For the first time in a while (read: since I inhaled Oryx and Crake in June) I sat down and read something quasi-fictional in almost one sitting. I somehow stumbled upon Petite Anglaise, a blog by a thirty-something Brit ex-pat living in Paris. I was looking for tips on French education, part of my prep. work for my French ETA interview tomorrow. Is it just me or do all Brit ex-pats find their feet in Parisian dog doo?
Reading both Clarke's book and Sanderson's blog made me miss Paris terribly, feces, drunken lunatics, metro strikes and all. I am crossing all fingers and toes in the hopes that next October will see me wandering down Rue de Rivoli, revisiting my favorite merry-go-round near Rue de Fourcy, crossing the Pont Marie for that spectacular view of Notre Dame...
In other news, the quest for a suitable thesis topic might have finally been completed (and successfully, at that). I spent a long time, somewhere in the vein of five months, stuck. Not because I had no ideas, but because I had too many. I failed to realize that in one semester (the only time we have allotted towards thesis in the Interior Design program) it would be difficult for me to engage in a project of the scale I was hoping. No, I had to tell myself that as intriguing a study of the planned urban-renewal of the City of Roanoke would be, the glass slipper would fall right off.
So here's where I stand (until my thesis advisor shoots me down at our meeting tomorrow, that is). My thesis is an exploration of the role of design in the development of a "sense of community." It seeks to ask, specifically, to what extent is the design of a space responsible for its role as a "third place" (as compared to the effects of proximity and company)? Can design render a space more effective as a "third place"?
Programmatically, I will be redesigning the existing Johnston Student Center on Virginia Tech's campus. My clients are the campus community, specifically the students and faculty of the School of Architecture + Design, whose quad lies adjacent to the building. The space will house the following functions: a cafe + restaurant, study spaces, a gallery space/public space for events, lecture spaces, retail (for architectural supplies). The tools I will use to conduct my thesis will be a survey and analysis, drawings, photographs and models.
I would like to take an architectural approach, exploring the potential of three-story volumes and addressing the need for some connection to the two quads (one stone plaza and one small park space) that run adjacent to the site.
Now: to find some case studies...I already did some research into coffee shops a few years ago, I suppose I will have to dig up that paper and my resources. I'm sufficiently excited about the prospects of this project, and insist on refusing to generate any "pretty perspectives." Onward ho.
Aside: I feel like I ought to make something of an apology for not having written since February. To be fair, I have had plenty to write about, but not much motivation - more on that in some other post perhaps, for right now, I apologize to that soul, sole commenter. I will write more this year, I have been newly inspired!
Monday, October 6, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
So today I watched "Sketches of Frank Gehry"
It's a documentary about Frank's architecture, models and sketches, directed by Sydney Pollack. Pollack, whose work I've not had much direct experience with, except for my tryst with "The Interpreter" a few years ago, seems to be a genuine guy, and portrays Gehry as such.
The individuals he chose to portray Gehry through included Gehry's therapist, several artists (and friends of Gehry), clients, AND critics. The critics appeared a bit ridiculous in comparison to the overwhelming positive response from the other individuals, but that's to be expected, since Pollack is a friend of Gehry's himself.
I've always wanted to see images of Gehry's own home, with the corrugated steel and chain link fence, and I have to say, it's not pretty. Parts of it are elegant (the juxtaposition of angles in the large window above the kitchen, and the corner at the end of the home, right below the roof's spine), but the chain link fence is, at the end of the day, a chain link fence. A kind of novelty, which I sometimes feel is reflective of other Gehry buildings. The film notes this, that sometimes Gehry himself thinks that his work is experimental at its core, and that sometimes results in "not so pretty" buildings. And he's ok with that. But the rest of the world lives in them, so is that an appropriate response?
In general, we live in ugly "architecture." My dorm building is a collegiate Gothic, crumbling to the ground, with "fresh" cream walls and linoleum floors. My house is typical suburban "architecture," with two more gables than necessary, a maximization of 'function,' with an obnoxious garage and a false brick facade. But as an architect, are you not obligated to create beautiful buildings?
Chiew-Hong, a friend of mine studying architecture at Yale, and I had a brief dialogue about this topic while walking through the woods of Fontainebleau, France. What, I asked her, do you think is the most important duty of an architect today? "Make beautiful buildings." That was her response. And with technology that is available today, that shouldn't be so hard, right? We can do almost anything. Have a concept, and run with it. Which is what Gehry's doing, don't get me wrong, and "pretty" is a subjective word (and one that is often the bane of many an architectural treatise) - but if the real function of an architect is to create beautiful environments, (NOT at the expense of a functioning environment), then who's to decide what's beautiful, and who's to say one architect is better or worse than another?
