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'Good' Architecture.
Comments
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I am always pleased to read the writings of those that can define areas of production, like art, with clarity and confidence. If only the billion hicks could be thus educated and know the satisfaction of not having to contend with perhaps and maybe when judging the merits of a decorated cake or chopped and blown Torrana.
Architecture seems like a messy subject area at the best of times. To get stuck in form vs function seems rather trite. What about site context? Did the squiggle in Bilbao have a positive effect? Who knows ? A successful building will be judged beyond planning, and therefore having a concern for style, possibly at the expense of function is not to be dismissed. I would never argue that this means all buildings can be viewed as such, but rather that any rigid definitions of what is good, bad, architecture, art and hick are often made by those who have perhaps missed a fundamental footnote.
The minute something is called architecture, or art or anything else, be suspicious
I have no previous posts to refer anyone to, however, I would recommend reading my first paragraph again very carefully if in any doubt as it is without question quite thoughtful and there is mention of cake. -
<p>Talking of cake, is ARM's polystyrene pavlova of a recital centre any good? I admire the intellectual efficiency of one retail anolgy fitting all building programs but it's only relaying a stinking old baby boomer observation and I think we got the message ages ago. Problem is, it's to well built to be really challenging - Makes you appreciate the pungency of Corrigans stinker next door. ARM are fast becoming the thinking mans Buchan Group.</p>
<p>Venturi buidings aren't supoosed to be this crap.</p> -
ha.
Sod - v's shit aren't this crap.
seen the dixwell fire station - a chopped and blown torana , no ifs buts or maybes.
or even just a well iced cake - very tasty.
the pavlova is dated, just as its finished - must be their new strategy.
well built? - or every day slick.
- that MSG thing is interesting - what time in the 80s was it built? -
Ha - precisely.
Sorry Simon it was a slightly loaded post. A tasty cake it is, the sponge is light and moist, with a healthy dose of vanilla essence and made with an ethic not at all out of place on a CWA fete trestle. The icing, however, has it's cochineal measured to the drop.
It is good architecture, I would not have posted it otherwise, but it must be said, the facade is doing a lot of the work (hence Boyd). I post it because it follows said method and is at the same time contentious. w_y_e states the case, and others, well.
Venturi also makes an opportune re entrance, is it just me (and possibly hairdresser - the MSG and 80's did not go un-noted) or is there something of his mum's place in that facade? Perhaps they feared a visit from ARM's legal team if they messed with the photocopier.
Pop quiz: why is Vanna's house green? -
Would have loved to watch the reaction from Arup's Acoustic experts to the suggestion of actually using TV packaging to line the main auditorium. Shame, might have countered the mentioned polish. Must stroll past now it's finished.
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SS - thanks for the link to the Swiss architect's project
And yes - I do like it - always have
But for different reasons - and none to do with art
Corb/Jeanneret had a multiple identity crisis too
Islamic roots more than Jewish -
<p>Info, any clues as to the reasons you like it then, if none of it is to do with art.</p>
<p>And there really is no identity crisis in having multiple heritage issues. My German ancestors are Jewish and came out to the gold rush as saddle makers because they secretly made saddles for the Prussian revolutionaries (inspiriees of the French revolution) and got found out and became political refugees. An identity crises has more to do with politics than it has to do with genes. I inherited thier noises as much as I inherited thier noses. Incidently, I know more about them than I do about my Wuradjeri ancestors. That so much was secret is a good topic for artists because art is essentially a discussion of what is the truth, hence it's strong allegiance to 'good' architecture.</p>
<p>It is not a simple issue but I am not in crisis about it.</p>
<p>w y e, "To get stuck in form vs function seems rather trite." It is not a form VERSUS function issue I am raising. It is a form AND function issue. A stylist defends thier camp by seeing a battle between the two, when from a functionalist point of view there is no battle to be had, because you cannot have one without the other in good architecture. That function is resolved should automatically mean that style is also resolved, and if the artist is invoked then the style is resolved as well as the function. see below note.</p>
<p>b n, That you think the facade is doing a lot of the work is precisely why I think the facade has too much importance placed on it. I think that on the contrary the facade is doing hardly any work at all and it is the internally resolved issues of the building's fitness for purpose that is lifting the whole building's game. That it's residence profess to loving living in it, is not the bonus, it is the raison d'ert of the building. It is the facade that is the bonus and therefore was probably the least work to do for the architect and has the least work to do as a finished article. In the design process I am willing to bet that its external appearance was the last issue to be resolved and thus is doing the least work now.</p> -
@b_n
why is the vv house green? dunno.
