voussoirs: MORE ON ISSUES

A series of recent news reports continue to raise issues that have been discussed previously, but are of interest as further examples of extremes.

GREEN IS GOOD

That ‘green’ is good seems to hold sway without any questions. Just how one manages growth must remain an issue: see – https://www.designboom.com/architecture/triptyque-architecture-philippe-starck-villa-m-montparnasse-paris-05-04-2022/. Here we approach the limits of green fuzz, wondering where it might stop; and if so, how? - how might it be trimmed; and to what state will it be cut back? This raises what one might call the optimum outcome for ‘green’ architecture once it has been conceived. Is it going to be best on the first day; at the end of the first six months; or some time later? What is the strategy for trimming? One thinks of haircuts: decisions have to be made when one gets a haircut, with the first question from the hairdresser being: “How would you like it cut? How much off?” etc.

The same questions will have to be asked with things ‘green.’ The ‘triptyque architecture + philippe starck verdant villa M in montparnasse, paris’ only highlights the issues. One might get impressed with the headline names, but one day the decision will have to be made. Everything might look wonderfully rich and ‘verdant’ now, but plants just keep growing, and dying too. Change seems to be something in things ‘green’ that has not yet been factored into outcomes. Is one supposed to be happy just with the images taken for publication – to get onto the front cover of the magazine for everyone to drool over and feel good about, without a thought for the future? - see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2022/02/on-vertical-gardens-green-is-good.html

MEANINGFUL VOIDS

Interiors that are empty ‘architectural’ spaces, with slick surfaces defining voids are becoming the norm for architectural publications. This example seems to take things to the extreme: see - https://www.designboom.com/architecture/proyecto-cafeina-casa-cohuatichan-mexico-04-30-2022/ Here emptiness has become the aesthetic that allows the ‘pure’ architecture to bloom, or so it seems.

This exhibitionism appears to ignore the sense of life and living that architecture is intended to accommodate, making space look like an exhibit rather than a life-enhancing experience. The problem with such presentation is that it drives ‘arty’ expectations in relation to the shaping and making of form that are alien to life support; just self-centred indulgences for display.

TWO-STORIED MIES

Here we see yet again, the minimalist voids just with a little bit more of decorative bits and pieces. The surprising issue here involves the two levels. One has become so used to seeing glass houses – Mies, Johnson – as airy boxes standing on the ground, that the two-storied version looks a little alarming: see - https://www.dezeen.com/2022/05/04/magdalena-keck-minimalism-glazed-house-hudson-valley/ There appears to be no essential logic to this reading other than, perhaps, familiarity. One does wonder why; might it be a matter of scale, because one has no problem with glassy, high-rise forms?

The more familiar symmetrical 'glass house' elevation.

DECONSTRUCTION AND PAINTING

Hadid

MOMA's 'seminal' exhibition

The influence of painting on architecture has been explored – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2022/03/architecture-painting.html. Here in this news report on the MOMA exhibition, one sees more examples that raise more questions: see - https://www.dezeen.com/2022/05/04/early-deconstructivist-buildings-moma-exhibition-1988/

Wolf Prix

Gehry

These are all rather stunning images, but the idea of ordinary experience in architecture seems to have been neglected as understandings are formed from pretty images. A door is a door; a window, a window. As one approaches it, one know not the prettiness of the painting or drawing, but the reality of detail – CONTEXT, FORM, AND FUNCTION: we neglect these at our peril, perhaps under the guise of dreams of ‘Deconstructivist’ outcomes, whatever these might be. We need to remember, a drawing is NOT a building, no matter how appealing or revealing it might be. We need to reconsider all of our categories with the understanding that architecture is about life rather than clever ideas. If we are so keen to persist with smart concepts that can amaze and surprise, then we are in the world of entertainment, not architecture. Architecture must be about life, joined to life, to be meaningful. Anything else is, as Christopher Alexander has noted, is just for the front covers of magazines: WOW! Wandering around Parc de la Villette, one soon discovers how the everyday impacts on the reading of the wonderful graphic: it drowns the vision, the drawing, with life itself, its wonders, and its foibles, making the graphic an intellectual irrelevance.