A new architecture criticism

Encontramos um texto sobre arquitetura e crítica e achamos interessante compartilhar com vocês, críticos que devem ser, essa visão da arquitetura atual.

"When you ask around, a lot of people will suggest that architecture criticism is about making negative judgments on unwanted tendencies in the built environment, or a part of it. This somewhat hasty interpretation of the word ‘criticism’ does goes up often. If we for instance had to believe the Belgian critic Lieven de Cauter, author of the book ‘Capsular Civilization’, the world is quickly heading down hill. And he is not the only one who favors the negative.

Much too often architecture criticism turns into a criticism of society at large. Architecture in that case is taken as both the example of the unwanted tendency and the subject to criticize it. In the final branches of critical theory – another confusing term – it is all about the unmasking of consumerism and the support of the resistance against capitalism. Within that perspective the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is nothing more than a highly spectacular store in which commerce has finally has overwon. Let’s not even start on Dubai.

That is not the architecture criticism I want to write. Although critical theory gained momentum after the 1968 riots in France, at this moment it has become futile. The success of capitalism over communism does play its part in this. The recent credit crunch doesn’t change that. Just as important however is the didactic tone of the ‘critical critics’, as I would like to call them. This tone of voice is, as Bruno Latour proves, no longer accepted by the public as the truth. Society has moved beyond that. Everything can and is questioned. When only plausible truths exist, as Michael Speaks says, critical theory has to compete with other perspectives.

The lost monopoly of critical theory has left architecture critics in despair. In the book ‘Architecture in the Netherlands 2007-08’ the editors complain about the loss of a singular frame of reference by which architecture can be judged. This confusion is inherited by the younger generation of critics. They continue to study critical theory, finish PhD’s on it, but can’t rhyme what they have learned with the world around them.

With the loss of a singular frame of reference (assuming there once existed one), critics have lost their ability to judge. Reality, it has been recognized, is too complex to grasp in a single truth. Whether or not we can counter climate change by reducing CO2 emissions is plausible, but not more than that. Architecture criticism has lost its ‘god-mode’ in which everything had its predictable place.

I am glad. We now own the freedom to take on every perspective imaginable. The singular frame of reference has switched places with temporary, provisional ones. With the diminished relevance of critical theory, architecture criticism has to take a step back to the moment before the judgment. The public now can decide for themselves. The architecture critic only has to offer the public handles to make up their mind on their own. The work of the critic has to become more diverse and more open.

For the subject of architecture criticism this means a farewell to the fixed point-of-view in favor of a more neutral position where pro’s and con’s are treated equally. In architecture criticism the negative effects of capitalism should be compared with its positive effects. Just like that innovation and conservatism are virtues in their own right. Architecture criticism indeed again gains journalistic and scientific value.

The architecture critic gives the public an understanding of the subject being discussed. The new architecture critic doesn’t provide a judgment based on critical theory or ideology, but instead provide an insight with the instruments he can apply.

An overview:

1. Selection. Architecture criticism starts with the selection of the subject or subjects and by motivating that selection. Why is this relevant now, and why? An important criterion is whether or not the subject embodies a future development, but it is certainly not the only criterion imaginable. The subject can for instance also be really appropriate at a certain moment, like an economic crisis, without technically being innovative.

2. Confrontation. The architecture critic can put the performance of the subject in perspective by presenting a competing subject next to it and to compare the performance of them. It is an easy instrument: just compare two or more projects, sources, concepts or opinions in one document. Architecture criticism guaranteed. The selection of course should be done carefully. Compare apples with apples.

3. Broadening. With this instrument the subject is put in a broader perspective by elaborating on its context: its background, its location, the reception by the public, its predecessors, the circumstances, its development, and so on. The simplicity of the instrument is deceptive. Discussing the ‘how?’ alone is easy, more difficult is to assess the ‘why?’ and most importantly: ‘why now?’

4. Speculation. Scenario’s, extrapolating trends, imagination… to speculate on the future is an intrinsic part of architecture and of architecture criticism. Read for instance BLDGBLOG to see what I mean.

