Architecture | Architectural Drawings

Pritzker Musing

It's virtually impossible to write about <a href="http://www.pritzkerprize.com/">The Pritzker Architecture Prize</a> without discussing what other people are saying about the newest recipient. Coverage is fast and furious (see <a href="http://www.archnewsnow.com/news/news_2010_03_29.htm">yesterday's ArchNewsNow</a> for a few links and <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=pritzker+prize&hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&tbo=p">Google News</a> for many more), and questions of "are they worthy" seem to take precedence over other concerns. This year's winners, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (aka SANAA), are known for minimal, ethereal designs of glass, metal and concrete. This fact is seen by James S. Russell (<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aX6GsdeBqLik">Bloomberg</a>) as a disservice "at a time of profound challenges in the field." That they are the second duo (after <a href="http://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/2001/index.html">Herzog & de Meuron</a>) and Sejima is the second woman (after <a href="http://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/2004/index.html">Zaha Hadid</a>) to win the coveted prize is mentioned in just about all coverage (<a href="http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/theskyline/2010/03/two-japanese-architects-whose-precisely-honed-jewel-like-buildings-have-brightened-cityscapes-throughout-the-world-were-na.html">Cityscapes</a>), and Christopher Hawthorne (<a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/03/sanaa-partners-are-joint-winners-of-pritzker-prize.html">LA Times</a>) focuses on the former. While he quotes how the jury believes "it is virtually impossible to untangle which individual is responsible for what aspect of a particular project," there is one thing missing from this and other coverage: the individual practices of Sejima and Nishizawa that exist alongside SANAA. The collaborative aspect of SANAA that Hawthorne and the jury praises is certainly nothing new, but that each retains their own individual practice is very unique. Many partnerships splinter as two or more designers and their egos do battle. <a href="http://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/2005/index.html">Thom Mayne</a> received the prize in 2005, but for a long time <a href="http://morphopedia.com/">Morphosis</a> was him and Michael Rotondi, who formed <a href="http://www.rotoark.com/">ROTO Architects</a> in 1995. It's cliche but oftentimes true to say that a firm does not have room for more than one great designer. I think SANAA manage by allowing their own practices to exist and be treated equally; SANAA does not take precedence over the others, even though the commissions may get more press. But what is also important about this three-part structure, and is something that makes their choice for the Pritzker a little more complicated, is how the projects of each practice are not so easily distinguishable from the others. To be sure SANAA's commissions tend to be larger, but the minimalism, pristine surfaces and complex spaces are present in all their output. The award is given to Sejima and Nishizawa, but it can also be seen as a validation of all their work, whichever name gets the formal credit. Previous Sejima/Nishizawa/SANAA coverage on my web pages: <blockquote>:: <a href="http://architourist.pbworks.com/Dior-Building">Dior Building</a> (Sejima) :: <a href="http://www.archidose.org/May08/12/dose.html">Moriyama House</a> (Nishizawa) :: <a href="http://www.archidose.org/Dec07/03/dose.html">New Museum of Contemporary Art</a> (SANAA, building) :: <a href="http://www.archidose.org/Jan04/011204.html">New Museum of Contemporary Art</a> (SANAA, project) :: <a href="http://www.archidose.org/Dec05/121905.html">Onishi Hall</a> (Sejima) :: <a href="http://archidose.blogspot.com/2010/02/half-dose-75-rolex-learning-center.html">Rolex Learning Center</a> (SANAA) :: <a href="http://www.archidose.org/books/sanaa.html">SANAA Houses</a> (Sejima, Nishizawa, SANAA) :: <a href="http://www.archidose.org/books/2museums.html">SHIFT: SANAA and the New Museum</a> (SANAA) </blockquote>03-31 Correction: Christopher Hawthorne does indeed mention the separate practices of Sejima and Nishizawa: "Both continue to operate their own smaller, separate firms."

Pritzker Musing

It's virtually impossible to write about The Pritzker Architecture Prize without discussing what other people are saying about the newe...

