Book Review: Depending on Time

Depending on Time by Jennie Savage
Safle, 2009
Paperback, 152 pages



Cardiff, the capital of Wales, has a compact city center but an abundance of 19th-century shopping arcades. These Victorian and Edwardian passages are memorable and give the city a strong sense of place, something that isn't particularly embraced by most contemporary developments (HOK Sport's Millennium Stadium, Wales Millennium Centre by Capita Architecture) that opt to create objects rather than spaces within the urban fabric. Artist Jennie Savage uses another one of these developments, the recent construction of the massive Saint David's Shopping Center (SD2) -- covering almost a third of the city center -- as the impetus for "The Arcades Project: A 3D Documentary," of which this book is a part. Savage explains that she wanted to "explore Cardiff's Victorian arcades in light of this new 'globalized' space; to see them as two bookends of consumer culture through the prism of architectural manifestation." SD2 appropriates the parti of the old arcades but is unable to capture their spatial appeal, an indication of changes in consumer culture as much as of architectural style.

"The Arcades Project" consists of a short film ("A Million Moments," shown as part of a site-specific intervention in one of the arcades), ten audio walks, and the book. The last is a combination of audio transcripts accompanied by visual imagery, handwritten notes, and sketches. The film and the audio documentary are included with the book, though all three point to the fact that absorbing all or part is not a replacement for the actual experience of Cardiff's arcades. All of them can be seen as a research project layered upon the actual place, generated from people's movements and activities within the city's spaces. My last visit to Cardiff in 2000 has been enhanced by the book, though one need not know the place intimately to appreciate Savage's analysis of the city's situation.

The author acknowledges the influence of Walter Benjamin's famous Arcades Project, evident in the project's title, though she admits it ends there: the 3D Documentary does not address Benjamin's seminal text, it uses archive material and interviews to examine the shifts in architecture and commerce. The interview transcripts do the most towards instilling a sense of place in the reader. They consist of quotes from shopkeepers, shoppers, writers, architects, and the SD2 developers, a diverse assemblage of voices that would ideally have predated SD2's construction to influence its design and ensure that as many contested interests are met. Of course this would be at odds with the developer's raison d'etre, maximum profit from minimal effort. That said, developers cannot exclusively dictate the shape of the urban fabric, but local governments can certainly cater to them. SD2 is indicative of the power of globalized commerce, good and bad qualities both. As an artwork, the various pieces of Savages's 3D Project are about exploring a place rather than creating a tangible artifact. As executed, and if the book can be seen as a final document in the project, what we learn can influence our thinking about other places, even though the project is about a very particular place.

or

Intensive Fields

Passing along some information on Intensive Fields: New Parametric Techniques for Urbanism, a conference at Harris 101, USC on Saturday, December 12. Click link above or image below to register.



Conference schedule:

9.45
Introduction
Dean Ma

10.00
Chair: Neil Leach
Theorizing the Parametric
Lecture
Manuel DeLanda, UPenn
Response
Benjamin Bratton, Anne Balsamo, Eui-Sung Yi

11.30 Coffee Break

12.00
Chair: Warren Techetin
Parametric Techniques
Lectures
Roland Snooks, UPenn/USC
Marc Fornes, USC/Columbia GSAPP
Response
Marcos Novak, Tom Kovac, Elena Manferdini

1.30 Lunch

2.30
Chair: David Gerber
Parametric Urbanism
Keynote Address
Patrik Schumacher, Zaha Hadid Architects/AA
Response
Greg Lynn, Stefano Di Martino, Greg Otto, Tom Wiscomb

4.00 Tea Break

4.30
Chair: Roland Ritter
Machinic Processes
Francois Roche, R&Sie(n)/USC/Columbia GSAPP
Response
Hernan Diaz Alonso, Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter, Peter Zellner

7.30
Reception

Storefront Newsprints

This is a collection that definitely should have been on my holiday list.

Storefront Newsprints 1982-2009

"Shortly after Storefront for Art and Architecture was born in 1982, founding director Kyong Park began circulating what he described as a "newsletter" among the gallery's friends and followers.

[...]

Over time, the archive of Storefront's Newsprints grew to become the most complete historical documentation of the gallery's programs since its earliest days. Storefront Newsprints 1982-2009 is comprised of reproductions of over 154 newsletters, many of which contain otherwise unpublished texts by artists, architects and theorists such as Vito Acconci, Lebbeus Woods, Michael Sorkin, Beatriz Colomina, Michael Webb and Eyal Weizman, among others."

