libeskind by numbers

[Paul Clerkin]

When the exotic becomes the everyday, then an architect starts to face his sternest test: how to keep ahead of the game? Take Daniel Libeskind. His career to date has been fashioned by heroic one-offs: none more so than his design to rebuild Ground Zero in New York, which made him a world-class celebrity who appears wearing his trademark ventilated black spectacles on the Oprah Winfrey show. Libeskind has now nearly completed his first London building. It is not grand. It is not central. It is not for a prestigious client. It won't get him on Parkinson. It is a little university building on the Holloway Road.

http://www.hughpearman.com/articles5/libeskind_london.html

[alan d]

astute appraisal.......... but certainly not the caning he deserves?

[sw101]

no no no. its reeeeeeally ugly. might suit manhattan on an urban scale but theres too much going on her for such a small site

[shadow]

Poorly resolved issues around the windows. Perhaps architects do not care anymore if a building is resolved past the concept.

[alan d]

......................aaaaahh the inexorable rise of the "concept architect"

Short hand for "I've no fucking idea how it all goes together so I'll leave it to someone else"

Hold on Oprah............ I'm coming

[roskav]

Chill out the lot of you.... I like it

[alan d]

yeah Shadow, get a grip.

heh, heh.

[FIN]

a welcome addition to the holloway road...how long will the window last though!!!!! but i like it too.... comments about concept architecture are correct though!!!

[Hugh]

Curiously, underneath the skin this is a monolithic insitu concrete building (very high quality raw concrete finish on the inside). When it was being poured, the shuttering was quite something. I met the contractor and you never saw a prouder man.

[Paul Clerkin]

any pictures hugh?

[alan d]

Concept Architecture, Fin..........this has as much to do with the Carlisle Pier thread ( but I don't know enough about the context there to argue) looking through current mags from Blueprint to the Architects Journal it's impossible to find an image that is not computer generated, with sun setting in the west or rising in the east.

Libeskind is one of the main culprits. Does the finished project ever match the impressive night shot, I wonder?

Frankly, I think all the Carlisle Pier designs are risable

[FIN]

that's true and i would say rarely... what u mean when u say risable?

[alan d]

Sorry risible............. wandering "a" again

Libeskind's proposal is like something you have to remove from the carpet after a steel tappers and welders stag night.

Expected more from H. Peng also........what a disappointment !

[Hugh]

No pix of the interiors from me as yet, Paul. When I finally got in, I stupidly didn't have my camera with me.

You been to many steel tappers and welders stag nights, Alan? I guess it must be a Glasgow thing. Down here we sip mineral water while re-reading Proust.

[alan d]

Ach, as soon as I sent this through I thought it was prehaps a bit to critical.

Don't really have anything against Libeskind we all have to make a living (or indeed H Peng).......just sick at looking at the same slick images everywhere which tell you bugger all, Hugh.

I'm glad that the contactor is proud of the shuttered concrete...good for him

[alan d]

Oh and we're all steel tappers and welders here in Glasgow.......although there seems to be more merchant bankers around than there used to be.

By the way Richard Rogers was here yesterday

[Hugh]

Re slick images: it's the lure of the "dusktime shot" as our Lord Foster would call it: nice dark blue sky outside, bit of low-light shine off the cladding, lights on inside to dematerialise the glass and give a glimpse of the interior.

The preferred time of day for high-tekkies everywhere.

[Paul Clerkin]

I like early morning myself, but then thats the only time i'm sober

[alan d]

Don't you get sick of looking at them, one after another?

I mean it's more your job than mine.

[FIN]

it's the easy option for the tekkies...night time means no fuss with sunlight and all that shadows.. all u have to do is place your spotlights correctly and away u go... a combination of different ones is my preferable images...

[Hugh]

Yes, i do get sick of them, Alan. I once found myself giving a lecture where by chance nearly all the images were such dusktime shots. So I changed the lecture into one about cliched presentation techniques.

It's worse now because, as you say, the dusktime shot has now become a staple computer image.

But editors continue to love 'em because they look so good on the page...which is presumably why everyone continues to produce them. ...and so it goes on.

[JL]

while in London recently saw in local paper - Islington Gazette - article on this bldg which included quote from 'a local cafe owner' who said that one woman had called the police because she was worried that someone might be trapped under it.

Personally I like the materials / shapes etc but its just so suburban - it looks like a pavilion rather than something on an inner city site.

Anyway.

[FIN]

nice quote in the A.J. alan.
seem to have seen it before though. can't find it but i'm sure!!!

[aland]

.....................well thank you, Fin. I take it it's the Libeskind you are refering to, or is it the Civic Trust "patronsing bastards" quote.

Only wish I understood what "gombeen" meant beforehand

[FIN]

oh! didn't see the civic trust one. only had a brief look earlier.