In a fifty-one minute conversation with New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman, Bjarke Ingels does little to dispel his reputation as a media-friendly starchitect who dances his way around thorny design issues by reminding everyone of the rose. When Kimmelman brings up the wind issues that an 80th story outdoor space (such as the ones proposed for Two World Trade Center) is likely to encounter, Ingels relates an anecdote about how in Denmark the only car to have is a convertible, because even if the pleasant days are rare, they must be savored fully.
However, it is Ingels' redefinition of the architect's role, especially in the context of the discussion about how to shape the future cultural vibe of Manhattan, that makes Kimmelman shift in his seat:
Ingels: [Architects] are not the creators of the city, but the midwives.
Kimmelman: You make the architect sound a little more passive or receptive than maybe I'm comfortable with. Do you think the architect is just receiving other people's ideas and realizing them? There's no agency?
Ingels: Architecture is like portraiture...the mission is to capture the appearance and soul of the object you're trying to convey.
Watch the full discussion below:
62 Comments
Again Bjarke is good but there are so many better ones out there. I'm not hating yall for liking Coldplay but we're supposed to be experts
I think that we're forgetting that BIG comes out of a particular culture of Scandinavian architecture ( JDS, COBE, Transform, EFFEKT, JA-JA...). Remember PLOT? They're not TWBTA or Peter Zumthor. They don't want to be. It just so happens that BIG really pushed this design strategy very aggressive and with consistently interesting work over the past ten years or so.
creat(ing) the will of the client
The biggest names are more concerned with their egos and competing with each other than they are with using their position to influence their clients or the state of architecture and society as a whole (other than stylistically, of course).
I'm tired of hearing how powerless these leaders of the profession are. We're all hos to some extent, no news there. But you'd think that when you've reached the top you would stop selling out and use the platform for something more productive. Celebrities do - somebody with an actual brain, academic training, professional experience and global recognition can't? Fuck off.
Miles, its a bit of a catch 22...Maybe being a whore is the reason they are where they are in the first place...Can't really expect them to change once they get to the top.
What perplexes me in all of BIGs projects is how they all use the outdoor balcony/green terrace as justification for all of the formalism. I mean it's cool but it's kind of a distraction. Doesn't really add up to great architecture... Cool forms though.
Also, it's interesting how Kinmelman focuses on the Frick Garden because he is impotent against this kind of banality even if he doesn't like it
"quid pro quo" - Blair Kamin
The green roof is neo-public space (public provided you know it is there and you can get to it- without all the messiness of being in the street). He has to discuss it as part of the architecture because that separation of public space from urban space has become increasingly important in how tall buildings are are designed to operate.
That's known as the privitazation of public space. In the Hamptons this takes the form of "open space initiatives" called agricultural reserves - either mandatory set asides or where the development rights are publicly purchased through tax levies - that are screened from public view with hedged perimeters to enhance the value of speculative development through visual extension, or built into high-end commercial uses such as equestrian facilities complete with stables and other structures.
Miles- agreed. This is an offshoot of what you describe, but I think of it as being slightly different.
What I'm trying to get at is that these spaces are never public in the sense of earlier private/public partnerships that appropriated ground for the benefit of a highly specified user group- they don't exist now and will be maintained as invisible (talk about asymmetry and panopticons). Instead they are meant to give the impression that you are engaging urban spaces as you would on the street- but without the messy part of actually engaging the masses. You'll never hear about the space being occupied for as a protest, but you will always hear the architect refer to is a a unique way to view the city.
Find the Dryline most interesting, kudos to The Rockefeller Foundation for thinking of asking an architect first; imagine if they had asked Parsons Brinckerhoff first…interesting trend, hope it continues.
Very talented, but I do have to say that one doesn’t become a proficient bullshitter of architecture until at least 50; Kimmelman wasn’t buying the words either.
The Dryline is perhaps the most interesting in that meshes BIGs values -- green space, grand scale, no architecture-- for a public good. Where the build work seem to use diagrams to justify a green element as distraction/justification for a swooping form and banal architecture.
The private element is a bit worrying in cities that don't have public space. Kimmelman should pick up on this since he is all public space this and that. Apart from that it seems like an absurdity-- green space on skyscrapers... Not really avant garde just stupid.
But the firm does seem popular because it combines the medias desire for hyperbole mixed with a gimmicky environmental agenda
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