Life Without Buildings

Subverting the Spectacle of Modern Times: Charlie Chaplin and the Situationists

2009-09-21T04:28:32Z

[Still from Modern Times]

“The construction of situations begins beyond the ruins of the modern spectacle. It is easy to see how much the very principle of the spectacle – nonintervention – is linked to the alienation of the old world. Conversely, the most pertinent revolutionary experiments in culture have sought to break the spectators’ psychological identification with the hero so as to draw them into activity. . . . The situation is thus designed to be lived by its constructors…

-Guy Debord, from “Preliminary Problems in Constructing a Situation.”

The scene is a familiar one to fans of Chaplin: the normally playful Tramp, introduced to us as an anonymous worker, laboring away at an assembly line, anonymously tightening bolts in an anonymous factory. Over. and over. and over again. By now, the argument is also familiar: technology that has the power to reduce costs and improve our lives can also alienate us from our humanity. The factory in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times is so dynamically streamlined that it becomes completely static in its repetition: Modernization dictating an efficiency of motion. Driven mad by the dehumanizing task, the Tramp, in his insanity, becomes a creator, a magician of stasis, an alchemist transmuting the inert to give life where none existed before. He reprograms the space without lifting a pencil or building a wall.

[left: Hines' Powerhouse Mechanic. right: a still from Modern Times

Soon after his assembly line breakdown, we see The Tramp in the factory's generator room, gleefully pulling the mysterious and irresistible levers while the muscle-bound mechanic hopelessly attempts to keep up with Chaplin's energy and undo the damage caused by his subversive ballet. The engine room romp culminates in an elegant gesture that recalls - and undermines - the famous 1920 Lewis Hine photograph known as Powerhouse Mechanic. The photo is part of a series of worker portraits created for the Works Progress Administration. It's purpose - a type of propaganda really - was to glorify man as worker. To celebrate his strength and union with the machine. In Chaplin's reinterpretation, the muscular factory worker overpowering the machine has been replaced by the frail Tramp, who easily defeats the machine with his almost feminine dance.

[Still from Modern Times]

In a conversation included in the Modern Times DVD, Belgian filmmakers Luc & Jean-Pierre comment on this dance and Chaplin’s transformative qualities. “The way he goes crazy – the entire mechanized world turns into a ballet. And the human body takes over the factory and transforms it into something else. It becomes a circus. The movements aren’t mechanical anymore, the human body begins to exist in a way that’s no longer machine-like. And when the guys are chasing him, to get him to stop his ballet, he exploits the machine.” The Tramp has broken away to regain his individuality and in so doing transforms the factory using its own machinery against it. “It becomes his ally,” says Dardenne, “it becomes his ally so he can continue his ballet.” It’s like, he says, Chaplin “walks into Metropolis and everything collapses.”

[still from Fritz Lang's Metropolis]

During his nervous breakdown, the Tramp’s wrenches – if man is a cog in the machine, surely these wrenches are its teeth – transform into donkey ears in a defiant gesture. Purpose and performance has been disrupted, program subverted. Taken over by animals, clowns, and dancers, the factory, as noted by the Dardennes, really does become a circus. Or to apply Debord’s ideas, Chaplin destroys the modern spectacle in constructing a reactionary situation. The Situationists ideas of intervention through derive and detournement were ambiguous at best, but Chaplin’s staged subversion of the factory seems to embody the very ideals of the Situationists (albeit within the limits of a fictional narrative).

