The sort of patronizing language used in the letter by Lord Palumbo is all too familiar. It is the voice of money and authority, the same sort of voice that spoke out against the rights of the women, the poor, and minorities. It is, alas, the voice of what Brown describes as the "sad white men's award." — varnelis.net
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I truly believe that DSB should share the award with RV but, of the 36 winners seven are asian, two are women (one asian one iraqi). another three are from central and south america.
I feel like this has been overhyped as a women's issue when it was more of an issue about partners. I think the Pritztkers didn't want to open that can of worms. How many winners had less famous partners? Many of them--including the first winner Philip Johnson.
Women (as the above comment shows) have won the award. Should we celebrate women more? Yeah. I think some are taking it a step too far when they create a false image of the Pritzker. There are so few awards for architecture celebrating quality. A lot of these protesters would like to tear it all down, and for what? It's like attacking green energy because solyndra failed. After a certain point, you have to move on, do your work, and get a life.
With specifity like that, Darkman, you could be a commentator on Fox News. "A lot of these protestors would like to tear it all down..."? I think not. Most would just like recognition where recognition is due, which goes to your point that the prize should be more focused on the reality of architecture...that is, collaboration, right?
See the title of this post: "Good riddance, Pritzker."
I'm starting to feel closer to Fox News these days. I find half of these controversies to be sideshows. There were women on that jury, there are women that won the award. The same people slamming it would acknowledge the leadership of a Steve Jobs or Kanye West even though they too have many collaborators. There's no constancy of argument, because the mob is looking for a villain where there isn't any.
I think they should have given her the award to begin with, but that day has passed and Venturi accepted the award. I appreciate organizations that at least stand for something, here being artistry and leadership of the firms that they create. Collaboration is all great and good--but do you prefer a Tadao Ando or the BHOR (fictional corporate firm).
Darkman I hear what you're saying. I disagree that it's been "overhyped" as a women's issues specifically because when Venturi won the award women's accomplishments really truly were marginalized solely due to gender bias. That was the prevailing cultural attitude of the time. That attitude has significantly improved in the interim, though not disappeared completely.
I do agree that the fact that this discussion started as a gender issue and has evolved into a discussion of partnership and collaboration is the most interesting part of the issue as it affects the Pritzker, specifically. Perhaps they need to define their criteria every year: award good architecture, super high-quality only, for sure. But then decide whether that body of architecture was produced by mainly one visionary or by a fertile and ongoing collaboration within one firm, then award that year's prize to one or more architects accordingly. Or just say firmly that they ONLY intend to ever award it to one person each year, and let the winner's partners deal with it (note: could get ugly lol!).
And there is no reason why they can't create a special acknowledgement prize and give it to DSB now. She certainly deserves it.
I agree with everything you've said, though Kevin Roche has commented that at the time it was a single award; now it's obviously changed a bit, with Herzog and de Meuron and such.
You do need to start with the architecture, and then figure out who lead its completion. I think the media and firms themselves are mostly to blame, when its so easy to feed the beast with self brands. I'm looking at you, Bjarke Ingels and Jeanne Gang. How many partners do those folks have? But then again, maybe they are visionaries?
In this debate, the person who comes off in negative light is Robert Venturi. He could have clarified the situation in 1991, but he chose not to. Perhaps the 'old white man' DSB is referring to is him? The one who was silent and chose to imply that it was in fact his own brilliance and not hers too? Like I said, it is on the firms themselves to explain who is responsible, not to leave it up to a jury to guess.
Great point, Darkman. I was thinking exactly the same thing. All the hate for the jury and the organization... but what about Bob?
More than anything, I think this shows just how tone deaf the Pritzker Committee is to contemporary social issues (must be hard if you are a Lord).
What kind of dipshit organization agrees to study recognition for DSB, only to decide not to, suffering public condemnation and stirring controversy twice rather than let the issue die quietly in the dusty basements of the ivory tower?
From RV's Pritzker acceptance speech.
