So then I'm not understanding your antipathy. Foster + Partners are pretty well known for green and sustainable building techniques, which is vastly more significant for a "sense of nature" any given opinion about esthetics.
I'm also not sure why you would worry about fitting into "nature" in the first place, since the vast majority of their buildings are in highly urban settings (with a few sited on greensward, itself contrived and artificial).
It's not like this architectural firm has a track record of erecting modernist insults in the middle of wilderness or scenic spots.
So then I'm not understanding your antipathy. Foster + Partners are pretty well known for green and sustainable building techniques, which is vastly more significant for a "sense of nature" any given opinion about esthetics.
I'm also not sure why you would worry about fitting into "nature" in the first place, since the vast majority of their buildings are in highly urban settings (with a few sited on greensward, itself contrived and artificial).
It's not like this architectural firm has a track record of erecting modernist insults in the middle of wilderness or scenic spots.
i should have said 'sense of surroundings'. 'nature' has caused you too much worry....
i should have said 'sense of surroundings'. 'nature' has caused you too much worry....
Fair enough, those are different things. Still, it's the rare big name architect (or client) that worries overly much about "blending in", preferring bold signature statements. Arguably, this is how the state of architecture is advanced, since if we didn't have some discontinuity with the past as represented by proximate structures, we'd end up with bland pastiche. In fact, we get a lot of bland pastiche as it is in the name of being "contextually sensitive", which is code for "make it look vaguely Beaux Arts or kinda Gothic or a little Victorian."
The emergent architectural language that uses non-linear envelopes coupled to a great deal of systems engineering (everything from passive lighting and climate control to siting to materials to new tech and materials) is, IMO, vastly preferable to the "post-modern" schtick that immediately preceded it.
foster appears to give no consideration to the location and how his design integrates or not. look at some of those grotesque things he has planted. no sense of nature.
actually i think he is a good fit for apple.
Pardon my newness, but are you the resident contrarian?
Fair enough, those are different things. Still, it's the rare big name architect (or client) that worries overly much about "blending in", preferring bold signature statements. Arguably, this is how the state of architecture is advanced, since if we didn't have some discontinuity with the past as represented by proximate structures, we'd end up with bland pastiche. In fact, we get a lot of bland pastiche as it is in the name of being "contextually sensitive", which is code for "make it look vaguely Beaux Arts or kinda Gothic or a little Victorian."
The emergent architectural language that uses non-linear envelopes coupled to a great deal of systems engineering (everything from passive lighting and climate control to siting to materials to new tech and materials) is, IMO, vastly preferable to the "post-modern" schtick that immediately preceded it.
You found the word you were struggling for, which is context. The debate over context is a long-running one in architecture and planning, and we're not going to resolve it here. Suffice to say, the Modernists of the postwar era said to hell with context because to their minds, cities were no good and everything anyone had designed before them was, to use your words, bland pastiche. Entire cities were mowed down in the name of this dogma. Based in no small part on the actual results of this plan in action, the more recent generation of architects and planners has seen that perhaps sacrificing everything we knew about how cities work and they way people relate to urban places was not wrong. The alternative, contextual design, is not necessarily bland pastiche. It is also not Postmodernism, which is a very different animal.
You found the word you were struggling for, which is context. The debate over context is a long-running one in architecture and planning, and we're not going to resolve it here. Suffice to say, the Modernists of the postwar era said to hell with context because to their minds, cities were no good and everything anyone had designed before them was, to use your words, bland pastiche. Entire cities were mowed down in the name of this dogma. Based in no small part on the actual results of this plan in action, the more recent generation of architects and planners has seen that perhaps sacrificing everything we knew about how cities work and they way people relate to urban places was not wrong. The alternative, contextual design, is not necessarily bland pastiche. It is also not Postmodernism, which is a very different animal.
I'm not thinking about postwar modernism so much as timid zoning boards and the strong push to keep new structures in harmony with what is imagined to be the prevailing style-- although of course in the average American city the prevailing style is a palimpsest of the last 100 years or so of varying fashion.
What this means in practice, IMO, is a lot of "developer Mediterranean" monstrosities that satisfy neither true respect for context nor any ambition for the interesting or transformative. They do, however, please a certain kind of bureaucrat for whom the urban experience is best understood as a kind of gigantic mall, with Pottery Barn style "classical" facades acting as serviceable architecture manqué.
I'm not thinking about postwar modernism so much as timid zoning boards and the strong push to keep new structures in harmony with what is imagined to be the prevailing style-- although of course in the average American city the prevailing style is a palimpsest of the last 100 years or so of varying fashion.