[Still from Modern Times]

It’s surprising then, to learn that in 1952, the Lettrist International, led by none other than eventual Situationist chief provacateur Guy Debord, denounced Chaplin with a somewhat ill-informed pamphlet, “No More Flat Feet,” distributed at a Chaplin press conference 16 years after the debut of Modern Times. Charlie Chaplin, according to the Lettrists (at least some of them. The pamphlet may have caused a rift in the movement. Again, Chaplin as agent of transformation – social transformation), was no longer relevant – if he was ever relevant at all. Their main dispute seemed to be that he used his art to speak against suffering and the dehumanizing aspects of Modernity. Debord writes “You are ‘he who turns the other cheek and the other ass cheek,’ but we are young and good-looking, and when we hear suffering we reply Revolution.” The Lettrists would have to wait until 1968 to see that Revolution – and even then it will be short lived. The Situationists had to realize that “constructing a situation” would never truly lead to social revolution. Their movement was ephemeral, their ideas brutally disproved by police in riot gear. Chaplin’s comedy, however, is timeless, and his humor and sincerity continues to inspire not just laughter, but also subversive reactions to accepted social and economic standards.

[Still from Modern Times]

One would think that the Lettrists / Situationists could appreciate that. After all, it was they who scrawled “Ne travaillez jamais” (”never work”) on the walls of schools and factories in Paris. It was the Situationists who, in the Declaration of Amsterdam (1958), declared “The construction of a situation is the edification of a transient micro-ambiance and of the play of events for a unique moment in the lives of several persons.” In almost every situation in Modern Times – and most other Chaplin films – this is exactly the role played by The Tramp. He’s a man who, in the face of authority and modernity takes joy in briefly altering the lives of the people around him and the very space they occupy. A revolution of everyday life.

iPhone it in: A Venturi fire station in New Haven as seen out the window of a giant bus

2009-09-21T04:27:01Z

iPhone it in: The Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale

2009-09-21T04:27:20Z

Gordon Bunshaft for SOM, 1963

Life Without BLDG BLOG

2009-07-31T17:18:28Z

[BLDGBLOG book wordle via flickr]

An interview I did with former Dwell Editor and current BLDG BLOG author Geoff Manaugh went up this week at Dwell.com. We spoke about the new The BLDGBLOG Book, old media, new media, novels, inspirations, and and the future forms BLDGBLOG might take.

· Author Q&A: The BLDGBLOG Book [Dwell.com]

The Making of a Make it Right House

2009-07-30T19:04:46Z

[Shigeru Ban MIR house]

Can you guess who designed this rather clumsy looking Make it Right house? While it almost looks like some sort of elevated, mundane prefab structure, it is in fact designed by one of our most innovative contemporary architects. You’re looking at a Shigeru Ban design – and one of the problems with the well-meaning Make it Right program.

[image via Make it Right]

The design architects essentially relinquish control of their projects once the construction documents are handed over to Make it Right’s team of architects and builders. Ostensibly, this is to create a certain vague uniformity among the houses, keep costs down, and strengthen the vernacular elements, thereby creating a neighborhood from disparate global visions. The end result, however, is at best a diluted version of the design, and at worst, a poorly detailed, hastily constructed eyesore.

When comparing the above rendering to the built work, it’s pretty clear that something was lost in translation. The strong horizontals of Ban’s design have been lost to extraneous mouldings and a bad paint job – notice the white verticals at the corner. Its hard to say if this is an actual design change, or if the builders are trying to cover lousy detailing. A bit of both, I imagine. The MIR homes are required to be raised at least 5′ above the ground. Clearly, this particular Ban house has been raised higher – a feature that’s hard to argue against, especially when remembering that only 4 years ago these streets were patrolled by boats. Potential flooding and the requirement for an elevated interior space also explains the addition of the dormer. Small concessions, yes. But the end result has destroyed all ideas of craft and elegance. The minimal design has been transformed into a simple house.

[image via Make it Right]

Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo from the other side, but while the courtyard was built, I’m not sure that large, integrated tree will be included. There’s also a mandatory second exit from the courtyard that, to put simply, wasn’t designed at all. It’s just a staircase attached to the side of the building. The stair rails appears to be an off-the-rack standard that a few other of the houses seem to be using.

[image via Make it Right]

Suffice it to say, the interior will most definitely not look like this.

