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Architect Docs: Kondylis Vs. Portman
Recently I watched documentaries on a couple architects -- Costas Kondylis and John Portman -- who I'd least expect to receive the treatment. Which begged the question, "Why?" Perhaps the answer lies in "How?" So in lieu of straightforward reviews of each film, below is a side-by-side comparison (actually a top-bottom one, given Blogger's limited formatting capabilities) of Building Stories and John Portman: A Life of Building.
Running Time:
Kondylis: 58 minutes
Portman: 52 minutes
Director:
Kondylis: Toni Comas
Portman: Ben Loeterman
Writer:
Kondylis: Stuart Elliott
Portman: Ben Loeterman
Interview footage with architect:
Kondylis: No, but actor portrayal in one scene; some audio and footage of architect looking at his buildings
Portman: Yes, footage of interviews as well as candid meetings, lectures, etc.
Predominant type of building photography:
Kondylis: Looking up, tilting; some time-lapse
Portman: Lots of time-lapse
Sampling of people interviewed in the film:
Kondylis: Rick Bell, Kenneth Frampton, James Gardner, Karrie Jacobs, Richard Meier, Francis Morrone, Larry Silverstein, Donald Trump
Portman: Paul Goldberger, K. Michael Hays, Mack Scogin, Jacque Robertson, Portman's children
Score:
Kondylis: Dramatic
Portman: Koyaanisqatsi-esque
Support provided by:
Kondylis: Central Atlanta Progress, Inc.
Portman: The Real Deal
Highlight:
Kondylis: Doctoring Trump World Tower to look gold (similar to this), Trump's first choice for the exterior.
Portman: The architect visiting his first atrium building, a public housing project slated for demolition at the time and since demolished.
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Doug Aitken: Song 1
[All photos by John Hill]
Thanks to the AIA, Doug Aitken's Song 1 installation on the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. was extended to May 20 for conventioneers and others interested in the filmic facade.The multimedia piece is similar to, but more architecturally engaging than his 2007 Sleepwalkers at MoMA. The song of the title is "I Only Have Eyes for You," a doo-wop number written in 1934. The song gets stuck in the head, even though Aitken cuts the song up across the installation's 35 minutes, morphing it with electronic music, ambient noise, and other sounds. The piece is as much an aural accomplishment as a visual one. Photos from my visit are below, and at bottom is a clip of Song 1 made by the artist.
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Yasuaki Onishi: reverse of volume RG
The first issue of the World-Architects eMagazine last month featured an installation at Rice University Art Gallery: reverse of volume RG by Japanese artist Yasuaki Onishi. The striking images of the landscape in plastic and black hot glue are now accompanied by the below video from Rice Gallery. It's great to see the installation take shape -- from cardboard boxes and cherry pickers to an ethereal and minimal space.
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Heading to D.C.
I'm off to Washington, D.C. for the AIA Convention, so posts will resume early next week, and my weekly page will be on hiatus until the Tuesday after Memorial Day.
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Six Days for sLAB Costa Rica
The deadline for NYIT's sLAB Costa Rica Kickster campaign, a project I featured previously, is six days away (May 21). As I type this they are ~$7,500 short of their new goal of $24,000. Below is a video about the project, which will result in students from NYIT helping to build a recycling facility they designed for Nosara, Costa Rica.
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Today's archidose #585*
Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris France by Frank Gehry (expected completion 2014). Per the Fondation's website:
Like a floating ship in the trees; wide opened to nature, the building imagined by Frank Gehry expresses the spirit of the Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la Création, ever in state of becoming. It was conceived to be continuously reinvented with the passage of exhibitions and events. In exquisite harmony with the environment, its interior and exterior spaces breathe as one.
*I inadvertently skipped a number in my last posting, hence the backtrack with today's archidose.
To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:
:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
:: Tag your photos archidose
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Monday, Monday
A Weekly Dose of Architecture Updates:
This week's dose features Mini-Studio in Mexico City, Mexico by FRENTEarquitectura:
The featured past dose is the Azteca Multimodal Transfer Station in Mexico City, Mexico by CC Arquitectos:
This week's book review includes three journals: Boundaries #3, City Limits #5, Log 24:
**NOTE: The next weekly dose will be 2012.05.29.**
american-architects.com Building of the Week:
BSA Space in Boston, Massachusetts by Hӧweler + Yoon Architecture:
Unrelated links are now found in the left sidebar and on My Diigo Bookmarks page.
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OMA + MAI
[Photos by John Hill, unless otherwise noted]
Last week, a bunch of press folks squeezed into MoMA PS1's Performance Dome to listen to artist Marina Abramović, architect Shohei Shigematsu (of OMA's New York office), and others unveil the design for the Marina Abramović Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art (MAI) in Hudson, New York. The unveiling kicks off a fundraising effort on the part of the artist, who aims for an optimistic completion of the project in 2014. The design, by Rem Koolhaas and Shigematsu, reconfigures an old theatre-cum-tennis-center, preserving its exterior walls, balcony, and structure, and inserting new floors and spaces.
