October 29th: The New Masters

The Old Masters luxuriated in their pursuit of aesthetics, often to the detriment of the quality of their buildings.

Today there are New Masters of architecture, for whom the pursuit of an integrated practice, truly Master Builders in their own right, is the only legitimate pursuit.





In this episode of Burning Down the House I talk with Jacob Alspector, a New Master in his own right, and brother-in-arms at the crossroads of change in our profession.

Above - an Old Master (Tiziano) in another form of luxuriant expression. But, my my my, isn't life always offering up voluptuary experiences, if only we see what is before us?

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and check out my various other blogs:

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for more about Construction & Design Analytics, the constructibility and quality management services we provide

and
http://yankees-thebook.blogspot.com/
for some tasty chapters from my novel "Accidental Yankee" - a story about love, lust, politics, death, betrayal, politics, religion - amidst the making of our grand republic, in and around New-York during the Great American Rebellion.

Thanks for listening.

Talk with you again soon.

Images for October 8th: Darwin Martin, Frank Lloyd Wright & early 20th century design

A recent rendering of the Darwin Martin house complex, in Buffalo NY.










A view from the new visitor's pavilion, designed by Toshiko Mori, looking towards the Martin House.









Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect, at about the time of the Martin house, age 35.







Darwin Martin, the client.







One of the more lasting images from the Martin house is this design - the "Tree of Life" motif - rendered in leaded glass.














Compare this with the design work of the Wiener Werkstätte of about the same time:























Compare the Martin house facade with the Heurtley house, constructed a year earlier:


Martin house, Buffalo








Heurtley, Oak Park








Notwithstanding the Norman arch at the entrance to the Heurtley house, not so very radically different.

And, last, the Martin summer house, Graycliff - 1927 - where Wright "broke the box" with corners windows that defy the structural logic of corner support:











Although 20+ years after the height of the Prairie School houses, nevertheless, there is still a fair amount of Craftsman detail in the interior work:



















Oliver Allen mentioned his friend John A. Kouwenhoven - you can read some more about the "Beer can by the side of the highway" here:

http://www.amazon.com/Beer-Can-Highway-American-America/dp/0801836530#reader

And I think it is worth a look, for it condenses many of the themes we often speak of here on Burning Down the House.

Thanks for listening. Speak with you again soon.

Images for August 13th: SHoP Architects - Integration of Design with Craft

What makes a Master Architect? Is it total command of artistic effect, a thorough knowledge of construction, a deep appreciation and command of architectural history - all of the above - or none of the above?

Following up on our conversations of July 30th, in which we re-visited favorite aphorisms of certain well-known architects, here are some of the aphorisms of the New York City- based firm known as SHoP, with whom we will have a conversation with two principals of that firm:

>How it’s built doesn’t matter except when it’s the only thing that matters.

>Efficiency and great design are not mutually exclusive.

>Building buildings is better than talking about buildings.

>In the classroom be the builder; on the site be the teacher. Be a student in both.

>Make the office a lab, a boardroom, a theater, a classroom.

>Use technology to build practice, see practice as technology.

>Make concepts buildable. Make buildings conceptual.

>Push design, embrace responsibility.

>Virtually construct it twice, build it once.

>Cost is not a downstream design variable.

>To truly innovate, we integrate.

For reference, here are some images of recent buildings by SHoP:

120 Mulberry Street, with an intricate brick pattern, made possible by direct application of CAD-to-fabrication technologies.









"Porter House" - NYC

















We also discussed the work of Louis Kahn, specifically the Yale Center for British Art:































and dormitories at Bryn Mawr College:

Images for July 9th: "Delight" - where has it gone?

July 9th 2009: Firmitas, utilitas et venustas. Structural integrity, utility and delight.


In our conversation of July 9th, George Sawicki repeatedly refers to the condominium project designed by Swiss architects Herzon & De Meuron for the fabled entrepreneur Ian Shrager, located at 40 Bond Street in New York City as the "green vomit building." Here's that building. The "vomit" is a cast aluminum screen at street level that mimics the graphic style of 1970s-era graffiti taggers.

As you can see, and as George pointed out, the context of adjacent buildings on Bond Street is one of predominantly masonry facades.






The green glass of the ground floor level facade has a figured underlayment, which is especially evocative; here, a view at the entrance (left).

















And . . . here's the new Cooper Union building by Thom Mayne of Morphosis. "A fat lady tryin' to squeeze herself into a dress that's five sizes too small." - Roderick L Knox, Architect











"A glass box wrapped in gigantic window screen --- with a rip down the middle. Where did delight go? How is this delightful?" - Curtis B Wayne, Architect











And last, as for the delight in an artful lie - Rod Knox's enthusiastic aphorism - here's an example of Art Deco in New York: the Irving Trust Building, at the corner of Wall Street and Broadway, which presents a very convincing illusion of masonry bearing wall, but is actually a steel structure with masonry curtainwall.