If you're in New York City next week, there is a launch event at Storefront on Wednesday, December 9, 6pm.

Guests: Vito Acconci, Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, Mary Ellen Carroll, Liz Diller + Ricardo Scofidio, Didier Fiuza Faustino, Dan Graham, Sarah Herda, Bjarke Ingels, Laura Kurgan, Michael Manfredi, Damon Rich, Michael Sorkin, Joshua Stein, Michael Webb and many others

Today's archidose #375

Hargrove Music Library, Berkeley, originally uploaded by CTG/SF.

The Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library at UC Berkeley in Berkeley, California by Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects, 2004.

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Holiday Gift Books: 2009.5

As in the last four years, I'm presenting a list of gift books just in time for the holidays. This time around I'm presenting one each by 50 publishers, posted in five digestible installments of ten each, in alphabetical order. Below is the fifth installment. Once posted, the rest can be found here.

Taschen:

Zaha Hadid: Complete Works by Philip Jodidio
"This XL tome demonstrates the progression of Hadid’s career—including not only her extraordinary buildings but also furniture and interior designs—with in-depth texts, spectacular photos, and her own drawings."

Thames & Hudson:

Unbuilt Masterworks of the 21st Century by Will Jones
"100 of the best projects to have been proposed since the turn of the millennium. Includes projects by by the world’s greatest architects, from UN Studio, Foreign Office Architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Zaha Hadid to such up-and-coming stars as J. Mayer H. Architects and Asymptote."

University of Pittsburgh Press:

Pittsburgh: A New Portrait by Franklin Toker
"Remade as a thriving twenty-first-century city and an international center for science, medicine, biotechnology, and financial services, Pittsburgh is now routinely acclaimed as one of the most promising and livable of America's cities. Franklin Toker shows us why."

Viking:

Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne
"An account of what he sees and whom he meets as he pedals through metropoles from Berlin to Buenos Aires, Istanbul to San Francisco, Manila to New York, Bicycle Diaries also records Byrne’s thoughts on world music, urban planning, fashion, architecture, cultural dislocation, and much more, all conveyed with a highly personal mixture of humor, curiosity, and humility."

Wasmuth:

Sigurd Lewerentz: St. Petri edited by Wilfried Wang
"For the village of Klippan, the Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz was invited to design a church in 1962 at the age of 77. It was to become his most important commission, one that absorbed his typological concerns of earlier church designs as well as formal interests that he held since the early 1930s."

Wiley:

Architectures of the Near Future edited by Nic Clear
"Architectures of the Near Future offers a series of alternative voices, developing some of the neglected areas of contemporary urban life and original visions of what might be to come. Rather than providing simplistic and seductive images of an intangible shiny future, it rocks the cosy world of architecture with polemical blasts."

William Stout Publishers:

URBANbuild: local_global by Ila Berman and Mona El Khaff
"This publication documents a two year program at Tulane University School of Architecture ... initiated to actively support the rehabilitation of the city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina."

W.W. Norton:

Corporate Architecture: Building a Brand by Alejandro Bahamón, Ana Cañizares and Antonio Corcuera
"A brand is much more than the product or service that it represents—it is a whole imaginary world custom-made for the target consumer, and it often has little to do with what is being sold. Competition has given rise to a new class of buildings, designed by top architects and characterized by bold design approaches, surveyed in this sweeping study." Read my review of the book here.

Yale University Press:

Unpacking My Library: Architects and Their Books by Jo Steffens
"An intimate look at the personal libraries of twelve of the world’s leading architects, alongside conversations about the significance of books to their careers and lives."

Zero Books:

Militant Modernism by Owen Hatherley
"In readings of modern design, film, pop and especially architecture, [the book] attempts to reclaim a revolutionary modernism against its absorption into the heritage industry and the aesthetics of the luxury flat."

Holiday Gift Books: 2009.4

As in the last four years, I'm presenting a list of gift books just in time for the holidays. This time around I'm presenting one each by 50 publishers, posted in five digestible installments of ten each, in alphabetical order. Below is the fourth installment. Once posted, the rest can be found here.