[Lower 9 repopulation map via GNOCDC. MIR area in blue. Click for larger image]

I don’t want to disparage the Make it Right program, just show a bit of the reality of what is actually getting built. No matter what problems people have with it, MIR is putting people into new homes. Something that still desperately needs to happen in this city. Almost four years after the storm, ten MIR homes are occupied and four more are ready for tenants. Their goal of building 150 affordable homes for the returning residents of New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward neighborhood has slightly changed, as “affordable” now means $150,000 – $180,000 (let’s not even get into the $250,000 playground) and the process is, by necessity, no longer limited to returning residents.

Many have opted not to return at all.

It’s a slow, at times painful, process, but it’s progress. And it was recently announced that duplex homes are on the way, designed by a mix of international and local architects that include Frank Gehry and a slightly less cynical design from MVRDV. It’s hard to imagine a dense lower 9th ward. The homes, at times separated by blocks, have a folly-in-the-park feel. Only time will tell if this will be a functioning neighborhood, a worthy pilgrimage site for architects from around the world, or an alltogether different type of folly.

Life Without Changes

2009-06-22T03:12:16Z

[The Yale School of Architecture. Paul Rudolph.]

Things have slowed down here on Life Without Buildings as I’ve been preparing for another major move. I’ve lived in San Francisco for three years now and it has been an absolutely incredible time. The city is impossibly beautiful and the people I’ve been lucky enough to meet are impossibly intelligent and insightful. A lot of opportunities have resulted from living here and I’m grateful to everyone I’ve met during the past three years. So thanks guys.

Next up for me and Life Without Buildings is a six week jaunt in New Orleans, my erstwhile home for seven years. Plans are pretty scarce at this point, but whatever happens, I’m sure there will be a lot of amazing and bizarre things to write about. And if you happen to be in New Orleans this summer, chances are you’ll be able to find me at The Saint. (961 St. Mary St. Bring your friends.) Of course, I’m telling myself there’s also a more academic reason for the trip as I’ll be documenting the city and researching post-Katrina recovery efforts for when my real work begins in September.

As alluded to by the above image, I’m starting at Yale University this fall. Specifically, in the Masters of Environmental Design program. I’m sure that as the date draws near more details on my thesis will emerge on this site as I figure out exactly what the hell I’m doing. Maybe Life Without Buildings will change. Maybe there’ll be a new blog. or some sort of Google Map mash-up. There’ll be something. I just don’t know what it is. But I’m sure as hell looking forward to finding out.

If you’re a new reader, a couple things. 1) hi. I’m Jimmy Stamp. Thanks for reading. 2) Why not take this time to get up to speed with a few of the most popular posts on Life Without Buildings: It’s been my pleasure this year to work with Bruce Tomb and Ant Farm on their Media Van, currently in France for the Nantes Biennale. Learn everything you never needed to know about the violent history and perversion of urbanism that is Gotham City. Still curious about superheroes? A real life Spiderman sheds a new perspective on the scale of skyscrapers. Not to be outdone, Rem Koolhaas has his own ironic spin on the building typology. Interested in science fiction? Discover the connection between Otto Wagner and Han Solo. And what happens to those giant starships when they’re retired? Like something from a Jules Verne novel, the grandson of a not-so-famed inventor built a subterranean telescope from London to New York.

And finally, as for the aforementioned friends in San Francisco, please continue reading for a list of their websites and blogs. The shear talent and creativity that I’ve encountered here is truly humbling.

Curbed San Francisco,

If you live in San Francisco, you need to be reading The SF Appeal

Dwell and Sarah Rich

A huge thanks to Sarah Hromack (.com)

Sally TV

Bruce Tomb

Buy something from KLM Prints

Hire/commission something from CMO Works

ArcCa Magazine and the California AIA

Look I Made That!

Premise Practice

Inventing Green

Mark Horton Architecture

too many @’s to mention.

