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Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
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Am surprised that someone who ''laments the loss of hand drawing in the creative process'', would point to Jeanne Gang as the prime example of an architectural 'role model' for creativity. While I appreciate some of her work, it's clearly a ''group effort'', largely driven by the engineering of repetitive exterior forms, and makes heavy use of CAD and 3-D illustration, even in the early design stages. Which is fine, although certainly a much different approach from say, Gehry, who is very much the one-man ''auteur''. And if you've ever seen Sydney Pollack's award-winning documentary on Gehry, it's obvious that his signature sketches are the very soul of his work... not to mention he's also the first architect to employ aerospace design & engineering tools to make those freeform sketches into a reality, both at the structural and the ''superficial'' levels!
Am surprised that someone who ''laments the loss of hand drawing in the creative process'', would point to Jeanne Gang as the prime example of an architectural 'role model' for creativity. While I appreciate some of her work, it's clearly a ''group effort'', largely driven by the engineering of repetitive exterior forms, and makes heavy use of CAD and 3-D illustration, even in the early design stages. Which is fine, although certainly a much different approach from say, Gehry, who is very much the one-man ''auteur''. And if you've ever seen Sydney Pollack's award-winning documentary on Gehry, it's obvious that his signature sketches are the very soul of his work... not to mention he's also the first architect to employ aerospace design & engineering tools to make those freeform sketches into a reality, both at the structural and the ''superficial'' levels!
Interesting post. First off, I wasn't "lamenting" (at least not overtly), it was Michael Graves who was lamenting. Nevertheless I get your point. I did not consider process at all when I made my short list of creative architects. 'Was just reacting to the work.
Now that I think about it, I'm not sure that working collaboratively in a team (vs independently) says anything about creativity. It is certainly a different dynamic; one of give and take and compromise. Tod Williams writes about this in his monograph; about working with his wife and partner. Yet the product is very good despite the "compromises" and Williams suggests the work would not be as good without them.
I have some misgivings about the Aqua Tower though. Like Gehry's work, it is very much about visual effect. But to hear her go on about sustainability in the video, and then realize that you have these concrete slabs going from outside to inside on a tower...in Chicago...makes me shiver just thinking about it.
Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
8,852 posts, read 10,456,964 times
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Yes, it was funny to hear Gang discuss new projects with her team, and note her annoyance that so many clients are already seeking something ''Aqua Tower-ish''! Though I can also see where some clients may be coming from, because in some ways it is a clever ''trick'' that could easily be ''re-purposed'' into other designs. And yeah, one of my first thoughts is who gets to clean up all the pigeon droppings (...LOL)?!
Agreed that its possible for creativity to exist in a group endeavor, though ''survive'' might be a more accurate term within a larger group (and there's a good reason for the phrase, ''design by committee'')! Though naturally, collaborating with another complimentary partner is a very different experience (such as with Williams & his wife, or say the Cohen Brothers in film).
I actually have mixed feelings about Gehry's work. Though it's obviously very striking, most of it really doesn't resonate with me that much aesthetically. But what I do find exciting, and what a lot of folks don't appreciate beneath all the ''flash'', is that he has basically revolutionized the whole rectilinear, concrete & steel thang. Every single supporting girder within those dramatic sweeping curves is custom fabricated, and precisely specced by the design software for the required loads, in exactly the same manner as an aircraft wing is designed.
And now that a ''method'' has arrived which finally frees up an architect to treat the entire structure as literally a ''sculpture'', I suspect it won't be long before someone eventually employs it to design some truly beautiful work... which might be Gehry, or it may be someone else!
Perhaps, but the OP is about creativity, so I give him points for (literally) thinking ''outside the box'', and the guy's certainly won more international design awards than either of us ''critics''! Besides, lord knows we already have enuff boring-azz Post-Modern boxes and pseudo Greek Revival (are you listening NYC & DC)?!
So what do you consider ''creative'' architecture these days?
I used to sort of admire Gehry buildings but I suspect they (like Michael Graves buildings) will start to look sort of ridiculous as they age. I just read an interesting article about a Guggenheim commission that was cancelled. Goodbye to Frank Gehry's Bad Joke | Capitalism MagazineCapitalism Magazine
Yes, it was funny to hear Gang discuss new projects with her team, and note her annoyance that so many clients are already seeking something ''Aqua Tower-ish''! Though I can also see where some clients may be coming from, because in some ways it is a clever ''trick'' that could easily be ''re-purposed'' into other designs. And yeah, one of my first thoughts is who gets to clean up all the pigeon droppings (...LOL)?!
Agreed that its possible for creativity to exist in a group endeavor, though ''survive'' might be a more accurate term within a larger group (and there's a good reason for the phrase, ''design by committee'')! Though naturally, collaborating with another complimentary partner is a very different experience (such as with Williams & his wife, or say the Cohen Brothers in film).
I actually have mixed feelings about Gehry's work. Though it's obviously very striking, most of it really doesn't resonate with me that much aesthetically. But what I do find exciting, and what a lot of folks don't appreciate beneath all the ''flash'', is that he has basically revolutionized the whole rectilinear, concrete & steel thang. Every single supporting girder within those dramatic sweeping curves is custom fabricated, and precisely specced by the design software for the required loads, in exactly the same manner as an aircraft wing is designed.
And now that a ''method'' has arrived which finally frees up an architect to treat the entire structure as literally a ''sculpture'', I suspect it won't be long before someone eventually employs it to design some truly beautiful work... which might be Gehry, or it may be someone else!
And this is exactly what makes me uneasy about it. An airplane wing is designed with a singular function in mind: to create differential air pressure so that the thing can be kept aloft. Without that you don't have a plane, so you go thru an extremely specialized design process to get it and the result is a very specific form. In the case of a Gehry museum, it's function is to display art, and yet his team goes through similar aeronautical gymnastics to do what Kahn did brilliantly in a box. The nature of steel (or brick, or curtain wall) is defied for the sake of effect. Sculpture trumps architecture. Not that the results aren't beautiful or exciting, its just the intellectual content that falls short in my opinion.
So how do these posts always end up with a discussion about Gehry!!!
Humans communicate with symbols, civilized humans communicate with structured language, wethere it be prose music or architecture. Lesser forms of artistic communication certainly have some value, but not culturally, time does not treat them well and they are soon abandoned and regarded as rubbish as they have no means to effectively communicate beyond the present. And so will be the fate of nearly every building designed by Gehry.
Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
8,852 posts, read 10,456,964 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stevo6
So how do these posts always end up with a discussion about Gehry!!!
Probably what happens when folks do controversial stuff that pushes the envelope (for better or worse). Speaking of which, until it got shot down for mostly political reasons, was pretty impressed with this ambitious proposal by New York-based Asymptote Architecture, for the Penang Global City Centre in Malaysia... designed to be a "carbon-free city", among other things. Asia really seems to be open to a lot of bold & interesting architecture these days... and like the Middle East, they have the money for it!
Architects used to work with teams of craftsmen, mason, sculpturers, and carvers to try and make a building that would fit in with it's surroundings. Beaux-Arts may have been a reaction to Victorian, but they were fundamentally of the same cloth. Now those teams have been stripped away, and architecture has been transformed into a cult of egotism. I cannot name but a few famous pre-1935 architects, and that is GOOD thing.
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