Architecture (in words)

@gunter wrote:

If architects claim to be among the leaders of society, learning how to communicate ideas without always dipping into outandish jargon and unnecessary French words would be a good place to start, in my opinion.

Hear hear! Perhaps, it would be best for everyone if they just pinned up the plans and said nothing at all!

Yeah totally agree. We do ourselves no favours using this kind of language. It just reinforces the publics opinions of an arrogant and needless extra cost in a project.

I think it stems from a constant necessity to explain every little move in college. There was a couple of times when I got chewed out of it for saying that ‘it just seemed right’ to explain my decisions. I’m not a fan of post rationalisation.

It’s worth repeating – from http://www.irish-architecture.com/news/2009/000074.html
The building can be situated within this developing tradition by rooting itself in its own situation and expressing something of the concealed history of its landscape. We have designed the building by discovering a founding narrative for the site and showing how the deeper geological order has allowed a local culture to emerge and how this has, in turn, shaped the wider natural landscape. The relationship between topography, climate, economic and social history and the natural order of flora and fauna is a proper study for architecture. We hope that a successful building design will emerge from these considerations. As a result the building can be capable of being read as a microcosm of the whole landscape. This allows the building to mediate between the exhibits displayed within and the broader culture of the region.

Did anyone ever read such twaddle?

Kenmare is in itself a microcosm of “Contemporary Irish Culture” :-

It leads the country for gombeenism in politics, planning and rezoning / town planning.

Like most Irish rural towns it has a growing population but no facilities – no train service, no public bus service (other than one bus a day in summer months, 4 hours to Cork!), no cinema, theatre or public swimming pool.

Its sanitation services cannot cope with the effluent and the place stinks on a summer’s day; there is a water shortage every year (in Kerry, for God’s sake!)

It has new, boring housing estates in various shade of magnolia, some completed and empty, others part-finished and abandoned. Its stock of old buildings is being run down and the few remaining ones invariably sport plastic windows of the worst type.

It has an out-of-town shopping centre with mainly empty retail units. It has no cultural activities or events.

It has several upmarket hotels with the obligatory “Spa”- fat arses being rubbed with roundy stones by candlelight, not even a generation away from the basin in the kitchen and carbolic soap. Most are empty of closed in the off-season.

Hen nights for Cork birds are frequent and a drink culture is dominant. Its restaurants are overpriced and cater for the passing trade, why bother with effort when you are unlikely to see the diners again?

Kenmare has no need for a Centre of Contemporary Irish Culture – it is one. Just put a roof over the town and preserve it the way it is.
K.

Many buildings encompass complex and overlapping ideas, which require explanation and or analysis as part of a cultural communication with the aim of progressing the subject.

I would go as far as to say sometimes the ideas encompassed in a building are more important that the building itself.

The quality of the building in the flesh/ and whatever written word may be published about it is a matter for individual and we should not exclude “high falutin’” language because it is sometimes misused or intimidates some people.

God forbid that we approach building in any way other than the readily quantifiable aspects of comprehendible function/ price/ image.

Architecture should aspire to be a cultural act, not the facilitation of client ‘requirements’ and regulatory compliance.

Paul – From the AAI’s website “The Architectural Association of Ireland was founded in 1896 ‘to promote and afford facilities for the study of architecture and the allied sciences and arts, and to provide a medium of friendly communication between members and others interested in the progress of architecture’.”

It is not a publicly orientated organisation and neither should it be, in my opinion. What made you feel unwelcome? The complex content of some of the lectures? I for one am very pro AAI and grateful that there is an organistaion out there that caters for architects intellects above the level of Duncan Stewart. It is the ounly outlet in this country for architecture that has not been dumbed-down for general consumption.

Ctestiphon – Explain LaTourette in a sentence “ it’s a concrete monastery?” is that sufficient to communicate the ideas latent in a piece of architecture so rich?

Kerry Bog – your blatant contradictions need no highlighting, I hold your opinion in high contempt.

Make the monkeys clap.

@what? wrote:

Many buildings encompass complex and overlapping ideas, which require explanation and or analysis as part of a cultural communication with the aim of progressing the subject.

Explain LaTourette in a sentence “ it’s a concrete monastery?” is that sufficient to communicate the ideas latent in a piece of architecture so rich?

La Tourette is a complex concrete powerhouse for monastic contemplation and a formidable sculptural accident in the landscape, of course it’s going to defy any attempt at a one line explanation, but Le Corbusier did give a decent one-liner for Ronchamp:

”Ronchamp . . . was not a matter of pillars but of plastic event . . ruled not by scholarly or academic formulae but free and innumerable”.

two view of La Tourette monastry and one of Ronchamp chapel (from The Le Corbusier Guide)

I get that!

edit: sorry ctestiphon, I think -what?- addressed that question to you!

What ? Twaddle!
@what? wrote:

I would go as far as to say sometimes the ideas encompassed in a building are more important that the building itself.

