The making of Authentic Architecture Introduction and Overview - Part Two
go to Part One • go to Part Three | | Part One of this overview provides context for this Thesis and two of six Sections: Principles and what is Distinct about my approach to architecture. | | Part Two will cover a Criticism of many architects and their work, Illustration of my work (built and un-built) in several categories of building types, specific Lessons learned in my 48 years of work, and a look to The Road Ahead. | | Each of these six Sections, in parts One and Two, link directly to URLs of their own where greater detail is provided. | | Part Three will focus on the the technical aspects of my work. This will be approached in four subsections; the first, on the Patent and mind/brain theory that forms the foundation of the Taylor method and, thus, the concept of human processes upon which my concept of architecture rests; the second, on certain aspects of design and design processes that form the basis for my approach to this task; the third, on design/build techniques essential to integrating the various work processes necessary to the task of physically making architecture; and fourth, on the business and organization aspects of building and employing ValueWebs for the creation of ARCHITCTURE. | | | The following criticism, which follows Brazon’s [link] and Elliot’s [link] dictates, looks at the legacy of Frank lloyd Wright [link], Bruce Goff [link], Rudolf Schindler [link], Lloyd Wright [link], John Lautner [link], Renzo Piano [link], Antoni Gaudi [link], Rudolf Steiner [link], Bucky Fuller [link], Bernard Maybeck [link], Filippo Brunelleschi [link], Frederick Law Olmsted [link], Christopher Alexander [link], Frank Gehry [link], Ero Saarinen [link], Henry Hobson Richardson [link], Daniel Burnham [link] Fred Stitt [link] Palo Soleri [link] and Louis Sullivan [link]. All of these demonstrate unique qualities both in their work and in their practice model. I also will comment on the work of some of the larger, global architectural firms, as well as, certain historical architectures such as Japanese, Islamic, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Renascence and Medieval Europe, and indigenous cultures. In addition, several engineers, industrial designers and inventors will be looked reviewed. | | Even this long list suffers a certain provincialism and cultural bias; nevertheless, a great deal of value can be extracted from the examination of the lives and body of work that these individuals created. | | As noted, I will offer a critique of my own work of the last 48 years - both projects and built works - in the Illustration Section that follows. | | In this Outline, both the Criticism and Illustration Parts will be presented as a brief overview. This is so each subject can be seen as an aspect of a larger fabric. A more detailed analysis can be found by following the links provided with each subject. | My relationship to Wright is personal and intimate. Not because I knew him that well but because he was the Master [link] that I discovered at that moment in time when it was essential for me to find my muse. This is how continuity, from century to century, is kept even as innovation is unleashed [link]. There is a rare chemestry in the relathonship between Master and Apprentice and this is, in my mind, essential to the development of any art. We lose this value in our world of training, tests, rank and hurried achievements. I think that there can be only one relationship like this in a lifetime and it is important to choose one’s master carefully. Mr. Wright never disappointed me in this regard and he continues to instruct and delight me to this day. In my mind, a great deal that has been written about Wright is misguided. It does not describe the man I know nor the work that I saw and lived in. In recent years, authors have started to address this deficiency. The scholarship has improved immensely and it is becoming accepted that you have to take him whole, in the context of his times and that you can rely on his explanations far more than had been accepted before. Frank Lloyd Wright was a complex man. He was authentic. He is not easily understood from “outside.” From “inside” it is easy and what you see is what you get. | | | Bruce gave me a great gift which was one full week of his time uninterrupted by any distractions. By far, I received more direct instruction and education in the art of architecture from him than the sum of all that others taught me. More than any architect that I have met, Bruce knew just what he was doing and why. He could articulate his thinking processes and set it the broader context of history, philosophy and art. He was close to the ideal teacher: passionate, informed stimulating yet willing to let the student develop on his own in his own way. He, like Schindler lived a life totally dedicated to architecture and, of all the great American architects of his time, practiced with the least ego, in the negative sense of the word, and served his clients with great dedication. Goff left a great unrealized dream and that is of a colony-school where all the arts could be integrated and practiced with architecture. This vision had also come to me [link] just months before meeting Bruce for the first time and became the our closest connection. | | | I have a great sense of personal affinity with Rudolf Schindler and his work. I believe he was enormously underrated in his lifetime and it is a tragedy that he did not receive more commissions that would have provided him the chance to exercise his full talent. However, what he did do, with the commissions he was offered, was amazing and constitutes a remarkable body of work. More that anyone that I can think of he provided his clients with great architecture that was affordable. His own house on Kings Row is full of innovations and can be legitimately considered a precursor of Wright’s Usonian house by a decade. It also was an intimate response to a time and place which was Los Angeles in the 20s. | | | | Lloyd Wright was also greatly under rated. He, with Schindler, Lautner and others had an enormous impact on Southern California Architecture. His Wayfarers Chapel is without question one the best works of the 20th Century. | | | | I have been slow to absorb Lautner and I regret that I neglected him when I first lived in Los Angeles. Our time overlapped and I should have sought him out. | | | | I like Renzo’s work; I like the variety of it and I like his practice model. He is bringing together modern technologies and traditional materials and means. This is a critical issue in architecture today. | | | | It was Bruce Goff who introduced me to Gaidi’s work and the power of it has grown on me over the years. In any short list