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Richard Haut
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Joined: 18 Apr 2004
Posts: 1128
Location: Nice, France
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 Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 1:55 am Post subject: |
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Per - "copycat" is a school-children's insult. When someone copies someone else's work by looking over their shoulder, they are called a "copycat". Such things can lead to a playground brawl - even if the hopeless "vagabundo" is reduced to repeating his meaningless insults in Portuguese.
MX: | Quote: | | The pure joy of Architecture is actually doing it |
spectacular.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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innova+e
Joined: 21 Dec 2007
Posts: 27
Location: lisbon
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| Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 5:15 pm Post subject: |
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I have to give kudos to Lekizz on this one for keeping the peas and quite. (I spelled it with capital L because she's earned it)
FLW used to say, as commentary on the american suburban movement, that putting the garage in front of the house, to view from streetside, was like someone wearing their entrails on their head. All in context remember. Wright was a shorter man, about 5-6, and didnt feel ceilings and eaves overhangs should be very high, it was after all, perfect for him to walk under, no? Well, the engineers didnt quite see his rhetoric as poetic a dance of architectural commentary as we all used to as young designers.
Wright used to swat flies in his office, saying, "that was Mies!, That one was Corbu", and the like.. as perhaps there was some inherent professional jealousy in that they were taking europe by storm with their machines for living, while he wanted warm EastWest aligned structures that were the perfect marriage of inside and outside, and nothing really more (in his opinion).
Well Frank didnt even really get moving until his later years, but when you see his drawings, in person (see the Prairie Avenue Book Store in Chicago), you can sense the passion he put into things. But we are talking contextual reference way back when...the thirties even.. I feel he was mainly commenting on the modernist movement, in so far as the gang from Europe was objectifying, rather, de-formalizing their machines, and focusing on technological function within a cold form factory pressed and modulated creation of concrete and steel. Well, back in Wisconsin they just didnt do that, see, and so Frank was merely giving his opinion. Don't take it too seriously. Read what they all had to say and think about what they were saying but relate it to the context of the times.
Growing up in southern Wisconsin, I heard lots of things about the guy (FLW) and until I walked through his buildings, I almost believed most of them... If you get the chance, move through them, your quote will make more sense in the context of his work.
Anyway, before I confuse myself and the rest of you fine people, I will say this was some early commentary by FLW on his ideas of representation. I would suggest a good reading which discusses other theories of reprsentation which might help sort out where these guys were coming from, by Dalibor Vesely, ARCHITECTURE IN THE AGE OF DIVIDED REPRSENTATION... its not an easy read, but well worth it.
well good luck with frank, we're proud of him, the b---ard.
ac |
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mx2
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Joined: 18 Jan 2006
Posts: 1967
Location: Miami, Florida
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| Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 9:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Frank was merely giving his opinion. Don't take it too seriously. |
Words to live by! Kudos...!
mx2.5 
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*Art of Architecture: The conscious use of skill and creative imagination in the production of an aesthetic building.
*Science of Architecture: The calculated use of technical skill and knowledge in the construction of a functional building. |
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djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 694
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 9:28 am Post subject: |
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I checked out a FLW building yesterday in Whitefish, Montana.
His use of the planked wood, looked pushed and misplaced.
Form follows function are very good words to live by.
Chow
Derek
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SDR
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Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1697
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 1:59 pm Post subject: |
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If the building you saw was the former medical clinic/later bank (what function does it serve now ?) I would wish you had been able instead to see this medical building from 1955.
detail of entrance at right of door seen in first photo
To innova+e I applaud your ruminations. I have only recently found the essays included in the 1994 volume (edited by Terence Riley) published to accompany the Museum of Modern Art's encyclopedic exhibit of Wright's work. There is one about Wright's relationship to the modern movement, by Anthony Alofsin -- but the most meaningful one to me is the first in the book, by historian William Cronon, who explores the origins of Wright's purposes by looking at his early immersion in the Unitarianism of his family, and Emerson in particular, which explains Nature as something far more profound than the appearance of trees and rocks in its ability to inspire form, and at his possible impression of the 1893 Exposition as an ephemeral construction, trading permanence for something more important: beauty.
Cronon's interesting thesis is that Wright didn't really expect his buildings to last, or even to perform particularly well; he was more interested in "getting there first," in leading the way toward the ideal of a new architecture, and in an uncompromising effort to create beauty at all costs -- literally.