Fine if you don’t have to live/work in it. Even better if you convince some fool to part with money to fund it and your ego. Ever hear of Earlsfort House?
@what? wrote:

The quality of the building in the flesh/ and whatever written word may be published about it is a matter for individual and we should not exclude “high falutin’” language because it is sometimes misused or intimidates some people.

More poppycock. “High falutin” language is not intimidatory to the average person; it is simply a sign of egocentric and selfish behaviour in the writer. The purpose of language is to communicate. Florid and extravagant prose kills communication, obfuscates the subject and loses the audience.
@what? wrote:

God forbid that we approach building in any way other than the readily quantifiable aspects of comprehendible function/ price/ image.

Ahem….. How does this sit with your statement @what? wrote:

I would go as far as to say sometimes the ideas encompassed in a building are more important that the building itself.

@what? wrote:

Architecture should aspire to be a cultural act, not the facilitation of client ‘requirements’ and regulatory compliance.

Excuse me, but we are the people paying you 11% + and want you to pass comment and give educated advice on our ideas and perceived needs. If looking for the impossible or undesirable, most clients will listen to reasoned cogent argument. Even surgeons have stopped talking down to patients. Black polos experts do not make.
@what? wrote:

What made you feel unwelcome? The complex content of some of the lectures? I for one am very pro AAI and grateful that there is an organistaion out there that caters for architects intellects above the level of Duncan Stewart.

What a snotty, condescending remark. Go talk to some intellectual architects: the ones I know would put manners on your lofty notions. I’m no fan of Duncan, but at least, in his favour, he has done much for bringing your profession and its qualities closer to the consumer. Even if his programs have persuaded only a handful of new-homers to use an architect instead of Bungalow Bliss, it is a handful fewer of blots on the landscape.
@what? wrote:

Ctestiphon – Explain LaTourette in a sentence “ it’s a concrete monastery?” is that sufficient to communicate the ideas latent in a piece of architecture so rich?

Ctestiphon is well able to stand on his own two feet, but I suggest that LaTourette is a syndrome from which you suffer, a tic of spouting your balderdash.
@what? wrote:

Kerry Bog – your blatant contradictions need no highlighting, I hold your opinion in high contempt.

Cannot find my contradictions. As for you holding them in contempt, I’m not worried and would have you sussed out at first meeting. No briefs from me, mate.
Do I detect a grouch with no work, too much time, whinging that the recession is to blame for its lack and unwilling to face up to reality?

K.

Overly complex language is bad architects compensating for bad architecture (few exceptions of course)

“I would go as far as to say sometimes the ideas encompassed in a building are more important that the building itself.”
After 5 years of UCD listening to that old line, I would have to say no… its not, ever.

Architects should never have to big up their buildings, but rather let the “intellectuals” and “critics” read what they want into them.

@what? wrote:

One by one…

1. Still fine even if you do have to live in it. Again the prosaic is not always the aim.
2. The purpose of language is to communicate. It is generally not possible to discuss/ communicate complex ideas through simple language other than by allusion or some other diffuse reference.
3. It sits with comfortable ease.
4. 11%+ ??? You don’t sound like the enlightened kind of character that would lavish that fee on a building design.
5. Duncan Stewart personifies the imaginatively arid, culturally bereft attitude commonly held towards architecture in Ireland. The safe attitude that you can only judge a building on quantifiable aspects such as cost per m2, U-Values and air changes per hour. There is no attempt to look at the qualities the building possesses.
6. Good pun, credit where it’s due.
7. Lamenting the fact that Kenmare has no cultural activities within an argument against a new cultural centre in Kenmare. How insular.

It’s a sad day for the architectural profession if a qualified architect states, as you do, that “the ideas encompassed in a building are more important that the building itself.

It is clear that you do not even try to understand. Your sophistry speaks for itself. No point in arguing each point, but just two clarifications: (a) I have paid 11%+ to an architect for my last house – it probably is more than most young archis will earn this year. (b) I never argued against a new cultural centre for Kenmare, what I railed about was the nonsense composed by the designing architect, who included a picture of a few rocks (distant from the proposed site) at low water and referred to “The strong east west orientation of rocks on the site, like a school of whales.” (The correct term, BTW, is a pod of whales.)

There is a little book you should read. Produced by “The Economist,” the online version is available free – http://www.economist.com/research/StyleGuide/
In it there is a reference to Jargon:

Jargon

Avoid it. You may have to think harder if you are not to use jargon, but you can still be precise. Technical terms should be used in their proper context; do not use them out of it. In many instances simple words can do the job of exponential (try fast), interface (frontier or border) and so on. ….
Avoid, above all, the kind of jargon that tries either to dignify nonsense with seriousness

Sadly, McLoughlin did not read it, or he would not have tried to dignify seriousness with nonsense. Furthermore, for all the old guff for e.g. “We have designed the building by discovering a founding narrative for the site and showing how the deeper geological order has allowed a local culture to emerge and how this has, in turn, shaped the wider natural landscape.”
Does he not know that Kenmare is a recent town, founded long after Cromwell? In Irish its name is Neidin, not as one would expect, Ceann Mara.
Perhaps though, he is correct. Maybe the local culture did emerge from “the deeper geological order ” and crawled out from under it?

