yeah well....MVRDV hasn't been the same ones for a while... im truly disspaointed...2 t¿years for doing "that"??? yeah it doesn't redefines nothing, and its horrendous at the end...so...whatever, let's see if built looks better...
I saw Natalie DeVries like 2 months ago at a lecture... yeah all their projects lately sucks (thats my opinion)
You guys are so negative. That is why the gallery never released images until the the structure was half way up before. You are complaining about the architecture but the gallery has to deal with the tons of complaints from ordinary people who are always defensive of anything built in the park, and the pressure and conservativism from the Royal Parks authority has been immense in previous years as well. Funnily enough it seems that they are really cool about this one.
I've been on the roof of the gallery and it is an amazing view of the parks, unfortunately there is no access to the roof for the general public. Now this mountain will allow us to go even higher up and I am sure that its going to be great. In fact the Serpentine Gallery should look at what happened to the Princess Diana Memorial start thinking what are they going to do with the crowds.
Now, the risky part is of course what is going to happen underneath, how is exactly the relation between the shell, the metal structure and the enclosed Tea Pavilion. That is what worries me, especially because previous pavilion were not too good at detail. (due to economic and time reasons)
So lets just embrace this as a temporal thing and appreciate that somebody has the energy to try to bring a different type of architecture to the British people every summer.
and put things into context, to claim that the building will redefine the pavilion is only PR jargon. Although I think that the phrase refers to "the Pavilion" as the Serpentine Gallery Commission not as the building "type". If you think about it, previous pavilions were not exactly pavilions, in fact the first one (Zaha's) was a tent for a fundraising dinner.
It may not be that original but I like it... looks like I'll be in London next summer so hopefully I'll have a chance to see it myself (will it be up next summer?). I've been to the serpentine and I think considering the context the scheme is pretty hilarious. Why are we all se serious???
why is it pompous poopoo? seriously? it a friggin metal structure covered with grass and an observation deck, I think it's awesome. of course Splash mountain is one of my favorite built structures ever ... but so is the Pantheon. What's wrong with designing something that'll make people gasp and giggle?
Yeah well...im sure we would get an amazing view of Hyde Park but i still think MVRDV sucks right now... (i mean all offices has their own up and downs), they might get really creative again soon...or later...have u seen their latest project for spain?? which is like the map of the region (i think is Leon, or Galicia) but like a facade??? awful... i think they got too hyped their first years and now they need to stablish their ideas again... (backstreetboys-syndrome??) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
treu, they are the boyband of dutch architecture, but...i love the friggin thing, because it's been beaten with the ugly stick all over, and yet will provide stunning views, fun for all hte family and most of all is not a pavillion, it hides the building and its a big fook you to all the stuck up ones...its punk, in a way.its the first pavillion i see which is not an exercise in anally driven architectural composition.
i am of two minds on this one. visually it scores low, but i think it is going to come down to the detailing (a bit risky with the Serp projects) of the terrained surface, and the orchestration of the program of that rasie surface. so we shall see.
but it is very ironic that the most archigram-y / cedric-price-y piece in the UK arrives 30 years later froma Dutchman.
MVRDVs newfound pop glory has sent them back in time to rob from the English. twisty turny warpy playland, ya dig.
Take a look at Le Corbusier's Palais des Congres a Strasbourg (1964), and then look at OMA's Hotel at Agadir, the Library at Jussieu, the Educatorium, and then MVRDV's VPRO--a trail of design reenactments. Maas worked on the OMA projects.
Now it's reenacting 'architectural nature' I suppose.
True. True.
Really i am making the point that it took a dutchman to do on English soil what the english had been trying to do all along. It took thirty years of gestation and a de Tocqueville-like distance to acheive it.
I think it is going to be great. I'm getting my ticket to London pronto ... then i'm growing my fro and bringing my coudoroy bellbottoms, my big shades, and my cushicle. mvrdv has charted the new neo-pop-itecture.