5. Analysis. In ‘What is Philosophy’ Gilles Deleuze argues that the essence of philosophy is to discover concepts that can describe bits of reality. In an analyses the concept behind the subject is uncovered. In architecture criticism analysis is among the most challenging instruments there are."

Autor: Michiel van Raaij

Via: Eikongraphia

A história se repete?

"Procuramos inspiração para as formas novas, em parte nos estilos arcaicos e meio perdidos, ou na franca invenção de espíritos criadores. Sendo aceito esse reviramento de idéias, teremos pelo menos alguns resultados definitivos. Os trabalhos do nosso tempo trarão a marca deste nosso tempo. Os artistas inventores e criadores merecerão outra confiança e respeito que não [aquelas conferidas a] os bons trabalhadores que se ocupam em copiar trabalhos dos seus predecessores.

Aprecio e respeito profundamente o trabalho realmente moderno, que ousa ser francamente moderno, mesmo que não seja sempre do meu (possivelmente mau) gosto. É que, mesmo no pior dos casos, isto nos revela um ser humano trabalhando e vivendo, lutando para expressar alguma coisa do seu tempo, da sua personalidade, do seu ambiente.

Realmente, basta um pouco de raciocínio sadio, lógica sã, de imparcialidade crítica, para levar a gente à conclusão de que sendo o modernismo, mesmo fragmentário como ele se apresenta hoje, uma expressão de energia criadora, não se lhe pode, nem se lhe deve, negar o direito à existência. Ele é fruto da própria existência.

Assim como a vida de hoje se diferencia, fortemente, da de dois séculos passados, também a arte de hoje deve, logicamente, diferenciar-se da arte daqueles tempos."

Correio Paulistano, 29 ago. 1928

Em: WARCHAVCHIK, Gregori. Arquitetura do século XX e outros escritos. São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2006.

Know-How

"Materials often hold surprises just waiting to be discovered by those who use them - creatives with experience, talent and know-how. It's up to them to push the envelope, to see where and how far a material can go. Selecting a material is the first step. The processes that follow run the gamut from cutting, piercing and polishing to shaping, assembling and declaring the project completed. Each essencial operation - the designer with know-how often treads a long, complex and delicate path - is geared to the composition of the material in question. Specialized knowledge that brings out the full potential of a material is rare and prized."

Extracted from: MATÉRIO: 2006, Material World 2 Innovative Materials for Architecture and Design, Birkhäuser,Basel.

Future Systems

" 'Look at the igloo or the nomadic tent. There is nothing to say that every house has to have eight corners.' For Future Systems, the advantage of a more organic geometry is the freedom that it brings: It allows you to introduce height in the right places. You don't need a seven metre overall height, when you can go up or down where it's needed; it means more drama, but also more functionality. It's possible to start to experiment with floor levels, perhaps with semi-curved floors; you don't have to have a wall - maybe it disappears altogether. It is a theory, but things are moving in that direction."

"I don't like to use 'flexibility' - it's misused, it's degraded as a word. What we want is flexibility to be spontaneous, we don't want it to be mechanical."

Deyan Sudjic on Future Systems

Extracted from: SUDJIC, D: 2006, Future Systems, Phaidon Press, London.

Rigors and complexity

"Complexity is achieved by recursive repetition of a simple rule from which stems the structure's geometry and detail. Within this complexity modularity and repetition are preserved and hierarchies order and govern process of fabrication and construction

Complexity is latent order not chaos. It keeps the eye in constant search for that hidden rule that moves and is lost within this spiralling patterns of lines that surround you.

And finally complexity generates pattern and ornament, tectonic in its nature and therefore indiscernible from the structure."

Cecil Balmond

Extracted from: MEREDITH, M: 2008, From Control to Design Parametric/Algorithmic Architecture Actar, Barcelona.

Effects

"There is a close relationship of materiality in architecture to the extend realm of effects and affects. Articulation of surface and formal effects can have a tremendous affect on the experimental veracity of architecture.

