To: design-l
Subject: re: content.
Date: 2001.09.23 10:15
Ron,
I want to respond with a longer letter re content, but right now an outline
is all I have time for:
1. the Whilehall experience is valuable and perhaps even proto-typical as to
what facade/screen/content issues will continue to arise for architects.
2. it will be simple enough to ask Venturi himself what he means by "content
is not the architect's job," at the symposium in NYC this coming Saturday.
(I might even email the question ahead of time to VSBA, and Barbara Flanagen
as well.)
3. as it stands, I think Venturi's quote misleads in that content CAN now
well be the architect's job. Whether or not content SHOULD be the
architect's job is not the issue I'm proposing.
4. there may be one answer to "what is the content?" in some of Venturi's
own prior writings/statements. For example, in the early 1980s Venturi very
much championed buildings with all-over patterning. With programmable
electronic screens as facades, there is now every opportunity for architects
to design facades with many animated patterns.
5. after spending all of the last five years generating the content for and
programming several thousand 'screens' of Quondam, I might just have more
experience than any other architect when it comes to architecture as the
delivery of content. ['Architecture as delivery of content' describes
precisely what I see as a big forthcoming issue for architects.]
Steve
ps
I think Anand's comparison of design-l to a cafe adds a further dimension to
the notion of architecture as delivery of content. I especially like the
notion of others looking through the "window" at the expressions of
design-l.
Subject: re: content.
Date: 2001.09.23 10:15
Ron,
I want to respond with a longer letter re content, but right now an outline
is all I have time for:
1. the Whilehall experience is valuable and perhaps even proto-typical as to
what facade/screen/content issues will continue to arise for architects.
2. it will be simple enough to ask Venturi himself what he means by "content
is not the architect's job," at the symposium in NYC this coming Saturday.
(I might even email the question ahead of time to VSBA, and Barbara Flanagen
as well.)
3. as it stands, I think Venturi's quote misleads in that content CAN now
well be the architect's job. Whether or not content SHOULD be the
architect's job is not the issue I'm proposing.
4. there may be one answer to "what is the content?" in some of Venturi's
own prior writings/statements. For example, in the early 1980s Venturi very
much championed buildings with all-over patterning. With programmable
electronic screens as facades, there is now every opportunity for architects
to design facades with many animated patterns.
5. after spending all of the last five years generating the content for and
programming several thousand 'screens' of Quondam, I might just have more
experience than any other architect when it comes to architecture as the
delivery of content. ['Architecture as delivery of content' describes
precisely what I see as a big forthcoming issue for architects.]
Steve
ps
I think Anand's comparison of design-l to a cafe adds a further dimension to
the notion of architecture as delivery of content. I especially like the
notion of others looking through the "window" at the expressions of
design-l.