On Influence: Batman, Gotham City, and an Overzealous Architecture Historian With a Working Knowledge of Explosives

2009-06-01T04:14:26Z

[Looking west from across the Gotham River, by Anton Furst]

New York, Dubai, Tokyo, Moscow, Gotham. Every city in every atlas—real and fictional— has a unique character shaped by history and geography. More than a mere sense of place derived from architecture and planning, cities have a feeling that pervades the consciousness of those who live there until they they themselves become a a piece of the urban fabric, a fractional embodiment of the city itself. Perhaps more than any other person—real or fictional—Batman is integrally linked to his city, the city he has sworn to protect. In every sense of the word, he is a true avatar of Gotham. And Gotham City itself is an avatar, not only of the dreams of its fictional architects, but of our collective urban paranoia.

One of my favorite plots in the Batman comics—for reasons that will be painfully obvious— was a storyline titled “Destroyer” published in 1992. Written by Alan Grant, the premise is sure to please any disgruntled architect or uncompromising disciple of Howard Roark: an overzealous architecture historian / Navy SEAL bombs abandoned and derelict “soulless concrete” buildings that obscure the Neo-gothic architecture of the city’s original designer, Cyrus Pinkney, on whom the Mad Bomber wrote his thesis. While carefully planting explosives, our antagonist’s inner monologue is rampant with polemics decrying the conformity induced by the contemporary architecture of Gotham. “Live in a box, shop in a box, die in a box. Robots, that’s what they want. Not people. Robots that consume. Straight lines – sharp angles – square boxes. No wonder the city’s gone mad.”

[Panel from LOTDK #27]

As the world’s greatest detective begins to uncover the motives for the seemingly random guerilla demolitions, he discovers another Gotham, “an older city, of improbable curves and angles – a city forgotten, that had been overshadowed and buried, suffocated by the towers of the 20th century.” Suddenly, in the type of realization that can only be expressed with thought bubbles, the Caped Crusader understands the bomber’s motive. “He’s doing it…for art!”

Although it works quite well as an independent story, “Destroyer” is perhaps most notable as lead-in to Tim Burton’s first Batman film. By aggressively redesigning the skyline of Gotham, the Mad Bomber was conveniently creating a cityscape more comparable to the Gotham envisioned by Tim Burton. Thus, when new readers, attracted by the movie, pick up a Batman comic book, the Gotham City they see on the pages resembles the Gotham of the movie. The story was really all about attracting new readers and selling more comics. And this wasn’t the last time Gotham was redesigned. Later, when the fictional city was destroyed in an earthquake, it was rebuilt as a modern glass-and-steel metropolis, paving the way for the Chicago-inspired Gotham of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, as noted by Charles Holland in his excellent article, and the inspiration for this piece, Dark Knight / White Heat: The Architecture of Gotham City.

[Covers to Batman #474, LOTDK #27, Detective Comics #641]

The cover of each issue in the “Destroyer” series features a traditionally drawn Batman swinging in front of a harsh, black & white charcoal drawings of Gotham City. Drawings that channel the spirit of famed architectural delineator Hugh Ferriss, filtered through the Carcerci etchings of Piranesi. Where Ferriss eschews detail for monumentality, the renderings of Gotham City by Academy Award-winning production designer Anton Furst, are bursting with a detail and chiaroscuro that put the “goth” in Gotham, creating an unmistakably Burtonesque world: shadowy Neogothic spires dripping with gargoyles and danger. Its populace on the brink of insanity.

