They're nihilists, Donny.



Nihilists! ..Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos
John Goodman in The Big Lebowski
When Peter Eisenman creates something, he intentionally designs to create anarchy. While they may be less flashy and less known to the modern public, Eisenman's designs share a common thread with the big ideas that Bjarke Ingels shares at any of his 120 (estimated) TED talks every year. Bjarke Ingels constantly creates buildings and exhibits that have a little dash of anarchy in them. BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) puts a ski slope on the roof of a trash incineration plant. BIG creates buildings that are shaped like mountains and proposes putting giant reflective balloons inside highway roundabout circles. Take a step back and Eisenman and Ingels are not so different. They both create relatively boring buildings with a few architecturally nihilist moves thrown in, to break the status quo. 

It takes a very confident and charismatic person to invoke change in architecture: an architectural politician. Architecture needs a politician to make it exciting to people outside the field. Ingels has appealed to the masses with his beautiful, simple graphics, and he continues to wow the public with his daring designs that are total anarchy. They twist and turn to peer around other buildings and fill the spaces between more established architecture. They take the morals and values of other designers and insert total anarchy, without ethos. Bjarke Ingels is a nihilist.  

Comments

  1. I personally wouldn't go as far to say Bjarke is a nihilist, as I think (for the most part) he accounts for the human condition, but Eisenman on the other hand, complete f%$# nihilist. I do agree with you that their architectural expressions are hyperbole, where Eisenman is indexical and Bjarke is diagrammatic (as discussed in class).

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