What this means in practice, IMO, is a lot of "developer Mediterranean" monstrosities that satisfy neither true respect for context nor any ambition for the interesting or transformative. They do, however, please a certain kind of bureaucrat for whom the urban experience is best understood as a kind of gigantic mall, with Pottery Barn style "classical" facades acting as serviceable architecture manqué.
It's hard to escape thinking of postwar Modernism, as this is the analog to contextual design. Modernism in architecture, in its most basic sense, is the building treated as an object, devoid of context or relationship to anything but itself. In city planning, it's treating everything which came before as wrong-headed and expendable. Modernists were anxious in every respect to wipe the slate clean and start over, and they actually got their way in many places over a long period of time. We are now in the position to fairly judge their success. The reply is a lot more about New Urbanism in planning than Postmodernism in architecture.
Style really has little to nothing do with any of this. Architectural pastiche can be just and noncontextual as Modern architecture. Bland does not inherently fit any better than bold. Clothes do not make the building. As a city planner in my former life, I can tell you that 99% of what came across my counter was dull and unimaginative by intention. As Buckminster Fuller said, bankers design buildings, not architects.
It's hard to escape thinking of postwar Modernism, as this is the analog to contextual design. Modernism in architecture, in its most basic sense, is the building treated as an object, devoid of context or relationship to anything but itself. In city planning, it's treating everything which came before as wrong-headed and expendable. Modernists were anxious in every respect to wipe the slate clean and start over, and they actually got their way in many places over a long period of time. We are now in the position to fairly judge their success. The reply is a lot more about New Urbanism in planning than Postmodernism in architecture.
Style really has little to nothing do with any of this. Architectural pastiche can be just and noncontextual as Modern architecture. Bland does not inherently fit any better than bold. Clothes do not make the building. As a city planner in my former life, I can tell you that 99% of what came across my counter was dull and unimaginative by intention. As Buckminster Fuller said, bankers design buildings, not architects.
I do think the reactionary style amongst planning and zoning boards is in large part due to the depredations of modernism. After all, if you've seen large swaths or your city transformed into glass wind tunnels, you might develop a soft spot for "nice" architecture, no matter how bland or derivative.
Of course, you have to acknowledge that the real "failure" of modernist architecture was its amenability to cheap and fast construction, serving as legitimatizing cover for countless soulless knockoffs of some actually pretty sterling buildings. Not unlike the dreary mass market "minimal" stuff that took only the simple surfaces of Bauhaus and ignored the careful refinement of detail and execution.
OTOH I see this as an exciting time for architecture, with what to my eye looks like the first persuasive move beyond modernism that's coherent enough to think of as a "movement." I've seen it called "techno baroque", "pile of shapes", and "free-form", but in the right hands Gehry style effusions can be energizing and uplifting, or serene and contemplative. For the latter, look no further than the new DeYoung Museum in SF's Golden Gate Park, a long undulating copper clad building, punctuated by a partially twisted tower. For my money, it's got it all over the Mario Botto designed SF Museum of Modern Art, a po-mo temple of culture that is very clear about it's rigidly enforced hierarchies where the DeYoung is beguilingly casual. There's something about busting up that cube that really seems to invite a different relationship to inhabiting the interior, which is why I like it so much. It goes beyond the latest thing in facades to rethink the whole idea of how we use and interact with made spaces.
We can also hope that the intricacy of fabrication involved will be proof against sail form Targets or shuffled deck banks.
A tunnel linking the two campuses would be the biggest waste of shareholder value I've ever seen. They'd have to go under an interstate freeway as well as under all the existing utilities that exist along any of the potential corridors.
In the history of construction in the state of california, projects like that are only undertaken by taxpayers and ALWAYS are estimated low at the onset (to rope everyone in) and triple in cost as construction progresses.
An above ground monorail would make more sense, and Steve can certainly find some resources for that.
Comments
So your conception of "having a sense of nature" is simply esthetics?
i made an 'esthetic' comment.
but the answer to you is 'no'.
Wouldn?t this building be more appropriately sited at Cape Canaveral?
10?9?8?7?6?
And they say the Washington monument is a giant phallus in D.C.!
Wouldn?t this building be more appropriately sited at Cape Canaveral?
10?9?8?7?6?
I though that was a Faberge Penis...
My guess is that the new building will look like a giant-scale scene from the Abbey Road album...
or, App-henge??
i made an 'esthetic' comment.
but the answer to you is 'no'.