"And last, you will notice during this loosely chronological description I have used more and more the first person plural, that is, ‘we”—meaning Denise and I. All my experience representing appreciation, support, and learning from, would have been less than half as rich -without my partnership with my fellow artist, Denise Scott Brown. There would be significantly less dimension within the scope and quality of the work this award is acknowledging today—including dimensions theoretical, philosophical and perceptive, especially social and urban, pertaining to the vernacular, to mass culture, from decorative to regional design—and in the quality of our design where Denise’s input, creative and critical, is crucial."
The point (mine anyway) wasn't that Bob's an ingrate; clearly, he's far from it. I admire them both.
But why isn't Bob part of the current hue and cry, the torches and pitchforks being wielded now? Either carrying them, on behalf of Denise? Or as a target of them, on behalf of the critics of the injustice? He could do a lot-- 22 years later and now that this issue has been duly raised --by speaking up.
This isn't a defense of the Pritzker choice, only a query into the bigger picture.
I had seen that reference in his speech before, which is only remembered now, in retrospect because of the current controversy. It made exactly zero waves at the time. Notice the tone of it, which sounds like a husband thanking his wife. I definitely didn't read it as in protest of an award (he showed up to and accepted).
Contrast this to Marlon Brando sending Sacheen Littlefeatuer to accept the Oscar. Venturi could have made waves by sending up DSB to make a point, but he confirmed the Pritzker by showing up.
I think I read DSB's answer regarding RV's choices at the time: In '91, *they* decided that he needed to accept, for the firm's sake.
Darkman, and others who are criticizing Bob Venturi - note that *even if* he had made a conscious decision not to speak about Denise Scott-Brown's role in the collaboration, and Orhan's quote above suggests that's not the case, but *even if* we take that for granted - then by signing the petition and speaking out now, he is admitting he's changed his mind, and that he was wrong. This is something that the Pritzker had the chance to do, too, and they passed on it.
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture by Robert Venturi
To many that was the intellectual crux.
"I think I read DSB's answer regarding RV's choices at the time: In '91, *they* decided that he needed to accept, for the firm's sake."
Then what's the big deal? If she was cool with it then, why the sudden change of heart? And if RV was cool with it, then he's an opportunist who thought this one more accolayde however flawed was worth dicking over his partner. Didn't mama alway say 'it's not who wins or loses it's how you play the game'? Mama was right, unless you're playing the institution's game, and these "rebels" always did.
Hey look, its a duck... It's crinkled metal panels... it's ...super architect!!!
Thayer, I just want to point out, as I did to Darkman in the other thread on this, that back in '91 the culture was still deeply resistant to women in the field in a way that it mostly no longer is today. There was *no possibility* that the jury would bend if pushed back then. Saying that accepting sexism in '91 is the same as accepting sexism in 2013 is not a fair comparison.
is it fair to now accuse the 1991 jury of outright sexism? in order to be truly sexist, one must exist and operate within a realm where the culture can already weild convincingly -syntagmatically- this criticism against its own. perhaps, Scott Brown, at that time, was not even considering herself as a possible pritzker co-candidate -with the understanding that such was the ways of the world back then- and can only now formulate a feeling of real regret with the advent of other women prtizker winners.
it is tricky looking backwards. where is the point when you stop judging things based on contemporary values and when do you start looking at it in an anthropological manner - for example, looking at the society as having , to a substantial extent, originated from a structure of agnate kinship/ patrilinearity. it is easier for the "west" to look upon others anthropologically whereas - because it has ingested an unhealthy dosage of Hegel and the like- it has more difficulty seeing itself outside its contemporary values but sees a development in all things. or perhaps this is the paradox the anthropological field contains within itself: there is always the observer/object of anthropological creation and the observed./ subject of the anthropological creation. and yet, the object of anthropological creation is necessarily the subject of yet another anthropological creation. values denominated by values ad infinitum. the hook is the fish.
I agree that sexism in architecture was a problem back then. I just think Venturi and possibly DSB where a little cynical not to confront this issue at the time. The back and forth between collaborating architects is impossible to value, so why didn't Venturi stand up then? Becasue they though it would be advantageous to thier firm as someone mentioned? I just don't get it.
