Gehry Partners has sent us detailed information about their entry to last summer's most buzzed about architectural competition, the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. Gehry's beautiful NAMOC entry made it all the way to the final of three competition rounds and found itself in lofty company with submissions from fellow Pritzker Prize winners Zaha Hadid and Jean Nouvel. — bustler.net
The project is currently being exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles as part of MOCA's exhibition A New Sculpturalism: Contemporary Architecture from Southern California.
UPDATE: Jean Nouvel Confirmed as Winner of the National Art Museum of China Competition
35 Comments
I like it.
look closely... some relation?
uhhhhhh........
No.
well maybe, depending on what you're getting at.
have ta say, that's a pretty nice bit of gehry.
I agree. one of his better recent projects for sure.
The similarities are vague, but they are def. there.....look closely...
Who's getting the worst of this deal, us for buying China's cheap products or them for buying our over-rated starchitect crap? Gehry's reminds me of those one hit wonders who try to break out of their rut but ought to stick to it for lack of imagination.
Very nice on the outside at night. However, this project is gonna come down to super detailing. Might turn out badly in reality. Those interior renderings look terrible.
The interiors are beautiful, I dont know what youre talking about Darkman....The exterior I dont understand fully yet...
Gehry as a one-hit wonder? You are such an idiot Thayer-D. It's embarrassing.
I guess it's funny for you to discount all the areas Gehry's office has contributed to.
I'm never looking at this post again so no need for any of your preposterous attack or defense comments.
I'm sure you have tons of work to do contributing to the built, economic, cultural, etc environment.
I would love to see try to negotiate with the clients Gehry deals with.
Shrivel Up
jwl,
You've got some seriously thin skin if someone disliking this building should get you hot under the collar. I loved Gehry's Bilbao and for that matter his own Venice home, so I guess that's two hits. But lately it's the same shit, and this looks like some crap tie-die t-shirt. Just enjoy it and don't worry about the idiots.
a glazed box on the outside and all the typical gehry play of sculpted masses inverted as voids in the interior
that's not typical at all. id have to go over the past work, but I believe its def. not a common gehry move.
didn't you see world war Z? gotta worry about the idiots.
wait wait wait
lemme try again -
didn't you hear the Zimmerman verdict? gotta worry about the idiots.
i agree that this does not look gehry-esque although it might well be in the gehry spirit, i.e. the baroque-ish treatment of glass in running currents through the building envelope to displace parts in ripple-like formations that relate to the current trajectories. we saw these vertically in gehry's skyscrapers in new york. these 'parametric' surface effects differ from the barcelona project or the walt disney project types. is this where parametricism has affected gehry's work?
no.
its typical gehry, swapping voids in the interior for his usual plastic play.
im too drunk to type.
We get it, Thayer, you don't like contemporary architecture. Do you have to remind us on every thread?
I think this fantastic. A very interesting direction for the office's work. So many architects start with the intention of using their large scale gestures spatially, which shows up in speculative projects only; then their built work reduces the gesture to a surface treatment. The trajectory of Gehry's office's work, from material studies to large scale *built* spatial gestures, to carefully calibrated surfaces is fascinating. All the while, they're still building the larger stuff, too. Really nice.
The interior volumes are cool, as well. As someone pointed out above, Schinkel is clearly a touchstone.
But I do love contemporary architecture, I do! I just don't like this design or for that matter a lot of Gehry's latest work. But don't let that get in they way of your appreciation of this wonderful building. I my self can't get enough of the Schinkel comparison, one of the few traditional architects sanctioned for referencing. The carefully calibrated surfaces are indeed fascinating, to say nothing of the spatial gestures. I love spatial gestures... roll the dice!!!
By the way (BTW), Fred, by contemporary architecture, do you mean modernism or are you referring to what non-architects would mean by contemporary? My issue is the way modernist architects tend to use a specialized vocabulary that sets them apart from the people they are supposed to be working for. If you are genuinely "interested in cities, spaces, people, & the things that connect them to each other and to the larger world" then I would think we have something in common, despite superficial differences. If you spent your undergraduate years on "Modernism and other conditions", maybe not.
Fku2, if you compare the treatment of building envelopes in Bilbao, Walt Disney, recent Toronto tower ..etc projects with that in this project, New York towers project, Santa Monica towers project...etc, I think it is reasonable to suggest that the latter category -riddled with ripples- display similar specific associative surface effects that we see in parametric design and that are not an iconic gehry feature. this project does horizontally what the other two aforementioned do vertically. These is a relatively recent surfacing, literally and figuratively. Hence pondering the influence of parametricism on Gehry,is this a latter period Gehry?
same same
@Quondam - I'm seeing the connection in the centralized figural void, that has a registration in the massing, of course where Schinkel has two voids in sequence, Gehry disposes several in a symmetrical hierarchy:
http://archinect.com/news/gallery/77134030/7/national-art-museum-of-china-entry-by-gehry-partners
Also, there's the theme of symmetrically arranged formal switchback stairs that define the vertical and horizontal circulation. And on the elevation, the subtle assertion of a center within a repetitive field, which I think is handled by Gehry much more skillfully than in the OMA project you're citing.