Peter Eisenmann makes the distinction between effect and affect rather clear. He states 'Effect is something produced by an agent or cause. In architecture it is the relationship between some object and its function or meaning; it is an idea that has dominated western architecture for the las 200 years.' In contrast, 'Affect is the conscious subjective aspect of an emotion considered apart from bodily changes. Affect in architecture is simply the sensate response to a physical

environment.'"

Branko Kolarevic and Kevin R. Klinger

Extracted from: KOLAREVIC, B and KLINGER, K: 2008, Manufacturing Material Effects  Rethinking Design and Making Architecture,  Routledge, New York.

Geometric Algorithm

"Our challenge became that of finding a rule, an algorithm that would generate that chaos with its intricate beauties, but with an underlying order that would allow the realisation of the pavillion within fourteen weeks."

"We set off our research by taking the square plan of the pavillion and subdividing it with a rather arbitrary geometric rule. Our approach is very often to start from an arbitrary point and critically examine the multiple outcomes that yield from modifying the starting rule."

Cecil Balmond on Toyo Ito's 2002 Serpentine Gallery Pavillion

Extracted fom: MEREDITH, M: 2008, From Control to Design Parametric/Algorithmic Architecture Actar, Barcelona.

Manipulation

"Mutability of materials is also recognized as a design opportunity. the capacity of materials to transform and change over time, i. e. deteriorate through ageing, weathering, and use, was something to be avoided in much twentieth-century architecture, and was rarely embraced as a design opportunity."

Branko Kolarevic and Kevin R. Klinger

Extracted from: KOLAREVIC, B and KLINGER, K: 2008, Manufacturing Material Effects  Rethinking Design and Making Architecture,  Routledge, New York.

Spatial, Structural and Organizational Diagrams

"The task in this phase is to perceive and configure the space between the folds as actual space. Not yet as the virtual form of a possible building or as an abstract geometric space but as scape accommodating an abstract program. A smooth space that needs to be occupied in order to be calculated"

Sophia Vyzoviti

Extracted from: VYZOVITI, S: 2003,Folding ArchitectureSpatial, Structural and Organizational Diagrams, Gingko Press, Corte Madera, CA.

Folding

"The effect is investigative design and attitude formation. In this context, the fold is more important for the development of methods to arrive at a new architecture, than it is for the development of an individual architectural form."

"This way of folding is more radical than origami because it includes no narrative element. The fold is sort of affectionate space. More than just reason, meaning and function are involved here."

Sophia Vyzoviti

Extracted from: VYZOVITI, S: 2003,Folding Architecture Spatial, Structural and Organizational Diagrams, Gingko Press, Corte Madera, CA.

Interview: Patrik Schumacher

"In terms of the digital world, we see a proliferation of natural morphologies which are exciting and can be made to work and enrich the compositional and organizational repertoire - not just in terms of appearence but as organizational patterns. For us [these morphologies] are navigation and orientation issues that can give more order to a complex environment."

Interview: Patrik Schumacher, published in: MAD Dinner, by MAD.exe office, Beijing,
published by Actar Barcelona, New York, 2007 @ http://www.patrikschumacher.com/

Searching for material behavior

"... designers and researchers increasingly are looking for inspiration in nature to discover new materials and new material behaviors, so that buildings (or rather building enclosures) can respond dynamically to changin enviromental conditions. In addition to mimicking the intricate complex appearance and organization of patterned skins and structures in nature, their behavior is also being investigated for possible new ideas about the performance of building skins and structures."

Branko Kolarevic and Kevin R. Klinger

Extracted from: KOLAREVIC, B and KLINGER, K: 2008, Manufacturing Material Effects  Rethinking Design and Making Architecture,  Routledge, New York.

Self-organisation and material constructions

"In recent years, new strategies for design and new techniques for making materials and large constructions have emerged, based on biological models of the process by which natural material forms are produced."

Michael Weinstock

Extracted from: Architectural Design Vol 76 No 2 March/April 2006:Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design , Wiley Academy, London.

Self-organisation and the structural dynamics of plants

"The engineering principles of biological systems can be abstracted and applied to the design of artefacts and buildings, a process known as biomimetics. To do so requires a deeper engagement with evolutionary development and a more systematic analysis of the material organisation and behaviour of individual spaecies."

