The Roaring Nineties in Architecture

In his book The Roaring Nineties professor Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize of Economy 2001, compares current situation (in 2003) to the time that drove the world into the Great Depression. Those days produced excesses in the economy and in architecture. It is true that at the same time the best modern architecture was built then (for example the Barcelona Pavilion and the Villa Savoye). In our times some virtual architecture is going to be considered an example of an "era of vulgarity and ambition" (read this article in the New York Times). Arup, the company that has built almost everyone of the frivolous and scandalous building of the recent “starchitecture” considers a rectification is on its way because of the financial crisis:

“One thing that has slightly disappointed me in the broad architectural world of late, and I think the difficult financial situation we all find ourselves in is going to improve this, is that I think some architecture became quite frivolous, it was doing things that were slightly crazy, just because we could.”

Philip Dilley, Chairman Arup

Nevertheless, there are some other critics who do defend the Star System leaning on a sort of architectural version of the "Trickle-down" theory of the neoliberal economy: Spectacle-Architecture supposedly benefits everybody as "it has opened up possibilities for the young and lesser known". Isn't that interesting?

A Prize to the Autonomy of Architecture

The 2009 Pritzker Prize to Peter Zumthor means a recognition of the validity of autonomous architecture:

"I believe that architecture today needs to reflect on the tasks and possibilities which are inherently its own. Architecture is not a vehicle or a symbol for things that do not belong to its essence"

Peter Zumthor.Thinking Architecture, 1998

The link takes to a good article at Los Angeles Times

Myths on the Death of Modern Architecture: Pruitt-Igoe again

Just as history in Fukuyama's death of history, modern architecture is coming back form the other world. The thing is that in both cases there were false burials. In both the media contributed greatly in building a new utopia: post-history and post-modernity were sophisticated ways of being inside history and modernity. Modern utopia, which has always been the enemy of modern refexive creativity, as it turns into collective what is strictly individual, is behind the political burial of modern architecture. As an example, watch the video on Robert Hudge's obituary of Modern Architecture and read the abstract of the research of Katherine Bristol on the subject:

“(…) In place of the myth, this paper offers a brief history of Pruitt-Igoe that demonstrates how its construction and management were shaped by profoundly embedded economic and political conditions in postwar St. Louis. It then outlines how each successive retelling of the Pruitt-Igoe story in both the national and architectural press has added new distortions and misinterpretations of the original events. The paper concludes by offering an interpretation of the Pruitt-Igoe myth as mystification. By placing the responsibility for the failure of public housing on designers, the myth shifts attention from the institutional or structural sources of public housing problems.”

“The Pruitt-Igoe Myth”, Katharine G. Bristol. Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 44, No. 3 (May, 1991), pp. 163-171

John Gray: contemporary thinking

John Gray's thinking is a good model for contemporary thinking, by which I mean the reflexive and skilful inteligence we need right now.

I have already recomended two of his books, Black Mass, last year just after he presented Critical Modernism, the book by Charles Jencks in the Royal Academy in London; and False Dawn, when commenting Hay Festival in Segovia.

It is very interesting to listen and watch this pragmatic philosopher thinking live on stage.

Aesthetic Science

Old intentions have created a new field: Neuroaesthetics.

Professor Semir Zeki at the University College London is the inventor of this new subject. At first glance, in his writings and research there is an inovative balance between art and science: art is not a simple object there. The primarily importance given to the aesthetic experience makes the difference, compared to Gestalt School, for example. Based in neuroscience, the constant references to artist's ideas, writings and complete works of art are inspiring in this proposal.

The main difference with any artistic research is that all the experiments of Neuroaesthetics pretend to learn more about the brain, whereas in art research always pursues to produce works that challenge the definition of art itself. Anyway, I find this trend stimulating.

Less plausible are some derivations of Neuroaesthetics. Specially those that struggle to invent a machine capable of creating a work of art: what is called esthetic prosthestic. That's plane and simply old Science Fiction.

Professor Zeki has an interesting blog in which, curiously enough, there are no images at all. Just words.

Architecture and popularity

Centro de Formación Profesional Building, Costa Rica 30, Madrid (1970)

Popularity in the realm of art and architecture is a curious thing . Ortega y Gasset used to say that modern art was not unpopular, as if it would be finally accepted when people got to understand it. In his opinion it was anti-popular, because it had to break conventions in order to innovate.

