Why I Did NOT Enter This Competition:

The main reason that I did not enter this competition is that it is the worst kind of competition that exists, an ideas competition. It is also a competition that exploits those who enter it, profiting from their naivety. The registration fee for AIA members is $100.00 and 150.00 for nonmembers! This is a large sum of money for an ‘ideas competition’ that targets young professionals. The winning design will not be built, and there is no cash prize awarded to the winner! It was obvious upon reading the competition brief that the AIA was using this competition as a cash cow. Even if the money went to the jurors to pay for flights and their time, why would you enter a competition where there is nothing to gain except for limited exposure at the AIA convention? I have seen how these types of competitions play out, you are better off designing something great, and publishing it on your own blog.

No,  I am not against design competitions, I enter 1-2 design competitions a year, and win or place in half of those. I am a prodigious proponent of design competitions, and I believe that they are a great way to both gain integrity in the profession and improve your design portfolio. Design competitions also expose entrants to different building types and sites that they might not otherwise have the opportunity to design. Design competitions require an investment of time and resources that few are willing to commit, because of this fact I attentively select the competitions that I enter, in order to give myself the best chance of winning. After reviewing the competition brief posted on the AIA website, I thought that this competition had waste of time written all over it.

Aside from the the above mentioned facts, the competition had no focus. Within their own competition brief it is unclear whether it is an ideas or sketch competition. Even the title of the competition “Temporary/Permanent Relief Housing” is vague and sends up red flags. Not because of the obvious contradiction in terms temporary and permanent, but because competitions that have a lack of limits in its program, such as this one, are difficult to win. The competition brief also states that the entrant should look at how the units can be used to develop a community. That should be another red flag, so this is both a housing competition and urban planning exercise? I always avoid competitions like this, because they do not have a defined program or site, and you never know what requirements the judges will favor. Although this exist to some extent in every competition, competitions with a loose framework are especially vulnerable to jury interpretation. An example of such loose limits is in the site of the competition, although the competition says that the site is the Astrodome, the program also permits entrants to use the adjacent parking lot, which in effect creates a site with zero constraints. There must be enough limits imposed by the competition program to allow the entries to be fairly judged against one another. Rather than being judged on design, entrants are often judged on the sensationalism of their ideas rather than design skills and feasibility.

The vague site as noted in the competition brief:

While successful site adaptability is a key goal and criterion for this Competition, the specific site to demonstrate the solution consists of approximately 200 acres. It includes the Astrodome and the surrounding parking lots. Entrants may include modifications to the structure of the Astrodome in their proposal, may allow the Astrodome to remain untouched and focus solely on the surface parking areas, or may have some combination of the two. Individual entries may focus their solutions on the provision of either temporary or permanent housing. Entrants are encouraged to address issues of uncertainty associated with either types of housing and with temporary solutions that become permanent.

It is important to note that none of the winning solutions addressed the Astrodome in their design. This is unfortunate, because this is the one feature of the competition that made it unique. Rather than define a site, they simply should have stated: this is a competition for temporary relief housing, the site is irrelevant, but the competition brief urges entrants to think about the development as a whole, which is something that none of the winners did. In fact, two of the three winners failed to address major concerns of the design problem:

As such, the design solution should embrace and provide the opportunity for access to those functions and services this community will require: food, medical, social, financial, etc. The design should consider how this is a “livable community,” where the amenities essential to the daily life of the residents are integrated in the design. Successful solutions will demonstrate broad applicability and responsiveness to the widest possible range of various site and climatic conditions.

Why does this matter? It matters to the architects and interns that spent hundreds of hours, only to be taken advantage of, and worse, they had to pay for it.

Now for the Winners:

I do not want to turn this article into an attack on the winning designs and designers, because that is not the point of this article.  I am not going to critique these projects in terms of design quality, although there are a couple items that I may not be able to resist critiquing. I will try to critique the projects in terms of the competition brief and how they respond, or rather in nearly every case, how they have not responded to the competition brief.

I would like to give credit to the winners, but unfortunately I cannot, because the designer’s names were not issued in the media brief that I received with the competition winner’s images. So much for publicity being your reward. If any of the winners happen to see their projects, please contact me so that I can give you credit for your designs.

Woven Shelter:

Aside from looking like a web of . . . you know what, this is an interesting project. The designer states that this is the next evolution of the modern tent, but I see this more as the next evolution of the mud hut, or the sand bag. This technique would actually be an amazing design if the competition were to redesign the sandbag. The woven capabilities allows the sandbags to structural act as one, rather than a series of stacked bags. This has promise in that application.

Unfortunately this design is a pipe dream when it comes to making architecture out of it. The designer claims that the structures can be quickly built, and is the next evolution of the traditional tent. I can imagine it now: the National Guard dropping this off at the Astrodome, telling a bunch of angry Americans to fill this up with trash and build a house. The angry mob screams I’d rather live in the Astrodome than a mud hut. If you thought Kanye West was pissed about Katrina, could you imagine what he would have done if George Bush told them to make a house out of trash? Speculate for yourself, because if I typed it, this blog would end up on the Secrete Service watch list. Most Americans are not capable of erecting a tent let alone this complex assembly. How long is it going to take to build this structure? Days! By the time you build 500 of these, the disaster will be over, and you’ll have 500 piles of trash stinking up the city.  Unfortunately this design simply does not work when applied to a house, and does not allow for long-term user occupancy despite the designer’s claims. Do you know what these structures would smell like after a few days?

The project also fails to address other major requirements of the competition. The site is a parking lot, where is the dirt? If it is a flood, there is no dirt, then what? What kind of community does this create? How are services such as water, food, healthcare, security and infrastructure dealt with? The brief states that the primary goal is to “consider how this is a livable community.” This project neglects this requirement. The construction technique proposed by this talented designer is unique, but should not the winner of this competition based on its brief.

The Community Unit:

This design comes the closest to addressing all of the issues in the design brief. The designer alludes to how these units could be assembled to form a community. The designer gives some idea of how other systems and services are integrated into these communities. What the entry does not address is how the Astrodome is incorporated into the development. If the site could be anywhere in the world, then just say that the site is anywhere in the world, and forget the Astrodome. If this is a competition focused on the Astrodome, then make all of the entries respond to the requirement. Despite the visual strength of this entry, it is the worst spatially, and provides little room for living spaces. The styling of the form is the key feature that distinguished this entry from others that I saw that better responded to the competition brief. Unfortunately the curving surfaces are not functional, and add nothing of value to the project, pure style points.

FREE:

FREE, is just that, free housing. The design, however falls short in many of the ways that the Woven Shelter entry falls short in regards to responding to the program. It does not specifically address the site, it does not address how the design creates a sense of community, nor does the designer show how other services and functions are incorporated into the design. The units do include photo-voltaics, which is applicable in Houston, as Texas receives a lot of sun throughout the year. Other than the “green bling” this design does not address any of the other competition requirements.

The Winners in Closing:

Based on the selections of the jury, it is clear that the jury tended towards the solutions that focused on the individual units, rather than solutions that focused on how to create a community after a natural disaster. From the entries that I have seen, the solutions that incorporated the Astrodome looked at solving the problem at an urban planning level, developing infrastructure, generating food, energy and drinking water. The winners for the most part focused on the living units and neglected the urban context. I only state this, because the intentions of the competition are not clear and do not align with the chosen winners. This is unfortunate for those who addressed the problem statement of the competition brief.

Shame, shame, shame…

Lastly, shame on the jury. The AIA and YAF DID do an excellent job of finding competent jurors for this competition: Barton Phelps FAIA, Lawrence Scarpa FAIA (sorry Larry, but you no it is true) and Mehrdad Yazdani AIA Associate, they should never have agreed to sponsor a design competition that exploits architects for free work. Any of you three want to donate a hundred hours to design my house? By the way, I’ll post fliers in my neighborhood that you designed it if you win! Sorry, did I say free, you each need to pay me $100.00 to enter. I thought I would feel better about this situation after writing this article, but I do not. The profession of architecture is slowly dieing in the United States. It is well known that clients exploit firms for free work, it is also well known that architects stab each other in the back by whoring their selves out undercutting other firms to buy projects, but now the AIA and our piers are taking advantage of the competition system to exploit the few young architects in our profession. The United States needs a system similar to the ones in place in Europe that regulates design competitions. It seems that every architecture blog and Columbia graduate is running a design competition. There are large amounts of money earned from these competions, and NONE of it is regulated. The AIA should refund the money to those that entered this ‘ideas’ competition, or offer a cash prize to the winners. Sadly neither of these things will happen and the image of the American architect will continue to fade.

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Photo Gallery:

Architectural Context:

When talking about architecture, architects often speak of the success of an architectural design in terms of context. Unfortunately, many architects forget that there is more to a structure’s context than its relationship to adjacent buildings and the site. Herzog & de Meuron understand context to be social, cultural, and architectural. They are even concerned with how their parking garage relates within the experiential context of the ceremony of driving, parking and emerging as a pedestrian onto Lincoln Mall from the automobile. They recognize these various contexts in the design of the 1111 Lincoln Road parking garage, a project with so many complex contextual relationships that they only become clear upon visiting the structure and spending enough time looking and experiencing.

When designing structures within a historic context it is best to either match the historic style of the architecture as close as possible, or to design a structure that is of “the spirit of the times” (zeitgeist). Upon visiting the 1111 Lincoln Road development, it became clear that the design of the parking structure is foreign in style and form to the surrounding collection of 800 structures located in South Beach’s Art Deco Historic District. There is nothing formally contextual about the 1111 Lincoln Road parking structure. It stands by itself, as if it is better than its architectural neighbors. It has an attitude, a demeanor that suggest it does not care what you think of it, because it knows it is better than all of the other buildings that you have ever parked in. Herzog & de Meuron avoid the pitfalls that have plagued other architects, by understanding that architecture has to be sensitive to its context, but does not have to look like it. The 1111 Lincoln Road parking structure contrasts with its architectural context in nearly every way imaginable.

The sharp angles of the concrete structure contrast with the streamlined forms of the expensive parked automobiles and neighboring Art Deco structures. The historic forms of South Beach are solid masses that have been carved away, while the parking structure is a delicate exoskeleton, allowing light and air to penetrate deep into its core. While the neighboring Art Deco structures are concerned with surface, Herzog & de Meuron create a structure that is composed of line and edge. The poured in place concrete forms are left raw and exposed to the elements, in contrast to the brightly painted buildings found on every block.

The parking structure of 1111 Lincoln Road is part of a complex of three buildings: Apart from the existing SunTrust office building there is a two-story building designed by Herzog & de Meuron, with a SunTrust Bank branch on the ground floor and four large condos on the second floor. The two-story building has no visual relationship to the parking garage. The solid white box blends in with the existing context, so as not to weaken the image of the parking garage. The modern SunTrust office building is a poured in place concrete structure, but it is painted white in an effort to differentiate old from new. The parking structure ignores these buildings architecturally, and pulls away from them. The floor plates of the parking garage rarely respond to the floor plates of the existing office building. The stairways that connect the two structures are delicate interventions out of necessity, and recede into the shadows of the two structures. The existing SunTrust office building was upgraded to contain additional retail space at the ground level that matches the retail at the base of the parking structure, but a conscious move was made by the architects to use color and a construction joint to differentiate the portion of the concrete canopy that belong to the old and the new.

