architecture and civilization

[adam kondor]

(following a link provided by Jerry Bowles on S21)

I tend to believe that among representatives of all the professions, architects show the most civilized manners of behavior.
Is there any country where architecture is part of the national curriculum?

[adam kondor]

another beautiful one!

more here:
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/6767/3lhd-architects-ho...

and here:
http://3lhd.com/

what is the music of these spaces? Electronic or not? :)

[Jeff Harrington]

Smoove Jazz. ;-P

adam kondor said:

another beautiful one!

more here:
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/6767/3lhd-architects-ho...

and here:
http://3lhd.com/

what is the music of these spaces? Electronic or not? :)

[adam kondor]

very beautiful:

http://www.gokuwata.com/projects/NZB/LH01.html

[adam kondor]

"All roads lead to
Beijing. Or to Shanghai. This is what we can seemingly deduce from conversations with architects from different countries. Everyone is working in China or trying to get a project to develop in the country. Large firms, young architects, Americans, Europeans, Japanese. They all have a Chinese stamp on their passports. The new economic boom is closely connected with the strong architectural development of the last few years, with very attractive proposals such as Dongtan, the first environmentally sustainable city in the world, designed by Arup on an island off the coast of Shanghai..."


Ethel Barahona: The great economic
and social transformation that the country is undergoing is seen as an unprecedented urban explosion, articulated by major public constructions such as dams and bridges, aerial roads and underwater tunnels. It seems that these constructions have had a devastating impact on China’s historic and natural heritage. And this looks as if it is only the beginning.
...

There are foreign
architects currently working in China, figures of the category of Zaha Hadid, David Chipperfield, Norman Foster or Rem Koolhaas. Are they reinventing China, architecturally-speaking?

Qingyun Ma: In China today
there is now a great freedom for people of different cultural backgrounds to live together, to create in their works, almost like a fingerprint of each and every one of them. I mean a print in the economic capitalism, defined by the freedom to take individual decisions and regenerated by global movements. If we are not capable of understanding this movement, we will never be able to understand what is happening in China: we must be capable of rediscovering, of setting up new urban alternatives to be able to know where China is going, as a living, changing country. Neither do I know for sure if these architects have found a great source of inspiration in our thousands of years of history or if it is simply a question of a phenomenon in answer to globalisation in the world today. Without a doubt, it is not an easy answer, as it also makes me consider the fact that there are many Chinese architects of great constructions who are unknown in the western world or who simply do not fit in with the language of western architecture. This brings us to two hypothetical problems: discover if this language governed by western architects is so strong that at some time will end up dominating Chinese architecture, or if on the other hand, Chinese architects are unaware of their own value, of this language that is different from the western one, and do not know how to make themselves known abroad. It is a really interesting question.
...

When I
was at university in China, my position was totally opposed to traditionalism. Moreover, we were living in the 1980s, at a time when China was asleep and terrible events happened such as the massacre of Tiananmen Square. The young people were angry about everything, as we could see no way out for our country. This situation made me decide to study abroad. After some years, after having lived in the United States, after having absorbed the western way of life and gained confidence, I started to look back. At a time when my architectural style was totally westernised, I realised that the position of rejecting tradition and history was wrong. Because of my cultural background, it is very hard for me to define limits and to know if the China of today is shaping me or if I am a part of those that are shaping China. In any case, this mixture is at the same time positive and negative: positive because thanks to this I feel completely integrated in this current development; negative because in a way it hindered my training and my interest in traditional and historic subject, which I can now appreciate as being of great value.

[but] when I use traditional materials, I am
in no way trying to be or appear to be nostalgic, or become the “saviour of traditions”. These are simply materials that have always been there and in some way are right for the purpose of each project. All this knowledge that you acquire after university allows you to visualise the unique texture and light of each space and look for the material that allows it to develop.

[Steve Moshier]

What a f****** beauty!

Greg Hooper said:

our old house - britt andresen and peter o'gorman architects
I was reminded when looking at that beautiful chinese building - but I did wonder who would clean the glass, and how they would do it :)

[Steve Moshier]

Jesus, Greg watch out, f****** great looking spaces!

Greg Hooper said:

It certainly was amazing Steve - got one of the Record Houses of the year for Architectural Record in 1996 (I think that was the year?)
Britt is an amazing person - first woman to win Australia's major Architecture award. Her partner Peter was great too - he sadly died a few years ago.

We sold it a couple of years ago at the height of the market and are now renovating 'an honest 50's house' doing a lot of the work ourselves. (just came from a meeting onsite with the designer)
I've done quite a bit of renovating and my partner Lani is a dab hand at stuff as well. Neither of us had done much physical stuff for a while though, so when we started our muscles went into severe protest :)

Steve Moshier said:

What a f****** beauty!
Greg Hooper said:

our old house - britt andresen and peter o'gorman architects
I was reminded when looking at that beautiful chinese building - but I did wonder who would clean the glass, and how they would do it :)

[adam kondor]

inside

outside

inner-garden house

[adam kondor]

inside

outside

house in inba

[adam kondor]

Yamamoto Takuro

[Antonio Celaya]

I don't think that I would generalize to that extent. I don;t know that architects are any more civil than anyone else. Corbusier was conveniently pro-Vichy and refused to give credit for Xenakis's work. Frank Lloyd Wright treated his spouse(s) haughtily and abysmally. Bernini slept with his assistant's wife, ten slashed her face when she slept with his brother, and tried to kill his brother. Poor, unfortunate, but ever so brilliant, Boromini lacked any social graces. I don;t suggest that architects are any worse than composers or plumbers, just no better. Rem Koolhaus and Santiago Calatrava may be the most exemplary of souls. I don't know them. But I've know many lesser-known architects and their feet seem to be of the same type of clay as the rest of the world.

Perhaps because the costs of architecture are so sky-high (building a building is even more expensive than hiring an orchestra) architects must necessarily have certain social graces and charm. There is no equivalent to writing string quartets after the day job for architects. It's pretty cut-throat world. However, this doesn't make them more civil of moral.

[Paul H. Muller]

Antonio says:

"Perhaps because the costs of architecture are so sky-high (building a building is even more expensive than hiring an orchestra) architects must necessarily have certain social graces and charm."

Exactly. The architect has to be the consumate polititian - there is the high-powered client with the $, independent-minded contractors, city and state agencies to deal with. It's amazing that they have any freedom of expression at all.

I have a cousin who is an architect and right now he is driving a cab...

[adam kondor]