Le double bon goût serait égal à ça + ça.

Chicago’s preservation advocacy groups did not rally to save the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed hut (behind fence) at the Illinois Institute of Technology. (Tribune photo by Abel Uribe)

Here’s a sentence I never thought I would write: It was good to see the demolition crews pulling down the building by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Mies, as all architecture buffs know, was the master of steel-and-glass modernism, a towering intellect who loved to smoke a good cigar and to toss off aphorisms like: “We don’t invent a new architecture every Monday morning.”

But the building, whose demolition began in earnest on Monday, isn’t one of his masterpieces. It’s a squat brick hut at the southwest corner of the Illinois Institute of Technology that a cadre of earnest bloggers have attempted to elevate to the status of a minor gem.

Never mind that Chicago’s preservation advocacy groups did not rally to their cause. Or that Mies’ grandson, Chicago architect Dirk Lohan, said of the building: “Mies probably told some junior member (of his office) to do this thing. … You can’t write architectural history with that building.”

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Blair Kamin
Chicago Tribune

Mies van der Rohe foi um arquiteto nascido na Alemanha, professor da famosa escola vanguardista de arquitetura Bauhaus até seu fechamento – quando também percebeu que seu estilo “não-alemão” não se encaixava no contexto de seu país, em pleno nazismo – e se naturalizou norte-americano após sua emigração. Ele trabalhou em conjunto com Lilly Reich durante aproximadamente 10 anos, que o ajudou a construir algumas de suas obras-primas.

A cadeira Barcelona com o banquinho para os pés

A cadeira Barcelona foi apresentada ao público no pavilhão alemão para a Feira Mundial de 1929 em Barcelona (também conhecido como Pavilhão Barcelona. O legal é que ela foi desenhada para ser o trono para a realeza Espanhola naquele evento! E é um ícone de design até hoje.

Estas aí embaixo são a BRNO, o nome vem de um projeto de arquitetura e design que van der Rohe fez em uma cidade Tcheca que tem esse nome (mas não me peçam para pronunciá-lo). Ela pode ser de estrutura tubular ou achatada, e o mais interessante nela é o desafio à gravidade, que dá um balanço e uma leveza inigualáveis.

Reparem que os braços e pernas são achatados...

... e desta são tubulares

E tem a coleção MR, toda em aço tubular, seguindo o “Less is More” que van der Rohe sempre repetia.

Espreguiçadeira MR Lounge

MR Lounge Branca

Reparem como lembra a BRNO

Below is an inspired set of photo collage, circa 2000.  Mies van der Rohe via Petra Vadehra von Treskow with a little help from a fellow called Karl, a fictional character who traversed the globe, aloft in the sky in search of the light that was Mies. I love this fairytale. Only this past week I spotted a Zephyr floating high above San Francisco and it reminded me of von Treskow’s homage, prompting me to post it.

LINK>

Exhibition dates: 18th September 2009 – 17th January 2010

see more images of the show here.