Herzog & de Meuron take a stand in the design of their parking structure, clearly delineating new from old, denouncing Miami Moderne in favor of an architecture that is responsive to the social, cultural, and experiential context of our time.

Master Curator:

Visionary developer Robert Wennett, who sees himself more as a master curator than a developer, envisioned 1111 Lincoln Road as a structure that would be a destination for art, commerce and culture, he imagined a building that patrons would experience while driving, shopping, living and being entertained. He visited with ten architecture firms from around the world sharing his vision, but it was not until he met with Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron that he knew he had found his architect.  After commissioning Herzog & de Meuron to design the structure, the three would work intimately on the project for the next five years. Wennett did not stop with commissioning a world renowned architect to design a building, like any distinguished curator, he realized that an exhibition cannot rely on a single work of art. The building includes signage by Wolf-Olins, an iron rods art installation under the stairs on Level 2 by Monika Sosnowska, as well as featuring retail spaces such as a Taschen bookstore, a Y3/Adidas boutique, and a Nespresso outlet, which all function as miniature galleries for commerce. The details of the building, which are the result of the joint technical efforts of Herzog & de Meuron and local architect of record Charles H Benson & Associates, Architects, PA become works of art that even cause non-architects to pause and admire. Wennett allows his exhibition of design and art to spill out into the plaza in front of 1111 Lincoln Road, the design of which is the result of a collaborative effort by Herzog & de Meuron and Raymond Jungles, a Miami based landscape architect, which features interactive public art by New York artist Dan Graham.

Experiential Context:

On entering the parking garage it becomes clear that everything about the structure is designed to enhance the experience of parking. While driving through the structure, every turn captures a different view of the city; every ramp aligns your vehicle toward a seemingly framed piece of the Florida sky. The shape of the structural columns enhances the views of the city, pulling the eyes outward. The connection of the viewer to the city is reinforced by the architecture. After a few moments you will find yourself forgetting to scan for a parking spot, and instead exploring the city, awaiting new views that are revealed while driving through the structure. The structure responds to the city and its context in a way that differs from other structures in the city. It forces drivers to interact with the city in a way that is unique to 1111 Lincoln Road. It is this exploitation of the ceremonial experience of parking that makes it unlike any other parking structure.

After parking your automobile, the structure will urge you to pause and look out at the city. While waiting on the elevator, the sculptural stair tempts you to explore upper and lower levels; it tempts you to explore the city. Typically parking garages are repetitive vertically, featuring a consistent vertical ten foot rhythm. Herzog & de Meuron have the luxury of exploiting the verticality of the parking structure which creates a different experience at each level. It is a garage with a view and light.

Social & Cultural Context:

Herzog & de Meuron have managed to create an architectural form instilled with the spirit of Miami’s South Beach. The automobile is an undeniable symbol of status and wealth in America. The display of one’s prosperity is the whole reason Miami and the Art Deco style exists. Miami during the 1020’s in its boom could be equated to the Dubai of today. What car do you drive? How much money do you make? What designer labels are on your clothes? This is the culture of Miami and these are the things that matter. The Art Deco style in Miami was the result of the wealthy searching for a means for displaying their wealth in the homes they lived in. Herzog & de Meuron understand this, and create a structure which is as much a monument to the automobile as it is a billboard for displaying wealth. The garage is a stage for the celebutantes of South Beach to display their wealth and gain the attention of tourists that visit the mall. The structure is undeniably South Beach.

All Muscle . . . almost

Jacques Herzog describes the 1111 Lincoln Road parking structure as “All muscle without cloth”.  Spending any amount of time in Miami will validate the accuracy of this statement as a description of South Beach and its culture. Skin is an acceptable form of expression in South Beach, but the problem is that the statement by Jacques Herzog is not an entirely accurate description of the structure. From the stylized photos that have been published in various magazines the structure appears to be ALL muscle, but once at the site, 1111 Lincoln Road is revealed to be a body builder in a tutu. The beauty of the parking garage is its structure, which seems to bulge and flex in all the right places, at times responding to structural forces, and at other times responding to other forces such as emphasizing views of the city from within, and even enhancing the movement of the automobile itself.  The muscles are great, but unfortunately the tutu is not. The metaphorical ‘tutu’ of the structure is the retail space at the ground level. The angled columns of the parking garage abruptly stop at the second level of the building. The ground level lacks the sculptural spirit of the rest of the building. The structure would be more convincingly complete if the angular columns were permitted to continue down to the ground, creating retail spaces that engage the structural forms in a similar manner that the restaurants and penthouse units are treated. Instead, the muscular structure sits atop a glass box, and the iconic angular columns have been substituted for conventional circular columns and a continuous storefront system of glass and metal. A disconnect between the structure above and the retail at the ground level is the result of a compromise between the architecture and visibility requirements demanded by the stores leasing the retail space. The structure can be viewed in its purest state when looking at the building from the north, as the angled concrete columns are allowed to continue down the back of the structure down to the ground.

When inside the parking garage, visitors are tempted to explore the garage vertically; they are inveigled by the seductive qualities of the sculptural stair and the framed views of the city. The garage does very little to engage the public at the street level, one would expect that Herzog & de Meuron would have designed the base of the structure to provoke users to explore the parking garage in the same way that they are encouraged to explore the parking garage while in it, but this is not the case. The pedestrian entrance to the garage and the sculptural stair are recessed in the shadows of the building at the ground level, discouraging entry into the structure. The ground level does not possess the same quality of lightness and transparency as the parking garage that sits atop it. This connection between the base of the structure and the parking garage is the one flaw of 1111 Lincoln Road. If the storefront had been broken, and the muscles of the parking garage been allowed to flex into the plaza, the building, plaza, and overall experience would have been better for it, inching that much closer to completely realizing the designer’s concept.

The above article was featured as the cover story in Bauwelt no 21.10 and in the Summer issue of Florida/Caribbean Architect Magazine. I would like to thank Charles H Benson and Robert Wennett for taking the time out of their busy schedules to answer my questions about the project, and for providing their valuable insights into the process involved in producing 1111 Lincoln Road. I would also like to thank Bauwelt for taking a chance on an unknown blogger, and Florida/Caribbean Architect for publishing this article.

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Daniel Libeskind created his design for the Ascent from a careful study of the waterfront area in Covington and the multiplicity of views in all directions. View: this was the genesis of the project, the possibility of giving every tenant a unique view of the Ohio River and downtown Cincinnati, of Covington and I-75 to the south, of developing neighbor Newport to the east, of Park Hills and Devou Park to the west. The architect thoroughly studied the entire panorama in order to maximize the visual experience of living in each of the units, from the smallest 900 square foot one-bedroom unit to the thrilling penthouse units at the top. No two views are alike, but all of them are stunning. Every tenant here gets a river view, an egalitarian touch uncommon to high rises. No one stares at a brick wall. The design is holistic; patterns and compositional attributes of the exterior are repeated on the interior, but cleverly and in ways that a lesser architect would quickly drop into boring repetition. The pearl white hue of the concrete panels is matched by the color of the walls in the lobby and by the lush carpet in the penthouse we visited. The modular tile patterns of the concrete and glass panels of the façade are repeated in the tile patterns in the lobby’s walls and floor. The curve of the building is repeated by the shape of the outdoor pool and in the design of the patio and fire pit area. The concrete canopy at the main entrance is cantilevered just as the balconies are. And looking up, one sees the sizes of the balconies are not uniform but changing in a pattern similar to that of the concrete panels on the façade.

Photo Gallery:

Form-wise, the curvilinear building takes its shape from the soaring cables on Roebling’s bridge and from site conditions (a compact square block) in order to create the angled views. A metal frame within supported by concrete columns is enclosed by a curtain wall system (the exterior enclosure wraps completely around the structure of the building, like a curtain), in this case a syncopated rhythm of precast concrete panels and blue glass panels. I have never seen concrete look lighter; the combination of its smooth surface and bright color paired with the glass imparts a feeling of lightness to the whole structure, as if it could take flight. The east and west faces come to a common edge that sweeps to the building’s high point at the top of the curve (over 30 degrees above horizontal), which looks like the prow of a great ship slicing through the air. Just beneath this great arc of concrete and glass lies the Pinnacle, a 7800-square foot, three-story penthouse, the domus maximus, available at $5.4 million. (I’m hoping to put in my bid as soon as I can find a $5 million buyer for my $500 car.)

Resident Steve Frank calls the Ascent “a social building” as tenants enjoy each other’s company for dinner, walks around the neighborhood or special events like the WEBN fireworks. He and his wife are representative of a number of empty-nester tenants who’ve fled the suburbs to live in the city, and to live in a signature building like this with its amenities and aesthetic status makes him “feel like I’m 19 again.” He feels a part of the community, which lesser high-rises can all but eliminate. He mentions the views, the sociability factor (“the unusual, gifted people who live here”) and the comfort factor in living in a modern building with warm, contemporary interiors, which the architect left neutral enough for tenants to customize in their own tastes. The east and west resident elevator banks (two on each side) separate the living units into smaller clusters and eliminate the need for long, institutional corridors. There are no more than three homes in any core lobby. This design move at once imparts a greater sense of privacy and enhances the sociability factor.

The ground floor double-height lobby is criss-crossed with steel strips in the tile floor, which are echoed on the ceiling by crossing strips of recessed lights. This is a signature move of Libeskind’s; force lines that repeat themselves throughout the building, serving in most cases to reinforce the geometric conditions, or forces, at work in the building’s design. At the top of the staircase in the lobby are the public spaces: meeting rooms, a dining room and catering kitchen, a billiard room, a theater/screening room, a children’s playroom, and guest suites. The amenities continue outdoors on the same level to a private patio/gathering area with a custom-designed fire pit and cooking grills. There is also around-the-clock concierge service and limousine service for tenants.

Libeskind sees the Ascent as more than just a modern apartment block; for him the goal was to create a “cultural edifice”, a living member of the river front area that will help define the city and its people. “It has to be symbolic in its own way, and it is. We judge cities not just by their civic buildings. We judge them by: How do people live in those cities? What is the quality of their urban fabric?”

To this point in time there have been precious few residential buildings designed by star architects, usually there is far more prestige and money involved in larger commercial projects. Libeskind’s awareness of the significance of the urban fabric of a city and the way its residents live is an encouraging sign that designers are increasingly aware of humanity as a whole, not just an opinionated few. What if America in the 21^st century can be more than freeways, blacktop, bland office buildings and strip malls? Buildings like the Ascent show that it’s possible. It incorporates the basic elements: it’s of the earth in its integral connection to its site, it reaches for the sky and reflects the sky in its glass envelope, it presides over the water of the Ohio River, and it captures the fire of sunset from the west. It’s a work of art that provides a home for its residents. How I wish I was one of them!