Phaidon:

Anish Kapoor by David Anfam
"This is the most extensive monograph ever published on the artist, covering more than thirty years of work and illustrated with hundreds of full-color images including sketches and technical diagrams from his most ambitious projects."

Poligrafa:

The Feeling of Things by Adam Caruso
"Principal of the London based architecture office Caruso St John, together with Peter St John, Adam Caruso has develop an intense activity as writer, focusing his thoughts on the architectural practice and the updated of some figures of the so called other tradition of the Modern Movement."

Prestel:

Albert Speer & Partner: A Manifesto for Sustainable Cities by Jeremy Gaines
"Many of [the firm's] trailblazing projects are discussed in this compelling and timely look at what has been accomplished in an effort to satisfy the array of social, economic, and environmental demands of the twenty-first century."

Princeton Architectural Press:

Design Ecologies: Sustainable Potentials in Architecture edited by Lisa Tilder and Beth Blostein
"A new generation of architects, landscape architects, designers, and engineers aims to recalibrate what humans do in the world according to how the world works as a biophysical system. Design Ecologies is a ground-breaking collection of never-before-published essays and case studies by today's most innovative designers and critics. Their design strategies—social, material, and biological—run the gamut from the intuitive to the highly technological."

Reaktion Books:

Twenty Minutes in Manhattan by Michael Sorkin
"A personal, anecdotal account of [Sorkin's] casual encounters with the physical space and social dimensions of this unparalleled city. His perambulations offer him—and the reader—opportunities to not only engage with his surroundings but to consider a wide range of issues that fascinate Sorkin as an architect, urbanist, and New Yorker."

Rizzoli:

Frank Gehry: The Houses by Mildred Friedman
"[The architect] has achieved worldwide fame for such large-scale public projects as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California, but it was in private houses that Gehry first explored and interrogated the principles of modern architecture."

Rockport:

1000 Ideas by 1000 Architects by Sergi Costa Duran and Mariana R. Eguaras
"This book provides behind the scenes insight into the work of 100 top international designers through the deconstruction of 1000 architectural details and projects. An unrivaled sourcebook for ideas, this collection also provides details and information that are not available on this level through any other source."

Routledge:

Climate and Architecture by Torben Dahl
"Beautifully illustrated with photographs, diagrams and building plans, the book sets out the environmental basis for sustainable design into the 21st century."

Skira:

The New Acropolis Museum edited by Bernard Tschumi Architects
"The book provides an in-depth look at the creation of the building, set only 280 meters from the Parthenon, as well as the restoration, preservation, and housing of its exhibits through over 200 photographs, drawings, and texts."

Steidl:

Edward Burtynsky: Oil edited by Marcus Schubert
"Burtynsky locates and documents the sites that urban dwellers never see, and questions human accountability. His imagery is vast in both scale and ambition, revealing the apparatus behind the energy we mine from dwindling resources, and the ongoing effects of the industrial revolution."

Holiday Gift Books: 2009.3

As in the last four years, I'm presenting a list of gift books just in time for the holidays. This time around I'm presenting one each by 50 publishers, posted in five digestible installments of ten each, in alphabetical order. Below is the third installment. Once posted, the rest can be found here.

Laurence King Publishing:

Extreme Architecture: Building in Challenging Environments by Ruth Slavid
"Forty-five recent buildings designed for challenging environments, giving valuable insights into the extremes of architectural thinking. Futhermore, in an increasingly unstable world, some of the lessons they teach about self-sufficiency may yet become more generally applicable." Read my review of the book here.

Map Book:

Public Works: Unsolicited Small Projects for the Big Dig edited by J. Meejin Yoon with Meredith Miller
"A series of 14 disarmingly modest, speculative interventions by the Boston-based MY Studio, a multidisciplinary design firm operating in the space between architecture, art and landscape. Collectively, these interventions expose, connect and reconfigure the relationship between the underground expressways and the new parks that emerged in the Big Dig's wake, demonstrating the effect design can have on our conception of public space."

McGraw-Hill:

The Smart Growth Manual by Andres Duany and Jeff Speck with Mike Lydon
"With this long-awaited companion volume [to Suburban Nation], the authors have organized the latest contributions of new urbanism, green design, and healthy communities into a comprehensive handbook, fully illustrated with the built work of the nation's leading practitioners."

