verticality: icon or eyesore
ok so its been 3 months since my last post and i remember promising a "real" post so here it is i suppose. i haven't been paying much attention to architecture since i started working because i hate it now but i've seen a tower or two here n there i don't even know what or where they are but i know they're by calatrava. i think he just took a rectangle and twisted it a couple times vertically along the axis. big whoop. ok so here he creates something that has irked me since my senior studio and that is in creating something of verticality, the possiblity of achieving instantaneous iconic status is possible. but we have to ask ourselves, why does one become an icon so quickly, immediately, and without proper reason? the simple fact of the matter is, in my humble opinion, that you can put up a piece of crap building make it tall and have somewhat sexy renderings and then bam! its an instant icon. case in point, the freedom tower. currently it is a piece of shit. it started as something that was quite possibly very intriguing in the conceptual phase but as a result of childs n liebskind bickering it is just a super tall generic glass box which will receive monster iconic status no matter how functional the spaces created in and around it are. so what was my point. oh right. um when does functionality and the humanistic aspects of building a vertical structure begin to be sacrficied for the self-contained sexy object tower which is most likely reverse engineered and post-rationalized like many formalistic projects are today? no doubt calatrava's buildings are based on structural principals/sculptures but where does the architecture really originate from? making something cool from a sculpture that mimics the human spine? isn't that a little too literal? whatever the case, i really think its an ongoing debate, anyone agree with me? thoughts? let's hear it
Critique: Burning Art
Everyone who has ever sat through the grueling early morning hours of Architectural History 1 through 93784592, needs to visit
Maarten Baas' website. The pieces called "Smoke" are absolutely the best art/design ever. For every multi-syllabled word that came out of Professor Gabrielle Esperdy's mouth about Charles Mackintosh's Hill House 1 Chair, I felt ever more angry at it. Hungover, in pajamas, and still not accustomed to waking up that early, anything but my bed was irrelevant to me. High design was about as interesting as high school. So, slowly, my mind began conjuring up immature acts to be done to these poor pieces of excellent furniture design, that could only be done through cartoons. I know every architecture student has done the same. From merely smashing them to bits with a baseball bat, to driving over them again and again with a steamroller. OH the chaotic wonderment running through our minds.
And now Maarten Baas (artist) has brought our disfunctional college dreams to life. Taking varied famous pieces of furniture and igniting them for pure profit. Whats then left is a charred and fragile piece of what used to be perfect design. Absolute Genious.
Does this raise the value? who knows. Is the chair structurally stable? who cares. Is he going to burn Paris Hilton and IPOD's next? we can only hope.
Critique: WallWear
Ben Pell , you sly dog you, taking my ideas and making them better. How do you get away with it. For the past few months as I stare aimlessly at my surroundings, I've always wanted to dress myself in them. Waking up and putting on my Gyp Board pants, who wouldn't want to come to the "pants party". Or for those formal nights, my brick veneer shirt must always be accompanied by my mahogony wainscot jacket. But now im just going to look like a fool walking around in such silly things, thanks to Pell's breakthrough.
Pell's
Walldrobe/Wearpaper is architectural fashion's beacon of light. These almost Planet of the Apes like pieces have a system of buttons and holes. You begin with rectangular pieces of material, which are placed in a laser cutter (so preferably leather, if u dont want to burn your house down). The lasercutter's accompanying computer has pre-made software that, with a design of ones choice, will then automatically cut the rectangular material into front or back items. These can be "buttoned" to the wall, or to each other to make wonderfully uncomfortable and ugly clothing. Your wall becomes, as a result, crazy puzzle pattern. BUT THINK OF THE CLOSET SPACE YOU SAVE!
Hey Pell, I bet you can't think of what my next idea is, stealer. It's definately not Shower Curtain Walls, definately not. Hey! I said its not! DAMNIT, you win again Pell.
Architects get no Bling
Drug Dealer. That's where im headed now.
None of this architecture crap. After watching years of MTv, listening to Trump, reading this CNN article, then this CNN article, and finally all the advice from architects I know, I have finally figured it out: sell drugs. As 50 cent was telling me the other day, "Matt, yo dis design game ain't goin git you crunked. Git yo ass pushin, and yo rims'll shine." Or maybe it was something about my magic stick, I wasn't really paying attention to the words. Anyhow, now that my mind has opened up, money is all I need to be happy.
