1. No category

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FRESH MEAT | vol. IV | Spring 2011
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the best drawing ever
kai-uwe bergmann
lars lerup
marc simmons
hitoshi abe
liquidation
THE
HOW-TO
ISSUE
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
THE HOW-TO ISSUE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Field Coverage
Flip Your Field
How-To Bid to Win
Jonathan Solomon
How-To Create A Niche Market (Or…?)
Mark Simmons
Never Business As Usual
Kai-Uwe Bergmann
Best Drawing Ever
An Endless Set of Phobias
Lars Lerup
Sections, Stadia, and Suprastars
Hitoshi Abe
Liquidation
How-To: Steal IIT’s Student Center, by Jake Gay & Ivan Ostapenko
FM-Crit
Reviews, Opinions, Banter, Whatever
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23
31
37
41
43
YOU GOTTA
GET YOURSELF:
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
How-to Become an Architect
www.eHow.com
Vol. 4: Spring 2011
THE HOW-TO ISSUE
Editorial Board
Jake Gay
Alysen Hiller
Jayne Kelley
Julia Sedlock
Contributing Butchers
Zehra Ahmed, Emilia Bernatowicz, Brandon
Biederman, John Clark, Simon Cygielski, Dolly
Davis, Daniel Karas, Katie LaCourt, Jared
Macken, Cole Monaghan, Maya Nash, Ivan
Ostapenko (web editor), Andrew Santa Lucia,
Tafhim Rahman, Katie Freeman Rathbone, Matt
Vander Ploeg, Trudy Watt
SKATEBOARDERS IN YOUR
PERSPECTIVES!!!!!!
Special Thanks To:
Hitoshi Abe, Kai-Uwe Bergmann, Erin Cherney,
Nick Edwards, Sarah Herda, Taylor Holloway,
Mark Jarzombek, Alex Lehnerer, Lars Lerup,
Jonathan Mac Gillis, Ben Nicholson, Ryan
Palider, Lyndsay Pepple, Frances Saunders,
Marc Simmons, Jonathan Solomon, Bob Somol,
Lauren Van Damme, Dan Wheeler, Jenna Wolf
Cover & Art
Graphic content and layout by Brandon
Biederman, Dolly Davis, Jake Gay, Alysen Hiller,
Jared Macken & Matt Vander Ploeg
Cover photograph by Matthew Messner,
produced by Maren Allen & Jennifer Meakins
Website
www.freshmeatjournal.org
NOTHING SAYS “I’M A FUTURE PAUL FLORIAN” LIKE A SKATEBOARDER IN YOUR PERSPECTIVE RENDERING. JUST PUT A
SKATEBOARDER IN YOUR PERSPECTIVE AND PEOPLE ARE GONNA
SAY “WHOA! IS THIS A BERNARD TSCHUMI HERE? THIS IS SOME
OF THE EDGIEST CROSS-PROGRAMMING I’VE EVER SEEN!” ARE
YOU LOOKING TO GIVE YOUR PROJECT SOME GRITTY, URBAN ATMOSPHERE? NOTHING SAYS AUTHENTIC STREET-CULTURE LIKE
SKATEBOARDERS TEARING UP YOUR TREE PLANTERS. SOCIAL
CONDENSER? HELL YEAH! YOUR CRITICS WILL BE THINKING,
“WHOA! I BET THIS KID LISTENS TO NIRVANA!” YOU GOTTA GETCHA’ SELF AT LEAST EIGHTY OR NINETY SKATEBOARDERS IN ALL
OF YOUR PERSPECTIVES!
Contact
[email protected]
The printing of this issue is made possible in part by
a grant from the UIC Graduate Student Council.
Fresh Meat is the autonomous student publication
of the University of Illinois at Chicago School of
Architecture. Founded in Fall 2008 by graduate
architecture students, the publication and its
associated events are vehicles for encouraging
multiple strands of dialogue throughout the
school—among students, between students and
faculty, and between the school and outside voices.
We curate conversations to tell a story about the
role of architecture in today’s world. We make
them available for you to do with as you please:
to think on, to talk about, to design with. Feel free
to take these conversations and run, mis-read and
butcher. After all, they are only ideas…
1. Meet with your high school guidance counselor for advice on courses to best prepare you for an
Difficulty
3. Contact colleges well before your senior year in high school for admission requirements. Make cer-
Things You'll Need
architecture program in college.
Challenging
tain the schools are among the 105 schools of architecture accredited by the National Architectural
CADD manuals
lar type today. Other options can include receiving a bachelor's degree in a related field followed by
Applications
2. Maintain at least a B average.
Accrediting Board (NAAB).
4. Decide if you want to enroll in a five-year Bachelor of Architecture program, which is the most popua two-year Master of Architecture degree, or getting an unrelated bachelor's degree followed by a
three-to-four-year Master of Architecture degree.
5. Apply to several schools whose admission requirements you have met. Make certain you send in all
requested paperwork.
6. Work toward receiving your degree with honors as soon as you have been officially accepted. Since
competition among student architects is intense, this will be to your advantage later on.
7. Work part-time and during summers at architectural firms, even if the salary is minimal.
8. Learn computer-aided design and drafting (CADD) as soon as possible. An increasing number of
firms are requiring that knowledge.
9. Look for a position as an intern-architect well before you graduate. Get letters of recommendation
from professors and supervisors at your part-time and summer jobs, and include pertinent com-
puter skills on your resume. You'll need to spend about three years in that position before you can
take your state's Architect Registration Examination (ARE) for your architect's license.
10. Prepare intensively when the time comes to take the ARE.
11. Send in your application for the exam well before the due date.
College Catalogs
Individual School Requirments and
Stamps
Pens
Stationary
Pens
Tips and Warnings
Note that individual programs of NAAB-ap-
proved architectural schools will differ, so
choose carefully.
Be prepared to work long hours, including nights
and weekends, during job deadlines.
Be prepared to take frequent refresher courses
as technology advances in the 21st century.
Google “how to become an architect” and the first search result is NCARB; the second—architecture.about.com—is a collection of frequently-asked
questions about the profession. The somehow even more straightforward third result, from eHow.com, describes the entire process as eleven quick
moves from high school to the ARE (e.g., Step 6: “Work toward receiving your degree with honors”). Such a list can seem totally absurd (if not vaguely
offensive) from inside the studio; as students caught up in architecture’s internal conversations, we don’t want to admit that it could be so easy to
explain what we’re up to. Still, faced with the end-of-semester struggle to mine clear results from a muddled design process, there’s something appealing about eHow’s version of architecture—something to embrace, maybe, and not just complain about.
After our earlier celebrations of architecture’s mystique and particular fetishes—the inside of the Black Box, as we put it in Issue 3—FM decided to
explore a more transparent or user-friendly aspect of the field, a side we’ll call the “How-To.” A deceptively simple tool, the How-To offers opportuni-
ties well beyond checking off boxes or getting things done. For us, it taps into architecture’s unique power to coordinate: to embed cultural ideas into
formal operations or to distill a complex project into a set of directives. Harnessing this power—to make what’s hard look easy, and vice versa—is
key if we want to organize the world around us as designers, critics, or in whatever role we take on after graduation.
Appropriately, then, the How-To issue wears its theme loosely, from the (half) tongue-in-cheek graphic essay submissions to the more practical ad-
vice we solicited from our interviewees: Jonathan Solomon on curating, Kai-Uwe Bergmann on the business side of practice, Hitoshi Abe on running
a school, Marc Simmons on carving out your own niche, and Lars Lerup on facing ambiguity. Drawing is one way architects issue instructions, so we
asked students to submit their “Best Drawing Ever”; the aggregate ratings of our “Liquidation” poll helpfully quantify who or what’s worth looking at
fresh meat
(or hating on) in the field. As a whole, FM4 is our winking contribution to the eHow model: a manual for students to follow, subvert, or both. Results
aren’t guaranteed, but we bet they’ll be interesting.
4.1
24x24
12x12
5x5
Leeser
www.
arch.uic.
edu
Spring 2011
Lecture Series
3.2
DeptUS + MCA
April 2011
UBS 12x12 Gallery
Lausen
2.21
See the Department of Urban Speculation at The Museum of Contemporary Art
UBS 12x12: New Artists/New Work gallery opening April 1st - May 1st, 2011.
Although the 12x12 space is really 24x24, DeptUS’s project made it 5x5.
4.20
de Smedt
departmentofurbanspeculation.com
DeptUS
Departmentof Urban Speculation
Ábalos
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
FIELD COVERAGE
In October of 2010, UIC hosted the ACSA West Central
Conference. A few of Fresh Meat’s butchers attended
and walked away with a little something to dish.
How-to LIE, OR
WRITing INTERESTING
AND CONVINCING
SCHOLARLY WORK
by Andrew Santa Lucia
Peter Zellner’s take on the life and times of
Paul Rudolph was not only thought provok-
ing, but also a farce. This was not a farce in
the sense it was a lie with no merit or value,
but more like a rumor or piece of gossip with
a sort of intended influence embedded in its
narrative. Why is it that within the academic
institutions of architecture’s history, theory,
and criticism programs there has to be attached to each piece of work a certain level
of "historical accuracy?" For one, there is the
auspice of becoming a respected scholar in
academic circles, obscure architectural prac-
tices, etc., but more directly what we have is
a degradation of truly influential work given
up for "scholarly" work. Zellner's lies take
the form of a retroactive continuity or a re-
interpretation of an accepted historiography.
This re-interpretation or re-building of Paul
Rudolph’s highest and lowest points makes
Zellner's paper a great narrative about one of
the most influential falls from grace ever recorded in architectural history.
The peak of Rudolph’s career in both the
accepted history and retroactive continua-
tion would be 1963, which also was the year
that the Yale Art and Architecture Building
opened.
This
marked
the
zenith
for
Rudolph, but the higher you go the harder
you hit the ground. Zellner’s narrative places
the downfall for Rudolph and the death of his
late modernism adjacent to Robert Venturi’s
use of Rudolph as the antithesis to the new
architecture emerging in America. This climbing on the back of giants, no less giants that
helped people like Venturi get on top of them,
and then stepping all over them to get somewhere, essentially was part of the downhill
slide for Rudolph.1
Slight of hand seems to be the best way to
describe Zellner’s paper and this re-interpretation of Rudolph, because it does cause
the reader to become disoriented when considering the place in history that Rudolph
holds. Zellner describes Rudolph’s downfall
and eventual late work in two ways: later
modernism at home and parallel post-mod-
ernism in Southeast Asia. The work we do
know about is the work done at home after
his fall from grace, which included more
modern houses and some civic work, but the
rescue for Rudolph comes in the way of a lie.
The claim that Paul Rudolph knew what he
was doing all along and worked in Southeast
Asia to create a different LOW version of post-
modernism would have made for one of the
overshoot interesting in the hope of awkward,
tease out gradients of implications, upend a
project for counterintuitive currency, trace
historical geneo-lineages, co-opt dead stylistic
languages, disavow all stylistic tendencies, or
simply hope to find a bit of juicy gossip. Taken
as a whole the conference amounted to a projective cacophony of advice. But whatever you
Why lie though? The best reason of all is to
choose to champion as your project in this
benefit yourself. But it still doesn’t answer
field of fraught formalizing it seems as though
why Zellner created an alternative narrative
it would be best to heed the advice of Jason
to Paul Rudolph’s life. During the Audience
Payne. Do not shoot too high, lest you seem
panel at the ACSA Conference, Jeffrey Kipnis
to try too hard. The gist of Payne's theory of
criticized this specific problem with the lie,
sub-popularity is that you should hone your
adding that he would have been "sold" on
avant-garde project with regard only to the
this method if Zellner had presented his own
few people that speak your language. They are
design work after the lie. Whether or not this
the only ones who would care anyway, the rest
is a genealogical project for Zellner is of no
importance because as a stand-alone piece
of history and criticism, it works. But the
question of benefit does not only extend to the
author, but also to the legacy of Paul Rudolph
and for that this work is more important
because it rebuilds. At once, the word lie can
be described in words unassociated with
pejorative meanings: rebuild, rescue, and
ENTERTAINING THE
GRAILS
by John Clark
retroactively continue.