Merrell Publishers:

Books Do Furnish a Room by Leslie Geddes-Brown
"In this beautifully illustrated guide, self-confessed bibliophile Leslie Geddes-Brown offers inspirational solutions and practical tips on how to make the most of books in every room and forgotten nook of the house."

Metropolis Books:

Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People by Emily Pilloton
"Featuring more than 100 contemporary design products and systems--safer baby bottles, a high-tech waterless washing machine, ... universal composting systems, DIY soccer balls--that are as fascinating as they are revolutionary, this exceptionally smart, friendly and well-designed volume makes the case for design as a tool to solve some of the world's biggest social problems in beautiful, sustainable and engaging ways--for global citizens in the developing world and in more developed economies alike."

MIT Press:

Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals by Christopher Payne
"Architect and photographer Christopher Payne spent six years documenting the decay of state mental hospitals, visiting seventy institutions in thirty states. Through his lens we see splendid, palatial exteriors and crumbling interiors."

The Monacelli Press:

The Architecture of Natural Light by Henry Plummer
"For all those seeking to create space that transcends the physical, The Architecture of Natural Light is a powerful and poetic yet practical survey that provides an original and timeless approach to contemporary architecture."

NAi Publishers:

Architecture in the Netherlands: Yearbook 2008/09 by Samir Bantal, JaapJan Berg, Kees van der Hoeven, Anne Luijten
"The shortlist of 30 projects provides a wide-ranging overview of trends, design strategies, architectural typologies and topical themes that have influenced architecture in 2008. The editorial team also highlights relevant and urgent developments and places them on the agenda in a series of essays, visual and textual."

Oxford University Press:

The Oxford Companion to Architecture by Patrick Goode, Stanford Anderson and (the late) Sir Colin St John Wilson
"Embracing the world of architecture in all its variety, the Companion offers complete coverage of architecture from around the world, giving equal weight to architecture in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America as to the more familiar examples from Western Europe and the United States,and of both modern and vernacular architecture."

Papadakis Publishers:

Drawing Parallels: Architecture Observed by Quintin Lake
"From megacities to the remotest villages, from man-made structures to natural forms, [Quintin Lake] takes us through pairings of photographs that force us to re-examine the world around us and challenge our understanding of what constitutes architecture."

Holiday Gift Books: 2009.2

As in the last four years, I'm presenting a list of gift books just in time for the holidays. This time around I'm presenting one each by 50 publishers, posted in five digestible installments of ten each, in alphabetical order. Below is the second installment. Once posted, the rest can be found here.

Chronicle Books:

The BLDGBLOG Book by Geoff Manaugh
"Insights in book form, combining history, urban exploration, science fiction, design, climate change, and city planning with the view that everything is relevant to architecture."

DesignIntelligence:

33: Understanding Change & the Change in Understanding by Richard Saul Wurman
"Architect, designer, creator of the celebrated TED Conference, and prolific author Richard Saul Wurman's 33 chronicles the adventures and musings of an eccentric (yet oddly familiar) character: the Commissioner of Curiosity and Imagination."

Elsevier:

London's Contemporary Architecture: An Explorer's Guide by Kenneth Allinson
"Now in its fifth edition, the guide has been fully updated to cover the latest additions to the London skyline and buildings of architectural significance."

GG:

2G 48/49 Mies van der Rohe: Houses edited by Moisés Puente
"New, specially commissioned photographs and commentary on 16 built and 21 unbuilt houses. This eagerly-anticipated publication contains a compendium of Mies' houses, built between 1906 and the beginning of the 1960s ... showing the enduring influence he has had over the whole of the last century in both Europe and the USA." Read my review of the book here.

Hatje Cantz:

James Turrell: Geometry of Light edited by Ursula Sinnreich
"A lifelong explorer of perceptual psychology, Turrell is undoubtedly the most influential contemporary light artist, as well as one of America's most popular artists. In Geometry of Light, the first significant Turrell survey in many years, an extraordinary body of work covering several decades is assessed."

Images:

Details in Architecture by Andrew Hall
"A study of the emerging trends in architectural detailing, with a strong focus on innovative design, enviro-sustainability and many aspects of cross-cultural design."

Jovis:

Berlin-New York Dialogues edited by AIA New York
"Berlin–New York Dialogues explores the mechanisms of urban regeneration that are changing the built environment in Berlin and New York."

