TROPOLISM

Atlantic Yards by Frank O. Gehry: we never liked it. It might be too big. It was a stadium for basketball, a sport we just don't care about and whose only reference point for us is "Madison" "Square" We Knocked Down Pennsylvania Station For This Pile Of Crap "Garden". It had open space on the roof that was accessible by only residents of a bunch of towers. But, it was Frank O., and it was glassy, and it was interesting. It would have densitized (densified?) a neighborhood, adding (more) life but also more traffic, congestion. It was going to amplify the city, this ever-pregnant corner of Brooklyn where it seems like something great should be built but is actually where nothing great has been built, and along with that building would be all the side effects that greatness brings: dirt, noise, change, conflict, and many messy conversations. In short, it was urban.

I took a wait and see attitude: the drawings and models looked somewhat great, but it was difficult to understand how it was going to interact with Brooklyn. Folks were up in arms about it, but these days you have to judge these things for yourself, because what with the internet and all, folks yell about everything in this town, as if every concerned citizen is a self-appointed Jane Jacobs, and every little brick repointing project a city-destroying commission by Robert Moses. Judging for yourself: it is the very purpose of Tropolism. It is what Tropolism means. Watch as the Atlantic Yards Project unfolds, better drawings come out, the project makes its way through court, and something happens, so that you can find your time to weigh in.

What happened you all know, or can easily find out: Gehry designed something awesome, the developer, Forest City Ratner, got all sorts of tax breaks and court victories, many riding on the fact that that particular design was going to be built. Then it turned out that design was too expensive, so Gehry redesigned it and it was less interesting. But OK so what, the central idea was still there, and it was still Frank O.

The recent replacement of Frank Gehry as the architect of the project isn't the problem with the new Atlantic Yards design, although Nicolai Ourousoff's reaming article would imply otherwise. Ellerbe Becket doing a super simple and cheaper-design version of Gehry's design would have worked just fine, given that they followed his floor plan and massing outlines to the letter. Instead, the project has simply been redone, shorn of its residences and shops and now it's simply become one of those deadening black holes in the city, just like "Madison" "Square" "Garden". It's a classic, bald-faced bait-and-switch, which is a cute New York way of saying that Forest City Ratner are crooks. They have stolen the public's patience and benefit of the doubt in exchange for their own personal profit. The effect of which is that this part of Brooklyn will be dumb and cold and dead until 2050 when some even more stupid gyration will have to happen in order to renovate the dumb thing that might get built right now.

There is some crap glassy entrance so that yes 50,000 people or whatever can stream on through on their way to basketball a few nights a year, but nothing else except a huge box stadium. We get it. The roof looks like a basketball. This is the opposite of great architecture: this is cheeky architecture trying to get on our populist good side, while simultaneously sucking all the life out of our home city. There is no add here, only subtract: subtract money, subtract street life, subtract public conversation, subtract density.

And our great omission has been to not bring up, years ago, that this was a possibility all along. That the devil in Gehry's plan was that if Gehry didn't do his design, and someone did even and almost-version of his design, then the effect would be this drek. Our apologies for being quiet. It won't happen again.

"Brick Bldg, Lg Windows w/ Xlent Views, Partially Furnished, Renowned Architect" is John Baldessari's new installation at the Haus Lange from 1928, in Krefeld, Germany. The project furnishes the house with Baldessari's surreal nose- and ear-shaped furniture. In addition, the windows are lined with pictures of California seascapes on the inside, entirely blocking the views to the exterior, and reflecting Mies's indoor-outdoor connection back inward. From the exterior, the windows are lined with pictures of bricks, further killing the Mies effect.

The effect is deadening, and powerful. It causes the visitor to notice the power of Mies's original arrangement, the levels of zig-zag transparency, the scale of the glass, the pervasiveness of the brick both inside and out. In a way, the project celebrates Mies, even as it temporarily disrupts the way the house works.

We're rather proud of this one:

"Much like Martha Stewart's attack on the Travertine House, this house also lost its roof to a hurricane."

Plataforma Arquitectura has a great survey on utopian architectural visions past and present. Mostly past, showing us old favorites like Archigram and Superstudio, but introducing us to some we hadn't seen before, like Yona Friedma (pictured, prefiguring today's shipping container fetish) and Archizoom's "Aerodynamic City" (prefiguring blobstuff and Zaha Hadid). The article ends with projects by OMA and Norman Foster in Dubai, aka today's utopia breeding ground.

Sad news: fire destroyed the bent-tower hotel in the CCTV complex designed by OMA. The New York Times has video, too. More at ArchDaily.

Oscar Niemeyer experienced the first setback of his career a couple of weeks ago. He is 101 years old. His Plaza of Sovereignty idea, rendered by his office in what looks like Autocad version 1.5, would have added a huge, clunky, view-ruining spire (today is dead spire day?) to Brasilia, which he designed when he was 6. Except now Brasilia is real city and Brazil a country and even though Brazilians think of Niemeyer as a hero, they want him to just stop, already. So they did. This is news because apparently he's allowed to build anything anywhere in Brasilia, by national law or something.

Oscar, baby, we still love you. Just put the tower somewhere else, okay?