@Thayer - forgive me for my somewhat glib comment. I'm only noting that almost every time I read a thread following the announcement of a new project by a well known contemporary architect (yes, I deliberately wrote 'contemporary', not 'modern'), there you are, playing the contrarian. It's like clockwork. If you can cite a counterexample, I'd love to see it.
@Thayer and @Quondam - also, regarding Schinkel's frequent appearance: As I'm sure you know, the parti of Schinkel's Altes Museum has been a frequent reference point for architects since at least Corbusier's Palace of the Assembly in Chandigarh of 1953. Corb's transformation of the plan diagram was famously noted by Colin Rowe in the 1973 addendum to his 1947 essay 'The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa'. Since then, other architects have continued to use the Altes Museum's parti as a starting point for reference, modification, and even play, notably by James Stirling in his Neue Staatsgalerie of 1979.
touchstone - a basis for comparison; a reference point against which other things can be evaluated
Stephen, we'll just have to disagree. To me, it's clear that the Altes Museum is being used by Gehry as a reference point. The connections might not be as deep or as sophisticated as those deployed by Stirling, but they are present, and they are used more successfully in Gehry's project than in the OMA project.
Has anyone found a plan of the Gehry project online? That would be very interesting to see. Also - does anyone know who won this competition? Nouvel?
Ah, yeah, it was Nouvel.
More (superficial?) typological manipulations, in OMA's entry:
@ Fred Scharmen,
You said you'd "love to see" a counter example of me not shitting on a"new project by a well known contemporary architect". I liked the last Gehry project shown on this site.
This was my comment...
"The first one is kind of attractive. Maybe it's the proportions between the peeling onion base and the rectalinear shaft, but it's a nice balance. It would have been very nice as a replacement for the World Trade Center in New York. Symbolic of rebirth."
Here's the link...http://archinect.com/news/article/75592812/new-designs-for-toronto-s-mirvish-gehry-development-unveiled
Are my papers in order?
As for you distinguishing between contemporary and modern, they are synonymous. Here's the link to that ...http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/contemporary?s=t
You confuse modern and contemporary with modernism, defined as the "simplification of form and an absence of applied decoration...began at the turn of the 20th century". Ironically, the absence of applied decoration has made most 'contemporary' modernists to turn their whole building into street decoratsince even they feel less is a bore. Then they tend to decorate the concept with words like "carefully calibrated surfaces" and "spatial gestures". They do sound pretty, but as with a lot of crap traditional architecture, you can't always cover up the shitty design with decoration, especially one that people will never read.
... and then two comments down, you called it a "one-liner".
Not trying to start a fight, just saying it's clear where your biases fall.
And I don't need the lecture about terminology, thanks. I use the words that I mean to use, call it a calibrated gesture. Thanks for reading.
Fred,
We all have our biases, it's called our own perspective. That doesn't make one's perspective any less valid, whether we agree or not. This site like most major architectural publications has a bias for modernism. Not surprising when most architecture schools are bias towards modernism. Play the game as it's taught. But does this reflect the population at large? You're "interested in cities, spaces, people, & the things that connect them to each other and to the larger world". Got it.
I assume your bias is towards "Modernism and other conditions" as your profile stated you focused on in undergraduate school. Did you come into school thinking 'modernism rocks' or where you influenced by your school's bias? All this is bullshit because it's as relevant as your favorite music style, unless your an ideologue. Prove to me that you're not!!! Just kidding.
The problem with your attempt to isolate and belittle differing opinions by categorizing them as bias and therefore irrelevant is that you help to impoverish the debate. I don't think I share your perspective on architecture, but I would never imply that you don't have the right to express yourself, regardless of how repetitive.
You predicated my credibility on whether I had made a favorable comment about a modernist architect. I proved you wrong. Maybe once you've been practicing for a little bit you'll see that the world isn't so easily divided into the black and white world your schooling seems to have imprinted on you, (BTW, my time at Pratt Institute in the late 80's was no different). Till then, try to keep your mind open and do your homework before you go belittling people that you don't even know.
Cheers.
Likewise.
Not likewise. You came after me personally and fell flat on your face because you wanted me to be someone I'm not. This isn't architecture school where you can make up the world to suit your concept. "Sometime Research" = understatement.
Oh really? Tell me all about it. You wanna take this to email? sevensixfive@gmail.com
Re: "translucent stone" aka glass: It has gravitas that creates an emotional impact on visitors. It gives the building a stately and noble appearance, appropriate for a national museum.
This design looks gorgeous, sensual, and daring in its material usage, but glass will never have gravitas or stateliness or nobility. Glass is flashy and fast and self-satisfied, especially used structurally. Glass isn't even really sure if it's a liquid or a crystal, because it's manufactured and young. How can something so indeterminate have gravitas?!
It's a sexy building, though.
@Donna
thanks for clearing that up for me. when i read it was confused and thought to ask in comment but didn't. I was like "translucent stone" that looks like glass..
On a side note...That art piece of the tigers with the arrows is one of my favorite recent works. It is very powerful and sad.
Very Nice building.
FG is back on my good list....I'm sure he will be glad to hear that lol.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.