ArchiSketches

Aqua Tower

2008-08-30T07:53:00.006-05:00

A few images of the Aqua Tower by Studio Gang.

Museum of Modern Ice

2008-03-30T21:23:00.008-06:00

For those of you who missed it, here are some images from the Museum of Modern Ice. The 95 foot long mural titled "paintings below zero", by the artist Gordon Halloran, was installed in Chicago's Millenium Park during the month of February.

The mural was maintained by artist who continually added ice to the back side of the wall to create a continuously changing composition of colored ice.

The most stunning aspect of the mural is the vibrant colors and textures that were created in the ice itself.

Spertus

2008-03-30T21:17:00.004-06:00

The Spertus Institute, by the Chicago architecture firm Krueck and Sexton.

It has been a while...

2008-03-30T20:55:00.008-06:00

Ok, It has been a while since my last post, but here are a few images that I have been collecting for the last several months....

The first one is the Figge Art Museum by David Chipperfield, located in Davenport IA.

Above: Exterior view at entry with the Davenport "skyline" reflected in the double glass facade.

Above and Below: Interior views of the wintergarden, which is the main circulation space in the building. This is the one space where you get views back to the Mississippi River through the double glass facade.

Musee de l’Orangerie

2007-07-23T16:40:00.000-05:00

The Musee de l’Orangerie renovation, completed in 2006, was designed by the architect Olivier Brochet. The renovated galleries contain some of Claude Monet’s water lilies paintings, which remained in place during the renovation. Here is an interesting article about the renovation from the BBC.

Friday Fun

2007-07-19T21:45:00.001-05:00

Don't worry, the weekend is almost here....

Parc de la Villette

2007-07-19T21:39:00.000-05:00

The Parc de la Villette by Bernard Tschumi.

Sony Center

2007-07-18T16:29:00.000-05:00

The Sony Center in Berlin by Chicago Architect Helmut Jahn.

I have been getting some grief lately about falling behind with the photo of the day. The good news is, there may actually be people looking a this. I will try to be better.

Passerelle Bercy-Tolbiac

2007-07-16T08:36:00.001-05:00

I have always loved bridges, and this pedestrian bridge is a beauty! The Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir, Bercy-Tolbiac, located in Paris, connects the National Library of france with the Parc Bercy located across the seine. It was completed in 2006, designed by the architecture and engineering firm RFR. The opposing curve forms overlap in the center to create a covered pedestrian plaza centered on the river.

Netherlands Embassy

2007-07-12T16:18:00.000-05:00

The Netherlands Embassy in Berlin, completed in 2005. Designed by OMA.

Le mur de la paix

2007-07-09T11:22:00.000-05:00

The wall for peace in Paris, located on the Champs de Mars opposite the Eiffel tower, was designed by the artist Clara Halter and architect Jean-Michel Wilmote. The wall was inspired by the wailing wall in Jerusalem, and allows visitors to place messages of peace in the wall. Ironically, access to the monument is closed due to security concerns.

Louis Vuitton

2007-07-05T08:32:00.000-05:00

Today’s photo of the day is the atrium in the Louis Vuitton Champs Elysees store in Paris, designed by the architect Eric Carlson.

Paris from the Pompidou

2007-07-03T15:57:00.000-05:00

Since I missed yesterday, here are a few images of Paris from the Pompidou Center.

Murinsel

2007-06-28T09:40:00.001-05:00

Per Karen's request, here are some more Murinsel Images.

Arab Institute

2007-06-27T10:38:00.001-05:00

Institute du Monde Arabe, by Jean Nouvel. This one has been a long time favorite of mine.

Murinsel

2007-06-26T21:44:00.000-05:00

Murinsel, located in Graz Austria, is a floating platform in the center of the Mur river. The sea-shell shaped space becomes an urban plaza in the center of the river, with places to sit and relax, and even a cafe. It was designed by New York Artist Vito Acconci and completed in 2003 for Graz's year as the "European Capitol of Culture".

Reichstag

2007-06-25T09:04:00.000-05:00

The photo above is the glass dome of the Rechstag, designed by Norman Foster. The Reichstag is home to the German Bundestag, which is the democratically elected Parliament. The building has often been cited for its “transparency and openness” as a symbol of a parliamentary democracy. For Foster, however, it seems that the environmental aspects of the building are more important that the symbolism.

In his own words.... “ As well as forming the public focus of the building, the Reichstag’s cupola, or ‘lantern’, provides the key to our strategies for lighting and ventilating the assembly chamber. At its heart is a light-reflecting cone – a light ‘sculptor’ and a sculpture in its own right. The cone is covered with faceted mirrors that together form a giant Fresnel lens just as you might find in a searchlight or a lighthouse. In fact the cone works as a lighthouse in reverse, reflecting daylight from a 360-degree horizon down into the chamber. An electronically controlled mobile sun-shade tracks the path of the sun to block solar gain and glare, but is designed to allow a little sunlight to dapple the floor of the chamber. In ventilation terms the cone and chamber together perform as a solar chimney, drawing air up naturally through the chamber and expelling it via the open top of the cupola. In ecological terms, the Reichstag has shown how public buildings can challenge the status quo: big buildings do not have to be big consumers of energy or big polluters. And although it represents a minuscule first step in terms of the journey yet remaining, imagine the impact these strategies could have is they were applied more widely around the world.”

“For me, with its environmental and democratic agenda, the cupola is certainly more closely related to Bucky’s humanist vision of the future that it is to the symbolism of the past.”

Photo of the Day

2007-06-21T17:06:00.001-05:00

As promised, but a few days late! Beginning next week I will try to post a new photo every day.

Who better than Frank to kick this segment off? The above image is the DG Bank building in Berlin by Frank O. Gehry, completed in 2001. The blob in the center is a conference room.

06.15.07: LAST CALL FROM EUROPE

2007-06-15T02:52:00.001-05:00

Well, this is probably my last post from Europe, at least for a while. Next week look for a new segment to begin when I start to post the “photo of the day”. I have seen a lot more than I have written about here, and have taken thousands of photos, so I will begin to post my favorites over the coming weeks.

There are also a number of other lessons learned and other threads that have been important throughout this process. I will mention a few here, but need to continue to expand on these in the future as well.

THE STATE OF ARCHITECTURE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 21ST CENTURY
I have been reading a book edited by Bernard Tschumi that is titled “the State of Architecture at the beginning of the 21st century”. I am not yet finished with the book, and I am also not claiming to have much insight as to the direction we are going in architecture at this particular time, but the general questions of ‘where are we at?’ And ‘where are we going?’ have been in the back of my mind as I have been travelling. Some of the overall themse of this book are globalization, war, technology and the urban environment. I have begin to see a number of these themes reflected in some of the projects I have been looking at, and I hope to expand on this a bit more in the future.

