Yesterday, legislators in Orange County, New York failed to stave off the demolition of Paul Rudolph's Orange County Government Center. In January, county executive Steven M. Neuhaus vetoed a proposal that would entertain outside bids like Manhattan architect Gene Kaufman's, to purchase, restore, and repurpose the structure. Kaufman also proposed designing a new government center next door, with a proposed budget less than that of the county's current plan [...]. — curbed.com
Previously:
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i removed some uses of the word that did not apply in this instance for the sake of brevity.
for·ward
ˈfôrwərd/
adverb
adverb: forward; adverb: forwards
2.
onward so as to make progress; toward a successful conclusion.
"there's no way forward for the relationship"
synonyms:moving forward, moving forward, moving ahead, onward, advancing, progressing, progressive"in a forward direction"
antonyms:backward
into a position of prominence or notice.
"he is pushing forward a political ally"
synonyms:toward the front, out, forth, into view"the winner stepped forward"
3.
toward the future; ahead in time.
"from that day forward, the assembly was at odds with us"
synonyms:onward, onwards, on, forth; Morefor ever, into eternity;
until now
"from that day forward"
to an earlier time.
"the special issue has been moved forward to winter"
adjective
adjective: forward
2.
relating to or concerned with the future.
"forward planning"
synonyms:future, forward-looking, for the future, prospective"forward planning"
3.
moving or tending onward to a successful conclusion.
"the decision is a forward step"
4.
developing or acting earlier than expected or required; advanced or precocious.
"an alarmingly forward yet painfully vulnerable child"
5.
(of a person) bold or familiar in manner, especially in a presumptuous way.
synonyms:bold, brazen, brazen-faced, barefaced, brash, shameless, immodest, audacious, daring, presumptuous, familiar, overfamiliar, pert;informalfresh
"the girls seemed very forward"
antonyms:shy
verb
verb: forward; 3rd person present: forwards; past tense: forwarded; past participle: forwarded; gerund or present participle: forwarding
2.
help to advance (something); promote.
"the scientists are forwarding the development of biotechnology"
Origin
Old English forweard (in the sense ‘toward the future,’ as in from this day forward ), variant of forthweard (see forth, -ward).
Curt- Thanks so much for looking up the definition of the word "forward". That was really helpful.
I especially enjoyed these synonyms: bold, brazen, brazen-faced, barefaced, brash, shameless, immodest, audacious, daring, presumptuous, familiar, overfamiliar,
Donna, in your opinion, what characteristics exemplify buildings that are "forwarding the discipline"?
i'm glad i can sometimes help in a small way. i would especially look at the historic root of the word 'forward,' "toward the future." it is interesting how our use of 'toward the future' has become synonymous with 'audacious' etc. in some situations. maybe moving towards the future sometimes requires facing the past with a certain amount of courage?
What I am trying to understand is what people here mean when they say they aspire to "move toward the future" in architecture.
What if the future of architecture actually resides in returning to roots, returning to value again what is authentically human? What if the future of architecture is like the future of food, which many believe lies in returning to natural farming, local food production, pre-industrial methods of food procurement, and taking our time to prepare meals that delight our senses?
"Nothing ages faster that yesterday's vision of the future"
- W. Rybczynski
returning to pre-industrial methods is unlikely. steel, plywood, stick framing, etc., are very convenient. that's not to say it won't happen; i don't know the future, i just think it's unlikely.
i think if you were to select a word to describe a future where we returned to the past, you would want to say something other than 'forward.' perhaps you would want to say something that invokes a cyclical nature of time rather than a linear nature of time. possibly you could say, instead of 'forward' the disciple, you are 'returning' the discipline or maybe even 'continuing' the discipline assuming you think the current trajectory is away from 'forwarding' the discipline.
'circumnavigating' the discipline would be good. that has a meaningless buzzword jargon sound that is easily repeatable in a board room with people who want to say something without adding content to the discourse.
'forward the discipline' implies progress and change. i would see it the same as saying 'moving forward.' there is movement away from what happened in the past.
Donna, Just to be clear, I didn't accuse you of bullying anybody, so please direct those comments to someone else. I for one am enjoying this back and forth.
And of course the AIA and Archinect "have no obligation to publish anything they don't want to pay attention to." any more than a country club has no obligation to allow anybody in their club. But that's the problem, not with Archinect, but with the AIA. They should represent what's out there.
So then, your argument is based on what they/you consider "forwarding the discipline". Now we're getting somewhere. Could you please explain what that means? Before modernism became the dominant approach in academia, beauty was considered a large part of the art of architecture, or as the French called it, les Beaux Arts. In fact that's what most people might still consider architecture, a visual art, that must stand straight(ish) and be well programed to be sure, but primarily an art form. Yes, great engineering is an art form as many conceptual works, but the public still sees art as something that they find visually appealing, and there's the disconnect.
You are again asking me to put up images, except you've changed the parameters to include what you term, "forwarding the discipline". without explaining exactly what that means. Does it mean drawing inspiration from "universally hated materials"? I do like Bilbao's sculptural qualities as I like many a sculpture, but having been inside, I'm not sure its special qualities compare to many a church, train station, or even a Wright house I've been in. Did the Titanium panels forward the discipline? My guess is they might have forwarded curtain wall technology, but my definition of the discipline is a little more embedded in the human experience like time, space, culture, and history, to say nothing about sheer beauty.
