for the landscapers
http://www.big.dk/projects/soro/soro.html
for the loopers
http://www.big.dk/projects/xpo/xpo.html
for the push and pullers/ cut and folders
http://www.big.dk/projects/mag/mag.html
from slide 6/ just look at the surface
for the roof parkers
http://www.big.dk/projects/nab/nab.html
for the shapers
http://ourfinalproject.wikispaces.com/Landscape+Formation+One.+Landesgardenschau.+(Germany)?f=print
www.archicentral.com/tag/japan/
look for asphalt spot by r&sie
http://www.new-territories.com/asphalt%20spot%20realized.htm
landscape/ architecture
http://edouardfrancois.com/
always recommendable
www.designboom.com
Friday, September 25, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
David Goldblatt, Intersections
more:
http://artblart.wordpress.com/2009/08/
(scroll down, down, down to the beginning of the 2nd half of blog)
http://artblart.wordpress.com/2009/08/
(scroll down, down, down to the beginning of the 2nd half of blog)
www.cyburbia.org/forums/showthread.php?t=16869
Avenue Montaigne, Boulevard Saint Michel, Paris
Allan Jacobs, Great Streets
Great Streets
Great Streets
Allan B. Jacobs
Which are the world's best streets, and what are the physical, designable characteristics that make them great? To answer these questions, Allan Jacobs has surveyed street users and design professionals and has studied a wide array of street types and urban spaces around the world. With more than 200 illustrations, all prepared by the author, along with analysis and statistics, Great Streets offers a wealth of information on street dimensions, plans, sections, and patterns of use, all systematically compared. It also reveals Jacobs's eye for the telling human and social details that bring streets and communities to life.
An extensive introduction discusses the importance of streets in creating communities and criteria for identifying the best streets. The essays that follow examine 15 particularly fine streets, ranging from medieval streets in Rome and Copenhagen to Venice's Grand Canal, from Parisian boulevards to tree-lined residential streets in American cities. Jacobs also looks at several streets that were once very fine but are less successful today, such as Market Street in San Francisco, identifying the factors that figure in their decline.
To broaden his coverage, Jacobs adds briefer treatments of more than 30 other streets arranged by street type, including streets from Australia, Japan, and classical antiquity in addition to European and North American examples. For each of these streets he has prepared plans, sections, and maps, all drawn at the same scales to facilitate comparisons, along with perspective views and drawings of significant design details.
Another remarkable feature of this book is a set of 50 one square-mile maps, each reproduced at the same scale, of the street plans of representative cities around the world. These reveal much about the texture of the cities' street patterns and hence of their urban life. Jacobs's analysis of the maps adds much original data derived from them, including changes of street patterns over time.
Jacobs concludes by summarizing the practical design qualities and strategies that have contributed most to the making of great streets.
About the Author
Allan B. Jacobs is Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley.
Allan B. Jacobs
Which are the world's best streets, and what are the physical, designable characteristics that make them great? To answer these questions, Allan Jacobs has surveyed street users and design professionals and has studied a wide array of street types and urban spaces around the world. With more than 200 illustrations, all prepared by the author, along with analysis and statistics, Great Streets offers a wealth of information on street dimensions, plans, sections, and patterns of use, all systematically compared. It also reveals Jacobs's eye for the telling human and social details that bring streets and communities to life.
An extensive introduction discusses the importance of streets in creating communities and criteria for identifying the best streets. The essays that follow examine 15 particularly fine streets, ranging from medieval streets in Rome and Copenhagen to Venice's Grand Canal, from Parisian boulevards to tree-lined residential streets in American cities. Jacobs also looks at several streets that were once very fine but are less successful today, such as Market Street in San Francisco, identifying the factors that figure in their decline.
To broaden his coverage, Jacobs adds briefer treatments of more than 30 other streets arranged by street type, including streets from Australia, Japan, and classical antiquity in addition to European and North American examples. For each of these streets he has prepared plans, sections, and maps, all drawn at the same scales to facilitate comparisons, along with perspective views and drawings of significant design details.
Another remarkable feature of this book is a set of 50 one square-mile maps, each reproduced at the same scale, of the street plans of representative cities around the world. These reveal much about the texture of the cities' street patterns and hence of their urban life. Jacobs's analysis of the maps adds much original data derived from them, including changes of street patterns over time.
Jacobs concludes by summarizing the practical design qualities and strategies that have contributed most to the making of great streets.
About the Author
Allan B. Jacobs is Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley.
Mental Mapping
Paths
Paths consists of the "channels along which the observer customarily, occasionally, or potentially moves" (Lynch, p. 47). These can include streets, paths, transit routes, or any other defined path of movement. It is important to note that the paths an individual identifies may not correspond to a traditional street network. These are often the most predominant items in an individual's mental map as this is main mechanism for how they experience their city.Edges
Edges provide the boundaries that separate one region from another, the seams that join two regions together, or the barriers that close one region from another. They are linear elements, but are not the paths along with the individual experiences the built environment. They can be physical edges such as shorelines, walls, railroad cuts, or edges of development, or they can be less well-defined edges that the individual perceives as a barrier.
Districts
Districts are "medium-to-large sections of the city" (Lynch, p. 47). They are typically two-dimensional features, often held together by some commonality. The individual often enters into or passes through these districts. According to Lynch, most people use the concept of districts to define the broader structure of their city.