At first blush I thought the combination of a well-known artist and well-known architect added up to a lot of hype, but not necessarily a good architectural design. But after learning more about Abramović's art and OMA's design during the press conference, I gradually warmed up to it. The above study models indicate the basic parti of the design: a large central performance space is surrounded by smaller spaces. The more developed study model below (bottom right, above) makes it clear that some of the smaller spaces serve the large performance space -- the reused balcony, in particular -- but most of them work independently; the design's reality is somewhere between these two relationships, as will be seen.
The site plan below illustrates how the building Abramović purchased has a strong public presence in Hudson, overlooking a large open space. MAI is envisioned as another element in a string of public buildings that ring the open space and extend to other parts of the town. According to a press release, MAI "will host workshops, public lectures and festivals." But its bread and butter will be training people in the Abramović Method.
The artist explained her Abramović Method after showing a short trailer for the documentary The Artist Is Present, which is based on her show of the same name at MoMA in 2010. As the title indicates, Abramović was part of the exhibition, actually sitting in MoMA's large atrium gallery for hours each day, staring at museum-goers who sat across from her; many were moved to tears. It's obvious that her long-duration performances take discipline on the part of the artist, but it is less obvious that it requires the same (if to a lesser degree) from the viewer, who actually becomes part of the performance. The Abramović Method is her means of training people to have the right mindset and discipline to endure long-duration performances. This makes it sound like these performances are painful more than grueling, but given today's short attention spans and speedy communications, even the 2-1/2-hour period without a smartphone may be difficult for many.
To get back to OMA's design, the large performance space is centrally located for two reasons: first, the theatre/tennis courts were in the same location; and second, this flexible white-box space for up to 650 people is overlooked by every other part of the Institute, elevating it to be the most prominent and important space. In the model above, the bottom left corner -- the piece that juts from the building mass -- is the entrance, which includes a vertical gallery. From the entry, those attending a performance would go to the left, while those for training would continue straight and to the right; therefore a distinction between public and private is created, but each has views of central space.
Of the public and private spaces, the latter are easily the most interesting. The Abramović Method requires some traditional classroom-type spaces, but it also includes a levitation room, a crystal room, and a sleeping chamber; in the case of the latter, employees wheel trainees in custom wheelchairs -- somewhere between a traditional wheelchair and a cabana chair -- from elsewhere in the building (wherever the fall asleep) to the chamber. Considering that trainees don white lab coats, and that they eventually perform (like in Milan at PAC) for the public, I can only imagine a strange dynamic happening in the building between the public and private, between the curious and the immersed. The building "type" is a strange hybrid of a performing arts institution and a school, anchored by Abramović and her unique method. One can only imagine how the building would "work," but for some reason I think it needs to be a 24-hour institution, in order to truly embrace the long-duration performances the artist promotes.
This last illustration, a longitudinal building section below, shows the relationships of some of the smaller spaces to the central performance space. The idea is that a visit to the library or some other space gives a peek at the performance space, as well as views across to the other openings; therefore people watch each other watching the performance. A breakdown occurs between long-held distinctions between performer and viewer, both in the art and in the architecture. In that regard, OMA's design is simple yet completely appropriate to the complex task of turning Abramović's art and method into a building for the ages.
[Building Section | Image courtesy OMA]
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Today's archidose #586
Here are a few photos of the Conrad Hotel in Beijing, China by MAD Architects, 2012. Photographs are by Willian Veerbeek, who has many more photos of buildings new and old in his Beijing/CN, 2012 set on flickr.
To contribute your Flickr images for consideration, just:
:: Join and add photos to the archidose pool, and/or
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Half Dose #105: Salon 94 Bowery
Behind this unassuming facade two doors up from the New Museum of Contemporary on the Bowery is the Salon 94 Gallery. While I don't see mention of the project on their website, the gallery is designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects, according to a helpful gent at the New Museum and the NYC BIS.
Upon entering, one can walk left to a small desk area or descend a straight-run stair to the cellar. Two linear pieces prevail in the stairwell: a steel beam running from the front door to the double-height gallery space, and a handrail cut into the drywall.
The handrail is a non-detail, minimalism taken to an extreme.
The white-cube gallery is predictably sparse, all drywall and concrete, minus the fluorescent lighting, the skylight along the back wall, and the steel beam jutting into the space. When looking back towards the stair (below), the rusty steel beam is at its most aggressive. It offers promise for large-scale artwork to be carried along its length to the tall gallery space.
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