Cadeira Barcelona

“Este gracioso modelo de cadeirão remonta á data da encomenda do Pavilhão da Alemanha para a exposição universal de Barcelona, em 1929. Lugwig Mies van der Rohe projectou um edificio considerado emblemático da arquitectura moderna e criou uma estrutura poética de planos horizontais e verticais, constituídos por paredes de mármore e ónix, vidro pintado e colunas cromodas.  (o pavilhão foi demolido em 1930 e reconstruido pela Fundació Mies van der Rohe, de acordo com as especificações originais em 1983-86). Não tendo no seu portfólio mobiliário que considerasse para a utilização neste espaço amplo e ininterrupto, concebeu assim a cadeira Barcelona, de modo a não parecer demasiado grande nem a afectar a fluidez do espaço, para complementar o pavilhão. Dado que reis de Espanha deveriam ser aí recebidos, Mies estava determinado a produzir uma cadeira “importante, elegante e monumental”. Utilizou uma estrutura de tesousa – com duas pernas em aço cromado, curvas e elegantes, como caracteres chineses – onde cada lado era unido por uma barra transversal com pernas e toda a estrutura era soldada e limada á mão.  As barras de aço eram um material exclusivo na altura e as correias de couro, esticadas sobre a estrutura, escondiam inteligentemente os pernos. Apesar de os cadeirões serem de fabrico difícil, para não falar do seu custo, a Knoll começou a produzir a cadeira mas decidiu criar uma estrutura soldada singular inteira. Esta solução reduziu a necessidade de polimento e lixamento e, em 1964, o aço cromado foi substituido por aço inoxidável polido. No entanto, a estrutura esteve sempre visível; o princípio da suspensão vê-se através do assento flutuante. O cadeirão foi aperfeiçoado por Mies nos anos de 1950, para conferir maior elasticidade ao assento, referindo que “a cadeira  deveria abrir-se ao seu ocupante sob o peso do seu corpo. As costas deveriam inclinar-se e o assento afundar-se.” No pavilhão alemão, Mies colucou apenas duas cadeiras com almofadas em couro branco, cada uma com 40 painéis cosidos á mão – junto a uma parede de ónix cor mel, o que lhe conferia um ar de autoridade e as elevava imediatamente ao estaturo de tronos. O cadeirão Barcelona nunca se destinou á produção em série, mas tornou-se num objecto de culto devido ao seu designer, que o começou a utilizar nas áreas de repepção formais dos seus emblemáticos edifícios – o que explica porque o podemos ver ainda hoje em edifícios de escritórios.”

Design, 1000 Objectos de Culto, Volume 3

Cadeira Barcelona

Em venda na Knoll – http://www.knoll.com/knoll_home.jsp

Rand quoting the late architect, ludwig mies van der rohe’s ‘don’t try to be original. just try to be good’.

La Arquitectura es la voluntad de la época traducida a espacio.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

(1886-1969) Arquitecto y diseñador industrial. Hizo célebre la frase “menos es más”.

I’m reading Paul Goldberger’s new book Why Architecture Matters. As you would expect from Paul, it is a smart, well-written work that is designed to help the reader interested in buildings “come to grips with how things feel to us when we stand before them, with how architecture affects us emotionally as well as intellectually.”

I’ve already come across numerous passages and examples that resonate, but last evening I was reading his take on I.M. Pei and Henry Cobb’s John Hancock Tower on Copley Square in Boston and was reminded of my last impression of that building when Andrew, Claire and I were visiting the city in March 2008.

Paul, a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer and a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is describing the Hancock Tower in comparison to New York’s Seagram Building and G.M. Building.  All three are postwar American landmarks.

It was great fun to introduce Claire and Andrew to Copley Square when we visited Boston in 2008.  We toured the great H.H. Richardson-designed Trinity Church, of course, and took numerous photographs – both color and black & white for Claire’s photography class.  We wandered Copley Square to talk about the buildings, spaces and people.  And we marveled at the Hancock Tower and talked about how it fit within that historic yet dynamic space.

Paul describes that fit within the context of Copley Square in his inimitable way, so I’ll quote from him liberally and then add a photo or two from our visit.

This tower has an unusual shape, a slab sliced on the diagonal so that from some angles it appears like a thin wafer and from others, almost like a flat surface with nothing behind it at all.  It is like a piece of abstract sculpture, beautiful but mute…The idea here is to minimize procession and to think of the building as an elegant, sculptural object set within the complex composition of Copley Square….

Once the new glass was put in, you could finally see that Hancock was designed to look as if it had been conceived as a pure abstraction, a cool, elegant piece of modern sculpture.  It appears almost weightless, despite its size….

When you look at the Seagram Building or the General Motors Building or the Hancock Tower, you see not only an object but also a certain vision of the world.  Architecture, among other things, seeks to establish order.  Mies’ order (at the Seagram Building) is easy to see – subtle and understated, but powerful and self-assured….If the Seagram Building has a Zen simplicity to it, the General Motors Building suggests a more garish view of the world, one in which a few eye-grabbing gestures, like the white marble and the bay windows, are expected to create an aesthetic experience and to hide the fact that the building is, at the end of the day, a dressed-up box….