Geoff Simmons is an architect based in Cincinnati, Ohio and a writer for Eastsider Magazine

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The campus of Florida Southern College is the closest thing to experiencing a world designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright does not attempt to design acres of Falling Water, there are many signature works that reside on the campus like the Annie Pfeiffer Chapel and the technical beauty of the Polk County Science Building, but there is also a strong supporting cast of background buildings that help Wright to build a campus of Wright without creating an architectural experience that becomes overwhelming. Wright builds tension on the campus between the vertical and the horizon, between the mundane and the divine. Suspense builds as you walk along the unique esplanades. He protects you from the hot Florida sunlight  and then upon entering a structure it appears that the master architect has transformed the light into a collage of colors, beams of light literally bursting at the seams of the building. Florida Southern College should be at the top of any architects list of historic sites to visit, and is just another reason to make an architectural pilgrimage to Florida.

This is the first of a series of articles that will focus on the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright in Florida. Be sure to check back soon as I am building an extensive photo gallery of images for another article that will delve into the details of one of America’s greatest college campuses.

History:

One could argue that the popularity of Frank Lloyd Wright is of course in part due to the fact that he is an exceptionally rare architectural talent. Yet despite his talent, Wright’s popularity in American culture is largely in part to his Hollywood styled biography and eccentric personalty. Unlike other architects, Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect, has no difficulty competing against Frank Lloyd Wright architecture for story time in the history books. The beauty of Wright’s architecture can only be outshone by Wright’s uniquely cinematic life. His career as an architect and his works are made more fascinating by his life history, and this history has him firmly rooted as America’s favorite architect in American popular culture. The history of Florida Southern College is nothing short of the kind of story that one has come to expect when talking about Frank Lloyd Wright.

Dr. Ludd Spivey was the college president of Florida Southern College and after being inspired by Wright’s autobiography he approached Wright with a dream of building a modern American campus. Wright was 67 years old when he first visited Lakeland, Florida, the future site of Florida Southern College. While walking the site, Wright envisioned the buildings:

“. . . rising out of the ground, and into the light, a child of the sun.”

If you had to distill the campus into a single sentence, you could not describe the spirit of the architecture at Florida Southern College in any other way. The buildings feel as if they have always been. The earthiness of the concrete, and the way that the buildings seem to perform some kind of architectural photosynthesis, turning light into emotion and energy, is nothing short of architectural magic.

Construction of the campus would begin in 1939 and Wright  expected the construction of the campus to take only three years, but the United States had just entered World War II limiting labor and raising construction costs. These two factors would cause the construction timeline to spiral out of control. In order to help combat the lack of labor and rising cost of materials, students were admitted into the college upon agreeing to work on the construction of the campus buildings. It would take nearly twenty years to construct the twelve Wright designed structures that reside on the campus today. The original master plan designed by Wright had proposed eighteen structures for the campus, Wright would only live to see twelve of these structures built, after his death, plans for the remaining six buildings were abandoned. Wright died on April 9th, 1959 shortly after the completion of the last building to be completed at Florida Southern College, the Polk County Science Building, which is one of the most unique structures ever designed by Wright.

Annie Pfeiffer Chapel (1941) – $100,000

The Annie Pfeiffer Chapel is without a doubt the architectural centerpiece of the Florida Southern College campus. The chapel is very similar in concept to Unity Temple, which was completed in 1908 and also has undertones of Falling Water which was completed in 1936. It is important to note these two structures to understand the relationship of the buildings at Florida Southern College to the other structures of Wright’s career and to study the evolution of his work. Although the building is the tallest structure on the campus it like the other buildings appears to emerge from the Florida landscape. Make sure you spend plenty of time exploring the interior of this building as it is one of the most beautiful interior spaces on the campus. I can only imagine what it must have been like to experience this building the day it opened.

Esplanades (1941-1958) - $86,000

What is an esplanade? Don’t be embarrassed I had to look it up too. Although I figured that it was obviously some sort of a covered walkway, I found the origin of the term and its meaning interesting. An esplanade is loosely defined in the dictionary as a long open level stretch of ground for walking along, usually next to a river or large body of water. The original meaning of the term referred to the long open level are outside of a fortress or the city walls, which leaves attackers unprotected from the defenses of the city. It is noted on Wikipedia that the terms esplanade and promenade are often incorrectly used interchangeably:

“Esplanade and promenade are sometimes used interchangeably, but that is a mistake. A promenade can be anywhere, and it is exclusively for walking, while an esplanade is for walking but also can include large boulevards or avenues with cars. A Promenade, often abbreviated to ‘(The) Prom’, was an area where people – couples and families especially – would go to walk for a while in order to ‘be seen’ and be considered part of ‘society’.”

Although the campus is near a large lake, the esplanades of Florida Southern College are far from lakeside, and is perhaps a better example of a promenade. The esplanades are yet another example of Wright and his ability to poetically represent a covered walkway as something more. I can just imagine Wright talking about the esplanades that will connect the campus, and describing their organic quality to the donors. Every person listening to Wright speak must have been hanging on his every word, fantasizing about the materiality of the organic esplanades. Even if the covered walkways function more as a promenade than an esplanade, I plan on dropping that five dollar term during my next design presentation to a Florida university.

The esplanades are the signature feature of the Florida Southern College. The columns which support the roof structure appear to grow out of the earth, and there are hundreds of these sculptural columns littered across the campus. At times the esplanade forms a portico, adhering to the facades of other structures as if a vine growing through the campus. At other times the esplanades join together creating intimate spaces that feel like a place rather than a path. Wright embraces the use of the esplanade as the signature element of the campus for many reasons. The esplanades are a poetic way of protecting students, faculty and visitors from the harsh Florida Summer sun. The esplanade also epitomize Wright’s concept of an organic architecture, and there is no finer realization of Wright’s concept of organic architecture anywhere in the world than at Florida Southern College. The shear scale of the site and the number of buildings forced Wright to think about his theory of organic architecture at level of sophistication that is nothing short of impressive. The esplanades stretch for 1.5 miles and connect nearly every structure designed by Wright on the campus. The patina finish of the copper trim of the esplanades reaffirms the connection of the horizontal to the landscape and the horizon.

Carter, Walbridge, & Hawkins Seminar Building (1941)- $80,000

The Carter, Walbridge, & Hawkins Seminar Buildings are Frank Lloyd Wright’s best attempt at creating a background building. The building seems so simple at first glance that you may dismiss it as not worthy of inspection, but upon closer investigation, the detailing of the custom concrete block and inlaid colored pieces of L-shaped glass is a truly remarkable feat of rare American craftsmanship. The offices glow in colored sunlight on the interior. There are times on the campus when the esplanade and the buildings on the campus appear to blend together in a way that reaffirms Wright’s concept of organic architecture. At the three seminar buildings the esplanade becomes the primary facade of the building, and the Wrightian columns create a perverted portico that pulls the landscape into the building while pulling your eyes out to the landscape when walking underneath the seductive esplanades. Take note of the normal sized man under the low roof eaves in the lower left corner of the above picture. Wright was always concerned with the landscape and creating buildings that respond to the horizon. In an attempt to express this relationship his ceilings often become dangerously low at times.

Thad Buckner Building (1945) - $120,000

Formerly the E.T. Roux Library, the structure was renamed the Thad Buckner Building in 1968. All of the structures on the campus have a unique character about them. The Annie Pfeiffer Chapel is the tallest and most extravagant structure, The Polk County Science Building is the mechanical beauty, and the Thad Buckner Building’s uniquely circular form causes it to stand out in contrast to the rectilinear forms of the other buildings on the campus. The circular form houses the reading room, which has since been converted into the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center and Esplanade Gift Shop. The library stacks were housed in the rectangular form that is conjoined to the circular form. At times the structure appears as if it is two different buildings that have been combined into one. The building is closed on weekends, so be sure to visit the campus on a weekday so that you can get inside this building. Even though it appears that the structure is without windows and has a modest presence, interior photos depict the reading room as a large expansive space, full of light, and classic Frank Lloyd Wright forms.

Water Dome (1948) - $15,000

The Water Dome may seem like a silly concept, but visit Florida on a hot day in August and you might change your mind. The Water Dome is the center of the Frank Lloyd Wright designed campus, and is an urban event that is both fun and refreshing. The Water Dome operates at certain times of the day, and changes the social environment of the plaza when it is running. Everyone stops what they are doing to admire the dome of water.  I can imagine that in 1948 this would have been quite a spectacle on the campus. Wright’s Water Dome forms a perfect 160 foot circle, with water propelled 45 feet into the air creating a dome of water, when viewed at the right time of day at the right time of year a full rainbow can bee seen encapsulated by the Water Dome.

Emile E. Watson-Benjamin Fine Adminstration Buildings (1941) - $200,000

The Emile E. Watson-Benjamin Fine Administration Buildings are a cluster of small buildings that are grouped together by the esplanades. The intimate courtyards and spaces between the structures are similar in spirit to the small parks that you  might find hidden away in a quaint European city. Like all of the Frank Lloyd Wright structures on the campus, the administration buildings have their own unique character. They are both monumental and intimate all at the same time. The interiors of these buildings are in remarkable condition and remain relatively unmodified. I suggest taking the detailed campus tour just to gain access to this building. The construction of these buildings were personally supervised by Frank Lloyd Wright and this is evident in the resoluteness with which the complex forms and details are resolved.

Lucius Pond Ordway Building (1952) - $52,200

The Lucius Pond Ordway Building has undeniable similarities to Taliesen West and despite the structure’s simplicity is another excellent piece of architecture at Florida Southern College. The classrooms are tall and full of natural light. The height of the spaces helps to manage the Florida heat, and the diagonal rooftop structures that appears to be metal is actually a translucent material that is used to supply the classrooms with clerestory lighting. The structure has a central courtyard that the classrooms line, this allows every space to have access to sunlight.

William H. Danforth Chapel (1955) - $50,000

Unfortunately I was unable to view the interior of this chapel when visiting the campus, as the Danforth Chapel, like most of the structures was locked up on the weekends. The William H. Danforth Chapel is the only Wright design project at Florida Southern College that made use of leaded glass and Florida red cypress on the exterior. The Danforth Chapel still contains the original pews and cushions designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Although the Danforth still maintains the character of the campus it becomes obvious that Wright is attempting to evolve the language he has developed for the campus with the design of each new project, and like each building before this, the Danforth has its own set of unique characteristics that distinguishes it from the other buildings on the campus.

Polk County Science Building (1958) - $1,000,000

The Polk County Science Building is by far my favorite structure on the campus, because it is a rare example of Wright playing with the formal language that he had created for the Florida Southern College campus, and combining it with a new high-tech Frank Lloyd Wright that we have not yet seen before. This is clearly a transitional piece, and represents a series of first for Wright. It is both the first planetarium Wright designed and constructed, and it contains the first use of aluminum for aesthetic purposes by Wright. This is one of Wright’s last buildings to be designed and completed while alive. One has to wonder, if Wright were to continue developing this language, would have usurped Norman Foster and Richard Rogers discovery of a high-tech modern architecture. We can only wonder what Wright would have done next.