The proposed site, BTW ,currently is a CoCo junkyard for old machinery, tar barrels and road chips.
K.

Anyone remember this letter? I’m an architect and I’m constantly frustrated by the insular nature of the profession. I think we close ourselves off to so much. As u can tell from the comments above I also think we talk an incredible amount of sh*te!

We don’t exist in our own artistic and cultural vacuum and I think we’ve pushed ourselves to a position of ridicule and irrelevancy by talking and talking.

“Once, a long time ago in the days of yore, I had a friend who was studying architecture to become, presumably, an architect.

This friend introduced me to other friends, who were also studying architecture. Then these friends had other friends who were architects – real architects doing real architecture like designing luxury condos that look a lot like glass dildos. And these real architects knew other real architects and now the only people I know are architects. And they all design glass dildos that I will never work or live in and serve only to obstruct my view of New Jersey.

Do not get me wrong, architects. I like you as a person. I think you are nice, smell good most of the time, and I like your glasses. You have crazy hair, and if you are lucky, most of it is on your head. But I do not care about architecture. It is true. This is what I do care about:

* burritos
* hedgehogs
* coffee

As you can see, architecture is not on the list. I believe that architecture falls somewhere between toenail fungus and invasive colonoscopy in the list of things that interest me.

Perhaps if you didn’t talk about it so much, I would be more interested. When you point to a glass cylinder and say proudly, hey my office designed that, I giggle and say it looks like a bong. You turn your head in disgust and shame. You think, obviously she does not understand. What does she know? She is just a writer. She is no architect. She respects vowels, not glass cocks. And then you say now I am designing a lifestyle center, and I ask what is that, and you say it is a place that offers goods and services and retail opportunities and I say you mean like a mall and you say no. It is a lifestyle center. I say it sounds like a mall. I am from the Valley, bitch. I know malls.

Architects, I will not lie, you confuse me. You work sixty, eighty hours a week and yet you are always poor. Why aren’t you buying me a drink? Where is your bounty of riches? Maybe you spent it on merlot. Maybe you spent it on hookers and blow. I cannot be sure. It is a mystery. I will leave that to the scientists to figure out.

Architects love to discuss how much sleep they have gotten. One will say how he was at the studio until five in the morning, only to return again two hours later. Then another will say, oh that is nothing. I haven’t slept in a week. And then another will say, guess what, I have never slept ever. My dear architects, the measure of how hard you’ve worked and how much you’ve accomplished is not related to the number of hours you have not slept. Have you heard of Rem Koolhaas? He is a famous architect. I know this because you tell me he is a famous architect. I hear that Rem Koolhaas is always sleeping. He is, I presume, sleeping right now. And I hear he gets shit done. And I also hear that in a stunning move, he is making a building that looks not like a glass cock, but like a concrete vagina. When you sleep more, you get vagina. You can all take a lesson from Rem Koolhaas.

Life is hard for me, please understand. Architects are an important part of my existence. They call me at eleven at night and say they just got off work, am I hungry? Listen, it is practically midnight. I ate hours ago. So long ago that, in fact, I am hungry again. So yes, I will go. Then I will go and there will be other architects talking about AutoCAD shortcuts and something about electric panels and can you believe that is all I did today, what a drag. I look around the table at the poor, tired, and hungry, and think to myself, I have but only one bullet left in the gun. Who will I choose?

I have a friend who is a doctor. He gives me drugs. I enjoy them. I have a friend who is a lawyer. He helped me sue my landlord. My architect friends have given me nothing. No drugs, no medical advice, and they don’t know how to spell subpoena. One architect friend figured out that my apartment was one hundred and eighty seven square feet. That was nice. Thanks for that.

I suppose one could ask what someone like me brings to architects like yourselves. I bring cheer. I yell at architects when they start talking about architecture. I force them to discuss far more interesting topics, like turkey eggs. Why do we eat chicken eggs, but not turkey eggs? They are bigger. And people really like turkey. See? I am not afraid to ask the tough questions.

So, dear architects, I will stick around, for only a little while. I hope that one day some of you will become doctors and lawyers or will figure out my taxes. And we will laugh at the days when you spent the entire evening talking about some European you’ve never met who designed a building you will never see because you are too busy working on something that will never get built. But even if that day doesn’t arrive, give me a call anyway, I am free.

Yours truly,
Annie Choi”

http://www.butterpaper.com/vanilla/comments.php?DiscussionID=1095

@ctesiphon wrote:

…….. to sesquipedalian excesses at the expense of plain speaking.

Heck ctesiphon, you’re at risk of being too loquacious by half!;)
K.