All Bjarke and No Bite
Week 2 -
Autonomous, Critical and Post-Critical
Jan 18th - Jan 20th
My reaction to this week's readings:
The readings were very esoteric, academic, and difficult to follow. I don't find higher-level academic architecture writing to be very interesting in the first place. I also don't particularly enjoy reading architects whose work I don't like, for example, Peter Eisenman. From everything of his I've been exposed to thus far, he has produced work that aged extremely quickly (in my eyes).
Bjarke Ingles, Formgiving - he communicated clearly and, I imagine it's not difficult to give a great presentation on your work when you started such a prolific firm. It makes me think that what he has done as a businessman is commendable.
I agree. It was tough to read at first. I started with Eisenman, but moved to the Whiting article and defined some words, and then went back to Eisneman. It helped me palette everythign easier, but still it was difficult to retain.
ReplyDeleteI also do not agree or particularly like Peter Eisenman's work. Similarly, I can appreciate the aspects of BIG's projects and architectural language, but I can't help but think his style lacks variety and lack 'place' in most cases. His "starchitect" status may be the cause of hatred towards BIG and his projects, and personally, I can appreciate his premeditative sustainability goals and mindset, but I always come to the conclusion that his projects are unresolved and most are unsuccessful.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you in regards to BIG's projects lacking 'place'. I think the sustainability aspects are always fronted because right now its popular to be sustainable; I don't think its enough to have the mindset if the project is inherently intrusive - See BIG's NYPD 40th Precinct in the Bronx: it has a green roof :)
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI always find it challenging to read architectural theoretical articles due to my language issue. Knowing that you sometimes cannot understand what they are talking about, I feel relieved.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. I am a big fam of BIG as well. Though there are many criticism on how BIG buildings are not great and how the constructions of them are basically horrible and don’t age well physically. I feel that the quality of construction is the result of what Bjarke Ingles has to work with given that they might not have much say in who building the building but rather the developers, clients, and so on.
ReplyDeleteWhat I admire in BIG works is the ideas behind the design and how imagination in the brains of the people there works. At first when I see concepts about floating communities, I wasn’t so much agree with it. I was thinking … wow we as human has destroyed so much land, forest, etc, etc, … and now we want to destroyed the ocean as well (that is not including the fact that we polluted the ocean already). But sitting back and think about how ice is melting and how the ocean rises, there will not be much land of live on. And we know that life expectancy is increasing and population is increasing. So moving out on the ocean might not be a bad option. As future generation of architects, I hope that we will find a way to manage our waste situation when living on the ocean.
BUT there is a silver lining with this idea. Looking at how expensive boats and yachts are now, I feel that only millionaires will be able to afford living on these future floating island. I feel like land will become filled with super high-rise buildings and people stack on top of each other like in many futuristic movies.
Baker,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in the fact that consuming information from architects readings such as Peter Eisenman is extremely difficult. People like him tend to speak like everyone reading their work or sitting through their presentations is an architect. Bjarke Ingles does a great job at presenting because he understands his audience and uses salesman techniques that tend to speak to the masses.