It should be noted that the tour guide on a recent visit noted that the mechanical systems that sit atop the Polk County Science Building were added after the building was completed, but I have yet to find any information on this since the buildings and site are not well documented.

Organic Architecture, a common misnomer:
Organic architecture is architecture that is curvy or an imitation of nature, wrong! This description may be appropriate when discussing architecture outside of the context of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, but one of the things that disgusts  me is when architects, especially architects from the era of Wright, talk of Wright’s work being organic as in the before mentioned way. Organic architecture is a process, it is a way of thinking, and it is something that is devoid of style. Although there are certain reoccurring principles that occur in Wright’s work, he never allowed style to interfere with his philosophy of organic architecture. For Wright organic architecture is drawn from nature in the sense that everything in nature is in harmony form and function are combined to create a natural ornament. In architecture, Wright did not believe that form follows function, but that form and function are one. This combination of form and function and the philosophy of organic architecture is what makes Wright’s work so unique. He is able to combine form and function into a system of architectural ornamentation that is consistent at every scale. If you are interested in learning more about Wright’s philosophy of organic architecture then I suggest that you read A Testament / Frank Lloyd Wright. A Testament is written by Frank Lloyd Wright and outlines his philosophy on architecture explicitly in this text, which was written by him and published two years before his death.

“This type of architecture can’t mean much to you until you have had a good look at yourself. This architecture represents the laws of harmony and rhythm. It’s organic architecture and we have seen little of it so far. It’s like a little green shoot growing in a concrete pavement.” – Frank Lloyd Wright

Visiting Florida Southern College:

Florida Southern College is in Lakeland, Florida, approximately 40 minutes southwest of Orlando, Florida. I suggest spending a full day on the campus if you really want to soak in the details of each and every building. The campus is very walkable, and there is a Robert A.M. Stern building that was nearing completion upon writing this article. Although the structure falls short in comparison to the buildings designed by Wright, since it is on the campus, you might as well visit it. The town, students and faculty are very proud of the fact that their campus was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and are accustomed to architects snooping around their campus, if you are in Florida, then you must visit this site. There are tours available during the week that will allow you into some of the areas that I was unable to gain access to during my weekend visit. Tours are limited and available on certain days only, so be sure to check the website below. I strongly recommend visiting the campus during the week, rather than the weekend like I did. Before you visit the campus, be sure to visit their website “Child of the Sun” Visitor Center. The site and this article will serve as a good primer before your visit. The campus can be overwhelming and you may miss something if not properly briefed, so be sure to stop at the “Child of the Sun” Visitor Center before getting lost in the largest collection of buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Related Photos

Today, architects are trading in their architectural styles for an architecture of fashion, one which parallels the seasonal trends and fads of the fashion industry itself. The change from an architecture of style to one of fashion could be a result of the fact that information is exchanged at a rapid pace due to the worldwide acceptance of the internet. This new form of rapid communication and publication has created a situation that renders a design obsolete to the current discourse by the time a building is completely constructed, because the renderings were published ten years earlier on a blog somewhere on the web. What if historians and critics are examining these architectural styles incorrectly? The truth may be that perhaps historians have attempted to identify these movements prior to allowing the context of history to fully unfold, and lack the hindsight required to reflect upon the recent past with an understanding of these movements in relation to larger social and cultural events. To clearly state, sometimes effects in history are critiqued without fully understanding their cause. Architectural critics and historians have struggled to make sense of the apparent infinite styles and movements within contemporary architecture. Until recently it has been difficult to find a common thread linking the aesthetic differences between the many movements of the late 20th century and early 21st. Although the aesthetics of the numerous architectural styles that have emerged since the dot-com boom vary, the one consistent trait that all of these structures share is a recklessness for the apparent limits of architecture, and an increasing emphasis on imageability and form. Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne,  Asymptote and European power firms like UN Studio have benefited from an unprecedented growth of wealth at the scale of the entire world. The same technology that spurred this growth in wealth has also given these and other architects the tools necessary to design and build nearly anything imaginable. Although this condition in recent history is unprecedented in scale, it is not without precedent. These architects are master of ya-ya, and the ya-ya movement is coming to a close, but what will come after this movement, is already here.

Historical Precedence:

The fascination with all things cool by architects of the era of ya-ya is similar to a movement that occurred in architecture prior to another American financial disaster, the Great Depression. Prior to the Great Depression the architectural profession was fragmented in terms of style, it seemed that there was no singular movement in architecture. The aesthetic styles of architecture in the 19th century and early 20th century ranged from Greek Revival to Baroque Revival, to Egyptian Revival, to just about any other historical style you can imagine, however the spirit of the period could be traced back to a singular driving force. The impetus behind the revival of the many styles from the past was the desire of Americans to display their excessive amounts of wealth in reference to the styles associated with the wealthy nations of history. Similar to our recent past, the Great Depression was preempted by the ‘Roaring Twenties.’ The great amounts of wealth generated during the 1920′s was the result of Main Street having easy access to Wall Street (specifically the ability to buy stocks with credit), in conjunction with the fact that America was benefiting from the growth caused by the industrial revolution that takes place when a youthful capitalistic country begins its rise, similar to the growth that we are seeing today in modern China. The overriding theme of the period prior to the Great Depression was not one of ‘style’ but a period of Revivalism in which architects and Americans used historical precedents as a means of displaying their wealth. It was not an aesthetic movement, but a spirit of the times. The chief difference between Revivalism and ya-ya is the availability of technology. This availability of technology has shifted the importance society places on architecture and its design. During the period of Revivalism, people were concerned with extravagance in decoration, and today ya-ya is concerned with extravagance in form and image.

It is important to note that transitions in history are generally long and drawn out. History is rarely clear and succinct like the game changing plays in a football game, and like a football game it is difficult to discern the full ramifications of any one event until the game is over. The observations in this article are nothing more than conjectures based on my observations of the current state of architecture compared to past trends in history. Enough time has passed since the Great Depression to fully understand the cultural and social context of the architectural movements that occurred at that point in time in history, and we can finally discuss this condition with some degree of resoluteness. While researching for this article and examining the beginnings of the International Style (a term coined by Alfred Barr, which I prefer over Modern Architecture) it becomes evident that there is a significant overlap between the peak of Revivalism in America and the beginning of the International Style. In fact, many of the modern masterpieces, which are revered by many architects today, were completed prior to the Great Depression. The full embrace of the International Style by the mainstream architectural profession did not occur until the Great Depression came to a close.

In terms of architectural styles it seems that the intellectual leaders of the architectural professions are constantly rivaling the styles of the past, or the master architects that came before them. Modernism discounted Revivalism, Post-Modernism was the antithesis to Modernism, yet while there are movements against movements within the profession of architecture, there are larger socio-economic movements taking place at a much larger scale. The experiment of capitalism in America has been in progress for over two-hundred years and it seems that the cyclical nature of the markets translates into larger cycles in time, socially. There are movements within American culture that place an emphasis on wealth, status, and fame when times are good and the markets are growing. It also appears that after an economic disaster, society rejects the previous social arrogance to display ones wealth and the focus again shifts back to one of value and function. As resources become scarce and as the world becomes ever smaller due to an increase in technology and the global population, people will demand an architecture of Great Value.

The Great Depression marks a point in time in the history of American culture where wealth and style were overcome by function and value. In terms of architecture it marked a transition in which American Revivalism gave way to the International Style. Today we can infer that a similar change is taking place in American culture and in architecture. Again the display of wealth is giving way to function, and in terms of architecture, the period of ya-ya must succeed to an architecture of Great Value. Unlike before this transition is taking place at a rapid rate, and on a global scale.

a period of Ya-Ya:

The period of ya-ya is highlighted with the acceptance of the internet and the birth of the first global economy. The wealth generated by the dot-com boom and computer revolution fueled fifteen years of architectural extravagance, experimentation, and the destruction of limits that many thought could never be broken, see Burj Khalifa in Dubai. A side note for those of you that would like to know what the name given to the tallest building in the world stand for, burj means “tower”, and Khalifa Bin Zayed is the name of the UAE President, but forget the burj for now. The city of Dubai is just one of many examples of such unprecedented limits being broken. Culture and the values of society changed during this period of growth, and displaying one’s wealth became acceptable again, and thus the architecture of the pre-Great Recession responded appropriately. Architecture was cool for the sake of being cool.  Architects everywhere were attempting to build the tallest and coolest buildings in the world. Don’t believe me? Try and find a design posted on DeZeen that focuses on developing a rigorous formal language like Louis I. Kahn, Richard Meier or Michael Graves. Being cool was so important during the era of ya-ya that you could find a career in a new profession focused on cool hunting.

The primary design driver that has made the period of ya-ya so damaging to the profession of architecture is that the architectural one-liner was back and in a big way. This is damaging, because young students studying architecture in universities focus on developing clever solutions to architectural problems rather than learning a critical design process that they can use and develop as they grow as an architect. It seems like every week the blogs are flooded with dozens of cool and clever buildings that feature a new architectural one-liner that has not been built before, or even worse, one that has. The one-liner serves a purpose and throughout time there have been many one-liner works of architecture that played an important role in bringing architecture to the mainstream, for instance a series of BEST Products stores were completed by a young firm called SITE (see figure 1.1) in the early 70′s that changed the way many consumers thought about the role of architecture in strip mall design, and the effects of their work can be seen in Las Vegas and even today in Chicago. Although many critics and architects have grouped their works under the title of Post Modernism, I believe that this is an incorrect description of their work. Their work could be seen as the earliest movers in the spirit of ya-ya. Ya-ya is not all about one-liners, although the one-liner is the preferred design tool of the ya-ya designer. I will elaborate after the below photos more upon the ya-ya movement.

Figure 1.1: The Indeterminate Facade Building in Houston Texas is one of a series of  nine  stores designed by SITE for the now deceased BEST stores. It is one of the earliest examples of the architectural one-liner, it brought architecture to the mainstream. The ‘big box’ would never be the same as SITE continued to craft clever one-liners that questioned the new typology for nearly a decade. These BEST products stores by SITE and other architects are the earliest examples of ya-ya. In the future I will examine the BEST product stores and their importance not just those designed by SITE, but proposals from a series of significant architects in the 1970′s and 1980′s.

Figure 1.2: Aqua Tower designed by Studio Gang Architects is a newly constructed one-liner and a may serve as a symbol to the end of the one-liner, but only the passage of time will allow us to make such an inference. Although nearly forty years separates the structures designed by SITE and the recently completed Aqua Tower, one cannot help but to sense a commonality it their spirit, the one-liner. These clever solutions are capable of creating unique and memorable architecture, but they lack the rigor in form and function that modern architects obsessed over.