I know it wasn't originally - was a natural stucco.
I know he repainted it some time around 1970.
was it meant to be green to start with and his mum kicked up and said no?
I saw all the models for it many years ago at MOMA NY. it took him about 20 goes to get to the final thing. He moved a long way from where he started - which was a version that looked like an earlier holiday house he did in C&C. I wonder if MSG did 20 versions of theirs or moved much from where they started. -
<p>SS - your design approach is lazy and inept - hoping a facade will take care of itself because a building is 'fit for its purpose' is as design negligent as ignoring the more basic elemants of a design brief. You belong in the 70's.</p>
<p>walk around any built up urban area - investing care and attention in facade design is a vital design activity. GM has a limited design philosphy because his work is largely limited to tricked up chook sheds for rich people. He doesn't have much to offer in providing solutions for more pressing issues such as urban consolidation becuase he chooses to work elsewere. His work is frivolous and irrelevant. </p> -
Here are three glasses I own. Functionally they are pretty much the same. One I only use for coloured fizzy drinks. One I use for coffee. One I use for having a wee dram, but more regularly, gin with tonic which naturally suggests the use of lime to maintain the style of the drink.
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I think the Vanna mod is pretty good. One can now safely omit the lime...
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<p>Sod, If you flog yourself over a facade before you have resolved all the internal issues, do you then adjust the facade to fit the internals or adjust the internals to fit the facade? And if you answer the former, why did you waste your time designing a facade if you then had to rework it to fit the brief on the inside. Where the heck did you get that I ignore the facade???</p>
<p>My way is to resolve all the internal issues first and then resolve the facade. Basically that is the premise of "form follows function". it's an easier way and a more efective, economical way to approach the design of a bulding. Why am I having to constantly repeat myself. It is not form VERSUS function. it is form follows function.</p>
<p>You really have the wrong end of the stick if you think i would neglect a facade, but I am really tired of this rotational arguement that you and some others can't get a grip on.</p>
<p>w y e. They are very beautiful glasses and I know for a fact that they were designed using the form follows function method. They are therefore NOT functionally pretty much the same. Yes, you drink from them, but the drink is not the same and demands a differant glass.</p>
<p>The middle one is designed to cope with high temperatures and more importantly high temperature differentials. That is scalding hot coffee. This is achieved by the shape of the facets (thick at their apex and thin at their middle face) which can expand under temperature stresses much better than a true circular shape (one that has a radius outside larger than but matching the radius inside). Note how the facets are resolved into the true circle above by arches. These arches are working effectively in the opposite direction of the forces acting in a stone arch and therefore help release the internal stresses of the hot glass. Form follows function.</p>
<p>The one on the right is designed to trap air above to liquid surface by being narrower than the glass at the liquid level ( unless you're a quaffer) so that is slows down the effect of oxidation on the flavour of the whiskey and the cut glass pattern is designed to enhance the reflective qualities of the pure alcohol in the wee dram or gin. Its relatively heavier base in comparison to its top edge is designed to overcome the problem of getting drunk and accidently knocking over ones glass. The wieghted base gives you half a chance to recover the vessel before it is flung over on its side. Form follows function.</p>
<p>The one on the left is designed for light fizzy drinks that are meant to be refreshing and quenching so its shape is designed as a wide mouth that releases more of the carbonate fizz so that you can drink it faster before it begins to warm up. It is designed for usually cold drinks which have a much lower temerature differential than hot drinks from the ambient temperature of the glass so it is made to a relatively uniform thickness as well as being wider at the top.</p>
<p>Form follows function.</p> -
w_y_e, at the risk of conjecture, I like your style.
