Re: What's Wrong with....II

- - The original note follows - -

From: John Christopher Forman <jf3a+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: What's Wrong with....II
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 19:20:05 -0500

Writes cvacsgrg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:
[...]
>> Generally, I do beleive that Architecture is in a down period.
>> Politics and economics have virtually stripped you of creativity.
>> No one wants to spend the money on a design if it has no function.

It is the job of the architect to design a building that is both formal
and functional. Creativity is the ability to solve a problem. If the
problem is a lack of funds, a depressed economy, or evil politics, then
it is the architect that must get creative and resolve those issues.
And not every issue can be resolved. And when someone sees a building
that isn't resolved, it is the architect's fault.

[...]
>> I received a reply saying something about the fault of the engineers
>> in the Northridge apartment bldg. collapse. If that person knew anything
>> about bending moments, then he would understand why the building failed.

And when a building fails structurally, that's because it wasn't
resolved either. And some issues can't be resolved, either... The
engineer is responsible for that.

[...]
>> Now, if someone wants to try and say that the engineer was at fault,
>> let me add this: The architect decides the structural system and the
>> engineer will follow the instructions of the design and crunch the numbers.

But it is the responsibility of the engineer to tell the architect that
the design isn't structurally sound. And it is the responsibility of
the architect to listen to the engineer and say OK. And then the two
get together and work it out. And if that doesn't happen, then either
the structure or the design fails. Either way, the building, and the
architect and engineer that designed them, fail.

"What's wrong with architecture"? you ask. I answer:
(1) the architect doesn't know the engineering well enough
(2) the engineer doesn't know the architecture well enough
(3) neither want to communicate
(4) both want to blame each other

"Hence it has been concluded, not without reason,
that architects are not sufficiently scientific and
that engineers are not sufficiently artistic."

But when an architect and an engineer work together???

Zaha Hadid. IM Pei. Roebling. Renzo Piano & Peter (I forget his name).

Or better yet, when the architect IS an engineer, or the engineer IS an
architect!!!

Santiago Calatrava. Gustav Eiffel. Michaelangelo. Bramante.

"If we take a fair and unprejudiced view of things we cannot shut
our eyes to the fact that the professions of the architect and the
civil engineer tent to merge into the other as was formerly the case.
[...]
whether both thus succeed in uniting their faculties, knowledge, and
appliances, and thereby realise an art truly characteristic of our
times, the result cannot fail to be advantageous to the public and
creditable to the age."
-- Viollet-le-Duc, XII Lecture on Architecture

[...]
>> Also, I would like to rescind my statements about Corbusier, they
>> came from my opinions on a few projects and not from the whole of
>> his work. Who I really mean to flame is Frank O. Gehry. I don't
>> get him. What a waste.

Another problem with architecture (and civil engineering) is that no one
learns everything anymore. Sure, there's a lot more to learn now than
there was when Vitruvius wrote his ten treatises, but if people maybe
just tried to learn something more than what their professors tell them.

I used to dislike LeCorbusier, until I actually read his writings and
looked at his design. I saw how he was influenced by Viollet's
structuralism. I saw what his motivations were, his bourgeois ideas
yearning for a new technocratic Paris, a real threat to his surrealist
contemporaries... Well, I'm still not a fan, but I now really
appreciate what he was trying to do. He tried. Whether he succeded or
not is as pointless as debating whether Chartres or Amiens are the
better French gothic cathedral. [My Viollet influence showing
through...]

The same holds true for anything... Gehry? Zaha Hadid? Calatrava?
Liver and onions? Try to understand what they're doing and maybe you'll
appreciate the attempt, if not the product. Otherwise you'll rot like
the rest of the world (particularly America), condeming those things you
don't want to understand.

>> Also, as an engineer, I would like to be educated by anyone who will
>> oblige. I would like to begin a discussion about the different views
>> of Engineers and Architects, and hopefully my vision can be expanded
>> by those discussions. I feel that function is more important than form
>> in today's world, but I am not saying that form is completely unnecessary.

My background: I'm a 5th year undergraduate student at Carnegie Mellon.
I'm trying to become the Architect; not an architect of the type that I
have just defamed, but an Architect who practices the Arts and Sciences
related to Building. [Sorry for the Neoclassical capitalization of
words to discern their meaning.] Having studied architecture,
architectural history, civil engineering, theater, and computer science,
I feel not unable to express a somewhat educated opinion. Of course, I
too am open to further education. If not, I wouldn't still be here, and
I wouldn't be reading this bboard.

[ As for my ideas of form and function, I believe they must be wholly ]
[ integrated into the fabric of a building. Without form, no function ]
[ may be contained. And without function, there is no purpose of form.]

>>And to all those narrowminded replies:
>> Rethink. Engineering is not just a number crunch. We have ideas too!

Here here. Like I implied, architecture can not exist in a vacuum, nor
can civil engineering. Both are tied together, bound in the firmament
of society. Without one the other collapses. Or the other way around,
without one the other looks butt-ugly. *grin*

Et ... Ego,
Christopher
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