Perhaps the period of ya-ya was a response to the intellectual rigor that became the driving forces behind movements such as the International Style and Post-Modernism. Although the extravagant structures built during the period of ya-ya may have been constructed due to unprecedented global wealth, ya-ya also exemplifies another trend within our new global society. The internet is partly responsible for the changes we are seeing in society, but the information revolution is the key driving force behind the ya-ya movement. The information age has also birthed a new generation of architects, designers, and consumers: Generation Y. This new generation must be constantly stimulated with information. They don’t have time to listen to a whole album, watch an entire movie, or experience architecture. They listen to singles, watch movie trailers and do not want to bother with architecture unless it can be spoon fed to them in the form of an architectural one-liner. Architecture like information, music, fashion and viral videos, must constantly be changing, new, inventive, but most importantly stimulate the brain and body rapidly. Generation Y wants information and they want it fast, they want instant gratification. The image and icons of architecture are evolving at a pace which is faster than architecture can sustain. Even fast-tracked design/build projects are giving way to a new hyper design/build process in which construction begins concurrent with the design process. The distillation of the architectural construction and design process is in fact the major cause of the rapid growth in architectural one-liners. The architectural one-liners are also the result of Generation Y designers whom are not capable of developing architectural concepts in the same meaningful way that Louis Kahn was able to elaborate upon a simple concept like ‘bringing the book from darkness to light’ in his design for Exeter Library, which is unquestionable a masterwork of architecture. They are concerned with image, because that is what they know. Once the image is created they cannot be bothered with developing it, and move on to the next image in the same ADD manner that they consume information on the internet.

This period of ya-ya in architectural history will be remembered not just for its cool architecture, but also as a period in which architects became star-chitects, as critics of the profession attempt to thrust these architectural stars into the forefront, in hopes that they gain the same celebrity status as their Hollywood counterparts. But why identify this period in time as the period of ya-ya? The term yaya according to the French is an expression of arrogance, which best describes the cool buildings and one-liners of this period. The English dictionary defines yah, a homophone  of ya, as ‘used to express derision, defiance, or disgust.’ In the context of this article, the period of ya-ya is an architectural movement which acts to defy the rigor of the modern and post modern movements in architecture. To claim that the period of ya-ya in architecture lacks rigor completely, would be a naive and gross misunderstatement. The rigor of the ya-ya s is one of the one-liner, whimsy, image, and figure, not function and rational. Ya-ya architecture is arrogant and bold. If the one-liner is the chief tool of a ya-ya designer, a great ya-ya designer is a starchitect, and their celebrity leader is Frank Gehry. Gehry’s architecture is more than a one-liner or a simple figure as in the work of SITE and the figure of the Aqua Tower (see figure 1.2 & 1.3).

Figure 1.3: Experience Music Project in Seattle Washington is a ya-ya masterpiece designed by celebrity starchitect Frank Gehry. The forms sculpted by Frank Gehry lack function, their purpose is to create a distinct image, a memorable figure. It is an example of a ya-ya masterpiece and is arrogant in spirit.

The period of ya-ya in architecture can be classified as the period of time between the dot-com boom and the Great Recession. If we begin to classify architecture during the period specified above as a response to the economic conditions of our time, rather than specific stylistic trends, then we have to ask ourselves one more question, what next?

an architecture of Great Value:

History has shown that there are certain trends and cycles that occur in economics, society, and even in architecture. There are precedents for our current economic condition, but those precedents lack the scale of a global economic collapse. The historic event that most closely resembles that of the Great Recession is its predecessor the Great Depression, which consumed the 1930s. As stated earlier, the world changed during the Great Depression. Revivalism and its concern for decoration and wealth was abandoned in favor of an International Style that focused on function and its expression. I believe that a similar trend will emerge after the Great Recession. Decoration will be forgotten and function will again rule, but this time architecture must respond in a way that it has not had to in the past. The next movement in architecture must be not be only concerned with function alone, architects will be pushed to provide an architecture of Great Value.

The next significant style to emerge after the Great Recession will be that will deliver Great Value.

First, what is Great Value? Great Value is the response to social and environmental demands of today’s consumers. The “green” movement is one force that has architects examining value. The 21st century more so than any other century is concerned with creating an architecture that is sensitive to the fact that the resources on the Earth are limited, and that we should maximize their use in a manor that yields the greatest value. Another movement that is fueling the need for an architecture of Great Value is the demand from consumers on manufacturers to produce goods that are not only inexpensive but offer value. Greatest value means that architects have to begin to understand their architectural tactics in terms of highest and best use, and not just in terms of dollars. This means that function, sustainability, and social factors must be weighed against monetary considerations.

The first field that began to understand that American culture was shifting from a ya-ya centered society, to one that was focused on Great Value was graphic design, specifically for product packaging. Manufacturers have slowly realized that cheap is actually a good thing, and that their products should look generic. Regardless of what you think about Walmart the company is run be a group of geniuses that understand how to respond to changes in culture and society better than just about anybody else. For years Walmart’s Great Value brand attempted to mimic the style, design and color of name brand products in an attempt to suggest to buyers that their product is just as good as the name brands, but cheaper. Early this year,Walmart completely revamped their Great Value brand, and the only way to describe it is generic, but clever.

Walmart realized that people were concerned with one thing and one thing only after spending nearly two years in the Great Recession, and that is value (see figure 2.1). The design of the Great Value brand is simple and beautiful. The name of the brand Great Value is placed on the packaging in a way that creates an interesting visual play of words, the word ‘great’ is larger than the word ‘value’, but the fact that the product is great, is not nearly as important as the product’s value. The word ‘value’ is bold and blue and is the first thing that you notice walking down the aisles of Walmart, regardless of the product. Checkout Walmart’s website to see what I mean, the page is loaded with value. The background of every product’s package is white, which stands out compared to other products. The white background serves at making the product appear even more generic. White also reflects more light and makes products appear brighter, thus drawing the consumer’s attention compared to other products. The only additional information on the package is the name of the product, a picture of the product, and nutritional facts, but all of these items are composed in a way that does not even come close to competing with the product’s ‘value’.

Figure 2.1: Great Value product branding by Walmart is an example of how society is moving from one that is based on brands, image, and unique identities to one that is concerned with value. The aisles of Walmart now conjure up images of the experiments drawn up by Superstudio proposing a generic order of gridded whiteness that would take over the world.

What does Great Value mean for architecture? Like I said earlier, architecture is slower to respond to changes in culture than other fields, but right now architecture is experiencing a transitional period in which ya-ya is fading and Great Value Architecture is emerging, and may last much longer in time than the period of ya-ya. In fact the Great Value Architecture movement may last for a very long time.

Great Value Architecture has already emerged as a legitimate style and will continue to emerge in stature and popularity as did the International Style. There are two projects that come to mind when thinking about architecture of the Great Value movement. The New Contemporary Museum of Art in New York City by SANAA, and the Wyly Theatre in Dallas Texas by REX. The New Contemporary Museum of Art (see figure 2.2) is graphic in the same sense as the Great Value packaging for the 250 count toothpicks above. The museum features clean lines, simple orthogonal shapes, and functional surfaces. The building’s ornament is a resultant of its function: allowing diffused light into the gallery so that the works of art are not damaged. The building like the Great Value packaging does not compete with the product or the artwork, it functions for it. The building features the artwork of Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone who’s work proclaims “Hell, Yes!”. It is clear that the artwork is the feature here, and the buildings function must not subside to its form or figure. The lobby is identified by planes of glass that identifies the entry and change of function at the ground floor. The building offers value in that every piece, every gesture serves a function.

The Wyly Theatre is similar in aesthetics to the New Contemporary Museum of Art. The key difference in the design of the structures is that the Wyly Theatre offers its users more value than the SANAA designed museum. The Wyly Theatre is a:

575-seat “multi-form” theater with the ability to transform between proscenium, thrust, arena, traverse, studio, and flat floor configurations with only a small crew in a few hours; and to open the performance space to its urban surroundings.

Like many of the structures completed by REX, the Wyly Theatre solves the problem of the theater typology with a solution that offers the greatest value! (see figure 2.3) Rather than designing multiple theaters, one for each type of performance, the architecture is capable of changing functions and responding to the needs of the individual performances. The design is orthogonal and is composed of clean lines like the New Contemporary Museum of Art. The design also makes use of innovative curtain wall technologies that responds to the functional needs of the space that it encloses, but the key difference is the embedded value that the architects have added to the design. The Wyly Theatre is a masterpiece that is instilled with the very spirit of the Great Value movement.

Figure 2.2: New Contemporary Museum of Art in New York City designed by SANAA. The form and use of materials offers the client and city an architecture of Great Value, the artwork is featured on the exterior serving as a signifier to the building’s function.

Figure 2.3: Wyly Theatre in Dallas Texas designed by REX. The diagram overlayed on the above photo explains that to offer the greatest value, the structure is capable of meeting the needs of four different theaters through the careful design of a singular theater. The Wyly Theatre offers the city the greatest value.

A Current State of Transition:

Architecture tends to respond to conditions slightly slower than other creative fields such as art, fashion design, graphic design, and industrial design due to the nature of the architecture. It simply takes time to produce architecture. At a time when many people are struggling just to put food on the table, the construction of buildings in the style of ya-ya is of very poor taste and is culturally unacceptable during this period of change. Whenever a change in style occurs there is state of transition and overlap. The transition from an architecture of ya-ya to one that offers architecture at a Great Value is the now. It is difficult fully understand this state of transition and it is even more difficult to project the future of the profession, but one thing is clear, people will continue to want architecture at a Great Value.

Related Photos

History: Do, or Do Not

The original de Young Museum opened in 1895 as a result of the construction that took place in preparation for the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, now called Golden Gate Park (see photo gallery below for photo of the original de Young Museum). The original de Young Museum aged poorly and over the years the structure slowly fell apart. Finally in 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake severely damaged the building, and plans were made to construct a replacement structure. In 1999 a competition was held for the design of the replacement museum, among the finalist teams were architects Tadao Ando, Cesar Pelli, Antoine Predock, Rafael Viñoly, and Herzog & de Meuron whom were selected as the winners of the competition. From the very beginning the design for the new museum was the subject of controversy and criticism. Its appearance was accused by its critics as being a “huge shed,” an “Internet start-up company,” an “aircraft carrier,” a “Howard Johnson’s of the future,” “atrocious” and “ugly,” but it would not be until construction for the Herzog & de Meuron designed de Young Museum was completed on October 15th 2005 that its critics would be silenced.

The de Young Museum and Golden Gate Park have a unique history, but unlike Renzo Piano’s design for the California Academy of Sciences building, which is sited across from the de Young Museum on the other side of the park, the Swiss architects decided to take a fresh new approach and relieved their selves of such historic constraints. The only similarities between the previous museum and the new one is that they share the same site. It is important to note this, because by ignoring the past and starting fresh, the new design for the de Young Museum becomes timeless. Timeless in that its presence suggest that it has always been and will always be. Entablatures, colonnades and pitched roofs have been omitted, suggesting that the structure is without influence from history and may in fact be a relic from prehistory. Herzog & de Meuron chose to ignore the history of the site in search of something greater, and they found it.

