Jaques Tati

Never saw any of Jaques Tati's movies, but he was referenced in some article I was reading, and found some youtube clips interesting. One of his themes seems to be disorientation in buildings, especially modern buildings:

modern buildings

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House

Play Time (1967), shot in 70mm, was the most risky and expensive work of Tati's career, and it bankrupted him. It took nine years to make and he had to borrow heavily from his own resources to complete the picture. ForPlaytime, Tati fabricated a set (dubbed "Tativille") on the outskirts of Paris that emulated an entire modern city. In the film, Tati and a group of American tourists lose themselves in the futuristic glass-and-steel of the Parisian suburbs, where only human nature and a few views of the city of Paris itself still emerge to breathe life into the city. Playtime had even less of a plot than his earlier films, and Tati endeavored to make his characters, including Hulot, almost incidental to his portrayal of a modernist and robotic Paris - Notes for Class Discussion

Pruitt Igoe

I would love to see this documentary:


Pruitt-Igoe.com

Other historical footage:

How Buildings Learn

I have been watching these interesting videos

1. How Buildings Learn - Stewart Brand - 1 of 6 - “Flow”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8639555925486210852#

2. How Buildings Learn - Stewart Brand - 2 of 6 - “The Low Road”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5088653796598486022#

3. How Buildings Learn - Stewart Brand - 3 of 6 - “Built for Change”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6141960341438553915#

4. How Buildings Learn - Stewart Brand - 4 of 6 - “Unreal Estate”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8761299882173964035#

5. How Buildings Learn - Stewart Brand - 5 of 6 - “The Romance of Maintenance”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5407846553590755822#

6. How Buildings Learn - Stewart Brand - 6 of 6 - “Shearing Layers”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2283224496826631552#

This six-part, three-hour, BBC TV series aired in 1997. I presented and co-wrote the series; it was directed by James Muncie, with music by Brian Eno. The series was based on my 1994 book, HOW BUILDINGS LEARN: What Happens After They’re Built. The book is still selling well and is used as a text in some college courses. Most of the 27 reviews on Amazon treat it as a book about system and software design, which tells me that architects are not as alert as computer people. But I knew that; that’s part of why I wrote the book. Anybody is welcome to use anything from this series in any way they like. Please don’t bug me with requests for permission. Hack away. Do credit the BBC, who put considerable time and talent into the project. Historic note: this was one of the first television productions made entirely in digital--- shot digital, edited digital. The project wound up with not enough money, so digital was the workaround. The camera was so small that we seldom had to ask permission to shoot; everybody thought we were tourists. No film or sound crew. Everything technical on site was done by editors, writers, directors. That’s why the sound is a little sketchy, but there’s also some direct perception in the filming that is unusual - Stewart Brand

Starchitects Waste Taxpayer Money (again)

Here is an article about some not-so-surprising issues with Eisenman's Aronoff Center at the University of Cincinnati, DAAP, a project that was overpriced, undersized and ugly when it was completed 14 years ago. It must now be repaired at a cost of $6 million. And to make matters worse, they felt they had to go on bended knee to ask Eisenman for his permission on the proposed solution. The solution to a crappy looking dryvit building with cheap ass drywall interiors.

When I was in school at UC, they were interviewing architects for this job. They invited several very famous architects to give lectures and show their work. Eisenman was by far the least qualified. He had no portfolio, except some unlivable houses built in the 70s. It was totally irresponsible of UC to spend taxpayer money on this charlatan. But we taxpayers continue to pay for their mistake:

... the building, an icon of architecture's "deconstructionist" movement, is deconstructing itself—literally coming apart at the seams because moisture has penetrated the "exterior insulating finishing system," as it's called, that makes up much of the angled facade. Now its dull, weather-stained wall panels are peeling away from windows and rooflines, and boils and rot mar the edges of some walls in busy locations. Attempts to correct the moisture problem by adding weep holes to drain away water didn't help. Nor did students, some of whom took to tossing rocks at the walls to see if the rocks would stick.

..."Our new buildings may not behave like our old buildings, where we wait a hundred years and then fix the brick," she says. "I'm not sure how long zinc will hang around."