Nodes
Nodes are points within the city, strategically located, into which the individual enters (and which is often the main focal point to which she or he is traveling to or from). There are often junctions – a crossing or converging of paths. They often have a physical element such as a popular hangout for the individual or a plaza area. In many cases, the nodes are the centers of the district that they are in.
Landmarks
Landmarks are also a point-reference (similar to nodes). However, unlike nodes, which the individual enters during his or her travels, landmarks remain external features to the individual. They are often physical structures such as a building, sign, or geographic features (e.g. mountain). The range of landmarks is extensive, but the commonality is that there are used by the individual to better understand and navigate the built environment.
Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City
Background
Kevin Lynch, born in 1918, was a significant contributor to city planning and city design in the twentieth century. Kevin Andrew Lynch was educated at Yale University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and most notably, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At MIT, he went on to gain Professorship in 1963, and eventually earned professor emeritus status. Aside from research and teaching, Lynch was consultant to the state of Rhode Island, New England Medical Center, Boston Redevelopment Authority, Puerto Rico Industrial Development Corp., M.I.T. Planning Office, and other organizations. Throughout Lynch's outstanding career, he produced seven books. In his most famous work, Image of the City (1960) Lynch describes a five-year study that reveals what elements in the built structure of a city are important in the popular perception of the city. In his experimenting, he used Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City as case studies. By analyzing the results of this work, Lynch figured he would be able to observe specifically what about a city's built environment is important to the people who live there.
Innovation
One of Lynch's innovations was the concept of place legibility, which is essentially the ease with which people understand the layout of a place. By introducing this idea, Lynch was able to isolate distinct features of a city, and see what specifically is making it so vibrant, and attractive to people. To understand the layout of a city, people first and foremost create a mental map. Mental maps of a city are mental representations of what the city contains, and its layout according to the individual. These mental representations, along with the actual city, contain many unique elements, which are defined by Lynch as a network of paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. First, paths are channels by which people move along in their travels. Examples of paths are roads, trails, and sidewalks. The second element, edges, are all other lines not included in the path group. Examples of edges include walls, and seashores. Next, districts are sections of the city, usually relatively substantial in size, which have an identifying character about them. A wealthy neighborhood such as Beverly Hills is one such example. The fourth element, nodes, are points or strategic spots where there is an extra focus, or added concentration of city features. Prime examples of nodes include a busy intersection or a popular city center. Finally, landmarks are external physical objects that act as reference points. Landmarks can be a store, mountain, school, or any other object that aids in orientation when way-finding.
Lynch sought to determine place legibility by administering an experiment, which consisted of questionnaire surveys, and interviews. The survey included thirty people in a central area of Boston, and fifteen each in populous Jersey City and Los Angeles. Boston was chosen on account of it being a very vivid city, containing many unique features that are difficult to navigate through. Next, Jersey City was chosen for its lack of distinctiveness. Finally, Los Angeles was selected because of it being a new city having relatively original form. The interview that accompanied the survey included requests for descriptions of the city, along with sketch maps (a drawing of their mental map), and a description of an imaginary trip through the city. Lynch found some very interesting consistencies in their imaginary trips, such as people veering off course to go through a vivid part of the city, and most people mentioning water and vegetation with pleasure in their responses. Another consistency in people's descriptions was a way-finding problem that people had, most notably in Boston, that coincided with the parts of the city that contained confusions, floating points, weak boundaries, isolations, ambiguities, and lack of character or differentiation. In addition to Boston, parts of Jersey City and Los Angeles were each found to be difficult to orientate in, on account of features lacking distinctness and identity.
Lynch made several conclusions from people's responses in the experiment. Lynch took the areas that people found vivid and assigned these areas a high imageability ranking. Imageability, another term introduced by Lynch, is the quality of a physical object, which gives an observer a strong, vivid image. He concluded that a highly imageable city would be well formed, would contain very distinct parts, and would be instantly recognizable to the common inhabitant. He also explains that a well-formed city is highly reliant upon the most predominant city element, paths. Examples of well-designed paths may include special lighting and having clarity of direction (not being comprised of confusing or ambiguous turns). Similarly, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks are favorable contributors to imageability if they are meaningful, distinct, and not confusing. These elements, when placed in good form, increase human ability to see and remember patterns, and it is these patterns that make it easier to learn.
Lynch's findings have been implemented globally in city planning operations in recent years. Whether a new city is formed, or existing ones are further developed, residents have benefited from the use of more imageable city elements and clearer form. However, more research is currently being pursued in the related field of spatial cognition. Present research methods include using virtual environment technologies to investigate many unexplored areas. By using virtual environment technology, the experimenter can manipulate the geometry of the elements in the environment as well as their location in the virtual world (in a real world environment these alterations would be next to impossible). Specific research includes: finding specific angles of elements in a city that allow for easier wayfinding, and also determining how people position their head and body in relation to their environment in navigation. Recent results from this research suggest that people visualize their source location best when both head rotations and body translations are in sync with their visual cues. The previous spatial cognition research is a good addition to Lynch's research, as it aids in helping to determine precisely what about a city allows for easier perception and more accurate mental maps for the city dweller.
