Last year the Graham Foundation awarded Jimenez Lai with a grant for a proposal "Manifestos, Summits, and Gangs", a collective publication of "monographic manifestos featuring a small cluster of young and relatively unestablished yet daring architects".
There seems to be a new class of architects who are on the verge of forming some strong opinions, and it is the desire for this project to expose them. This proposal knowingly regards three specific patterns of chapter-marking in the ongoing history of architecture: manifestoes, summits, and gangs. Considering Pamphlet Architecture (manifesto), Charlottesville Tapes (summits) and White on Gray (gangs) as three precedents, this work will reflect on these lessons as strategic whispers for Lai and his cohort on their journeys.
To get a taste of what's to come, check out the purposefully vague teaser site at t-r-e-a-t.us
13 Comments
Wow, so take some architecture drawing and post a graphic on top....so edgy!
This is the most pretentious nonsense...I feel sorry for anyone who takes this seriously.
Design people who think they are funny are the worst....
Architecture discourse must be really in a lull if cat photos are manifestos. Hey it has something vaguely to do with the Internet and architecture. It must be smart, right?
Stuff like this makes me feel like an old crank - I just wonder what could happen if all this grant money was pooled and say given as scholarships to deserving students.
Architecture suffers from a surfeit of clever exhibits and manifestos. I prefer talking about buildings - even (maybe especially) ordinary ones.
Not that there is no place for theoretical explorations and meta-architecture. But good original ideas in that seem to come about once or twice every 10 years, and from a fairly narrow group of specialized academic practitioners. Everything else is just filler.
Clicking through I eventually got to this portfolio which actually is interesting if you ignore the text. The renderings are a refreshing rethought of the smooth shiny glowing photoshop space which has become ubiquitous in serious projects.
Overall though I don't follow what the idea is. It's presented in a dadaist way which is 100 years too old to be clever anymore. The images show disfigured clip art of old icons from Architecture History as typically taught - which are pretty stale, to the point of being beneath discussion. I don't think icons are going to be as important going forward.
To some extent I think architecture history's focus on individual icons (such as the Cenotaph, Faguswerke, ATT Building) was an artifact of the difficulty of travel and expense of publishing good images. Students and researchers kept referring to a rather small subset of well-published examples instead of finding relevant examples from their own experience. The future of history is more like a pinterest page where 1000 little images are grouped thematically to explain a concept or viewpoint.
Yes, exploring icons or dadaism (not really a valid response to architecture, read history) is kind of yesterday's news. I'm not sure what the Graham foundation finds interesting here, though it seems must be tiring of real scholarship. Much more interesting is exploring beyond media false icons into the real possibilities of new media.
Photoshop renderings are lame, but trying to find something with meaning probably involves exploring real life and real communities.
Seems to be trying too hard to find some kind of irony space, but it's dumb in all of the ways that Koolhaas was smart.
In short, the quest to be provocative but with nothing to say
the quest to do research that can be in picture book form because "architects don't read"
i like his drawings though.
Good drawings yes, all vaguely sci-fi doodlings with cynical points about architecture culture that is ethically dubious and narcissistic in a Bjarke Ingels kind of way.
His built work is interesting if you like Michael Graves or think that graphic design and architecture are the same thing. Sort of reads well on blogs but that's all designers are going for these days right?
Seems like one last attempt at arch media and academia to sell a bankrupt system of starchitecture. Been there done that. I find design talent applied to real contexts more interesting, not the "no place" of digital masturbation. This stuff is popular at NYC design wine parties but has no weight or substance in the real world.
Makes me appreciate the modernists even more--their design manifestos and ideas were aligned with a moral, social and industrial/technological cause and context.
You're cause is....academia, blogs, museums...go!
So we talk about this thread on the podcast this week: you guys, why are you being so negative about a purely creative act?
Architecture is a huge discipline, there's room for all kinds of exploration within it. If you look at the other Graham Foundation awards, they also gave grants for studying 30 years of low-cost housing aid on Native American reservations, a catalog of ten exhibits at an architecture gallery in Mexico City, and a study on Metabolists and density in Japan. The Foundation obviously finds value in a wide range of research - who's to say that today's "unestablished yet daring" practitioners in Lai's book won't be the Archigram collages of tomorrow?
In other words, lighten up.
Donna, my issue with this was that it seemed intentionally obscure and confusing to the point of pretension. My first reaction after viewing this was frustration, and maybe a little worry there was an insider joke I didn't catch. If they just showed some new ideas and tried to explain what the interest is that would be great. Anyway, haven't had time to listen to the podcast - hopefully this weekend.
I do understand that frustration and concern that one isn't in on the joke, midlander. Depending on my mood I certainly feel it too.
Lai's comic and installation work is so good, though. I can see that if one wasn't aware of his previous work, this teaser would seem less promising.
teas·er (t
z
r)
n.1.
a. One that teases, as a device for teasing wool.
b. One who engages in teasing; a tease.
2. A puzzling problem.
3. An advertisement that attracts customers by offering something extra or free.
4. Slang An attention-getting vignette or highlight presented before the start of a television show.
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