The vision Pei and Cobb suggest with the Hancock Tower is a more difficult and complex one – full of movement and lines of tension.  They did not want to compete head-on with Mies van der Rohe in the category of boxlike high-rises, and they chose to make their skyscraper in another shape altogether, a shape that in its very sleekness suggests that it is pushing the art of skyscraper design forward….The General Motors Building has little to do with its surroundings, an indifference that its original, little-mourned sunken plaza made far worse than it is today, while the Seagram Building, despite being a structure of glass on a street that, at least in the 1950s, was made entirely of masonry buildings, was carefully aligned on a symmetrical axis opposite its classical neighbor, the Racquet and Tennis Club by McKim, Mead and White across Park Avenue….As for the Hancock Tower, paradoxically, even though its reflective glass would appear to signify the ultimate diffidence and aloofness – you can’t see in, and there is no sign of human activity from the outside – the reflected images of surrounding buildings, not to mention the general sense of energy of its crisp shape, make you feel a connection between the tower and its urban surroundings.  The building feels right for its place, almost in spite of itself.

Just what I would have said…if I had Paul’s depth of knowledge about architecture.

More to come…

DJB

Sometimes ordinary photographs of the Farnsworth House leave you wanting more. Peter Guthrie has filled the gap, by creating a set of beautiful 3D renderings of the iconic house, originally designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for his client, Dr Edith Farnsworth in 1946.

Supposons, je dis bien supposons que vous n’ayez pas les moyens de vous acheter le fauteuil Barcelona de Mies Van Der Rohe. Il y a plusieurs solutions.

1° Vous serrez la ceinture et manger des patates tous les jours.

2° Compter sur un ami proche pour qu’il vous fasse un super cadeau ( Le fauteuil Barcelona.)

3° Renoncer pour toujours à ce fauteuil qui hante vos jours et vos nuits.

4° Détester le fauteuil Barcelona du jour au lendemain.

5° Acheter une copie. C’est l’égal.
Le fauteuil Barcelona c’est un objet culte du mobilier moderne. Le fauteuil Barcelona a été créé par Mies Van der Rohe pour le pavillon allemand de l’Exposition internationale de Barcelone de 1929.

Ce fauteuil a été inspiré de la chaise curule pliante romaine.La copie en cuir est vendue 790 Euros. 529 Euros en ce moment.

En vente chez Leonor Design.

 L’ottoman est vendue séparément.

C’est Knoll Studio qui produit le vrai fauteuil Barcelona puisque la firme en a obtenu les droits exclusifs par Mies Van Der Rohe en 1953. Le logo Knoll Studio et la signature de Mies sont gravés sur le cadre.

http://www.knoll.com/products/product.jsp?prod_id=827

When I visited the MOMA in NYC the most striking experience I took away with me were the photographs by Thomas Demand. He photographs interiors, sometimes even landscapes. The trick is, they are entirely made by paper, by Demand himself.

Now the Neue Nationalsgalerie hosts an exhibition which is unmissable. I am really looking forward to visiting it. Check the Monocle article…

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House

I went from strangely amused to really impressed after looking through SanSamuel’s image gallery. First, the image of the Barcelona Chair caught my eye. You can’t help but know about this chair if you completed the first year architecture program at IIT (some people know it intimately, they had to draft it). Beautiful, minimal, and most importantly, designed by Mies van der Rohe, the Barcelona Chair is a valued piece of furniture on campus. So imagine my amusement to see this chair rendered in such an environment. How frivolous! (heh heh)

Anyway, SanSamuel’s other works stilled the laughter and quite often made me do a double take and then another. He’s an architect and 3d artist whose renderings come ridiculously close to appearing real. At first glance you could mistake it for a picture, but then you’re compelled to look closer to seek the imperfections in the fabric. That’s a quality I admire, to stir the need for a second look. It is very difficult to achieve “realness” in a rendering, from getting the right lighting, to setting and scaling the materials, to including all the little details. Yes, that light-switch really is important. I enjoyed delving into his collection. I have included my favorites, but you can check out more on his site.

