This week saw a building by famed modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe succumb to the wrecking ball, making room at the Illinois Institute of Technology for a commuter rail station. A few fevered bloggers complained, but the preservationists yawned. Perhaps that's because the building was a dumpy brick shed devoid of interest or import. Or perhaps it's because the Mies style doesn't seem endangered at the moment. This week saw a building by famed modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe succumb to the wrecking ball, making room at the Illinois Institute of Technology for a commuter rail station. A few fevered bloggers complained, but the preservationists yawned. Perhaps that's because the building was a dumpy brick shed devoid of interest or import. Or perhaps it's because the Mies style doesn't seem endangered at the moment.WSJ
But even when today's architects escape the old box-on-stilts of the International Style, they stick to the one unwritten law of modern architecture: Thou Shalt Not Ornament.
unfortunately, his only examples of "ornament" are traditional revivalists. the recent archinect feature on Leong Leong is a pretty good example of the new form of ornament - although we tend to call it "texture" these days.
// By contrast, the radical modernists wanted to scrape structures clean of ornament altogether, like a landscaper who tames a wild, overgrown garden by paving it over //
Misleading.
Modernism was not taming the wild. Rather, it was a return to the ur-form, concepted by the savage. It was a flee from the "cultured", and in reference to this passage - would be a flee from highly a regulated baroque garden. The real modernist would define a turf then let it wild.
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unfortunately, his only examples of "ornament" are traditional revivalists. the recent archinect feature on Leong Leong is a pretty good example of the new form of ornament - although we tend to call it "texture" these days.
// By contrast, the radical modernists wanted to scrape structures clean of ornament altogether, like a landscaper who tames a wild, overgrown garden by paving it over //
Misleading.
Modernism was not taming the wild. Rather, it was a return to the ur-form, concepted by the savage. It was a flee from the "cultured", and in reference to this passage - would be a flee from highly a regulated baroque garden. The real modernist would define a turf then let it wild.
i suppose that article is an example of why no one reads the journal for design news
i think of OMA's IIT student union "icon-pixelated" portrait of Mies as a great example of relevant ornament today -
regardless of this specific point, a flawed article
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