The de Young Museum is not as polished as a Zaha Hadid or Frank Gehry design, it is also not as flamboyant. The museum is a ruin by design, and is intentionally clumsy and graceful at the same time. The de Young Museum is a deceptively complex building. Deceptive, because at first glance the structure appears as a simple monolithic form. Like the stepped pyramids of Central America and the pagan temples of antiquity the de Young Museum consists of variable readings: From afar the form is simple, monumental and timeless, but as one approaches the structure the building’s ornamentation begins to reveal itself as the delicate details become apparent only when close to the structure. The structure is beautifully detailed and few exterior conditions are left unresolved. The de Young Museum is devoid of any kind of historic or contemporary style, and until one enters the interiors, it seems that Herzog & de Meuron have come very close to creating a building with the same kind of timelessness as a Louis I. Kahn building or a rare modern masterpiece.

Image 1: The simple forms rest upon the ground as if an extension of the landscape, suggesting that the de Young Museum has always been.

Photo Tour: Take a tour of the de Young Museum by viewing the photo gallery below:

Materiality, Texture and Pattern:

The copper rainscreen that sheaths the building is the result of an experimentation in using the technology of our time, to create an effect that is reminiscent of the craftsmanship and sensitivity to detail from the past. The mantra of Herzog & de Meuron is to focus on using common materials in an uncommon way. There is no finer example of this than the de Young Museum. Regardless of whether you ‘like’ the design or not, there are few structures in the world that come close to such an orchestration of a singular material in the design of a building’s skin. The skin of the building is impressive because of the technique used by Herzog & de Meuron and their ability to come up with a unique language for a singular material, which is not only beautiful, but resolves nearly all of the museum’s needs.

It is impossible to discuss the texture of the facades of the de Young Museum without talking about pattern, the two are beautifully merged together creating a surface that appears to be disintegrating right before our very eyes. Although the structure appears to be disintegrating, the concept behind the design of the exterior was to create a skin with many layers that would manipulate light similar to natural occurrences in nature. The idea for the texture and patterning of the copper skin came from Jacques Herzog on a site visit he took pictures in Golden Gate Park of the effect of sunlight filtering through the leafy trees of the park. This effect is successfully realized in the built structure, and is evident when viewing the building from virtually any vantage point.

The construction of the building is nothing short of a construction marvel. A computerized engineering system enabled the 7,602 panels that make up the skin to be individually cut, punched and embossed. A total of 950,000 pounds of copper was used, making it the largest copper-clad building in the world, which presents many environmental problems left unaddressed by the designers, which is discussed below. Another problem with the design of the copper structure is that the canopy that was meant to cover the outdoor cafe, leaks copper dust and tainted copper runoff onto patron’s food and cafe furniture. A permanent temporary structure has been placed under the canopy, and serves as a blemish on the structure’s exterior, see photo gallery.

Diagramming de Young:

Although the structure appears simplistic, one begins to understand that the simple moves that are executed in the design are embedded with information that may not be apparent at first glance. The structure can be reduced to two primary elements, vertical and horizontal. The horizontal responds to the order of the park and the gridded system that remains dominant from 1894, which is represented in Diagram 1 by cooler colors. The vertical rises out of the order of the past, but responds to the larger order of the city grid, represented by warmer colors, because the 144 ft tower connects the museum to the larger context of the city. The simple architectural tactic of twisting the tower to align the two orders is an example of the amount of skill used by Herzog & de Meuron in the building’s finite ornamentation. The twist aligns the tower’s upper floors with the San Francisco street grid, visually locking the design into the distant skyline. The courtyards serve both to bring the park into the museum and to assist with wayfinding.

Diagram 1: The order of the plan for the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 and the order of the city are resolved by the simple twisting of the tower, which ornaments this connection. There is something poetic about the major move of the structure connecting the park to the city. The red lines correspond to the overall city grid of San Francisco, and the blue lines respond to the regulating lines of the park. From afar the tower appears to be conforming to the city, and when viewing  the museum  up close it appears to conform to the park, yet when park patrons look at the tower the influence of the city is present whether they know it or not.

Diagram 2: There are three primary circulation routes that connect one side of the park to the other. All of these paths terminate into the de Young Museum, but what is interesting is that the de Young Museum aligns with the outer edge of the eastern axis, while the terminating paths appear at first glance to be random. The positioning of the museum becomes clearer in Diagram 4.

Diagram 3: The fissures that are highlighted in red, are used to denote entry points into the museum. The fissures breakup the southwestern and northeastern facades into a tripartite arrangement, and where the masses are separated nature is allowed to flow into the building, and at other times create large than life terrarreums. The museum reads as if a solid mass that is being eroded away, and at others it reads as if three solid masses that flow in and out of eachother. Regardless of the reading, the ordering lines that shape the mass do not flow into the site, and in plan the structure appears rigid and confined. If the building were allowed to flow into the site, the same way nature is permitted to flow into the structure, the building would appear more harmonious with the site.

Diagram 4: The ordering system that controls the location of the building is highly sophisticated. The order of the city at the macro level is the key controlling factor in the twisted position of the observation tower, as depicted in Diagram 1. The tower itself is controlled by multiple complex relationships on the site, which are not apparent at first glance, see Diagram 2. Rather than forcing the building to accept the order of the existing plaza, Herzog & de Meuron manipulate the the existing order with a very creative solution. The three primary routes of circulation that connect one side of the park to the other, are denied, the designer of the park places an emphasis on the perpendicular axis with the placement of three circular courts. Herzog & de Meuron use the circular courts as points of reference. The centroid of the tower is triangulated by transposing a line parallel to the city grid and one parallel to the park grid on the two subordinate circular courts. The intersection of these two transposed lines is the centroid of the tower, again the tower connects the city to the park. The regulating line parallel to the city grid, becomes the main axis of the museum. The procession along this axis takes a visitor into the interior yet exterior entry court, then through the main entry doors, where patrons are greated by the ticketing counter, and are then given the option to buy a ticket and view the musuem or bipass the ticketing counter and head directly to the heart of the tower.

There is yet another regulating line that controls the placement of the structure, and that is the transposed line that is projected outward from the central circular court. When traveling along this route toward the de Young Museum there is a point at which the regulating lines intersect, which happens to be where the entry pad is located and along the sidewalk that flanks the street.

Diagram 5: The copper roof is highly visible from the de Young Museum’s observation tower. Herzog & de Meuron wisely chose to design the roof in a way that is consistant with the rest of the museum. The seams of the copper roof create an interesting pattern, which evokes images of a terrain or a topographic survey,the lines suggest that the building emerged from the site. Unfortunately these roof contours do not engage the site, and end at the limits of the building. A series of horizontal lines continue in the front yard of the museum, but these lines do not engage the structure and are not as active as the lines that pattern the roof.

Diagram 6:The fissures that divide up the mass create courtyards, over-sized terrariums and also mark the entry points into the structure, but where these fissures end and the masses rejoin, Herzog & de Meuron have chosen to detail the same condition differently in each case.

This clever manipulation of reference points and regulating lines continues throughout the structure, and if permitted more time I would love to analyze the structure further producing even more diagrams, but I am afraid I that must come at a later date or I’ll never finish this article. Although the design is beautiful, that is only the first part of the article. The rest of the article deals with the sustainable issues associated with using copper in architectural design, specifically at the de Young Museum, where the quantity of copper used is unprecedented.

The Copper Killer:

If Renzo Piano’s Academy of Sciences building is one of the most sustainable structures in San Francisco, then the de Young Museum by Herzog & de Meuron is one of the most anti-sustainable buildings in San Francisco. Ironically the two structures sit directly across from each other. What makes a building anti-sustainable? Anti-sustainable buildings are structures which are poisoning the environment, not in the same way that many treehuggers argue that all modern buildings do, but anti-sustainable structures are super polluters that are far more dangerous than their sustainable counterparts are good.

The most beautiful feature of the de Young Museum is its copper skin, is also its most deadly. Copper runoff is a significant problem in cities like Palo Alto and San Francisco. Palo Alto has completed a significant amount of research on the topic of copper runoff, and this research will be used as a basis for determining the amount of copper runoff created by the de Young Museum. Since Palo Alto is only 30 miles away from San Francisco, it should be sufficient in illustrating the magnitude of the problem caused by Herzog & de Meuron’s design for the de Young Museum.

Copper runoff is such a severe problem in Palo Alto that an in January of 2003, Palo Alto issued an Ordinance that Prohibits Copper Roofing Materials. Below are two of the most interesting facts found in the document:

The amount of copper released per year from copper roofs in the RWQCP (Regional Water Quality Control Plant) service area is estimated to be greater than the annual industrial copper discharges to the RWQCP.

An incremental increase of 1000 square feet of copper roofing can lead to, by itself, a copper concentration in a creek during an average rainfall that equals the chronic toxicity criteria established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The above ordinance references a document entitled Architectural Uses of Copper: An Evaluation of Storm Water Pollution Loads and BMPs. This document discusses the results of a study that examines the impact of copper on stormwater pollution. The study was completed by the City of Palo Alto’s Regional Water Quality Control Plant. In this study it is found that approximately .1 grams of copper is released per year, per square foot of copper roofing in the Palo Alto area, which I reverse engineered from the examples in Exhibit 13 of the Architectural Uses of Copper document. Exhibit 14 of the Architectural Uses of Copper document also estimates that approximately 298 lbs of copper are released from roofs, gutters, and downspouts in the Palo Alto RWQCP service area each year.

.1 grams of copper runoff per year, per square foot of copper does not sound like a large amount of copper, but wait until you see how much copper Herzog & de Meuron actually used. Copper is used everywhere by Herzog & de Meuron, covering a roof area of around 139,930 sf, this number is significantly less than the façade which is composed of approximately 193,750 sf of copper. That is a total of 333,680 sf of copper! Why is this number so important? Copper runoff is a function of rainfall and surface area of copper. Using the data from Exhibit 13 this equates to 33, 368 grams of copper runoff per year or 73.5 lbs of copper runoff per year! The de Young Museum accounts for 25% of the copper pollution of all of Palo Alto, which is a truly frightening statistic. The above numbers for roof and façade copper coverage were taken from the de Young Museum project profile on the TECU website. Currently there is no system in place to remove copper from the runoff before it is discharged into the environment.

Copper and the Environment:

Water runoff from copper surfaces should not be a deterrent from using copper in your designs, and there are a number of strategies outlined in the document entitled Architectural Uses of Copper, but what remains unknown is the ability of vegetation to permanently capture copper from runoff over time. It is well documented that other harmful metals like lead remain in the soils that absorbs its runoff for many years. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) warns that structures with exterior surfaces that were sealed with lead paint have contaminated the adjacent soils and that the only way to correct the problem is through remediation. The same is also true of soils that contain high concentrations of copper. Ingesting large quantities of copper can have serious health problems. One of the best websites that I have found on the internet that outlines the effects and issues associated with copper toxicity in drinking water is found in an outline for a course at Guilford College. Another valuable document distributed by the EPA is the Lead and Copper Rule: A Quick Reference Guide, which outlines health complications caused by copper exposure and serves as a quick reference for exposure levels that can be harmful.

Location & Contact Information:

If you ever find yourself in the San Francisco area, this is a must see structure. Don’t forget to check the website for Free Museum Days.