So, farewell to all of you in the architecture field. I am quitting and selling drugs. You can keep your beautiful sketches, your amazing forms, your thought out solutions to lifes problems, your wacky all-nighters, your incredible renderings, your habitable sculptures, your wonderous monuments, your eye catching designs, your righteous theories on life, your delicate models, your fun offices, your help in moving human kind forward, your t-squares and autocad, your all black outfits, your towering skyscrapers, your dynamic stadiums, and finally your respect as one of the top professions in the world. I'm now completely selfish, and enthralled with monitary things. Cause I am now a P.I.M.P. hhhwwwhaatttt hhhhoookkk, hhhyyyyaayyyy.
On second thought, I'd like my kids to remember me with something. Plus, I have no game and my car is white with a black hood.
Competitions: Gugg Mastery
There is an urban legend in the architectural community: every architect will have one penis building by the end of their architectural career. And by no means is the new proposal, by Enrique Norten of TEN Architectos, for a new Guggenheim Museum in Guadalajara, Mexico an exception. Located at the end of a giant cliff (the Barranca), this phallus erects 200m high. This is in stark contrast to the limp surroundings of Guadalajara. The shaft will be comprised of giant white steel boxes of different sizes randomly stacked, for exhibition rooms. A double layered glass exterior, which will allow views of the gorgeous surrounding scenery, as well as let light into the spaces, will be placed over it for comfort and protection. There will be two elevators on the exterior of the building, so when the Navy visits and culminates at the top roof garden, the seamen can cascade down the sides getting that final spectacular view, and the money shot.
As every man/city is proud of their prize piece, so will Guadalajara. This will be another great addition to the already impressive plate of museums the Guggenheim has: Wright's NY, Gehry's Bilbao, Koolhaas' Vegas, and Tommy Lee's pants. The spaces seam like they will be very well lit; the city will have an iconic building to represent them; and as with Bilbao, tons of bills should be expected to be placed in Guadalajaras G-String. Norten has designed a winner here.
In the words of the great William Bannister "was that gay?".
Computers: Max 7 has fluorescents
OH wonderous wonder, oh greatest great, oh drunkest drunk. There is finally a fluorescent tube light in
3D Studiomax. The new Max 7 has added fluorescent tube lighting to its light creation set. You can change all sorts of parameters, from the color to the length of the "tube". My work time is now cut in half.
For all of us who have battled the supreme Max problem of tube lighting, we can now rejoice and celebrate. No more stretching omnis. No more self illumination blunders. None of the garbage previously given by this powerful 3d rendering program.
So now that all my interiors are accurately lit, sunlight will be my next obstacle. And, oh yes, there is a sun option.
Two Wet Towers
As my Pentium 3, 1.8 GHz beast of a computer attempts to render my interior/exterior perspectives, with raytraced windows, I peruse through the internet with all the free time I have. I then stumble across the extraordinary fountains by Juame Plensa in Millenium Park, Chicago. Two 50-foot glass and steel towers with LED displays, and spouts that run a stream of water down the entire exterior, as well as shoot a jet of water from a point. Plensa took over 1,000 pictures of Chicagoans (Chicagonites, Chicagoneons?) which every 12 minutes display on the face of the tower facing the other tower, on each tower (look at the picture, get it). The images are animated, and the mouths of the people open to shoot the jet of water out. This gesture is to recall the city's gargoyles, whom also "spit" out water as a symbol of life.
Absolutely wonderfully done and applauded by the people of Chicago (see how I got around it there), parents and children flock to experience the fountains on these extremely hot and humid days of summer. So, because my rendering is still going, I'm going to go outside with my coworker and try to recreate the Plensa fountains- NY style. I'm going to tie his a** up to a hydrant, pop that baby open, let the gushing water explode off his helpless body, providing the rest of us that streaming abundance of cool fountain water. And I figure every 25 seconds after his mouth is overwhelmed with water, he will spit it out at those of us laughing at him, again cooling us in rapid fire. Oh man, he has no idea what's coming.
Products: Fruit walls, so sweet
The second best blogger site (to this one of course)
Gizmodo posted an article about Oyon, by
Michael Bihain. This hip work of culinary art can be an amazing addition to anyone's home, probably the kitchen or breakfast room would be nicest. Made of white cornice tubing (80 mm.) arranged in a hexagonal shape. They would hang on a wall, i'm guessing, by brackets. The photos show apples and oranges would fit quite well. They could be arranged in different configurations making a "pixelated" (as Bihain calls it) image.
Mine has been working out rather well. I had a self portrait with all my leftovers. The mac & cheese leaked down to the roast beef, and the lime jello spread into the taco salad I couldn't finish. Making my portrait a pixelated version of Cartman. The mice, though, have converted it into a jungle gym and are having king of the Oyon competitions. Those little rascals.