Sep 23, 04 3:38 pm ·
·
maybe pop-out-of-it-ecture?
explain what you mean by 'de Tocqueville-like disance'
I'm intrigued
easy on cushicle though. spare parts can be a bitch.
rita -- just how it took the clarity of the frechman Alexis de Tocqueville in 1830s to write the most accurate portrayal of Democracy in America. This remains the benchmakr for understanding the grwoth of American success, yet this clarity wasnt available to the insider... more here
(guess i should look at the keyboard more when i type, but you get the idea)
Sep 23, 04 4:56 pm ·
·
gotcha Mason
I'm presently reading MOBILE by Michel Butor, another Frenchman's portrayal America.
posted this at design-l last Monday:
from http://www.centerforbookculture.org/dalkey/backlist/butor.html :
Considered by many to be his greatest book, Michel Butor's Mobile [first published in 1962] is the result of the six months the author spent traveling across America. The text is composed from a wide range of materials, including city names, road signs, advertising slogans, catalog listings, newspaper accounts of the 1893 World's Fair, Native American writings, and the history of the "Freedomland" theme park. Butor weaves bits and pieces from these diverse sources into a collage resembling an abstract paining (the book is dedicated to Jackson Pollack) or a patchwork quilt that by turns is both humorous and quite disturbing. This "travelogue" captures--in both a textual and visual way--the energy and contradictions of American life and history.
"A gifted disciple of French anti-novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, Butor is notable because he uses a different technique with every book and turns out intense and interesting fiction just the same."--Time
"Mobile is not only a memorable experience, accomplishing that rich task of all true art--providing the reader with new eyes--but it is also work which fellow writers and artists can profit from because it supplies the best of all ingredients: stimulation."--New York Herald Tribune
[In some ways this book reminds me of Otto's post-lobotomy schizophrenic writing from the 1980s, which some of you might remember reading samples of within schizophrenia + architectures at www.quondam.com 1999.]
Since when did http://www.mapquest.com stop offering color aerial photos along with their maps?
[Is THE ODDS OF OTTOPIA actually by Auntie Rita Novel?]
thanks for the suggestion, i will look into Mobile. You might also like Bill Bryson's books (he was in the UK for 2o years then traveled back to his hometown area in Iowa ... it will having you convulsing with laughter).
But we digress from the giant straddling ambidextrous mountain at hand, so good point about "serpentine" ...
ser·pen·tine
1: of or resembling a serpent (as in form or movement) 2: subtly wily or tempting
3a: winding or turning one way and another b: having a compound curve whose central curve is convex.
Sep 23, 04 5:22 pm ·
·
...and on that note, I'm signing off for today. gonna watch the episode of LOST I taped last night.
Hey Mason, I hear Le Corbusier's going to make special note of your work above.
Update: Matta-Clark's paper is now entitled "Learning from Lacunae" and Helena's paper is now to be written by heself and is entitled "Pilgrimage, Reenactment and Tourism". Duchamp/Jennewein and Eutropia/Rubens are now coordinating with each others papers.]
Huh, interestting stuff... Reminds me of a FAT project... In the same vein of cultural criticism via architectural intervention, only without de Tocqueville's distance, since they are native to the island in question.
I was on one of Charles' reviews at the Uni of Greenwich for a studio project of similar ilk: a verdant landscape (building) to house and display the works of a landscape watercolorist who would both live in and paint the verdant hillock his works were displayed in. Great.
Sep 25, 04 4:23 pm ·
·
A pictorial analysis of Le Corbusier's Palais des Congres (1964, unexecuted) influence on OMA's Jussieu Library and MVRDV's VPRO is now available at http://www.quondam.com/18/1754.htm and follows.
These 10 webpages were first published at Quondam 2000.05.06.
Additionally, stack attack relates how MDRDV designs evolved toward the Serpentine Pavillion.
Rita,
Tthe direct affiliation with Corb's Congres, as THE source of Jussieu and VPRO, is not very convincingly argued by the "superimposition" graphics you link to at www.quuondam Corb's building doesn't quite synthesize the ramp and flat floored Domino system -- they're more just stuck together than morphed, with the ramp remaining a ramp and the floor remaining a floor. One could talk about a stronger connection to the interior of Corb's half-built Firminy church, with it's potato-chip floor/ramp "modelled ground" (or even Ronchamp for that matter); or Parent/Virilio's church with it's lifted ramp/floor, or Kiesler's much earlier work for that matter.
