scarberiankhatru
Senior Member
How on earth is it LoPo *at all*?
*This* is LoPo.
*This* isn't.
That's also not the Earth Sciences Centre...that's the Bahen Centre, which is delightful.
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Post: Architects veer away from 'car crash' design
- Thread starter AlvinofDiaspar
- Start date
That's also not the Earth Sciences Centre...that's the Bahen Centre, which is delightful.
TKTKTK
Senior Member
That's only half true. It did revolutionize architecture but it isn't difficult to go back, it just seems that way because we're offered so few different solutions. Architecture is the one design discipline that seems unable to get over modernism as the only appropriate decision. In time, that'll change again
L
lawsond
Guest
i stand implicated.
i also thought an oeuvre was an egg.
Tewder
Senior Member
How on earth is it LoPo *at all*?
*This* is LoPo.
...and yet I can't help but like it. It is indeed clumsy in its details but the scale and materials feel right.
Tewder
Senior Member
I agree but the logic is a little myopic here in that we are still indeed hungry for revivalist styles it's just that we are reviving modernist ones rather than pre-war ones. Isn't it really only a matter of fashion, taste or artistic sensibility as to whether you want your place to be an imitation knock-off of Mies or of Richardson-Romanesque? Isn't it just the same argument to be made with furniture and fashion and design in general (not mies/richardson per se, but inspiration from one period over another)?
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
I think the issue has less to do with taste and more to do with what's feasible in the era of mass production, material science and high labour cost. It's one thing to argue the values of past styles - it's another to actually build in such styles and produce a high quality end product that fits into the budget. I simply don't see it happen most of the time.
AoD
AoD
wyliepoon
Senior Member
^ One exception... Hindu temples.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Yes, the BAPS Temple-In-A-Box product is modular, pre-fabricated by non-union labour, assembled by volunteer non-union labour, and can be disassembled and moved somewhere else - so it's functionally contemporary, if not aesthetically so.
Gothic Revival was the chosen house style of the British Empire. There was much talk in the early 19th century of what was the appropriate style to revive in order to represent "Britishness" - at a time when the Anglican Church had been reborn and was going gangbusters, in tandem with the empire - and Tudor lost out to Mock Goth as the chosen style. A similar thing happened with the revival of Classical architecture before that.
These revivals were part of the intellectual spirit of their age. Cheddingtonista Kool isn't - design culture isn't feeding off of pre-Modernist stylings such as Richardson-Romanesque, nor is the intellectual climate of our age channelling the Age of Reason, or Versailles, or the Middle Ages, or Classical Greece.
I don't actually think you have to be trained in the classical orders to be able to design beautiful buildings - you just need to have a good eye and a great aesthetic sense. As Terence Conran says, "Good design is 98% common sense, but what makes it fascinating is the other 2% - what some call aesthetics or the magic ingredient. You can't quantify this, you can only recognise it. When the magic ingredient is present, the quality of life is improved." Why does the new aA building in Regent Park have that magic ingredient, and the Star of Downtown not?
Locally, there is a continuity with the design culture that produced our post-WW2 Modernist buildings that has none of the "revivalist" spirit that Tewder claims to see. If a "revival" was underway there would have to have been something to come between us and our earlier Modernists - and there hasn't been. We're mainlining it still - the article in this section of the forum about self-described Modernist Heather Dubbeldam's recent house renovation ( she worked for KPMB, who in turn started at Barton Myers ... ) makes it clear that the values that inform Modernist design solutions are passed from generation to generation without interruption, and result in resolutely contemporary solutions.
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Gothic Revival was the chosen house style of the British Empire. There was much talk in the early 19th century of what was the appropriate style to revive in order to represent "Britishness" - at a time when the Anglican Church had been reborn and was going gangbusters, in tandem with the empire - and Tudor lost out to Mock Goth as the chosen style. A similar thing happened with the revival of Classical architecture before that.
These revivals were part of the intellectual spirit of their age. Cheddingtonista Kool isn't - design culture isn't feeding off of pre-Modernist stylings such as Richardson-Romanesque, nor is the intellectual climate of our age channelling the Age of Reason, or Versailles, or the Middle Ages, or Classical Greece.