AIRS DE PARIS
There is a fairly interesting exhibit currently at the Center Pompidou called “Airs de Paris”. This exhibit features work by artists, architects, interior designers and landscape designers, all exploring themes of urban life, both local and global, but using Paris as the context for inspiration. The exhibit takes its name from a Marcel Duchamp work from 1919 that is part of the Center Pompidou’s permanent collection. I think the issues of living in cities, and the urban environment, have been an important part of a number of the projects that I have been researching as well. As the world becomes increasingly urban, a question that should surely be on the minds of architects is how to we create urban environments that are livable, reflective of culture, sustainable, and address the nature of urban living in the 21st century.

SUSTAINABILITY
It should be no surprise that the issues of sustainability have been on my mind, especially as I was travelling in Germany during the G8 summit. I think one of the most meaningful buildings that I saw this trip was the Free University Library by Foster. As important as I think it is for architecture to be based on ideas, Fosters library, and its holistically sustainable approach, left me feeling that this building had substantially more depth to it than some of the other projects that I saw, because of the moral and ethical undercurrents of being sustainable in today’s world. I just felt this building had a greater purpose, and for me this became a meaningful model of what architecture should be about.

TAKING RISKS
This could be read on a lot of levels. Certainly, leaving my family for four weeks seemed like a bit of a risk. Architecturally speaking, many of the projects I saw intentionally challenged preconceptions about what architecture should be, and they are better off because of it. I think it is important for all of us in creative endeavors to remember to take risks. I think the quote by Zaha Hadid, when asked about the level of uncertainty in a project’s outcome, sums it up nicely. “Without that level of uncertainty and journey into an unknown territory, you can’t progress.”

That’s all for now. I hope you have enjoyed the posts and analysis. I have learned a lot from this experience, and I am sure I will continue to benefit from this for quite some time.

06.14.07: LESSON 2 – CONCEPT

2007-06-14T02:54:00.001-05:00

Pictured above: “sonnenschiff – sun ship” by the Artist Anselm Kiefer

If lesson 1 was about the importance of context in an increasingly global world, less on 2 is about the power and importance of ideas. This probably should be lesson 1, and yes, you could argue that I am only seeing what it was that I came here looking for, which may be true, but none the less, I still feel that the idea is a critically important aspect in architecture.

Yesterday I went to see an exhibit at the Grand Palais titled Monumenta. (pictured above) The exhibit was a collection of work by the artist Anselm Kiefer. It was a very interesting exhibit, and in one the the pieces he talked about the importance of ideas. He said that a work of art cannot be about just form alone, that there always must be an idea present to make it art. This reminded me of a Bernard Tschumi Quote that I came across in some of my reading. Tschumi states that “there also is no architecture without concept or an idea. Concept - not form, as some would suggest – is what distinguishes architecture from mere building.”

I think all of the projects that I have seen this trip have reinforced this feeling in my mind. The more I understood the idea, or intentions behind the work, the more I appreciated the architecture. I think all of the projects that have been discussed here have a certain power and clarity that can only come from having clear architectural intentions. Furthermore, many of the concepts for these projects challenge the building program, site, or expectation of the building. They add a layer of depth and clarity to the project that goes way beyond simply solving the architectural problem. I think in most of the examples I have looked at, and shared on this site, the architect has been very clear about the intention. I think it has to be this way. To look at it another way, as a designer, how can you do something well if you are not clear with yourself about what you are doing?

06.13.07: SHOES, and other baggage

2007-06-13T03:19:00.001-05:00

Since I only have a few days left here in Europe, I am feeling the need to try to summarize this experience. This study will surely continue to evolve over the next several months as I complete the research and reading that I have started (I finished a lot of the reading I brought with me, but not all…) and begin to try to organize this into a lecture for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign next fall. But here are my initial thoughts and lessons learned so far, probably posted as individual posts as I complete them. This is not intended to be a preachy lecture of things you must do, rather, these ideas are things that I am taking away from this valuable experience. These lessons are for me, but feel free to borrow.

SHOES
This is the third time I have had an opportunity to spend an extended amount of time in Europe. The first opportunity was when I spent a year studying architecture in Versailles, France through the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1995-1996. The second occasion was a travelling fellowship award for my graduate thesis which brought me back to Europe for three months during the summer of 1999. And finally this experience this summer. I have noticed some changes since my first stay in France, almost 12 years ago. Technology is a big one, we didn’t even have email the first time I was here, and now I can login to free wifi from my hotel, but I want to talk about shoes. The first time I was here, all of us very quickly learned that if you didn’t want to stand out as an American tourist, it was very important what kind of shoes you wore. We all very quickly learned to dump our white tennis shoes for something a bit more Euro-looking… no tennis shoe, and nothing white! This time, before leaving for Europe, I was very concerned as to what kind of shoes I would be wearing this trip, I was looking for something with the comfort of a tennis shoe, but not something that would instantly tag me as an American tourist (even though I still stand out as being an American, no matter what I do)… Also important is that when you wear size 13 shoes, there is only room for one pair when travelling….

To make a long story short, it is not so easy to pick out the American tourist anymore by the clothes or shoes they are wearing – French people are wearing white tennis shoes! (and shorts!) Furthermore, I think we are all beginning to dress the same way too. There are still subtle differences in style and appearance, but this trip I have noticed that it is much more difficult to tell people apart by just the way they look, dress, or most importantly, the shoes they are wearing.

While I realize this is just an anecdotal story, but I think it touches on the larger issue of globalization. The world is shrinking. Global culture is being branded on the internet – to everyone. We are all listening to the same music, watching the same movies, wearing the same clothes, and shoes… and building the same buildings? I think the lesson here if for architects to be careful. It is becoming much more difficult to distinguish world places and cultures from one another, but that does not mean that context is not important. I would argue that context becomes even more important, as the global economy erodes cultural differences. The lesson here is that it is increasingly important for architecture to attempt to find that special connection to place, the kind of connection that gives buildings specificity to a particular time and place. This specificity in architecture is something that Jean Nouvel argues for as a response to the banal buildings that look the same everywhere in the world. It is this specificity that makes his Musee Quai Branly a building that could only exist here in Paris, at this particular time. I think Zaha Hadid’s Paeno Science Center also illustrates a specific intent to try to tie the building into the urban context of the city of Wolfsburg.

So lesson one is to be conscious of context. Even though we are all wearing the same shoes, doesn’t mean our buildings need to be the same. Buildings need to be integrated into the specifics of place, to become a meaningful part of the culture of that place.

TUESDAY FOLLIES

2007-06-13T00:58:00.000-05:00

UP INTO THE UNKNOWN

2007-06-11T14:23:00.000-05:00

The architects Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, in their own words…..
(There is a lot here, but some of these quotes are really great…)

“It is deliberately and Alien one, one that does not refer, either in its form or its materials, to the architectural vocabulary of the surrounding urban fabric, with its red-tiled pitched roofs. The new building sticks out like something from another planet and it appears that the city is tickled and pleased with the provocation.”