Where Rem, arguably, really absorbed the main idea from (aside from obviously knowing the work of Mies and Corb inside-out as any serious architect should) was while teaching at Harvard in the early 90's -- a student (well known NYC architect now) did a thesis project that transformed the Domino system into an undulating slab system, for a baseball stadium. Rem was on the final review and thought it brilliant...Jussei arrived shortly after. 'Ideas' are often amalgams of things recently seen morphed with things subconciously absorbed, melded with past innovations from the cannon of well-publicized master-works.
In any case, while the "superimposition" images at quondam seem a little lame, seeing the computer model/hidden line drawings of the Palais des Congres with the upper walls off/transparent is certainly worth the trouble (I just wish they were on their own though)...
how do they plan on planting grass or any other kind of groundcover on some of those steep slopes?
Oct 11, 04 11:28 pm ·
·
bothand,
Interesting how you mention Harvard in the early 1990s because in 1991 Loeb Library purchased drawings and slides published by Arcadia-Architectural CAD Services which documented Le Corbusier's Palais des Congres and its role in within the promenade architectural formula. [The legal fictitious name Quondam - A Virtual Museum of Architecture is owned by legal fictitious name Arcadia - Architectural Cad Services is owned by Stephen Lauf.]
You write, "'Ideas' are often amalgams of things recently seen morphed with things subconciously absorbed, melded with past innovations from the cannon of well-publicized master-works." I've often wondered how many at Harvard since 1991 have "recently seen" Arcadia's LE CORBUSIER'S PALAIS DES CONGRES.
As to the re-publication of 'hypostyle' at Quondam, it is just a small part of the larger SIGNS OF OTHERWISE EYES, and is not intended as a convincing argument, rather a manifestation of some historical record. The images were certainly not generated to please you.
You seem a bit obsessed with the Pallais Congres connection, which has been suggested by more than a few critics over the years.
Also what do you mean you've often wondered how many at Harvard have recently seen it? Its more like how many anywhere have ever opened Corb's Ouvre Complete in the last thirty plus years?
And "manifestation of some historical record"? - the images seem more like speculations, and (as I attempted to explain above regarding the lack in the Congres project of a true synthesis of ramp & floor, compared with other projects) not very rigorously developed ones at that.
Oct 12, 04 10:51 pm ·
·
bothands, you are far less "rigorously developed" here that I am overall.
Who (and when) exactly are the "more than a few critics over the years?"
Who is this student from Harvard whose project Koolhaas saw?
How exactly am I a bit obsessed?
You obviously don't know the Palais dec Congres design as well as you think you do, or else you'd see the ramp as a continuous plane that begins at street, moves through the whole center of the building, then folds back and bifurcates to become the upper level and ultimately the undulating roof plan. And all this happens within a sea of columns.
Have you read the analysis of the Palais des Congres that Harvard purchased in 1991?
Of course, you can choose to ignore any critical contributions made by Arcadia and Quondam, but remember there is a direct relationship between ignoring and ignorance.
Oct 13, 04 1:08 pm ·
·
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MVRDVs Serpentine
so its out.......the image shown says nothing.........the concept used does not re-define the pavillion, to me it dissmisses the pavillion
whatever its obvius mvrdv
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;sessionid=DX0YLTJVPA5OFQFIQMFCNAGAVCBQYJVC?xml=/arts/2004/09/21/baserp21.xml&sSheet=/arts/2004/09/22/ixartleft.html
yeah well....MVRDV hasn't been the same ones for a while... im truly disspaointed...2 t¿years for doing "that"??? yeah it doesn't redefines nothing, and its horrendous at the end...so...whatever, let's see if built looks better...
I saw Natalie DeVries like 2 months ago at a lecture... yeah all their projects lately sucks (thats my opinion)
It's still reenactment season, you know.