One could feel the wave of anticipation while
admittance of it being a lie proves the effi-
and over-hyped extravaganza of theoretical
The lie or form of the presentation and the
cacy of this presentation—if after someone
has admitted a lie and it’s still convincing, it
must have been a damn good lie, at least one
that you’ll never forget. The inadequacies of
current work in most run-of-the-mill history,
theory, and criticism architecture programs
shows that even if you do tell the ‘truth’,
none but the five people on your committee
are going to care, in essence becoming easy
to forget. So the next time you have a chance
of telling a great story, even its bullshit, do it,
because in bullshit there is some form of the
truth, even if it’s marginal, as long as its interesting.
sitting in the front section of the theatre auditorium eagerly awaiting the under-advertised
paper presentations for the Flip Your Field
ACSA conference at UIC. The mood like that be-
fore any architectural lecture is not necessarily one of palpable excitement, but intrigued
hope: Hope that the papers to be presented
over the weekend will live up to the bubbling
subtext of movement-making that pervades
discussions amongst the young faculty and
student associates of the school these days.
Wondering why no one is sitting with us in the
reserved section up front, while the rest of the
room is packed with murmuring students, we
realize that we’ve neglected the true opening
falls outta sight to quietly create the archi-
Notes
ceremonies at the cocktail party back in the
sary, even if it means lying for them.
1. This analogy is taken from Jeff Kipnis’ keyFall 2010.
auditorium followed by a strong waft of belli-
greatest headlines ever: “American Architect
tecture he wanted, not the one everyone else
did.” You rescue anyone by any means neces-
note lecture at the ACSA conference at UIC in
Arts and Architecture building. This is con-
firmed as the registered attendees file into the
nis that settles into the expectant air of the
room. While jostling for the primo front-row
seats with appropriate room for posturing,
the assembled dons of the avant-garde dis-
cipline settled in for the opening address by
their two-toned-suit-sporting ambassador of
the neo-avant-garde. Looking much the part,
Bob Somol had set the tone of the conference
as the continuation of the search for the disci-
pline of cool. Such a stance had already been
made in his opening salvos against criticality
in years previous and the presenters knew
this as they came to Chicago. But the conference was Penelope Dean’s work to bring the
words and ideas of the different presenters
together, fostering a lighthearted yet urgent
atmosphere of conjecture and debate.
For the keynoters, Neil Denari opened with a
genealogy of taste-makers’ quotes and apho-
risms, while Jeff Kipnis, always the impressario at an architecture conference, delivered
his double-whammy of incontrovertible art-
world references and insider anecdotes. But
it was the papers delivered over the next few
days that showed the discipline's current defi-
nition of "cool" work or ideas can be parsed
many different ways depending on the critic.
You may lust for sexy formalism, laugh at dia-
grammy cartoons, swoon for paranoid poetics, dream up meta intentions, strive for nar-
rative recognition, revere mute shapeliness,
of the populace be damned as unreachable.
While some among us in the school take the
tact of trying to "blow the scale of fame out of
proportion," and others quietly ply their trade
seeking not to rock the boat beyond the walls
of the academic journals, most of us who are
close to graduation will rightly feel a bit of
trepidation in trying to project how our future
careers could carry the trajectory of these conversations. The idea that, like Cistercian monks
with our texts, we should seek to plug along in
avant-garde obscurity, knowing that our additions to the language of post-critical design
will continue to strengthen our internal audi-
ence of disciplinary fans may be welcoming
consolation for some. But for those of us who
actually wish to find clients who will finance
our first steps from paper to concrete we may
need to broaden our scope and our phrasing.
Now the point is taken that most people in the
wider world do not make such distinctions between architect and builder, critical and post-
ironic, narratives and librettos, or autonomy
and instrumentalization. But when one is sit-
ting in the viewing galleries watching these
doctors of discipline surgically parse the de-
tails of the latest copies and reoriginations it is
hard to shake the warm feeling that the search
for the grail of the “cool” is never-ending.
Though the beautiful thing is that these monks
know how to give good sermons.
9
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
How-To Bid
To Win
JONATHAN SOLOMON
(interview)
"I think that as long as you have novelty,
it’s nearly impossible to go wrong in the
Biennale context because of the incredible
density and compression of ideas and
people in time and space…"
Image courtesy of U.S. Consulate General
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
The Venice Biennale is one of the great spectacles of international architecture. In
the midst of its glamorous and cutting-edge scene, the Biennale’s US Pavilion is administered by the US Department of State, an institution not typically known for its
interest in avant-garde culture. Nevertheless, as co-editor of 306090, Jonathan D.
Solomon saw the chance to curate the Pavilion at the 2010 Venice Biennale as an
opportunity to expand the publication’s field of operations and audience by doing
what it does best: setting up a conceptual framework that would bring together a
surprising range of transdisciplinary architectural practices. Produced in partnership with the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the result of this collaborative ambition
was the winning proposal for Workshopping: An American Model of Architectural
Practice. On a recent visit to Chicago from Hong Kong, where he is currently Acting
Head of the Department of Architecture and Assistant Professor at the University
of Hong Kong, Solomon gave FM a peak into his bag of curatorial tricks to help put
together this How-To.
FM: We were going to call this piece “How-To
curate the Venice Biennale,” but what
we really mean is “How-To win the bid
to curate the US Pavilion at the Venice
on American cities. The scale of the problem
partner who helped bolster our weaknesses
FM: How did Workshopping deliver what
FM: Were the State Department’s interests
requires both big and small solutions.
the State Department would want, and
explicitly stated in the Request for Propos-
I think you get the point. How do you win
how did that coincide with 306090’s
als?
this competition?
interests?
JDS: How do you win? The same way you win
JDS: In fact, part of the process of bidding
FM: Was the State Department a difficult
knew. We wanted a multi-contributor show
more explicit than that?
client to bid for?
JDS: No, because we had a strong sense of
what they wanted. The difficult clients are
the inscrutable ones. Bidding for the US Pa-
vilion was very straightforward. First of all,
let me say on record that I Love America.
I’ve also been living out of the country for
five years, and I think that had me looking at
American architecture in just the right way. I
get excited over how active American architects are in inventing new ways for architects
to make the world a better place. The profession is not like that everywhere in the world.
I can also see how much work has to be done
was realizing that we at 306090 had more in
common with the State Department than we
with geographic and ideological diversity. We
knew that the State Department would want
something which would showcase America’s
contributions in an international setting,
so we bid a show that allowed us to make a
whole series of connections between what
contemporary architects are doing today in
the American city and, for lack of a better
positions. We presented a show that argued
research, architects who became their own
clients. We looked for architects who were
then once you find out that you’ve won,
FM: How did you frame your proposal
JDS: Then you need a time machine, a coffee
list of exhibitors.
you have four months to make it happen.
within the context of past US Pavilions?
maker, and an internet connection. It helped
to live twelve time zones away from every-
body else because it allowed me to continue
my full-time day job. The budget didn’t allow for a time machine but this was sort of
like having one. I didn’t do a lot of sleeping.
Patience is helpful at this stage, but if you’ve
ing with capable motivated people who know
what to do to get the job done. Support them,
How-To Curate the US Pavilion at the
Venice Biennale in Ten Steps:
1. Love America. If possible, put the word
American in the subtitle.
2. Partner with an institution that bolsters
Part of the culture of the Biennale is that you
to invest fifty-three billion dollars in high
that’s good or bad for architecture culture.
would argue, than saying what we really
need in this country is for the government
speed rail.
FM: Once you had the theme, how did you
would want expertise and we knew the limits
on the basis of the theme that we had es-
JDS: We looked at the contemporary field
Museum of Art, in Atlanta, which has a
work in various areas. We needed a radical
tablished and asked who’s doing the best
diversity; small offices, large offices, NGOs,
independent research groups, and schools.
A
FM: So, you have the theme, you have the
collaborator, you have the exhibitors, and
individual enterprise, which is different, I
is found in public/private partnership and
then stay out of their way.
architectural world moves through. Sub-
these contexts. That helped us develop the
Image courtesy of US Consulate General
and social challenges in the American city
chosen your exhibitors right, you are work-
YOU
GOTTA
GET
YOURSELF:
very little time in those few days when the
redefining, rather than being defined by
that the solution to both the infrastructural
We also knew that the State Department
complex exhibitions. In the High we found a
stance is harder!
challenged some of our government’s strong
choose exhibitors?
great deal of expertise putting together large,
participation, development economies, pure
tures and material engineering, community
JDS: Certain ones were, but then our bid also
term, “what makes America great.”
of our own. 306090 bid with the High
ideas, lots of people, very little space and
fectiveness in equally diverse contexts: struc-
without interfering with our strengths.
Biennale.” It’s not as catchy of a title, but
anything: bid to win. What can I say to be
Then we needed work that demonstrated ef-
have to have novelty: something new ev-
ery two years. There’s debate over whether
We certainly wanted to present our show on
its own terms, but at the same time we did
feel compelled to differentiate what we were
doing from what had been done there two,
four, or six years past.
In retrospect, I think that as long as you
have novelty, it’s nearly impossible to go
wrong in the Biennale context because of
the incredible density and compression of
ideas and people in time and space; lots of
your weaknesses and won’t interfere with
your strengths.
3. Choose exhibitors well, support them,
then stay out of their way.
4. You have to have novelty.
5. Get a time machine, coffee maker and a
good internet connection.
6. If a time machine is not in the budget, it
helps to be twelve time zones away.
7. Ship early.
8. Be nice to Chiara Barbieri at the Guggenheim.
9. Pack well: sunscreen, bug spray and extra
flip-flops.
10.It’s nearly impossible to go wrong in the
Biennale context.
Interviewed and edited by Julia Sedlock.
PROGRAM DIAGRAM
WITH CHUNKY TEXT!
NOTHING SAYS “I’M AN ARCHITECT,
BUT I COULD EASILY GET A GRAPHIC
DESIGN JOB” LIKE A PROGRAM DIAGRAM WITH GIANT WORDS. JUST SET
YOUR PROGRAM BRIEF IN 108pt HELVETICA NEUE AND PEOPLE ARE GONNA
THINK, “THIS IS AN INTELLIGENT DESIGN CONCEPT! IS THIS BJORK-Y ENGELS HERE?” WITH A PROGRAM DIAGRAM OF GIANT WORDS YOUR WORK
WILL NEVER AGAIN BE DISMISSED
AS A SHALLOW FORMAL EXERCISE.
YOU’RE CATERING TO A REAL CONSTITUENCY HERE! EVEN BLAIR KAMIN
WILL THINK, “WOOF!” YOUR FINAL REVIEW WILL CONSIST OF PEOPLE NODDING APPROVINGLY OVER HOW YOUR
PUBLIC SPACE IS CONCEPTUALLY
ADJACENT TO YOUR PRE-FUNCTION LOUNGE. YOU GOTTA GETCHA PROJECT SUCH A SOPHISTICATED
PROGRAM DIAGRAM!
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
How-to create a
niche market
(or, is that what he did?)
MARC SIMMONS
(interview)
"You have to be a chameleon in terms of
your ability to interpret limits, goals, and
aspirations. If your ideas are irrelevant,
you aren’t earning your place at the table."
Image courtesy of Flickr user icarus_shift
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
In a world full of consultants, contractors and fabricators, Mark Simmons of Front
tells Fresh Meat how he continues to earn his place at the table (alongside Koolhaas,
Nouvel, and Sejima, no less). What about authorship among the cast of thousands?
He could care less—his position, unlike most architects, is not easily replaceable.
Simmons and Front live for the process, continually waiting for the rest of us to catch
up to their advanced processes and innovative workflows. Until then, armed with
a client list that boasts nearly a dozen Pritzker laureates and a marketing strategy
that relies largely on word of mouth, Simmons just wants to build great stuff.
MS: Carrying it out is ninety percent of the
term author is very problematic—it takes a
and quality are the most common elements,
crystallized excellence through the process;
If you work with Sejima, you have to under-
in the project are, they can be realized in a
process. It is what we live for. Even the
origination of an idea is only going to yield its
the ideas will evolve and morph and bifurcate
and reintegrate during the process. But to
answer more directly, we would always want
to be involved at the competition or conceptual stage if possible, and ideally, we wouldn’t
really want to be involved past fifty percent
design development.