Knopf:

Hearts of the City: The Selected Writings of Herbert Muschamp by Herbert Muschamp
"The pieces here—from The New Republic, Artforum, and The New York Times—reveal how Muschamp’s views were both ahead of their time and timeless."

L.A Forum:

After the city, this by Tom Marble
"Using the structure of a screenplay to tell the story, architect Tom Marble takes the reader inside the minds of the people on both sides of the [Los Angeles real estate] development conflict - those seeing land as a commodity for profit, and those who see it as a valued resource for all to enjoy."

Lars Müller Publishers:

Ecological Urbanism edited by Harvard University
"While climate change, sustainable architecture, and green technologies have become increasingly topical, issues surrounding the sustainability of the city are much less developed. The premise of the book is that an ecological approach is urgently needed both as a remedial device for the contemporary city and an organizing principle for new cities."

Holiday Gift Books: 2009.1

As in the last four years, I'm presenting a list of gift books just in time for the holidays. This time around I'm presenting one each by 50 publishers, posted in five digestible installments of ten each, in alphabetical order. Below is the first installment. Once posted, the rest can be found here.

010 Publishers:

Archiprix 2009 edited by Henk van der Veen
"Each year the Dutch institutions teaching architecture, urban design and landscape architecture select their best final-year projects. The crop is unfailingly rich and varied and reflects the ambition of a new generation of designers ready to take on every imaginable design task that comes their way."

Actar:

The Function of Form by Farshid Moussavi
"A thought-provoking account of the challenges facing the 21st century built environment, and an enlivened awareness of the wider possibilities of architectural form."

A&S Books:

Manfredo Tafuri: Choosing History by Andrew Leach
"The first English-language book to consider [critic Manfredo Tafuri's] contribution to architectural culture, it opens an overdue discussion on both the premises of his practice and the historical questions that consequently emerge."

aperture:

The Transparent City by Thomas Wolf
"Bringing his unique perspective on changing urban environments to a city renowned for its architectural legacy, Wolf chose to photograph [Chicago's] central downtown area, focusing specifically on issues of voyeurism and the contemporary urban landscape in flux."

a+t:

HoCo: Density Housing Construction & Costs by Aurora Fernandez Per, Javier Mozas & Javier Arpa
"The new volume published by a+t forms part of the Density series, dedicated to the analysis of collective housing. HoCo is noted for including construction systems within the field of study and comparison, besides the costs of each project." Read my review of the book here.

Arvinius:

Nordic Architects by David Sokol
"Readers will engage with the region's enduring legacy of modernist architecture that is sensitive to both site and occupants, as well as the global currents that are roiling designers toward experimental work and provocative thinking."

AVA Academia:

Basics Landscape Architecture: Urban Design by Tim Waterman and Ed Wall
"Providing an overview of urban design from a landscape architecture perspective and a brief history and definition of urban design, it looks at the elements of urban form and the importance of contextual details."

Birkhäuser:

Visualizing Landscape Architecture: Functions, Concepts, Strategies by Elke Martens
"This books sifts through the currently commonplace and available techniques [for communicating landscape designs] and evaluates them in terms of their informative value and persuasive power, always illustrating its points with analysis of examples from international firms."

Black Dog Publishing:

Collected Essays in Architectural Criticism by Alan Colquhoun
"Collected Essays in Architectural Criticism encompasses the clarity of style and rigorous, erudite analysis that Colquhoun has brought to bear on a diverse range of subjects, including Le Corbusier, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, the Pompidou Centre, Postmodernism and the design of museums."

Charta:

Hans Ulrich Obrist: Interviews, Volume 2 edited by Charles Arsène-Henry, Shumon Basar, Karen Marta
"A rich trove of international cultural thought spanning the past 100 years. Encyclopedic in scope but intimate in tone, these exchanges provoke unexpected torrents of biographical trajectories, theoretical adventurings and inklings of projects to come."

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

Olympia Avenue Student Housing in Pullman, Washington by Mithun.

This week's book review is Radical Games: Popping the Bubble of 1960s' Architecture by Lara Schrijver.

Note: All this week I'm posting my list of holiday gift books, followed by a few days off for an extended Thanksgiving vacation. Regular posts will resume the middle of next week. My next weekly page update will be on 2009.12.07.

Today's archidose #374

THE BURJ, originally uploaded by WOWHYD.

The Burj Dubai in Dubai, United Arab Emerites by SOM, 2009.

