In his new article NYT's Nicolai Ourousosoff ponders if the creativity will also vanish as the budgets go down on previously lavish schemes.
In his new article NYT's Nicolai Ourousosoff ponders if the creativity will also vanish as the budgets go down on previously lavish schemes. He looks at newly finished and down dressed version of Parrish Art Museum in S. Hampton by Herzog & de Meuron . He is saying money equals creativity. Is low budget uncreative? What is he saying? Is he exposing certain vulnerability of his favorite architects, the superstars, that they can't design jack with less money? What? Architecture for whom only? Do you polo? What do you say? Should we tell him?, "don't worry Nicolai this'll pass too" NYT
22 Comments
I've always thought the best designs come out under tight constraints.
True it's a bit different variety of creativity, but I'd rather restrained and sublime to this...
http://www.personism.com/wp-content/uploads/GehryBrooklyn.jpg
a designer's skill level isn't proportional to project budget. If it's cheap crap, it'll likely to still be crap if it's expensive.
if you got the money,
honey i got the time...
since when does ponderously lavish equal creative?
An Open Letter to Mr. NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
Your recent article regarding the 'creeping conservatism' due to decreased budgets is reactionary, anti-intellectual and oedipal.
What is creativity? Is it the will of the architect as an autocratic power who weilds software as an artist does a paint brush? Or is it an intellectual, ethical, and purposeful engagement with the constraints of a given project which ultimately engenders a unique solution to perhaps conflicting or oppositional complex problems?
If the answer is the former, then yes, quite obviously a lower budget results in less lavish materials, less complex geometry, and less structural gymnastics.
However, if the answer is the latter, then what you call 'creativity' [kind of a dirty word, no?] is, in actual fact, not tied to budgetary concerns, or a 'beautiful' site, or an intellectual consituency. Rather design intelligence is the measure of how well the architect produces a solution to a unique set of conditions and constraints.
I think the concept of architecture as an elite art form is a tired, self-referential and self-defeating model. Art's value is that it is not intrinsically tied to pragamatic concerns, such as economics, sociology, politics, ecology, etc. It's power is that it can ask questions with impunity. Architecture, as a subset of design, provides solutions to real problems. It should engage economy, politics, and ethics in a meaningful way. This blurring of the two is not doing anyone any favors. Just let Art be art, and Architecture be architecture.
I have to believe that architecture is about more than undulating titanium that serves no purpose other than marketing and propaganda.
Regards,
Joshua Plourde
i thought the old design was really solid - a perfect marriage of their recent formal experiments (such as vitrahaus) with a real programmattic goal - to display works of art in conditions as close as possible to those in which they were created. that said, I like the new design - the long shed approach is incredibly flexible (see Venice Arsenale), and the return to simple forms might give HdM a chance to once again focus on subtlety and materiality - which would not be such a bad thing for young architects to emulate.
I've written more on it here - http://chakroff.blogspot.com/2009/08/all-things-parish.html.
very interesting....
Don't get me started.... Y'alls know how I feel about this. I already went off on Paris Hiltons doghouse in the Huffington Post.
orhan...i think you said it best:
"He is saying money equals creativity. Is low budget uncreative? What is he saying? Is he exposing certain vulnerability of his favorite architects, the superstars, that they can't design jack with less money?"
regardless, i think his question is worth asking nowadays...but, imho, it is more due to projects with lower fees causing designs to be rushed out the door...(at least that's what is happening in my little world)
is 24 million dollars for a small gallery really 'low budget'?
it's not the tate, given, but it's not exactly chump change, either.
i agree w/ evan: i find this a chance to return to the earlier modes of thinking which were very successful.
the subtleties of the plywood house come to mind...
I agree with the above statements that creativity usually emerges from the constraints of a project. You don't necessarily money to make something creative and/or beautiful.
Look at the early work done by Rural Studio or the things that people like TYIN tegnestue right now, among others. These are low budget projects where the lack of money leads to more creative solutions.
i think the "creeping conservatism" and economic issues that deny such frolicky style-driven one-offs by h&dem and koolhaas for the now less super-rich manhattan/hamptonites is it's own issue. for NO and his favorite architects that is perhaps a worry. for the rest of us, i think the low budgets and somewhat increasing attention to social and environmental concerns actually demand and expect much more creativity.
and i've actually found that budget-strapped clients trying to do good work are much more open to smart, unusual ways to get things done.