You guys are so negative. That is why the gallery never released images until the the structure was half way up before. You are complaining about the architecture but the gallery has to deal with the tons of complaints from ordinary people who are always defensive of anything built in the park, and the pressure and conservativism from the Royal Parks authority has been immense in previous years as well. Funnily enough it seems that they are really cool about this one.
I've been on the roof of the gallery and it is an amazing view of the parks, unfortunately there is no access to the roof for the general public. Now this mountain will allow us to go even higher up and I am sure that its going to be great. In fact the Serpentine Gallery should look at what happened to the Princess Diana Memorial start thinking what are they going to do with the crowds.
Now, the risky part is of course what is going to happen underneath, how is exactly the relation between the shell, the metal structure and the enclosed Tea Pavilion. That is what worries me, especially because previous pavilion were not too good at detail. (due to economic and time reasons)
So lets just embrace this as a temporal thing and appreciate that somebody has the energy to try to bring a different type of architecture to the British people every summer.
and put things into context, to claim that the building will redefine the pavilion is only PR jargon. Although I think that the phrase refers to "the Pavilion" as the Serpentine Gallery Commission not as the building "type". If you think about it, previous pavilions were not exactly pavilions, in fact the first one (Zaha's) was a tent for a fundraising dinner.
It may not be that original but I like it... looks like I'll be in London next summer so hopefully I'll have a chance to see it myself (will it be up next summer?). I've been to the serpentine and I think considering the context the scheme is pretty hilarious. Why are we all se serious???
I love reenactment and I love reenactors!
eg http://www.danieleluppi.com
That has to be the worst thing I have seen this month. I am just waiting for the Tella Tubbies to pop out.
hey ludwig,
i consider myself positive, but the image shown looks like poopoo, no no sorry, pardon SUPER poo.poo
and after all it is a design comission.
Anyway the built thing should say more.....of course it will be promoted as the next great thing....we'll just have to wait & see
wow what a pompous piece of poo
(i like the alliteration in that one! -pompous piece of poo)
why is it pompous poopoo? seriously? it a friggin metal structure covered with grass and an observation deck, I think it's awesome. of course Splash mountain is one of my favorite built structures ever ... but so is the Pantheon. What's wrong with designing something that'll make people gasp and giggle?
Yeah well...im sure we would get an amazing view of Hyde Park but i still think MVRDV sucks right now... (i mean all offices has their own up and downs), they might get really creative again soon...or later...have u seen their latest project for spain?? which is like the map of the region (i think is Leon, or Galicia) but like a facade??? awful... i think they got too hyped their first years and now they need to stablish their ideas again... (backstreetboys-syndrome??) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
treu, they are the boyband of dutch architecture, but...i love the friggin thing, because it's been beaten with the ugly stick all over, and yet will provide stunning views, fun for all hte family and most of all is not a pavillion, it hides the building and its a big fook you to all the stuck up ones...its punk, in a way.its the first pavillion i see which is not an exercise in anally driven architectural composition.
big up mvrdv, you ma dawgs.
ladders and stilts also provide people great views.
yeah, next time you want to go ont top of the empire state building, get some ladders and tape them together.
Its outrageous, it rocks. Crude, unsophisticated and way better than the previous pavillions.
i am of two minds on this one. visually it scores low, but i think it is going to come down to the detailing (a bit risky with the Serp projects) of the terrained surface, and the orchestration of the program of that rasie surface. so we shall see.
but it is very ironic that the most archigram-y / cedric-price-y piece in the UK arrives 30 years later froma Dutchman.
MVRDVs newfound pop glory has sent them back in time to rob from the English. twisty turny warpy playland, ya dig.
turtle soup ...
fun palace (cedric price)
l-scape (archigram)
I like what you're doing Mason.
Take a look at Le Corbusier's Palais des Congres a Strasbourg (1964), and then look at OMA's Hotel at Agadir, the Library at Jussieu, the Educatorium, and then MVRDV's VPRO--a trail of design reenactments. Maas worked on the OMA projects.
Now it's reenacting 'architectural nature' I suppose.
True. True.
Really i am making the point that it took a dutchman to do on English soil what the english had been trying to do all along. It took thirty years of gestation and a de Tocqueville-like distance to acheive it.