9:00 AM

Monday, Monday

<a href="http://www.archidose.org/main.html">My weekly page</a> update: This week's dose features <a href="http://www.archidose.org/Mar10/29/dose.html">Kirkwood Public Library</a> in Wilmington, Delaware by ikon.5 architects: <a href="http://www.archidose.org/Mar10/29/dose.html"><img alt="this week's dose" src="http://www.archidose.org/Mar10/29/image01sm.jpg" title="Kirkwood Public Library in Wilmington, Delaware by ikon.5 architects" /></a> The featured past dose is <a href="http://www.archidose.org/Feb05/022105.html"> Clinton Library</a> in Little Rock, Arkansas by Polshek Partnership: <a href="http://www.archidose.org/Feb05/022105.html"><img alt="featured past dose" src="http://www.archidose.org/Feb05/clinton1sm.jpg" title=" Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas by Polshek Partnership" width="200" /></a> This week's book review is <a href="http://www.archidose.org/books/hunch13.html">Hunch 13: Consensus</a> edited by Salomon Frausto: <a href="http://www.archidose.org/books/hunch13.html"><img alt="this week's book review" src="http://www.archidose.org/books/hunch13.jpg" title="Hunch 13: Consensus edited by Salomon Frausto" width="200" /></a> Some unrelated links for your enjoyment: <blockquote><a href="http://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/2010/index.html">2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize</a> The $100,000 prize goes to SANAA, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. (More coverage to follow.) <a href="http://archbraindump.blogspot.com/">Architectural Braindump</a> "The ever-changing profession of architecture." (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture) <a href="http://www.architectureforthemasses.com/">architecture for the masses</a> Blog of Populous, the firm formerly known as HOK Sport. (added to sidebar under blogs::offices/architects) <a href="http://arkinetblog.wordpress.com/">arkinet</a> "Sharing architecture - connecting architects." (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture) </blockquote>

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update: This week's dose features Kirkwood Public Library in Wilmington, Delaware by ikon.5 architects: The featured ...

9:15 PM

Today's archidose #404

Today's archidose #404

London Olympics 2012 , originally uploaded by Manuel.A.69 . The View Tube for the London Olympics 2012 in London, England, 2009. Ple...