A few days ago Iñaki Ábalos was saying that internet forums were a good way of promoting urban critique in article in Babelia. Well, I have to say that this is a quite risky mean to promote criticism in art and architecture as the following case reveals. For a long time I have admired a wonderful building in the number 30 of the Calle Costa Rica (with Victor de la Serna) in Madrid; looking for information on internet I found this forum in which it is nominated as the ugliest building in Madrid.

I hope this is a sign of its modernity (in the Orteguian way). The building is now the INEM Offices (Empleo Estatal) and the author is the great Valencian architect Fernando Moreno Barberá. Anyway, it is encouraging that nobody has voted the building in the pool.

Ultra High Definition Prado Museum

The possibility of watching masterpieces by Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, Tiziano, Rembrandt, Rubens... like if we where in the studio of those artists and as close to the work as they have been is something really interesting.

The only way of understanding art is to put ourselves in the place of the artist that has create the work, to be in his shoes. Well, digital technology has just done it possible. The only thing is that the news made it impossible today to reach the museum site. Yes, digital queueing. Even technology cannot avoid the fact that there are millions of people interested in the same things at the same time.

This article in The Guardian speculates on whether it is even better than the real thing.

Sunset in the Alhambra

The autonomy of architecture is based in the exclusive possibilities it has to introduce beauty in everyday life.

Sometimes, however, certain coincidences improve those possibilities: like the couple of gypsies that were singing flamenco at San Nicolas Square in the Albaicin (Granada) with the Alhambra in front of us (watch the video below). The landscape, history, architecture, music...reality conspiring to impact our sensibility.

What is not a coincidence is the panoramic view of the Alhambra from the squares and gardens in the Albaicín: it is a tradition that all the open spaces in Granada, specially the "carmenes", face that marvellous building.

Total Enlightenment and Art at War

Marsden Hartley, The Iron Cross, 1915 (the link takes to a video on the painting by Washington University in St. Louis)

Korman & Melamid, Double Self-portrait, 1984

Until tomorrow (sorry for the delay) there are two wonderful exhibitions in Madrid: Total Enlightenment. Conceptual Art in Moscow 1960-1990, at the Fundación Juan March , and ¡1914! Avant-garde and the Great War, at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Both are one of those luxuries that are going to disappear if the economic crisis gets really bad. If you cannot go, the catalogues are excellent pieces of literature on their respective subject, maybe the best one in both cases: Russian conceptual art and the relationship between war and the historical avant-garde.

Boris Groys, the curator of Total Enlightenment, has just published in Spanish an excellent book on current mediatic era: Bajo sospecha. Soon, in Revista de Occidente it will appear my review of the book.

Temporary and permanent architecture

French Communist Party Headquaters, Paris, 1972. Oscar Niemeyer

Deconstruction is unbeatable in terms of spectacle.

The video below is on the ZHA 2007 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London, and it shows the construction process of such a clever devise. The result could not be more appealing. Koolhaas , Ghery and Liebeskind have done theirs with similar striking results.

For permanent wrap surface buildings, I mean real (not virtual) architecture, Oscar Niemeyer is still the unbeatable one, as his Paris building demonstrates. The picture was taken few weeks ago thanks to Monsieur Benoit kindness.

Master Utzon has died

Utzon has died, but his works are alive.

Dinamism in architecture has to do with light, not with buildings that move. Utzon made the stones, the concrete, the bricks and the wood breath under the light. The video is at his Bagsvaerd Church in Copenhague.

Utzon liked to cite Goethe saying: "give me a job, so I can devote my self with love and skill a hundred per cent. Then it is not a job anymore, it becomes an art, an expression of love". The tribute of the Sydney Opera House is worth visiting.

PD: William Curtis has said recently that there were just two Masters alive in architecture: one of them was Utzon.

David Chipperfield at the IE University

Great Sunday. Having Chipperfield in our University has been a quite rewarding event.

Last Friday, at my studio, we were discussing what I've named architectural "didactism". Didactism is the pathology of architecture determined by explanations of the design process . It comes from design competitions: as the juries are normally neophyte in architecture (politicians, bureaucrats, managers) the proposals have to be easily explained, so much so that design teams tend to propose mainly what is easy to explain. Nevertheless, good architecture can't never be totally explained because it is done to be experienced, not to be understood.

Chipperfield, the best British architect at the moment, has perfectly demonstrated with his outstanding work since 1985 that he believes in architecture to be lived. He explicitly agrees with this point of view in the interview below (specially when he talks about recent architecture as "victim of methodological descriptions"). However, one might say that his own CAT Master Plan is sort of didactic (video). Anyway, I'm a sure that at the end the British-Spanish Dream Team (Chipperfield-Perea-Junquera-Sancho) will convert the Segovia CAT in the public paradise they (and we all) want it to be.

