What do you think of Yale's Art & Architecture Building (above)? People who don't like it call the style "brutalist," which is a good name for the kind of bleak, concrete boxes that were built from the 50s to the 70s, but I'm not sure that name applies here. I concede that the building has a lot of brutalist aspects, but it's simultaneously innovative and imaginative, don't you think?
I like the idea of an indoor village (above) where the offices are like raised houses separated by grass. It's not very practical and it wastes space, and it must inhibit communication between the workers, but it's kinda fun and that counts for something surely.
This interior (above) looks like Frank Lloyd Wright's "Falling Water" house. Did he invent those long, concrete balcony railings coming off brick-shaped vertical supports?
I like the way the interior is on different levels. This must drive handicapped people nuts, but it's fun for the rest of us.
It's weird to see a whole building made out of what looks like kids building blocks. You can buy natural wood building blocks with most of these shapes, including the flat planks. They're great to keep in a basket next to a coffee table, but you need to buy more than one set to build anything decent.
These horizontals and verticals are interesting in small doses, but a bit hard on the eye over time.
The Greek statue (above) is simultaneously out of place, and not out of place in this modernist library room.
The Yale arts building is done in a kind of vertical/horizontal modernism that's out of fashion now. Everything now is diagonal, chaotic, and deliberately disorienting. That's OK, I don't mind being dis-oriented, it's fun, but I hate obsessively blank walls and wind traps like some of the facets on the building above.
This building (above) looks like a cubist bird. It's weird, and inadequately lit on the upper floors, but I'd still like to live in it.
Back to the Yale building: some of the spaces (above) succeed in being wide and tall at the same time. That's a neat trick. You can see how he does it with the lights. Wide rooms with bright, flat-colored carpets are appealing at first glance and tiring after that.
The LA County Art Museum has steps like the ones on the Yale building above. It's odd to see steps, which imply power and grandeur, tucked away in an almost claustrophobic crevice. I think this is the main entrance.
Boy, you feel like you're walking along ancient Egyptian temples, except everything is obsessively clean and straight, and lacking in detail.
Modern architecture (above) has its good points, but it sure wastes space.
You can see why the building (above) is regarded as brutalist. Outside it's a concrete wind trap.
The interlocking concrete rectangles are definitely interesting. Looking at them makes me aware of the marvelous design possibilities that concrete makes possible, but it also makes me aware of its limitations. The look is intriguing, but cold as ice.
These balcony railings look like they're made of wood, but they're done in the style of flat, modernist concrete railings. It looks OK, but it's a waste of good wood to use it to copy minimalist forms made for concrete.
I have to admit that I'm conflicted about this building. What do you think?
I see a heck of a lot of watered down Frank LLoyd Wright in that Yale Arts Building, don't you?
ReplyDeleteI think it makes some mistakes Wright never would have made (and perhaps fixes some he would have although none immediately come to mind.)
I'll be pretty embarrassed if it actually WAS FLLW.
I like the interiors of the building. It's sometimes nice when public spaces aren't just lobbies, halls, and small rooms off the halls.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't like it if it were say a city hall which should have an easy to navigate floor plan, since most people go to their city hall only a few times a year. But it's a good building for architects and designers to study and work in. The spaces inside are interesting. There's a lot of ideas being tested out not all of them work but that's good. The students who study inside it can really understand and avoid its design flaws in their own work.
The Yale arts building is done in a kind of vertical/horizontal modernism that's out of fashion now. Everything now is diagonal, chaotic, and deliberately disorienting. That's OK, I don't mind being dis-oriented, it's fun, but I hate obsessively blank walls and wind traps like some of the facets on the building above.
I think the new disorienting, right-angleless style can work for some kinds of buildings like museums where visitors are looking for a little bit of novelty and people can dawdle around in the spaces but for a lot of buildings it doesn't work. I walked by the Frank Gehry designed Stata Center last night when it was snowing heavy and I was worried about getting clobbered by snow or ice falling from it and I felt sorry for the researchers who have labs in it. The novelty of the building must have left long ago for them and now they have to deal with leaky window frames and falling sheets of ice.
re buildings that look like they were made out of building blocks: I've been telling people for years that the greatest influence in late 20th century/early 21st century architecture was Lego blocks. (No, I am not joking; the kids most fascinated by building things were more likely to end up in the construction, design, or architectural trades.)
ReplyDeleteI like the tall and wide spaces inside the Yale building. Wright's falling water house is my favorite, though (of course I'm not sure how functional it would be in a city).
ReplyDeleteHere in Sacramento there are older buildings that still look great, mixed with the modern quick-construction buildings. So instead of moving into a typical office building, a lot of businesses have been renovating the old houses (1920's?) into offices.
I have my doubts about whether we really are in a post-modern age, but this post gives me pause. Maybe post-modern is the only label that fits these wonky buildings.
ReplyDeleteThe Yale building is beautiful. It uses textures to rough up the sterile surfaces of the 'functional' aesthetic. The interiors are all comfortably human in scale. A lot of money has been spent to make it inspiring to young architects. That's an important part of the building's function.
They say the modern age began with Nietsche's pronouncement that God is dead. People have come to put their faith in verifiable data (science). Anything in human nature that couldn't be quantified seemed to diminish in importance because it could not be expressed mathematically. It wasn't worthy of argument because there was no supporting data. Aesthetics came to be viewed as just another human fallacy.
The original idea of form-follows-function in architecture was a response to the need to create shelter for masses of people at minimal cost using techniques of mass-production.
Post-modern architecture seems to express an urge to break or crumple the rectilinear modern aesthetic (or lack of aesthetic). They're struggling to think outside the box, but the box IS pragmatism. Even real estate is rectilinear. The effect is a modified modernism where the aesthetic gains don't compensate for the lost floor-space.
