BF2S Forums 9/11 inspires architect

well to address your original sentiment, many architects are resistant to ultra-functional, streamlined buildings because they capitulate almost entirely to a capitalist logic in which the human being experiencing a building-qua-building or a building-qua-artwork is just put on a sort of factory-mill of efficiency. and, thankfully, not everyone is interested in simply turning every single public space into an ultra-efficient space that operates on the extended spatial logics of capitalism.

Uzique wrote:

Trotskygrad wrote:

Uzique wrote:

architecture is the most immediate and public of artforms; it shapes spatiality itself. it has the ability to functionally and physically influence our lives in multiplicand ways. that's the philosophical-aesthetic pedestal of architecture, anyway, and that is why buildings like the above ^ are made: as part of a radical aesthetic or towards a protopolitic. the argument, basically, is that to change the social or politics conditions of life in a society, you must also change or effect its culture-- and the most immediate, effective and radical form of changing the superstructure of society is through its buildings and public spaces.

that idea that you would find that undesirable to live and work in is perhaps the point. all of the modernist subsets of art and architecture start out with the fundamental imperative to 'make it new' (in the words of ezra pound). make of that what you will.

hmm, so you would say that the large number of "new" looking buildings in Beijing, such as the CCTV television center, National Center for the Performing Arts, etc, are part of an attempt to change the social and political climate there?

almost definitely. most radical 20th century architectural movements originate in artistic avant-gardes with political agency. look at the various movements of socialist architecture in eastern-europe and the former soviet states, not to mention the u.s.s.r. itself. architecture is an artform, just as firmly cemented and just as thought-out and intended as sculpture, painting, drama, music or literature. the people who design these things know what they're doing... it's not incidental. the average layman doesn't understand and isn't educated on architecture, but that's almost the point. by walking through it and 'experiencing' another architecture, you are the phenomenological subject in the ideological construct of another mind.

but in what direction is china trying to affect it's political and social climate with these new buildings? it doesn't seem very obvious. the buildings for the most part seem modernist in nature.

'modernist' doesn't really mean anything in architecture. 'modernism' as an artistic period was 1890-1940.

you're also assuming that china is this ultra-ideological state that is trying to build a new socialist utopia. these are the circumstances in which the public culture, art and what marx would call the "superstructural" elements would reflect this striving towards a utopian ideal. china are not building a state on ideology in, say, the same way that north korea is. you'd be better off quoting north korea for current examples of asian architecture that mirror a social 'plan' or political paradigm. china is pretty much taking part in global capitalism (being the biggest player, no less!) so its buildings mirror an international, generic global architecture that you could basically characterise by calling it the architecture of commerce. so no, it won't be fundamentally much different from any other contemporary (western) city-architecture. also add in the fact that many of these up-and-coming asian markets are aspirational in nature and are trying to appropriate and artistically subsume/package/reify/commodify western culture. so a lot of their current art (including architecture) has an imitative element, too.

Trotskygrad wrote:

Jay wrote:

That's all well and good, but they aren't building shit if people don't want to buy it.

thing is the elites who commission these buildings usually gravitate towards fine art in the first place, look at how many galleries are sponsored by wealthy businessmen. There will always be demand for avant-garde architecture. From a purely business perspective, it can generate tourist revenue, and help improve and establish an "image" of a city.

You put a lot more weight in architecture than I do. Most of the 'avant-garde' buildings that are put up here get panned by critics. I happen to think the new New York Times building is one of the most hideous things on the planet.



Someone thought that was pretty enough to build.

Same for the AT&T building:



I'm not advocating ultra-efficient stripped down Soviet style concrete blocks, I just disagree with the style of art being produced today. I think most of the new Dutch stuff is hideously ugly, especially when compared to the old inner city of Amsterdam. Modern architecture has zero appeal for me.

also to do a lot with general chinese cultural ideology and trends. historically, they tend to build big on huge projects as a matter of civic pride and national interest.

Shocking wrote:

Our architects have been raping the cityscape here since the 60s.

po-mo architects man... fucking po-mo architects....
Responsible for the VU and many more like it

Kampframmer wrote:

Shocking wrote:

Our architects have been raping the cityscape here since the 60s.

po-mo architects man... fucking po-mo architects....
Responsible for the VU and many more like it

I don't know ANYONE who seriously likes that shit yet it gets built

why

Shocking wrote:

Kampframmer wrote:

Shocking wrote:

Our architects have been raping the cityscape here since the 60s.

po-mo architects man... fucking po-mo architects....
Responsible for the VU and many more like it

I don't know ANYONE who seriously likes that shit yet it gets built

why

links to said ugly buildings please

the second building kampf is actually one of the most famous examples of the high- postmodernist style. it's not so much 'only in america' so much as the fact that pomo architecture doesn't really have a unifying set of design principles: it's characterised by formlessness rather than prescribed form. that giant ornament on top with the pedimented circle is a symbolic gesture just waiting for 20,000 words of postgraduate dissertation to be written on it.

Trotskygrad wrote:

Shocking wrote:

Kampframmer wrote:

po-mo architects man... fucking po-mo architects....
Responsible for the VU and many more like it

I don't know ANYONE who seriously likes that shit yet it gets built

why

links to said ugly buildings please

lemme give you an example

in a street filled with buildings which look like this:




they dump something that looks like this



and call it

" the planet "

how the fuck do you forget that people talk in a classroom

i think dropping ultra-modern or different buildings into a traditional space discursively is great. keeps your senses awake when you're walking around, adds a bit of excitement. my uni has a super-modern building right next to a chateau. walking from one to the other is great. are you advocating traditionalism and monotony, shocking?

Last edited by Shocking (2011-12-15 11:52:25)