Golden Gate Park
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive
San Francisco, CA 94118
Telephone: (415) 750-3600

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The structure was completed in 2001, and is known by few. Unfamiliarity is a common theme of most of Tschumi’s work, but this will undoubtedly change after the publicity he has received for his recently completed New Acropolis Museum in Athens. Tschumi’s design for the Miami School of Architecture is actually a campus of five separate buildings which are connected by a series of exterior walkways. The most impressive constraint regarding the design and construction of this building is the fact that Tschumi managed to create a unique architectural image, while working within a budget of $130 a square foot. This alone makes the structure impressive and should serve as encouragement for the vast majority of us that are faced with creating innovative architectural solutions for projects with limited budgets. The Miami School of Architecture is proof that quality architecture doesn’t have to break the bank.

I have been working on this article for a long time, and have repeatedly delayed its release, because I thought it was necessary to understand Tschumi’s theory on architecture, before critiquing it. After reading Architecture and Disjunction, one of Tschumi’s many manifestos, I realized that Tschumi’s process and theory, although interesting, is his, and that it is more important to critically analyze the project according to the project’s architectural tactics and not the creator’s theoretical musings. I think it is important for young architects to take their own theories of form and space and apply these principles in the form of a critique, a critique that focuses on all works that define the built environment, significant and not. The mere process of writing down your thoughts and analyzing a built structure does two things: First it forces you to put what you see into words. The process of writing down your thoughts in the form of a critical argument is an important skill, because all designers at one time or another will be forced to explain their project verbally to clients, peers, friends and family. Secondly, practice makes perfect. I hate cliches but it is true, the more times you practice critiquing projects, the more refined your architectural theory and process becomes. The more you talk and write about architecture, the better you become at verbally communicating your design intent and observations. In the Beaux Arts system of training, it was required for students to study a single building for a year or longer. This research forced students to develop strong theories and techniques related to formal generation, composition and ornamentation. Architecture in the United States has suffered from a lack of critical thought. American architects tend to over complicate architecture, as if it is like catching lighting in a bottle, or we are some mystics that channel creative energy through our hand via the great creator. Even worse is that many take an architectural critique as a personal attack. Preference for architectural style may be in the eye of the beholder, but all architecture can simply be defined in terms of formal tactics. These tactics are the same regardless of the inspiration or theme. I hate projects that have themes. I hate project presentations that begin with an architect talking about a bird in flight and how their design represents that. Architectural theming is a crutch, and should be avoided by anyone looking to become a serious architect. Process and technique should be the focus of your studies, not theming. Theming in architecture is the equivalent of a one-liner in stand-up comedy, after awhile its just not funny. Steve Urkel, meet Santiago Calatrava, I rest my case.

Tschumi in his explanation begins to talk about generators that shape the site. This becomes a little to cute for me, but it is important to note that there are three generators on the site: red, yellow and green. The green generator seems as if an afterthought and not as developed as the other two, but the red and yellow generators are the driving forces behind this project. These generators become the image of the school, and regardless of how Tschumi created the design, the outcome is impressive.

Let’s take a quick photo break before I begin my critique.

Composition and Formal Relief

Given the project’s limited construction budget, Tschumi had two choices: create a mediocre building or create a composition that takes advantage of such a constraint. Tschumi viewed a negative, like a crappy budget, as a constraint that drives the creation of the form, rather than limit it. FIU’s School of Architecture wanted a signature project but they lacked the funds to create 102,000 square feet of architectural gold. Tschumi’s solution was to create an exaggerated formal figure through fabricating an exaggerated context which creates a high degree of contrast with the adjacent structures. There are five buildings that are part of the complex. Three of the structures are simplified tilt wall concrete structures. The tilt wall structures creates  a rigid datum that begins to form a background for the brightly colored red and yellow generators. The tilt wall structures is a blank canvas for the reflected light from the tiled red and yellow generators, the light that paints the background structures is beautiful and changes throughout the day. This effect may have been an unintentional result of the material selection but is great nonetheless, and this play of light should be examined and thought about by designers that wish to create spaces that have a quality of spirit that is not easily distilled to shape, size, location, orientation or treatment.

Color, Light & Miami

The structure is undeniably Miami. The warm colored tiles exemplify the flair and color of the varying styles of architecture made popular in Miami and South Beach. The yellow, orange and red tiles are the best part of the design. Tschumi and his design team selected colors which were appropriate to the context of the project.  His team avoided the trap that many designers fall into of selecting popular or fashionable colors, which tend to date a project to a particular era of design. In doing so Tschumi avoided a lime green kitchen in favor of something timeless and appropriate to the project.

It wasn’t the colors alone that were just right, but the materials selected for the project embellishes the bright colors as they almost seem to glow like pixels on a monitor. The smooth tile contrasts with the surrounding rough concrete, and further emphasizes the notion of contrast that Tschumi is beating over our heads. The yellow and red tiled generators contrast beautifully with the green vegetation and the blue Florida sky, creating dynamic vignettes of color and composition. The embrasures of the red generator’s roof line draws the sky into the composition as if creating a joint between the building and the sky, a connection that allows it to hold on tightly. This formal gestures pulls the blue into the red generator and creates an experience of intense saturation of red tile and blue sky that one is not accustomed to seeing when gazing up at the clouds.

Deconstructing Form & Contested Symmetries

The plan for Tschumi’s Miami School of Architecture is a play of symmetrical relationships, which are used to create a dynamic asymmetrical composition. Tschumi’s end design results in a building that is open to a textual reading. The final design cannot be deduced to a single reading that can determine its origin, but the final form can never be deduced to a single condition and is open to multiple readings. The textual nature of this project is what makes the building’s composition dynamic. Below is a series of diagrams that examine the contested symmetries used by Tschumi, which order the campus. I do not have access to sections or elevations for the building, but can only assume that the below analysis would maintain similar results in the building’s section and elevation.

Diagram 1: The above diagram denotes the existing regulating lines of the site, the dashed lines are further emphasized by the addition of the structure designed by Tschumi. The walkways that lead to the courtyard are slightly canted. This emphasizes the formal entry of the automobile on the western facade, while the diminishing walkway on the eastern part of the building is scaled more appropriately to the pedestrian.

Diagram 2: The initial composition is symmetrical about the major walkway in the center of the initial composition. Regulating lines begin to form from this central axis. The moves that follow this base transformation seek to maintain a sense of symmetrical balance while working within an asymmetrical composition.

Diagram 3: This is the first move that begins to suggest rotation within the composition. One could argue that rotation as a formal technique occurs in diagram 2 as well. The regulating lines that frame the shape of the red and yellow generators could have begun initially as lines that were parallel to the background structures which are highlighted in red. These parallel lines would then have been rotated along the central axis to create the diagonal.

Diagram 4: In an attempt to find balance, rather than symmetry, several narratives could begin to emerge from the above transformation. The mass of the northern background building could have been displaced, creating a fatter northern building, while still maintaining the same amount of mass. The displacement of mass is denoted by the letter A above.

Diagram 4.1: It is important to note that the corridors for the northern building are exterior, while the corridors for the southern building are interior. The building could also be read as a separation of mass, rather than a reconfiguration, see diagram 4.1 above. Focusing on interior space results in massings that are more rectilinear and similar in size to the southern building. The severing of the mass creates formal balance.

Diagram 5: The above diagram suggest that the primary axis of symmetry is part of sub symmetries that begin to regulate the composition. These symmetries duel for attention, and the lack of a clear hierarchy creates the illusion of disorder. Tschumi’s skillful understanding of symmetry is used to create what at first glance appears to be a highly disordered campus of buildings, but upon further investigation the plan is actually highly ordered through a hierarchy of contested symmetries which is not easily recognizable. The notion of contested symmetries is an idea originally brought forth by Preston Scott Cohen, and is being used here by Tschumi to control the dynamic composition of the Miami School of Architecture.

Diagram 6: An east-west axis of symmetry begins to emerge upon further investigation. This axis is important in determining front and rear, public and private entry points.

Diagram 7: There are many sub axis of symmetry that exist in the project. These symmetries shape the building and its alignments. One can only assume that a similar technique is applied by Tschumi to the building’s section and elevation.

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Herzog & de Meuron Architekten:

Unless you have been living in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan for the past ten years, it is likely that you are familiar with the architecture of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. Herzog & de Meuron are the design principals and creative forces behind the architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron Architekten. The architecture of Herzog and de Meuron has drastically evolved since the completion of the Tate Modern renovation in 2000, which proved to be a defining work in their careers and lead to the duo’s international fame. Herzog & de Meuron’s work has evolved in parallel with their fame. Their sensitivity to architectural context has evolved to respond not just to the built environment of a building’s site, but to social, cultural and experiential contexts as well. Their architectural forms are the result of process and function, and not influenced by style or a heavy handed design signature.

In the beginning their architecture possessed a high degree of sensitivity to context, and their design intervention was barely perceptible from project to project. The new merged with the old seamlessly.  Current Herzog & de Meuron projects respond to their context in a different manner. The design for 1111 Lincoln Road clearly delineates old from new, however the project favors other contextual relationships instead. 1111 Lincoln Road can only exist in South Beach, although its form is foreign in appearance, it is derived from social, cultural and functional contexts, not architectural.

The evolution of Herzog & de Meuron’s work is what makes following their career exciting. It is rare for an architect to discover a process that leads to fame and success, but it is even rarer for a firm to reinvent their approach after finding fame, and the public loving them more for it.

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Tate Modern:

Prior to the completion of the Tate Modern by Herzog & de Meuron in 2000, a competition was held in order to find a solution for renovating the old power station. Herzog & de Meuron’s proposal was selected for its sensitivity and preservation of the existing structure. The details and forms generated all seem to respond to the existing spaces, and make the building and experience better with their addition. Now I am not going to delve deep into an analysis of the Tate Modern, but only want to note that the project represents an example of a similar project to 1111 Lincoln Road, but was completed earlier in Herzog & de Meuron’s career. Like the Tate Modern, 1111 Lincoln Road is an addition/adaptive reuse project, the context is historic, and the site is highly public, yet the architects provide a solution for 1111 Lincoln Road and Tate Modern using two completely different approaches.

Context: Do, or do not. There is no blending.

I have always been a firm believer that if you are designing a new building on a campus or in a historic district that there are only two ways of approaching such a problem. You either need to design a building in the historic style of the context, or you need to design a structure that clearly indicates that it is of a different style or time period. I hate blending, and I hate architects that cannot commit. It seems that many architects try to blend existing styles with new styles when adding onto existing structures, and never commit to taking a do or do not approach. Without a do or do not approach, the new and old architectures are compromised, and the final product becomes a muddled mess. An anti-blending approach does not mean that the new structure should not complement the existing. This also does not mean that the new structure should not respond to existing orders or structures, on or adjacent to the site. Whig Hall by Charles Gwathmey is a excellent example of an addition to an existing historic structure, some might call this blending, but I strongly disagree. When analyzing the form of Whig Hall, it becomes quite clear which parts of the structure are new and pre-existing. The structure as it stands today is more exciting and actually better, because of Gwathmey’s design for the addition. Whig Hall is an example of an addition in a different style than the original structure. The new responds to the existing orders and constraints of the preexisting structure, and is again similar to the problem solved by Herzog & de Meuron in their design of the Tate Modern. (See the slide show above for reference photo of Whig Hall and Tate Modern).