Michael Weinstock

Extracted from: Architectural Design Vol 76 No 2 March/April 2006:Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design , Wiley Academy, London.

Thinking architecture

"Wooden floors like light membranes, heavy stone masses, soft textiles, polished granite, pliable leather, raw steel, polished mahogany, crystalline glass, soft asphalt warmed by the sun... the architect's materials, our materials. We know them all. And yet we do not know them. In order to design, to invent architecture, we must learn to handle them with awareness. This is research, this is the work of remembering."

"All design work starts from the premise of this physical, objective sensuouness of architecture, of its materials. To experience architecture in a concrete way means to touch, see, hear, and smell it. To discover and conciously work with these qualities - these are the themes of our teaching."

Peter Zumthor

Extracted from: ZUMTHOR, P: 2006, Thinking Architecture, Birkhäuser, Basel.

Architecture is a material practice

"Materials make up our built environment, and their interaction with the dynamics of the environment they are embedded within results in specific conditions we live in.

Moreover, culture and the way materiality and materials are understood and instrumentalised mutually condition one another. Herein lies the great challenge for architecture as a material practice. Materiality and material performance is thus by no means a subordinate question of detailing, but, instead, one of key significance."

Michael Hendel and Defne Sunguro

ğlu

Extracted from: Architectural Design Vol 78 No 2 March/April 2008: Versatility and Vicissitude Performance in Morpho-Ecological Design , Wiley Academy, London.

Frank Gehry

"Em uma cidade baseada na mobilidade do automóvel, em um contexto em contínua mutação, a obra de Gehry partiu da exploração das qualidades plásticas de materiais de "má reputação" como papelão, arame, madeiras laminadas, telas metálicas, placas pré-fabricadas, chumbo, estuques semi-industriais, etc."

"O projeto de Camp Good Times em Santa Monica Mountains, Califórnia (1984-1985), um complexo não acabado que estava sendo utilizado para alojamento de crianças enfermas, consiste em uma série de edifícios dispersos onde cada um se dedica a funções distintas, e emprega diferentes formas simbólicas: ondas de água congelada servem para abrigar o refeitório, o anfiteatro e o dormitório; o telhado é o casco de um barco invertido; existem velas sobre a cobertura da enfermaria; a cozinha é um frasco de leite; ao fundo se vislumbra um moinho. Trata-se sempre de referências à água, ao líquido, em um lugar tão seco como Santa Monica Mountains."

Trechos retirados de:

MONTANER, Josep Maria; Depois do Movimento Moderno - Arquitetura da segunda metade do século XX. Editorial Gustavo Gili.

Faculdade (d)e Arquitetura

Segundo o Dicionário Escolar da Língua Portuguesa - Academia Brasileira de Letras - Companhia Editora Nacional
faculdade (fa.cul.da.de) s.f. 1. Capacidade inata ou adquirida. 2. Aptidão intelectual ou física: O homem tem a faculdade de falar, as aves de voar. 3. Propriedade das substâncias: O ímã tem a faculdade de atrair o ferro. 4. Estabelecimento superior de ensino: faculdade de Medicina.

No mundo, as universidades são reconhecidas como centros de excelência de ensino, sendo consideradas geradoras de inovações tecnológicas e pesquisas revolucionárias. No Brasil, esta prática, tão comum em ambientes acadêmicos europeus e norte-americanos, não se faz tão presente quanto deveria ou poderia. Enquanto que no exterior é de praxe a experimentação de novas estruturas, formas, estilos e soluções arquitetônicas dentro das faculdades - uma vez que o local se caracteriza por ser um estabelecimento de ensino, representando a excelência intelectual de uma área profissional -, no Brasil as faculdades atualmente não oferecem, em sua maioria, possibilidades entusiasmantes de criação de conhecimento durante as aulas da graduação (principalmente as cadeiras de Projeto Arquitetônico) e nos laboratórios de pesquisa acadêmica.