Kevin Lynch, born in 1918, was a significant contributor to city planning and city design in the twentieth century. Kevin Andrew Lynch was educated at Yale University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and most notably, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At MIT, he went on to gain Professorship in 1963, and eventually earned professor emeritus status. Aside from research and teaching, Lynch was consultant to the state of Rhode Island, New England Medical Center, Boston Redevelopment Authority, Puerto Rico Industrial Development Corp., M.I.T. Planning Office, and other organizations. Throughout Lynch's outstanding career, he produced seven books. In his most famous work, Image of the City (1960) Lynch describes a five-year study that reveals what elements in the built structure of a city are important in the popular perception of the city. In his experimenting, he used Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City as case studies. By analyzing the results of this work, Lynch figured he would be able to observe specifically what about a city's built environment is important to the people who live there.
Innovation
One of Lynch's innovations was the concept of place legibility, which is essentially the ease with which people understand the layout of a place. By introducing this idea, Lynch was able to isolate distinct features of a city, and see what specifically is making it so vibrant, and attractive to people. To understand the layout of a city, people first and foremost create a mental map. Mental maps of a city are mental representations of what the city contains, and its layout according to the individual. These mental representations, along with the actual city, contain many unique elements, which are defined by Lynch as a network of paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. First, paths are channels by which people move along in their travels. Examples of paths are roads, trails, and sidewalks. The second element, edges, are all other lines not included in the path group. Examples of edges include walls, and seashores. Next, districts are sections of the city, usually relatively substantial in size, which have an identifying character about them. A wealthy neighborhood such as Beverly Hills is one such example. The fourth element, nodes, are points or strategic spots where there is an extra focus, or added concentration of city features. Prime examples of nodes include a busy intersection or a popular city center. Finally, landmarks are external physical objects that act as reference points. Landmarks can be a store, mountain, school, or any other object that aids in orientation when way-finding.
Lynch sought to determine place legibility by administering an experiment, which consisted of questionnaire surveys, and interviews. The survey included thirty people in a central area of Boston, and fifteen each in populous Jersey City and Los Angeles. Boston was chosen on account of it being a very vivid city, containing many unique features that are difficult to navigate through. Next, Jersey City was chosen for its lack of distinctiveness. Finally, Los Angeles was selected because of it being a new city having relatively original form. The interview that accompanied the survey included requests for descriptions of the city, along with sketch maps (a drawing of their mental map), and a description of an imaginary trip through the city. Lynch found some very interesting consistencies in their imaginary trips, such as people veering off course to go through a vivid part of the city, and most people mentioning water and vegetation with pleasure in their responses. Another consistency in people's descriptions was a way-finding problem that people had, most notably in Boston, that coincided with the parts of the city that contained confusions, floating points, weak boundaries, isolations, ambiguities, and lack of character or differentiation. In addition to Boston, parts of Jersey City and Los Angeles were each found to be difficult to orientate in, on account of features lacking distinctness and identity.
Lynch made several conclusions from people's responses in the experiment. Lynch took the areas that people found vivid and assigned these areas a high imageability ranking. Imageability, another term introduced by Lynch, is the quality of a physical object, which gives an observer a strong, vivid image. He concluded that a highly imageable city would be well formed, would contain very distinct parts, and would be instantly recognizable to the common inhabitant. He also explains that a well-formed city is highly reliant upon the most predominant city element, paths. Examples of well-designed paths may include special lighting and having clarity of direction (not being comprised of confusing or ambiguous turns). Similarly, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks are favorable contributors to imageability if they are meaningful, distinct, and not confusing. These elements, when placed in good form, increase human ability to see and remember patterns, and it is these patterns that make it easier to learn.
Lynch's findings have been implemented globally in city planning operations in recent years. Whether a new city is formed, or existing ones are further developed, residents have benefited from the use of more imageable city elements and clearer form. However, more research is currently being pursued in the related field of spatial cognition. Present research methods include using virtual environment technologies to investigate many unexplored areas. By using virtual environment technology, the experimenter can manipulate the geometry of the elements in the environment as well as their location in the virtual world (in a real world environment these alterations would be next to impossible). Specific research includes: finding specific angles of elements in a city that allow for easier wayfinding, and also determining how people position their head and body in relation to their environment in navigation. Recent results from this research suggest that people visualize their source location best when both head rotations and body translations are in sync with their visual cues. The previous spatial cognition research is a good addition to Lynch's research, as it aids in helping to determine precisely what about a city allows for easier perception and more accurate mental maps for the city dweller.
Jane Jacobs, The Uses of Sidewalks: Safety
https://portfolio.du.edu/portfolio/getportfoliofile?fiuid=70656
An introduction to Jane Jacobs, Life and Death of American Cities
http://www.soundandsignifier.com/jrlupton/Jacobs-MICA.pdf
Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs was born on May 4, 1916, in Scranton, Pennsylvania.* Her father was a physician and her mother taught school and worked as a nurse. After high school and a year spent as a reporter on the Scranton Tribune, Jacobs went to New York, where she found a succession of jobs as a stenographer and wrote free-lance articles about the city’s many working districts, which fascinated her. In 1952, after a number of writing and editing jobs ranging in subject matter from metallurgy to a geography of the United States for foreign readers, she became an associate editor of Architectural Forum. She was becoming increasingly skeptical of conventional planning beliefs as she noticed that the city rebuilding projects she was assigned to write about seemed neither safe, interesting, alive, nor good economics for cities once the projects were built and in operation. She gave a speech to that effect at Harvard in 1956, and this led to an article in Fortune magazine entitled "Downtown Is for People," which in turn led to The Death and Life of Great American Cities. The book was published in 1961 and produced permanent changes in the debate over urban renewal and the future of cities.