So then I'm not understanding your antipathy. Foster + Partners are pretty well known for green and sustainable building techniques, which is vastly more significant for a "sense of nature" any given opinion about esthetics.
I'm also not sure why you would worry about fitting into "nature" in the first place, since the vast majority of their buildings are in highly urban settings (with a few sited on greensward, itself contrived and artificial).
It's not like this architectural firm has a track record of erecting modernist insults in the middle of wilderness or scenic spots.
I though that was a Faberge Penis...
Oh, those rrrRussians...
(I'm dating myself, from 1978)
Oh, those rrrRussians...
(I'm dating myself, from 1978)
rrrrr....
I see, so you found that button that switches it to power-vibrate mode
So then I'm not understanding your antipathy. Foster + Partners are pretty well known for green and sustainable building techniques, which is vastly more significant for a "sense of nature" any given opinion about esthetics.
I'm also not sure why you would worry about fitting into "nature" in the first place, since the vast majority of their buildings are in highly urban settings (with a few sited on greensward, itself contrived and artificial).
It's not like this architectural firm has a track record of erecting modernist insults in the middle of wilderness or scenic spots.
i should have said 'sense of surroundings'. 'nature' has caused you too much worry....
i should have said 'sense of surroundings'. 'nature' has caused you too much worry....
Fair enough, those are different things. Still, it's the rare big name architect (or client) that worries overly much about "blending in", preferring bold signature statements. Arguably, this is how the state of architecture is advanced, since if we didn't have some discontinuity with the past as represented by proximate structures, we'd end up with bland pastiche. In fact, we get a lot of bland pastiche as it is in the name of being "contextually sensitive", which is code for "make it look vaguely Beaux Arts or kinda Gothic or a little Victorian."
The emergent architectural language that uses non-linear envelopes coupled to a great deal of systems engineering (everything from passive lighting and climate control to siting to materials to new tech and materials) is, IMO, vastly preferable to the "post-modern" schtick that immediately preceded it.
My guess is that the new building will look like a giant-scale scene from the Abbey Road album...
Steve's original plan was to have the data center in North Carolina look like a giant TimeCapsule.
foster appears to give no consideration to the location and how his design integrates or not. look at some of those grotesque things he has planted. no sense of nature.
actually i think he is a good fit for apple.
Pardon my newness, but are you the resident contrarian?
Fair enough, those are different things. Still, it's the rare big name architect (or client) that worries overly much about "blending in", preferring bold signature statements. Arguably, this is how the state of architecture is advanced, since if we didn't have some discontinuity with the past as represented by proximate structures, we'd end up with bland pastiche. In fact, we get a lot of bland pastiche as it is in the name of being "contextually sensitive", which is code for "make it look vaguely Beaux Arts or kinda Gothic or a little Victorian."
The emergent architectural language that uses non-linear envelopes coupled to a great deal of systems engineering (everything from passive lighting and climate control to siting to materials to new tech and materials) is, IMO, vastly preferable to the "post-modern" schtick that immediately preceded it.
You found the word you were struggling for, which is context. The debate over context is a long-running one in architecture and planning, and we're not going to resolve it here. Suffice to say, the Modernists of the postwar era said to hell with context because to their minds, cities were no good and everything anyone had designed before them was, to use your words, bland pastiche. Entire cities were mowed down in the name of this dogma. Based in no small part on the actual results of this plan in action, the more recent generation of architects and planners has seen that perhaps sacrificing everything we knew about how cities work and they way people relate to urban places was not wrong. The alternative, contextual design, is not necessarily bland pastiche. It is also not Postmodernism, which is a very different animal.
rrrrr....
I see, so you found that button that switches it to power-vibrate mode
rrrrr -- my nod to Rasputin, and to a song from '78. : )
You found the word you were struggling for, which is context. The debate over context is a long-running one in architecture and planning, and we're not going to resolve it here. Suffice to say, the Modernists of the postwar era said to hell with context because to their minds, cities were no good and everything anyone had designed before them was, to use your words, bland pastiche. Entire cities were mowed down in the name of this dogma. Based in no small part on the actual results of this plan in action, the more recent generation of architects and planners has seen that perhaps sacrificing everything we knew about how cities work and they way people relate to urban places was not wrong. The alternative, contextual design, is not necessarily bland pastiche. It is also not Postmodernism, which is a very different animal.