I think it is going to be great. I'm getting my ticket to London pronto ... then i'm growing my fro and bringing my coudoroy bellbottoms, my big shades, and my cushicle. mvrdv has charted the new neo-pop-itecture.
maybe pop-out-of-it-ecture?
explain what you mean by 'de Tocqueville-like disance'
I'm intrigued
easy on cushicle though. spare parts can be a bitch.
rita -- just how it took the clarity of the frechman Alexis de Tocqueville in 1830s to write the most accurate portrayal of Democracy in America. This remains the benchmakr for understanding the grwoth of American success, yet this clarity wasnt available to the insider... more here
(guess i should look at the keyboard more when i type, but you get the idea)
gotcha Mason
I'm presently reading MOBILE by Michel Butor, another Frenchman's portrayal America.
posted this at design-l last Monday:
from http://www.centerforbookculture.org/dalkey/backlist/butor.html :
Considered by many to be his greatest book, Michel Butor's Mobile [first published in 1962] is the result of the six months the author spent traveling across America. The text is composed from a wide range of materials, including city names, road signs, advertising slogans, catalog listings, newspaper accounts of the 1893 World's Fair, Native American writings, and the history of the "Freedomland" theme park. Butor weaves bits and pieces from these diverse sources into a collage resembling an abstract paining (the book is dedicated to Jackson Pollack) or a patchwork quilt that by turns is both humorous and quite disturbing. This "travelogue" captures--in both a textual and visual way--the energy and contradictions of American life and history.
"A gifted disciple of French anti-novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, Butor is notable because he uses a different technique with every book and turns out intense and interesting fiction just the same."--Time
"Mobile is not only a memorable experience, accomplishing that rich task of all true art--providing the reader with new eyes--but it is also work which fellow writers and artists can profit from because it supplies the best of all ingredients: stimulation."--New York Herald Tribune
"With a lexicographer's zest for words, Butor . . . captures the tone of American clichés, suggests an almost dizzying sense of space and variety, and brings into ironic juxtaposition elements of primitiveness and sophistication that are part of the American myth."--New York Times
[In some ways this book reminds me of Otto's post-lobotomy schizophrenic writing from the 1980s, which some of you might remember reading samples of within schizophrenia + architectures at www.quondam.com 1999.]
Since when did http://www.mapquest.com stop offering color aerial photos along with their maps?
[Is THE ODDS OF OTTOPIA actually by Auntie Rita Novel?]
ps
serpentine remains the operative word? ;-)
thanks for the suggestion, i will look into Mobile. You might also like Bill Bryson's books (he was in the UK for 2o years then traveled back to his hometown area in Iowa ... it will having you convulsing with laughter).
But we digress from the giant straddling ambidextrous mountain at hand, so good point about "serpentine" ...
ser·pen·tine
1: of or resembling a serpent (as in form or movement)
2: subtly wily or tempting
3a: winding or turning one way and another b: having a compound curve whose central curve is convex.
...and on that note, I'm signing off for today. gonna watch the episode of LOST I taped last night.
will definitely look into Bryson
thanks as well
yeah, that's what i like..
a huge guillotine might make people gasp
so, what did de Tocqueville (or Butor) say about freedom fries?
so, now its pop architecture against serious scientifically based architecture...viny maas kicking the shit out of zaera polo...who do you side with?
Now that's (very unscientifically) jumping to conclusions.
also, it's Winy, not Viny.
[The promenade architecturale formula is about as 'serious scientifically based' as I've seen architecture get -- papers of the Horace Trumbauer Architecture Fan Club Convention.
Hey Mason, I hear Le Corbusier's going to make special note of your work above.
Update: Matta-Clark's paper is now entitled "Learning from Lacunae" and Helena's paper is now to be written by heself and is entitled "Pilgrimage, Reenactment and Tourism". Duchamp/Jennewein and Eutropia/Rubens are now coordinating with each others papers.]