Doesn't architecture, then, become a simple extension of sculpture? Serra is currently creating sculptures that can be inhabited - is that architecture? If you can walk through something, stand under it, crawl around it, is it architecture? What if it's ugly? Then is it sculpture? Because sculpture is allowed to be ugly, as long as the artist is has intent, right?
Another thing that struck me about the Gehry film was his acknowledgment that he most envies painters, and would never dare to paint, or imagine himself as a painter. Pollack does this cool montage after he says that, and shows how some surfaces on Gehry's buildings reflect light in a "painterly" fashion, but that's something different. I guess, I too, am envious of painters. I pretend to paint, I throw some pigment onto a canvas, push it around, think about it, leave it alone, come back, hate it, and give it away. In the last 12 months, I've decided I need to think, and I haven't done much thinking in my lifetime. 20 years, and not a valid thought. So I seem to be under the impression that painters think, and that's something I need to do to validate my quest for thought. We'll see what comes of it.
Both Pollack and Gehry (though mostly Pollack) spoke about "pretending" to be a(n) director(architect). Feeling like it's a role, that at some point, you stop feeling like you're pretending to be someone else, and you ARE a director/an architect. They didn't come to any conclusions, but I'm going to sign off with that as a question. Is there a moment, not so much an "aha" moment, but a "mhmmmm" moment, where things slide into place and you realize that you're no longer pretending to be a designer, pretending to know something about something, and you actually do? Do you ever really know? Are you ever really being?
The individuals he chose to portray Gehry through included Gehry's therapist, several artists (and friends of Gehry), clients, AND critics. The critics appeared a bit ridiculous in comparison to the overwhelming positive response from the other individuals, but that's to be expected, since Pollack is a friend of Gehry's himself.
I've always wanted to see images of Gehry's own home, with the corrugated steel and chain link fence, and I have to say, it's not pretty. Parts of it are elegant (the juxtaposition of angles in the large window above the kitchen, and the corner at the end of the home, right below the roof's spine), but the chain link fence is, at the end of the day, a chain link fence. A kind of novelty, which I sometimes feel is reflective of other Gehry buildings. The film notes this, that sometimes Gehry himself thinks that his work is experimental at its core, and that sometimes results in "not so pretty" buildings. And he's ok with that. But the rest of the world lives in them, so is that an appropriate response?
In general, we live in ugly "architecture." My dorm building is a collegiate Gothic, crumbling to the ground, with "fresh" cream walls and linoleum floors. My house is typical suburban "architecture," with two more gables than necessary, a maximization of 'function,' with an obnoxious garage and a false brick facade. But as an architect, are you not obligated to create beautiful buildings?
Chiew-Hong, a friend of mine studying architecture at Yale, and I had a brief dialogue about this topic while walking through the woods of Fontainebleau, France. What, I asked her, do you think is the most important duty of an architect today? "Make beautiful buildings." That was her response. And with technology that is available today, that shouldn't be so hard, right? We can do almost anything. Have a concept, and run with it. Which is what Gehry's doing, don't get me wrong, and "pretty" is a subjective word (and one that is often the bane of many an architectural treatise) - but if the real function of an architect is to create beautiful environments, (NOT at the expense of a functioning environment), then who's to decide what's beautiful, and who's to say one architect is better or worse than another?
Doesn't architecture, then, become a simple extension of sculpture? Serra is currently creating sculptures that can be inhabited - is that architecture? If you can walk through something, stand under it, crawl around it, is it architecture? What if it's ugly? Then is it sculpture? Because sculpture is allowed to be ugly, as long as the artist is has intent, right?
Another thing that struck me about the Gehry film was his acknowledgment that he most envies painters, and would never dare to paint, or imagine himself as a painter. Pollack does this cool montage after he says that, and shows how some surfaces on Gehry's buildings reflect light in a "painterly" fashion, but that's something different. I guess, I too, am envious of painters. I pretend to paint, I throw some pigment onto a canvas, push it around, think about it, leave it alone, come back, hate it, and give it away. In the last 12 months, I've decided I need to think, and I haven't done much thinking in my lifetime. 20 years, and not a valid thought. So I seem to be under the impression that painters think, and that's something I need to do to validate my quest for thought. We'll see what comes of it.
Both Pollack and Gehry (though mostly Pollack) spoke about "pretending" to be a(n) director(architect). Feeling like it's a role, that at some point, you stop feeling like you're pretending to be someone else, and you ARE a director/an architect. They didn't come to any conclusions, but I'm going to sign off with that as a question. Is there a moment, not so much an "aha" moment, but a "mhmmmm" moment, where things slide into place and you realize that you're no longer pretending to be a designer, pretending to know something about something, and you actually do? Do you ever really know? Are you ever really being?
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