On the unpredictability of content:
“The great underlying virtue of the programme for the Kunsthaus is that it has no fixed substance: the museum does not house a permanent collection… It potentially allows the Kunsthaus to be more like a chameleon, always changing it’s appearance both externally, by means of its programmable façade, and internally, to fit the fresh needs and style of each ephemeral show. The challenge is for successive curators to take us by surprise and to confront the public, each time, with a new experience of the building. The element of novelty and shock has to be maintained. Once is not enough. For the museum to continue to exist as an object of desire, its mystery must remain intact.”

On Technology:
“The Kunsthaus is not about high tech expressionism. For this we had neither the budget nor the inclination. The technological mutation of which this building is a symptom is a deeper one, which lies at the radical change of the design process itself and its new connection with automated manufacturing processes. A non-euclidean object such as this cannot be designed and represented by means of conventional plans, sections and elevations; it’s only meaningful manifestation is a set of 3D data in a computer software package, later to be directly linked, at the production stage, to cad-cam manufacturing tools. It is in this fundamental shift towards 3D modeling, not as a representational tool but as the only legitimate conceptual milieu for contemporary design, that true technological revolution lies, leaving us, at times, feeling like dinosaurson the eve of major climatic change. This is just the beginning of the suprises that await us in the 21st century: architecture will never be the same again, and this building is at the transition point.”

On zoological metaphors:
“The Kunsthaus is diversely known as a baby hippo, a sea slug, a porcupine, a whale, etc… It comes across deliberately, as an improbable mixture of various species, an unclassifiable hybrid, a bio-morphic presence that is both strange (it does not seek to make reference to any animal in particular but appears to be a creature to which evolution might have accidentally given birth on another planet), and at the same time familiar in that it has the charm of a friendly mixed-breed street dog, definitely highly questionable in terms of pedigree”

On being sucked in:
“The friendly alien swallows everything with its travelator. It is like a giant Hoover, like the belly of the whale, evoking the distant memory and unconscious desire that we have, since childhood, of being swallowed by the dragon, the subtle pleasure we experience when licked by the family cat’s sandpaper tongue. It is the black whole of the whales stomach, where one can find all sorts of things: old boots, lost treasures, bewildered fish, jonas himself: that’s what a museum has to be, a place that plays on our desire to find ourselves in the company of suprising and unexpected things, bizarre confrontations, things that sometimes are not yet quite fully digested.”

On Play:
“The museum is the opposite of a formal and dignified institution. It wants to be easily accessible, it wants you to play with it. Here again, the animal metaphor is appropriate: the building has that way of saying ‘would you like to play with me?’ that bouncy dogs adopt when they choose you as a partner and wait impatiently for the ball the be thrown.”

My Analysis…

I am not sure where to begin with this one. Overall, I really enjoyed this building, much more that I thought I was going to. One of the things that I liked was that it is fun and whimsical, and as a result people gravitate toward it. I find it a bit ironic that I am even writing this, because normally whimsical is not something that I would support in architecture. I imagine that if one of my students came to me with ideas about fun and whimsy I would surely try to push them in another direction!

In this building, however, it seems to work. One of the reasons that I think it works for me in this case is that it is whimsical in a kind if high tech, pop art, computer fantasy way, without becoming kitsch. It seems to fit the program, a place for experimental contemporary art, and the city of Graz quite well. For reasons that I am having difficulty articulating, the project doesn’t really seem out of place here at all. Maybe I have been reading too much of the architects “propaganda”, but it does really seem as their concept was intended, that the building is an alien, but a friendly one that you can play with.

ARCHIGRAM
For those of you who don’t know, Peter Cook, one of the architects for the Kunsthaus Graz, was one of the founding members of a group and a magazine called Archigram. Archigram existed between 1961 and 1974. The group published 9 volumes of the Archigram magazine in that time, and produced over 900 drawings illustrating their radical and fantastic ideas on architecture. There was even an archigram movie and television show. Archigram was a counter culture architectural movement started as a “search for ways out of the stagnation of the architectural scene, where the continuing malaise is not just with the mediocrity of the object, but, more seriously, with the self satisfaction of the profession backing up such architecture.” Archgram had seen architecture of the late 50’s stagnate within the cannons of modernism, and began instigating the profession with their provocative publications. The Archigram group was strongly influenced by pop culture, new technologies, and had a particular focus on the problems of cities. They were fascinated by the science fiction cartoon as well as the technology being developed by Nasa and the space program. These influenced lead them to a series of experiments in city design which look like a cross between an architectural project and a sci-fi cartoon. These projects included 2 projects called the “Plug-In City” and the “Walking City”, both witch dealt with city design rendered in a in a comic book meets pop art utopia style.

Interestingly enough, a number of Archigram bits and pieces from the 60’s have reappeared in the Kunsthaus Graz. You could almost take pieces from the “Plug-In City” and the “Walking City” and combine them to form the Kunshaus Graz, albeit without the utopian 60’s counterculture undercurrent. This is the second project that I have looked at for this study that had its origins begin several decades ago, and further underscores the fact that ideas do not seem to go away easily, they just come back in a slightly different combination.

UP INTO THE UNKNOWN
One of the ideas Peter Cook had for this project was the experience of going “up into the unknown,” into the belly of the whale (or bladder, or whatever). This is a particularly powerful experience for this place. The entry level is very open and transparent, welcoming the public into the museum. After you purchase your ticket, you are immediately whisked up to the gallery by a long “travelator” (think of a long, low slope escalator without steps) that takes you up through the opaque blue belly of the alien and into a black hole. The “travelator” only goes up, furthering the mystery. You can’t really see anything about your destination until you have almost reached the summit of the “travelator”. This is a very dramatic and powerful experience, and quite fitting for an art museum whose content is continuously changing. Up into the unknown world of whatever exhibit is there to greet you at that time. This sets up a mystery and intrigue that is sure to keep visitors coming back to see what is going on this time.

BIX FAÇADE
The “bix” façade(pictured above) is named by a combination of the words big and pixel. It is another interesting aspect of this project. The façade can be programmed by artist to display large pixel abstractions of images and media. The 900 and some lights can change in intensity, and can display media at 20 frames per second. The entire time I was here, however, the façade displayed one image only, which used about 90 percent of the lights on with full intensity, so it left me feeling like the façade could be utilized a bit more effectively. The idea, however, is very interesting, and the abstract, pixilated nature of the design ensures that no movie trailers of corporate ads will find their way onto the museum façade. The big pixel display is purposely abstract so that is must be designed. Apparently they change the façade every three months, although there seems to be the potential with the digital technology to do so more often, and thus create a more interesting product. I would have personally liked to see the façade be more animated and change a bit in the time I was there.

