After the reformation, the darkness of medieval churches came to symbolize pagan superstition as much as the icons. So, many churches were painted white, from the stone or from previous colored patterns. The bright, flat spaces were so cool painters, couldn’t help themselves.
Pieter Saenredam, 1649.
Pieter Saenredam, 1650.
Emanuel de Witte, 1661.
Emanuel de Witte, 1668.
Dirk van Delen, 1645.
Or, When the Cathedrals Were White, actually.
Joe Building: The Stalin Memorial Lecture (2006)
So, I’ve decided to stop cross-posting articles from GGW other than ones that are themselves pretty specific to discussions of architecture, for example, the Architects on the Height Limit series. However, I will periodically link to the articles I’ve contributed to for readers who don’t read GGW.
Stuff I wrote:
I also had comments in four group discussions:
Proponents of relaxing the height limit say that it would improve the quality of architecture, but they usually mean that new buildings will be less boxy if there’s less pressure to maximize floor area. Yes, this might encourage more setbacks, deeper walls, more varied patterns, and richer textures. It might also lead to buildings that are just taller versions of the same boxes.
We asked several experienced architects to weigh in on the topic. Some oppose revisions and others support them. But they all note how aesthetics, human comfort, and building performance get trapped in between money and the law, and offer tangible ways to improve the urban environment with or without relaxed height restrictions.
Form follows finance
It may be helpful to think of a speculative office building as a machine for making money. In order to provide a very high level of service to a large amount of floor space, modern office buildings are packed with mechanical equipment and consist of highly engineered assemblies from structure to skin. We can see when money has been spent on high-quality finishes and beautiful details, but the real luxury is empty space.
I think it’s worth the time of every Washingtonian who thinks they know what’s up in architecture to hear Toyo Ito speak at the National Building Museum. Ito won the 2013 Pritzker Prize, and has produced some pretty astonishing buildings, most notably the Taichung Opera House, sponge-like chunk of an infinite minimal surface algorithmically drawn around the program. Were it not for a few doors, the building would be two separate spaces, absolutely enmeshed in each other. Even with the breaks, the surface segregates spaces so that there’s neither figure nor ground and there is no evidence for the other mirror-image space. There’s a similar manipulation of space in the unbuilt Berkeley Art Museum.
The Meiso no Mori funeral hall (above) was a point of departure for one of my projects, along with other projects by Ito, Akihisa Hirata, SANAA, and Junya Ishigami’s KAIT workshop. Their buildings precisely emulate natural phenomena with a spare aesthetic. Their anti-iconic and open-ended spaces they produce are a nice respite from DC’s inclination.
Wednesday, October 16th, 6:30PM. National Building Museum. Judiciary Square Metro.
I try not to discuss my schoolwork on this blog, because it’s schoolwork, but if anyone who reads this blog is interested in what I have been doing for the past few years, you can take a look at my portfolio.
This rendering, published in the 1897 edition of Moderne Architektur is strikingly dense for what was, at the time, considered the uncultured work of an engineer. Wagner and his studio produced incredible draftsmanship, but this rendering stands out because of its sheer uncanniness. Look at the two columns. One is stone, safe and solid. The other is cast iron, modern and delicate. A woman works, men turn their backs, and a locomotive of the Weiner Stadtbahn lurks. There are superhuman things and unseen layers to cities, a fact to be made beautiful.
After the break are two more under-appreciated projects of his, one for an asymmetrical bridge over a lock, and the other is the earliest architectural photomontage I am aware of, from 1906.
Designed by British architect David Adjaye, who’s also designing the Museum of African American History, the libraries are a reminder that it’s possible for a work of world-class architecture to also be a comfortable third place.
Francis Gregory Library.
When the first renderings of the new libraries were published, I was unimpressed by them. But after a day-long excursion to see all of the libraries built under the tenure of library director Ginnie Cooper, I have to admit that I was surprised at how brilliant Bellevue and Francis Gregory are.
Continue reading ➞ For Adjaye’s libraries, seeing is believing
But then I remembered that the great thing about master plans is that you don’t have to follow them very closely, so you can keep what you want and take what you need. The drawings and guidelines are not permanent impositions on the urban landscape. They’re ideas. Ideas are cheap and BIG is good at rethinking basic concepts in fresh ways, even going so far as to be able to propose how to realistically bring unconventional projects to reality. I don’t know if I would like to see Morphosis’s intervention in the Arts and Industries building, but it did cause me to look at the building again, to see its qualities and how it might be adapted.
Too much architecture in DC starts out tame and ends up lame. Sometimes its because of design review and sometimes its because of style anxiety. So, it’s important to start thinking big here, and dial it down when it comes to a serious proposal. So, I say we see what BIG proposes for what has to be the most heterogenous block in DC – The Castle, the Hirschorn, the Freer, and the Ripley Center – that’s most of the past two centuries’ movements – and let their ideas challenge whatever architects complete each project.