Thirty years after its publication, The Death and Life of Great American Cities was described by The New York Times as "perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning....[It] can also be seen in a much larger context. It is first of all a work of literature; the descriptions of street life as a kind of ballet and the bitingly satiric account of traditional planning theory can still be read for pleasure even by those who long ago absorbed and appropriated the book's arguments."
Mrs. Jacobs is widely recognized as one of the founders of the "new urbanism", a movement which has over the intervening years gained growing prominence as an alternative to conventional approaches to land use and transportation planning.* Death and Life, her first book, was published in 1961 at the height of the technocratic projects led by powerful architects and city planners which were then pillorying the central areas of America's cities. Her book challenged planners and decision-makers to retain common sense, careful observation, and personal experience as the basis for their work. Rigorous, sane, and delightfully epigrammatic, Jacobs's small masterpiece is a blueprint for the humanistic management of cities. It is sensible, knowledgeable, readable, indispensable. She made her central point in these words:
"The processes that occur in our cities are not arcane, capable of being understood only by experts. They can be understood by almost anybody. Many ordinary people already understand this; they simply have not considered that by understanding these ordinary arrangements of cause and effect, we can also direct them if we want to."
But she did not stop there. For close to half a century Mrs. Jacobs has championed the city as a natural and vital human habitat which brings together people in sufficient concentrations for the flourishing of commerce, culture and community. She emphasizes the necessity of protecting, what she calls, the "social capital" of the city: that intricate web of human relationships built up over time and that provides mutual support in time of need, ensures the safety of the streets, and fosters a sense of civic responsibility.
In this great book Mrs. Jacobs captures the life of traditional cities, much as an anthropologist records the characteristics of a culture on the verge of extinction, for understanding by later generations. The great and enduring value of her book is its powerful description of the human reality and dynamic behind the theories and visions and the necessity of understanding these in order to plan successfully for communities and transportation systems.She makes the point that two things are central to maintaining the social capital of any place:
1. A great deal of diversity at the neighborhood level so that people can remain in their local area even as their housing needs, jobs, and lifestyles may change; and
2. Agreeable, esliy accessibe settings for casual public contact, including good sidewalks, public spaces, and neighbourhood stores.
Jacobs was an early and prescient voice warning that what was being billed as urban renewal--big housing projects, highway building, creation of business districts, etc.--was actually destroying neighborhoods and creating more problems than it was solving. Subsequent events of the past forty years have certainly borne out her argument that the planners were killing cities. But she did not stop there: she then showed the way as to how we can start to do better, step by small step. That and her personal example are what make her so very important as we look to the future.
Thirty years after its publication, The Death and Life of Great American Cities was described by The New York Times as "perhaps the most influential single work in the history of town planning....[It] can also be seen in a much larger context. It is first of all a work of literature; the descriptions of street life as a kind of ballet and the bitingly satiric account of traditional planning theory can still be read for pleasure even by those who long ago absorbed and appropriated the book's arguments."
Mrs. Jacobs is widely recognized as one of the founders of the "new urbanism", a movement which has over the intervening years gained growing prominence as an alternative to conventional approaches to land use and transportation planning.* Death and Life, her first book, was published in 1961 at the height of the technocratic projects led by powerful architects and city planners which were then pillorying the central areas of America's cities. Her book challenged planners and decision-makers to retain common sense, careful observation, and personal experience as the basis for their work. Rigorous, sane, and delightfully epigrammatic, Jacobs's small masterpiece is a blueprint for the humanistic management of cities. It is sensible, knowledgeable, readable, indispensable. She made her central point in these words:
"The processes that occur in our cities are not arcane, capable of being understood only by experts. They can be understood by almost anybody. Many ordinary people already understand this; they simply have not considered that by understanding these ordinary arrangements of cause and effect, we can also direct them if we want to."
But she did not stop there. For close to half a century Mrs. Jacobs has championed the city as a natural and vital human habitat which brings together people in sufficient concentrations for the flourishing of commerce, culture and community. She emphasizes the necessity of protecting, what she calls, the "social capital" of the city: that intricate web of human relationships built up over time and that provides mutual support in time of need, ensures the safety of the streets, and fosters a sense of civic responsibility.
In this great book Mrs. Jacobs captures the life of traditional cities, much as an anthropologist records the characteristics of a culture on the verge of extinction, for understanding by later generations. The great and enduring value of her book is its powerful description of the human reality and dynamic behind the theories and visions and the necessity of understanding these in order to plan successfully for communities and transportation systems.She makes the point that two things are central to maintaining the social capital of any place:
1. A great deal of diversity at the neighborhood level so that people can remain in their local area even as their housing needs, jobs, and lifestyles may change; and
2. Agreeable, esliy accessibe settings for casual public contact, including good sidewalks, public spaces, and neighbourhood stores.