The sexism in architecture has it's roots in old stereotypes of what sex is better at what ever task one want's to highlight. In architecture, the man is der builder while the woman is der decorator and so on. As an aside, when you denigrate decoration or at least relegate it to being spoken of in hushed or coded terms, then you add feul to the fire of sexism, but I digress. I'd take a page from Shawn Colvin's page when she speaks to a man "then you could be the woman you need if you just let me be the man that I am." Cause that's the bioligical truth anyway.
"Something in the back of my mind tells me that back in (let's say) 1991 the Pritzker board made it clear that they do not offer the prize to more than one individual at a time."
Of course i don't know but i think it would have been more awkward for him to accept the prizen -even whilst recognizing Scott Brown's pivotal role- with the suggestion that she was explicitly denied co-ownership of the prize (since Quondam, you say that they "made it clear") rather than just not being co-nominated.
there is something rather unhealthy about knowing that you're compromising when you really have the upper hand (as a winner).
of course there is a history we don't know (unless she does write that book you would like her to , Quondam), but would it be not reasonable to, alternatively, assume that it was accepted from the get go without any such board clarification and without compromise? i mean that the whole affair was accepted rather uncritically (although that doesnt rule out hurt feelings) until now?
i'm jus concerned that it is easy to immediately judge circumstance past on a contemporary scale. blind spots occupy different areas with time.
but all the above (mine) is conjecture of course.
I think that anyone on this thread who's arguing that since no one spoke up then, they don't have a right to speak up now is missing the point. The fact that no one spoke up then is *precisely the problem*, it reveals how deeply and structurally present bias and privilege were, and *are*, in our society. Thankfully, people get more than one chance to recognize that, attempt to make amends for it, and try to create a space for conversation so it's less likely to happen again.
Also, I don't think anyone is accusing the jury of sexism, people can be part of systemic bias without realizing it. This is like noticing that salaries for women are lower across the board, but also finding that no individual firm or business owner would ever say, "yeah, we pay women less", even if that's effectively what they end up doing. Structural bias works like that, and so does institutional power: easy to see its effects, hard to pinpoint its source. This went on in 1991, and it goes on in 2013, we need to talk about it and stay alert for it, so there's less of it in the future.
So, I go to a job interview right out of school, all before the digital age. This person, the interviewer, who is considerably older than me and who represents experience, looks at my portfolio and cover letter which I wrote with my own hand and lettering, and says, "your lettering is like a women's lettering, too sensitive for architectural drawings." I didn't get the job which I needed badly and left thinking that what the fuck this man has just told me.
This was a clear demonstration on how deep the belief was that architecture was a man's job, all the way to the drawings, and you had to punctuate it with a masculine style. I ended up working for an interior design firm for a while which was great because I really got into developing touristic and business hotel designs, inside out, from different types of rooms, restaurants and industrial kitchens, bars, reception desks, lobbies to fixture and furniture.
Whenever issue of gender comes up in architecture this interview experience comes up as well.
(Notes from 1982)
A driving factor in this conversation is reflected (many times) in the change in editorial-ship at Architectural Record. Robert Ivy, who was an architect, was replaced by Cathleen Mcguigan a writer from Newsweek. McGuigan writes frequently about the issue of sex in architecture, even though many women architects prefer to just be architects. So, you can see how the focus is moving away from the nuts and bolts of design, to more of a political outlook, for better or worse.
Of course there should be more women architects, but we live in a free society. Are we going to go to the old feminist cliche about the man-devils who are oppressing us? If I'm a girl thinking about the profession, and read these articles, I would be 1000x less likely to enter the profession to begin with.
Thought provoking Time Magazine piece:
http://ideas.time.com/2013/06/17/affirmative-action-has-helped-white-women-more-than-anyone/
Darkman, again, I kind of agree with you, but….just today, for the maybe 1,000th time in my career, I stood looking at a cabinet installation with two carpenters and an electrician who despite my efforts would not let me get a word in about the issue they were discussing for a good 4-5 minutes. When they finally all stopped for a breath I solved their issue in ten seconds by pointing out that they'd missed something on the drawings, the drawings that *I* prepared, and that I drew that way because I knew the part they couldn't figure out was necessary.