So much of St. Louis's architectural heritage is being destroyed that blogging it is a full-time project. Tropolism favorites B.E.L.T. and Vanishing STL have enough content to post frequently, and with terrifying stories of destruction of great works by the likes of Samuel Marx. Add to this list the tireless Andrew Raimist's Architectural Ruminations, who has created an internet home to a little known (outside of St. Louis) architect from the early 20th Century, Harris Armstrong. Much to explore here, but much of it has already been torn down.

Photo from Andrew Raimist's great gallery.

Greg Allen wants to get his hands on the Mies gas station. I suppose there are few remaining options. Turn it into a community center, blah. Turn it into a Starbucks, maybe. Knock it down, not so interesting. Move it and do an OMA-IIT type renovation, very interesting.

In short, crazy but I say more power to him. Just call me for the reno, Greg!

That Mies Van Der Rohe gas station in Montreal? No longer in business. It's currently covered in plywood (pictured), and the town is trying to figure out what to do with it. Apparently they don't have Starbucks up there because that would turn the place into a freaking shrine, and take care of renovation and operating costs at the same time.

Via many, starting with Archinect.

The Brione House, by Markus Wespi Jérôme de Meuron Architects , is for stone lovers. In particular, it's for those who can't get enough of large blocks of orthogonal volumes that give a house just a touch of monasticism. From the exterior, there are hardly any openings, and the sloping ground is minimally touched, giving the blocks the feeling of ruins that one just happens to live in.

Carved out of Arch Daily.

Álvaro Siza, one of the best architects in the world and Tropolism favorite, is the first Portuguese architect to receive the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture. It's the award given by Britain's Royal Institute of British Architects. The Guardian interviews Siza for the occasion:

From the moment he began building, in the early 1950s, Portugal's most celebrated architect sought to frame views, to reveal landscapes, cityscapes, interiors and the ways through them. His aim was to delight the eye, and to make each creation a place of subtle revelation. Siza, now 75, has never been an architect of big statements and bigger pictures. He is, however, a designer and craftsman of some of the most considered of all modern buildings.

In celebration of the new Palladio show at the Royal Academy, The Guardian has published a piece celebrating the man himself. While they use the Villa Capra as their title picture, we always thought that one a bit over-photographed. We've always been more partial to Villa Poiana (pictured), which when we visited it in 1995 was pretty much open to the elements. It's stark in its not-new state, and it's possible to see where all the modernists like Corb got some of their early ideas. If you visit the Royal Academy link, you will see, low and behold, someone else likes the Poiana too: its unique exterior is their thumbnail image for the show.

When we wrote our review of The Zaha's furniture show last fall we got a press kit that included renderings of the mind-blowing Zaragosa Bridge Pavilion. All 140 images are available on that link. It looked like a lot of her renderings: impossibly and blobby, but possibly the most amazing thing ever. Well Ms. Hadid's photographer, Fernando Guerra, has sent us a link to his photo spread. His photographs differ from some other pictures in that they can double as some of her painterly representations of space.

And, it's one of her best buildings yet. It's got the useless program of the Chanel Pavilion, but on the scale of a large bridge, which matches the ambition of Hadid's ideas.

Tropolism Favorite Tom Kundig is back again, this time with a profile of a really beautiful house in Idaho. This guy is clearly master of the snow picture. We like the house because it has that raw steel and plywood look, but doesn't devolve into Dwell Magazine uncomfortableness. Instead, the house stays warm and inviting, and all about the landscape. It also has incredibly well detailed windows. The way the exterior is sliced to make views happen, and the resultant levitating masonry wall, is something Allied Works could have used on their timid 2 Columbus Circle.

We also love that the architect edited out some of the heavy machinery indulgences of his previous projects: overdone hinges, concrete tables on wheels, that sort of thing. We think this is his best work yet.

Muji: for those of us in the United States and Europe, it is a wonder for inside your home. In Japan, it is also possible for it to be the home itself. You wouldn't know it unless you are able to read Japanese: Muji keeps these pages untranslated, and furthermore their design simplicity does not extend to their website. Tropolism favorite Kengo Kuma has designed some prototype homes for them (our favorite it the Window House, as you can see in our article over there at Yanko Design). He wisely sticks to a super-configurable model and shies away from too much prefab repetition. They aren't quite as radical as his other houses, but they have their pleasures. Greg Allen gives us another take on these designs.

Greg goes one further and translates the awesome Muji Village concept. It appears to be little more than a far-away rendering and some floorplans (awesomely displayed as take-home art posters. Take that NYC real estate brokers!), but as a feel-good concept, they have rocked the party mic. We'll keep you posted when it takes shape.

One building that never made the Two Dozen list last year was One Jackson Square. It didn't qualify for two reasons. First, it's too big. I think. The fact checker didn't really track that part down, it just felt too big. Second, it's by a corporate firm, not a celebutante name designer-firm. KPF, they of the Baruch College catastrophe and 333 Wacker Drive (calling 1983, anyone?) do not routinely inspire. The renderings looked cool, but it's KPF. It will underwhelm in the end.

Yet the skeleton and initial touches look kind of sweet. Check out Tropolism's photo album. The curves work, and will certainly add to what was always a poorly defined, terribly dead corner of ChelseaVillage, a corner that could easily be the a powerfully alive hinge between two neighborhoods. We are in love with the scribble curves, and the fact that the bronze colored fascia will only accentuate them. And the floorplans (particularly for the 1-bedrooms, where the bedrooms are accessed by two doors, one a pocket door at the window wall) all look pretty wonderful. This one we'll keep our eyes on regardless of what lists they are on.