Jacobs was an early and prescient voice warning that what was being billed as urban renewal--big housing projects, highway building, creation of business districts, etc.--was actually destroying neighborhoods and creating more problems than it was solving. Subsequent events of the past forty years have certainly borne out her argument that the planners were killing cities. But she did not stop there: she then showed the way as to how we can start to do better, step by small step. That and her personal example are what make her so very important as we look to the future.
http://movingcities.org/interviews/ai-weiwei_mark/
Ai Weiwei is China’s most renowned conceptual artist. The latest Documenta in Kassel featured his Template structure, as well as the Fairytale project, which entailed the on-site participation of 1001 Chinese people. Born in 1957, Weiwei was raised in Shihezi, a town in Chinese Turkestan to which his father, the poet Ai Qing, had been exiled. A self-proclaimed architect, Ai Weiwei established FAKE Design eight years ago. Since then, his firm has designed and realized an impressive number of projects.
Recently Weiwei served as artistic consultant to Herzog &de Meuron for the Swiss architects’ design of the Olympic Stadium in Beijing. Weiwei lives and works in Chaochangdi, a village on the outskirts of Beijing, not far from the airport expressway. Many of the buildings in this area are his work. The subject of countless interviews, Weiwei claims that talking about his work is never boring. If he weren’t discussing his projects with me, he says, he’d probably be talking to one of his staff or even a neighbourhood cab driver. At the end of the interview I ask what will happen to the stadium – known as the ‘bird’s nest’ – after the Olympics. He reveals that Jacques Herzog envisions the stadium being used for weddings. We laugh. A bird’s nest transformed into a love nest? Not a bad idea.
Please tell us about your first experiences with architecture.
Ai Weiwei: I grew up in a camp in the countryside under very difficult circumstances. In order to survive, we had to do everything ourselves, from building living quarters and doing agricultural work to digging clay for bricks. By the age of ten, I was used to this type of work. To me, architecture is a question of survival. It’s about making efficient, cost-effective structures and not about creating something beautiful. It’s about work with a purpose.
Do you think a lot of architecture has no purpose?
AW: Let’s put it this way – if there is a purpose, it’s one I don’t admire. There is too much waste, the language is often unclear, and frequently the architect’s efforts are not intelligent. Architecture is a moral-political question, not just a technical one. The desire to build is a basic instinct, a necessity if one is to survive in nature. Today architecture has become a profession taught in universities by instructors whose courses are devoted to making architecture crazy. All those students want to be stars. They are far less interested in how to survive. Architecture can be intelligent only when it’s true to its fundamental nature.
Your architectural career started with your own house.
AW: Yes, but initially I wasn’t aware of what I had done. Later, Shigeru Ban saw this house and said the only architect in China is Ai Weiwei, blah blah blah. His words made me more conscious of what I was doing. After that, many friends came asking for help. Often I said yes, because the problems I’d confronted could all be solved with basic common sense. My work doesn’t look special. It doesn’t require a great deal of special training. It’s really all about making moral and aesthetic judgements rather than technical ones. During the past seven years, we’ve done about 40 projects, including housing, landscaping, a stadium, a cultural facility, a bar and a restaurant. If it can be called ‘architecture’, we do it.
Would you say the design of your house is fundamental?
AW: I’d call it ‘essential’, because I used minimal materials to create a maximal volume. It has a very practical layout and not much interior design. The architectural language isn’t trendy. Maybe it’s become trendy because you live in it. It has become fashionable, and it’s been copied in this area. When it was being constructed, however, the farmers who helped build it thought it wasn’t finished. They didn’t understand why I didn’t want any interior design. I had to tell them I’d run out of money
How would you describe your architecture? Do you talk about style?
AW: No, I don’t talk about style, but if you deny all styles, your style emerges anyway. My style is to reduce all superfluous effort – to do the work in an essential and necessary way. In discussing my projects, people use terms like ‘minimalism’ and ‘purity’, which are incorrect. The work is essential, and the results are rooted in that essentiality.
Speaking as both artist and architect, what are your thoughts on contemporary China?
AW: Currently China is at a stage I would call the most extreme condition that humans can experience. Culturally, though, this condition is like a desert absolutely lacking in new philosophies, new morals, new aesthetics – all the aspects that should accompany the kind of activities taking place. It’s a sad story and one I often talk about, but nobody else seems to be discussing these matters. And that’s disturbing. Chinese architects are simply blind or mentally retarded in some way. They don’t realize they’re living at a unique time in history. There is no intellectual discussion, no meaningful practice. I wrote a few articles on how architects should change and be more conscious of what they’re doing, urging them to make work that addresses the current state of affairs – to consider density, speed, scale and unfamiliar building regulations. Only then can a meaningful new architecture be realized. It’s wrong to make an incorrect analysis of Western architecture or to simply copy Western buildings.
The National Stadium is one of the highlights of both the Olympic Games and Beijing’s urban transformation. Unavoidably the building has a form . . .
AW: [laughs] The right word is ‘unfortunately’.
The discussion surrounding this structure focuses on its value as a symbol – as an icon. What do you see when you look at the stadium?
AW: At the moment, the people of China are unable to comprehend this building, even those who use it. It’s too far beyond their understanding, and that’s not a snobbish remark. Although an ambitious project like this one had to be realized in Beijing, the city’s naïve officials, who have no knowledge of architecture or stadiums – not to mention a showcase type of architecture – had to commission international architects for the project. This stadium is more than a showcase, however. As architecture, the building is top quality, and it can continue to be used for huge events. Initially it drew criticism from every corner of the architectural world. A barrage of experts were against it, citing reasons of safety, foreign occupancy, colonialism. It was a highly sensitive subject. Had it not been the Olympic Stadium, the structure would never have been built. Ultimately, the budget was cut and the retractable roof eliminated, but the result is very satisfying. We wanted to design a democratic form. If you look at the building from different angles, you see a uniformity in which one side doesn’t dominate the others. From the outside, it’s not clear where the entrance is. You have the freedom to ‘float’ into the building. Inside, the space is not clearly structured but rather chaotic. It lacks obvious reference points. At the same time, you don’t feel as though you’re on the wrong side or in a corner with a poor view. By maximizing the view for everybody, the architects have raised gamewatching to its highest level. What a pity that no one mentions these qualities. At the moment, the overall image is all that counts.
