REX's Joshua Prince-Ramus discusses his work with Forbes magazine...
REX's Joshua Prince-Ramus discusses his work with Forbes magazine...
REX, however, shuns the notion of an architecture of individual genius showering clients with brilliant sketches. Prince-Ramus and his collaborators instead work around a group process of puzzling through more unartistic issues such as engineering, project sequencing and contract liability--areas most other architects cede to engineers and planners.
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ugh, it makes me quake when he says this, the same refrain for the past few years. most architects deal with exactly the issues he suggests we shirk - it's just that maybe a lot of so-called design architects pass these duties down to others.
prince-ramus, probably intentionally, leaves architects-of-record out of the list alongside engineers and planners.
in my experience most architects who struggle to build their reputation over many years spend most of their time in the 'unartistic' areas prince-ramus cites, just in order to be able to realize their best design work.
i agree steven. that entire idea is just rubbish. the bits he is embracing are the core of what architects do on a daily basis. maybe he didn't know that after his time at OMA and now is running his own office is learning what Rem was up to all the time...?
or maybe he is using the Republican party concept that repeating an idea makes it true, even when it isn't...
Excuse me if I am wrong but isn't what he is putting forward [outside of this brief and kid-gloved interview] is an idea about taking that pragmatic "core of what architects do" [ie. contracts, engineering, function, etc] and -- in a sense -- going nuts with it? hence "hyper [nuts] rational [pragmatic]".
Most architects do it because they have to ["on a daily basis"]. He does it because it is embedded in his design process.
The bulk of what he says in the interview isn't all that inflammatory. The editorial intro is a bit heavy handed though.
that's called a tautology.
He is using this description of it's practice' work for marketing purposes obviously, but it was about time someone started talking to the everyman and telling him architects ain't just a bunch of weirdly dressed nutcases talkng about derrida all the time, but a group of professionals working to deliver beautiful, performative projects, on time and within budget.
how many people in your immediate circle of friends know with any degree of precision exactly WHAT it is that you do for a living?
During the last 50 years we dug our own hole, convincing society we were some kind of visionary tribe, and we made ourselves useless to their eyes, 'cause nobody needs a weirdo. It's about time we come out of it.
which is exactly what he says here...
http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_prince_ramus_building_a_theater_that_remakes_itself.html
maybe I should send them a cv...:)
nah, JPR's been saying this stuff for at least 4 years...
why doesn't he just write a book or release some white papers so the rest of us can emulate our dear leader...
i agree with you, bigness, that the profession could use someone of jpr's recognition-factor re-stating what it is that we do. but the point is most of the none-star clan do those things as an integral part of our work, whether or not we celebrate it. our clients know it. for my part, i don't resent or belittle those aspects of our work - they're part of bringing the project alive.
jpeel's right, too, that most of the article isn't inflammatory. most of the message is welcome - a refreshing change.
i just wish jpr wouldn't throw 'most architects' out on the sidewalk with his pronouncements, because they're flat wrong.
if the point is to re-present what the profession does, so that the bulk of what we do is displayed in the open and celebrated over the visionary and the nutty, i'm all for it. there are some very visible architects out there who probably don't know the implications of their design work - leaving it to others to solve - but i'd argue that they do not represent the profession at large.
in his reclamation of the mantle of 'master builder' it sounds to me like prince-ramus thinks he's just discovered the role that most architects already assume, but he's planting a flag in it, declaring it his, as if it were abandoned territory or maybe only inhabited by the natives.
i don't believe that starchitects are not dealing with this stuff either. of the starchitects i know well enough to know how they work the process is as complicated and as difficult as what any architect does but with higher design
standards or other ambitions thrown on top.
JPR is doing great pr, but it is annoying when he suggests that architects in general aren't dealing with the same things he is. i guess it would be hard for him to set himself apart from the rest of us if he just said it was his job...
I think Steven nailed it - it reads like staking a claim to territory that's been occupied for a long time.
But the other side of that can't be ignored either - if everyday architects have been in the middle of the picture for a long time, we need to use that position to expand the boundaries of what constitutes everyday architecture.
Here we have some risk taking and innovative form, combined with (so he says) kick-ass project delivery. Why can't we all do both?
There's another thing that bugs me about the interview, though: is Museum Plaza still a real project? Hasn't it been stalled for years, now? (despite the rhetoric about its ability to adapt to changing financial climates)
And also - it's all about sustainability now? Really? I've seen JPR present this project three times, and that's the first I've heard about that.
i guess he can rightfully say (of his old practice and somehow of it's new one) that he is one of the few trying to push changes in paradigm and typologies and still having an ultra pragmatic approach.
Of the starchitects I know or have worked for, most only take one side into consideration, only a few actually take limitations (of any nature) into consideration or use them as a springboard to generate design. And yes, most other normal architects do it, but how much exciting design is being produced if you consider the whole of the profession? (that includes mac mansion and shopping center designers).
and while the few starchitect that don't know their planning regulations might not be the majority, they are by far the most visible part of the profession, specially in recent years when architecture has become another paris hilton, something you read about in vanity fair.
I dunno...I personally have a hard time always explaning what we do, our role not only as designer and problem solvers, but also as facilitators of a process that involves loads of different people that do different things and are mostly unable to talk to eachother if they did not use our services...all of this while creating beautiful and inspiring buildings...and I am not even talking to some blond bimbo and trying to get laid...
The part of his point of view that is most appealing to me is his advice that architects make a point of carefully framing a vision for a project, arrived at through a collaboration between client and architect, before putting pencil to paper.
I know most architects would say, "well, of course, that's what we do!", but I actually think most architects do something very different in practice. As Prince-Ramus points out, architects are taught from the beginning the Howard Roark Genius paradigm. The process becomes one of gathering some basic program information from the client, gathering some basic site and climate info perhaps, and then the clever architect starts drawing, looking for a vision to emerge so they can cast the product of their unique insight into the world. Talented architects often find a vision in this way... but the client may not share it, may be baffled or confused by it, or may simply accept it despite misgivings because they are working with "genius". This this Prince-Ramus' "Trojan Horse" analogy.
But if you take the time to carefully craft a "joint position" with your client, and literally avoid drawing anything until that vision is fleshed out, in detail, and ratified, then you will stand a much higher chance of creating work that is relevant, individualized, and successful. And you will have clients who are fully invested in the result. You will also end up with solutions that skip past the architects initial preconceptions in surprising ways - a collateral but not insignificant benefit.
I think he's right on the money.
i can't imagine a howard roark paradigm working for long in actual practice. where are you working, eke, and how does your office continue to get work?
i'm no genius. i'm my clients' partner in arriving at the project they want to build. but i also - in order to continue to have work - deliver good institutional projects at budgets as low as $100/sf at a 5% fee. when i see a 'hyper-rational' project at the scale of the wiley theater that can meet that criteria, i'll be a believer.
the 'howard roark paradigm' is a straw man, imo. it may be that architects are taught in a rock star model, but they quickly learn that it's not supported in the profession and have to adjust. maybe, after being golden boy at oma, prince-ramus is just now adjusting and thinks it's special?
"You need to know about things like engineering and contracts and sequencing."
my favorite quote.
I guess he is dumbing things down for your average reader of forbes.
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