Dear Group,
I am a new member, so please excuse any protocol errors I am certain to
make until I get to know you all better.
I will be traveling to Berlin in June and I am interested in some
suggestions for "must see" buildings, and a little information concerning
their architectural style and original designers, and also something about
their original and current use.
I am especially interested in learning something about the new Guggenheim
that opened in the fall of '97. Knowing how the renovation process was
planned and carried out would be extremely interesting to me as a student
of Interior Design and Art History at Virginia Tech.
I was amused by the discussion concerning architects vs engineers that I
found in the digest of Feb '98 mailings. I worked for a construction
company in Maryland for 11 years, and there are two additional players in
that "war" that need to be included - site superintendents that have to
actually build the stuff and interior designers that have to make the
spaces work! I doubt the battle will ever be over, architects will always
try to create monuments, engineers will always over-design, superintendents
will always bitch, and designers will always assume that no one can do
anything right!
The discussion concerning architecture as a science or an art was also
interesting. My opinion is that the two cannot, and should not be
separate. An architect without engineering knowledge is wasting money, and
the architect without creativity and innovative ideas is simply a draftsman
who copies.
Carol C. Riggles
criggles @ vt.edu
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/2275
I am a new member, so please excuse any protocol errors I am certain to
make until I get to know you all better.
I will be traveling to Berlin in June and I am interested in some
suggestions for "must see" buildings, and a little information concerning
their architectural style and original designers, and also something about
their original and current use.
I am especially interested in learning something about the new Guggenheim
that opened in the fall of '97. Knowing how the renovation process was
planned and carried out would be extremely interesting to me as a student
of Interior Design and Art History at Virginia Tech.
I was amused by the discussion concerning architects vs engineers that I
found in the digest of Feb '98 mailings. I worked for a construction
company in Maryland for 11 years, and there are two additional players in
that "war" that need to be included - site superintendents that have to
actually build the stuff and interior designers that have to make the
spaces work! I doubt the battle will ever be over, architects will always
try to create monuments, engineers will always over-design, superintendents
will always bitch, and designers will always assume that no one can do
anything right!
The discussion concerning architecture as a science or an art was also
interesting. My opinion is that the two cannot, and should not be
separate. An architect without engineering knowledge is wasting money, and
the architect without creativity and innovative ideas is simply a draftsman
who copies.
Carol C. Riggles
criggles @ vt.edu
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/2275