A more empirical approach to the above proposition.
Thank you for the potent lesson in 'fitness for purpose', it brings to mind several things.
One of which is the wonderful way in which we, us humans, have of deeming something appropriate for a specific purpose. I was struck by the thought that there may some testing of this: when entertaining one often finds the guests out number the particular type of glassware usually (and I'll come back to this) designated to the type of drink our guests are in the habit of drinking. It is then that we witness one test of fitness for purpose (often to the mild embarrassment of the host), does the ill matching of glassware to content in any way impede conviviality? I would suggest not.
However when we, as you mention, decide on the flavour of our refreshment we invariably already know the form of glassware from which we intend to take it. Why? It could be any manner of things: historical, cultural, social, sensorial, aesthetic whatever the reason (and I dare say there is a PHD in it) function would be furthest from our mind. So fitness for purpose would seem enshrouded in something more opaque.
An interesting chapter in the PHD might well dwell on two particular exuberantly formal members of the glassware species: the Martini glass and the wine glass. Any candidate considering the task might seek by way of comparison the Bombay Sapphire martini glass artist series and the Riedel 'O' series. More specifically the fact that the Bombay artist series returned glassware all formally consistent with the traditional Martini glass; and the relative success, or lack thereof, of the stemless 'O' series by Riedel.
Our learned sommeliers would have us believe, and I do, that the peculiar characteristics of the various varieties are displayed to the palate more particularly by the form of the stemware. On what logic, then, is it that I seek only to drink pulverized peach and prosecco from a tall, thin walled, ever so slightly convex glass?
It may be well remembered that the Magna Carta stipulated the size of a standard drink, not the form from which it should be drunk. -
SS as we responded to our learned friend almost simultaneously permit me this quick rejoinder (I chuckle: the difference in our simultaneous replies speaks volumes).
As you take the scientific (yet you still argue formally?) and I the empirical...
To keep the effervescence for the length of the drink the glass on the left should be conical, inversely to that which you suggest, going by the rate at which liquid temperature changes based on exposure to air as opposed to through the medium of glass; how do you explain the stripes?
Pyrex, has little to do with the form, rather the temper of the glass.
The glass on the right I think you got closest to explaining "the cut glass pattern is designed to enhance the reflective qualities of the pure alcohol in the wee dram or gin". Hardly scientific yet so incredibly important, not to mention the intrinsic value association of quality (single malt) and weight (lead crystal), explain that one scientifically. -
<p>Just to keep on this Form following Function idea. Make a note of how the journalist has assumed at the bottom of this article that by using function that the form would likely suffer.</p>
<p>Olivia Chen is surprised "Even though the emphasis of <span style="color: #000000">Binary Design Studio</span> is on developing appropriate materials and building techniques, that doesn’t mean that the design of the home has suffered. In fact, some might say that their approach strives to achieve balance between form and function.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/10/23/desert-architecture-by-binary-design-studio/#more-15571">http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/10/23/desert-architecture-by-binary-design-studio/#more-15571</a></p>
<p>I say that this is further proof that you're all argueing with me on the basis that 'form follows function' is itself a style.</p>
<p>People, Olivia Chen for instance, assume that functionality means utilitarian ugliness and form means stylistic beauty. She even sees the two as so seperate that she can write of achieving a balance between the two as if they are usually intrisically disparate ways of seeing design problems.</p>
<p>Your posting of the glasses b n and your attached comment "Here are three glasses I own. Functionally they are pretty much the same." shows that you do not understand the inseprable nature of form and function. You assumed that thier function was to drink stuff out of them and you look no further.</p>
<p>You therefore don't see function as all that important.</p>
<p>The stripes are decorative but they have the staccatto effect of a zebra crossing on the rising bubbles of fizzy drink so they are designed to enhance the visual beauty of the drink itself. the widened top reduces the hieght to which the bubbles explode making drinking your fizzy drink more comfortable. Try drinking the same drink out of a tall narrow glass and see the differance.</p>