Since its inception, Gotham City has been presented as the embodiment of the urban fears that helped give rise to the American suburbs, the safe havens from the city that they are. Gotham City has always been a dark place, full of steam and rats and crime. A city of graveyards and gargoyles; alleys and asylums. Gotham is a nightmare, a distorted metropolis that corrupts the souls of good men. In the excellent book, Woody Allen on Woody Allen, the famously nebbish auteur discusses his moody, Brechtian comedy Shadows and Fog, which takes place over the course of a single night in a vaguely European village. “Once you get out in the night, there is a sense that civilization is gone. All the stores are closed, everything is dark and it’s a different feeling. You start to realize that the city is just a superimposed man-made convention and that the real thing that you’re living on is a planet. It’s a wild thing in nature. All the civilization that protects you and enables you to lie to yourself about life is all man-made and superimposed.” In other words, civilization ends at night. And in Gotham City, it is always night. In Nolan’s newest Batman film, The Dark Knight (the dark night) the Joker exploits this weakness in man, the eternal fear-of-the-dark where all our self-imposed rules and behaviors are worth nothing; where man returns to a more primal nature. He wants to prove that our civility is a superficiality imposed by the constructs of society and the safety of our buildings.

[46th St. Promenade looking South to the Gardner Overpass, by Anton Furst]

In the “Destroyer” storyline we learn that the religious fanatic architect Cyrus Pinkney was hired by the equally moralist Judge Solomon Wayne, ancestor of Batman’s alter-ego, Bruce Wayne. For Solomon Wayne, a city should be a sanctuary, a fortress protecting culture and civility from the “godlessness of the wilds.” For Pinkney, Gotham needed structures to defend itself from the evil spirits responsible for corrupting man. Through a mystical epiphany, the Mad Bomber came to believe that Pinkney’s buildings literally kept “the demons” at bay. Cities have the power to effect the consciousness of its inhabitants and the ubiquitous gargoyles of the “Gotham Style” were intended to frighten people onto the path of righteousness.

[The Science Center, by Hugh Ferris. via.]

Ferriss himself acknowledges such emotional and behavioral effects of architecture, saying in his book The Metropolis of Tomorrow, “it has been our habit to assume that a building is a complete success if it provides for the utility, convenience and health of its occupants and, in addition, presents a pleasing exterior. But this frame of mind fails to appreciate that architectural forms necessarily have other values than the utilitarian or even others than those which we vaguely call the aesthetic. Without any doubt, these same forms quite specifically influence both the emotional and the mental life of the onlooker. Designers have generally come to realize the importance of the principle stated by the late Louis Sullivan, ‘Form follows Function.’ The axiom is not weakened by the further realization that Effect follows Form.” Ferriss’ iconic and much sough-after renderings were specifically designed to communicate the emotional influence of architecture – not necessarily what the building is, but the power it has.

Through the filter of the bomber’s insanity, Batman is, ironically, seen as one of the demons corrupting the city. Indeed, as drawn in this series, Batman is a kind of expressionist demon; cloaked in shadows and violent movement of swirling of cape and cowl. But is he a demon, or is he a living manifestation of Gotham’s gargoyles? Of its stone protectors? A man shaped, perhaps unconsciously, by the gothic vaults and flying buttresses and monstrous sculptures of Cyrus Pinkney. A man who, like the city he protects, frightens the citizens onto the path of righteousness.

[Still from The Dark Knight]

With his psychological origins linked to the rampant criminal behavior of Gotham, Batman is inarguably a product, an expression, of the city he lives in. But is he its demon or its savior? The duality of Batman’s effect on Gotham has been frequently debated in comics, and recently in the Nolan Batman films. Despite his noble intentions, it’s entirely possible that Batman is in fact one of the major causes of Gotham’s problems. In dressing up as a bat, he may have succeeded in instilling a primal sense of fear into the citizens of Gotham, but he’s also inadvertently inspired a new breed of criminal. Through his actions, through his very existence, he has directly influenced the rise of some of the city’s “super-villains.” Batman Begins makes this threat all too real in the final conversation between Jim Gordon and Batman:

Jim Gordon: What about escalation?
Batman: Escalation?
Jim Gordon: We start carrying semi-automatics, they buy automatics. We start wearing Kevlar, they buy armor-piercing rounds.
Batman: And?
Jim Gordon: And *you’re* wearing a mask and jumping off rooftops…

In its sequel, The Dark Knight, the Joker is constantly likening himself to Batman, showing that there may be an all-too-thin line between the criminally insane and the supposedly heroic; a duality expressed literally in the good-guy-turned-bad Harvey “Two Face” Dent and in a series of conversations between the Joker and Batman.