Huh, interestting stuff... Reminds me of a FAT project... In the same vein of cultural criticism via architectural intervention, only without de Tocqueville's distance, since they are native to the island in question.
http://www.fat.co.uk/bigben.html
I was on one of Charles' reviews at the Uni of Greenwich for a studio project of similar ilk: a verdant landscape (building) to house and display the works of a landscape watercolorist who would both live in and paint the verdant hillock his works were displayed in. Great.
A pictorial analysis of Le Corbusier's Palais des Congres (1964, unexecuted) influence on OMA's Jussieu Library and MVRDV's VPRO is now available at http://www.quondam.com/18/1754.htm and follows.
These 10 webpages were first published at Quondam 2000.05.06.
Additionally, stack attack relates how MDRDV designs evolved toward the Serpentine Pavillion.
Rita,
Tthe direct affiliation with Corb's Congres, as THE source of Jussieu and VPRO, is not very convincingly argued by the "superimposition" graphics you link to at www.quuondam Corb's building doesn't quite synthesize the ramp and flat floored Domino system -- they're more just stuck together than morphed, with the ramp remaining a ramp and the floor remaining a floor. One could talk about a stronger connection to the interior of Corb's half-built Firminy church, with it's potato-chip floor/ramp "modelled ground" (or even Ronchamp for that matter); or Parent/Virilio's church with it's lifted ramp/floor, or Kiesler's much earlier work for that matter.
Where Rem, arguably, really absorbed the main idea from (aside from obviously knowing the work of Mies and Corb inside-out as any serious architect should) was while teaching at Harvard in the early 90's -- a student (well known NYC architect now) did a thesis project that transformed the Domino system into an undulating slab system, for a baseball stadium. Rem was on the final review and thought it brilliant...Jussei arrived shortly after. 'Ideas' are often amalgams of things recently seen morphed with things subconciously absorbed, melded with past innovations from the cannon of well-publicized master-works.
In any case, while the "superimposition" images at quondam seem a little lame, seeing the computer model/hidden line drawings of the Palais des Congres with the upper walls off/transparent is certainly worth the trouble (I just wish they were on their own though)...
how do they plan on planting grass or any other kind of groundcover on some of those steep slopes?
bothand,
Interesting how you mention Harvard in the early 1990s because in 1991 Loeb Library purchased drawings and slides published by Arcadia-Architectural CAD Services which documented Le Corbusier's Palais des Congres and its role in within the promenade architectural formula. [The legal fictitious name Quondam - A Virtual Museum of Architecture is owned by legal fictitious name Arcadia - Architectural Cad Services is owned by Stephen Lauf.]
You write, "'Ideas' are often amalgams of things recently seen morphed with things subconciously absorbed, melded with past innovations from the cannon of well-publicized master-works." I've often wondered how many at Harvard since 1991 have "recently seen" Arcadia's LE CORBUSIER'S PALAIS DES CONGRES.
As to the re-publication of 'hypostyle' at Quondam, it is just a small part of the larger SIGNS OF OTHERWISE EYES, and is not intended as a convincing argument, rather a manifestation of some historical record. The images were certainly not generated to please you.
You seem a bit obsessed with the Pallais Congres connection, which has been suggested by more than a few critics over the years.
Also what do you mean you've often wondered how many at Harvard have recently seen it? Its more like how many anywhere have ever opened Corb's Ouvre Complete in the last thirty plus years?
And "manifestation of some historical record"? - the images seem more like speculations, and (as I attempted to explain above regarding the lack in the Congres project of a true synthesis of ramp & floor, compared with other projects) not very rigorously developed ones at that.
bothands, you are far less "rigorously developed" here that I am overall.
Who (and when) exactly are the "more than a few critics over the years?"
Who is this student from Harvard whose project Koolhaas saw?
How exactly am I a bit obsessed?
You obviously don't know the Palais dec Congres design as well as you think you do, or else you'd see the ramp as a continuous plane that begins at street, moves through the whole center of the building, then folds back and bifurcates to become the upper level and ultimately the undulating roof plan. And all this happens within a sea of columns.
Have you read the analysis of the Palais des Congres that Harvard purchased in 1991?
Of course, you can choose to ignore any critical contributions made by Arcadia and Quondam, but remember there is a direct relationship between ignoring and ignorance.
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