FM: You have worked hand in hand with
FM: So, we’ve gotten acquainted with your
FM: You tell us! From what we gather,
office—we bugged it.
we’re trying to figure out which came first,
the market or the office?
MS: That would be very boring.
FM: We’re interested in how Front happened on a larger scale—not so much the
start-up story. Did you see a niche that
needed to be filled, or did you create the
niche by marketing yourselves as such?
MS: A niche for what?
FM: Façade specialists.
MS: Is that what we do?
MS: Well, I’m trained as an architect. The
origins of the practice are not just Dewhurst
Macfarlane [& Partners] (DMP). The back-
grounds for the different partners were
Foster [+ Partners], Piano, Calatrava, DMP,
Meinhardt—which is a large Australian
specificity that was quite interesting to en-
many
group in Hong Kong, where we just started
you deal with issues of ownership?
gage in—it sort of whetted the appetite—so
every façade engineer, because it’s not a
MS: Oh, we don’t care. [Laughter.]
carving out our own style. I would say that
well-defined discipline, essentially carves
out [his or her] own [niche].
FM: You’re not concerned with being put
under the umbrella of the architect?
importance of the poetic origins of an idea.
stand the poetic project you’re working with.
You have to be a chameleon in terms of your
ability to interpret limits, goals, and aspirations. Otherwise, if your ideas are irrelevant,
you aren’t earning your place at the table. To
engage in these diverse projects at a collaborative level that is also technical and creative
and also the belief that “God is in the details.”
Ultimately, whatever the larger ideas at work
way that is close to the true embodiment
of those ideas. A legibility at the [level of]
human experience, whether you engage in
a certain material or detail or phenomenological effect—or whatever it was we were
after—needs to be achieved in the end. That
would be the core of why Front exists: we
"We’re not acting as architects, but the work we
do is architecture in the sense that no matter what
terms you collaborate on in the process, if you always have the larger interest at heart and are acting
in a way that informs [or] enables that, then what
else could you ask for?"
FM: At what point of the process would
you like to be involved? Does the timing
that between big industry and big design,
you turn down a project, perhaps where
cess opened up a whole world of depth and
out?
for three years at Foster’s in Hong Kong on
affect how you’re seen as a designer, ver-
there’s an awful lot of collaboration [in]
you feel like the ideas are already there
railways stations and airports, and realized
sus a consultant? Is there a point where
how projects actually get done. That pro-
and you’re simply the hands to carry it
Name Your Young Firm
h
arc
Gehry, Piano, Koolhaas—and you come up
with some unique façade systems. How do
practice, like Arup. For me, I was working
planning con
str u
cti
on
architects—Nouvel,
I joined an Australian façade engineering
HOW-TO…
ture
itec
preeminent
cast of thousands. That said, I understand the
Tip 1: Tap into a juicy market.
“Gaiety Inc.”
Don’t worry be happy.
There’s an episode of Sister Sister where
the Sisters’ father takes out an ad in
the paper for his limousine service but
a typo names it “Gay’s Limo” instead
of “Ray’s Limo”. Luckily for him, happy
people were underserved in the limou-
sine rental market. Luckily for this young
firm, the same is true in the building
market.
MS: No.
is an earned position. So in that sense, the
care either. [Laughter.]
FM: So your concern then becomes less
FM: Well, that’s good, because they don’t
business is not scalable or easily replicated.
with the public and more with the profes-
just want to build great stuff. The question
of appropriateness, of what that stuff is, is a
tougher question.
FM: Who would you love to work with—
either because you like what they’re doing
MS: At a certain point there are so many
sion?
or you have an interesting lighting designer
the things we do and I think we do a bad job
help with their façades?
people don’t really know what we do—even
from ever happening. [Laughter.]
different consultants involved. You’ve got
and want to engage with them or because
Atelier Ten and Transsolar on the energy side,
MS: Yeah. We would like to be given credit for
you just think they could really use some
consultants in there for special materials
sive, but we probably should be because most
MS: I’m going to punt on that. It might jinx it
what they are being referred to. [Laughter.]
FM: Fair enough.
or a landscape designer, or maybe there are
processes. In our business there is so much
collaboration within the world of contractors
and fabricators that even authorship between
all of those parties becomes kind of ambiguous—and sensitive.
at [ensuring] that. We are not very aggres-
those who are referred to us are unsure about
FM: Do you want your work to have political and disciplinary implications outside
For us, we never stopped understanding our-
of the client’s desires for environmen-
work we do is architecture in the sense that
tions on the projects?
terest at heart and are acting in a way that in-
one’s ever asked me that before. Inevitably,
selves as engaged in the practice of architec-
tal performance or the production of an
ture. We’re not acting as architects, but the
image? Do you inflect your own aspira-
the process, if you always have the larger in-
MS: It’s a great question. I don’t think any-
you ask for? Even at the top of the game, the
the work in some way. At root, I’d say craft
no matter what terms you collaborate on in
forms [or] enables that, then what else could
yes, we want our own values to permeate
MS: When I first moved to New York, certain
firms seemed very much inside of an elite cultural group that seemed inaccessible to us.
For example, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien—
or Steven Holl called us because he was sore
after losing the Seattle Library and found out
[we were] the consultants and then invited us
in to have a chat, and it [turned into] working
with him. This is the real way it works.
(continued on page 47)
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
NEVER BuSiNESS
AS USUAL
KAI-UWE BERGMANN
(interview)
"I place just as much emphasis in analyzing
a new market as the design team places in
analyzing a new site or program."
Image courtesy of Kai-Uwe Bergmann
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
While much of our architectural education is dominated by the language of formal
manipulations and polemical prescriptions, practitioners who focus on built work
consider the language of business an equally potent form of disciplinary discourse.
Presumably, an architecture office that churns out built projects doesn’t need
professorships or publishing deals to pay the bills. FM emailed a man responsible
for the business operations of a widely-published and highly prolific young firm to
discuss how architects might cultivate their business-savvy.
and propose a solution to a challenge. That
times one can move [from] one to the other.
still take part in open competitions—Tallinn
partners can follow up on a lead we might
said, [a competition] is, for many, the only
way to break into the profession, and we do
Town Hall, which we won, was an open competition, and we just took part in one for the
Brazil Olympics of 2016.
FM What is the background of people
working with you in BIG’s business development department? Do you find
FM: Thanks for giving us some time for
this interview. First, can you introduce
yourself?
KB: My name is Kai-Uwe Bergmann and I am
an Associate Partner at BIG [Bjarke Ingels
Group]. I head up BIG’s business develop-
ment, which currently has the office working
in over ten different countries, as well as [act
as] its Head of Communications. I am a reg-
istered architect in the US (licensed in Washington and New York), the UK, and Denmark,
as well as LEED AP certified.
FM: How does your work on the business
front of BIG’s operation mesh with the
trary, the body of the work you have built
culture and legal setup is of primary impor-
beginning is utilizing the latest form of
in analyzing a new site or program. Only once
will do more for you than any “Top Ten” list.
What I believe BIG has emphasized from its
media—from blogs to social networks to
video sites—to communicate our built
work and concepts to reach a global audi-
ence, which in turn has generated interest in our work from far-flung places. We
also invest a considerable time and energy in exhibitions and lecturing about our
work in order to connect with potential
sion to separate the tasks of designing from
those of lead generation [and] job creation,
as these require different skill sets. This frees
up designers to concentrate on what they
love to do, which is to design, and allows me
and the business development department to
concentrate on the time-consuming foreplay
required to suss out potential leads and deal
with the administrative tasks of tendering for
who might know someone that would like to
build a house in the Alps. What does distin-
guish our approach from many others is that
we have freed the designers from the tedious
day-to-day task of soliciting or competing
amongst themselves to bring in work. Instead
KB: I am hoping to begin teaching a course
legal and financial foundation.
Management, in which I want to focus on
state of edgy architectural design in the
ment—that I believe are underappreciated in
consequent halt of construction that we
can be taught/developed from scratch?
within which your project is set can you begin
here in Copenhagen at the Royal College of
to have meaningful conversations about its
FM: Any tips for young practitioners trying
to get work in this economic environment?
we are allowing everyone to play to their inherent strengths.
FM: As BIG is starting a project in New
Architecture entitled Introduction to Design
York, what is your opinion regarding the
knowledge management, and value assess-
of the current financial stagnation and
cessful architect.
country. Do you think that young archi-
promotion,
US? I’d like to think that as we climb out
our field but are at the foundation of any suc-
are due for a renaissance of sorts in this
those
aspects—acquisition,
KB: I would begin by opening up your defi-
a lot of hustling?
reer as a landscape architect, whereas oth-
high-caliber offices?
myself worked several years in the atelier of
think of Rick Joy and Will Bruder in the South-
FM: Is it mostly word of mouth, or is it just
KB: The task of finding new work requires
more than anything building an extensive
network of [people] who want to collaborate,
either as consultants or clients. For BIG this
means building those networks on a global
scale so that they know what we have done
and are currently doing, as well as keeping
tabs on the people/companies we would
like to work with. Over time this builds into
a network of relationships that all communicate with one another in looking for the right
nition of what an architectural job can be.
Richard Neutra began his architectural ca-
ers move into film, theater, or product de-
position in a traditional architecture office.
Allied Works in Portland, several in the New
west, Studio Gang in your neck of the woods,
a glass artist before finally starting my first
York City area. It’s just that you may have to
I would encourage everyone to view design
travel a little to go where the inspiration is.
as a very broad term and that any creative
Europe has its fair share of great offices, as do
experiences you may have early on can later
China, Singapore, and Brazil. Financial stagna-
inform your architectural career in very
tion is good for creativity, as it requires every-
profound ways.
FM: What’s your opinion of architectural
FM: You mentioned that at BIG you’ve
tion work for a firm with a small built
tries around the world?
no longer [need] to take part in open (meaning
come up, when a designer comes through
contractual concerns in different coun-
such a winning scheme would create. I per-
when does that typically happen?
disrespectful of the time it takes to investigate
between job creation and design, and at
portfolio?
KB: Every country and region has its own
nuances and peculiarities, so learning how
to work within each region and respect its
separated job creation and design. How
KB: We are in a fortunate position that we
do you handle situations, assuming they
or seek the potential windfall of promotion
handoff in the office for every project, and
a service such as ours is both unhealthy and
KB: There are no solid lines of distinction
unpaid) competitions in order to get started
sonally think that not being paid to perform
with a solid job lead? Is there an effective
YOU
GOTTA
GET
YOURSELF:
A CLIMBING WALL IN
YOUR SECTION!1!1
welcoming shores of Europe to work in
KB: There are high caliber offices in America. I
learning how to negotiate business and
FM: How steep is the learning curve in
tects still need to head to the more design-
sign after they completed their studies. I
ways that you are able to secure construc-
through any meaningful doors. On the con-
with anyone in our office, including an intern,
you have understood the cultural framework
lyzing a new market as the design team places
you in a lot of doors, but what are some
KB: I do not believe that popularity gets you
tionship building and the relationship can be
(project acquisition) is something that
competitions?
FM: I assume that BIG’s popularity gets
have. Much of business development is rela-
tance. I place just as much emphasis in ana-
circumstances to work together.
work.
competition we are doing or one of the other
opportunities.
firm’s design work?
KB: At BIG, we have made a conscious deci-
that being successful at this type of work
So I can take part in a design discussion in a
one to do more with less. I think as a young
architect today its important to expand your
horizons and see the globe as your potential
workplace. Be prepared for new challenges
and countries where you may not speak the
language, but then learn it once you have
moved there so that you can immerse yourself
in the opportunities. It is what brought the
first immigrants to America’s shores.
Interviewed by John Clark and Jake Gay.
Edited by John Clark and Jayne Kelley.
NOTHING SAYS “I’M A FUTURE JOSE OUEBERIE” LIKE A CLIMBING WALL IN YOUR
SECTION DRAWING. WHO CAN SAY YOUR
SECTION IS LACKING WHEN YOU HAVE
20-ISH PEOPLE SCALING UP THE SIDE OF
A TRIPLE-HEIGHT SPACE?! LOOK! THEY
LOVE IT! PROJECTING NEW WORLDS?