06.09.07: A FRIENDLY ALIEN

2007-06-09T10:42:00.000-05:00

This project raises a number of questions regarding architecture and context. Before I post quotes by the architects, and my analysis, I am going to start with a series of questions / statements that I am trying to come to terms with myself:

1) This building absolutely does not address its context; it looks nothing like anything that surrounds it.
2) This building absolutely addresses its context; it visually communicates its purpose as a place for experimental art.
3) This building is completely out of place adjacent to an historic city center that is a UNESCO world heritage site.
4) This building acknowledges its place across the river from a UNESCO world heritage site by incorporating a viewing platform into its façade from which people get sweeping views of this historic city.
5) This building challenges its context formally, by aggressively confronting the baroque architecture which surrounds out.
6) This building is sensitive to context because it’s massing respects the height of neighboring structures, and one nozzle aligns with an historic structure.
7) This building is sensitive to its context because it restores an 1840’s cast iron façade to its original intent. The first cast iron façade in mainland Europe.
8) The cast iron building from the 1840’s was revolutionary for its time; the Kunsthaus Graz carries on this tradition of technologically advanced buildings.
9) The context for this building is not the city of Graz, rather the international art scene which this city is a part of, and was part of even before the Kunsthaus.
10) The context for this project is not the city of Graz, rather the state of experimental architecture at the beginning of the 21st century.
11) The context for this project is not the city of Graz, rather the potential for new digital technology to shape the course of architecture.
12) The building fits perfectly within the context of the city of Graz because it is exactly the point where the past and future meet, representing Graz’s bipolar nature.

BETWEEN THE LINES

2007-06-05T11:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I revisited one of my favorite buildings, Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin. The last time I was here, the building was complete, but empty. Like many, I liked it better as empty space, but I understand that they did not build this building to let it sit empty. Overall, I thought the exhibits worked pretty well with the architecture. The building still maintains a presence, but in a few places the mezzanine levels they added are a bit much. The exhibits do help connect the building to the history of German Judaism, and this building remains one of my favorites.

06.02.07: PHAENO SCIENCE CENTER

2007-06-05T11:09:00.001-05:00

In Zaha Hadid’s own words…

“One idea I have been exploring in recent projects is porosity: drawing public space into a building’s interior to make a series of public rooms in the city… porosity suggests a new kind of urbanism, composed of streams or flows of movement that cut through the city fabric”

“In our Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany, for instance, multiple threads of pedestrian and vehicular circulation are pulled through an artificial landscape and into the building, creating intersecting paths of movement. The building is structured in such a way that it maintains a large degree of transparency and porosity at the ground level. The main volume, the exhibition space, is raised over an outdoor public plaza.”

“The Phaeno Science Center…… is conceived as a mysterious object giving rise to curiosity and discovery. The visitor is faced with a degree of complexity and strangeness… an alien but simultaneously coherent landscape comes into existence.”

My analysis…

CONCEPT
The Phaeno Science center is a hands on science museum that promotes exploration and discovery. Given this is its purpose, I think the concept of a “mysterious object”, a place that encourages exploration and discovery, is quite appropriate for an interactive place such as this.

The science center is an interesting project. On first approach, it appears as a massive concrete structure that is raised up off the ground on cone shaped concrete volumes. The massiveness of the volume is broken down by an irregular series of openings in the façade. As you near the structure, you are funneled into the center of the project by multiple circulation paths which all seem to pull the visitor into the center of the project. This is similar to many other Zaha Hadid projects, where she seems to have a strong desire transform traditionally closed and private spaces (the traditional museum courtyard, for example) into public civic spaces for the city.

GROUND, LANDSCAPE, INTERWOVEN SPACES, AND CIRCULATION
The project explores a number of themes that is consistent throughout Zaha Hadid’s work. One of these ideas is the manipulation of the ground plane. At Phaeno, this sculpted landscape of the ground plane helps to create a new kind of urban space, one that aids in the circulation of the site. Hadid seems to be consistently looking to redefine how we inhabit space in the urban environment. On this level, the project is very successful, as it engages with the circulation flows of its context in a direct way. The building becomes a sort of filter for the city, as it encourages circulation through the site. Most of the circulation passing through the structure is geared toward those who are headed to Volkswagen’s auto theme park, to which this project helps connect. Wolfsburg, where Phaeno is located, is the company town for Volkswagen.

Another idea explored here is that of interwoven spaces. While not as important here as in other Zaha Hadid projects, there are instances where spaces are interwoven together. As you pass below the building, you are constantly given glimpses up into the structure. You can see into the books store, get a glimpse at the main reception desk, look into the café, and at one point even look up into the main museum space itself. This layering of space is another theme that seems to run throughout many of Zaha Hadid’s projects.

Finally, circulation seems to always play a big role in Zaha Hadid’s work, and it is no different here. The circulation of this city is so important here that there are physical lines drawn through the project on the ground. One line starts at the door of the adjacent train station, and traces a path through the project to the bridge leading to the Volkswagen town.

LIGHT AND CIRCULATION
The use of light is a key aspect for the circulaton through the site. One is encouraged to pass below the raised building partially by the use of light, which draws you through the structure. It is quite dark below the structure, but at all times there is a conncetion through light to draw you on to you destination.

“The use of darkness will be a key to the unique experience of the Science Center. Light and shadow offer an opportunity to provide a visual and guiding system through the building by creating paths of light and focal points.”

INHABITABLE STRUCTURE
Another interesting aspect of the project is the cone shaped concrete structure. At the ground level, the structure functions as an entrance, café, temporary exhibition gallery, museum shop, and theater space. The structure tapers and widens at it rises, providing occupiable spaces for the interior of the museum above.

QUESTIONS
While I enjoyed this project quite a bit, and I really appreciate the direct attempt to connect architecture to the public urban environment, some questions still remain. I am not sure how the public space below the building will be used. I spent a good deal of time in this cave-like space trying to figure out how it gets used as a public space. It seems to work very well as a space of movement, as a lot of people do use it as a circulation space. But it is kind of dark, and there are no places to rest or sit, and so it doesn’t really function as an inhabitable urban space, only as a dramatic urban circulation path. The day I visited the project, both the temporary Exhibition space, and the café below the building were closed, so maybe the space is more lively when these spaces are open, but I kind of felt like I was inhabiting a strange and interesting cave, but not a place I would sit and rest and enjoy myself in.

I also felt like some of the detailing of the project was overlooked. It may have been that the form itself was so expensive to build that there was nothing left for finishing the project, but I kind of feel like up close, some of the detailing and finishes could have been a bit more elegant. Some of this could be just the imperfect nature of concrete as a building material, but I wanted some of the material connections to be handled differently.

A MYSTERIOUS OBJECT

2007-06-03T09:52:00.001-05:00

I am a bit behind in my Zaha Hadid reading, analysis to come in a few days....

06.01.07: THE BERLIN BRAIN

2007-06-03T09:42:00.000-05:00

Today I visited Norman Foster's Philologie Library at the Free University in Berlin. The Building has been affectionately nicknamed the “brain” for both its shape and its prominence at the Free university. The building itself was placed in the center courtyard of an existing core-ten steel structure that had been given the name “rustbucket”. (thoughts from the COD crowd encouraged) Apparently, Berliners like nicknames.

