PS1 Warm Up 2005
This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
Sur by Xefirotarch. Top photo by Xefirotarch, bottom photo by Architect
You would think that with PS1′s dance party event, Warm Up 2005 quickly approaching, they would be (at the very least) advertising the 2 July opening night. But they aren’t. You would think that they would host a few images of the design, some background, or the like; but they aren’t.
In fact, it is nigh impossible to even find who designed this year’s installation – the result of a yearly invited competition of young talent – on PS1′s website. You have to go to Architect to dig out the information and while there, you have to go to the slander boards noting the thread, Xefirotarch @ P.S. 1, to learn that LA-based designer Hernan Diaz Alonso, principle of Xefirotarch, won the competition.
Tired yet?
DSCN8973, originally uploaded by scisar
For those who like archiporn, here are renderings of the competition entry, photos on Archinect, and a construction photo set.
Does this bring up a standard “porn” division? Because I tend to like me some archiporn, but I hate this PS1 Greg Lynn “Predator” reject thing by Alonso. Hate it for its gratuity and popish impotence.
(funny to note something pornographic as also impotent?)
So, maybe I’m not into gratuitous hardcore archiporn. Heck, I guess that would jibe with my views on traditional porn as well!
It may seem that my reaction is a knee-jerk and rather aggressive… but I’ve seen this thing in a few mags now and every time it crosses my field of vision I think “How wasteful” and “How 1999″. Yes, I know computers can make cool blobby shapes with holes in them. I see no validity in making this thing into an actual form- keep it in the computer, where it belongs.
As I peruse the photos more, I come to this conclusion: this is an excellent example of what not to do. Much like Maverick performing a “Split-S and switching to guns,” this work is all bravado and even less than substantive-less.
The curved conduit which holds the fabric up is pretty cool – and is something I’ve messed around with before, and will be experimenting in the near-future when I move into my new pad (with roof access!), but the scale of this work is just all wrong. The fins have all the presence of a gnat, and are minuscule. I think I understand what derived the forms, but the execution and the scale are all wrong.
It will be interesting to see in person, this weekend.
After reading two short Alonso interviews, I am even more disillusioned with such projects. I think the reasoning behind building such a structure in real life is weak, especially after reading this quote:
Okay, so if the computer is allowing you to aid it in making crazy stupid forms, what really is the point of pulling it through from the conceptual screen-architecture realm to the real world? We know you can make any shape out of anything, really… big effing deal.
Also, his movie reference misses the mark, because anyone serious about movies or even storytelling will tell you that the NON computer Alien is way scarier than the CGI version. Yes, it’s beautiful that you can make it look like it’s swimming like that… but never seeing the whole thing while it rips people to shreds, that’s terrifying- and that’s what the film is about! We should be striving to create built form that is more like Alien than Alien: Resurrection.
And finally.. the first Matrix film definitely had the best effects, and the most rivetting of those effects were the ones that were done mostly with wires, regular cameras, and film tricks- NOT the computer side. Sure, the computer stuff was cool, but nowhere near as cool as the wire-fu. And the other films ignored that fact and the action got crappier.
This guy sucks, that’s my opinion.
Sorry, I have to add something: I’m sick of architects blobbing shit up in Maya and then thinking they know anything about the program. If you compare almost any architectural Maya et al piece to the stuff that actual programers and animators do, it’s pathetic. This guy’s talking about “what can I do for you [, computer]? Well, that’s the approach people take when they just start playing around with the twirl filter in Photoshop. Real digital progress comes from knowing the program and then making it do something more. That’s why movies like Final Fantasy, Monsters Inc, and Incredibles exist- because these people KNEW their tools, they didn’t just act as the vessel for the software. These guys don’t scratch the surface of the power of their programs… they just do what they know, and think they’re pressing up against limits.
At the end of the day, who cares about this type of architecture? Everyone assimilates, in the end there is no habitational difference between this type of structure and primitive, mostly orthogonal living clusters… it’s just blobbier and redder.
Yeah, I just read the Archinect interview where Alonso starts talking about the Alien series, which I agree with you is a really interesting series of movies which provides endless points of comparison and contraction. Alien was pure suspense and more classic science fiction than the others; Aliens was mostly an action flick being directed by James Cameron, which was memorable for explosions and continued exploration of what the Alien actually is. Alien 3 was almost completely forgettable. Alien: Resurrection seemed more like someone took the basic outline of a “blockbuster” and crammed the Alien series into it – same with AVP: Alien Vs. Predator. Did anyone actually see that movie?
I really don’t have anything to add to what you said about Alien-Alien:Resurrection besides the fact that Alonso is fairly apt at comparing his work to Greg Lynn’s work vis a vis Alien and Alien:Resurrection. One has substantially more grounding than the other – you make the call.
The fact that Alonso explicitly states that the PS1 project grew out of a 4th place loss for the Pusan Concert Hall, Korea 2004, I think we can finally understand where the scale problems are.
Where we diverge JW, is that I think explorations of this type are warranted, and in the end, very good for architecture. Even if the only conclusions we can draw are: don’t, I think explorations of this type and “style” are necessary. What I wish, is that those who undertake these experiments approach the work from a more serious angle, instead of seeing what the computer can do for us.
But to reverse this: I am almost certain that these same conversations were occurring when builders started to use steel or concrete or whatever other technological advancement.
I don’t know if the current obsession with the computer is a fundamental break with the past infatuations with technology, or if all new things are actually old. I wonder if those in Archigram and those who followed in their wake heard the same things which Lynn, Alonso, et al hear presently.
Actually, I’ll agree with you there about idea that people were skeptical regarding new building technologies– there were plenty of projects that were likely (or unlikely) designs simply meant to express new media, materials, and concepts.
I’ve actually felt for a while that looking at several architects “renderings”- people like Lynn, Hadid, etc.- It alsmost seems like many of them would love it if instead of building the thing in real life, they could just give everyone in the world virtual reality goggles and their clients and public can just live in their trasnparent, material-less formal works. The purity of their concepts and designs seem to not translate well into the “real world”.
Maybe that’s just how I see it, but I think the Cincinnati CAC is a prime example of this. Competitions are won on these beautiful renderings of buildings made of stacked and melting ice cubes- translucent shapes that are visually evocative and “edgy” or “new”. Then in reality, it becomes opaque, some material has to be chosen, and the design seems a little sullied.
So, digital formal expression is great, but I feel that it’s masquerading as architecture at times when it could just be (and is) digital exploration.
I feel like many of the revered historical expressors of thoeretical ideals seemed to have SOME grasp of the concept that their concepts were buildings. I feel like some of them today do as well. I appreciate that a bit more, but that’s me.
I feel like I could come up with 100 of those forms in a week. Throw a little archibull behind them and shazam, “art”. Hmm… maybe trying to build them in real life is the “proof” that they are buildable. I don’t know.