DUH, WINNING! PEOPLE ARE GONNA
BE THINKNG, “IS THERE ANYTHING THIS
ARCHITECT WON’T THINK OF?! WHAT’S
NEXT? A FLYING ELEVATOR?!” YOU
GOTTA PUT A CLIMBING WALL IN YOUR
SECTION. YOUR JURORS ARE GONNA
ASSUME YOU ARE THE LONG LOST LOVECHILD OF GUY DEBORD! YOU GOTTA
GETCHAAAAA SELF A CLIMBING WALL
AND, POSSIBLY, A KOOL-AID WATERFALL
IN EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOUR SECTIONS!111!!
21
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
HOW-TO… Brainwash Your Studio
by Zehra Ahmed & Emilia Bernatowicz
1
3
2
4
2
5
1
6
7
AUTONOMOUS PLAN
2
3
3
4
4
5
Break self-esteem
Indoctrinate
Indoctrinate
5
7
6
6
7
Architecture students
put tremendous time
and effort into
considering how others
live, but when it comes
to their own living
space (the studio) they
settle for whatever
material they have on
hand. The following
diagrams demonstrate
how to live at studio
with dignity!
by Tafhim Rahman
APPROPRIATION
Site Selection:
Choose dark and private
locations to maximize comfort.
The underside of a studio desk
is a perfect example!
Material Selection:
Use scrap rigid foam insulation
to block out light, early
morning wind drafts and
inquiring, judgmental eyes.
X
Color Choice:
Purchase the brightest colored
sleeping bags you can �ind —
they’re great for scaring away
prospective students.
X
For Those on a Budget:
Use foam insulation as a
makeshift mattress.
Experiment with different
plies of chipboard as
provisional blankets.
Mandate uniform appearance
Assign Sisyphean tasks
FL
1
HOW-TO… Avoid Paying Rent By Living In The Studio
K
IC
Eject non-compliers
Praise conformity
CREATION
AGGREGATION
Arti�icial Passive
Heating & Cooling:
The form of your pod can
take advantage of existing
HVAC systems to maintain a
pleasant temperature.
Studio Romance:
In cases of studio romance,
combine pods to create a
master bedroom suite.
Oversleep Prevention:
Set your alarm device outside
the pod, forcing you to crawl
out from the womb of
warmth and safety.
Studio Urbanism:
Encourage your friends to
follow suit and transform your
commuter studio into a
squatter studio!
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
AUTONOMOUS SECTION
Release clones into the world
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
24
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
BEST
DRAWING
Architecture students spend an exorbitant amount of time perfecting
drawings; it is an indoctrinated infatuation turned compulsive obsession. Amongst all this hopeless devotion, Fresh Meat decided it was
time to pin down the criteria of an excellent drawing. We called upon
a few experts (Bob Somol, Dan Wheeler, Sarah Herda and Ben Nicholson) to guide the discussion, define the terms, and award the Best
Drawing Ever.
After an hour, the criteria was set—sort of—and the dozens
and dozens of submissions were reduced to six. The Best Drawing Ever must have clear influences, it must take you into another
world, and provide multiple readings. If this sounds like a daunting task, don’t fret—Fresh Meat offers up the winning drawing, a few
personal favorites selected by each juror, and some expert advice: when
all else fails, and time is running out, flip a coin.
11
Fresh Meat vol.???
Fall 2010
25
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
44
#
A Misbehaving Section
by Alysen Hiller
■ The Best Drawing Ever
(after a coin toss with Drawing #2)
■ Ben Nicholson’s Personal Pick
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
“In here, I’m in another place. The further I get, the more uncomfortable I feel with
the place that I am led to. It’s really bizarre—on the verge of unhealthy. These
little lights that come through and light up this little corner, but there’s only one
window that can see it—I don’t know what this is! It’s not for humans! And it’s
wonderful! We’re led in here to a place we’ve never been before. Where a human
being looks different, that’s a new piece of architecture… It so represents what the
school is into right now. We get the references, we all know what they are… It’s a
very good example of the goofy.” —Ben Nicholson
2
#
Undress“I see a place conceptually for #11, but #2 is a kind of collision between this incredible precision and a looseness at the base. It allows a composite of drawings;
by Daniel Karas
■ Best Drawing Ever Runner-up
(after coin toss with Drawing #44)
■ Bob Somol’s Personal Pick
there is this Bugs Bunny mechanized cartoon base, with a kind of relentless technical drawing, with an atmospheric mossy exterior. I like that you can blur from a
cartoon to a technical drawing… In terms of projectivng another world and taking me there, I think it’s #2—it has mixed so many quotations that its references
are not quite as legible as #44.” —Bob Somol
27
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
11
#
In-Fighting
by Jake Gay
■ Best Drawing Ever Finalist
■ Sarah Herda’s Personal Pick
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
“[This battle] is the clean win… I look at drawings in terms of what I would show,
and #11 is very compelling to me. It’s operating as a drawing, it’s making an
argument, whether or not I want to accept the argument or understand the argument, I feel the attempt—it’s actively doing something. I think with the other ones
I get too conflicted with the project.” —Sarah Herda
“Twenty years from now, I’d much prefer to look at this one.” —Dan Wheeler
55
#
Drawing for The House
by Katie LaCourt
■ Best Drawing Ever Finalist
■ Dan Wheeler’s Personal Pick
“Of all of these, I go to #55 graphically—in terms of the squint test and the saturation. It’s like Francis Bacon. You take this lid off this thing, and you wonder what it
is. I wish there was more blood in it or oozing stuff, that would make it even better. It looks like a butcher shop, the reds, the greens, the saturation. As an elegant
drawing I think it stands on its own.” —Dan Wheeler
29
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
52
#
Lots of Lots: The Town of
Lots, Arizona
by Matt Vander Ploeg
■ Best Drawing Ever Finalist
■ FM Editor’s Choice
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
“Are the trees a flat wallpaper? Is it isolated moments of parallel projection? Or is
it a slightly extreme aerial in a tilted perspective…?” —Bob Somol
“Number 52 is a beautiful drawing once you get up close to it. It could be anything in there, but as a drawing, it’s everything and nothing at the same time.
It’s dusty, it’s snow-drifty… We don’t need any text to know what’s going on here.”
—Ben Nicholson
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
AN ENDLESS
SET OF PHOBIAS
LARS LERUP
(interview)
"[For the architect,] concentrating on form
has been, in some sense, a way of avoiding
being part of a more complex world. If you
concentrate all your ambition on making
cool forms, you don't realize that architecture is intimately bound to capital and
capitalism."
Image Courtesy of Sun Microsystems
33
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Lars Lerup is not going to tell you what to do, but if he were you he would look
around, speak up, make some connections, and do some damage. He implores architecture students to prepare themselves for an evil which is new to our age, namely
a scarcity of jobs and the limiting nature of technology. And if that means listening
to Leonard Cohen and destroying one’s cellphone, then those are just the measures
one must take. An architect who is more interested in context than form, Lerup and
his self-proclaimed ability to describe rather than critique leaves us with no shortage of helpful hints and subtle suggestions for navigating the iffy future of practice
as well as design. Fresh Meat speaks with Lerup regarding the devices that shape,
limit, and extend the power of architects and architecture within this new context.
FM: We thought we’d begin with a quote
from the introduction to After the City,
where you state, “Schools that emphasize
design in terms of innovation and form
represent a certain kind of a failure because of the attitude that they promote
in the student, because such education
divorces the practice of design from the
world of practice.” As an educator, how do
you see your role in bridging that gap between academia and practice? Where do
you see the student in relationship to that
divide?
LL: You know I’ve been in this teaching busi-
ness since 1970, which is a pretty long time. I
taught at Berkeley for some time, and ended
up at Rice as the dean. I know nothing about
baseball, but I’d like to use a baseball meta-
tough to be an architect today. The wild figure
should blot out the batter and look at every-
ably never been that bad.
phor. A sociologist that I read many years ago
said, “If you want to know about baseball, you
thing surrounding it.” I use the same meta-
phor for architecture: if you want to know
about architecture, you need to look at everything around it. I’m suggesting that context is
extremely important to understand.
[For the architect,] concentrating on form has
been, in some sense, a way of avoiding being
part of a more complex world. If you concentrate all your ambition on making cool forms,
you don’t realize that architecture is intimately bound to capital and capitalism. And
if you don’t understand that, you will never
have a chance to really survive. It’s become so
in Chicago is forty percent of architects are
without work, which is astonishing. It’s probIf we are going to operate in the profession
we will need to understand our discipline. In
other words, if we don’t have a contextual un-
derstanding for what we do then I think we’re
lost. We would forever be the cannon fodder
of capital and we’ll never have any control.
We might still not have any control, but at
least we have understanding.
ratuses are all those devices that in some way
FM: How to deal with complexity? How not
apparatuses it has a series of components
LL: Not so much that it’s complex, but that
try to control us and make us what he calls
to ignore it?
and architecture is one of them. That’s why
we talk about the world that surrounds
“docile subjects.” If you look at one of those
he made such a big deal of panopticism. The
Panopticon was sort of the paradigm for the
disciplinary society. You don’t need the guard,
you need the tower. That is where architecture becomes important in its symbolic form.
So there is the beginning of the end. Of course
now everybody carries the apparatuses of
society around. For example, the cell phone
is one of these devices. You think it is a great
liberty, but, at the same time, it forces you to
be someone you weren’t before.
These complexities produce terribly interesting questions and realizations about architecture. Not for the formalist, because he or she
just opens up the damn computer program
and churns out the wiggles, whatever they
are. [Laughter.] But for me it adds enormous
complexity, which makes my life more interesting. This is what I talk to students about all
the time.
architecture.
There’s an English writer who said that
“architecture is not a radio.” In other words,
there are media constraints around archi-
tecture. So there are lots of things that I
talk about that are difficult to express in
architecture, and the students question
their value because they think it has
no effect. I like to create some ambiguity by asking them how they can be so
sure of that. I say face that ambiguity. It is
very important to understand what you
can express, and that you can probably
express more than art for art’s sake. In
other words, we’re still hung up on this
modernist dictum that architecture is not
supposed to represent anything and therefore be free of any imprint of activity, or
mind for that matter. You have to find
architecture’s mind and express that.
have a more complex, more Rossian version
of it—not in the sense that I believe buildings
should look like the ones he designed, but in
his conception of autonomy.
I was in Rome for a year and went to Pompeii.
We looked at one of those typical Roman
houses that had a peristyle—a set of columns
around an outdoor courtyard space with
rooms around it—and an impluvium, which is
a kind of a rain basin with a hole in the ceiling.
Those are architectural components. It’s part
of what I would call an architectural mind,
while a floor plan is not. A floor plan doesn’t
have any architectural idea, any part of an
architectural brain in it. It’s entirely derived
from the stuff that I’m interested in, namely,
behavior. A floor plan is an apparatus to pro-
duce docile subjects; that is the device. So I’d
like to see an aggressive combination of these
two aspects to give architecture a greater
chance than it has had.
That’s why I have real respect for those peo-
ple who are true formalists, because they’re
HOW-TO…
Name Your Young Firm
So what I’ve tried to do since I began [teaching] is to create the context, because you don’t
Tip 2: Play off popular media figures.
need to worry about form. Form is an obses-
sion of architects, so by hook or crook, they
will take what I talk about and turn it into
“Jon and Jake Plus Eight”
form. I have no trouble with that. I’m not a
Two principals, eight interns, infinite bit-
ing. Since architecture is a cultural enterprise
Everyone agreed that Jon and Kate had
intellectually. That’s why I have left sociology
fectly adaptable their model was to an
moralist. But I think it’s very important for
terness.
and a very old profession, it needs to be un-
a model family; what no one consid-
architects to have a much wider understandderstood historically, practically, as well as
as a device to look at architecture and have
become more inclined towards philosophy. It
really began for me with Foucault, who is still
central to my way of looking at architecture.
What’s very interesting about Foucault is that
Image courtesy of Flickr user Friman
I do believe in architecture’s autonomy, but I
he talks about something called the dispositif,
[which] translates into apparatus. The appa-
JON +
JAKE
&
Eight
ered, until Jon and Jake, was how per-
architecture firm. Jon was happy with
two interns, Jake wanted six more;
all it took was a little bending of the
rules in the hiring process. Now clients
hire these two fame mongers to get a
glimpse into the ego-driven world of
architects and their pitiable multitude
of selfsame interns.