I don't actually think you have to be trained in the classical orders to be able to design beautiful buildings - you just need to have a good eye and a great aesthetic sense. As Terence Conran says, "Good design is 98% common sense, but what makes it fascinating is the other 2% - what some call aesthetics or the magic ingredient. You can't quantify this, you can only recognise it. When the magic ingredient is present, the quality of life is improved." Why does the new aA building in Regent Park have that magic ingredient, and the Star of Downtown not?
Locally, there is a continuity with the design culture that produced our post-WW2 Modernist buildings that has none of the "revivalist" spirit that Tewder claims to see. If a "revival" was underway there would have to have been something to come between us and our earlier Modernists - and there hasn't been. We're mainlining it still - the article in this section of the forum about self-described Modernist Heather Dubbeldam's recent house renovation ( she worked for KPMB, who in turn started at Barton Myers ... ) makes it clear that the values that inform Modernist design solutions are passed from generation to generation without interruption, and result in resolutely contemporary solutions.
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Archivist
Senior Member
I have always thought that modernism in its first incarnation, when it reigned completely supreme, formed part of a logial reaction to the recent and traumatic past in the west of the double world wars, the holocaust, the ABomb, and the depression. Though the precedents of modernism were around in the 1920's, it only became dominant after the war when people looked around and saw fusty old buildings that went 20 years without upkeep and they decided, not surprisingly, on a style that was spare, modernistic, and forward looking. US, from your descriptions of arriving in Toronto in the 1960's from Britain and seeing this modern city unfolding before you, it's clear you also had a personal and positive reaction to the style.
Now it's 2009, and for a few decades we have existed with less optimism, we are worried about the future and feeling bruised about our prospects. It is not surprising that there more options have entered our stylistic vocabulary, including buildings that incorporate postmodern references, buildings that are completely historicist and backward looking, clean modernist buildings, and buildings that I would group together into something unnamed that is past pure modernism: buildings that play with decorative influences (like Murano or the building in Kitchener) or which embody shapes that are striking and represent something new that is yet to be well defined (like the ROM, the AGO additions, or the new social housing units on Richmond). It can incorporate decorative elements or emphasize the building as a sculptural object. This is not modernism, though it arises out of it, and isn't a reaction to it.
My own preference is for modernism, but even more than that I like the sculptural that is around us, and have travelled great distances to see examples of it.
I'm less fond of the reactionary styles, especially when they are so damned humourless, like Stern or Cheddington.
I assume that if our current economic malaise morphs into cycles of deflation and hyper-inflation, combined with energy scarcity and unexpected turbulence from climate change, that our architectural styles will adapt to that reality as well. In that case, I will look on modernist buildings as beautiful, spare instances reflecting their age. I don't for a moment imagine that we have reached "the end of history" of architectural styles.
Now it's 2009, and for a few decades we have existed with less optimism, we are worried about the future and feeling bruised about our prospects. It is not surprising that there more options have entered our stylistic vocabulary, including buildings that incorporate postmodern references, buildings that are completely historicist and backward looking, clean modernist buildings, and buildings that I would group together into something unnamed that is past pure modernism: buildings that play with decorative influences (like Murano or the building in Kitchener) or which embody shapes that are striking and represent something new that is yet to be well defined (like the ROM, the AGO additions, or the new social housing units on Richmond). It can incorporate decorative elements or emphasize the building as a sculptural object. This is not modernism, though it arises out of it, and isn't a reaction to it.
My own preference is for modernism, but even more than that I like the sculptural that is around us, and have travelled great distances to see examples of it.
I'm less fond of the reactionary styles, especially when they are so damned humourless, like Stern or Cheddington.
I assume that if our current economic malaise morphs into cycles of deflation and hyper-inflation, combined with energy scarcity and unexpected turbulence from climate change, that our architectural styles will adapt to that reality as well. In that case, I will look on modernist buildings as beautiful, spare instances reflecting their age. I don't for a moment imagine that we have reached "the end of history" of architectural styles.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
I agree that a nostalgia-based flight to the past has been going on for some time, and comfort sought in historical references in this age of anxiety. Stern, and the Cheddingtonista movement, feed on such fears.
When Mississauga City Hall was designed, one of the architects spoke of how such new buildings would "bury Modernism" - but PoMo was but a blip on the local radar. Most of the buildings since, of any significance as examples of what the local design elite produces, have a clear continuity with their post-WW2 Modernist forebears. There's a lovely term, "comfy Modernism" - coined by Marc Boutin - to describe this dominant form of Canadian architectural expression. Murano strikes me as a good example.
