2015.10.08 21:09
Bjarke Ingels and the challenges of designing Two World Trade Center
...it seems to me that this--
"Architecture has become so divorced from the experiential...it has become objectified, which is what modernism was supposed to be moving away from...object buildings...and because of this architecture has reverted back to its pre-modernist function...as a sign/symbol...Everything is now a temple...Each building has its own little axis mundi..."
--is full of one-liner bullshit, and doesn't even relate to BIG's oeuvre (which actually comprises a large amount of experimentation).
What is BIGs one liner exactly?
2015.10.09 09:17
Bjarke Ingels and the challenges of designing Two World Trade Center
Actually, Ingels' slogan is "Yes is more." And this slogan is well explained within the book Yes is More: An Archicomic on Architectural Evolution.
As to the diagrams, they are a condensification of a project's overall design process. The diagrams do not portray all the multitudinous steps taken to manifest a BIG design, rather they are a "fictional" portrayal of the particular design process/steps that led to the project's ultimate design. The whole design process itself is not reductionist.
What BIG has (uniquely?) added to the architectural profession is full-fledged marketing as an entity distinct from the architecture itself. Just like any other product and it's respective ad campaigns, BIG's architecture and BIG's marketing of (its) architecture can, and for the most part should, be judged separately. A product's particular ad campaign may fail in its specific goals, but that does not automatically mean the product itself is a (functional) failure as well.
Honest criticism of BIG requires an acknowledgement of the distinction of BIG architecture and BIG marketing.
2015.10.09 15:19
Bjarke Ingels and the challenges of designing Two World Trade Center
...can you provide an example of BIG selling the "parti" as the complete product? Also, how do other architects sell their product? Actually, are there other architects that sell their product?
2015.10.09 17:38
Bjarke Ingels and the challenges of designing Two World Trade Center
Perhaps then it could be said that one of the distinguishing features of BIG's oeuvre is that all the projects are very well developed partis, not only as fulfillments of a desirable design goal, but also as facile means of communication as to what the respective designs are actually about.
2015.10.09 18:16
Bjarke Ingels and the challenges of designing Two World Trade Center
I don't know that there's actually any proof that BIG "tend[s] to ignore more subtle relationships to context, propose[s] limited material palettes and pay[s] little attention to local cultural habits." And your closing questions really don't substantiate anything about BIG's design process (and where it may be lacking).
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2015.11.07 12:30
Reinier de Graaf: "The western architectural ivory tower has become a theatre of the absurd"
There is no real evidence that BIG, ZHA and FOG do not or cannot seek "beauty, joy, delight, function, wonder, solace, serenity, fun" in their work. Nor is there any real evidence that being a "brand" limits one's work from "finding real depth." What exactly are the unnecessary constraints created by branding?
2015.11.07 13:37
Reinier de Graaf: "The western architectural ivory tower has become a theatre of the absurd"
In that case, I, for one, have no preconceived expectation of what a BIG, ZHA or FOG work will look like. In fact, these are firms that I've come to watch how their "style" continually develops, and indeed more often than not deliver the unexpected.
2015.11.28 08:25
REVEALED: Bjarke Ingels’ Brand New High Line Towers
The difference, however, is that publicity seems to be the only thing Kardashian is good at, while publicity is more toward the bottom of things that Ingels is good at. There are a lot more substantial things to measure Ingels' worth and success than his merely being "good at" publicity.
2015.11.29 13:29
REVEALED: Bjarke Ingels’ Brand New High Line Towers
The same things that warrant any fame: doing things of substantial notoriety. For example, Ingels and BIG are certainly "good at" acquiring big (and quite notable) building commissions.
If you had already done all things within the realm of architecture that Ingels has already done, don't you think you'd be famous too? And, conversely, because you haven't already done all the things within the realm of architecture that Ingels has already done is why you're not famous.
2015.11.29 19:33
REVEALED: Bjarke Ingels’ Brand New High Line Towers
The level of success that BIG has reached in ten years of business is rare because the enormous amount of original and innovative architectural work, unbuilt and built, that BIG has produced in the last ten years is rare. Again, it's not for nothing that BIG has reached the level of success that it has.
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