SDR |
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csintexas
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Joined: 06 Feb 2006
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Location: USA
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 6:41 am Post subject: |
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Founded in 2006 by Steve Fambro and funded in part by storied incubation station Idealab, Aptera plans to introduce its vehicle — a three-wheeled electric two-seater with a 120-mile range and room in back for a surfboard — by year's end. Price tag: $26,000 to $29,000. Its most striking feature is an aerodynamic shape. "I don't want to say it was an epiphany, because anyone who's looked into this knows that at highway speeds, 60percent of the energy goes to push air out of the way," Fambro says. "Why wouldn't we engineer the car to minimize that?"
The answer is that ever since GMsbrought us the tail fin, automotive design has been about emotion — form, not function. Aptera's Typ-1 reverses that paradigm, allowing aerodynamic efficiency to guide aesthetics. Still, the company had to appeal to those form-loving car buyers. Fambro hired designer Jason Hill, who did the original work on the Smart Fortwo and the body styling on the Porsche Carrera GT. Then, Fambro says, "I chained him to a desk" with Aptera's aerodynamicist, Miles Wheeler.
Form Follows Function
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Chris Stewart
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SDR
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Joined: 02 Oct 2004
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Location: San Francisco
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Architorture
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Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 1376
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 9:36 am Post subject: |
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i always find that its interesting how much time 'form' gets in this discussion when it takes place while the real meaning of the word 'function' doesn't...
i mean really- what is a function? obviously the program is a function... but isn't displaying a particular ideology or architectural values also a function if one wishes to make it so? |
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SDR
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Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 1697
Location: San Francisco
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 9:39 am Post subject: |
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Why not ?
Of course, aerodynamic performance is a prime example of function. . . |
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SDR
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Location: San Francisco
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djswan
Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 694
Location: Montana, USA
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:48 am Post subject: |
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That is a cool car.
Hmmmmm
Event is to chaos as function is to form Opinions???
I love this stuff
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solidred
Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 596
Location: Scotland
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:53 am Post subject: |
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SDR said: "Cronon's interesting thesis is that Wright didn't really expect his buildings to last, or even to perform particularly well; he was more interested in "getting there first," in leading the way toward the ideal of a new architecture, and in an uncompromising effort to create beauty at all costs -- literally."
Recalling another thread, maybe this is the secret of why people like Mies, Corb and FLW are so idolised. The older one gets, the more one comes to respect what it means to stick yer neck out, to make sacrifices and take risks for an ideal such as beauty which, for all its general surface popularity, is in fact spectacularly difficult to prioritise to the extent that these guys achieved in this busy, dirty banality of life. One really has to salute them. Or at least wink  |
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solidred
Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 596
Location: Scotland
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:58 am Post subject: |
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That car is perhaps too cool for its own good. I mean, people will start to wonder why it flies so close to the ground...
Anyways, I want one. Maybe I could visit the States and take it home as hand luggage  |
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csintexas
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Joined: 06 Feb 2006
Posts: 1776
Location: USA
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 11:10 am Post subject: |
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Program isn't necessarily function. It is when you are talking about the functional requirements but for example: If the program is to make a museum unique and therefor attract more customers, it can become an arbitrary aesthetic value judgment.
Otherwise function means nothing because you can always dismiss it as being secondary to aesthetics.
In this example function set the aesthetic while producing a pleasing (IMO) and more efficient design. This is what form follows function means.
Detroit might say that their function is to sell cars and so anything that sells well is functional. That may be true but it isn't the same thing. It may or may not be a functional business plan but it does not necessarily produce functional cars.
Detroit would have gone bankrupt in the eighties if the government had not bailed them out and now they are in trouble again because aesthetics are more important to them than function
Following that line of reasoning gets you:
the chevy volt due in 2010 maybe.... detroit is awesome -all brawn no brains.
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Chris Stewart
Modern Texas Home Project |
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solidred
Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 596
Location: Scotland
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| Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 11:25 am Post subject: |
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| csintexas wrote: | In this example function set the aesthetic while producing a pleasing (IMO) and more efficient design. This is what form follows function means.
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This may have been something in the connection between Emerson and FLW as, I think, SDR mentioned. What I mean is that there's an obvious technical connection between form and function in nature. But if I'm right in connecting Emerson with what I vaguely know about anthroposophy and Rudolph Steiner, then 'form' in nature is about much more than just 'shape' and as for function... in that world view everything has mystical overtones and metaphysical meaning. As such, an axiom that has often been construed as a straightforward 'technology follows biology etc.' sort of notion is in fact, at its root, also in the domain of art; as a pursuit that blends the spiritual with craft. |
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