35
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
form. I think that’s partially the reason
to recognize physical boundaries; they’ve
FM: You should go talk to some of our pro-
the best buildings ever.
that you are here—because of things like
become internalized into the machine. So,
fessors. [Laughter.]
After the City. It’s not a condemnation of
I’m curious about the buildings produced
FM: Having seen you lecture and having
the metropolis, it is more like a portrait of
by architects like SANAA and Zaha Hadid,
read about it in After the City, it seems
it. My question would be how can we use it
if they have begun to re-conceptualize
break this? The only way to do it is to stop the
that you use the Pantheon as a lens
not just as a portrait, but as a tool to move
boundaries to produce new architectural
damn machine and think.
through which to view certain contempo-
forward?
conditions?
FM: Are there any designers that inspire
view it as an object through the lens of
you or that pique your interest and are an-
theory. Could you tell us more about how
swering those questions?
you turn the Pantheon into something
probably looking for [an] architectural brain.
But for me the Pantheon is probably one of
Computers are, I think, ultimately and despite
I don’t see much discovery there yet because
it’s all been so subjectified by computers.
their capabilities, pretty limiting. How do we
rary phenomena and theory rather than
productive?
LL: Oh yeah, there are lots of them, some of
them are friends. I once asked Aldo Rossi,
LL: I am a positive person and I like to look
LL: I’m not sure we have the same use of [the
I think it is better to tell how things are work-
straining, confining are what architects do by
at things positively. It’s important for me to
convey my point of view in terms of analysis.
these dreamy Italian eyes, and he looked
at me and he said, “The architecture of my
friends.” [Laughter.]
I think that there are lots of interesting archi-
tects. I saw a very nice project in Lausanne
the other day.
necessity. When you see something like SANAA,
FM: The Rolex Campus?
then it has a vast oceanic space in the visual
field. So you have this perception of being in
Image courtesy of Rolex Learning Center / EPFL SANAA ©Hisao Suzuki
the landscape, but as if you were in the house
LL: That’s a good observation. It’s become a
environments that have such capacity for
“we affect buildings, buildings affect us.” That
looking out through a window. Things like
that interest me: that you can actually make
being both/and, which is a kind of "mixeduse" in a true intellectual sense. That doesn’t
happen to me very often, you know. Zaha
Hadid has a new museum in Rome that I think
is, in part, very interesting, and there’s a beautiful space. But [in plan it's like] a series of
bananas lying around, and they have poor
connections. The project also implies a kind
of a landscape, but it’s one in which crossing
into another landscape—another banana—
is going to be very cumbersome. Maybe if it
was a beautiful river and I could walk over a
nice bridg—something that would have been
more in tune with this landscape idea, which I
think is at play in both of the buildings.
be an idiot. You should never do that. In ’68 at
Harvard we told people to go home when we
didn’t like them. I think students today are the
productive machine for lots of ideas. I do believe that—I think Churchill said this one—
in itself is so ambiguous and that’s why I like
it—there’s no way of knowing.
I believe that [architecture] is its own discourse, but it gets caught in all these appara-
tuses. In other words, the subject that archi-
tecture produces by itself is different from
the subject that is produced when it’s part of
an apparatus. It becomes the handmaiden, if
that’s the right word, of another device.
FM: Bob [Somol] tries to advance his own
projective project in the school by proposing to end criticism as a negative form and
instead, start doing criticism in a positive
ing than [to be] critical. That sounds like a
very meek [or] strategic point of view, but [it]
is not a strategy, it comes natural to me.
The next book that’s coming out with the
Architectural Association, which is called A
Million Acres and No Zoning, is a more critical
view of this rather euphoric description of the
city. But it is another book on Houston that
may give you some clue of what to do. I think
that I have (maybe notoriously) attempted to
produce better descriptions of things than
better criticism. I don’t think I’ve ever written
a very critical text in my entire life because
I’m more interested in how things work than
whether they are right or wrong.
FM: Can we go back to the computer for a
minute? With the computer, you don’t have
more concerned with understanding how
long run, I think it’s an extreme example of
area for investigation. I’m [always] the first
profession, how to talk to each other. But
we seem to have none of that. We have no
LL: I think this is actually a very interesting
front of computers and produce buildings are
in the back; they never get involved and are
A long time ago, I worked for a very brief
moment at Xerox Park, where the Macintosh
was invented. We were doing this research
work and there was one guy who refused to
use the keyboard. He used a screwdriver in the
back of the machine instead. It’s that kind of
stuff that you no longer see. All these things are
so-called tools but there are limitations to
tools, a sinister and dark side. What you need
to do is profane the objects that are forcing
you to be something all the time. You have
to unsettle their domination over you. That
becomes extremely important.
at negotiation would empower us as
architects to create change in the world?
LL: I am absolutely convinced about that.
and are somehow taken for granted. In the
tified to the computer.
FM: Do you think that becoming better
An earlier generation of architects seemed
way of actually talking.
docile subjects—they’re willing to be subjec-
tions that we can’t understand.
for ourselves?
FM: I don’t think we’re trained to dialogue.
But I agree with you that there are a lot of
the docile subject. All of these kids that sit in
technologies have produced new subjectifica-
Would it enable us to win territory back
to communicate within the discipline and
things that get absorbed [into the computer]
is that you are very different from us. New
most docile subjects I’ve ever encountered.
where that has in some way disappeared, there
is a freedom in those spaces that appeals to me.
LL: Yeah. It's interesting from a couple of
space because of its relatively low ceiling, and
all they are involved with are boundaries; con-
If you submit yourself to their desires, you’d
"If you submit yourself to their desires, you’d bean
idiot. You should never do that. In ’68 at Harvard we
told people to go home when we didn’t like them. I
think students today are the most docile subjects
I’ve ever encountered."
“Who are the architects you like?” He had
points of view. It has a very intimate acoustic
term] boundary. I would say that architects,
LL: Well, they’re there to be rebelled against.
think my generation maybe doesn’t realize
to pontificate. But the students are always
always quiet. We are in the process of creating our own demise because the conversation
that goes on in the back will shape the new,
young, vigorous generation that will suppress
and kill the old generation. If there was more
communication, we might achieve something
in every generation rather than this animos-
ity. You have to listen to us bullshitting endlessly because there’s no generosity from
either group. I find my own process very Socratic—I talk a lot. I love to have discussions
with students because that is where my best
ideas come out.
But it is unfortunate that there isn’t more
interactive communication, because what I
Architecture is a rhetorical enterprise. You
convince people why something is good. Machiavelli says that if you are a good person
you should use it, but you have to understand
that evil is sometimes embedded in political
action. So one day evil will show its ugly head
and you better take it by the horns and take
advantage of it, because otherwise you are
going to fail. It becomes incredibly important
to understand how you can rhetorically deliver value to a client. And that’s the tough-
est part of being an architect, I think, because
we are never taught that in school. That’s
why it’s great to have a lawyer as a director.
[Laughter.] Because he knows exactly what
I am talking about and he was taught that
in law school. And why that’s not taught in
every professional school how to sell something in a productive and intelligent way… it’s
strange.
To learn how to make a good argument and
to piece it all together is incredibly important, since so much of what we do is selling
projects. One of the biggest problems is that
we don’t know how to sell form because we
don’t know how we create value out of form.
We [say], “This size of room will create a
better production within your corporation.”
Well, only the most audacious can do that
and have backup for it. Architecture is so dependent on rhetoric and that is why there are
all these successful architects, though their
work may not look much better than some
architects who don’t get anywhere. One has
(continued on page 48)
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
SECTIONS, STADIA,
AND SUPRASTARS
HITOSHI ABE
"For me, creation is about responding
to things outside of yourself, and if the
outside is strong your creations can be
more interesting."
(interview)
Image courtesy of Nathaniel Smith
39
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Over the past twenty years Hitoshi Abe has moved fluidly through the discipline of
architecture carrying out private commissions and winning competitions across
a variety of scales, occupying academic posts back and forth between Japan and
the US and recently being the namesake of monographs published by Phaidon
and Toto. Currently leading offices in Sendai and Los Angeles and acting as the
chair of the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA, Abe talks to
Fresh Meat about directing a school in the land of make-believe, why plans and
sections are more important than ever and the imperative to keep your thesis
dreams alive.
FM: The first question we’d like to ask
you about is related to a statement
you’ve written about Los Angeles as a
“prototype” city for the twenty-first
century—what does that mean?
HA: LA isn’t a city, even though we call it
that because of the concentration of the
population. It lacks many of the character-
istics which define modern metropolises,
such as New York, Paris, and Chicago. LA
together and create the identity of LA as we
role as an educator from your role as a
there. For me, creation is about mediating
HA: As an educator, you mean as an adminis-
problem the better.
faculty run their initiatives and coordinate
flip what was once a problem into a positive
practitioner. Is that true?
things inside and outside yourself. And be-
trator? As an administrator, I work to merge
opportunity and find potential for change
cause of that I say the more interesting the
FM: So then how do you, as director of an
architecture school, engage that urban
is too fragile and in constant flux. This is a
environment and direct the energy of the
home with a backyard lagoon, palm trees
HA: Yes, we are taking advantage of our
driving past homeless people on the street.
tech, military, and entertainment, which
very strange place. You can be in the middle
school to unlock that potential?
and hummingbirds, and just outside the
surroundings. LA has a concentration of
of Beverly Hills and find a Spanish colonial
gates find hip hotels with Lamborghinis
It’s almost as if someone collaged imagery
that was cut and pasted from our contemporary world. LA’s identity is comprised of
traits and challenges shared by most societies in the contemporary moment. Its physicality is based on the auto-based infrastructure of freeways. Its culture is made up of
unique ethnicities from all over the world
with different perspectives. LA is generat-
ed from the struggles of the contemporary
world.
FM: So we have lessons to learn from LA,
but it’s not a model?
HA: It is not a model, but what is interesting
is how all the problems of this place are tied
FM: It seems like you really separate your
know of it. I am interested in how we can
interesting industries including design, high
makes it a really interesting place to do
research. At UCLA we have three pillars in
the school: design culture, design technology,
and critical practice. There is a hope that with
each one of those pillars we reach beyond
the boundary of the academy and engage
the world. Design culture is intercultural and
connects the school to a global discourse; for
example, this year’s lecture series includes
a variety of young architects from East Asia
and Europe. Design technology is interdisci-
plinary and seeks to expand connections in
different elements together. I like to let the
am wondering, what [do] you think about
the work that Somol is spearheading at
this school?
HA: Each school has a different agenda
based on the environment surrounding
that school. It is true that the definition
of our profession is expanding, and that
otherwise you have nothing to offer. I think
mentality influenced by parametric design.
that educates people to be generalists and
able to direct a variety of different kinds of
projects.
shrinking. [Laughter.] I never had that issue
because I don’t think that the way I work is
tied to scale.
FM: Looking back at your student work,
you seemed to be interested in movable
nancial resources too. Only [in] LA could we
HA: Yes. I remember I became very interested
FM: Everything that you are saying about
ten we [could] turn any object into a build-
year. These companies are not only bringing
still interested in that?
make this happen.
in movable architecture because I was tired
three categories outside the boundaries of
it seems more about pure architectural
the school.
disciplinarity; we don’t even use the word
tects, and even the aim of the school. Here
It’s a technique to unite different param-
cause I started from very large projects and
and transformable architecture. Are you
here at UIC: the resources, big name archi-
I’m also worried about the particular design
dium. Do you think that your techniques
neering and Greg Lynn followed the next
practice is outreach into the community. In
things to do.
