Committee on Design

Mr. Farris I look forward to your book! I read your last post and Iagree with every word! But! But! But! Can we really expect all architects to be capable of art that will be good enough for public consumption (whatever that might mean)? Do art schools generally create successful artists? Maybe you are showing me that my question, not necessarily anyone else's,instead of being about excellence, is rather; what about all the architects, say, beneath the 70th percentile in terms of artistic skill? Do we really want them making public art? Architecture is unavoidably public. Can we find an achievable mission for those otherwise competent architects who don't have an artist's eye or hand? A corollary question I think is this. Does the public generally not want art with it's architecture because it has been the victim of so much awful art from mediocre architects, OR, is art, and thereby, the architecture we love, constitutionally only of interest to that small circle of afficionados that we already know about? Why, after the Miller Foundation's efforts for all these years in Columbus, Indiana, are there almost no modern houses there? Have you ever driven north from South Beach. Miles and miles of houses across the waterway. Maybe 1 or 2 that you and I would consider architecture. Prime real estate, but no architecture! Does it matter? Do we really matter? Could we matter? ------------------------------------------- Mike Mense FAIA Owner mmenseArchitects Anchorage AK -------------------------------------------

To: Mike Mense- If you would, please define what you consider to be a "modern house," since your most recent post seemed to indicate that "it's not architecture unless it's modern" (regarding the real estate near South Beach?). 

But, I thought you said that we should keep this discussion to design excellence and not allow it to be led with "how it looks." 

I think we have to admit that Aesthetics does play a huge role in architecture (the Wow factor); in Architecture 101, our professors have eternally defined architecture as art + technology.  "Ergo" (inside Twitter joke), if one cannot produce architecture that is comprised of art (i.e. an aesthetically pleasing parti realized in beautiful forms), then perhaps one is not creating architecture, but merely making a "building" as you mentioned a few posts back.

Why do we always return to the classics such as the Parthenon, the Pantheon, the Colliseum, et al when we want to bring up an example of great architecture?  Why don't we say The Sydney Opera House, or Zaha Hadid's Swiss Ski Resort, or anything by Santiago Calatravi?  (I'm sure it has something to do with not being able to recognize an expert unless he/she's centuries removed.  If a prophet is nothing unless he's 5 miles from home, it seems an architect is nothing unless his/her works have stood the test of time at the very least).

Why do the Pyramids at Giza evoke an emotional response?  Would IM Pei's steel and glass pyramid make any sense if it was located in the middle of nowhere outside of Las Vegas, stripped of it's context?  No, I think that by itself, it is pretty much a nothing, but maybe I'm wrong and need to visit it in person first before making such assumptions.  But seeing it placed in juxtaposition to the 16th c. Louvre, it has a sense of presence and becomes a beautiful lantern at night.

The Faberge Egg building in London looks odd to me.  So does the Pompidou Center in France-- I hate the use of Mondrian color scheme.  It screams 1960's.  But I love FLW's Fallingwater and his Guggenheim Museum in NYC.

As far as interior schemes (programming), I have long admired the published works of DMJM-Rottet.  Very modern and exciting use of materials, color, and furniture styles.

Sorry to ramble on, I enjoy adding my two cents into the mix.  Thanks for indulging me.

And Mr. Farris's post was amazing.  Great writing.  I, too, look forward to his book.

Tara


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Tara Imani AIA
Principal
Tara Imani Designs, LLC
Houston TX
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