Literary Dose #38

"For Pierre Restany it was the society founded on the eternal that was obsessed with the values of permanence and materiality; today, instead, we share the understanding, matured from the 1960s onwards, that what is real is not eternal. ... The danger of contemporary culture is not the freshness of the image, its here and now, but rather its freezing, mummifying it in a form that remains immutable over time. The obstinate hope for perrenial monuments in the end testifies to a headstrong obtuseness that we have dragged behind us since the time of the Egyptians, and which consists of wanting, at all costs, to exorcise death and refuse the deeper meaning of life, which is precisely that of mutability."

- Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi from New Directions in Contemporary Architecture: Evolutions and Revolutions in Building Design Since 1988 (Wiley, 2008, pp. 111)

(Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi's book contains a bibliography of "50 books, 10 of which are must-haves." I don't have all of the must-haves, but I do have 10 of the 50, pictured above.)

Today's archidose #333

Here's a tour of some Dutch buildings photographed by Helioscribe.


[Sabic European Head Office in Sittard by Group A]


[Smarties, Uithof (student housing) in Utrecht by Architectenbureau Marlies Rohmer]


[WoZoCo Housing in Amsterdam by MVRDV]


[Qubic (student housing) in Amsterdam by HVDN Architecten]


[Animal Refuge Center in Amsterdam by Arons en Gelauff Architecten]

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Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

Showroom Ofimodul in Monterrey, Mexico by stación-ARquitectura Arquitectos.

This week's book review is Everyday Urbanism, edited by John Chase, Margaret Crawford, and John Kaliski.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

WPA 2.0
"An open competition that seeks innovative, implementable proposals to place infrastructure at the heart of rebuilding our cities during this next era of metropolitan recovery." Registration deadline is July 24.

jargon, etc.
"Critical thinking and simple understanding" of "architecture, places, potentials and urbanism." (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

Architecture Revived
A one-year old blog with a bunch of projects and a logo with a resemblance to a certain magazine. (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

tropicalismo
A blog from a literally global architect. (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

DESIGN DAILY
"On-line design newspaper." (added to sidebar under blogs::design+technology)

Asylum

On Friday I attended an Architectural League lecture by photographer Christopher Payne, whose book Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals will be released this fall by MIT Press. Payne gave a brief history of the institutions, a subject I gained some familiarity from reading Carla Yanni's The Architecture of Madness. An architect by training, he discussed the typical plans of state hospitals, their grounds, and the impact of the edifices on their localities, followed by slides of his beautiful and moving photographs.


[Buffalo State Hospital Ward, 2009 by Chris Payne | image source]

What Payne was most enthusiastic about after his years of travels and shot-taking was the self-sufficiency of the places that grew their own food, made their own clothes, produced their own power, and in other ways basically lived "off the grid." He discovered parallels and inspiration with our current predicament, where self-sufficiency as a community goal is commendable, if not completely realistic. My studies in urban design stressed such an approach, though I'm suspect of an appreciation of places that disavows the circumstances of their self-sufficiency. Were the state hospitals self-sufficient due to their physical situations detached from cities (urban places were seen as harmful for mental recuperation around 100 years ago), or because the patients were removed from a society that did not want them? If it's the latter to any degree, how commendable is the self-sufficiency of state hospitals?

One aspect of the deterioration of state hospitals -- why they are being photographed as ruins and not architectural masterpieces -- is the rise of psychotropic drugs in the middle of last century and the shift from remote locations to community-based treatment. These factors led to reduced populations in the institutions, meaning less free labor for the farming, sewing, cooking and other activities that went into making the places self-sufficient. So basically this admirable trait arose from taking advantage of the inhabitants, like in prisons, which some of the state hospitals have actually become. Can this model be replicated in communities that strive for the self-sufficiency propounded by some? Hardly, though I wonder what would happen if people really tried to resuscitate these structures and their surrounding land as communities, instead of demolishing them to make way for suburban developments? If tried they might just become experiments that fade away in the 100-year time period of the state hospitals, though the same might be said of the suburbia that replaces them.

Today's archidose #332

Here are a couple views of the Portland Harbor Hotel -- the "addition of a 5-story contemporary glass volume and expansion of an existing hotel into an adjacent historic structure" -- in Portland, Maine by Archetype Architects. Photographs are by KMGough.

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Zumthor Book of the Moment

Looking for a good investment these days? Something that might increase in value from, say, $75.00 to $836.00 in less than ten years? Well be sure to pick up a copy of Seeing Zumthor--Images by Hans Danuser: Reflections on Architecture and Photography by Hans Danuser and published by Scheidegger & Spiess. It will be released on July 15.


[image description | image source]

At only 88 pages and just under 50 bucks retail it's not exactly cheap, but it is Zumthor, and in the world of architecture books he's the man. If the photos by Danuser below are any indication the imagery is dramatic and drenched in moodiness, just amazing to look at. They are clearly "photographs that comment equally on the art of photography and the art of architecture."