<p>The cut glass base of the whiskey tumbler is designed around the possibility that if the tumbler is knocked over then the egg shape effect means that it rolles away and back around like an egg and the cuts create a friction break on the rolling away. it is designed to save your expensive crystal from rolling off the edge of the table when you're drunk. (tumbler is a french word that was and still is attached to circus performers who fall over and cleverly get up again)</p>
<p>The shape of a circle inside a polygon of the coffee glass can expand much more easily than a circle inside a circle ( Ritek curved roofing panels of styrene sandwhiched between two curved sheets of colorbond suffered delamination problems for exactly the same physics reasons). The thickened pillars absorb the heat at the bottom of the glass via the thinner panel first. The stresses are then carried up the pillars and released into the top circular area of glass via the arches in exactly the same way that the arches absorb stresses coming in the other direction.</p> -
<p>SS - somebody mentioned venturi earlier - i'd suggest you read complexity and contradiction to in architecture to temper your form follows function ferver but something tells me you would reject it if you haven't already.</p>
<p>working the form follows function argument thru glassware isn't much help either- architecture isn't industrial design. it's almost as obscuring as introducing art into the discussion of architecture.</p> -
Im delighted to know so much more about my glasses! I dont dispute the various variations in design due to the expected purpose. However, I can assure you that my reasons for using them (and in particular the cut crystal number, which I still offer to guests despite the small chip in the rim) are completely separate from any fitness of purpose. They hold stuff well. Indeed. The glasses though, conjure various memories of other things, quite separate from anything to do with liquids and receptacles, which imbues the objects with meaning and significance for moi.
Also in the house I have a pair of Riedel long stem glasses which I bought as a present. I chose them specifically for their fitness of purpose. They also appealed to my eye (suggesting that the two are not absolutely bound).
Theyre very nice to drink from. If one breaks, Ill just replace it. Ah but the ones I bought and gave have added meaning for both giver and receiver and the breakage would be tragic.
The function therefore is quite secondary. Those glasses that are deemed special forfill a very important function quite removed from their purpose and can do it just sitting on a shelf as a form detached from intended function.
Perhaps I dont understand the inseparable nature of form and function and am content to look no further. Perhaps I understand the separable nature of form and function and look well into the distance. The kind of thing the billion hicks know all about That said, I would never drink cola from a flute.
SS, you say that its form and function, or form follows function, not versus. If the only form that is acceptable to you is one born out of function, then it would seem very much to be a case of versus. I doubt anybody here would ague against function in architecture (or glassware), but having room to move in regards to form is pretty important. When the chosen appropriate style and function marry, that often produces good architecture. When function is seen as driving form (which works wonderfully on steam engines and the like) then you can get apartment tower blocks of the cheap and nasty variety. Their purpose to house overseas students and make the developer some fat cash. Fitness of purpose, gold star. If they look terrible, well, the majority are idiots as previously suggested and therefore those who are so educated as to find their form execrable are certainly in the minority.
Question: What do you do with something (a block of flats or house for instance) that has very low fitness of purpose? Demolish or not and why? -
a very lucid case for style w y e.
and as to the middle glass SS.
its got nothing to do with drinking coffee.
for which they are lousy.
the middle glass is robust and will survive being dropped by customers and smashed around in industrial dishwashers.
Like the wind tunnel experts a generation before you - you haven't got a grip on functionalism to begin with. your view is an infants - all nipple and no tit. -
Ah, clause 35 of the Port Phillip Planning Scheme!
"35. Let there be one measure of wine throughout our whole realm; and onemeasure of ale; and one measure of corn, to wit, "the London quarter;" and onewidth of cloth (whether dyed, or russet, or "halberget"), to wit, two ellswithin the selvages; of weights also let it be as of measures."