Computer software has made it possible to design spectacular buildings that look as if ... well, as if they were designed ... by computer software. But, given how many of these fancy-schmancy high-end things have gone over budget, I would imagine that the sensible and practical values of Modernism will be needed in the future as much as ever. It was a sturdy, workhorse style that rebuilt Europe after 1945 and took Toronto by storm, and it has evolved ( Lofts! More glass! Light! Point towers! ) further since. Locally, we have quite a few architectural firms that have been reclaiming the realm of multi-unit housing design in this way. Here's how Peter Clewes saw the challenge, in an introduction to a talk he gave a few years ago:
Housing makes cities. Theory’s rediscovery of the city and its reification of urbanism over the past three decades has been inversely proportional to practice’s involvement in mass housing. While residential construction constitutes over 80% of building activity in North America, this activity occurs beyond the purview of the salon.
The housing problem was once a fundamental project of the Modern Movement. Reeling from the failures of post-war urban renewal initiatives and recently discredited as a valid policy issue by neo-liberalism, housing has been left to the vagaries of the marketplace. The hegemony of the development industry and the commoditization of dwelling have silenced design culture. At the present moment, housing has lost its architectural cachet.
Yet housing is central to our practice. We believe that residential architecture is a rich and challenging field of endeavor. The projects that I will speak to include both student residences and market condominiums.
Each of the projects address a series of similar architectural issues - the reinterpretation of dwelling unit, the provision of amenity, the development of a fabric building vocabulary that is both compelling and appropriate, the articulation of a convincing and urbane response to density, and the enrichment of the public realm. Each is a very conscious act of city building.
We embrace the messiness and vitality of the contemporary city, and are willing to navigate the complexities, challenges and compromises necessary for its construction. We enjoy the scale, ambition and essential optimism of developers. In no small part, the general awfulness of our cities is due to the studied refusal of committed architects to involve themselves in their dreams.
When Mississauga City Hall was designed, one of the architects spoke of how such new buildings would "bury Modernism" - but PoMo was but a blip on the local radar. Most of the buildings since, of any significance as examples of what the local design elite produces, have a clear continuity with their post-WW2 Modernist forebears. There's a lovely term, "comfy Modernism" - coined by Marc Boutin - to describe this dominant form of Canadian architectural expression. Murano strikes me as a good example.
Computer software has made it possible to design spectacular buildings that look as if ... well, as if they were designed ... by computer software. But, given how many of these fancy-schmancy high-end things have gone over budget, I would imagine that the sensible and practical values of Modernism will be needed in the future as much as ever. It was a sturdy, workhorse style that rebuilt Europe after 1945 and took Toronto by storm, and it has evolved ( Lofts! More glass! Light! Point towers! ) further since. Locally, we have quite a few architectural firms that have been reclaiming the realm of multi-unit housing design in this way. Here's how Peter Clewes saw the challenge, in an introduction to a talk he gave a few years ago:
Housing makes cities. Theory’s rediscovery of the city and its reification of urbanism over the past three decades has been inversely proportional to practice’s involvement in mass housing. While residential construction constitutes over 80% of building activity in North America, this activity occurs beyond the purview of the salon.
The housing problem was once a fundamental project of the Modern Movement. Reeling from the failures of post-war urban renewal initiatives and recently discredited as a valid policy issue by neo-liberalism, housing has been left to the vagaries of the marketplace. The hegemony of the development industry and the commoditization of dwelling have silenced design culture. At the present moment, housing has lost its architectural cachet.
Yet housing is central to our practice. We believe that residential architecture is a rich and challenging field of endeavor. The projects that I will speak to include both student residences and market condominiums.
Each of the projects address a series of similar architectural issues - the reinterpretation of dwelling unit, the provision of amenity, the development of a fabric building vocabulary that is both compelling and appropriate, the articulation of a convincing and urbane response to density, and the enrichment of the public realm. Each is a very conscious act of city building.
We embrace the messiness and vitality of the contemporary city, and are willing to navigate the complexities, challenges and compromises necessary for its construction. We enjoy the scale, ambition and essential optimism of developers. In no small part, the general awfulness of our cities is due to the studied refusal of committed architects to involve themselves in their dreams.