UPDATE: New article in the Enquirer says the repairs will cost $20 million!!

UPDATE:
Here is a photo of the great architect:
 

SCPA Suburban Landscape

I don't like being so negative, but this one aspect of the new SCPA just bugs the hell out of me. The building is barely completed, has yet to welcome it's first student, and the weeds are already taking over the landscaping.
weeds growing where parking lot meets Race Street sidewalk:

The question needs to be asked: Why build an urban school, in the most urban environment in Ohio, with mulch beds, ten foot fenced lawns and landscaped drainage swales on one of Cincinnati's most important streets? (Actually three of Cincinnati's most important streets and one of Cincinnati's most important and historic urban parks ie Washington Park.)

Did the archtects never design a truly urban building? In the past architects have complained that the State of Ohio has too many rules for new schools that hamstring their designs. But I really don't think that the State has any rule that prohibits your school from being built right up to the sidewalk, proud like a real building, not hiding behind a grassy swale.

BTW, it's hard to see in this photo, but a neighborhood kid got inside the fence to shoot some hoops. Is this going to be allowed once school starts?:

How the school / parking lot faces historic Washington Park, a tight row of fast growing trees and a metal utility box:

I don't mind the front so much, but CPS is notoriously bad at maintenance. Can you imagine them upkeeping this already weedy landscape strip?

There is a similar new landscape strip on 12th Street, and I've noticed that rats love to dig burrows in this kind of landscaping.

Did the architects look around the neighborhood and see what precedents there were for how a school might meet the sidewalk? If so, they might have noticed Elm Street Health Clinic, which was a school that still is functioning well, with handicapped access and a courtyard type fron entry. Or they might have looked at Rothenberg, or even the old SCPA (old Woodward), or maybe they could have lookded at this building at Vine at Liberty, St Francis school:

Great American Tower in Origami

Like everyone else downtown, I've been watching the crown go up on the newest tower in Cincinnati. From some vantage points, ie: Mt Auburn/Mt Adams, I find it it is disturbing. But from the river, as in this origami it presents a decent face:
 

Found here(PDF) an advert for Oldcastle.

BTW, the view of this building from 4th street (when you look up at all of that 40+ stories of flat glass) was exactly what Frank Lloyd Wright meant when he called modernist boxes "flat chested".

Why Beauty Matters

Beauty is assailed by two directions, by the cult of ugliness in the arts and by the cult of utility in everyday life. These two cults come together in the world of modern architecture -Roger Scrutton, in part 2 at 6:45

"Form follows function" - Louis Sullivan

This returns me to Oscar Wilde's remark that all art is useless. Put usefulness first and you lose it. Put beauty first and what you do will be useful forever. It turns out that nothing is more useful than the useless..

Part 2
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

330 Square Foot Apt

..In Hong Kong... See Treehugger video here.

In the 1970s, 6 people were living in this apartment! Now the son has inherited it and made it a "luxury" pad for one person. Not sure I would classify this as green, but kinda reminds me of living on a boat (aka Harlan Hubbard, Ralph Nader or Stewart Brand).

John Lally of Boston

This is a test to see if I can successfully attach a music clip to a post. I'm not really sure of the best way, but this one is thru "esnips".

The music is a project I have been working on for a while. The musician is Bob Schmertz, an architect from Pittsburgh who recorded four albums from 1949-1960. The recording below is from the 1960 album "Ladies Beware of an Architect". I cannot find this album anywhere, so this is digitized from an old cassette tape I copied off my partner years ago. The song is about how a plain "concrete filled pipe... a column without any clothes" has replaced the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite classical columns.

I especially love this stanza:
Its' sly self effacement that hid in each basement (but soon began gaining in status);
amongst wealth and passion it's now all the fashion and adds to artistic inflatus..

go to esnips | Track details |

He had one song: "Queen Ann Front and Mary Ann Behind" which became somewhat well known when Pete Seeger recorded it. There was a website up by an admirer, but it has been defunct for a few years.

I think he was a genius. I would like to make him more widely known, and this is my first attempt.

