Pater Familias » Architecture

REVISITING THE CHICAGO SPIKE.

Philip — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:42:39 +0000

REVISITING THE CHICAGO SPIKE. I posted about Caltrava’s proposed Chicago Spike here in August, 2007. The Chicago Spike was influenced by Calatrava’s Turning Torso in Malmo Sweden. The twisted spire (described as similar to a drill bit) would reduce the wind forces that make skyscrapers sway. The building would have had 150 floors and would have been the tallest residential building in North America. The date of my post—August, 2007, just at the start of the financial crisis—is important because the Chicago Spire has not been built. An Irish government agency that took on debt from a failed Irish bank is responsible for the property expenses. An article by Maura Webber Sadovi in the Wall Street Journal (May 2) told the story and had a picture of the hole in the ground at the site.

WHY ARE BRUTALIST BUILDINGS UNDER ATTACK?

Philip — Wed, 09 May 2012 21:41:35 +0000

WHY ARE BRUTALIST BUILDINGS UNDER ATTACK? One reason, of course, why brutalist buildings are out of favor is that the name is uncongenial. As the wikipedia article points out, the name comes from the French term for raw concrete: “beton brut”. The unfavorable overtones of “brutalism” are apparently just an unfortunate pun. However, the cost profile of brutalist buildings is the main reason for much of the criticism. Brutalist buildings proliferated in part because they were relatively inexpensive to build. They are in trouble now because they are relatively expensive to maintain. This article by James S. Russell on the Bloomberg site describes one major problem with the Orange County Government Center: Flat roofs tend to develop leaks. Roof seams tend to develop leaks. There are 80 different roof levels on the building. The building has been closed since last fall because of severe water damage.

ANOTHER BRUTALIST BUILDING IS PRESERVED.

Philip — Tue, 08 May 2012 22:23:29 +0000

ANOTHER BRUTALIST BUILDING IS PRESERVED. The most recent of Paul Rudolph’s buildings to come under attack is his Orange County Government Center in Goshen, New York. It is on the World Monuments Fund’s 2012 Watch List as a threatened landmark. There was a crucial vote on May 3 on whether to replace it with a less distinguished building. (Paul Goldberger in this post on the Vanity Fair blog called the proposed new building that would have replaced it “a bland, pseudo-Georgian building, a sort of blown-up version of a Friendly’s ice-cream store”.) This article on the Arch Daily blog reports that in the March 3 vote, the Rudolph building survived by an 11 to 10 vote. (The article in Arch Daily has a good picture of the building if you are are curious.)

BRUTALIST BUILDINGS UNDER ATTACK.

Philip — Mon, 07 May 2012 23:30:21 +0000

BRUTALIST BUILDINGS UNDER ATTACK. I posted here three years ago about how two of Paul Rudolph’s Brutalist buildings had been threatened with demolition. The attacks on Rudolph’s buildings have continued. This article from March of this year on the Atlantic blog by Alison Arieff about “Paul Rudolph and the Challenge of Preserving Modern Architecture” describes Rudolph, who served as Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, as “one of the harder hit modernists” and says: “More than perhaps any of his peers, Rudolph’s buildings are either under threat or have already been destroyed.” You will have seen a number of Brutalist buildings. This wikipedia article describes Brutalist architecture as “architecture which flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s, spawned from the modernist architectural movement. Examples are typically very linear, fortresslike and blockish, often with a predominance of concrete construction. Initially the style came about for government buildings, low-rent housing and shopping centers in order to create functional structures at a low cost.” The article has a picture of an example of the style— the Boston City Hall (1969)—and calls attention to certain Brutalist features: “top-heavy massing, the use of slender base supports, and the sculptural use of raw concrete.” It is strange to me that buildings that were considered to be representative of prestigious modern architecture when I was young are now so out of fashion.

MORRIS COHEN ON ART AND ARCHITECTURE.

Philip — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:09:12 +0000

MORRIS COHEN ON ART AND ARCHITECTURE. I noted in this post that “When I was asked how I know that I love a work of art, my answer was that it lets me see the world differently.” Morris Cohen made a similar point and traced the idea to Ruskin: “Now, as Ruskin has pointed out, people generally do not see beauty or majesty except when it has been first revealed to them in pictures or other works of art.”

Cohen, writing in 1919, noted that educated people would not “for a moment admit that there could be any beauty in a modern skyscraper.” Cohen predicted that in two thousand years, “our beautiful office buildings” would be regarded as a distinctive contribution to civilization. It’s surprising that skyscrapers were held in low repute so many years after some of the skyscraper masterpieces had been built.

PRESERVING GOOD ARCHITECTURE—OUTSIDE AND INSIDE (COMMENT).

Philip — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 01:21:39 +0000

PRESERVING GOOD ARCHITECTURE—OUTSIDE AND INSIDE (COMMENT). Lee Bryant commented here on my post about my five favorite buildings and expressed consternation at the tearing down of Richmond’s Old City Hall (and its replacement by the equivalent of a “high-rise DMV”). Tastes change and technology changes, and some buildings can’t be saved. I posted here on the debate about preserving interiors. It’s remarkable that the beautiful interior of the Empire State building has been restored. The Burnham Hotel in Chicago chose to preserve the old office fittings in the Reliance Building—the transoms and the doors— so that I am reminded of the “shady detective agencies” that the old Empire State Building interior was supposed to evoke. Here is a photo. Kids, I posted here about how when we were first married, we almost chose to live in the first conversion of a cast iron building to apartments (there was a problem with timing and a problem with curtains for the 16 foot high windows). That building was a pioneer in the preserving of the outside of a building by adapting it a new use, with dramatic changes being made in the interior. Here is an article on the “magnificent emporium” that was the old James McCreery & Co. Dry Goods store, and is now a beautiful apartment building.