FM: Returning to movable architec-
FM: Your work spans across a lot of
since then my projects are shrinking and
LA seems so opposite to the experience
me than to learn it by myself. I have other
(continued on page 48)
that architecture is an interesting discipline
renowned practitioners and educators is
their knowledge and manpower, but also fi-
skilled in the parametric process to work for
Parametric design itself is just a technique.
that your discipline as an architect is solid;
that’s the funny thing about it—mostly be-
nari. A partnership between Disney Imagi-
er. I’d rather be the one who hires someone
work influenced by your time with Coop
HA: I’ve never had trouble related to scale—
and invited Toyota to partner with Neil De-
connections; these rely solely on the design-
tude that parametric design is based on, but
like Suprastudio, which is a post-graduate
an interesting city in terms of transportation
seemed to be a bit skeptical of parametric
eters, how to deal with them, how to make
tant that in order to be interdisciplinary,
try. We take advantage of that with programs
the first year we took the premise that LA is
FM: In a lecture from earlier this year you
HA: No—let me say I share a certain atti-
most useful for any one particular scale?
collaboration with a major corporation. For
happy to design a movable project.
environments. However, it’s very impor-
and the effects that you try to achieve are
assigned to design a whole year of study in
then I have a problem. Setting up the param-
the economic condition allow it, I would be
the only methodology to do something right,
your opinion?
become designers for virtual cities and
in our field, and I think that we have one of
program in which one of the industry’s most
design. Though, maybe when technology and
the very elementary stages of parametric
form. But when people start to say that is
into film and related industries and they
intersection of unique talent and superstars
the best selections of faculties in this coun-
eters within a design and use that to produce
a sort of frozen moment. I guess I was at
design as a design tool. Have you changed
scales—like you’ve said, from a toy to a sta-
ergy within the department. UCLA is at the
ships between smaller elements that become
results in many of our graduates going
them so that it will create a collective en-
to industries outside of architecture. Critical
a way, I need LA [in order] to stretch these
interdisciplinarity, it’s the wrong word. I
of just drawing shapes. It seemed that so ofing: this cup, or this plastic bag, et cetera. So
I started by using literal movement to define
form but later realized that maybe the actual
object doesn’t have to move, but instead, I
can create form from a series of relation-
Drawing by Hitoshi Abe, under Wolf Prix at SCI-Arc
ture, was that line of thinking in your
Himmelb(l)au?
41
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Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
this survey, couldn’t resist the infantile urge to
establish who was winning, and more importantly losing, the battles of cultural relevance
and by how much.
Yelp for restaurants, Rotten Tomatoes for film,
and now Fresh Meat “Liquidation” for archi-
tecture. We established a list of sixty topics
faculty and director. We even asked a couple of
critics, Jeffrey Kipnis and Lynn Becker (both of
whom declined). The premise is simple: architecture contains an impossibly broad range of
topics and it’s way too much work to maintain
an informed opinion on more than a select few.
There are two options for narrowing your list,
either the traditional technique of promoting a
couple favorites and claiming their supremacy
over the lot or, more absurdly, downgrading
exercise, most notably by rigging the range
of scores from -20 to 10 to favor disdain, the
elin what is, presumably, the heyday of the
post-critical project while it lasts.
-6.86
3
Banham, Reyner
6.57
American Institute of Architects
-4.57
5
Hejduk, John
6.49
Somol, RE
6.43
National Architectural Accrediting Board
Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design
Alonso, Hernan Diaz
-5.14
-4.14
-3.86
most contentious (based on standard deviation)
least contentious
1
Jesus Christ
Preissner, Paul
σ3.15
3
Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design
Mies van der Rohe, Mies
σ4.36
2
4
5
National Architectural Accrediting Board
Holl, Steven
Kipnis, Jeffrey
σ11.78
σ10.75
σ9.70
σ9.38
σ9.18
Lally, Sean
Lai, Jimenez
Rudolph, Paul
Bauhaus 1933
6
Becker, Lynn
σ3.84
σ4.49
σ4.52
+10 fill-ins
-20 fill-ins
Dean Martin, Joan of Arc, Nutella, Love, DUS, Brodsky
& Utkin, The Who, Greg Lynn, Lil Wayne, Andrea
Branzi, The Ramones, Enric Miralles, NL Architects,
Cain, Machine Girl, UN Studio, the profession, SHoP,
Natalie Portman, Peter Zumthor, Morphosis, Alvar
Aalto, Constructivism, Dan Wheeler, “Roger Ebert
presents At the Movies”
Architecture for Humanity, Information, Peanut Butter,
Obligations, Wallpaper*, The Beatles, Hal Foster, Sex
Pistols, MVRDV, Helmut Jahn, House VI, Wire Models, the
discipline, line drawings, Santiago Calatrava, site models,
Ed Mitchell, Alejandro Zaera-Polo
5
8
7
0
2
0
0
10
7
0
2
5
2
0
9
Duany, Andres
5
-10
Eisenman, Peter
9
5
Evans, Robin
4
Farnsworth House
Fresh Meat Journal
6
Foucault, Michel
8
9
Hadid, Zaha
HdeM
10
2
Holl, Steven
5
-2
5
-3
Herron, Ron
IIT
Jacobs, Jane
Jeanneret, Charles
6
1
10
4
2
4.71
7
1
-10
5
6
0
-8
0
8
7
3
-1
-1
1
5
-8
0.71
Johnson, Philip
Kahn, Louis
Kamin, Blair
10
-5
9
5
4
2
9
8
-15
2
9
9
0
8
10
0
0
1
0
0
4
3.29
Lally, Sean
7
Lehnerer, Alex
7
-6
-3.14
0
0.29
0.86
LEED
Mad Men
10
8
10
-3
1.57
1
-3
-4
4
10
2
0
10
5
-11
-10
-1
-1
-2.00
Rudolph, Paul
0
0
-9
-2
-4
-2.14
Schumacher, Patrik
3
-2
-20
2
8
6
6
5.57
SOM
4
3
5
1
3
1
4.14
Seattle Public LIbrary
-6
0
5
0
4
3
-5
10
7
5
7
0
0
-10
10
3
4
9
0
8
9
10
-3
5
9
0
-5
1
-10
3
2
-3
0
6
1
0
2
3
3
4
7.00
-5
-2.00
1
3.43
5
3
3
-6
-3
7
3
-1
-1.00
4.86
5.14
6.29
1.43
0.29
1.71
6.49
0.57
0
-3
-4
-2.29
8
1
5
6.29
1
-1
0.29
4
9
1
8
8
2
-2.71
Marinetti, Filippo
1
-10
2
8
9
NAAB
Netsch, Walter
OMA
Palladio, Andrea
Preissner, Paul
SANAA
SCI-Arc
10
5
2
5
8
10
10
5
3
10
7
5
8
Somol, RE
9
Venturi Scott Brown
9
8
Warhol, Andy
10
Žižek, Slavoj
2
Wright, Frank Lloyd
5
7
8
9
10
-20
-2
-8
-4.14
6
10
-1
2
3.00
8
1
8
5
0
7
1
3
3.57
2
3
1.43
4
1
0
6
-4
2.71
5.86
2.14
-10
9
4
2
3.86
10
7
1
6
-10
10
0
7
8
5.29
-5.14
8
0
5
1
4.57
-14
10
10
8
3
2
4.57
0
9
-10
10
3
-1
-15
0
1
10
1
0
5
-3
Average
0
0
-10
8
FM Staff
4.86
3
-5
Student Body
4
5
10
Miller House
2
2
6
1.71
4.86
10
-10
7
4
2
2
0
6
Mies van der Rohe
4
2
3
-6.86
-10
-5
1.43
-7
2
5
-9
-1
-6
5
9
0
-20
7
Marx, Karl
McLuhan, Marshall
9
-20
Kipnis, Jeffrey
0
3
0
6.57
Lai, Jimenez
-1
-2
8
7
3
4
0
Jesus
0
8
Hejduk, John
-3.86
-18
-2
7
-4
0
-3
5
-2
10
0
6
-1
0
1
0
1
-4.57
7
-1
GSD
-8
-1
-10
2
0
1
7
0
6
-10
4
1.29
-1
3
Frampton, Kenneth
1
-15
10
10
8
1
0
5
7
GSAPP
0
0
7
7
10
0
0
École des Beaux-Arts
9
-20
1
Derrida, Jacques
0
-9
BIM
10
-15
-10
5
Le Corbusier
0
2
Berlage Institute
2
3
Somol
Lai
9
BIG
Kamin, Blair
4
6
Bauhaus 1919
such happy and loving people. Let us all rev-
7.00
7.00
Banham, Reyner
lucky we are to be at a school surrounded by
(who knew he was a Pollyanna figure?). How
Palladio, Andrea
Le Corbusier
0
Alonso, Hernan Diaz
dition, could muster no derision whatsoever
1
2
-11
Jimenez Lai, symptomatic of the general con-
lowest rating
highest rating
1
Acconci, Vito
0
Preissner
AIA
tantly ripped off for the concept and format of
-5
Lehnerer
averages came out embarrassingly positive.
Dadaists, whose journal Littérature we bla-
1
Lally
8
Lai
AA London
Average
Despite our best efforts to make this a critical
heads barely above water. We like the latter.
FM Staff
contributors, and solicited responses from the
polled the student body, our editorial board,
Student Body
potency and prevalence in media. Even the
insatiable and it’s hard to overstate their
Somol
the lot until a few are left, floating with their
practitioners, academics, and buildings—then
Lehnerer
across the breadth of the field—schools,
collective desire for aggregate ratings seems
Lally
Goodbye critics, hello MetaCritic.com. Our
Preissner
HOW-TO… Liquidate the Discipline
2
9
7
10
8
9
2
2
3
1
3
1
5
6
5.29
3.86
-1
2.14
2
8
9
1
-10
8
0
3
6.00
-3.43
1
10
4
7.00
-9
-5
-15
3
4.29
0
8
8
4
3
0
2
4
2
-5
6
2
4
4
-1
-1
1.00
6.43
4.71
2.57
0.71
2.14
2.86
43
44
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
-CRIT
REVIEWS, OPINIONS, BANTER, WHATEVER…
LETTER FROM MANITOU:
DESTINATION GIFT SHOP
by Dolly Davis
Driving on Highway 24 into Manitou Springs,
I pass a plethora of RV parks and motels
adorned with kitschy neon signs and names
like Mecca, Maverick, and Mel Haven. It ini-
tially brings to mind a mini version of old
Las Vegas, but without the casinos and abun-
dance of lights. Along the main drag, I see the
expected Native American-themed gift shops
and tourist traps that seem to sell the same
t-shirts and salt-water taffy from Cape Cod to
Albuquerque. But I also begin to notice rather
unexpected shops, at least for Colorado: peppered among the likes of Mountain Man and
South West Silver Co. are the Dulcimer Shop,
Leprechaun Shoppe, Dutch Kitchen, and Crys-
tal Wizard. This hodge-podge of storefronts
suggests that Manitou Springs is something
more than just another Western tourist town.
A bit of history—Manitou Springs is a small
town west of Colorado Springs nestled into
the base of Pikes Peak, where the endless flat-
ness of the plains finally slams into the Rocky
Mountains. Manitou began as a stopover for
gold-seekers but quickly became known for
its supposedly health-giving mineral springs.
On its website, the town calls itself “Colorado’s first resort destination.”
This transition—outpost, health mecca, tourist trap—reflects America’s cultural history.
But what’s with the Leprechaun Shoppe? Or
the Crystal Wizard? Perhaps at a certain point
a gift shop economy takes over a place, where
the object itself matters more than any original theme. This object must fit in a suitcase,
cost between ten and fifty dollars, and be able
to be displayed at home. Above all, it must be
a conversation starter. Whether the object is
a piece of fool’s gold, a lollipop with a worm
in the center, or Banham’s beloved bolo tie,
it must serve as proof of the visit. Manitou is
just one in a long line of American towns that
has romanticized its location and history for
economic ends—it’s the capitalist way.
Often, generic gift shop items (shot glass,
etc.) are printed with “Colorful Colorado,”
“Pikes Peak,” or the highly revered image of
Kokopelli. You may not know the name, but
How-to create a
playlist, or Vidler’s
attempt to end
‘history’
by Andrew Santa Lucia
if you have ever visited one of the Four Cor-
After reading Anthony Vidler’s Histories of the
several Native American tribes, recognized in
attempt by Vidler to curate four historian’s
ners states you’re sure to recognize it. Kokopelli is a symbol for the fertility deity of
petroglyphs by his flute, hunched back, and,
according to Wikipedia, “huge phallus.” Need-
less to say, the phallus is censored for the gift
shop tchotchkes. The popularity of the symbol has exploded along with tourism in the
Southwest.
