Category: Criticism

Five buildings and Italo Calvino’s “Six Memos for the Next Millennium” (6, revised)

Prada Marfa, Valentine, Texas, United States

The Prada boutique of Marfa shows seriously concerned details for its small size; it was the owner of the brand in person who selected the articles to display. Due to its location, just off the borderless highway, it has suffered for vandalism and robbery; every time that happened, the Ballroom Marfa, a local nonprofit organization paid for repairs.

In brief, this is not a building. It’s an installation art to show how it wears off gradually in rain and in wind of Texas over time, designed by two creators supported by this organization. The appearance is almost same as the real, but it’s never opened for business. Functionally useless, however, one might recall the absurdity of consumption or meaninglessness of existence through this mimic on the wasteland.

Continue reading “Prada Marfa”

Five buildings and Italo Calvino’s “Six Memos for the Next Millennium” (5, revised)

Diversity: Anexo del Ayuntamiento de Murcia, Murcia, Spain

Buildings are drawn, constructed and used with predetermined purposes. Houses are created to inhabit, and factories are made to produce. Sometimes a power plant or a railway station is redesigned for another program such as the Tate Modern or the Musée d’Orsay, but those cases are quite exceptional. The encyclopedia tries to include all knowledge of the world; the literary work aspires to reach the truth of the universe. The building always possesses a distinct and practical reason; at the very beginning, it was merely a static tool as a shelter to protect a “fragile” human being from unknown external risks.

However, putting the buildings together one by one on an identical plane, another point of view arises, since they create relationship including equipoise, hierarchy, territory, boundary, homogeneity, heterogeneity, conformity, multiplicity, and so on. This contextual entanglement, called a city, offers a field to observe the meaning of a building, focusing on why people conceive and accept it on that specific location. In other words, the city is a pending outcome of the society, as an enormous architecture that never ends.

Continue reading “Anexo del Ayuntamiento de Murcia”

Five buildings and Italo Calvino’s “Six Memos for the Next Millennium” (4, revised)

Visibility: Filharmonia im. Mieczysława Karłowicza w Szczecinie, Szczecinie, Poland

The Philharmonie de Paris has finally opened its doors. Around the project, which costs more than doubled the initial budget, the conflict among the stakeholders has been constantly reported. Obviously, it should be unreasonable to ignore the administrative and political influence for such a large-scale operation; however, disregarding the circumstantial issues, this exceptional edifice could open the path to see what visibility means to the architectural works.

The mass comes in a totally abstract shape; that appears to be somewhat necessary in order to keep the identity within the vivid surroundings of the aligned red pavilions of the Parc de la Vilette and the extravagant former concert hall. Contrary to the splendor, the building itself voices quietly. The enveloping shiny texture resembles the skin of a coiled snake, and the cladding pattern on the walls and the roof glitters like the flying birds; through that luxurious appearance, the signs of the site are barely seen.

Continue reading “Filharmonia im. Mieczysława Karłowicza w Szczecinie”

Five buildings and Italo Calvino’s “Six Memos for the Next Millennium” (3, revised)

Exactitude: Zweiter traversiner steg, Viamala, Switzerland

David, the statue that Michelangelo had intended to place on the roof of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore finally laid before the Palazzo Vecchio, the then city hall of Florence. David has thereby been revalued not only as a splendid sculpture, but also as a testimony of the era. The work of art is experienced differently depending on where and how it stands; many creators didn’t hide their anxieties and persistence about locating their achievements. This preoccupation often influences even after the creator’s passing. Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota, director of the Tate art museums and galleries, wrote in the media guide for the exhibition of Donald Judd;

… he made very simple decisions about the way in which the spaces were organized and then progressively installed his own works in forms that were satisfying to him, sometimes it took years to get the right combination, and, of course, in making the installation of this show we had about two weeks rather than several years but what we’ve tried to do in the exhibition was to reflect some of the principles that Judd himself adopted in organizing the spaces in the first place and then in the way in which works are installed in particular spaces.

Continue reading “Zweiter traversiner steg”

Five buildings and Italo Calvino’s “Six Memos for the Next Millennium” (2, revised)

Quickness: Moritzkirche, Augsburg, Germany

This will kill that, the book will kill the edifice; says the Archbishop pointing at a printed book*. This is a scene from “Notre-Dame de Paris”, a novel written by Victor Hugo during the turbulent period after the July Revolution of France in 1830. The scene is so significant that the author takes up a considerable number of pages to carry on with his own argument. The assertion about architecture and typography is an interesting part of the novel with the detailed description of the Gothic cathedral at the introductory chapter overlapping him with the background of the story; his life in the world of chained revolutions parallels the church in a sudden innovation.

Victor Hugo reportedly didn’t hide his anger toward the imprudent demolition of the old buildings and the disorderly reconstruction in a destructive manner; accordingly, his argument proves his profound perception about history and architecture. Through various metaphors, he says that the mankind has engraved the legacy within the edifices and has conveyed those achievements to the following generation; then he declares that the role of architecture will be replaced by the publication unleashed by the invention of type printing.

Continue reading “Moritzkirche”