One likes to keep abreast of the local laws... -
Green Vanna: some time in 1967 in a forum on the state of modern architecture Marcel Breuer, when giving opinion on the use of natural materials and the like came to the subject of colour: architecture he believed could be almost any colour, not green however, definitely not, as green was the colour of nature.
Robert reminiscing 25 years later (from a book on the house published in 1992): "I made the house green in 1967. Although trim could be colored in those days, surface material had to be natural to express the nature of the material and structure. Green was out." -
<p>wye.</p>
<p>Yes your glasses have a function quite seperate from their intended and designed for function. You achieved that without effort and with the full perogative of a mature adult. I could say the same about certain halls of the Sydney Opera House which the Govt of the day stipulated should be used for purposes other than their intended and designed for functions. You could even find park land being used for circle work by chopped and blown torana's, but what does that prove about functional design?</p>
<p>My point in letting you know the design provenanace of your glasses was to illustrate that form following function actually exists and can be beautiful. A lot of the rejections put up in this forum to the validity of my proposition that designing around function can achieve style with out affecting style (re Murcutt) is based on the groundless assertion that functional design is inherently ugly. Steam trains and Mcmansions even (unbelievable I would posit but what do I know!) and other post modern examples are used to assert that my belief in the utility and beauty of designing functionally is ridiculous because all one needs is asthetic appreciation of style and that unavoidable ugliness is the result of form following function in every case. I have even been accused of creating ugliness into the future and you assert that it's function is irrelevant because you choose to ignore it.</p>
<p>That is a baseless predjudice that is bandied about by many to the point that even some in this forum refuse to believe Murcutt's own assertions that he is not a stylist designer.</p>
<p>That you can ignore with ease the fact that a designer carefully created your glasses is as easy as ignoring any architect or designer you choose who does not design fashionably. But ignoring something does not nessecarily make it go away or become reduntant or pointless or ugly.</p>
<p>That you are pleased to know more than you did before about your glasses does not enhance the design in any way either.</p>
<p>They just exist and someone worked hard to make them exist and that is enough to appreciate for anyone as you and I do.</p>
<p>I, as an artist, can see the work of science and art that went into them and I am pleased to be aware of the pride and skill of the designer and the creator and I am pleased to have pleased you with what I know of it. As an artist I would emulate as much as possible the deep understanding of inquiry and discovery that went into making them and I will approach my designs for buildings in the same way. If anyone feels certain that therefore I will create ugliness, then they are simply ignorant people and I don't have to pay them any attention what so ever, for what is the point of asking swine to appreciate pearls.</p>
<p>Further to the demolishment of the arguement that functionalism is nessecarily ugly. Can such persuaded people show me a tree that is truely ugly, or a birds wing, or an arch or even a train? Yes some cutlery sets should be banned and some houses forgotten about but that they weren't in fact functionaly designed has a lot more to do with our rejection of them than on the basis of style. Stark juicer looks great but doesn't work. It's collectability has nothing to do with functionality and that's fine, but that does not negate functionality except on a purely personal level.</p>
<p>The question was raised of who could be the judge of beauty and ugliness, and there is a great confusion surrounding the question because many are convinced that beauty is only skin deep and so they look no further. You might just as well be blind if you really believe that there is no beauty to be found deeper than a facade. That blindness is called featurism and it seems it is still pretty big in the world of architecture. You're welcome to it, but I actually enjoy being able to see much deeper what is in an apparently simple glass or a building. Who ever judges on beautiful design should at least take the time to see what is produced because that sort of prejudice (in the truest use of that word) is far more irrelevent than anything I could pronounce upon.</p>
<p>Hence my disdain for Stylist commentators who don't know what they are talking about when declaring functionalism to be either ugly or pointless or just not with it. </p> -
@b_n.
thanks. thats a great story and one I had not heard.
on venturi - and one of his favourite architects L. Moretti.