The Template structure displayed at Documenta collapsed after a couple of days. Was it the engineer’s fault?
AW: There was no engineer involved. I am fully responsible. I designed Template to be erected indoors, where it would never fall down. At the last minute I was asked to contribute another piece for Documenta. I hadn’t done any research on the weather in Germany. When the structure collapsed, I realized it was okay. The structure changed form, but preserving its original shape was not crucial. Displaying the collapsed structure was a good decision and perhaps worked even better than my initial idea. When nature entered the picture, people found themselves discussing the process and the life span of art, including possible changes and unpredictable conditions.
What has happened to Template?
AW: After the collapse, we asked engineers at Kassel University to make a complete calculation of the measurements. We’re thinking about the possibilities of removing and rebuilding the structure in its present condition. It’s more interesting than it was. I think of it as dealing with change and remaking a miracle – the same shit but in a different form.
The dialogue between past and present is part of your art. Isn’t it awkward to put the same sort of dialogue into architecture?
AW: The windows of the Template structure come from old towns and villages in Northern China that have been destroyed. Such windows are sold in marketplaces as decorative items. They came from ruins, and we made something out of them. When history appears in art, as a material used for construction, it holds not only memory, but also knowledge, reflecting the conditions of the time. Using historical materials allows me to show the contradictions and conflicts of the current condition. It comes naturally to me when I’m making art. New and old should be integrated more often in architecture; the combination makes sites and cities more interesting. This is not what is happening in today’s China, however, where government policy can lead to the overnight eradication of entire areas. Such brutality and violence goes beyond buildings, ignoring residents, citizens, memories, traditions, the past. It shows the kind of society we’re living in.
The Jinhua Architecture Park – a landscaped urban area already featured in several publications – was a project for which you commissioned several young architecture firms, both Chinese and European, to design 17 pavilions. What is the current state of affairs?
AW: The architecture park just opened. The original brief asked for the design of a memorial for my father. The question in my mind was: Why should I, of all people, create this memorial? But leaving the job to someone else might have produced a poorer result, of course.
Did that thought motivate your decision?
AW: Yes. If you don’t do it, you can’t tell people to do it differently. If you do it, people will surely understand your point of view – it might be the wrong point of view, but it will be clearly understood.
How does the design process work at your office?
AW: I work with a group of about ten young architects from all over the world. We discuss concepts and I make drawings. I have a great sense of proportion. Even at the construction site, when I tell workers their lines are not straight and they challenge me by making their own measurements, they have to agree I’m right.
Are straight lines important?
AW: To me they are. I don’t like curves, except on the human body. I like Le Corbusier’s statement that the donkey likes the curved line, but humans like the straight line.
But the stadium is curved, isn’t it?
AW: That’s true. I never thought about that. But it’s a necessary curve and not one based on an aesthetic preference.
Do you think contemporary Chinese architecture is contributing to the world and to the profession?
AW: Chinese architects are blindly building everything without the aid of clear judgment – if that’s a contribution, I concede that it’s being made. It’s a case to be studied.
Is architecture in your plans for the future?
AW: No. I won’t be doing any more architecture. But I do have a few projects to complete. Then it’s over. Done.
You’re retiring as an architect?
AW: I never started. I just hopped on the wrong train by mistake. I don’t care where it’s going or where it stops. I have to get off.
- – -
Interview by Bert de Muynck. Pictures by Mónica Carriço.
This interview took place on October 11, 2007 in Beijing, China.
Published in Mark Magazine #12, February-March 2008.
Recently Weiwei served as artistic consultant to Herzog &de Meuron for the Swiss architects’ design of the Olympic Stadium in Beijing. Weiwei lives and works in Chaochangdi, a village on the outskirts of Beijing, not far from the airport expressway. Many of the buildings in this area are his work. The subject of countless interviews, Weiwei claims that talking about his work is never boring. If he weren’t discussing his projects with me, he says, he’d probably be talking to one of his staff or even a neighbourhood cab driver. At the end of the interview I ask what will happen to the stadium – known as the ‘bird’s nest’ – after the Olympics. He reveals that Jacques Herzog envisions the stadium being used for weddings. We laugh. A bird’s nest transformed into a love nest? Not a bad idea.
Please tell us about your first experiences with architecture.
Ai Weiwei: I grew up in a camp in the countryside under very difficult circumstances. In order to survive, we had to do everything ourselves, from building living quarters and doing agricultural work to digging clay for bricks. By the age of ten, I was used to this type of work. To me, architecture is a question of survival. It’s about making efficient, cost-effective structures and not about creating something beautiful. It’s about work with a purpose.
Do you think a lot of architecture has no purpose?