Today, the symbol is rarely bought to symbolize fertility; instead, it symbolizes a pilgrim-
age, and proves that the tourist is in touch
with and respectful of Native American cul-
ture. In other words, it recontextualizes an
icon so that it no longer serves its original
symbolic function—we must recognize it has
come to symbolize something else. In this
way, we separate its presence in pop culture
(continued on page 49)
Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural
Modernism, I thought of the book less as an
accounts of modernism for the purpose of
self-definition or inclusion into a prestigious
lineage (although that does occur implicitly)
than as a playlist. Critic and essayist Geoffrey
O’Brien has argued that the playlist (or mix-
tape) is the most widely practiced American
art form. Indeed, Vidler’s project is situated
in a completely different paradigmatic realm
within architectural discourse—the posthis-
toire, which is to say after the ‘end’ of-history—than his subjects. As a work of art, Vidler’s
curation allows him to present a piece of a history without its “direction” becoming a mea-
sure of qualitative success. Vidler’s playlist lets
the reader look into the mind of the author in
order to show that all voices within literature
or “history” are auto-biographical. In this un-
derstanding of historians, I believe, lies a counter to the thesis of posthistoire: anti-history.
Through each account of invented modern-
ism and its author’s respective history, Vidler
paints a different picture (further compli-
cated by my listening to his playlist) that has
certain implications on the project of posthistory. I’ll expose this through the structure
of the playlist, which helps to define the notion of anti-history implicit in the text.
In the book’s “tracks,” or chapters, Vidler
traces a construction of modernism through
the written histories of Emil Kaufman, Colin
Rowe, Reyner Banham, and Manfredo Tafuri.
Each writer attempts to set a stage for mod-
ernism by linking sometimes disparate historImage courtesy of Dolly Davis
ical figures, events, or time periods: Kaufman’s
link between Le Corbusier and Ledoux,
Rowe’s formalist connection between Palladio
Immediate Present: Inventing Architectural
modernity, and Tafuri relating the project of
ways. First, the immediate present is a play
and Le Corbusier, Banham’s technological de-
terminism tied into architecture’s unfolding
modernity to humanism during the Renais-
sance. These narrative retellings reveal each
author’s interest in influencing and defining
an active historical development potentially
spanning several centuries and styles to frame
a mode of then-current architectural modernism. In short, they reach and cultivate new
modes through readings and misreadings
of accepted “history.” These songs are both
part of an autonomous project outside of
the playlist and coupled together to produce
new collective effects. Thus, track selection is
Modernism can be broken down into two individual parts that work for Vidler in different
on Banham’s interest in the immediate future,
which Vidler notes; though he obviously loves
Banham, Vidler does this mostly to provide
the context he wishes to be considered in. Inventing Architectural Modernism is harder to
unpack. Vidler makes no explicit judgments
in regards to the quality of each author’s invention. What we can take from the subtitle is
the theme that Vidler imbues into the authors
based on the project he is a part of: inventing
essential; without it, the themes or possible
directions of these investigations cannot be
exposed.
Song order or chapter structure delineates a
practical way to read the book but also implies
disregard for that structure: in other words,
the ability to “shuffle” songs. There is no difference between reading the introduction and
first four chapters in the order of their appear-
Image courtesy of Andrew Santa Lucia's iPod
The last chapter ties the notion of posthistoire
architectural narratives that convince rather
see this post-rationalized thesis unfold clearly
framing its position.
ance or in a shuffle, as long as “Chapter 5: Postmodern or Posthistoire,” is last. Or maybe not.
and “unfinished modernity” to the work of the
aforementioned authors. Read first, one could
in the narrative, providing a different experi-
ence of the same set of tracks. This implies
that the order of the songs is not as important
as the selection of tracks themselves. The individual power of each track questions a “neutral” or “objective” understanding of history,
begging the question of whether narrative is
more important than fact. Here, narrative wins
out because of its immediate ability to entice
the reader/listener to find his or her own
way through the playlist. This is pretty damn
empowering to the person reading, since the
book distributes equal pressure between author and reader to construct that path.
The title of the playlist is another important
aspect of its creation. The title Histories of the
than justify. The title is subtext at play with-
in the narrative, constantly and actively and
Through the intro track, Eisenman argues that
bracketing history allowed Vidler to construct
a disciplinary project. But the bracketing of
history is still contingent upon the dichotomy
between objective and subjective/fictive his-
tory, and thus falls a bit short of its aims to
challenge “history” as an objective discipline.
If anything, it reinforces the inventions by re-
telling them as a justification to invent. In the
outro, Vidler marries these authors with the
proposition of an open-ended or “unfinished
modernity” meant for the future readers and
architects to complete, perhaps transferring
some intellectual and practical load off the
(continued on page 49)
45
46
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
ing bolt that zigzags up the State Street side
typology of a Midwest corporate glass sky-
the Chicago Loop, the project has much more
the expected core and outrigger structure,
her weight back and forth to catch the gaze
the pleated folds of an accordion, in a mod-
ish prefabricated perma-press. Indicative of
a certain contemporary stylized action and
use, they express that the wearer must sit
in such a way that these pleats fall perfectly
into line as her knee bends. Such a design
doesn’t relate to the actual use of the pants,
were bellbottoms and leather fringe, or will
be skinny jeans.
The Wit Hotel (Koo and Associates, 2010) itself is an echo of this type of prefabricated generic wrinkle. The one architectural element
that the building seems to exude so proudly
and with such mute flourish is the lighten-
HOW-TO…
Name Your Young Firm
Tip 3: Put a bunch of French
words in the name.
“Atelier Flapjacque Internationale”
Avec omellete jambon et fromage.
diluted to broad-stroke appliqué. Most of
the press photos of the project focus on this
awkward yellow glass bolt, and the total
image and potency of the effect on the building can only be seen in wide-angle shots taken from across the street. From an actual eye
level perspective, the effect is just puzzling;
the effect too literal and not enough removed
from the standard format of the boardroom
and the office tower. The zig-zag, hopelessly
relegated to only one flat façade, is a cliché
representation of dynamism, speed, and
energy that in reality is just a cheap feat of
curtain wall gymnastics and filtered glazing.
Without the bolt there is nothing remarkable about the design at all. This build-
ing does nothing to add to the traditional
loose sumptuousness of Studio Gang’s Aqua,
or the geometric abandonment of Krueuk
a. 6v power source
and Sexton’s Spertus Museum. Too timid to
engage its towering neighbors in a discus-
b. 6v motor
sion as to the attributes of futuristic style,
the building seems merely to reinforce the
c. toothbrush
culture of the Loop inhabitants who have
reached the apogee of their civic life in a
management is changing the image of the
as a classy spot catering to the fly-in busi-
ness clientele staying in the suites below,
they are trading in the glass tumblers and
flutes for plasticware and cheap djs to create
et
oa
pe
ttach
ed
evacuat
a hot singles bar pickup spot. Perhaps this
is an acknowledgment that the building will
look cooler if they keep the bars full into the
de 1964 à 1966, des émissions scolaires pour la télévision. Il revient au cinéma en 1967
avec un troisième conte moral, La Collectionneuse. Cette comédie de mœurs révèle Rohmer
comme un grand cinéaste du texte. Il en apportera la confirmation en 1969 avec Ma Nuit
chez Maud, que beaucoup considèrent comme son chef-d’œuvre. Ce film, nominé aux
Oscars pour le meilleur scénario, lui vaut de conquérir un public qui lui restera fidèle. Suivront les deux derniers contes moraux Le Genou de Claire.
Atelier
Atelier
Flapjacque
Flapjacque
Internationale
Internationale
tap
e to
to
or
attach mot
e. thin steel rod
bar. Forgoing the image of the rooftop bar
Le succès tardant à venir, il donnera libre cours à sa vocation pédagogique en réalisant,
ste
po
el r
od to sharpest
i
ush
bend br
d. ballpoint pen
forest of banal office towers. Already, the
(continued on page 50)
oh
eat
and
3. Inking
to
cu
use
a blade to
will soon be as unnecessary and outdated as
tural history—Sullivan’s arabesque lessons
ing at 600 North Fairbanks, the formally
ap
use electrical t
but is characteristic of a fashion trope that
a city that prides itself in a deep architec-
elegance of Helmut Jahn’s new condo build-
of
back of her embroidered jeans creases like
decoration rather than true architecture in
2. Mounting & Threading
ip
grind t
of the clean-cut mean who saunter by. The
there is an obvious irony in the adoration of
1. Materials
al
tric
use elec
By the open fire pit table a woman shifts
any actual architectural innovation. Perhaps
gagement with the street. It lacks the taut
t
ter
use a ligh
mental nineties rock and tame hip-hop-pop.
spandrelled curtain wall, and awkward en-
How To Make Your Own Prison-style Tattoo Gun !
top
of br
ush
while the DJ spins a confusing mix of senti-
super-graphic interior decoration than in
by Andrew Santa Lucia
in
go
f cha
rger wire
their cosmos, whiskey sours, and Heinekens
attention and capital invested in the heavily
ily value engineered high-rise replete with
nt
or
ight
angle
Sitting at the rooftop bar, the 9–5 crowd swill
porary addition to the revamped culture of
scraper. It might as well be any other heav-
nt
os
ide of brush
of the building. Touted as a daring contem-
by John Clark
HOW-TO… Make Your Own Prison-style Tattoo Gun!
int
pos
sible
Meet Me At the Wit
pe
us
na
nd strip the ho
It’s that easy. You’re ready to start making
your own tattoos! No idea where to start?
Why not try replicating Andrew’s tattoo of
VSB’s famous drawing?
47
48
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
YOU
GOTTA
GET
YOURSELF:
EXOTIC ANIMAL PRINT
SCRAPBOOK PAPER ON
YOUR 1/4” MODEL!
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
How-to create a niche
market (Or is that
what he did?)
(continued from page 16)
FM: Sounds like you have a pretty good
word-of-mouth marketing strategy.
MS: The unfortunate thing about referral
work is that you’re not really in control over
the projects you get. But, we’re pretty happy
with what we’ve done. Last time I counted
there were eleven Pritzker laureates on
our client list. I’m not going to complain.
[Laughter.]
of creating viable niches for architects to
work in?
MS: I think it’s a positive trend. Chuck East-
man from Georgia Tech invited me to attend
one of these round table discussions for the
AIA about integrated practice, and one of
the chief guys from the AIA basically said,
“You just keep doing what you’re doing, and
we’ll all catch up.” That said, I am really not
interested in anyone’s particular sensitivities
about boundaries, [or] how they define their
practice. And we didn’t define [a boundary]—
other people defined it for us.
FM: It works out for you, though.
I’ve been teaching now for seven years at
Princeton and I’m not interested in teaching people [just façades] or waterproofing.
I’m interested in teaching them how to think
critically, culturally, politically, and economi-
cally, to situate themselves at the core of an
indeterminate process whereby they can affect the best outcome as a catalyst whose role
cannot be replicated by anybody else. The
architect is trained to operate and think in a
way that is replaceable. So, if we’re all sitting
here right now, saying let’s develop, design,
build, and finance a building, each one of you
would have to say what right you have to be at
the table. What are you going to add? How can
you push this thing forward? Because there’s
no substitute for a certain knowledge, experi-
interested in a true collaboration. If they
know that Bruce, Mike, and I are actually all
trained as architects, they respect us as such.
We’re doing a competition with Bjarke Ingels
right now and he’s clearly the architect; we’re
not the architect and we’re not going to be. In
other projects, people say, “Come on and let’s
do a competition together.”
FM: In an interview with you on FiveFootWay.com [“Up Front,” December 2008],
the author suggests that because of your
involvement in the detailed practice of
façade development and construction,
emerging, slowly. But even that is strangely by
asked us to do a really fancy staircase, and
body of work, but it’s still skin. Until we estab-
lish a bona fide, licensed architectural entity
we will not take on full buildings. We will see
how many clients we alienate and how many
push the boundaries of architecture.”
What is your take on this? Do you think
that technological specialization within
the discipline is ultimately a positive or a
[have]—you’ve got to have something.
Biederman.
An Endless Set of
Phobias
will stick by us. [Laughter.]