Extensions to former NAB bank in Brisbane (Donovan Hill).
this line out of Venturi/Moretti is not more jumping up and down on the same spot?
climate has gone south, culture has gone north
it has a little reverberation with W Y E's green and watery glasses. -
Ah, Seasons, I fear I cannont express myself clearly enough... Little of what I write seems to function as I might have hoped. But it's not important.
@hairdresser, Moretti, and more of it please!
Finally (in all seriousness), J'accuse!
(google image search "featurism architecture" and check out the 5th image) -
<p>Go to page 4 on images / featurism architecture and you'll find peter johns work out of Antarc. Beautiful stuff as well.</p>
<p>j'accuse of what exactly?</p> -
<p>ss - johns project aint my cup of coffee but its not nearly as crappy as the dreg of GM sychophancy your dog lives in.</p>
<p>and decrying a functionalist dribbler doesn't make you a facile featurist / stylist</p>
<p>nothin more boorish than an artist / architect</p>
<p>artist my arse</p> -
@ WYE - more watery northern maybe/moretti? or --the old italian stuff.
Of interest (to me), quite possibly the queenslanders, and likely Venturi (Rome Prize 1956) is a project for a tower in Genova , 1959-60 by LM. Building on Via San Giueseppe.
melbourne culture's take on venturi has always been - to put it charitably - a bit obvious.
deflected light off corrigan.
the northern twist - if it is - may be a return to the matter. -
<p>Poor sod.</p>
<p>Only had one bone to chew and couldn't get a bite at it.</p> -
<p>Sod, I would be interested to know what your cup of coffee is. Thanks for the find Simon, though it seems to have elevated to page 3 now, probably due to this wee chat.</p>
<p>I reckon that dog would be very happy. Not that I like dogs, got bitten by one the other day, very tetanus paranoia inducing.</p> -
<p>think i'll leave you 2 to piss in each others pockets</p>
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<p>Ahh the vitriol of the jealous. Ever heard of the fable of the dog that , looking down from a bridge, growled at his own reflection and dropped his bone into the creek. It means don't be too hasty to pass judgement or you'll loose more than you reckoned.</p>
<p>I'd like to know what coffee sod drinks as well considering he has such venom to spray upon others.</p>
<p>I would also like to know what a functionalist dribbler is. Considering I have only talked about designing things that have functionalism and beauty as a direct result of that functionalism I suggest that sod's epitaph is an unintended oxymoron. Which makes accusing me of boorishness an unacknowleged hypocrisy. Which makes sod an unqualified oaf.</p>
<p>Just to prove that you do not read what is in front of you sod. Here is what I wrote</p>
<p>"Hence my disdain for Stylist commentators who don't know what they are talking about when declaring functionalism to be either ugly or pointless or just not with it."</p>
<p>And here was your response.</p>
<p>"and decrying a functionalist dribbler doesn't make you a facile featurist / stylist</p>
<p>If I had written "Hence my disdaign for ......... (insert what ever you believe yourself to be), then maybe you might have half a leg to bite.</p>
<p>My point is that a Stylist who argues with a Functionalist on the basis that Functionalism is without style, reveals themselves to have not a wit of what they are talking about because Functionalism is not a Style. It is a method of design by which and within which any style may be attained. It's beauty or otherwise has nothing to do with the method and its level of style has only the skills of the designer and craftsman to blame.</p>
<p>That anyone refuses to believe it is not a style or that Murcutt is not a Stylist simply shows them to be ignorant of a deeper understanding of the subject. Passive Solar Design is a case far into this realm because a number of people I have encountered think that it too is a style. They think 'dirty hippie at a shanty town door' and run a mile from it. They then say, "Gee I like Glenn Murcutt's stuff, do you design like that?".</p>
<p>I mean fcuk! on one hand they like Murcutt "style" even though he says he doesn't have one in particular and then they say they hate passive solar design. And then I am expected to give them the respect of someone who knows what they are talking about.</p>
<p>Hence my disdaign, for the sod all contribution you have made to this discussion, sod.</p>
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