Herzog & de Meuron are taking the do not approach to a completely different level in their design for 1111 Lincoln Road. Rather than create a design that denounces the existing historic context, yet still in response to the existing architectural orders, they completely denounce everything that has to do with the existing historic context and order. There can be no confusion between new and old when visiting 1111 Lincoln Road.

1111 Lincoln Road:

1111 Lincoln Road is part of an addition and upgrade to the existing SunTrust office building, which is a Brutalist concrete relic from Miami’s modern past. At first glance, 1111 Lincoln Road looks like a new museum or a swanky new condo building just beginning construction, but in reality the structure is nearly complete. The site sits along South Beach’s popular Lincoln Mall, which is a pedestrian friendly avenue for shopping, food, drink, entertainment, and now parking.

(text under revision)

office space

Herzog & de Meuron have managed to create an architectural form which is instilled with the spirit of Miami’s South Beach with their design for 1111 Lincoln Road. The automobile is an undeniable symbol of status and wealth in America. The display of status and wealth is the whole reason Miami and the Art Deco style exists. Miami in its boom could be equated to the Dubai of the 1920′s. What car do you drive? How much money do you make? What designer labels are on your clothes? This is the culture of Miami and these are the things that matter. The Art Deco style in Miami was the result of the wealthy searching for a means to displaying their wealth in the homes that they lived in. Herzog & de Meuron understand this, and create both a monument to the automobile and a billboard for wealth. The garage is a stage for the celebutantes of South Beach to display their wealth and gain the attention of tourist that visit the mall. The structure is undeniably South Beach.

Outside of their response to context, Herzog & de Meuron did do a few things that went against standard norms for parking structures. An interesting detail is the treatment of the striping in the garage. It appears in the renderings that the concrete will be painted white, while the striping is black. Another interesting formal gesture is the vertical rhythm of the parking garage. Typically, parking garages are repetitive vertically, featuring a consistent vertical ten foot rhythm. Herzog & de Meuron were granted the luxury of exploiting the verticality of the parking structure and create a garage unlike any other.

If I had to sum up the design of the structure with two words it would be contrast and juxtaposition. The structure contrasts with nearly every element on the site, and the angular forms and geometries serve as a nice juxtaposition against the curves of the automobiles and the Art Deco buildings. 1111 Lincoln Road is an example of a mundane building typology, reexamined with a fresh set of eyes. For more information about this project, check out the 1111 Lincoln Road Blog.

On a side note I read a review on Eikonographia, and the author questioned why Herzog & de Meuron did not place the garage below ground.  I found the comment to be funny because unlike other cities found around the world, Miami is built on a swamp, which means that the water table is very high and that you will find few basements or underground parking structures in Miami or Florida for that matter.

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Gehry and the Scale of Pliable Surfaces:

I want you to build something in your mind. Begin to build a mental image of a Frank Gehry interior space. Can you do it? Now, build a mental image of a Frank Gehry building, exciting, huh? I always like to resort to search engines for research, specifically Google, because Google tracks something that books cannot, popularity. Google places importance on popularity when returning search results, now there are other variables that come into play, but popularity is the key difference in search rankings between this site and Dezeen.When googling images with the search term Frank Gehry one has to flip through many virtual pages before finding an image of an interior space. Nearly all of the images are pictures of exciting exterior compositions, most have Frank in them, and less then one percent are of Frank Gehry designed interiors. When googling images with the search term Frank Gehry Interior half of the images are exterior spaces portrayed as interior spaces, and the rest are exterior images of Gehry designed buildings or Gehry-esque buildings.

You now should ask yourself two questions: Why is this important? And why is this important to the New World Symphony? The renderings and floor plans suggest that Gehry is turning his attention to form and detailing inward. Although the Serpentine Gallery marks the first instance where Gehry’s free formed surfaces are defining space, rather than creating an object, the New World Symphony design takes this concept further. In the Serpentine Gallery the structural system is exposed on the exterior for what it is, and it is not hidden by drywall or other materials. Prior to the Serpentine Gallery, Gehry’s interior spaces were the resultant, not necessarily a force shaping the surfaces. The key difference between the Serpentine Gallery and the New World Symphony is scale, and that the Serpentine Gallery is an open air pavilion, while the New World Symphony must accommodate a highly complex program. The New World Symphony is a 100,000 sf state of the art facility, it’s complexity and scale will make it one of Gehry’s defining works.

Typically the excitement of Gehry’s active compositions seem to slow down on the interiors as if experiencing the building in slow motion. The reason that Gehry’s surfaces lose energy and slow down in his interior spaces is that Gehry has a difficult time translating his work at varying scales, and is perhaps his greatest weakness. Gehry needs a lot of space to work his magic, and in this project Gehry creates a box to work within, inside this box are large interior spaces that are shaped by his pliable surfaces. The interior spaces in this project are intricate, not because they are detailed and small, but because of the way that the smaller interior spaces relate and flow into larger interior spaces. The interior spaces relate in scale to one another and form an assemblage that is dynamic and memorable. It appears in the physical model that Gehry has finally bridged this gap in scale, but what remains unclear is if Gehry is able to to achieve this effect in the built structure, and thus conquering the differential in scale between the person and the larger spaces in the New World Symphony.

Formal Sophistication:

In order for this building to be given the same degree of importance as the Gugenheim Museum Bilbao, Gehry must do something that he has not been able to do thus far, and that is create a formally sophisticated composition without strictly relying on free formed curves. At this point, all I can say is that the juxtaposition of the orthogonal verse the free form is a strong start, and we will have to wait for the final verdict when the building is completed.

Containing the Beast:

The partí is simple, the creative energy and the music inside cannot be contained by the rigid order that supports and frames it. Gehry wisely chooses to be gehry in select places and not everywhere.

gehry [gair-ee, gar-ee]

- verb  – to place free formed surfaces in a whimsical and playful manner similar to that of Frank Gehry.

-noun -  whimsical or playful surfaces in the style of Frank Gehry. Yah-yah.

In time, history may refer to things being gehry in the same manner that Gaudí inspired things to be gaudy. Gehry spills out at the main entry in the form of a canopy, at the top of the building, and in a few other skillfully selected areas. The careful placement of gehry in the overall composition suggest something, but is unclear in the Florida sunlight. At night the composition changes and the curves contained by the glass curtain wall are on display for everyone to see, and the surfaces appear to spill out of the rigid structure. What was not clear in the sunlight is now crystal clear. Behind the glass is entertainment, music, energy, gehry. The surfaces are metaphorically music, and represent the energy that sound of music and its ability to leak through any structure, no matter how rigid.

A More Mature Frank:

It appears that at the ripe old age of eighty that Frank has finally matured, and unless he does something shocking or daring in his old age, he has entered the final and most memorable stage of his architectural career. Frank’s architecture is now about developing interior spaces that relate in scale to its users. His interior spaces in the New World Symphony are now as memorable as the exterior compositions that have made him famous. The New World Symphony is lastly about showmanship, it is not the flashy Frank that we are used to, but a more mature Frank that understands that sometimes the anticipation of something is greater than the actual thing. The construction is set to complete sometime in 2010, at which time I plan on seeing a show, and hope that America’s favorite Canadian architect is able to surprise us one more time.

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Photo Gallery:

The sales center was an architectural tease and I guess now I will be forced to drive up to Atlanta to visit the High Museum if I want to see a Richard Meier designed building.The sales center pictured in the above photo album was formulaic Meier at best, and offered little innovation.  The sales center was certainly better than nearly every other building on the strip, but lacked the spirit that Meier is capable of instilling in his buildings. In case you were wondering, yes that is a sign that says ‘Designed by Richard Meier’. How can I convince my clients to allow me to put up a huge sign that says ‘Designed by James Cornetet’?

Meier’s website describes the project as having a ‘sleek porte-cochère’ and having an estimated completion date of 2011. I really wanted to see the sleek porte-cochère, but will have to rely on the renderings by dbox to satisfy my imagination. Another interesting link is a link to the realtor’s website. It is amazing the amount of money that the developer’s spent on the design of the building, and how little was spent on marketing. Perhaps that was one of the downfall’s of this project. My commentary is not necessary for this website to be funny, just visit it, trust me.

I was disappointed at the fact that the site for the Richard Meier building lay empty with the exception of the foundation piles sticking up out of the ground. I stared at the vacant site and laughed. I laughed because South Beach contains what I consider to be an endless sea of lackluster, developer driven Miami Modern styled condos, and amongst these buildings is a site that has a perfectly beautiful building designed for it, by a famous and talented architect, yet the developers cannot manage to get the project built after nearly eight years. Unfortunately this is the fate of many great building designs. Even more unfortunate is the fact that more great designs go unbuilt than built in our profession. Early in my career I used to think that the hardest part about creating great architecture is coming up with a great design. I soon learned that the hardest part about architecture is actually getting the design built. Politics, shady developers, power hungry design review boards, and economics are all enemies of any great design. The designer at some point is transformed from creator to defender, defender of the integrity of the design and its spirit.

Richard Meier’s Beach House is a victim of both the current economic times and the lack of value that society places on architecture. In South Beach there is a line of people whom are willing to pay fifty dollars to take a tour of the Versace Mansion, but only three tourist and myself showed up for a free tour of Cesar Pelli’s Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, Florida, which is a must see building in Miami. The tour was fabulous and lasted nearly two hours. I will feature the Adrienne Arsht Center in an article shortly, complete with analysis, but until then what can we learn from this experience? The people of the United States value notoriety over integrity, style over substance and care little for how the built environment affects their lives. The problem with architecture and its value in the United States is a fundamental problem with American culture. Americans want fast food, they want fast food culture (pop culture) and I believe that they want fast food architecture.

To explain what I mean by fast food, let’s look at the meaning of fast food. Fast food describes food which is cheap, requires little effort to consume, and requires little to no nutritional value. Fast food comes in a wrapper which is disposable and adds to the landfills, it supplies the economy with low paying jobs and its stores are mass produced according to a design formula regardless of context, culture or the vernacular architecture of the region. Fast food architecture is very similar in definition. The American people want buildings that are disposable, cheap, in the style that is popular and do little to allow them to be. Americans are not aware that their environment can be nutritional for their spirit.

For the last 26 months I lived in fast food architecture. Two weeks ago I moved into a well designed highrise building in the city. Now this is not the greatest residential tower ever designed, but it is the result of a development that placed an emphasis on design. My spirit has changed for the better since living in architecture. I did not realize until this move, how bad fast food architecture is for your soul. Architecture is good for the spirit, it has nutritional value, gives back to society and culture, it is eternal, and hopefully one day Americans will understand what the rest of the world has known for quite some time. Architecture is good for the body, mind and spirit.

Rest in peace Richard Meier’s Beach House. Rest in peace knowing that you are not fast food architecture.

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