When I set out of this trip I brought with me a stack of photocopied reading material about 6 inches thick. It has added considerable weight to my backpack, but it has been well worth the effort. When I first began to imagine this study, and started searching for buildings and architects to include in this study, I always thought that Norman Foster was kind of the odd man out. I chose this building not because of the intellectual content behind the structure, but instead for its aspects of sustainability. In my mind, Norman Foster is a fantastic architect, who has built technologically sophisticated structures all over the world (150 buildings in 22 countries to be exact), but he was not someone that I would associate with a theoretical discourse in architecture. I am beginning to think that I am quite wrong with my initial assumptions.

BUCKY
I had no idea when I began this study that Norman Foster was influenced by and had collaborated with Buckminster Fuller. Beginning in 1971, foster collaborated with Buckminster Fuller on three unbuilt projects that would eventually prove to be important first steps for his later work. According to Foster, he and Fuller shared “an impatience and an irritation with the ordinary way of doing things” Foster apparently could identify with Fuller’s approach of “doing the most with the least.”

“Like Fuller, Foster believes that energy is the key to this issue. The energy question is ever present and sooner or later it is destined to reach another crisis that will make enormous demands on thos few designers prepared to confront it.”

Foster and Fuller’s “climatroffice” project was an egg shaped, tensegrity structure enclosure, “sheltered by the most energy conscious enclosure”, which enclosed landscaped office floors with their own microclimate. The section for the “climatrofffice” project is remarkably similar to the Free University Library building section, as is the overall shape, and the attitude toward the use of energy. Fuller and Foster also collaborated on a pair for houses, one for Fuller and his wife in California, and one for Foster and his wife in England. While they were never built, they were double skinned buildings where the heating and cooling would be delivered between the two skins. If you combine these two early studies from the 1970’s you get the Free University Library. I think this illustrates the importance of conceptual design work for an architect. Here is a set of environmentally sensitive ideas that Foster began in his early career, which now over 30 years later have come back to inform his current design work.

HOW MUCH DOES YOUR BUILDING WEIGH?
“weight, energy and performance – of ‘doing the most with the least’ – and that has consistently been the story of technological progress from the earliest cathedrals to the latest cellular phones.” Fuller once asked Foster how much his Sainsbury Center weighed. Foster didn’t know, but went through the calculations for the weight and learned a lot about efficiency from them. The lightweight structural envelope of the Berlin Free Library weighs exactly 640 tons.

CRADLE TO CRADLE
As most of you know, we assign Williman McDonough and Michael Braungarts “Cradle to Cradle” for our intro to architecture class. I usually describe this bool as revolutionary, and one of the most important books of our time. Interestingly enough, many of these ideas, much to my surprise, were advocated by Buckminster Fuller. “Bucky was one of the first people to advocate the recycling of source materials. He proposed that major manufactured items be rented from industry – cars for eight years, ships for twentyyears, and so on. In this way, he argued, the recycling process could be guaranteed.”

BERLIN BRAIN
In Foster’s own words….

“Since the end of the Second World War, the Free University has occupied a central role in the intellectual history of Berlin and it is one of the most symbolically important institutions – its foundation marking the rebirth of liberal education in the city.”

“The library building is perhaps the closest we have come to a direct realization of the Climatroffice concept, which gave us a clearer focus on so many crucial issues: flexibility of use, in the form of multi-function spaces; energy saving; lightweight envelopes; and the use of natural light and ventilation. All of these concerns are encapsulated in the library.”

SUSTAINABLILITY
The library, as mentioned, is clad with a lightweight, double skin enclosure that is almost in the shape of an egg. The outer enclose os aluminum panels anf glass, the inner enclosure is a combination of clear and translucent fabric. In between is a steel truss structure which is painted bright yellow. The outer skin can open and close to introduce air in between the envelope. “ The cavity between the resulting double skin creates a ‘solar motor’ which assists a natural ventilation system to maximize energy efficiency” The structure can be naturally heated and cooled for 60% of the year, which is a significant energy savings for this building. There are 4 different patterns of open and closed, depending on the outdoor air temperature, so this solar motor in effect can assist the building all year round. In addition to the double skin, radiant heating and cooling is delivered through the concrete mass structure in the center of the building. The question I have, on my search for the importance of concept…. Shouldn’t sustainability be one of the most important concepts of our time?

THE LIBRARY IS A SPACE FOR PEOPLE
In my opinion, this building represents one of these rare occasions where sustainability is used in a holistic approach in design. I want to also stress that fact that this buildings functions very well as a library and place of study. Nothing was compromised in the name of sustainability. The library has clear and legible circulation, beautiful study areas with double height spaces created by the staggered s-curve balconies, and most importantly a wonderfully naturally lit space that was absolutely pleasant to study in. I spent an entire afternoon here reading all of my Foster research, and it was tremendously pleasant. As the sun went behind clouds, there was a noticeable shift in atmosphere, but the diffuse light levels, sun or no sun, were always comfortable to read by. Furthermore, the small glimpses to the outside provided much needed respite from long stretches of reading. Having worked on several library buildings in the past, I have a special place in my heart of the building type itself, and this one was as good as they come.

05.31.07: THE SILENCE OF EXCESS (memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe)

2007-05-31T14:42:00.000-05:00

Stats:
2,711 Stelae (Stelae is a greek term for a slab, or upright stone, often used as commemorative markers in ancient times)
Height: ranging from 0 to 4.7 meters
Width: .95 meters
Length: 2.38 meters
Each Stelae angle between .5 and 2 degrees
Size of field: 19,073 square meters, or about 4.7 acres!

6 Million Jewish people murdered during the holocaust.

In Eisenman’s Own Words…..

“We wanted a silent field – a deafening silence in the age of noise”

“Memory is not nostalgia. Our memorial in Berlin has little or no iconography, nothing symbolic, and it is this absence, like the silence of a psychiatrist, that will allow people to come to terms with their repressed feelings.”

“I wanted to make a distinction between the act of memory in the concentration camp and the act of memory in a memorial. The memorial at the concentration camp uses know symbols to allow one to assimilate the tragedy: you go to the camp, you feel badly, etc. The memorial attempts to keep this memory as an open question in the present, to present a spatial experience different from anything in an urban situation. It is foreign and alien. It analogizes the rupture in German history to this alien reupture in the city of Berlin. It is a rigid grid – reason gone mad. It’s warning against too much belief in reason and the system.

We wanted a surface like a field of wheat or corn that rolled and twisted with the wind. There are moments when you walk into a field of wheat and your fine at the edge, but once you really get in, you can become completely disoriented spatially.”