It seems to me as if he is making an issue out of nothing. Particularly because right before he ends the essay (by worrying over the possible creative implications to the financial crisis) he wrote about this new design for the Parrish Musuem;
It’s the kind of design, in short, that is difficult to object to. And at less than one-third of the cost, no one can complain about the budget.
i actually am going to counter the statements made here and say that Dr. NO has a point, although i do also think there is a counter argument that differs from the above opinions. Remembering that Ourossof's main audience aren't architects I think he is putting out a fear that architecture will revert back into a profession that is asks to repeat past prototypes rather than develop and propose new ones (does anyone else here remember the early 90s, someone else can comment on the 70s...but it seems pretty similar). I think it is a concern that clients will be more wary of experimentation rather than architects becoming more conservative in terms of approach to budgets (although these do often go hand-in-hand). now, the counter argument that i think might have a bit more mileage - can architects begin to quantify or re-position experimentation as a part of their business model? there was a possibility that this might exist (see the move toward prefab in a number of offices, as well as move toward development of building systems), but will this vanish before it matures? are we back to experimentation on paper? is that a bad thing? i think these are all valid questions we should all be asking ourselves as professionals.
@futureboy
I think NO's constituency is mostly amateur savants with trust funds.
I also think it is possible to be 'creative' with things like procurement schedules, design schedules, asset management and the contractual apparatus itself.
I think you can actually quantify progressive [projective?] practice as a business model. Look at SHoP or REX.
I also think that 'experimentation' on paper [if it stays on paper] is fun-with-shapes. Look at Libeskind.
you just hit my point exactly, and yet missed it completely jplourde.
Excellent find Orhan. I'm too tired to properly respond right now but my first reaction is to agree that money does not necessarily = better design, and it certainly doesn't guarantee quality. I should know, I spent my 6 years of undergrad in this building right after it opened, and now look at it, 12 years later:
"He is saying money equals creativity."
It should be remembered by commenters that this line was a provocation and discussion-starter from Orhan, not anything that NO said directly, so agressive attacks against Ourosoff ala J. "Your recent article regarding the 'creeping conservatism' due to decreased budgets is reactionary, anti-intellectual and oedipal. " Plourde are unnecessary. If the wish is for some 'tit for tat' with a recognized name in the bussiness, that's not the way to go. (You won't get NO to comment and please you with this kind of ramblings - Tschumi answering some thoughtfull criticism about his project in Athens was a dialogue on another level all together.)
The article itself is very much about one particular project and its progress from sketch towards reality - the aside about the economic climate and its impact on architecture in general is an unstructured thought, not a serious point. Projects have been downsized before, just at this particular time its inevitable to draw these kinds of connections.
But when has money/a big budget equalled creativity? Never - the most creative phases in architecture have been the times when architects have had too much time on their hands and no "real work". And this experimentation on paper has been fruitfull and not just fun-with-shapes - looking at Libeskind I see his notations and the Jewish museum (sadly, after that he hasn't had the time to fiddle around and come up with anything new or interesting). We can also look at Price, Archigram, Holl, Koolhaas, Hadid, .... who have experimented on paper and created new realities later, when there have been real projects to build.
@ fb seems we are then in agreeance.
@ H
If you take NO's article in context with his other writings, it's readily apparent that when he says architecture, he means Architecture.
I fully agree that paper architecture, if it informs built space, is extremely valuable. However, I worked for Libeskind, and those once thoughtful and beautiful paper works did inform a thoughtful and beautiful building. However, it has since degenerated into a branding exercise.
That's pretty funny. :o)
Well, I would argue that "creative schemes" are often cheap boxes with fancy finishes.
I gag everytime I see rosewood veneer.
Get big bucks to buy solid wood. And making anything out of rosewood is almost fundamentally retarded if you want to put LEED or "eco-friendly" anywhere near it.
But a lot of otherwise "creative" but "cheap" would just look cheap "cheap" without their otherwise expensive finishes.
If you take away expensive from modernism... you end up with your typical commercial building-- post-modernism apres 1970.
In a sense -- and I am saying this before reading the article -- I agree with the assertion : not that less money in construction leads to poorer design, but that less money spend on design leads to poorer design. Slashed construction budgets and times of economic restraint often lead to a client's requirement that the architect spend half the time normally required on a design (thereby saving half the client's money). Client knows architect will agree to it because architect is starving, due to aforementioned hard times. Architect puts in as much time as humanly possible -- much more than she is probably charging the client -- in an effort to make the design as good as possible. However, if there's one thing true about creativity it's that you can't shortchange the amount of simple thinking time it requires. Therefore, I think you could make a claim that tight-fisted clients make for poorer designs.
(True, any architect worth her salt would fight for the proper amount of time to allow creative idea blossoming, and would do her damnedest to make it the best design possible. But there's really a lot to be said for having the time to simply allow things to mull and gell in your mind, and in my experience that's when the true flashes of inspiration come -- not when you're "fast-tracking" and two weeks late on steel submittals while still trying to figure out the entry sequence.)
entry sequence? you mean parking space, curb, little bit of grass, pavement for the fire trucks, curb, trashcan/ashtray, door?
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