I'll patiently await your definition, but please understand that there are others who don't see Gehry's stunts as forwarding anything more than his celebrity. My guess is you'll leave me hanging this time also.
curtkram, out of curiosity, do you see people moving back to traditional cities as "moving forward or to the past? Do you see people buying local organic food at farmers markets moving forward or to the past? My point is, who gives a shit about some dumb ass definition of "progress" in the old linear frame when one is simply moving towards health, sustainability, and beauty?
the bilbao museum without a doubt 'forwarded' history. history is essentially a measure of time which always moves forward, for better of worse. i would think anyone who has visited the museum had a human experience while there, so 'human experience' has been forwarded by the bilbao musuem. the space within which the bilbao museum was built now contains the bilbao museum. certainly 'space' has moved forward along with everything else. obviously your opinion on 'beauty' is irrelevant since you have such bad taste in that regard anyway.
i guess that just leaves 'culture.' did that not move forward with the bilbao museum? perhaps you can more clearly define what 'culture' is and how one can move it forward through the discipline of architecture?
I'm the one who brought up "bullying", not Thayer. It wasn't really Donna, who has been polite, if a bit snarky, but others who took the attitude of, "we've demanded that you post images! Why aren't you complying? Is it that you are technologically challenged?????"
thayer, that's a good question about cities. you could say moving from agrarian to industrial was moving forward because that's what essentially caused the cities to be built, right? at least in america. there are other reasons cities were built too, but to keep things simple let's go with that.
it's not really an agrarian v. industrial development that is causing movement from suburbs to cities now, is it? i suppose it could still be considered economic, or a similar change in the economic system. so in that sense, it might make sense that moving from suburbs to a city is repeating historic trends of moving from rural areas to cities.
on the other hand, you could say that progress has happened in such a way that the suburb is no longer ideal, and moving to the city is a response to 'moving forward.' if there are more people moving into cities, perhaps it is not comparable enough to when people originally moved into cities to say it's repeating what happened before.
either way, 'moving forward' isn't always better. try something new, and then decide if it's better. if it is, build on it. if not, try something else. can you imaging how boring science would be if every experiment were a success? there would be no point in experimenting then. all the answers would just be right there; all conclusions validated before tested.
My point is, who gives a shit about some dumb ass definition of "progress" in the old linear frame when one is simply moving towards health, sustainability, and beauty?
you asked what it means. doesn't that imply you care?
Quondam-
I agree with you that the general level of quality of traditional architecture, across the board, needs to improve. This is unquestionably true. One way to ensure that goal is to loosen the ideological stranglehold that avant-garde modernism has in the schools. This is starting to happen, and we are seeing young architects trained to design classical buildings coming out of schools like Notre Dame, University of Colorado, Judson.
But there are many architects at the top of their game, doing excellent work in the classical tradition. I do not agree that innovation is absent. For example, look at the work of these three colleagues of mine: Tom Kligerman, Michael Imber, Bobby McAlpine:
http://www.ikba.com/
http://michaelgimber.com/
http://www.mcalpinetankersley.com/
I wonder a bit about your definition of innovation, though... and your placement of it in the hierarchy of architectural values. It seems to me that you may be superimposing a modernist value structure on classical architecture. Innovation, as a standalone virtue, in and of itself, is a modernist notion, not a classical one. For most architects designing in the classical tradition, innovation may be valued, but only in the service of what's really important: beauty, human comfort and accommodation, structural logic, alignment with place and local culture...among other classical values.
Thank for posting the HABS link. I had not seen it.
Regarding the rest of your post, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
-EKE
OK, demo it already
EKE I wasn't bullying anyone and the person you thought I was bullying - Thayer-d noted that it was indeed a tech problem...furthermore if we don't get over this fear of people being bullied, which only exists because assholes who can't take existential criticism shoot entire schools up (yes they are the assholes, not the bullies) when the Russians annex Alaska we won't have a chance, bunch of Gomer Piles will defend us- yay.... ..........anyway I digress.................on one hand I do understand where EKE and Thayer-d are often coming from and I believe it's rooted in my biggest complaint about academia - this constant push for innovation and supposed progress while disregarding simple things like skills and craft. We are not all geniuses and the purpose of architecture school should not be to produce a shit load of geniuses. So what inevitably happens is we devalue ourselves into only being useful to society as innovators, which most of us are not. Why do you think the 'out of the box' feature has been published so many times on archinect? Let's try to learn the box first or call the education of an Architect something else.......not that anything I say here means you should do classical design, but I would of complained less about academic culture had I had a studio in it........if you want to claim to be forward thinking you do not choose one side like a fanatical fundamentalist, you argue for the possibilities of all sides to exists at once - at least in training. 'Modernism' as it is used in architecture is essentially an intended detachment from the past so that you can be innovative. I have done facades out of thin stones to appear as traditional. Everything behind the thin stones was 'modern' in detail, steel and clean rational framing and connections..........forward would be to be balanced, not an extremist.
"progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. We have all seen this when doing arithmetic. When I have started a sum the wrong way, the sooner I admit this and go back and start over again, the faster I shall get on. There is nothing progressive about being pigheaded and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.”
@EKE I like the Art Barn project by IKB and the McAlpine – The Shack by McAlpine Tankersley Architecture quite a bit, but alot of the the other architecture from those three frism seems mostly tasteful but opulent homes...?
and by opulent i mean both in size and style...
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