My analysis……

I have long admired memorials, as they have the capacity for symbolic meaning in architecture that few other programs can manage. This memorial is no different. It is a powerfully poetic and symbolic memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe. First of all, how do you even begin to put form to the unimaginable that was the holocaust? It is difficult to imagine the enormity of the event that killed by some estimates nearly 6 million people. For me, the sheer scale of the memorial itself comes close to beginning to address this issue. While the 2,711 stelae have nothing to do numerically with the victims of the holocaust, the enormity of the almost 5 acre site begins to convey a sense of scale to the event. The site is the size of three football fields.

Another question raised by the memorial is that of memory. We are rapidly approaching a time where there will no longer be any firsthand memories of the holocaust, as fewer holocaust survivors are still living. What then is memory, for those of us who have no direct memory of this event? It could be argued that memory is an abstract idea anyway. It is perhaps fitting that the abstract nature of the memorial is in tune with the need for memory in the present. In the present, nuch of our collective memory has been passed down to us, something that we have learned.

For me, the lack of traditional memorial vocabulary, mainly its abstract nature, makes this memorial particularly powerful. My personal experience is probably very different that what others might experience and I think this is very appropriate, allowing each of us to come to terms with this event in our own way. Personally, the scale of the site resonated with me. I was also very moved by the tension within the memorial. It is both ordered and chaotic, static and dynamic, open and enclosed, comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. Eisenman achieves this duality by relying on a strict grid order, and the subtly breaking from it. All of the markers have a slight tilt to them. The ground plane drops dramatically so that within about 50 feet you can go from overlooking the entire field to being lost within it. Seeing people disappear from sight, as well as briefly crossing at right angles, is particularly haunting. The stones themselves, made from a very smooth dark concrete, are also very poetic. They have very perfect, sharp edges which begged to be touched. Overall, I though the memorial was a very personal, moving experience. I really feel that the abstract nature of the composition lends to its success, by allowing each of us to have a slightly different interpretation and abstract memory with this place.

05.28.07: ACTIVATORS

2007-05-30T03:04:00.000-05:00

Marne School of Architecture

Disclaimer: I got in trouble for taking these photos, and had to promise, using my best fren-glish that they would not be published on a website…. So if anyone from Bernard Tschumi’s office is reading this, these photos are being used for educational purposes only……

For those of you UIUC alum, the organization of this school of architecture will look familiar to you. (no, not flag hall) The building is essentially three volumes of programmed spaced organized around a 25x100 meter un-programmed space in the center. In the center of the un-programmed space hangs the lecture halls, sort of symbolically the center of knowledge. Tschumi is interested in “event” and “motion”. An event is different than function in that events are unpredictable and cannot be planned for. Because of this, Tschumi sees the circulation paths as “activators” for “events”. When bodies in motion (people) collide, the potential for the event is realized. For Tschumi, events cannot be planned, but architecture can encourage them. At marne, events are encouraged in the “in-between” space through dynamic and expressive circulation routes.

The concept for this project is to put all of the program functions to the exterior, and force circulation through the un-programmed space in the center which becomes “a space for celebrations and balls, encounters and debates, projections and artist installations, the most serious symposia and avant-garde exhibitions. A social and cultural space, the central hall gathers together all of the circulation in the school. Whatever the level of attendance on any given day, one sees the constant movement of students, giving the hall liveliness and dynamism.” Of course, having the café in the center doesn’t hurt either!

Here are some more of Bernard Tschumi’s own words…….

On architecture…..

“The contemporary world is a dislocated space of constraints that may find few common denominators. Yet we should remember that there is no architecture without everyday life, movement, and action; and that it is the most dynamic aspects of their disjunctions that suggest a new definition of architecture” Bernard Tschumi, 1994

Specifically on the Marne School of Architecture, which he refers to as a “city of architecture”.....

“How an “in-between” space is activated by the motion of bodies in that space;
How programmed activities, when strategically located, can charge an un-programmed space (the in-between);
How architecture is about designing conditions, rather than conditioning designs;
How architecture is about identifying, and ultimately, releasing potentialities hidden in a site, a program, or their social context.
They could suggest the following equation: (motion x in-between)program=event.”
The following are some interesting questions that this project addresses:

“1.1 Conceiving of a new school of architecture located 30 minutes outside Paris raises two questions. The first has to do with the direction that architectural education will take in the next decades. The second has to do with the attraction that a school situated on the edge, the periphery, the margin of social, economic and cultural density of an urban center can have.

“1.2 Today, a triple revolution – informational, interdisciplinary, and ideological – is in the making. At Marne-la-Vallee, located a short distance from the heart of Paris, one is at the same electronic distance from London, Berlin, Tokyo, New York or Dehli. Now there is global architectural culture and information; the conditions alone are local.”

“1.5 Our project starts from the following thesis: there are building-generators of events. They are often condensers of the city. As much through their programs as through their spatial potential, they accelerate a cultural or social transformation that is already in progress.”

Another Quai Sketch

2007-05-29T12:29:00.000-05:00

I Love France

2007-05-29T12:15:00.001-05:00

05.27.07: Quai Branly

2007-05-28T14:19:00.000-05:00

(I am dating these when they were written. I will post them as internet access allows….)

Wow, what a building! The Musee du Quai Branly by Jean Nouvel is a difficult building to try to come to grips with, due to the fragmented and multifaceted nature of the architecture. As you can see in the photos that I have posted so far, the building has a number of different design languages and motifs happening simultaneously. While this makes for great photography (not a bad angle in the place), I have found it difficult to synthesize the project in my mind. I will try to organize my thoughts as best I can. Overall, this is a tremendously ambitious project, one that would probably not be possible to achieve in the US.

Concept:
Nouvel’s concept for the building was that of a “sacred wood”. He set out to create a spiritual and poetic place where the architecture disappears and the individual is left to have a dialog with the collection. The concept is appropriately fitting for this museum, where most of the artwork is actually indigenous artifacts from Asia, Africa and the Pacific Rim. The collection also includes aboriginal artwork as well as artifacts from Native American cultures. Since most of the work on display has a religious or spiritual aspect within its own culture, the concept of a sacred place to commune with art seems appropriate for this building.

Context:
In much of Jean nouvel’s writings, he argues for an architecture of specificity. Nouvel feels that our global society has an effect of eroding context, and that architecture should re-discover the specificity of place, making each project unique to its situations. This project responds directly to its context in a number of ways.

The Adjacent Monument: In this project, similar to his Institute du Monde Arab, he slices a large gap into the building to acknowledge the alignment with the Eiffel tower beyond. One way this building addresses the specificity of place by its alignment with the Eiffel tower.

The Seine and the Quai: Another response to context is the subtle curve of the buildings, which mirrors the adjacent river. Nouvel also creates an entry glass screen, similar to his Fondation Cartier, which both reflects the trees and provides a needed sound break for the heavy automobile traffic on the Quai.

Adjacent Building Blocks: Nouvel responds to the adjacent Haussmann era building masses by cleverly aligning the massing of various program blocks within the museum. This allows the project to almost literally grow out of its environment in a very physical and direct way.