Architecture may be ready for a change but modernism is an idea whose time is not passed.
There is quite a bit of the Yale building which I like. I also have the suspicion that it looks better on the outside in person than it does in the photo. (Should you wish to see an interesting Hollywood classic involving an architect with unusual views, check out The Fountainhead.
ReplyDeleteI just happened to see the link to your blog from Terry Qu's blog in China, and thought I should check out someone else that made a connection with someone in China.
You have some interesting work. Thanks for sharing.
I think most modern architecture owes quite a bit to Wright and it's fairly obvious in the Yale building. It feels neither cold nor pointlessly austere and I find it serene and reassuring in its massiveness but then, I'd like to live in a castle.
ReplyDeleteThe extra square footage in most post war modern architecture translates into livability and helps avoid the kinds of claustrophobic oppressiveness associated with Arts & Crafts era structures, for example.
While I don't mind a sense of fun in architecture, the goofy postmodern trend toward pointless diagonal angularity (think Gehry) is pretty abhorrent (imho) as is the re-slumification of the urban environment as typified by the current crop arch school grads and their propensity to aggrandize density and "mixed use". Maybe if the world was less crowded we could relax and spread out a little instead of breathing down each other's necks.
Does the Yale building have gun turrets? - Smackmonkey
Wide rooms with bright, flat-colored carpets are appealing at first glance and tiring after that.
ReplyDeleteI can never get tired of that. I usually don't care for blankness, but vast bright carpet is really beautiful to me.
Finally, something I don't agree with!
My first thought seeing that "cubist bird" building, when looking at the left side (the head?) was Spy vs. Spy.
ReplyDeleteI like concrete in design. I don't think most people use it in optimal ways from a design perspective. I am fascinated by the books by Fu-Tung Cheng on concrete in the home, and for countertops. Sometimes I think designers try to be more outlandish than the previous. The beauty of much of Frank Lloyd Wright's work is it's functionality. A true designer makes the functional interesting, not the other way around. In my opinion one of the greatest mechanical designers was Alec Issignois. He brought us the Mini. Not this new BMW version, but the small, functional car that became an icon of the 60's and beyond. The Mini is small without feeling that way when you get inside. The interior was spartan, unique, and functional. The only time I notice the small size of my Mini is when I look out the side window and see my reflection, eye level, in the chrome hubcap of a tractor trailer rig.
Good design, be it characters for a comic/cartoon, buildings, cars, page layouts, whatever start with a good solid functional foundation, but the execution in form is what makes it interesting. I have much love for the design of the Pixar building.
Look like something Howard Roark would design. I love the intersecting rectangles, it looks like a digital NES. My school is ugly and has the worst post-modern architecture in Canada, but there is one corner of one building that looks a bit like this building, except with more diagonal corners and black glass. I wish I had a picture.
ReplyDeleteEddie, will you ever do a post on The Fountainhead?
Andres: CUBIST! That's the word I was looking for!
ReplyDeleteDidn't Rand pattern the Howard Roarke character in the "The Fountainhead" after Wright?
ReplyDeleteYes, why no posts on Ayn Rand yet? Of all subjects!
ReplyDeletePlease forgive me, everybody. I am so incredibly tired that I can't answer all the thoughtful posts that are here tonight. I'll make a stab at one, if I can keep my eyes open long enough to finish.
ReplyDeleteJorge, Jenny: I absolutely love Ayn Rand, but I try not to talk about her here because this isn't a political site. The battle to restore creativity and culture to this country keeps me plenty busy.
Speaking of cool architecture, check out these timy homes, Eddie! :D
ReplyDeleteBut many many people don't relelgate Rad to "politics", rather they just enjoy her books and perhaps her philosophy. NOT as a political thing. I know my mom used to say "The Fountainhead" was her favorite book(or one of the top titles), and she was a dyed in the wool Democrat, NOT an Objectivist or Libertarian.
ReplyDeleteNo, I think there's plenty to say about Ayn on a purely cultural level. She wrote lots of novels and a play(my brother starred in it in high school--it was great fun), and her books were films. So there's all that! Hmmm.
Mitch: Wow! That tiny home was fascinating! Thanks for the link!
ReplyDeleteJenny: Your mother's favorite book was "The Fountainhead?' Gee, youre lucky to have had such a hip mother. It's true that the ideals in that book work on a cultural level too. Mmm...maybe you're right. Maybe I could post about ideas she had that don't involve politics. Let me think about it.
I was gonna say something similar before the always astute Jenny said it before me. She's way smarter than me, anyway.
ReplyDeleteI'm always wondering why Objectivism is seen as a political point of view. To me, it's much more a life philosophy. Not one I agree with completely, but one I admire. I like her most basic ideas, especially the idea that reality exists apart from perception. To me this sounds like the most obvious thing in the world. That is, there is one and only one true reality, and if your perception differs from it, you are wrong. I never like it when I hear people say that everyone's personal perception of events and ideas are equally correct, or that everyone's opinion should be taken seriously. It hinders progress.
What I also like about Ayn Rand is her embrace of romanticism. The idea of man as a noble creature, instead of inherently evil (as he is portrayed in Christianity) appeals to me, even if I don't completely agree with it.
Jorge: I feel the same way, except that I don't think Christianity regards men as evil. It was Christianity's elevated view of man's potential that led to to English puritans deposing their king and replacing him with an elected parliament.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I worry when i hear people say that the human race is stupid. If they're really stupid, there's no use giving them rights or the ability to govern themselves, and no sense of loss if those rights are ever taken away.
Anon: Rand might deny it, I can't remember, but Wright was an obvious influence.