This week in Barcelona, Architects gathered for the World Architecture Festival. While not all eager architects were able to attend due to possibly restrictive festival passes (700 euros for a 3 day pass, 150 euros for students), the Institut d’Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya held its own series of events open for all the public to enjoy. On Wednesday, October 22, 2008, architect Neil M. Denari of NMD Architects gave a lecture titled: Speculations On Culture: Precise form for an imprecise world. On Thursday, October 23rd, 2008, architect Chris Bosse of LAVA [Laboratory for Visionary Architecture] spoke on their recent projects and the investigation of natural systems rather than natural aesthetics.
This back to back barrage of architectural celebrity brought along much anticipation and lively critical discussion for the people who had a chance to catch both lectures. The two architects offer differing viewpoints and formal languages when dealing with projects in similar localities.
Neil M. Denari’s lecture evoked a continuous understanding of the offices formal arguments. Obviously by now, NMDA architecture is recognizable for its signature continuity of all building surfaces. While Denari’s early projects privileged horizontality and extrusion of a curved profile, this formal language takes on a much more three-dimensional folding today. This can clearly be seen in a competition entry for a theatre complex in Taiwan. The most lucid moments for argument came in the beginning of the lecture where he sets up several issues, including the scale of architecture and the resolution of engagement, situating architecture in fluctuating markets, and the notion that there are things that have no formula for argumentation, including aesthetics, formalisma, ambition, and desire. Denari mentioned that if we are to speak of form, we must reference and speak of Venturi…but whereas Venturi was deriving form from historical context, NMDA attempts to deal with non-historical form. He went on to say that “I’m someone who uses tools of grafic design [contrast and layout] as opposed to abstract graphics.“ Denari referenced the 1970′s Steve McQueen movie “Le Mans” in order to set up the notion of a design based on performance. The Porsche 917 in the image was sponsored by Gulf Oil and thus the colors of the company have been superimpopsed on a continuous surface designed to perform in the 24 hour race. This superimposition serves to show the intentions behind the form, or perhaps promotes new intention. He relates this to NMDA’s commercial work for MUFG Banks in Japan, and is the basis for his description of many of the subsequent projects.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Next up was Chris Bosse of LAVA [Laboratory for Visionary Architecture]. Not surprisingly, Bosse spoke at lengths on the Water Cube project for the 2008 Beijing, Olympics. An initial argument by Bosse stated that many architects today are using the exterior aesthetics of nature to produce beutiful and formal buildings. His office, LAVA, is interested not so much in these patterns, but moreso the relationship between the exterior aesthetics and the interior systems which govern them. By describing these systems mathematically, he argues that complex organic forms can be clearly conveyed to other agents in the construction process, as the mathematics will be a common language of interaction. He continues the statement by adding that structure, space, skin should all be the same system. The Water Cube solution was first used in a competition for a tower. While the competition was lost, the idea for the bubble packing was carried over to the Water Cube project…essentially the right answer for the wrong question.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
–
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
The key contrast between the two lecturers would probably deal with the language they use in their projects. Denari has developed his formalism over couple of decades. His continuous surfaces are easy to recognize as a formal language. In Bosse’s case, an aesthetic formal language is not being privileged, perhaps because of the architect’s youth, or perhaps there is something else. This version of formalism is not instantly aesthetic, but relies in the algorithmic form, in the invisible relationships between elements. The question then becomes what are both of these formal systems responding to, and what are the criteria to evaluate their performance? In the case of Denari, his formal tools are in essense responding to the programatic necessities of the space. The continuity of his forms allow, most obviously, for a communication of linearity and movement, surfaces and space. A tested formal language responding to program. In the case of Bosse, there the investigation of a system is privileged. In the case of Bosse, several examples, such as the Michael Schumacher tower in Dubai show a certain tendency to post-program. In this tower, LAVA researched snow-flake patterns, which in turn became the profile for the floor slabs. Neither the tower typology, nor the programatic necessities drive the formal system.