of the greatest architects of all time, Gaidi has to be on it. | | | | Steiner is better known as a scientist, philosopher and educator than as an architect. He built, however, two remarkable buildings and can be considered an early founder of the organic school of architecture. Steiner’s work stemmed from a deep sense of the function of the building and its philosophical implications. With this attribute alone he surpasses the vast majority of architects. | | | Bucky invented “Anticipatory Design Science” and almost started a revolution in how buildings are conceived, produced and deployed. He once told me that he would never build his deliverable housing units but that I would [link]. So far, I have failed with this charge but I have not given up the pursuit of his ideal [link]. Bucky is a remarkable man by any standard yet none ot the professions that he impacted want to “own” him. This is more a reflection on the insular nature of these artificial onclaves than on the man and his worth. | | | | To this day you cannot live in northern California without being the beneficiary of Maybeck, his contemporaries and the many that followed him - he, along with Julia Morgan [link], William Wurster [link], Warren Callister [link], Jack Hilmer [link] and many more have created a distinct architecture referred to as the Northern California School, Bay Tradition or Bay Area Regional Style. Whatever you call it, this school of work is vital today and remains one of the most pervasive regional expressions in all of architecture. | | | | Brunelleschi was trained as a goldsmith. He became an accomplished engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, project manager and architect. What he accomplished in one lifetime, given the means of the times, calls into question how we “moderns” employ the technology and resources at our command. We pride ourselves in our productivity but this may well be a false conceit. | | | | Olmsted was “public man” in the old sense of the word - something that is sadly lacking from our modern social environment. He also created the American practice of Landscape Architecture. These two aspects of his life cannot be separated if you are to understand either one of them. This integration is what makes him interesting and an exemplar worth considering as we we seek to rebuild a shattered public edifice. | | | | I have not yet come to terms with Gehry. Yet, he cannot be ignored. He has almost single handedly brought the profession of architecture into the 21st Century by turning the computer into a tool in the hand of the architect capable of crafting architecture much like we once did by hand. | | | | Sarrinen is one of the few that managed to be successful, in the main stream sense of the word, without being seduced or corrupted by it. | | | | “Make no little plans” was Burham’s motto when he led the Chicago Worlds Fair project. There are probably few equal examples of architect-as-master-builder in modern times; the scale and scope of what was accomplished in so short a time is impressive to this day [rdtfBook]. | | | | Fred Stitt has devoted his life to helping architects learn how to be architects. This is, in our modern context, an almost thankless task. | | | | I would have loved working as a draftsman in the heyday of the Greene and Greene practice - what rich delights would have waited my drafting board every day! | | | | Palo broke the mold of what constitutes an architectural practice. He went out into the desert and started a process from the beginning. His approach is at once very ancient and and futuristic at the same time. He decided to build a city from scratch and a new type of city at that. | | | | The father of the “chicago School” and by extension the “Prairie School” of architecture, Sullivan is a tragic personality in the story of American architecture. The interesting question is if this tragedy is to be fond in the culture of the times, in American sensibility in general, or in Sullivan himself. The useful perception may be that it is in all three of these and that the story is all too ready to repeat itself. | | | | One of the great tragedies of architecture is the rivalry between architects with the emphasis placed on their differences rather than on the continuity of architectural thought and practice throughout the ages. It seems the more serious an architect, and capable, the more likely to fall into this wasteful trap. We who would practice today are way beyond having the luxury to squander our energy in this way. Architects should be supporting each other in the task of creating great architecture - on the planetary scale that is now required - instead of fighting over the scrapes of individual commissions, the sum of which, still adds up to failure. We need to stop arguing about how many architects we can get on the head of a pin and start building a new kind of education process while establishing new models of viable architectural practices. The competition for commissions, the petty and false egotism found in the “look at me” shouting of individual works, the reduction of the main stream practice of architecture to merely that of facilitating real estate deals has left a vacuum that can only be filled by serious practitioners willing to do serious work over the span of a lifetime and beyond one’s single contribution. Imagine the cathedrals being accomplished in the circumstance of today’s social, economic, business dogmas. Those that I profile above are such people. Whatever their differences, they saw architecture as something beyond their personal lives - architecture did not serve them, they served architecture. | | They all, at different times of my life and in different degrees and ways, stimulated and influenced me. I think, that if I could incorporate all that they individually represent into one capability that this would make an architect worthy of the name. One of the necessary skills of a great architect is the ability to fuse ideas with form. This talent makes it possible to absorb the essence of life from the existing environment and find ways to render it as a new expression in both practice and built projects. It is not trivial to think of what made of the best of these architects and seek to bring that forward into a living presence of work. This is not merely an intellectual exercise. It is a deep meditation. It is a dedication. It is the desire to manifest a continuity even as one is provoking a revolution. A life can be redeemed. This can happen any day and everyday. This is the unique human attribute - the ability to recreate self and to make a better future - and, to do this while bringing recognition and honor to what has come before. |  | Continue Overview and Introduction
Part 2 - ILLUSTRATION | | | | |
|