Any advice on how better to post music to a blog post would be appreciated. Also, please contact me if you have any of his albums.

Don't Call Me a Starchitect

"Urban planning is dead in the US."
-Frank Gehry

Light Fixtures at SCPA

I wonder if these new light fixtures along the sidewalk of the new SCPA will be durable enough. Seems like someone could damage the polycarbonate part pretty easily. BTW, I think those are permanent security cameras mounted on the brick behind:
 

Totalitarian Modernists

"Le Corbusier wanted to be to the city what pasteurization is to cheese."

-Theodore Dalrymple, The Architect as Totalitarian
Le Corbusier’s baleful influence, The City Journal

FLW in Oak Park

When in Oak Park, IL last week, we did a quick walk around to see some Frank Lloyd Wright buildings. I have seen them all before, but I was much more fascinated with Unity Temple than I had been previously. The interior space does not photograph well, but flows exceptionally well. Anyone interested in architecture really should visit this building IMO.

Unity Temple facade, supposedly influenced by childhood play with Froebel Blocks, facing the main street of town. Where is the grand entry of most churches?

Elevation Dwg of side street elevation, entry in middle:

Here is the Floor Plan they give you at the church. Where the words say "Unity Temple" that is the main street side:

All early cast concrete:

concrete planter:

Unity Temple interior

Dance on interior

Then a few houses:

Heurtley House circa 1902. This was were we explained "horizontal" to my son:

Hills-De Caro House, circa 1906. This was a remodel of an existing Victorian house:

Nathan G. Moore House, circa 1895 English Elizabethean. This is not purely Wright, as it was a remodel from a Tudor, remodeled a second time by Wright in 1923. I like it a lot. It sits on a corner, and this is the back porch:

Not sure of the name of this one:

FLW Home and Studio Entry
 

Stone FLW Nameplate at home and studio:

Fifth Third First American and Courthouse

Just caught my eye. The foreground building has offices for Fifth Third, and is a building no one ever notices:  

Reunion - Does Anything Really Change

My old mates from the 1980s DAAP returned to Cincinnati this past weekend. They came from all over the country had a few beers together, then they all quickly left again. Most of them have not been to Cincinnati in 20 years and will likely not come back soon.

Back in 1989 our lives were completely in flux. Most of us moved several times in that first year out of school. It's hard to remember, but back then, none of us had ever heard of email much less Facebook. We lost track of each other, and I really never thought I would see them again. I kept in touch with one or two of my best friends. Sometimes in my work, I will run into one old classmate who stayed in Cincinnati, but not very often.

But here they all were, re-assembled for a short weekend. I guess my first impression is that the essence of a person does not change over time. It was almost like we had just been away for 20 days, not 20 years. And unfortunately, that was their impression of Cincinnati. Several of them remarked to me that driving down Vine Street from Clifton was like going back into a time warp. Nothing had changed. "So much potential..." I heard that phrase over and over.

I made my attempt at showing the positives. I took a small group on a tour of Downtown, Clifton and OTR. And even though they demanded we see the starchitecturual icons, I don't think they found the Eisenman, Gehry, Libeskind or Hadid buildings the most memorable. I took them to a few OTR rehabs, including a building on Broadway that is being lovingly restored. They were fascinated with the quality of the buildings. And when we went all the way to the rooftop and saw OTR spread in front of us with the church steeples, the distant hills and the curve of the river, they were again blabbering about "the potential" of it all.

So I did my duty as ambassador until Sunday 1pm when I drove some to the airport. Sitting at the Delta Check-in door were three other classmates heading east. I said, come back in 5 years and it will be even better. "Yeah, OK..." They made a crack about Walter Cronkite actually dying 5 years ago, and it just now making the front page of the Enquirer. That was pretty funny.

Then I drove back home through Florence Y'all, back up 75. I turned on the radio and first heard Jimmy Buffet. The next station was country. The next had a DJ saying that Cheap Trick was coming to concert and "Next up.. some Jude-aass Priest..." Ugh.

