Studio 360

I agreed with a lot of what John Silber had to say about ridiculous architecture. . . right up until he cited Gaudi as an example of a great builder.

Every criticism that Silber has for Geary and Libeskind could be more aptly placed on Gaudi.

Gaudi's buildings have all kinds of engineering and maintenance problems. Unsolvable problems that would merit a tear-down for a lesser known building. When Silber describes Geary's buildings as a "grotesque hodgepodge" I think of the three facades on the Sagrada Familia: the drippy Nativity side filled with ceramic pomegranates, oranges, a big Christmas tree, snails and lizards. . . the Passion facade in an angular modern style and the unfinished nave. . .it's the definition of hodgepodge.

And lastly maybe Libeskind got the idea to choose a meaningful number for the height of the freedom tower by studying the towers in the Sagrada Familia: there are 365 steps to the top of each one.

Guggenheim Bilbao and Ghery's Disney Concert Hall in L.A. are breathtaking structures. To me box stores are absurd ... WalMart, Best Buy, et al ... because they are not only simply functional, but they seem to go out of their way to be aesthetically unpleasing. To build a structure with no consideration for how it will fit into its surroundings, for how it will affect its location and the people who move in that space, is absurd.

I agree that the Stata Center is absurd, but it's delightfully absurd, not unpleasantly absurd, as Silber claimed. I visit rather frequently, and the center occupants that I visit find it delightful to work there, and so do I.

As to Silber's "vertigo-inducing" comment, that applies to only one room, not the entire building (as he seemed to imply), and there have been some alterations to fix the problem - I had lunch there one day without any experience of vertigo at all.

More technical aspects of the building, involving economics, maintenance, and safety, are beyond my expertise. But as one person who has worked there, I can say that I am grateful to Gehry for an enjoyable environment to work in.

Although I know this will elicit negative feedback and in no way condones their destruction or seeks to minimize the tragic nature of same, I found the World Trade Center towers to be both absurd and arrogant, completely out of scale with the skyline of Manhattan and dehumanizing from street level.

The miniature Bunker Hill Monuments tacked onto the top of the Leoard P Zakim Bridge, I mean, the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Monument Bridge, are pretty absurd. This bridge was built as a component of the Big Dig project here in Boston and its quite a beautiful cable-stayed structure overall. But the mini bunker hill monuments are a clumsy, simple-minded addition that only detracts from any grandeur the bridge has. I've never seen the point of mirroring the large highly visible Bunker Hill Monument that stands only a mile away. This is not to mention the absurd mouth-full of a name that these things bring with them. I guess naming the bridge after a notable civil-rights activist wasn't good enough.

Antoine Predock's Social Sciences & Humanities Building at the University of California, Davis is also known as "the Death Star" or, my term, The Inhumanities Building. It is the most disorienting, unwelcoming and awkward building I've ever seen. All the spatial cues one normally counts on are betrayed. It may be an urban myth that Predock's intent was to force people to ask for directions as a way of promoting interaction, but I had to ask two people for directions in order to find a seminar last week (a receptionist wasn't able to help me; a student was). A reasonable range of views can be seen at http://daviswiki.org/Social_Sciences_and_Humanities_Building

though they quite literally put it in a better light than one sees day-to-day. The tower in the photo by Dan Fisher looms like a penitentiary guard tower. Some of the maintenance problems Silber mentioned of other buildings are starting to show up only 10 years on, such as rusting metal railings, cracking cement, and rain sluices that empty onto sidewalks. As the discussion at the daviswiki site suggests, however, these may have been artifacts of budget cuts rather than Predock's fault. The concept of modeling the Central Valley might have been evident viewing the model from above, but it breaks down in real use.

Moving from brickbats to bouquets, UCD's Shields Library is an airy uplifting cathedral of ideas, as is the U of Wash's Suzzallo Library (which really does look like a cathedral).

I am thrilled that someone has announced loudly that the emperor (Gehry) has no clothes. When I saw the sheets-of-aluminum-foil-thrown-at-each- other design for the new arts center at my alma mater, Bard College, I thought it was a joke. Heaven help us, they've actually built it (at what cost I don't know)! All the Gehry designs I've seen seem to shout, "Look at me! I'm a creative architect!" Feh.

I agree with Silber's and Bresler's comments about Ghery's monstrosities. The Ghery buildings I have seen reflect none of the principles of great, good, or even mediocre architecture. Basic Architectural concepts such as artfullness, creativity, form, function, balance, rhythm, expression of honesty & clarity of structure, statement of purpose, and respect for architectural surroundings are all

ignored by Ghery. I reviewed a set of construction drawings for a building he designed(?) for Cleveland, Ohio that had a very contrived and forced structural expression of form that would have made Frank Lloyd Wright & Louis Khan turn over in their graves! Anyone who uses crumpled up pieces of paper for design inspiration is definitely "the emperor that has no clothes". Hopefully, the public will see his work for what it is.....

How easily Silber solves aesthetic issues that have bedeviled the West for over 2,000 years! We need onl accept his judgement for all such questions and all will be well.

One can argue about functionality and actually reach a useful conclusion. Pretending that the same works for aesthetic judgements shows an adolescent arrogance that makes me glad I never had to work with this pretentious individual.

He might have something useful to say about technical issues, but, clearly, he hasn't learned to listen and such people aren't of much use in the intellectual arena.

Kudos to Kurt for allowing Silber to reveal himself.

Buildings are utilitarian by definition. If they do not meet this criteria then yes, they are absurd, irrational, silly, ludicrous, nonsensical. However, Architecture as the one bastardized art that combine the utilitarian with the sensual, Form sometimes follows function sometimes not, leading to these absurd questions regarding arrogance.

Both the client and the architect can feed this arrogants (regarding the Arrogant Architect)...and hopefully their efforts can lead to a building that meets both the utilitarian (including code, ADA, environment, program, structure, mechanical, site,etc) and the beautiful/ sublime. However often the world of Value Engineering enters, and everyones hard works turns to nothing. I envy the brave architects who carry on despite the unpaid hours to get the design right. I miss the passion I had to put in unpaid overtime and weekends and vacations and I hope I will have it again. It takes energy to deal with the John Silber of the world...but if one does persevere, in time, hopefully a beautiful/utilitarian building will come to fruition. Most great artists are criticized when they break out of the norm (Mahler, Manet, Kubrick, etc) so why would it be different for Alberti, Gaudi, Horta, Wright, Koolhaus or Geary

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...I just hope we have more beauty (or even sublime) to behold over the big box warehouses taking over the landscape.

Buildings I find Absurd:

1. Strip malls clad in stucco

2. Suburban homes with fake dormers

3. 'Traditional' styles

4. Temporary buildings outside elementary schools

5. HOA communities

Every one of these are far more absurd than anything Gehry has ever thought of.

archislave

http://www.mr-martini.com/archislave/

As a practicing design and planner, I actually agree with more of what the professor said than I disagree.

Most of what has been built in my lifetime (1960 forward) has been pretty awful in terms of inspiration, much less function and cost effectiveness.

(And now a for a real short of reality: most people in the profession are not all that impressed with Wright or Corbu or many of the modern "masters" either!

Now one things I give Gehry credit for is being honest on one point: He has said that if it were not for computers he could not stucturall build what he designs. Otherwise, I am already "tired" of his new look to buildings, and it seems every city wants one of his "things".

This was a story you would not hear anywhere else...keep up the good work.