Men in our field, on the construction side especially, still have a difficult time believing that women know their business too. So yes it's a free society but please don't for a minute think that the paths of the genders are at all equivalent. These days it's not often about intentional oppression, it's much more about subtle preconceived cultural expectations of what kind of knowledge and experience a person of either gender will have. And yes, women have preconceptions about men just as men do about women, and for heaven's sake we *all* pretty much just expect that a gay man will be fabulous at interiors, right? None of that is fair. And it's definitely getting better, but we're not there yet.
So this discussion still has to be had, as we thresh out how things used to be and how they've changed and where change still needs to happen.
I don't doubt there is sexism in these construction situations, though I think that you could say the same thing happens to all architects. Construction managers certainly like to play the macho game, just like any egotistical engineer, maybe men are a little more welcome in those circumstances.
I understand that it helps to have female role models. At the same time, the discussion here should have started and ended with female architects who made it on their own. I find DSB to be a dubious role model, though influential. She didn't exactly do it on her own--it's a complex and contradiction to work with partners. Beside, pomo sucks; that is the forgotten thing, possibly why the Pritzker doesn't like her--for reasons of content rather then politics. Bringing that genie out of the bottle is dangerous.
Of course the Rush Limbaugh side of me might think, maybe gay men are better at interiors? Maybe women and men are different. Is that a bad thing? But i wouldn't want to be classified in some arbitrary category as a 'male architect' as if that means something about my work. It doesn't really.
I think we are still in the thick of post modern times. I see gestures and single handed expressions everywhere. Most of them bad. There are a lot of people think pomo is associated with these kind of architecture only.
that's the good one.
But this kind of pomo is really bad. A lot of junk space in a small project. What a waste!
Another good example of fairly recent pomo, a mechanical duck.
i keep reading pomo as porno!
"Beside, pomo sucks; that is the forgotten thing, possibly why the Pritzker doesn't like her--for reasons of content rather then politics." What exactly is pomo? I see the Gehry and what ever that twisted tube thing as modern in that they are abstract, minimalist, and have not a wiff of history, but to kafka, they are pomo. Much like neo-classicism and the baroque share a vocabolary but the spacial manupulations are much different, these two share the modernist palette but twist and shimmy in a way to provide an interest that was long lost after the 1,000th modernist box (although that seems to be having it's own revival). But in architecture, content is politics, or else why would you see such uniform aesthetic sensibilities in periodicals and sites like this?
As for the diminuation of not just women contributions but sensitive guys who like and appreciate the feelings space and design can evoke, we are all swimming upstream with the guys who install the stuff. Everytime I've done manual labor (and I do a lot) I tend to dig into my more aggressive side with the occasional profanity coming out. I think it's more for designers to establish raport with people in the field by not only listening first, but then integrating that info with the design intentions and solve problems. @ Donna, I'm sure with more of those episodes the installers will develope an appreciation of what we do as architects and designers, regardless of gender and sexuality.
My own definition of Pomo, as it still exists today, is an architecture that has ironic and image based processes. You can tell who is sincere about using history and who buries it in the punchline. Basically everything by Bjarke Ingels (have you seen that ridiculous Miami hotel?). The Vanna Venturi house contains layers of irony, mish mashing historic styles together like it were a joke. Similarly, the CCTV building by OMA is pomo because it is created as am image rather than experience. Gehry I find a bit more sincere in his spatial sculpting; though it became ironic when he branded himself and started repeating it all over.
If you look at the current Pritzker jury, they are all critics of the pomo style that doesn't seem to go away and manifests itself in every terrible condo development in China and beyond. Why do you think they gave the award to Wang Shu?
I'm not sure I would put the Vanna Venturi in the same category as the rest. It combines monumental and modern elements of the home, like the giant gable roof of course, but the combination of windows and exterior details seem a bit de Stijl. But we can see how pomo ideas can be used successfully (Louis Kahn) and horribly, like the examples above. It's a question of sincerity and three dimensional experience, are you designing as a quality home or a meta-self referential architecture joke that is trying to capture attention in magazines?
If you have seen the Louis Kahn movie, the people around the Bangladesh Capital building cried because they loved the building so much. Meanwhile, most people hate Philip Johnson's AT&T building in New York. Ugly pomo does seem to outnumber the good. Of course there is a danger in classifying everything as pomo or brutalist, though there are clearly influences at play from Venturi on down to less skilled mall developers.