I Told You Architects Don't Care About Beauty

At least the most respected ones don't. Come to think of it, does anyone seriously discuss or make beauty today? Painters? Urban designers?: Interview with Rem Koolhaas:

SPIEGEL: ...Shouldn't architects be the prophets of beauty?
Koolhaas: Beauty isn't what I'm primarily interested in. I think appropriateness is more important.
SPIEGEL: What do you think is the world's most beautiful building?
Koolhaas: Very conventionally, the Pantheon in Rome, for example. Isn't it remarkable? Talk about beauty and you get boring answers, but talk about ugliness and things get interesting.
...
SPIEGEL: Some people say that if architects had to live in their own buildings, cities would be more attractive today.
Koolhaas: Oh, come on now, that's really trivial.
SPIEGEL: Where do you live?
Koolhaas: That's unimportant. It's less a question of architecture than of finances.
SPIEGEL: You're avoiding the question. Where do you live?
Koolhaas: OK, I live in a Victorian apartment building in London.
...
SPIEGEL: ... What will cities look like in the future? Do we even need such downtown areas?
Koolhaas: The old contrast between downtown and suburban areas is outdated.
SPIEGEL: Wait a minute, isn't the current trend moving away from suburbia and back to the city?
Koolhaas: Yes, for now. And do you know what's so ironic about that? The people from the suburbs are bringing along their suburban values: cleanliness, orderliness, safety -- dullness, in other words. As a result, urban areas are being hollowed out. Just look at Times Square in New York. No more sex shops, no drugs, no homeless people. The area is clinically clean and incredibly dull.

Thus if an urban area does not have drugs, prostitution and poverty then it is not interesting to Mr Koolhaas. And while designing painful buildings for others, he chooses to live in Victorian comfort and beauty.

I've been reading some other stuff recently about Delirious New York, in which Koolhaas heaps praise upon leftover spaces in American cities; places like highway entrance ramps, and drainage swales. Think about it. This guy is a leading academic with rabid followers in all the architecture schools. This kind of thinking has permeated our culture.

In Praise of Ugly PoMo Buildings

 

... if I had to take just one (building) with me to my desert island? Stirling's big fat hen, no question. I'd sit in its roof garden, or stand in its conning tower, and gaze out to sea. Watching the stylistic tides wash back and forth. - Hugh Pearman

Name the Building

As I mentioned in my Time-Stars post, I believe that Cincinnati is blessed with a lot of interesting architecture that we tend to miss as we travel around the city. So as an intermittent feature, I thought it would be interesting to show a picture of an architectural detail and see if you can identify the building and/or location.

Today I thought I would start with what I think is an easy one:


I'll post the answer, and details about the building Fiday afternoon.

14th and Vine Condos Update

One thing I try to do is correct myself or apologize when I was wrong. When I saw the original drawings for this building, I was pretty negative on it. But now that it is almost completed, I have to say it is looking good.

In the original rendering, the walls were shown blue. I didn't know it would be brick. For a building like this, details matter, and they have paid attention to some important details, such as the stone base and the alumacore detail around the uplighting. I think it all comes together. Sorry for the cell-phone pics:

Overall view from across the street:
 

The corner is transparent:
 

Uplighting detail
 

Storefront glass garage doors:
 

Also, the building across the street is just begining to take shape:
 

Building Examples

Some random building photos that I think are worth sharing:

Isfahan. I am really fascinated by this:

A Lutyens house, rear:

Pantheon:

Bay Window Detail from old architecture magazine:

Yale. An original Rudolph building on left, with Gwathmey's recent addition on right. Both pretty dismal in my modest opinion:

"Art is a kind of wireless energy, little understood and too often neglected, but free to all and very helpful to those who learn to give or receive its messages. A beautiful home has the power to attract attention, improve conduct, compel respect, bind families and friends, form communities, found states and create nations. Children reared in and among beautiful homes acquire good taste from them and seldom if ever do a very ugly thing."

Henry Holsman, President of AIA Illinois, 1920
Small House Competition Director

LaDefense vs Townhouse, demonstrating scale, from Life Between Buildings:

The Carnegie, a new building in Ft Worth:

New House, overhang detail:

New construction, Hampstead:

1913 Domestic:

Havana Building with arcade: