lose their connections with people and place and therefore uninteresting.
The big question is what use all of this cleverness will have? The great international style exhibitions at least offered a way forward, but we seem to have devolved into a past looking cycle of intellectual masturbation. Call is amusement art.
its no wonder why the toilet room is already the most popular.
Instead of taking the fundamentals out of context it would have been truly revolutionary to examine how these particulars exist in the real, ethical world of gravity and consequence.
And a security scanner is not a door. But it makes a good punchline here. Good one rem. So clever.
It's Rita Novel's world, we just post in it.
I wish I could hit a *like* button on that, Quondam.
Donna, I'd like to add an image to the one above...(image 3 of 5 for Fair Tale Entry)
DECEIVE?
Quondam - I believe Koolhaas may be suggesting architecture is now ornament, the 20mm of sheet rock hiding everything else. the fashionable cover of everything that "matters" for the building to function mechanically.
Darkman - I would agree with most your points, but isn't the security scanner a door as far as society, security, terrorism, big brother, etc...and the Airport are concerned? Isn't this the point of the whole 'parametric' door exhibit. Door's have a few parameters and they are all the same right? The doors parameters have varied throughout history and by culture - But then along comes - modern global society, internet, etc... and a security scanner appears as a means for entry to ride a plane to get to another location on planet earth. Is it a door? It has length, width, height, but the door leaf is transparent in appearance but electromagnetic radiation can prevent a person from passing through if a third party 'panopticon' force detects at threat ...
Koolhaas is an artist if he wasn't aware of what he was doing according to this definition from the “The Thing Itself is Such a Secret and so Unapproachable” (Walker Evans) (archinect blog) - "artists are being worked through with forces that they’re not quite aware of. They are transmitters of sensitivities that they’re not aware of having, of forces that are in the air at the time."
He may be an architect because I am pretty sure he is aware of his observations being exhibited clearly through his work...a little more like Hunter S. Thompson I would think...aware of the global conditions, expresses the global conditions, and takes the condition to it's absurd state with his work. Some of you may hate him because you hate what clearly exists.
Quondam? Anyway to tie this together with the most popular exhibit as Darkman puts it.
I'd shorten the title of the article to "Rem Koolhaas Blows".
Darkman+1
"The big question is what use all of this cleverness will have?"
That seems to be the main currency of the current state of starchitecture that Rem embodies. He bemones the loss of regional culture while informing us that it's a lost paradise :( It's intellectual masturbation where by the best load of rhetoric stands in for architectural quality. It's been going on for years, yet just when the Baroque version of theoretical architecture seems to reach it's zenith, out comes the Rococco version. If these archtiects translated some of their pretty words onto the page, Rem might not be feigning sadness that the French in Saigon dissmissed the indiginous style. I wonder why the original multi-national English and Dutch gave up their gothic for those imperialist Italian classicists? Maybe Rem could shed some light on that, considering he's a local.
As jla-x asks..."Is this really a lack of creativity...or a misalignment between the clean aesthetic values of modernism and the messy complex reality of modern buildings?"
I love your questions, not because they deserve a clean answer, but becasue they make you think. Being critical is fine but "it would have been truly revolutionary to examine how these particulars exist in the real, ethical world of gravity and consequence." -Darkman
Maybe someone should forward Rem to an article on exactly this question that Archinect links to about what Witold Rybcynski refers to as Starchitecture vs. Locatecture. He might not be so dispondent afterall. Does he live in Rotterdam or Amsterdam???
http://archinect.com/news/article/101709508/why-local-architects-do-it-better-and-the-case-against-franchised-architecture
"Is this really a lack of creativity...or a misalignment between the clean aesthetic values of modernism and the messy complex reality of modern buildings?"
here's me thinking it through, but only related to the hidden ceiling plane
ducts can be loud. SAT ceiling makes them not so loud, so if part of the function of the building is to allow people to communicate, said function becomes more practicable with a lay-in ceiling.
ducts collect dust. buildings without a/c, and thus without ducts, don't have the maintenance associated with having all that stuff as part of the building. while removing the air conditioning systems is a viable option (also the plumbing, since unconditioned space can cause pipes to freeze, depending on your locality), i think the resale value would be significantly lower, because people who pay to live in or work in buildings like comfortable environments. sprinkler heads also collect dust. if they put working sprinkler systems in all the commercial buildings before the rome or london fires, the damage would likely have been limited.
how is the sistine chapel lit? you don't see many pendant lights or chandeliers. i believe there are track lights of some sort screwed to the walls right? i guess you could ask if users today want buildings that are lit, both for function and safety, or if they want beautiful ceilings like they used to have.
just saying, it might not be an aesthetic issue at all. if modernism believes in 'form follows function,' then it isn't just a question of displaying the building systems, but a questions of creating an environment that meets the needs of the users. we didn't "lose" big beautiful open ceilings, we gained electric light. while you may say to yourself, "i like those ceilings," for whatever reason when people build buildings and have a choice between mechanical and electrical systems or not, they chose the mechanical and electrical systems. codes kind of influence that too of course.
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