Cad collection 2207
2001.11.13 11:14
Re: sketching
I don't construct as many cad models as I used to (and no I don't need a manual constantly at hand), but I have worked on two models so far this year, namely the tower of Princeton Memorial Park (1966, unexecuted), perhaps Venturi and Rauch's most Kahnian building, and a reconstruction of the first rendition (c. 326 AD) of what is today Santa Croce in Gerusalemme--this is a large hall from what was once the Sessorian Palace, where Empress Helena lived in Rome between 313 and 326.
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2002.02.04
While Venturi and Scott Brown were still signing books after the VSBA symposium at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I met Steven Izenour for the first and last time. Probably not too many others present, including myself, knew that Izenour was going to celebrate his sixty-first birthday just two days hence. And certainly no one there knew that Izenour would die of a heart attack a month and a week later.
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Venturi and Rauch, Princeton Memorial Park Tower (Hightstown, New Jersey, 1966, project)
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The tower is a sign to be seen from the expressway yet to be interesting from close up. Its precedents are the campanile and the commercial sign by the highway. From the highway you see the bold silhouette of the concrete cylinder, and through the openings in the cylinder you see a structural diagonal diaphragm with an appliqué of black and white marble whose op-scaled stripes are like those of the tower at Siena. Inscribed in concrete on the back of the diaphragm sloping toward the viewer is the Twenty-third Psalm, which is seen through a sheet of water. At night the tower is lighted internally to be read from a distance and it becomes a base for a tall beacon of light.
Venturi, Scott Brown, Izenour, Learning From Las Vegas (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1972), p. 114.
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And finally Steven Izenour, who is our co-worker, co-author, and sine qua non.
Scott Brown and Venturi, Preface to Learning from Las Vegas (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1972), p. xi.
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2003.02.04 11:50
Re: Robert Venturi
I'm beginning to see a lot of Venturi et al architecture and design as 'mod'. Not Modern, not Post-Modern, not (just) Pop--specifically mod.
The Princeton Memorial Park tower is very mod, as is the Mr. and Mrs. Gooding house of a decade later.
Venturi, like Stirling, is a mod colorist (for sure), a distinct rarity within 20th century architectural history.
2003.02.04 11:50
Re: Robert Venturi
I'm beginning to see a lot of Venturi et al architecture and design as 'mod'. Not Modern, not Post-Modern, not (just) Pop--specifically mod.
The Princeton Memorial Park tower is very mod, as is the Mr. and Mrs. Gooding house of a decade later.
Venturi, like Stirling, is a mod colorist (for sure), a distinct rarity within 20th century architectural history. A 'mod architecture' exhibit is in the works at Quondam.
For a very clear display of Venturi et al's work in the context of the POP era (1956-1968) see Les Annees Pop, the catalogue of the exhibit going by the same name held at the Centre Pompidou 15 March to 18 June 2001. Here, each year is displayed by what was produced in it. Unfortunately (for some like me) all the text is in French, but there are lots of images.
2004.07.22 16:26
Re: Virtual Synagogue in Berlin's Fasanenstrasse
very coincidental....
Just within the last half hour I upload pages which depict an analytical rendition of Kahn's Mikveh Israel Synagogue (Philadelphia, 1961-70, unexecuted) where the cylinders of light are replace with reduced versions of Venturi & Rauch's Tower for Princeton Memorial Park (New Jersey, 1966, unexecuted).
G. sees the PMP Tower design as Venturi & Rauch's consummate homage to Kahn, specifically to the Mikveh Israel Synagogue.
While G. studied architecture at Cornell (BA 1968), he well remembers Perspecta 9/10 where Mikveh Israel is featured, as well as the then forthcoming excerpt from Complexity and Contradiction--"Is it a building split in two or two buildings coming together."
And who could forget the "Avant-Garde Anachronist" article on Louis Kahn in Time June 1966--"Carving in Light" indeed.
And remember how everyone was eating up the Progressive Architecture Award Citations January 1967.
2007.04.03 14:20
AN ARCHITECTURE OF REMOVEMENT
All I did was look to see what was 'winning' in the architecture magazines while Matta-Clark was in architecture schools.
As to holes is walls, note the PMP to Mikveh Israel connection.
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