(continued from page 36)
you [become] known for that, and if you
to understand that the motormouths are
a book or whatever it is—then how can you
FM: Speaking of rhetoric, what do you
If you pursue a certain track, after a while
don’t diversify or take a risk—try certain
competitions or make a statement or write
very important in this process.
be associated with any kind of authority to
make of all these contemporary manifes-
voice? I mean, all the design work we are do-
ture and architecture is supposed to con-
do those things? I think that’s one of the
tos? There are thousands of pages that
ing is fancy retail.
front them. Would you consider the mani-
core issues in what we’re doing: what is our
impose differing ideologies onto architec-
festo an apparatus?
FM: It’s telling…
“It is not far-fetched to suggest that firms
such as Front Inc. are best positioned to
search, pick the big authors, those who don’t
produce anything but a wonderful use of language. They are very, very useful.
Interviewed by Ivan Ostapenko, Kathryn
MS: It’s opportunistic. It seems like a normal
transition, but if we do too much of that you
can imagine we will become purveyors of extraordinarily fancy complex façades or affect.
Pigeonholed.
LL: Sure. All architects are out there to
screw with you. They all want to make you
Edited by Maya Nash, Ivan Ostapenko, and
Julia Sedlock.
HA: I’ve had an interest in mobility since I was
a young child. When I was a child I really liked
to make toys, so I’ve had an interest in mov-
able things since before I worked with Coop
Himmelb(l)au. Though I have to say that Wolf
Prix was the one that connected that inter-
est to architecture for me. In my first studio
at SCI-Arc, Wolf Prix asked us to design an
object that floats above water for only thirty
seconds. You could reinterpret the assignment from there, but what I designed was
an object out of balloons, weights, needles,
et cetera. By using gravity and buoyancy, the
balloon danced in the water. I remember that
I drew how this thing would function because
just drawing the static object doesn’t tell you
anything. You will see in my lecture a draw-
ing that is a series of sections to describe the
Chicago Art District:
2nd Fridays Gallery Night
Every 2nd Friday, 6–10pm
South Halsted and 18th Street
http://chicagoartsdistrict.org/
University of Chicago
First Friday Lecture Series
Every 1st Friday, 12:15–1:15pm
Chicago Cultural Center
Claudia Cassidy Theater
78 East Washington Street
Artists of Eastbank
Open Studio Walk
FM: This issue is going to be partially
Zhou B. Art Center
Open House
exactly the same type of drawing that I did for
this floating object.
about drawing, so we’d like to know—
push correct behavior. How much freedom
else?
people who push language, the people who
RECURRING
EVENTS
whole shape of a design, and that is probably
a subject of their sermon. You know, that’s
the nature of people that make anything: the
CHICAGO
EVENTS
SPRING
2011
Freeman Rathbone, and John Clark.
Edited by Alysen Hiller, Maya Nash and Jayne
Kelley.
MS: The younger offices are generally more
stuff that makes no sense to you. Go and
now that’s built. So now we’re under contract
to do three new stores in Asia. It’s kind of a
younger offices approach projects? How
outside of the discipline. Fill your life with
(continued from page 40)
Jake Gay, Andrew Santa Lucia, and Brandon
FM: Do you see a difference in the way
You always have to rebel, so you have to read
Interviewed by Alysen Hiller, Ivan Ostapenko,
façade we did? We built that and then [LV]
work with young firms.
make you dance. It’s very clever.
referral. Have you seen the Louis Vuitton (LV)
sarily get otherwise, but it’s also really fun to
quality and discipline that you don’t neces-
you. Rem is a magician; he’s going to try to
Sections, stadia and
suprastars
MS: I guess so. We have our own design work
obviously allows us access to certain levels of
can we have in that? Of course, that’s up to
ence, conviction, vision, or whatever it is you
Working with guys in the top of the industry
do you feel that your role is different?
NOTHING SAYS “I’M A FUTURE PETRA
BLAISSE” LIKE EXTREMELY RARE ANIMAL PRINT WALLPAPER ON YOUR 1/4”
MODEL.
ZEBRA STRIPES, CHEETAH
SPOTS… OOH, IS THAT A GIRAFFE?
WITH ANIMAL PRINT PAPER, YOUR
MODEL CAN BE FORMALLY UNIMAGINATIVE AND STILL LOOK UP TO 55
x’s BETTER THAN THE MODELS OF
THOSE-DAMN-OVER-ACHIEVERS-WHOYOU-SWEAR-JUST-RIPPED-OFF-SOMETHING-FROM-SUCKERPUNCH. THAT’S
RIGHT, WITH PREMIMUM ANIMAL PRINT
PAPERS, YOUR CRITICS WILL BE THINKING, “WHOA! THIS SMALL MEETING ROOM
LOOKS MORE LIKE AN EROTIC SEX
DUNGEON!’ YOU GOTTA GETCHASELF
AT LEAST 300 SQ FT OF ANIMAL PRINT
SCRAPBOOK PAPER AND INDISCRIMINATELY PLASTER IT ALL OVER YOUR
NEXT 1/4” MODEL!!11!1
negative trend for architecture, in terms
what is your favorite type of drawing?
Plan, section, elevation, axon, something
Every 3rd Friday, 6–10pm
1200 W. 35th St.
http://artistsoftheeastbank.com/default.aspx
Every 3rd Friday, 7–10pm
1029 W. 35th St.
http://www.zbcenter.org/
49
50
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
MONTHLY
EVENTS
Fresh Meat vol. IV
Spring 2011
HA: My staff in LA are more [three-dimen-
loses its gritty charm. In a paradoxical rela-
me, it is important to know the relationship
and serves its original purpose. And although
sional drawing] oriented designers, but in-
terestingly in 3D I cannot judge anything. To
of every element and it is difficult to perceive
this in 3D. Sections and plan can deliver this
information more than 3D.
FM: To be more specific, do you favor the
section or plan when you are designing?
HA: I would say a plan, section or something
more diagrammatic than a rendering. I don’t
do fancy sketches unless I fake it. I would
consider my sketches rather ugly, but they
do capture the relationships of every element
that I design.
Interviewed by Jake Gay, Julia Sedlock, John
APRIL
Thomas Leeser,
UIC Lecture Series
4/1, 6pm
UIC Art and Architecture Building
845 West Harrison, Room 1100
Heidi Norton
Opening 4/8, runs through 5/14
Ebersmore Gallery
213 North Morgan, 3C
UBS 12x12 Artist Talk:
Alex Lehnerer
4/12, 6pm
Museum of Contemporary Art
220 East Chicago Avenue
Last Call for Urban China:
Informal Cities
Closing 4/13
Museum of Contemporary Art
220 East Chicago Avenue
Christopher Lee:
“Current Work”
4/13, 6pm
Illinois Institute of Technology
MTCC Auditorium
3201 South State Street
Julien de Smedt,
UIC Lecture Series
4/20, 6pm
UIC Art and Architecture Building
845 West Harrison, Room 1100
Clark, Takayuki Shinomoto, and Dolly Davis.
Edited by Jake Gay and Jayne Kelley.
by John Clark
it is distinctly American, it is the most over-
(continued from page 45)
slide from sober suit-and-tie weekday to
Manitou, with its array of storefronts and
one gets while sitting on the white sofas
arcade is the only thing that both is original
looked attraction in Manitou.
tourist attractions, represents a national cul-
tural identity crisis. We Americans, ourselves
a mishmash of races and cultures, seem to be
grasping at straws for symbols and experi-
ences that inform us of our unified cultural
heritage. We are the adolescent in a globe of
matured cultures, at once envious of the historical cultures of Europe and Asia and proud
of our autonomy as frontier pioneers. It is this
attempt to recreate or invent a pleasant, easily packaged cultural history that is, in fact, so
uniquely American.
by Dolly Davis
How-to create a
playlist, or Vidler’s
attempt to end
‘history’
(continued from page 43)
by Andrew Santa Lucia
from its historical origins, liberating the pop
(continued from page 44)
LETTER FROM MANITOU:
DESTINATION GIFT SHOP
symbol while preserving the historical one.
Perhaps the only attraction in Manitou
Springs that isn’t a gift shop or restaurant is
what is locally known as the Penny Arcade.
At first glance, the arcade appears to be some
kind of Coney Island throwback (a copy of
a theme park?), but it is actually a fixture of
the small community. Built in 1935, it houses
over 250 arcade games and pinball machines,
skee-ball, and an automated, 12-player horse
racing game. All the games cost the same to
play as they did when they were installed; no
game is over twenty-five cents. The machines
are maintained, but not fetishized—they are
simply there to be played. The Penny Arcade
has just enough nostalgic value to preserve its
place on mainstreet, but not so much that it
Meet Me At the Wit
As it is now it is a stylish dive bar on a ped-
tionship to the gift shops that surround it, the
author of the playlist and onto the reader. “It
is equally clear that ‘modernity’ is a continuing project of reevaluation and innovation,
based on experiment and internal investigation,” he writes.
A playlist allows for an alternate reality
made up of parts already existing within a
framework tied into a certain reality. Vidler’s
project, then, would not be tied to the
project of posthistoire and would be closer
to an anti-history, or non-fiction. The varying
degree of historical accuracy (whatever that
means) does allow for substantiation on
a certain level, but the power of the book
comes from the construction of a narrative
by author or reader.
estalfor weekday workers to slowly slip into
wee hours. Most intriguing is the thought
under a steady stream of gas heat as to what
it would be like if there were a bar on the roof
of every building in the loop. Perhaps City
Hall should focus on providing incentives
to swathe downtown rooftops with themed
bars rather than green roofs. Then the Wit
could be seen as a building that pushed the
typology established by the Tip-Top-Tap and
Wrigley Field neighbors into a twenty-first
century in which our dense downtown could
be the epitome of lush Loop living.
the lush inequities of the weekend as they
sweatpants and jersey weekend drunk. But,
the building definitely does look better as
the night goes on. If one can afford to im-
bibe enough at the Roof and come stagger-
ing down, tumble out onto State Street, and
drunkenly point back up to the rooftop bar,
the neon zigzag almost makes perfect sense.
A lustrous glowing folly that, like the motion
MAY
Warhol at Work: Portrait
Snapshots, 1973-1986
Opening 5/10, runs through 8/21
Smart Museum of Art,
University of Chicago
5550 South Greenwood Avenue
Monica Rezman, Rebecca
Ringquist & Kevin Veara
Opening 5/13, runs through 6/18
Packer Schopf Gallery
942 West Lake Street
lines sketched in behind a cartoon charac-
Last Call for Frank Lloyd
Wright: Organic Architecture
for the 21st Century
century urban life; a clumsy graphic project
Closing 5/15
Milwaukee Art Museum
700 North Art Museum Drive
Milwaukee, WI
ter in mid-stride, beckons us to participate
in the techno-animated joys of twenty-first
that seems to satisfy the simple dream to be
cutting edge, though lacking the sharpness to
really cut anything.
HOW-TO…
Voice Your Opinion on www.freshmeatjournal.org
Use your smart phone to scan the QR codes below for feverish leftover
bake sale sugar-high induced discussions on the FM website.
How-To Bid to Win
Jonathan Solomon
How-To Create a Niche Market (Or…?)
Mark Simmons
Mark Mulroney
Opening 5/20, runs through 6/25
Ebersmore Gallery
213 North Morgan, 3C
Rachel Niffenegger &
Paul Nudd
Opening 5/20, runs through 7/02
Western Exhibitions
119 North Peoria Street, Suite 2A
SCAN FOR
MAIN FM
INTERVIEW
WEBPAGE
Never Business As Usual
Kai-Uwe Bergmann
Atelier
Atelier
Flapjacque
Flapjacque
Sections, Stadia, and Suprastars
Internationale
Internationale
Hitoshi Abe
An Endless Set of Phobias
Lars Lerup
REYNER BANHAM LOVES FRESH MEAT
..AND SO SHOULD
reyner banham
lovesYOU
fresh meat
Friday, April 8 2011
Comic Projections will be held at the UIC
School of Architecture with support from
the Graham Foundation.
GUILTY PLEASURES
RECEPTION
Five favorite projects from 1965–1985,
one open discussion.
Neil Denari, Sam Jacob, Mark Linder, Ben
Nicholson, and Andrew Zago.
5–5:45pm, 3100 Octagon
Pre-discussion appetizers and drinks.
5:45–7:30pm, Gallery 1100
www.freshmeatjournal.org