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There is nothing I hate more than buildings that have curves like this tower proposed by Rafael Viñoly for London:
Or buildings that bulge like this recently completed apartment in Almere, Netherlands—OMA designed it:
Buildings are not bodies. Buildings should not look biological. Buildings should be inhuman, inorganic. And besides, living in an apartment that bulges is like living in a stomach or a womb, both of which are gross.
you're an idiot
you're an idiot
you're an idiot
I won't go as far, or be as harsh, as ED - but I need to disagree. Creative can be a good (like the tower above, which is super cool), or bad thing (like the EMP).
Domes are bulges. A circle is also a curve and there are a lot of circles in classic architecture: Bramante's San Pietro, The Pantheon, etc. So do those bulges bug you too, or is it only bulges and curves that are *organic* in some more specific sense.
There is perhaps a bit of excess bravado behind the organic forms of post-modern architecture, but the same was true of the dome of Florence's Cathedral in it's time.
After 80 years of mostly poorly executed glass boxes, I'm happy to see anything a bit more exuberant cropping up on the skyline.
My one reservation about this type of form is that it makes it hard to integrate buildings into a cityscape, but I tend to chalk that up to my own lack of imagination.
Charles: There is a world's worth of architects who'd disagree with you. I'd leave the pseudo-intellectual commentary to them.
architecture shouldn't be organic? so much for frank lloyd wright, eero saarinen, antoni gaudi...
Charles, why is it that commies like inhuman buildings? Was it Stalin who started the trend?
Ahura, Nice try but the common denominator is dictatorship, not left/right orientation. It's not just commies. Look at Hitler and Stalin.
As to "organic" architecture -- what does such a term mean, even/especially when it includes Frank Lloyd Wright? How, except by contortion of the language to the point of meaningless can any building be "organic?" (Unless maybe if it a straw-bale structure)
One: This is what I wrote about Gaudi in last week's fashion issue: "Like all of Gaudí's major works, the Sagrada Familia has no straight lines. It's a thriving mess of mammals, reptiles, columns that grow like trees, sculptures of Jesus and his fever-mad followers—all of this rushing up to spires that can only be described as the terrifying erections of something utterly alien. And as if that weren't enough, the front entrance of the church looks like a vulva with a million little teeth." As you can see, I detest his work.
Two: Block 16, the name of the building in Almere, is designed by René van Zuuk Architekten but it's part of a mater plan organized by OMA for a new city center. And so responsibility for this atrocity must go to the organizers.
Three: I'm not a commie; I'm a Marxist. Stalin was a commie, not a Marxist. But I think my dislike for this kind of architecture has its roots in Hegel rather than Marx. What Hegel denounces again and again is anything that looks inspired, any work that reeks of an individual's inspiration--the singular. What he prefers, and what I prefer, are things that are clearly the product of social work, social activity, that are universal. A hard block stands for us all, whereas something that's curvy is fitting for just one of us. Finally, I just cant stand things that are wild or look wild. I prefer cities and concrete way over hills and trees.
You're absolutely right, Charles. Wombs are gross, and should be banned entirely. God forbid YOU should ever see one.
I want to live in a womb-shaped apartment building with a giant placenta-shaped chandelier in the entryway.
I love those buildings. Why should architecture consist of straight lines and big boxes? Screw that.
Napoleon: there would be no point to a placenta-shaped chandelier, because Tom Cruise would only eat it.
Not to go all ad-hominem on you, but Charles, that's a flat-out freaking bizarre position to take. I'm glad as hell for *interesting* architecture and wish Seattle had more of it - be damned your utilitarian fantasies.
Raw Data: Your're wrong. If you will think for two seconds you'll realize how much interesting architecture happened because of dictators. Also the natzi archtichture was cheese-a-rific but much better than any Stalin era soul destroying BS.
Charles, you fucking commie, see Freud's "Narcissim of Small Diffences." It might be helpful for your "I'm not a commie" theory.
All buildings must assimilate.
Uh. . . Chalres. Coltrane's principal forms were organic and curved. What else is the breath in a bent note?
(Check and mate.)
it's freaky when somebody as stupid as charles mudede gets a platform -- no matter how small -- to express his thoughts and opinions.
seriously, why would anyone care what you think about architecture, or anything else, for that matter? this is the stranger...shouldn't you be writing about trannies and butt sex or something?
"what I prefer, are things that are clearly the product of social work, social activity, that are universal.
Right. So long as the result agrees with your preference of bland and boring, right? This is the myth of your utopian vision; that there is such thing as a collective will and that it can be consistently manifest. Your opinions here betray the entire notion.
Open societies are the only way to ensure that anything close to resembling a collective will gets manifest. Ironically, it is only in the exaltation of the individual that the will of the community can be found.
Dale Chihuly could make a placenta-shaped chandelier. Or at least oversee some minimum wage schmuck to do his heavy lifting.
For Jensen: When Le Corbusier saw, for the first time, in 1945, modern Manhattan from a descending commercial plane he said, "It's hot jazz in stone!"
As for Gene: You is a hater and a half, which means you must be a priest and a half--please read Genealogy of Morality (the Swensen/Clark translation for the best results) to get my drift.
I like the London building. At first glance, it looks like an optical illusion. However, the apartment building in the Netherlands is so, so wrong. It looks like something's trying to escape.
Charles, I love it when you get all petulant...
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I fully agree! London's poor, poor skyline. They've already got a few buildings with way too much "pizzazz" for their own good. Like Wang Tower, which is apparently a really cool, eco-friendly building, but bears an uncanny resemblence to my stubby l'il lovemuscle.
I don't want to live in a womb, either.
This building looks like an EMP in the sky and should never occur anyplace outside of a theme park.