The Parisian Park Becomes the Sacred Wood: By raising main museum spaces up off the ground on pilotis, Nouvel invites the public to enter his sacred wood, a very well designed park like setting within the city. This park also allows for the pedestrian to cut through the museum complex without ever buying a ticket, a very nice way to make this complex part of the local fabric of the city. When the hundreds of trees in this park finally mature, Nouvel may very well get his wish that the building will disappear.

Light:
My favorite aspect of the museum are the various ways in which Nouvel deals with light. It seems that light, or the manipulation of light is a focus of many of the design aspects. Nouvel writes about being inspired by gothic cathedrals, and you can see here he understands that to really capture poetic light, you must first reduce the space to the absence of light. The interior of the museum is very dark, and has been a complaint of some of the visitors. The south façade features a sunscreen system that creates a magnificent and dramatic effect on the interior. The north façade is a glass wall which has an image of a forest screen printed on it. Light is dealt with on the interior in controlled and very dramatic ways, capturing a ray of light here and there to provide the poetic presence of space that Nouvel desires. Nouvel uses almost every technique imaginable to capture the presence of light. I am willing to overlook the lack of design unity in the façade because of the successful attempt to capture light through different aperatures. Overall, the manipulation of light creates a dramatic and successful interior where the artwork becomes the focus, within a spiritual and poetic setting.

Narrrative:
The museum experience is quite successful, unfolding as if you are entering a sacred place for reflection. The first sequence of spaces occurs along a long ramp, which gets darker and narrower as you approach the main gallery. The main gallery space is organized along a river like circulation path which is finished in this very odd leather covered object which holds displays, benches and multi-media exhibits. Finally, the 30 plus cantilevered “gallery” boxes create unique and individual museum experienced on the inside that are quite successful. Overall, the museum sequence of spaces is very fitting and appropriate for the main objective, the art within.

Lessons Learned:
I am going to take away many things from this project which I feel are positive design lessons, including many successful light manipulation techniques, the importance of architecture that attempts to address as well as create place, the importance of architecture that seeks for poetry and spirituality, and the successful interior sequencing of dramatic spaces. The artifact display cases that Nouvel designed are also quite extraordinary. Most importantly, the ambitious set of ideas that shape this project are worth commending.

On the other hand, I feel that Nouvel falls a bit short of creating a building which “dematerializes” into a poetic environment. The architecture throughout is so bold, multifaceted and aggressive that it is impossible to ever truly escape it. Despite the low lighting and dramatic sequencing of spaces, the architecture still retains a bold and aggressive presence due to the fragmented and almost chaotic nature of the composition. I also feel like some of the finish materials seem cheap and unresolved, like the linoleum flooring on the interior. At some places within the museum, the articulation of the finishes seems to be almost a caricature of the cultures on display, dangerously Disney-esque I might say. While I really appreciate Nouvel’s attempt at creating an environment as poetic as “a simple woodland shelter”, I feel the images of forests screen printed to the glass are also a bit too literal for my tastes. I love the idea of light passing through a tree canopy, but I wish there was a more natural way to accomplish this.

Overall, this is a very ambitious project with many design lessons, but I feel as if the end result is less polished than some of his other work that I admire, and I am left feeling a bit unsatisfied with the result. I plan to spend the next rainy day back at the museum taking the audio tour. I feel that I need a better understanding of the artifacts on display to truly appreciate the building.

05.25.07: Musee du quai Branly

2007-05-26T10:18:00.001-05:00

Here are some of the concepts behind Jean Novel’s Musee du Quai Branley, in his own words…… (more of my analysis later)

“It is a museum built around a collection. Where everything is done to trigger the birth of the emotion carried by the main objective. Where everything is done at the same time to protect it from light and to capture that rare ray of sunshine that is indispensable for resonance, for the installation of spirituality”

“It is a unique and strange place. Poetic and Disturbing”

“But forget about the means… only the result matters: the material sometimes seems to disappear, we have the impression that the museum is a simple woodland shelter without walls. When dematerialization meets the expression of the signs it becomes selective. Here, illusion cradles the work of art.
It remains to invent the poetry of the situation: the transition is smooth: the Parisian garden becomes a sacred wood and the museum dissolves in its depths”

05.22.07 Some new, Some old

2007-05-23T11:36:00.000-05:00

As you may know, I studied architecture in Versailles, just outside of Paris, for one year in 1995-96. I have also been back to Paris several times since then, but is has been 8 years since I was here last. Some things have changed, some have not.

The New:
I was a bit surprised and sad to see a Starbucks on every corner (just about). I don’t know why this was a surprise to me. I guess that I associate Paris with the place that I developed my life-long addiction to coffee, and it saddens me to see coffee in Paris Americanized like everything else. For me, Paris is the quintessential café city, and it doesn’t need Starbucks. I am even sadder to report that I stopped at one for a chocolate donut this morning. … oops. It was a moment of weakness after an all night international flight.

The other obvious new thing in the past 8 years is the changes in technology. I have already sent emails, posted on my blog, and I made a cell phone call from the Pont des Arts to my wife back in suburban Chicago that was clear as a bell. Ironically, the connection cell connection from Paris 4000 miles away was far better than when I try to call home from the college that I work at just 22 miles from my house. The last time I was here it was a telephone card and a payphone….those days are happily gone.

The Old:
Paris still smells the same. It is hard to describe, but it is a uniquely Paris mixture of diesel fuel pollution, cigarette smoke, and a hint of urine. Strangely enough I love the smell of Paris.

I guess a number of other things make this still the same old Paris. There is still dog poop on the sidewalk, my favorite tourist trap…. the hordes of tourists are still here, and the city is as alive and vibrant as ever. The other thing that hasn’t changed is that Paris still has some of the best urban spaces in the world. As I walked around the city today, It felt great to revisit some of my old favorite places. It is good to be back in Paris!

05.21.07: Bienvenue a Paris

2007-05-23T11:33:00.000-05:00

I arrived in Paris this morning, and after dropping my bag off at the hotel, I headed straight for Notre Dame de Paris. What better way to kick off this trip than to start with Our Lady of Paris. Notre Dame is as magnificent as ever, and this is the first time I have seen the entire front façade scaffold free.

It reminded me why is so important for architects to travel (not that I needed much reminding). It makes me think of a line from one of the books I have my second year design students read: “Traveling is to the architect what the academy is to the man of letters”. Notre Dame underscores this idea, because it is simple not possible to understand a gothic cathedral without experiencing it. I often talk about the gothic cathedral as a “vessel of Light”. But today I was reminded how dark these spaces actually are. It is not the quantity of light that makes the space of a gothic building special, rather the lack of light that creates the drama. These cavernous, dark spaces come to life with light transformed through stained glass. The scale of the cathedral, the verticality of the interior space, even the smell of the stone space cannot be fully appreciated without a firsthand experience. Travelling is indeed an integral part of the education of an Architect.