6:00 PM

Rising Currents and Open Piers

On Monday the first section of <a href="http://www.brooklynbridgeparknyc.org/">Brooklyn Bridge Park</a>, Pier 1, opened to the public, and on Wednesday the exhibition <a href="http://moma.org/explore/inside_out/category/rising-currents">Rising Currents: Projects for New York's Waterfront</a> opened at MoMA. The first is a six-acre portion of an 85-acre park that stretches from roughly Atlantic Avenue on the south to the Brooklyn Bridge on the north (see <a href="http://www.brooklynbridgeparknyc.org/interactive-map/">interactive map</a>) along the East River. The second consists of artists-in-residence at P.S.1 addressing the challenge of sea levels rising from global climate change. So how do we reconcile these apparently opposite ways of thinking about New York's waterfront, when issues of public space (short term) and eco-sustainability (long term) are both seen as important? <img alt="nyc-h20-2.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/nyc-h20-2.jpg" title="Brooklyn Bridge Park Opening" /> [Brooklyn Bridge Park Opening | image <a href="http://www.brooklynbridgeparknyc.org/">source</a>] Brooklyn Bridge Park is the result of a post-industrial landscape shaped by storage and shipping. The park can be seen as the successor to the warehouses that lasted about a century. But if predictions for rising water levels come true, the waterfront's use as a park would have an even shorter lifespan. The <a href="http://www.pps.org/parks_plazas_squares/greatplaces/one?public_place_id=71">Brooklyn Height Promenade </a>overlooking the park will be okay, but the playgrounds and other features designed by <a href="http://www.mvvainc.com/">Michael Van Valkenburgh</a> would become submerged by the East River. But can lessons from the MoMA exhibition be applied to the design before it's complete? Or will infrastructure addressing rising waters address this and other stretches of New York City shoreline? <img alt="nyc-h20-1.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/nyc-h20-1.jpg" title="Rising Currents Zone" /> [Rising Currents Zones | image <a href="http://moma.org/explore/inside_out/rising-currents">source</a>] Brooklyn Bridge Park sits just north of Zone 4 above, to the right of Zone 0. These and the other zones correspond to the teams developing suitable responses for each; all are <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3775725784?ie=UTF8&tag=aweeklydoseof-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=3775725784">based on research</a> by <a href="http://www.nordenson.com/">Guy Nordenson</a> and others for Palisades Bay, the New York/New Jersey Upper Bay area. All the responses run counter the traditional, muscular ways of dealing with this sort of infrastructure, i.e. the levees of New Orleans. Holding back the rising currents is not the name of the game. Instead learning from nature's processes and utilizing "soft" infrastructure are the means of exploration for the different contexts. So how does public space, especially that alongside the city's waterways, change as we move forward? A <a href="http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2010/02/09/rising-currents-public-space-redefined">post at the MoMA exhibition blog</a> by NYC Parks & Rec Commissioner Adrian Benepe starts to address this issue:<blockquote>"the proposals represent some innovative ways to create new realms of public space, places that are not traditional parks, but rather are flexible zones of water and land and plants and animals. We currently tend to look at parks as distinct from other urban forms, with fences, walls, planted buffers— different vocabularies of building materials. While each team has proposed concepts very different from the others, they all redefine the interaction of streets, parks, seawalls, canals, piers, and even the harbor itself."</blockquote>So Brooklyn Bridge Park's interaction with the East River would then be the logical place for addressing a rise in the water level. The hard edge of Pier 1 may give way to a soft zone that allows the rising waters to be dealt with in some manner besides holding it back. If one thing is clear from the exhibition, New York City's solutions to rising sea levels will be a combination of approaches implemented in a multitude of areas. There is no single fix for one area; and even if there were, the ignorance of other shorelines and the interdependence of them all is irresponsible. We'll see if the exhibition shapes Brooklyn Bridge and other NYC park projects as talk about rising sea levels moves from conviction that it is a problem to practical solutions for the future.

Rising Currents and Open Piers

On Monday the first section of Brooklyn Bridge Park , Pier 1, opened to the public, and on Wednesday the exhibition Rising Currents: Project...

2:15 PM

Today's archidose #403

Today's archidose #403

casa em santa teresa, arq. angelo bucci, rio de janeiro, 2008 , originally uploaded by m correia campos . Casa em Santa Teresa in Rio...

8:15 PM

Formique #2

<a href="http://archidose.blogspot.com/search/label/formique">Formique</a> is an ongoing series that comments on contemporary architecture that ignores some of the basic human, environmental and other concerns that architecture should address, all in the name of formal invention. <img alt="formique002.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/formique002.jpg" title="166 Perry Street by Asymptote Architecture" /> [166 Perry Street by Asymptote Architecture | image <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/2010/03/19/2010-03-19_reflect_on_this_166_perry_st_is_nycs_most_interesting_new_residential_building.html">source</a>] A story in NY Daily News on <a href="http://www.asymptote.net/">Asymptote Architecture</a>'s first ground-up building in Manhattan at 166 Perry Street in the West Village is aptly titled <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/real_estate/2010/03/19/2010-03-19_reflect_on_this_166_perry_st_is_nycs_most_interesting_new_residential_building.html">Reflect On This!</a> One thing the faceted glass curtain wall reflects is the sky, which makes me want to quote <a href="http://www.eartheasy.com/blog/2010/02/9-ways-to-help-birds-avoid-window-collisions/">Eartheasy's post</a> on a side effect of such a thing: "Birds often strike windows because they see a reflection of clouds, sky or trees which gives the mistaken impression that they are flying into open air." The prevalence of all-glass exterior facades is mind-boggling when one takes into consideration the avoidable harm to our fine-feathered friends. Very few architects actually address this concern (<a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6c59b4fa-9821-11de-8d3d-00144feabdc0.html">Studio Gang</a> comes to mind), and in the case of 166 Perry Street the privacy of the residents trumps the lives of birds.