I'm not thinking about postwar modernism so much as timid zoning boards and the strong push to keep new structures in harmony with what is imagined to be the prevailing style-- although of course in the average American city the prevailing style is a palimpsest of the last 100 years or so of varying fashion.
What this means in practice, IMO, is a lot of "developer Mediterranean" monstrosities that satisfy neither true respect for context nor any ambition for the interesting or transformative. They do, however, please a certain kind of bureaucrat for whom the urban experience is best understood as a kind of gigantic mall, with Pottery Barn style "classical" facades acting as serviceable architecture manqué.
I'm not thinking about postwar modernism so much as timid zoning boards and the strong push to keep new structures in harmony with what is imagined to be the prevailing style-- although of course in the average American city the prevailing style is a palimpsest of the last 100 years or so of varying fashion.
What this means in practice, IMO, is a lot of "developer Mediterranean" monstrosities that satisfy neither true respect for context nor any ambition for the interesting or transformative. They do, however, please a certain kind of bureaucrat for whom the urban experience is best understood as a kind of gigantic mall, with Pottery Barn style "classical" facades acting as serviceable architecture manqué.
It's hard to escape thinking of postwar Modernism, as this is the analog to contextual design. Modernism in architecture, in its most basic sense, is the building treated as an object, devoid of context or relationship to anything but itself. In city planning, it's treating everything which came before as wrong-headed and expendable. Modernists were anxious in every respect to wipe the slate clean and start over, and they actually got their way in many places over a long period of time. We are now in the position to fairly judge their success. The reply is a lot more about New Urbanism in planning than Postmodernism in architecture.
Style really has little to nothing do with any of this. Architectural pastiche can be just and noncontextual as Modern architecture. Bland does not inherently fit any better than bold. Clothes do not make the building. As a city planner in my former life, I can tell you that 99% of what came across my counter was dull and unimaginative by intention. As Buckminster Fuller said, bankers design buildings, not architects.
It's hard to escape thinking of postwar Modernism, as this is the analog to contextual design. Modernism in architecture, in its most basic sense, is the building treated as an object, devoid of context or relationship to anything but itself. In city planning, it's treating everything which came before as wrong-headed and expendable. Modernists were anxious in every respect to wipe the slate clean and start over, and they actually got their way in many places over a long period of time. We are now in the position to fairly judge their success. The reply is a lot more about New Urbanism in planning than Postmodernism in architecture.
Style really has little to nothing do with any of this. Architectural pastiche can be just and noncontextual as Modern architecture. Bland does not inherently fit any better than bold. Clothes do not make the building. As a city planner in my former life, I can tell you that 99% of what came across my counter was dull and unimaginative by intention. As Buckminster Fuller said, bankers design buildings, not architects.
I do think the reactionary style amongst planning and zoning boards is in large part due to the depredations of modernism. After all, if you've seen large swaths or your city transformed into glass wind tunnels, you might develop a soft spot for "nice" architecture, no matter how bland or derivative.
Of course, you have to acknowledge that the real "failure" of modernist architecture was its amenability to cheap and fast construction, serving as legitimatizing cover for countless soulless knockoffs of some actually pretty sterling buildings. Not unlike the dreary mass market "minimal" stuff that took only the simple surfaces of Bauhaus and ignored the careful refinement of detail and execution.
OTOH I see this as an exciting time for architecture, with what to my eye looks like the first persuasive move beyond modernism that's coherent enough to think of as a "movement." I've seen it called "techno baroque", "pile of shapes", and "free-form", but in the right hands Gehry style effusions can be energizing and uplifting, or serene and contemplative. For the latter, look no further than the new DeYoung Museum in SF's Golden Gate Park, a long undulating copper clad building, punctuated by a partially twisted tower. For my money, it's got it all over the Mario Botto designed SF Museum of Modern Art, a po-mo temple of culture that is very clear about it's rigidly enforced hierarchies where the DeYoung is beguilingly casual. There's something about busting up that cube that really seems to invite a different relationship to inhabiting the interior, which is why I like it so much. It goes beyond the latest thing in facades to rethink the whole idea of how we use and interact with made spaces.
We can also hope that the intricacy of fabrication involved will be proof against sail form Targets or shuffled deck banks.
I though that was a Faberge Penis...
.
iCucumber.
.
Oh baby!
.
In the history of construction in the state of california, projects like that are only undertaken by taxpayers and ALWAYS are estimated low at the onset (to rope everyone in) and triple in cost as construction progresses.
An above ground monorail would make more sense, and Steve can certainly find some resources for that.
Joe (cue the Simpsons episode...)