The Joker: Oh, you. You just couldn’t let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You are truly incorruptible, aren’t you? Huh? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.
Batman: You’ll be in a padded cell forever.
The Joker: Maybe we can share one.

and later

Batman: Then why do you want to kill me?
The Joker: [laughs] I don’t want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, NO! No. You… you… complete me.
Batman: You’re garbage who kills for money.
The Joker: Don’t talk like one of them. You’re not! Even if you’d like to be. To them, you’re just a freak…like me!

To the Joker, and probably to many people in Gotham, Batman is just the opposite side of the same coin.

[Looking East from the top of the Wayne Building, by Anton Furst]

“Destoyer” closes with The Mad Bomber, ex-student / historian / Navy SEAL Andre Sinclair, surrounded by police and demolition crews, shooting defiantly at a wrecking ball swinging towards him. A futile, final act in defense of the individual dream against the unstoppable assault of society’s progress. As the wrecking ball rushes towards him, his earlier thoughts echo across the scene, “man is such a temporary thing. He lives, he sins, he dies. But a city can stand a thousand years. And a dream can last forever.”

Unfortunately, the issue’s closing narration casts little hope for the nightmare that is Gotham City. “Cyrus Pinkney’s Gotham – gargoyles, to frighten people onto the path of righteousness – rounded edges to confuse the malevolent beings – thick walls to lock in virtue. The work of a madman!”

In fact, Gotham City really is the work mad men. First, a fanatically religious architect and his equally radical benefactor, who by shear force of will and moral certitude willed Gotham into existence in the hopes that the city would, in turn, will morality into its citizens. Then, years later, the Batman has his influence. Shaped by the perverse forms of the city itself, Batman has had as much effect on the psyche of Gotham as the spires and gargoyles of the city’s architect. Like Gotham, Batman is an indeal, a force of nature, an effect. But what effect is he having? Bruce Wayne’s ancestor realized too late that he may actually be responsible for the criminal fate of Gotham City. “I wished to lock evil out of men’s neighborhoods and hearts,” Solomon Wayne lamented on his deathbed. “I fear that instead I have given it the means to be locked in.” Let’s hope that his descendant doesn’t have the same regret.

So what came first, the city or the crime? the hero or the villain? The architect or the city?

In closing, another quote from Hugh Ferriss seems appropriate:

“The contemplation of the actual Metropolis as a whole cannot but lead us at last to the realization of a human population unconsciously reacting to forms which came into existence without conscious design. A hope, however, may begin to define itself in our minds. May there not yet arise, perhaps in another generation, architects who, appreciating the influence unconsciously received, will learn consciously to direct it?”

previously:
· A Little Perspective From Spiderman and Renzo Piano’s New York Times Building [LWB]

“You killed the car.” Cameron’s House Now on the Market

2009-05-29T20:20:08Z

[image via luxist]

As seen in the 1986 movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the modern home of Ferris’ best friend Cameron is now on the market. 370 Beech Street, aka The Ben Rose Home, in Highland Park, Illinois was designed by architect A. James Speyer. After a traditional Beaux-Arts education, Speyer traveled through Europe in the 1930’s, cultivating a new, ornament-free Modern vocabulary. As you might be able to tell from the glass-and-steel glory that is the Ben Rose Home, Speyer returned to the states to study with Mies Van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he also later taught. Almost as much a piece of eye candy as the 1961 Ferrari it rather unsuccessfully protected, Cameron’s house was also an incredibly savvy setpiece.