Of course Venturi, like Le Corbusier, was destined to be copied by lesser talents. But I always found Corbu's lyrical modernism to be more appealing than the bulky meta-references of Venturi & Scott Brown. Louis Kahn seems to be a link between the two perhaps.
But that's enough b.s.ing for me today. Back to work!
Luis Kahn was influenced by Robert Venturi.
i don't see the Vanna building at all as a joke. nor do i, myself, find it ironic. for sure i find the building polemical but not ironic.
irony: 1. pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning —called also Socratic irony 2. the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning 3.a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity (from Merriam Webster)
1. there is no such devious pretense - neither an architectural nor an experiential one. in fact, quite the opposite. it seemed to me that, if anything, the architects were able to explore the fuzzy areas at the interface of architectural conventions because they accepted these architectural conventions to some extent. there is no implied critical use of the conventions for devious undermining purposes. perhaps, one can construe the argument that one's experience of these conventions have been subject to a critical exercise (difference of scales, unexpected assimilation and orientation of elements...) but i would still not say that there is an underlying ironical sensibility at play. what is being jarred here? not conventional architecture but rather one's expectation from conventional architecture that turns out to be unconventional. this actually adds further complication and sophistication to the conventions and does not undermine them (as irony would).
2.again, i don't see this here. there is no deliberate misdirection and no reference - whether iconical or analogical- to what this building is not or could no be. unlike with the design of some eisenman buildings for example. eisenman is ironic and i think this is, fundamentally, what irks many although many of these many have not identified successfully what irks them about eisenman's work and method. many people claim they like irony (because its been identified as a badge of intelligence or whatever) but irony does not like anything but itself ...let alone liking these many people...ergo, people get pissed off at it in due course.
3. that well defines Alanis Morissette's song. i don't think it applies here at all. "don't you think? "
Venturi's house was post modern because he used a large gable, but beyond that there's almost no historical imagry unless double hungs and a strip arch moulding qualify. I guess it's ironic that he did a separate gable front infront of the actual roof, but to the builder and the owner who have to deal with possible leaking, I'm sure they missed that one. Hahaha!
The fact that a rain shedding gable roof was a "statement" (becasue he wrote a book about it) shows how ridiculous and irrelevant our profession had become to the general public. It's not an ugly building, but it's no Low house. The only reason students need to know about it is becasue of the self-reverential modernist narrative we are taught and supposedly are supposed to carry on should we be the lucky ones to capture what some institutions declare as zietgeist. From decon to blob to parawhatever, I'm sure there are more.
If you throw all the garbage about how we are supposed to design, for that matter, while we're taking out the garbage, let's throw out how we are supposed to act, whether woman or man, black or white, gay or straight architect, we'd probably be designing better buildings, also becasue we'd be more at peace with ourselves. Then again, some of the best work has come from tortured souls, so never mind, carry on.
Yes, that's why the Vanna Venturi is a difficult example of pomo, but combined with the text Complexity and Contradiction, it shows how he had an eye brining monumental and classical elements back to modernism, but in the form of meta references. Kahn (who Venturi apprenticed for) did the same, but his references were not so meta and possibly more appropriate at a larger scale.
Where Venturi (and then Scott Brown) shows their true colors is in Learning from Las Vegas. I understand the importance of accepting the images of our current culture, but saying a billboard is more important than structure and architecture is completely cynical. Even in Times Square or Tokyo, the billboards gain their monumentality from the architecture of the buildings and streets that make up their structure. Things communicate by what they are, not what they are claiming they are.
The Hangover 3 proves my point.
but Scott Brown & Venruti's work is cute in comparison to Kahn. Kahn's work is scary...like a fearful headmaster kind of scary.
Maybe so tammuz... But the relationship between the two is based on a lot of conceptual exchanges.
In the "evolution" of architecture, RV and DSB were a random mutation...Kahn was about the refinement of that "mutation" Both are necessary in architecture and in nature.
This quote sums it all up:
"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition." - Marilyn Monroe
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