Archivist
Senior Member
Computer software has made it possible to design spectacular buildings that look as if ... well, as if they were designed ... by computer software. We can disagree. I see Gehry's work as the first of a wave that will replace the spare style of modernism, while remaining influenced by it. Spare modernism has had a good run, but it's not going to last forever.
Besides, a style is a style. Modernism has contributed, no less than any other style, to the general awfulness that Clewes speaks to (and which, frankly, I disagree with anyways). Thoughtful buildings are thoughtful buildings, a style is a style.
Besides, a style is a style. Modernism has contributed, no less than any other style, to the general awfulness that Clewes speaks to (and which, frankly, I disagree with anyways). Thoughtful buildings are thoughtful buildings, a style is a style.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Locally, our opera house hall was designed with computer software, and Gehry's AGO is quite spare; other than the Galleria Italia the gallery spaces are pure Modernism - white walls, rectilinear, plenty of natural light - the Walker Court has been opened up to natural light in a similar way. But there's an irritatingly adolescent "look" ( examples of these designed-to-thrill projects get posted now and then on this forum .. ) that screams I was designed using computer software and look at me ... as if we are supposed to care. Bad design is produced in every age, Clewes acknowledges that the reaction to Modernism is a result of it for instance.
The homes that most of us live in are Modernist. Your apartment, which dates from the '50s is classically so. My little semi- is typical of the gutting, skylight-adding, renos that have been done all over the city in the past 30 years - acknowledging that we're not living in 1908 any more and most of us don't need a front parlour and dark little rooms designed for formal living. The contemporary reno that Heather Dubbeldam has done, too - it arranges space to suit a less formal life, offering versatile spaces, an open plan, in a light-seeking contemporary way. Loft living is an evolution of the spirit of Modernism, too. It's the default style.
The homes that most of us live in are Modernist. Your apartment, which dates from the '50s is classically so. My little semi- is typical of the gutting, skylight-adding, renos that have been done all over the city in the past 30 years - acknowledging that we're not living in 1908 any more and most of us don't need a front parlour and dark little rooms designed for formal living. The contemporary reno that Heather Dubbeldam has done, too - it arranges space to suit a less formal life, offering versatile spaces, an open plan, in a light-seeking contemporary way. Loft living is an evolution of the spirit of Modernism, too. It's the default style.
Earlscourt_Lad
Active Member
I agree entirely. I was referring to the inability of some to work with classical components. If one is going to use such components, one must understand the relationships and functions therein.
Archivist
Senior Member
I would assume by this point that all buildings are designed with computer software, no? I don't frankly think any building really shows it more than any other. You poke a little fun at some of the avant-garde architecture out there, but Gehry's Bilbao is truly a masterpiece, for instance, functional, beautiful and stunningly new. Aren't you the one who once said that he valued innovation in architecture? Your discussion on whether buildings are designed by computers strikes me irrelevant, as if were to say that I could tell that current layouts in the Star are designed by computer, whereas layouts in a 1920's Macleans magazine were not. What of it, really?
Anyways, my larger point is that styles are influenced by the way we view the world around us. Modernism is a style that exists in history, as a response to a particular set of circumstances. It is not ahistorical. As circumstances change, so will the predominant style. As it is, already, in many ways. No mistaking a Pontarini's recent buildings for 1960's modernism.
Nina Simone: Everything is change. Nothing remains the same. Everything must ... cha-yay-yay-yay-yay-ange. No-one and nothing remains the same!
Anyways, my larger point is that styles are influenced by the way we view the world around us. Modernism is a style that exists in history, as a response to a particular set of circumstances. It is not ahistorical. As circumstances change, so will the predominant style. As it is, already, in many ways. No mistaking a Pontarini's recent buildings for 1960's modernism.
Nina Simone: Everything is change. Nothing remains the same. Everything must ... cha-yay-yay-yay-yay-ange. No-one and nothing remains the same!
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Oh come on, there's an entire class of new buildings that ooze with ostentatious shows of technical prowess that could only be achieved with computer software. Glossy archiporn journals run spreads on them all the time. They're technique writ large - the essence of the "car crash design" and the thirst for it that this thread's about.