Tonight I had the chance to listen to Piero Lissoni speak as part of the month-long Architecture and the City Festival put on by the San Francisco chapter of the AIA.  Speaking at the gorgeous CCA campus, Lissoni proved to be as charismatic, affable, honest and genuine as he is talented.  While I knew him well for his work with Italian furniture lines Boffi, Living Divani, Porro, and Cassina, only until he casually mentioned his other clients did I realize the true reach of his work, which includes projects for just about every blue-chip Italian furniture company like Kartell, Alessi, Flos, Cappellini, Poltrona Frau, Glas Italia, Fritz Hansen, Knoll, and Swarowski.  OMG.  In my mind he was already a legend based on the body of work that I knew about, but when I learned about everything else that he did, I was truly blown away.  In sports speak, he’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer on par with a Starck or Newson, if not above.

As Lissoni’s lecture began, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Outwardly, he looked the part of designer: navy sportcoat with elbow patches, slim taupe jeans, brown driving mocs, and cream scarf.  On the stage, he had a continuous, looping portfolio of his work on the big projection screen while he was seated and speaking at a folding 6 foot table filled with various objects including an analog clock radio, Mac Powerbook, printed books, Japanese rice bowl, wind-up robot, Alessi coffee press, foam model of a recent building he designed in Istambul, and even a red foam clown’s nose (more on that later).  These would be the props that he used throughout his lecture, which was going to be about his “humanistic” approach to designing, apparently a last minute departure from his pre-planned retrospective of his work (which probably would not nearly have been as enlightening as his new topic, to our luck).

I have to admit that it took more than a few minutes before I could make enough sense of his Italian accent, broken English, and sense humor to concentrate on the content and intent of his speech.  As his lecture wore on (for more than 2.5 hours) and his anecdotes and examples began to amass, his genius began to come through in spades.  What was muddy for me about his humanistic approach became crystal clear – and then enlightening.  While it would be hard to replicate Lissoni’s career path and success, there are plenty of nuggets to take away from his lecture that you or I can learn from.

Unfortunately, the lecture was not recorded nor could I record it or take notes real-time.  So the following quotes, excerpts, points, and facts are purely based on my recollection (and my mad dash to takes notes right his lecture).  If anyone in attendance tonight has anything to add or clarify, please join in on the conversation!  In no particular order, here were the highlights:

• His working relationship with Alessi began with an hours-long conversation with Alberto Alessi about wine before Alberto finally brought up the idea of designing a watch, which Lissoni agreed to on the spot and without additional conversation.  He called his wine conversation his design “brief.”
• His Alessi coffee press project was aimed to take on Bialetti’s venerable, classic coffee press, which he said was like challenging Pele to a soccer match – “It was a good game.”
• On the ergonomics of his furniture: “Of course it’s uncomfortable, I’m Italian!”
• On his favorite materials to use: he has none and all are specific to each project.  He said “Materials are the language of every project” and that he never chooses to use a material just to use it.
• He is currently designing a bridge using carbon fiber
• He once worked with Kartell for more than two years to develop a new manufacturing technology for a chair, which ended up saving more than a kilogram of raw materials per chair.
• His desk at his office is a 3 meters by 3 meters and covered with books and objects.  He only works on a small 2 foot by 2 foot area on his desk, and only cleans his desk when the other things on his desk begin to intrude on this space (about every 2 months).
• He cannot work unless he has espresso, bottled water and fresh flowers everyday.
• He disallows computers in his meetings.
• His office has 3 libraries, one each for design, architecture/furniture and classics (poetry, novels, etc.).  He said if his employees are not using all three then they are not right for his firm.
• His puts on a red foam clown nose when he feels his meetings are getting too serious.
• He says we are all “prostitutes” – “People pay and we do.”
• He calls his clients his “victims.”
• On what makes Italian designers the best in the world: their great clients.  He said he is always late to meetings, often shows up empty-handed, often is late with deliverables, and that clients either love him or hate him.  His Italian clients clearly love him – and he quips “Could you imagine if I worked with Japanese or German clients?”
• He says working with engineers is his biggest nightmare.
• He thinks “It is impossible to live without technology” but that technology should only be used as a “tool.”  If it’s is used as the sole way to design, then it is wrong and “dangerous.”  He believes that working with your hands is still an essential part of the design process.  He says people often show him beautiful images on a screen but they often have no life.
• He started designing as a child, first using Legos.  He still thinks like a child but “only on a different scale.”
• He called his design school “hell” compared to the ones today (like CCA).  He said they had limited tools but were challenged to stay “curious” – his advice to design students today.
• His approach to designing architecture is different from his approach with products – “There is so much noise out there, I design my buildings to be quiet.”  He also uses a “European approach” to architecture projects where he designs the exterior plus everything in the interior down to the cabinet pulls.
• Asked if he’s designed a perfect thing: no, and he doesn’t strive for perfection because it’s “boring.”  But he does strive for greater precision in design and greater control over the process.  His example for the need for greater precision – a private home renovation where his budget of 1 became a 10 in reality.
• His examples of perfection: the work on Antonio Citterio, the work of Carlo Scarpa, a dinner by Alain Ducasse, Church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice by architect Andrea Palladio, the Barcelona Pavilion by architect Mies van der Rohe.
• The one thing he has not designed that he dreams about: a daughter.  He said with designing materials things “anything is possible” but it is things like life, a family, a daughter that are a real challenge to design.
• On what makes him happy: “Of course, I like the girls.”

There not much more to say or translate as I think his humanistic approach is pretty clear, at least to me.  While we can’t all be Lissoni or work the same way that he does (wouldn’t it be nice to go over budget 10 times and still have a job or demand fresh flowers at your desk everyday), I know that there are things I am taking away from his lecture that will make me a better designer.

Image courtesy of baunetz.de

http://craigrobison.wordpress.com/the-arts-and-entertainment-page/kandinsky-exhibit-at-guggenheim/

Big news on a Kandinsky exhibit at the Guggenheim in New York… and the coincidental 90th anniversary celebration of the Bauhaus school and movement.  

Kandinsky had only a modest link to the Bauhaus – I actually think he may have had closer ties to the 1950’s Sci-Fi movement – but it’s all good.

Kandinsky

 

1950's Sci-Fi Cartoon

 

Mies van der Rohe

The World knows Manhattan the same way it knows the oeuvre of Abba: It seeps into your consciousness from passive exposure. There are ten year olds in China who know the elegant silvered deco arcs of the Chrysler as well as anybody – New York City has been frozen in a period of 1930s skyscrapers for decades, and used to sell everything from Die Hard plotlines to King Kong and Diet Coke. Changes are afoot, however. One of the after effects of 9/11 has been a revaluation of the physical as well as the emotional make up of Manhattan. Superstar architects are being drafted in to bring sparkle to the Big Apple and, whilst stopping considerably short of reinventing the city, they look like they’ll certainly remodel and invigorate it for the 21^st century.

Walking westwards towards Chelsea Piers, where New Yorkers come to jog, play ice hockey and learn trapeze skills, Frank Gehry’s IAC building appears just before you hit the river. While diminutive compared to many of his other buildings scattered across the globe, it’s an arresting addition to the landscape: Eminently Gehry-like in its abandonment of squared-off form, it has a façade that appears frosted in broad horizontal lines, as if by a vast aerosol. It’s a building of sensation, quite literally. It looks like it might taste nice if you were to lick it, and it couldn’t be further removed from the industrial deco of midtown, or the simple chic glass box 50s modernism of Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram building and Gordon Bunshaft’s Lever House.