[Saint Benedict Chapel in Sumvitg, Graubünden, Switzerland photographed by Hans Danuser | image source]


[Saint Benedict Chapel in Sumvitg, Graubünden, Switzerland photographed by Hans Danuser | image source]

From the book's description:

"More than twenty years ago, in a milestone event of twentieth-century architectural photography, Danuser photographed, at Zumthor’s invitation, two buildings: the protective structure built for archaeological excavations in Chur and St. Benedict’s Chapel in Sumvitg. When first shown in exhibition, those photos ignited a lively debate that has been revived with a recent exhibition of Danuser’s photographs of Zumthor’s most famous work, the spa at Therme Vals. Seeing Zumthor collects these three important series of Danuser’s pictures and includes essays by leading art historians [a discussion between Köbi Gantenbein and Hans Danuser and an essay by Philip Ursprung] exploring the relationship between the two seemingly different disciplines or architecture and photography."

Today's archidose #331

Aberystwyth Art Centre, Creative Business units & studios., originally uploaded by Iqbal Aalam.

Aberstwyth Art Centre's Business Units in Aberstwyth, Wales by Heatherwick Studio, 2009.

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AE15: Polycarbonate Panels

Within the span of one week I came across two buildings, storage sheds, that each use polycarbonate panels, a cladding material not uncommon today. A quick flip through the chapter on plastics in Victoria Ballard Bell and Patrick Rand's Materials for Design reveals eight structures that use polycarbonate, be it a bus shelter, church, gallery or residence. Nevertheless it was quite a coincidence to see such similar types of buildings receive such similar treatment.

The Storage Barn in Washington, Connecticut is by Gray Organschi Architecture and is featured at Archinect. The small structure accommodates materials on palettes for the client, a builder. At first it reminds me of SPF:architects' Somis Hay Barn (featured in AE12), another storage shed whose appearance is constantly modified by the amount and configuration of materials stored. In that case it's hay, in this case it's wood and stone. The polycarbonate panels sit behind the materials stored under a shallow eave; they line the interior space and allow light to pass between the materials outside.


[Storage Barn by Gray Organschi Architecture | image source]

In Munich, Germany, 03 München has created a building for Firma Kraft Baustoffe, found at german-architects via their eMagazin. While on a much larger scale than the project above, and incorporating other functions besides material storage, the high shelf (empty in the photo below and full at bottom right) is basically the same parti as the Connecticut storage barn; materials sit in front of the polycarbonate wall lining the interior space. The main differences here are the scale of the storage, the extent of the roof covering the materials and the access road underneath.


[Baustoffhandel Kraft by 03 München | image source]

Neither project really expands on the use of polycarbonate panels, as exhibited in Materials for Design, for example. The translucent corrugated sheets are prized for admitting light, being lightweight and their resiliency to varying weather conditions. The material's use in these two projects is also due to its impact resistance, greater than glass. Therefore it is suitable in an area where palettes and their materials may inadvertently collide with the wall, all the while admitting the necessary light inside. The use of polycarbonate panels elevates what are basically functional sheds into glowing boxes with ever-changing appearances.

Children's Book of the Moment

Chair in the Illustration Department at Parsons New School and former Art Director for the Op-Ed page of The New York Times, Steven Guarnaccia reimagines the protagonists in his version of the Three Little Pigs in guises familiar to architects:



As the publisher describes: "Frank Gehry, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright are in fact the main protagonists of this contemporary tale with other renowned architects in their houses of scraps, of glass and of stone and mortar. In their famous buildings they live among objects designed by some of the most internationally representative architects and designers. But one day the wolf pays a visit to them..."



(Spotted in CCA Bookstore's July PDF listing.)

One Year in Ten Minutes

Nine minutes and fifty-seven seconds, to be precise, is the length of the Bartlett School of Architecture, Year 1's End of Year Film 2009.



The stop-action film is a very creative presentation of the class's installations, projects and travels. The school's "new wave of different architectures" is apparent in the film, even though depth of presentation is lacking in its rapid-fire style. But that's probably the point, eh? Convey the essence of the school's architecture department by using the images and sounds of the medium of film/video as a supplement to architectural production. The film's concept parallels the architectural concept. Whatever the case, it's refreshing to see that drawing and physical model-building are still taught in architecture schools today.

(Thanks to Patrick for the heads up!)

Fireworks and BBQ

I'm taking a long 4th of July weekend out of town away from the city and computers. Posts will resume early next week. My weekly page will resume on July 13.

Today's archidose #330

Here are some views of the Castel Firmiano Messner Mountain Museum in Bozen, Italy by Werner Tscholl. Photographs are by Martino Pietropoli.

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