yes, it is still in progress.

marketfair, do you know of any web site monitoring construction?

d

nope, i dont. - about all i know is that i worked at an office this summer where he would call frequently from tel aviv.

i love some of PSC's interior renderings of the tel aviv museum.

this is old (no tel aviv museum there) buy you may want to check it out

link

any new developments or comments about Preston's work?

i just completed a semester of cooper's first descriptive geometry class.
this information is vital for anyone who wants the controll of rhino on a drafting table.
its too amazing for words.
check out gaspard monge for the original work.

I met that PSC when I was looking at grad schools. We talked in his office for about half an hour. It was incredibly awkward. Mind you, at the time I had no idea he was well known. After I met him, I started to notice his name around a lot. Maybe I didn't make a very good impression haha. I do like his drawings and renderings also.

Do anyone understand his technique in designing his building like Torus house?

"Contested Symmetries and Other Predicaments in Architecture" is so hard to follow!

gaspard monge is where it at

gaspard monge is where its at

he won the robbins ele school comp comp but no surprise there

you can find more images here:


link

and here

link

Do any of you speak english?

Whenever I see the name "Preston Scott Cohen", I think of Britney + Kevin's brain-damaged brat

marketfair; word to gaspard monge

the cone/sphere intersection is amazing

scott cohen's contribution to contemporary geometry in architecture is vastly underrated and overlooked in favor of less rigorous geometricians (i.e wolf prix, zaha, etc.). and some of his more subtle projects like the goodman house are pretty stunning.

Yes. It’s very important for geometry to be rigorous. Scotts work might look silly or pointless unless you appreciate the rigor of his geometry.

A lot of people are going around building things with any old geometry they want. This must stop! Geometry must be rigorous and must derive from the gunnery calculations of Napoleon’s army. This last part is of utmost importance, lest we fall into functionalism and derive our geometry from structure or something.

As William Walker wrote after one of his great projects “unless a man can think of something great, he can think of nothing at all.”

I dunno... as long as the appreciation of form is aesthestic (sensory) and not intellectual, it seems hard for me to argue against the most expedient (least rigorous) method for achieving a pleasing form.

Mercator was a great geometrician. Cohen is just a formalist.

i take all my geometric calculations from the russian artillery circa the battle of beresina.

many architects are "just a formalist" -- whereas only a few are of the caliber of Cohen, i.e there's formalism and there's serious formalism

Yah, I’m often really inspired by how people with a mild case can overcome it and still function in society, be decent people and do productive things. A serious case like Scott’s is just tragic though. Like you don’t want to stare bit it’s so grotesque and you can only imagine what Peter must have done to him to scramble his brains so badly. I suppose there’s not much anyone can do at this point for people like that. Just try to keep them comfortable (teaching drawing classes and the like) and help them hang on to their dignity. I think it’s really reprehensible the way he’s paraded in public like some sort of freak. I mean, he’s a formalist, but he’s still human you know.

There, but for the grace of god, go all of us.

What is the problem with formalism?
All architecture, at the end of the day, is about form.

Nothing wrong with formalism as long as it is not your priority - form is inevitable, and at a minimum architecture should be formally successful. But unlike the visual arts, architecture has capabilities beyond the formal.

As an analogy, ymagine Cohen or Eisenman in the kitchen - you are likely to get a meal that is well plated, but offers no nutrition and tastes like shit.

"Scotts work might look silly or pointless unless you appreciate the rigor of his geometry"

"there's formalism and there's serious formalism"

That's just silly. Formal architecture is formal architecture. How they arrive at the design is irrelevant. Gehry makes bland sketches and crumples paper, someone else uses math, some one else does this or that. In the end, none of that matters.

The only time that it matters is when you are trying to understand the process (I remember Mayne saying over and over that if he couldn't see the process, he could critique the [student] work, so in the end it's 'ok, I like it or a I don't' and that's it).

Point being, that one is not more valid than the other unless you are trying to critique it as an architect/student. Once it is built, none of that matters - it's being tested in reality and it must stand as such. Simple as that.

This is a problem, imho, with academia. People think that if you have a great idea that it's 'ok' to make ugly forms. That's bs. Formalism, through math or simple sketches is inherently intuitive. There is no escaping that.

In the end it's the architecture that matters. Process is just dandy, but without a final 'test', it's simply ideas or a hypothesis. It takes a great designer to combine the experience of space with a formal design, as well as make it function as architecture.


I love formal architecture. Always have and always will, but it has to be about more than just ideas and it has to be more about than just the form - it must seduce visually as well as experientially (if it seduces intellectually, then great, if not...). It's the most difficult type of architecture to create as so much is intuition.

A shame intuition is such a dirty word in architecture. A shame, also, that there is so much post rationalization to cover the traces, er, tracks. ;-)

consider these tactics/philosophies/interests a manner in which an architect creates brand identity. in the end thats all it is. and in fact, which is fine by me. just recognize it for what it is.

What is it you love about formal architecture? Is that the real question?

Of course every object has a form. Pretty much everyone wears shoes, some shoes are sexier that others and some people notice more that others but if you can’t function (if you know what I mean) because the only thing you get off on is licking somebody’s stiletto heels you’re a pervert with a fetish.

Which is cool and all, I suppose, but don’t be surprised if you aren’t getting many second dates.

I’ll seek my jouissance elsewhere thank you very much.

I must have a formal fetish then ;-)

Hey, newstream, perhaps your jouissance is being strapped to a wall of spandex with 64 orifices that tighten when you're aroused?

Last I heard newstream's jouissance was somewhere on the back nine with liz diller.

'Spandex yes, golf no.

No actually the spandex was just a means to end. I really just like fondeling socket screws. The golf thing is somebody else’s fetish but nobody can remember whose.

I didn’t mean to sound like a jerk. The thread was just getting a bit sha-na-na n’mean.

I now grasp the main idea of Descriptive Geometry and Taylor's Perspective Appratus and will move into understaing Cohen's Siesta Key house project.

Rafeal Moneo did a short introduction for this Cohen's project, I guess I can do a further study based on this introduction and the house's info. like plan and section. ANyone know anything about this design or if it is worthy of studying by spending at least 10 hours?

yes

newsflash [at least to me]: website with projects