Without in any way meaning to diminish the human tragedy of 9/11, the loss of the World Trade Centre towers was a shocking blow to the architectural balance of Manhattan. Approaching the island by car while the Towers stood, it resembled a kind of ocean liner. Without its 1970s parallel masts – the last significant additions to New York City in the 20^th century – the south end of the island seems adrift. From this loss a new kind of freedom has arisen, spurred on by hedge fund wealth and the demand for the flashiest possible apartments.

Jean Nouvel’s apartment block in SoHo, developed by celebrity hotelier Andre Balazs, is strikingly modern and yet works with, rather than against, its surroundings – Nouvel’s muscular, masculine grey steel building is very much informed by the industrial wrought iron facades of neighbouring buildings. Nouvel’s planned 75-storey tower to be erected next to MoMA in Midtown, not far from the Renzo Piano’s dramatic and imposing New York Times building, is also contextual – with its tapered peaks and gleam, it represents a natural progression of the area’s sky-reaching, bold capitalist statements. As inventive and as downright sexy as Nouvel’s projects are, neither building could be described as outlandish, something which Nouvel’s planned opera house for Dubai looks set to be; a building that still exists solely as renderings which resemble illustrations for a sci-fi movie storyboard, and an accompanying poem. But New York isn’t Dubai. It isn’t starting from scratch. It’s a real city. It’s also not about to demolish itself to update, as Beijing is in the process of doing. There are few blank canvases in the city – the Lower East Side and the area east of Wall Street are currently the focus of a lot of new construction as they presents fewer demolition issues – you can bulldoze a tenement and fuel the diaspora of down at heel bohemians further out into Brooklyn, but you can’t really move a midtown Emery Roth a few hundred metres to the left. The Bernard Tschumi BLUE residential tower on the L.E.S looked wild as a rendering, sketched as a kind of immense upright robotic hand covered in blue pixels, and looks just as wild now in real life. The times they are indeed a-changing and it won’t be long before it’s not the only show-off on its block. Down towards Seaport and just three blocks away from Ground Zero, Frank Gehry is to build his Beekman Tower, a 75 storey undulating behometh that has been described by critics as ‘Gaudi in Titanium’.

Much of what is going on in the city is driven by a demand for more and more statement making housing. The planned One Madison Park building being part designed by Rotterdam-based star architect Rem Koolhaas may seem sedate next to his more grandstanding work elsewhere (and its 22 storeys will be dwarfed by 60 storeys next door, complete with $45 million penthouse), but then many of the more conservative hedge funders in the city want to buy into the label but don’t want it too edgy – it’s like buying your suits from Comme des Garçons, but avoiding any of the really directional stuff.

Some of the most interesting new New York projects are on far smaller scales. Shigeru Ban’s Metal Shutter Houses in West Chelsea are low rise but with their sleek motor-retractable floor to ceiling silvered blast-shield frontages, look like the most modern homes on earth. When the shutters go up, the interiors – all zen and white – are flooded with light.

Then there are the public spaces that are being reworked – the Stairway to Nowhere TKTS booth in Times Square is changing the dynamic of the city’s entertainment centre. The Choi Roipha practice designed a set of glass red steps, fashioned into an amphitheatre, with the neon-blazing heart of Manhattan as the 24-7 show while the TKTS booth itself sits in a pod underneath.

The only downbeat note in New York’s current symphony of architectural rethink is, ironically, Ground Zero itself, with plans, including those for the Freedom Tower, continually bogged down by red tape. Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Centre Transit Hub at the site may be well underway, and due for completion in 2009, but its design, meant to resemble a soaring bird in exoskeletal sculpture form, which beams natural daylight down to the PATH platforms 60 feet below, has been tempered by concerns over potential terrorist attacks. At least it’s going ahead – New York remains a hard place to create new architecture; just ask Daniel Liesbkind whose original, much heralded, contribution to rebuilding at Ground Zero has been crushed and diminished to the use of the word ‘Freedom’ in the towers name, and its height. But then as they say, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.