Muitas faculdades brasileiras ensinam uma arquitetura que começou a ser realizada, na melhor das hipóteses, em 1970, com as edificações de Aldo Rossi (ganhador do Pritzker em 1990), a qual é chamada de arquitetura racional, inspirada pelos projetos que começaram a ser desenvolvidos por volta de 1915 (quando se iniciou o Movimento Moderno), por arquitetos como Le Corbusier e Mies van der Rohe (MONTANER, 1992). Não é a intenção deste texto discutir a qualidade dessa arquitetura, mas ela sem dúvida fez parte de uma época marcante para essa profissão e até hoje é desenvolvida no Brasil e nos países da Europa. Apesar da importância que esse movimento tem, outros estilos de arquitetura foram criados ao longo da história, tendo importância no cenário internacional, como o pós-modernismo de Robert Venturi (ganhador do Pritzker de 1991) e o neo-construtivismo do escritório OMA, representado pelo holandês Rem Koolhaas (ganhador do Pritzker de 2000).

Apesar do sucesso de outras arquiteturas, os graduandos das faculdades de Arquitetura têm contato com uma política de estudo quase exclusivo do "Movimento Moderno" e da "Arquitetura Racional", sendo este estudo muitas vezes baseado na constatação de que a arquitetura não pode ser ensinada (defendida também por Helio Piñón, Peter Eisenman e Wolf Prix). Dessa forma, as aulas se baseiam na mostra - quando ocorrem - de projetos famosos do Movimento Moderno (aquele de 1915) e da arquitetura racional atual. Não é necessário colocar em dúvida a importância do conhecimento dos alunos de edificações como o Seagram Building e a Casa Farnsworth de Mies van der Rohe, a Maison Domino e as Unidades de Habitação de Le Corbusier e a casa Schröder de Gerrit Rietveld, mas o que acaba ocorrendo nas práticas de projeto é a não-discussão sobre as vantagens e desvantagens de um determinado estilo arquitetônico, e infelizmente, a não-criação de novas soluções para os problemas projetuais.

Com esse panorama, o estudante não se vê em um ambiente pró-criação e experimentação, e sim em um local de sistemática repetição do "já visto", a composição de elementos pré-estabelecidos em um prédio com um novo programa, o que foi um dos principais problemas da primeira geração do Movimento Moderno (MONTANER, 1992). O resultado final do aprendizado ao longo da faculdade é visto no Trabalho Final de Graduação (TFG), quando os graduandos expõem o que deve ser o projeto de maior qualidade e a mostra de sua identidade formal individual. Infelizmente, olhando cada um dos resultados se constata a falta de grandes divergências de repertório da maioria, não querendo afirmar falta de qualidade, mas falta de novidade com embasamento teórico.

Após a formatura, o arquiteto recém-formado se depara com um mercado competitivo, que pratica - para citar um jargão comum dentro das faculdades - uma arquitetura comercial, a qual é rechaçada pelos núcleos de professores. Assim, resumidamente, o ex-aluno da graduação não está preparado nem para novos estilos de arquitetura, praticados por diversos escritórios europeus e norte-americanos - como o UNStudio, Foreign Office Architects e Zaha Hadid Architects -, nem para a arquitetura - de qualidade ou não - praticada nos grandes centros como Porto Alegre. Como não houve a já falada experimentação, o jovem arquiteto se vê na obrigação de criar seu próprio repertório inovador diretamente para ser construído, o que o leva para experiências com resultados muitas vezes equivocados formalmente.

Com base nisso, a disciplina eletiva Atelier Material tem como propósito principal a aplicação de exercícios que visem à exploração da matéria como ferramenta de elaboração formal, com base na busca pela definição das sensações provocadas em cada sentido e por novos materiais - construtivos ou não -, além da experimentação de mudanças de escala e uso, além da criação de sequências de manipulações e, por fim, a criação de uma instalação. Dessa forma, este conjunto de exercícios tentam diminuir a distância entre os alunos de arquitetura de Porto Alegre e os de países norte-americanos ou europeus para que, quem sabe um dia, termos uma outra "arquitetura brasileira", como um dia foi o Modernismo.

Franco Miotto.