LOBBIES—NEW YORK BUILDINGS.

Philip — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:56:43 +0000

LOBBIES—NEW YORK BUILDINGS. Many of the skyscrapers from the 1920′s and the 1930′s had beautiful interiors. The Empire Stat building was completed in 1931; the Chrysler building dates from 1920. This post from the Travels with Terry blog has a photograph of the beautiful doors of the Chrysler Building elevators. I can testify from many trips on them that the elevator interiors were also beautiful. Nevertheless, this post from the same blog says that: “The street level blandness of the Chrysler Building is a poor relation to the rich ornamentation visible to pedestrians as they approach the Chanin Building.” The Chanin Building, built in 1929, is kitty-corner (or cater corner) to the Chrysler Building. The post also says: “The detail on this office building is some of the most exquisite French-inspired Art-Deco ornament ever created in New York.” The photographs bear this out. So do the photographs here.

LOBBIES—CHICAGO BUILDINGS.

Philip — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 22:14:26 +0000

LOBBIES—CHICAGO BUILDINGS. Kids, My parents made a point of showing us the interiors of both the Rookery and the Marquette Building in Chicago. When I posted on my five favorite buildings, I listed the Rookery in Chicago because of its “beautiful, delicate interior.” The Rookery was #128 on the American Institute of Architects list of America’s favorite buildings. Here is a picture of the interior from the AIA series. The building was designed by Burnham and Root, and the lobby was remodeled by Frank Lloyd Wright. This post from the designslinger blog has good photos of the Marquette Building interior and interesting text. Just as with the remodeling of the Empire State Building, a lot of money was spent on the interior of the Marquette Building in 1893 so that it could command higher rents. The post quotes the attorney for the builders: “The parts every person entering sees must make a lasting impression. Entrance, first story lobby, elevator cabs, elevator service, public corridors, toilet rooms must be very good.” (This earlier post at designslinger tells how Holabird and Roche in the building pioneered “the use of a steel frame covered in a masonry fire-proofed skin.)

FIXING UP THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING.

Philip — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 03:16:13 +0000

FIXING UP THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING. In about 1970, I served a subpoena in an office in the Empire State Building. The interior of the building was a disappointment. Ada Louise Huxtable had an article in the Wall Street Journal (November 10) which indicates that the interior had not improved up until a major upgrading in 2009. Before the restoration, there were “small shabby offices more suggestive of shady detective agencies or fly-by-night financial operators”. The restoration by Anthony Malkin’s company cost about $550 million. Huxtable compares the restored interior to that of the Chrysler Building, where I worked for five years. The Chrysler Building has “lush, elaborate, French-inspired, high Deco romanticism.” The Empire State Building is “a more simplified, commercial evocation of the Machine Age, a favorite theme of the time.” The improvements have eliminated dropped ceilings and fluorescent lighting and returned to the original decorative schemes. Aluminum has been used a lot because it was “a fashionable new metal in the 30′s.” Ada Louis Huxtable recommends that we go see the building and I am eager to do so.

SAND-CASTLE TECHNIQUES.

Philip — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 22:06:25 +0000

SAND-CASTLE TECHNIQUES. Instapundit linked to this article in Popular Mechanics about sand-castle techniques. The keys to construction, as you may well know, are wet sand and compaction. The article has some photos of some tools that are used for carving the castle, but the other tools that can be used in competition are impressive. Wood forms for the design are cut beforehand. The next tool used in competition is impressive: “The Hand Tamper or Gas-Powered Jumping-Jack Tamper.” Popular Mechanics says: “These are the same tampers used in concrete construction….” Other tools are available to amateurs. Water spray bottles are essential for keeping the sand wet. Kitchen spatulas and cake icing spreaders are used for shaping. Paint brushes are used as erasers.

WILL 3D MOVIES CHANGE HOW WE LOOK AT THE WORLD?

Philip — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 01:26:19 +0000

WILL 3D MOVIES CHANGE HOW WE LOOK AT THE WORLD? I posted here about how modern art and modern architecture have valued flatness. In the post I quoted Greg Kreutz: “…from the 1920′s onward…Depicting light and depth became something like gun-blueing or powdered-wig-making, a lost art.” This is in contrast with the Renaissance architects and painters who were enchanted with shadow and depth. I wonder if the period that began in roughly the 1920′s is going to come to an end. Frank Gehry’s architecture is a long way from flatness. And I wonder if 3D movies like Avatar may make us more aware of and more appreciative of the depth of the world we live in. There is a satisfaction to the solidity and the spaces of the things and shapes that are continuously before me that I tend to ignore until they are called to my attention—by classic paintings or 3D movies.

THE ROMANCE OF EDGELANDS.

Philip — Sat, 14 May 2011 01:46:37 +0000

THE ROMANCE OF EDGELANDS. I have posted several times about the beauties that can be found in the industrial wastelands near our cities. I posted here about reviews of the book EDGELANDS by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts. But in my posts I have focused on the individual scenes, the kind of visual effect that can be captured in a photograph. In that post about EDGELANDS, I linked to a review by Rick Poynor that included a quote from the book about edgelands as “places of possibility, mystery and beauty.” I passed over that sentence. A review of the book by Sean O’Brien in the Times Literary Supplement (March 11) made me realize that there is more to the appeal of edgelands than simply beauty. O’Brien describes edgelands as “in spirit…untidy, improvised, accidental, secret and quite likely a risk to health…. He points out that: “Birdwatchers like edgelands, and so do children and criminals….Their climate is strongly but not exclusively working-class.” Edgelands represent “the untidiness of life” and often call up memories of “intense industrial labour performed in harsh conditions for low wages….” So edgelands can evoke hidden parts of present lives, memories of the past and a sense of change.