Daniel Libeskind preaches the importance of drawings for creating architecture, in the latest short film from Chicago-based creative agency, Spirit of Space. Shot at Libeskind's "Sonnets of Babylon" pavilion for the 2014 Venice Biennale, the quick interview reflects on Libeskind's attention to drawing throughout his career, and the potentials it holds for architecture's future.
17 Comments
These drawings are really gorgeous. Intense.
Very nice. his pavilion seems like the best of the bunch.
When you compare Libeskind's truly pathetic doodles (and his equally pathetic musings on drawing) with, say the astounding drawings and sketches of Beaux Arts architects, you can only laugh at him. I think it is a worrying sign of how uncritical the younger crop of architects are, that they would let themselves be taken in by Libeskind's pretentious scribbling and his verbal flatulence that pretends to be critical thinking.
Everything about this ill-conceived and poorly executed display of Daniels's ego was an affront and an offense to taste. It was bad enough that these mindless and sloppy scratchings were packaged as though they were some vital discourse on drawing. They are evidence only of Libeskind's INABILITY to think or to develop cogent arguments through drawing. An ape with a stick of chalk up his butt would be able to create a more real and honest drawing than Daniel Libeskind.
I've always thought Libeskind's drawings were interesting as abstract art. But I'm really troubled by the worldview and sense of life implied by his art and his architecture.
That gallery looks like it's designed to produce headaches. Perfectly in sync with his work. No thanks.
Normally a trip to Venice should be like a visit to an oasis of dignity and timeless beauty and a counterpoint to the cesspool of ugliness and stupidity that Daniel Libeskind is creating in the world. So I was disappointed to see that the Venice Pavilion was wasted on this charlatan. His very presence is worse than the pollution that threatens this city. His odious and noxious "thinking" represents all that is bad in design. 5 minutes in this pretentious exhibition, replete with ego and vast quantities of bullshit, confirmed what I already know, specifically that Daniel Libeskind is the worst architect and the most superficial thinker in the profession. Give this garbage a miss. There is so much to be seen in Venice you should not waste a second of your time being contaminated with this pretentious rubbish.
Pliny, if you were truly wise you'd be able to find something of value in those drawings, along with those in the Beaux Arts style.
And I say this as someone who thinks Libeskind's buildings are among the worst on the planet.
Me too, not a fan of his architecture at all...but I love his drawing.
++ Pliny, EKE, SanMichele
An embarrassing display of egotistical masturbation. Soylent green for aspiring architects.
wow.
miles and I agree...
Pliny, EKE, SanMichele are an embarrassing display of egotistical masturbation.
woodathunkit?
The guy's clearly having fun. And one can't deny his attaching importance to drawing, but that's like stating the obvious to hopefully sound deep. His smile, unlike Rem cynicism makes it almost believable, but somehow not quite.
Donna, I get your point, but there maybe something of a false equivalency going on there. Some folks will like Leibskind's type of work or the BeauxArts type work or both. I don't think you need to agree there is something worthwhile in both (just so one dosen't seem closed minded?). Both abstract and literal drawings/designs work both sides of the brain, but the abstract one seems both looser and more subjective, so it's no surprise that most people would gravitate to a BeauxArts drawing. Their intentional quality and technical expertise make whatever talent the author of them had, more apparent through the shared language of craft. That dosen't mean they are better, but it shouldn't surprise folks that many have strong reactions against Leibskind's kind of work After decades of having to stare at the scribblings of folks like Corbu and his Gumby universal man, a Beaux Arts drawing feels like a proper meal after having eaten so much cool looking fast food.
Donna, I do get your point about being open minded, but I don't think it applies here.
I can appreciate a fine drawing be it a quick pencil sketch by Carlo Scarpa or a crafted watercolor rendering by a Beaux Arts student. What comes through in both cases (at least to me), is the sincerity of intent and the honesty of the investigation. I would venture to say that the sketches and even the scribbles of Scarpa were ‘ego-less”. He was thinking about the problem, not about himself. And somehow, that shows.
Libeskind is another matter altogether. His drawings smack of calculated manipulation and are motivated by his craving for publicity rather than by any integrity of study. By enlarging them and transferring them to backlit plastic sheets, he only exaggerated the Disneyland-like show and cheapened the experience enormously. What Libeskind does is not ‘drawing’ in the truest sense of the word. It is just another aspect of his trademark ego writ large (very large) on tacky materials. It's another form of branding. And sadly, it is branding for Libeskind's cruddy buildings, works that you correctly identified as "among the worst on the planet".
Who cares about the intent of the author. The only thing that matters is the result. The drawings are nice IMo. His awful buildings have nothing to do with these drawings. This emphasis on the character (whether to over praise or under praise a project based on the character of the maker) reinforces this celebrity culture.
The funny thing is that the way we judge something by the character of its author seems to fade away as time goes on. Eventually we praise things built by even the foulest characters like Nero.
The intent of the author matters only to the extent that his/her intent is manifest in the style and message of the drawings. That is certainly the case with Libeskind. I think he draws really well. I find them interesting, but I do not like his drawings because the world view conveyed by them is chaotic and anguished.
It is only because the standard of contemporary architectural drawing is so bad that we are even discussing Libeskind's pretentious doodles. Daniel Libeskind is just architecture's version of Britain's most abysmal 'artist', Tracey Emin. Neither of them can draw. But both have the chutzpah, arrogance and lack of personal integrity to go out and sell their worst scribbles as 'art' to a very gullible world.
That Libeskind called this show 'Sonnets of Babylon' underscores just how pretentious he and his drawings are. And you can see the disingenuous marketing in that cringing video clip where he blathers on and on and on .... and on .... with every syrup-coated sound-bite he can think of. Really, it doesn't take much to see that the man and his drawings (like his self-indulgent and anti-social / hostile architecture), have no substance.
Put more succinctly, Libeskind is so full of it that he should have a sewage treatment plant hooked directly to his mouth.
these drawings are ugly to me; the pavilion seems garish and hokey as well
Wow, Pliny the wise & Romano appears to be extremely intellectually angry with Daniel for some reason "beyond" ; However it is very well written:-)
@jk3hl - You are 100% right. - But then everything Libeskind does is garish and hokey. The only surprise is that some people treat this loudmouth nincompoop seriously. From the garish and hokey "x" sculpture outside the pavilion, to the garish and hokey drawings on garish and hokey acrylic, everything about this banal and vapid exhibition looks like someone thought about it for three, maybe four minutes max. I think that's the way his half-assed studio is run. Daniel does a doodle and then his gullible minions set about drawing it up in CAD. There's no development. no refinement, no thought put into anything, period. And it shows. QED this lame and uninspired show of one man's ginormous ego.
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