AW: Let’s put it this way – if there is a purpose, it’s one I don’t admire. There is too much waste, the language is often unclear, and frequently the architect’s efforts are not intelligent. Architecture is a moral-political question, not just a technical one. The desire to build is a basic instinct, a necessity if one is to survive in nature. Today architecture has become a profession taught in universities by instructors whose courses are devoted to making architecture crazy. All those students want to be stars. They are far less interested in how to survive. Architecture can be intelligent only when it’s true to its fundamental nature.
Your architectural career started with your own house.
AW: Yes, but initially I wasn’t aware of what I had done. Later, Shigeru Ban saw this house and said the only architect in China is Ai Weiwei, blah blah blah. His words made me more conscious of what I was doing. After that, many friends came asking for help. Often I said yes, because the problems I’d confronted could all be solved with basic common sense. My work doesn’t look special. It doesn’t require a great deal of special training. It’s really all about making moral and aesthetic judgements rather than technical ones. During the past seven years, we’ve done about 40 projects, including housing, landscaping, a stadium, a cultural facility, a bar and a restaurant. If it can be called ‘architecture’, we do it.
Would you say the design of your house is fundamental?
AW: I’d call it ‘essential’, because I used minimal materials to create a maximal volume. It has a very practical layout and not much interior design. The architectural language isn’t trendy. Maybe it’s become trendy because you live in it. It has become fashionable, and it’s been copied in this area. When it was being constructed, however, the farmers who helped build it thought it wasn’t finished. They didn’t understand why I didn’t want any interior design. I had to tell them I’d run out of money
How would you describe your architecture? Do you talk about style?
AW: No, I don’t talk about style, but if you deny all styles, your style emerges anyway. My style is to reduce all superfluous effort – to do the work in an essential and necessary way. In discussing my projects, people use terms like ‘minimalism’ and ‘purity’, which are incorrect. The work is essential, and the results are rooted in that essentiality.
Speaking as both artist and architect, what are your thoughts on contemporary China?
AW: Currently China is at a stage I would call the most extreme condition that humans can experience. Culturally, though, this condition is like a desert absolutely lacking in new philosophies, new morals, new aesthetics – all the aspects that should accompany the kind of activities taking place. It’s a sad story and one I often talk about, but nobody else seems to be discussing these matters. And that’s disturbing. Chinese architects are simply blind or mentally retarded in some way. They don’t realize they’re living at a unique time in history. There is no intellectual discussion, no meaningful practice. I wrote a few articles on how architects should change and be more conscious of what they’re doing, urging them to make work that addresses the current state of affairs – to consider density, speed, scale and unfamiliar building regulations. Only then can a meaningful new architecture be realized. It’s wrong to make an incorrect analysis of Western architecture or to simply copy Western buildings.
The National Stadium is one of the highlights of both the Olympic Games and Beijing’s urban transformation. Unavoidably the building has a form . . .
AW: [laughs] The right word is ‘unfortunately’.
The discussion surrounding this structure focuses on its value as a symbol – as an icon. What do you see when you look at the stadium?
AW: At the moment, the people of China are unable to comprehend this building, even those who use it. It’s too far beyond their understanding, and that’s not a snobbish remark. Although an ambitious project like this one had to be realized in Beijing, the city’s naïve officials, who have no knowledge of architecture or stadiums – not to mention a showcase type of architecture – had to commission international architects for the project. This stadium is more than a showcase, however. As architecture, the building is top quality, and it can continue to be used for huge events. Initially it drew criticism from every corner of the architectural world. A barrage of experts were against it, citing reasons of safety, foreign occupancy, colonialism. It was a highly sensitive subject. Had it not been the Olympic Stadium, the structure would never have been built. Ultimately, the budget was cut and the retractable roof eliminated, but the result is very satisfying. We wanted to design a democratic form. If you look at the building from different angles, you see a uniformity in which one side doesn’t dominate the others. From the outside, it’s not clear where the entrance is. You have the freedom to ‘float’ into the building. Inside, the space is not clearly structured but rather chaotic. It lacks obvious reference points. At the same time, you don’t feel as though you’re on the wrong side or in a corner with a poor view. By maximizing the view for everybody, the architects have raised gamewatching to its highest level. What a pity that no one mentions these qualities. At the moment, the overall image is all that counts.
The Template structure displayed at Documenta collapsed after a couple of days. Was it the engineer’s fault?
AW: There was no engineer involved. I am fully responsible. I designed Template to be erected indoors, where it would never fall down. At the last minute I was asked to contribute another piece for Documenta. I hadn’t done any research on the weather in Germany. When the structure collapsed, I realized it was okay. The structure changed form, but preserving its original shape was not crucial. Displaying the collapsed structure was a good decision and perhaps worked even better than my initial idea. When nature entered the picture, people found themselves discussing the process and the life span of art, including possible changes and unpredictable conditions.
What has happened to Template?
AW: After the collapse, we asked engineers at Kassel University to make a complete calculation of the measurements. We’re thinking about the possibilities of removing and rebuilding the structure in its present condition. It’s more interesting than it was. I think of it as dealing with change and remaking a miracle – the same shit but in a different form.
The dialogue between past and present is part of your art. Isn’t it awkward to put the same sort of dialogue into architecture?