05.20.07: Wheels Up

2007-05-22T09:05:00.000-05:00

Well, I am on my way. Getting out of town has been far more stressful than I had anticipated. Leaving for Europe for four weeks would have probably been stressful enough in and of its own right, but to further complicate things both my wife and daughter have been sick this week. Aside from being paranoid about getting sick myself, I have been continuously worried about my family as I depart for this month long journey. You would think that I haven’t done this before by how nervous I have been.

I am also a bit surprised how difficult it was to leave my 2 year old daughter. I keep telling myself that she will never remember any of this anyway, but it was difficult none the less.

Now that I am on my way, I am much more relaxed and ready to get going. As I passed by one of the many bookstore kiosks at the airport today, I noticed Italo Calvino’s “Invisible cities” prominently displayed. That book is a favorite of mine, and I have read it several times. I considered stopping to purchase it for a brief moment, until my rational side kicked in. I am currently carrying about 20 pounds of reading material for the trip. I think I have enough to read already, but I do enjoy Calvino’s imaginative and poetic prose. For those of you who haven’t read this book, I highly recommend it. The story, as told by Marco Polo, is an assembly of imagined cities from Polo’s travels, or perhaps it is simple a description of Venice, told over and over again. I am considering this sighting as a good omen as I depart, and this classic travel tale will be in my mind as I begin this trip.

Traveling Fellowship

2007-05-04T16:05:00.000-05:00

OK, I am a blog novice, and this is my first attempt at this kind of thing. Most of you know that I have been awarded a traveling fellowship from the school of architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The fellowship will bring me to Europe for 4 weeks beginning the end of May. To provide some background information, my original fellowship proposal is copied below. Like all creative endeavors, I expect this study to evolve and define itself throughout the process. My goal for this Blog is to record and document this experience. Look for images, sketches and analysis to be posted here beginning at the end of May. Now all I need is a passport!

FROM CONCEPT TO COMPLETION: How ideas shape the process and product of architecture.

Theory vs. Practice
It is often argued that there exists a division in architecture between theory and practice. There are those that argue that these two ideas are inherently in conflict with one another. That an architect’s career is a choice between the market driven business economies of an architectural practice verses the academic / architect theorist as interpreter of cultural phenomena. What if this question is the wrong question to be asking? Instead of theory vs. practice, I am interested in the exploration of theory and practice. How do the theories and ideas that architects begin the design process with ultimately affect the final product? In other words, does theory reinforce practice?

I have long believed that architecture is at its best when it is an expression of ideas. For architecture to have a depth and presence required to evoke an experiential connection, I feel it is necessary for the designer to have a clear conceptual vision, and prioritize this vision throughout the design process. Another way to phrase this is to say that as designers we must be intentional. My understanding of the importance of concept in the design process was something that I initially developed during my time as a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

For the past three years, I have been teaching architectural design at a community college. I find myself repeatedly trying to convince students of the importance of developing clear and strong concepts in their work, continuing to preach the fundamentals that I myself was taught as a student. This proposal seeks to further develop and enrich my own personal understanding of the role that theory and concept play in the design process. Through an in-depth analysis of the work of several well known, conceptually driven architects, I seek to develop an understanding of the role ideas and concepts play in the design process, and ultimately impact the built environment. Does concept drive and prioritize the design process as I have so often argued?

It is relatively easy to trace the relationship between the ideas, or values of a culture, and the architecture that certain cultures produced. Architecture has always been a mirror though which to measure a society or culture, and as such often reflects the goals, values and aspirations of a particular time and place. Historically, ideas or design theories often governed entire architectural movements uninterrupted for hundreds of years at a time. In today’s fast paced, hyper-media society, there is no one governing design trend or theory. Instead, architects seem to each develop their own theories in an attempt to create an appropriate expression for our place and time.

What role do concepts and theories play in the design process in our mass-media, information latent, global society? What are the driving theoretical forces of our time? How do concepts impact the design process? And what role does theory play in the eventual outcome of the completed work? These questions will drive the basis of this study, with a goal that this study will ultimately yield some conclusions about the importance of concept or theory in architectural practice.

Fellowship Proposal
Several recent projects by influential and well know architects have been selected for this study. Each of the architects on this list is considered at the forefront of the profession. Most of the architects selected became well known for their theories and writings long before they built work. All have won numerous design awards and have been widely published. All have written and published extensively about the concepts and theories that drive their own work. Each architect will be individually examined through a combination of background research, and an in-depth, on-site analysis of a single work.

This research will trace the evolution of idea from the beginning of the project through completion of built form. Background research will serve as the baseline reference point. What are the theories and ideas that drive each architect’s body of work? These ideas and theories will then be cross examined against the built product. Does the built work benefit from the theoretical basis of its inception? I intend to initiate a correspondence with each architect and discuss the work personally with a design team member involved in the design process. The study will lead to an analysis of the role theory, concept, and process played in the construction of these five built projects.

Architects / Projects

Jean Nouvel: Musee du Quai Branly, Paris, France 2006
Jean Nouvel’s latest work began with a vision of a “sacred wood.” Did this vision stand up to the realities of built form? How does this project relate historically to the design theories of Jean Nouvel’s work?

Bernard Tschumi: School of Architecture, Marne-la-Vallée, France 1999
There could not be a better building type for a theoretical discourse on architecture that an architecture school itself, and perhaps no better architect to analyze for theoretical substance than Bernard Tschumi. Tschumi has long been identified with his written work, from the Manhattan Transcripts, Architecture and Disjunction and most recently the Event-Cities series. Does his built work embody the theoretical substance of his writings?

Norman Foster: Free University Library, Berlin 2006
Of the architects selected, Norman Foster is perhaps less associated with architectural theory than the others. On the other hand, if there were to be only one theory for architecture today wouldn’t we want it to be sustainability? According to Metropolis Magazine, this is “Foster’s Greenest Building Ever.”

Peter Eisenman: Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin 2004
There is perhaps no better opportunity for symbolic expression than in the design of a memorial, and Eisenmann has long been considered at the forefront of architectural thought. Is this memorial an embodiment of ideas ranging from his initial interest in grids through his association with Jaques Derrida and the Deconstruction Movement?

Peter Cook and Colin Fournier: Kunsthaus Graz 2004
Biomorphism, or just funky form? Is this biomorphic techno-museum a “vision of the future,” or is it the contemporary, built version of ideas begun in by Archigram in the 1960’s? Its visual similarity to the “Walking City” of 1964 is hard to escape.

Zaha Hadid: Phaeno Science Center, Wolfsburg, Germany, 2005
Long considered a paper architect, Zaha Hadid became well know for her competition entries and stunning graphic compositions. Do her theoretical beginnings reinforce her built work?

2007-05-03T13:44:00.000-05:00

Stay tuned for posts from Europe beginning at the end of May.