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:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
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Louvre Abu Dhabi

The idea of a Louvre branch on Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Island is just mind-boggling. When completed in 2013, the museum will present "works drawn from the Louvre and other French museums and from its own permanent collection." But if the numbers in Adran Hornsby's article on the end of "starchitecture" in the latest Hunch are any indication -- approximately half of the $1.4 billion budget is allotted for "Louvre art loans and management and curatorial services" -- the majority of art will be shipped to Abu Dhabi.

But what art? Curators will have to pass on paintings depicting the female nude, a rather large canon of Western art, as Hornsby points out. So when thinking about a project that buys the use of the name Louvre, borrows its art, and is still largely undefined in terms of its contents, it seems appropriate that Jean Nouvel's design is basically a big roof, a dome over a bunch of buildings and outdoor space. The name and the architecture come before the contents, which are seen as just more items of international trade and commerce.


[architect and client under full-scale mock-up]

Yet I have to admit it's a pretty cool roof, one that filters the sun to minimize the heat from it but still celebrate it. The PR text describes it and the mock-up above:

"A key design element of the Louvre Abu Dhabi will be its great dome, 180 meters (almost 600 feet) in diameter, floating above a cluster of buildings and waterways. Perforated by interlaced patterns, the dome will let a diffused light filter magically into the spaces below. The prototype, 6 meters (approximately 20 feet) in diameter, is being used to test the play of light and shadows on the site prior to fabrication of the final structure"

[architect and client inside small-scale model of the Louvre Abu Dhabi]

Well, if the Louvre Abu Dhabi can't display the nude female body, why not giant statues of Jean Nouvel and Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan? Looks good to me.

Today's archidose #373

Here are a couple Friday afternoon facades.


[Beekman Tower in Manhattan by Gehry Partners, under construction | photo by Philippe2032 from Paris]


[Campus Audiovisual in Barcelona, Spain by David Chipperfield Architects, 2008 | photo by jmtp]

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Half Dose #71: Grand Teton National Park Discovery and Visitor Center

Completed in the summer of 2007, the Grand Teton National Park Discovery and Visitor Center -- officially the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center -- by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson still racks up the awards, most recently a 2009 AIA Seattle Honor Award and a 2009 Western Red Cedar Architectural Design award. It's easy to see why in the playful yet restrained design that echoes the surrounding mountains of northwest Wyoming.


[photo by Nic Lehoux]

When I think of a national park visitor center the one overlooking Mount Rushmore, as portrayed in Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest, comes to mind, mainly because I've never been to a national park appointed with such a building. I'm not sure if the cafeteria in the visitor center in the film is modeled on the real thing, but a few things come across in the film set: a spacious interior, a modern/rustic aesthetic, and expansive views of Mount Rushmore. The Grand Teton Visitor Center has all these qualities, though its view is much less focused than the South Dakota landmark.


[photo by Nic Lehoux]

The main parti of the design is a U-shape that creates an intimate outdoor space and opens up a large perimeter of windows to the mountain views to the north. Services and other ancillary spaces are located on the east and west (an auditorium addition is planned for the west side), leaving the central spaces open with generous light from the south-facing courtyard. [floor plan]


[sketch and plan by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson]

Further, the sloping section means the north-facing glazing is taller than the exterior walls facing the courtyard. This may seem at odds with the particularly cold Wyoming winters, but it serves more of a symbolic than a practical purpose: the slope and expanse of glass open up the building towards the mountains while the serrated plan echoes their rugged topography.


[photo by Nic Lehoux | sketch by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson]

In terms of appearances, the building brings to mind the phrase "extreme vernacular," in the sense of "to the extreme!" The Visitor Center recalls traditional wood buildings -- mostly in the courtyard and solid east-west ends -- but it departs sharply from the vernacular by combining the sloping roofs with a highly irregular plan and large expanses of glass.



[photos by Nic Lehoux]

Even the tree-trunk columns and beams depart from any traditional role in the selective use of them: they are not continuous, only used in an upside-down U-formation when needed at varying angles that echo the exterior wall but do not follow them precisely.


[photo by Nic Lehoux]

This last photograph clearly illustrates the expansive views captured with the 30-foot (9-meter) high glass walls. In this large space the Discovery displays get a little lost; I can see people quickly gravitating to the glass walls and benches past them. Remembering North by Northwest, I can see a lovely cafeteria in this space.