I told Mr. Chipperfield that on Friday we were studying his gorgeous Gallery in Berlin at my studio at the IE School of Architecture: that building is, as the majority of his work, one example of authentic architecture to be experienced. He was glad to hear that.

Segovia Contemporary Architecture

"Techné"
David Chipperfield

"XXI"
Andrés Perea (courtesy of Estudio Malla)

The title of this post is quite an accomplishment in itself, as Segovia is usually associated to the history of architecture and not to modernity at all. Well, things are changing.

The reasons for the changes are various: political, cultural, educational and economic. One of the main changes comes form the initiatives taken by the IE School of Architecture. As an example: next Sunday there will be a conference on the CAT design competition won by David Chipperfield, and he and the authors of the three awarded proposals will explain their work at the Aula Magna.

The participants will be the Major of Segovia, Martha Thorne (Executive Director of The Pritzker Architecture Prize), David Chipperfield, Andrés Perea, Juan Carlos Sancho y Sol Madridejos and Jerónimo Junquera. The report of the jury of the competition is in Spanish.

Sundance Channel Architecture School

The initiative of Sundance Channel called Architecture School is of great interest.

The thing is that images, movement, visual contemplation are essential in architecture, however, it is really difficult to find good examples of filming architecture. Internet is the perfect media for making visual contents available, specially those in which architecture is unbeatable. To find the proper tone, the rhythm, the suitable filming style for architecture is not easy. Sundance AS gets really close the ideal.

The link takes you to the presentations of the protopypes done by the students of Tulane University for a house in New Orleans.

Koolhaas and the cinema

The film on the Bordaux House of Rem Koolhaas is an exception on architectural documentaries. Maybe too Dogma style, but the idea of presenting the house through the experience of the person who does the cleaning is great. The most interesting part is the begining because is truly cinematographic. Enjoy it. I am afraid the rest of the film is able to make dizzy because of the abuse of the subjective camera. Curious that the architecture that is supposed to derive from cinema is not so easy to become a film.

CAT Conference in Segovia

The CAT Competition will be the subject of a conference at the IE School of Architecture in Segovia this coming Sunday. The program in Spanish is:

Semana de la Arquitectura
PRESENTACION CAT
fecha domingo 30 de noviembre 11:30
lugar IE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
Aula magna


AGENDA DEL ACTO

1 Saludo del Alcalde.
(10 minutos)
2 Presentación de los equipos por Martha Thorne. Executive Director. The Pritzker Architecture Prize
(8 minutos)

3 David Chipperfield
(20 minutos) (20 imagenes)
-Presentación del Master Plan
-Reflexiones sobre el Espacio Público. Las tres plazas.

4 Andrés Perea
Nuevos lugares para el trabajo. Espacios para Emprendedores
(10 imágenes, 10 minutos)

5 Juan Carlos Sancho y Sol madridejos
Las referencias singulares. El espacio cultural del CAT. (10
imágenes)

6 Jerónimo Junquera
El control de la escala ó los itinerarios en el CAT. El Centro de
Ocio y comercial (10 imágenes)

7 David Chipperfield
El CAT hacia el exterior. El Palacio de Congresos. (10 imágenes)

8 Mesa redonda y coloquio
los cuatro equipos moderado por Martha Thorne. (40 minutos)
(imágenes de la maqueta colectiva de fondo)
Martha llevará una serie de preguntas preparadas que irá
lanzando a los integrantes mesa y se pueden intercalar las
preguntas del público que recogeremos mediante cartulinas
que pasaremos a la mesa (seleccionadas)

Pure Modernity at the Museum

At the Reina Sofia Museum there is the wonderful exhibition A.C. La revista del GATEPAC (1931-1937). By the title one never would guess the vastness, rigor and quality of such an exhibition. In my opinion it could have been called "The various origins of modernity" or something like this: there are architectural plans, models, photography, painting, sculpture, cinema all originals. And have a look at the names: Le Corbusier, Sert, Gropius, Mies (the full scale originals of the Tugendhant), Man Ray, Neutra (the most amazing original perspectives in pencil of the Lowell House and some urban projects), Arp, lots of the best Miro, Picasso, Aalto, Terragni, exceptional sculptures by Julio Gonzalez, films by Buñuel...

It is almost impossible to see it properly in one day. It should be better advertized the excellence of this fountain of knowledge.