AW: The windows of the Template structure come from old towns and villages in Northern China that have been destroyed. Such windows are sold in marketplaces as decorative items. They came from ruins, and we made something out of them. When history appears in art, as a material used for construction, it holds not only memory, but also knowledge, reflecting the conditions of the time. Using historical materials allows me to show the contradictions and conflicts of the current condition. It comes naturally to me when I’m making art. New and old should be integrated more often in architecture; the combination makes sites and cities more interesting. This is not what is happening in today’s China, however, where government policy can lead to the overnight eradication of entire areas. Such brutality and violence goes beyond buildings, ignoring residents, citizens, memories, traditions, the past. It shows the kind of society we’re living in.
The Jinhua Architecture Park – a landscaped urban area already featured in several publications – was a project for which you commissioned several young architecture firms, both Chinese and European, to design 17 pavilions. What is the current state of affairs?
AW: The architecture park just opened. The original brief asked for the design of a memorial for my father. The question in my mind was: Why should I, of all people, create this memorial? But leaving the job to someone else might have produced a poorer result, of course.
Did that thought motivate your decision?
AW: Yes. If you don’t do it, you can’t tell people to do it differently. If you do it, people will surely understand your point of view – it might be the wrong point of view, but it will be clearly understood.
How does the design process work at your office?
AW: I work with a group of about ten young architects from all over the world. We discuss concepts and I make drawings. I have a great sense of proportion. Even at the construction site, when I tell workers their lines are not straight and they challenge me by making their own measurements, they have to agree I’m right.
Are straight lines important?
AW: To me they are. I don’t like curves, except on the human body. I like Le Corbusier’s statement that the donkey likes the curved line, but humans like the straight line.
But the stadium is curved, isn’t it?
AW: That’s true. I never thought about that. But it’s a necessary curve and not one based on an aesthetic preference.
Do you think contemporary Chinese architecture is contributing to the world and to the profession?
AW: Chinese architects are blindly building everything without the aid of clear judgment – if that’s a contribution, I concede that it’s being made. It’s a case to be studied.
Is architecture in your plans for the future?
AW: No. I won’t be doing any more architecture. But I do have a few projects to complete. Then it’s over. Done.
You’re retiring as an architect?
AW: I never started. I just hopped on the wrong train by mistake. I don’t care where it’s going or where it stops. I have to get off.
- – -
Interview by Bert de Muynck. Pictures by Mónica Carriço.
This interview took place on October 11, 2007 in Beijing, China.
Published in Mark Magazine #12, February-March 2008.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Jinhua Architecture ParkJinhua, China
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/jinhua/jinhua.html
Jinhua Architecture ParkJinhua, China
17 pavilions in a park along theYiwu River, dedicated to the memory of the poet Ai Qing.
Jinhua is a small city southwest of Shanghai with an ancient history and a thriving economy based on industry, agriculture and tourism.In 2002 designer and curator Ai Weiwei invited 16 architects from around the world to design a pavilion for a park on a ribbon of land that stretches over 2 kilometers along the Yiwu River.The Park is dedicated to the memory of his father, the poet Ai Qing, who was born In Jinhua.
Jinhua Architecture ParkJinhua, China
17 pavilions in a park along theYiwu River, dedicated to the memory of the poet Ai Qing.
Jinhua is a small city southwest of Shanghai with an ancient history and a thriving economy based on industry, agriculture and tourism.In 2002 designer and curator Ai Weiwei invited 16 architects from around the world to design a pavilion for a park on a ribbon of land that stretches over 2 kilometers along the Yiwu River.The Park is dedicated to the memory of his father, the poet Ai Qing, who was born In Jinhua.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The Wall
The wall is a line on the plan.
It is a primordial, inevitable and necessary architectural element in our environment.
Its omnipresence makes it easy to be ignored and taken for granted.
The wall can be brutal too.
History of mankind has demonstrated its ultimate role.
Meaning of the wall could be: enclosure, division, separation, isolation, framing, protection, seclusion, display, provocation, support, connection, mystification (of the other side), boundary, mediation, etc.
It separates this and that, here and there, us and them. It excludes the ‘misfits’, the ‘unsuitable’, the ‘lunatics’, and the ‘others’.
While trying to induce meanings of the wall, we shall seek inversion of its power and give the meanings a twist. Ultimately we shall be able to arrive on ‘the other side’ and to be able to understand different sides.Architecture is, as Elia Zenghelis suggests, a medium through which to be critical. To understand the problem, horror as well as beauty of wall is to begin to understand the power of architecture. Next time you draw a line, or design a wall, be conscious of your power.
Shiuan-Wen Chu , 2006, Rotterdam
It is a primordial, inevitable and necessary architectural element in our environment.
Its omnipresence makes it easy to be ignored and taken for granted.
The wall can be brutal too.
History of mankind has demonstrated its ultimate role.
Meaning of the wall could be: enclosure, division, separation, isolation, framing, protection, seclusion, display, provocation, support, connection, mystification (of the other side), boundary, mediation, etc.
It separates this and that, here and there, us and them. It excludes the ‘misfits’, the ‘unsuitable’, the ‘lunatics’, and the ‘others’.
While trying to induce meanings of the wall, we shall seek inversion of its power and give the meanings a twist. Ultimately we shall be able to arrive on ‘the other side’ and to be able to understand different sides.Architecture is, as Elia Zenghelis suggests, a medium through which to be critical. To understand the problem, horror as well as beauty of wall is to begin to understand the power of architecture. Next time you draw a line, or design a wall, be conscious of your power.
Shiuan-Wen Chu , 2006, Rotterdam
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