Formique #2

Formique is an ongoing series that comments on contemporary architecture that ignores some of the basic human, environmental and other co...

7:30 PM

All Nouvel, All the Time

Jean Nouvel is the architect of the moment, with news on three major projects blanketing the digital airwaves: the <a href="http://www.serpentinegallery.org/2008/03/serpentine_gallery_pavilion_20_10.html">Serpentine Gallery Pavilion</a> in London, the National Museum of Qatar, and <a href="http://www.nouvelchelsea.com/">100 Eleventh Avenue</a> in New York City. <img alt="nouvel-news1.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/nouvel-news1.jpg" title="Serpentine Pavilion" /> [Serpentine Gallery Pavilion | © Ateliers Jean Nouvel] The <a href="http://news.google.com/news/story?cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&ncl=d1G9ZQR7n8nZhPMX629cm9SHCKRLM">breaking news</a> is Nouvel's selection for the Serpentine Gallery, an annual temporary structure in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park. <a href="http://www.serpentinegallery.org/architecture/">Past commissions</a> have gone to SANAA, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Toyo Ito, and Daniel Libeskind, many with Arup for engineering, including Nouvel's design. It's a who's-who list of starchitects, given free reign (not so free in the case of MVRDV's unrealized "<a href="http://www.archined.nl/kort-nieuws/overig/dutch-mountain-in-london/">mountain</a>") to build a no-budget pavilion with few programmatic requirements. Experimentation is the name of the game here. <img alt="nouvel-news1a.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/nouvel-news1a.jpg" title="Serpentine Pavilion" /> [Serpentine Gallery Pavilion | © Ateliers Jean Nouvel] The bright red pavilion immediately recalls Bernard Tschumi's folies for <a href="http://www.archidose.org/Feb99/020199.htm">Parc de la Villette</a> in Paris, realized nearly 20 years ago. Of course he was inspired by Russian Constructivist art and architecture, so the lineage of inspiration extends far beyond the immediate past. It also recalls another Nouvel design, the <a href="http://www.archidose.org/Nov02/110402.html">Brembo Research Office</a> in Italy, another bright red building integrating a <a href="http://archidose.blogspot.com/2008/03/ae2-highway-noise-barrier.html">highway noise barrier</a>. The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion--whose red "reflects the iconic British images of traditional telephone boxes, post boxes and London buses"--consists of "bold geometric forms, large retractable awnings and a freestanding wall that climbs 12m above the lawn, sloping at a gravity defying angle." It's fun with a capital F! <img alt="nouvel-news2.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/nouvel-news2.jpg" title="National Museum of Qatar" /> [National Museum of Qatar | image <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/arts/design/23doha.html">source</a>] The other big news is the unveiling of Nouvel's design for the Naitonal Museum of Qatar, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/arts/design/23doha.html">covered by Nicolai Ouroussoff</a>, who drools over it as the "French architect’s most overtly poetic act of cultural synthesis yet." Last week the New York Times critic praised 100 Eleventh Avenue's "mix of grit and glamour," as the building nears completion in Chelsea, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/archidose/3637680078/in/set-72157619892898498/">visible from the High Line</a>. <img alt="nouvel-news3.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/nouvel-news3.jpg" title="Serpentine Pavilion" /> [100 Eleventh Avenue | photo by archidose] These last two designs and their treatment by Ourousoff spur me to link to Alexandra Lange's <a href="http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=12708">recent analysis</a> of the critic's writings at the Times. I tend to agree with Lange's position that the architecture critic at the nation's newspaper of record should be much better, but the comments show that opinion is hardly unanimous. I think what's missing from discussions of celebrity architecture and fashionable, eye-catching designs is how these designs come about, the role of the client and the cultural context. Architects do not design these sorts of buildings in a vacuum and then happen to have them built; it is a two-way street of a desire for what Nouvel and his comrades are very good at doing: creating unprecedented architecture that receives the widest attention, this blog included.

All Nouvel, All the Time

Jean Nouvel is the architect of the moment, with news on three major projects blanketing the digital airwaves: the Serpentine Gallery Pavili...

11:30 AM