[image via luxist]

In Ferris Bueller, the modern building was perfectly believable as the sterile home of the uptight Cameron, reflecting a nurtured numbness and his isolation from friends and family. What better metaphor then for Cameron’s social and personal evolution than the climactic shattering of the perfect glass box? completely surrounded by the woods of Highland Park; its two buildings perched precariously above the hillside. For a beautiful piece of architecture that played such a pivotal role in film history, $2,300,000 seems like a bargain. Just be careful when you pull into the garage.

[image via luxist]

· The Ben Rose Home [Realtor.com]

Architecture Blogs Take on The Fountainhead

2009-08-10T18:59:36Z

[image via Strange Harvest]

So now that we’ve seen The Fountainhead as interpreted by America’s favorite cartoon family, The Simpsons, it seemed like it might be a good time for a more…informed take on Ayn Rand’s book and the resulting 1949 film. Recently, Fantastic Journal, Strange Harvest, Lebbeus Woods, and Things Magazine have all shared their thoughts on the black-and-white world of Howard Roark and Ellsworth Toohey. Despite their various perspectives, everyone seems to agree that it is one of very few—if not the only—film that is actually about architecture. As Woods puts it “architecture is not merely a background, but is the central issue in the narrative, around which the lives of the characters revolve.” Outside of that central agreement, each architect has their own take on the film. Charles Holland’s compares Ayn Rand’s interpretation of Modernism with that of From Bauhaus to Our House author Thomas Wolfe’s interpretations of Modernism to Wood’s ruminations on ethics and aesthetics in architecture. Sam Jacob, meanwhile, looks at The Fountainhead’s representation of architecture as an emotional landscape and ponders who the modern-day equivalent of Howard Roark might be. Richard Rogers? Daniel Libeskind? Or maybe it should be someone like Cameron Sinclair? Not a starchitect per se, but someone with an incredibly strong, almost righteous perspective on the power of architecture to impact lives. After all, doesn’t “Design like you give a damn” sound like something Howard Roark might say?

· Spouting Off: Some Thoughts On The Fountainhead [Strange Harvest]
· The Fountainhaus [Fantastic Journal]
· Ayn Rand and The Fountainhead [Things Magazine]
· The Fountainhead [Lebbeus Woods]
· Mediocrity Rules! The Simpsons & The Fountainhead [Life Without Buildings]

God is in the Details, Ellworth Kelly is in the Courtyard: Sculpture Garden Opens at the SFMOMA

2009-05-22T03:06:21Z

Over at the SF Appeal, I’ve written a brief review of the new sculpture garden at SFMOMA. Here, an excerpt from that post.

Afters three years of competition, construction, and even a little controversy, the new sculpture garden at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art made its public debut on May 10th, Mother’s Day. Designed by Jensen Architects with CMG Landscape Architecture, the new rooftop addition is almost Miesian in its elegant simplicity: glass and steel boxes surrounding an artfully composed open-air courtyard. In fact, the design specifically recalls Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. There too, a glass facade opens out onto a walled sculpture garden; a respite from the sparseness and propriety of the formal Modern Art Gallery. But here, instead of natural growth poking out above the surrounding walls as it does in Berlin, it’s the urban landscape of San Francisco high-rise towers. As has been noted by many a critic and visitor, the emotional effect of the garden is that of an urban oasis.

Indeed, from the new sculpture garden, the sounds of traffic merge with the whirrs and hums of nearby HVAC units into an almost ocean-like white noise. The occasional police siren rings through the air like a proxy gull call. Grab a latte from the Bay Area’s own Blue Bottle Coffee, provided by the kiosk prominently installed at the head of the museum’s addition (the high-design, local equivalent of a Starbucks inside Barnes & Noble?), and sit at one of the well-designed benches or cafe tables and forget your concerns and obligations to the surrounding city. What better way to spend an afternoon or a lunch hour than admiring work by noted sculptors like Kiki Smith, Louise Bourgeois, Barnett Newman, and Ellsworth Kelly?

Read the entire review at the SF Appeal.