Think of a Tree Trunk

An organic element, not only just a tree trunk, serve not a mere function.

Architecture and Design, ever since the Modern period, are simplified to respond to the zeitgeist. Technology and urgency for social housing are the two major influences on that time. The great masters of the Modernism then established several dicta that guided the Architecture of the epoch. The dicta still influences how we build until today. The dicta make sense and along the way dictated many beautiful buildings.

Simplification may need to be reevaluated, or at least it is for me. A beam and a column are a beam and a column. Let structure be structure and other appliances be appliances.
But in organic element, say like a tree trunk, it is not just a tree trunk that serve one function, as a structure that supported the tree canopy. A tree trunk provided many other function: to transport water and other growth nutrients, to allow the growth of new branches, to store water, etc.

The fact that a simple tree trunk serve many function teaches me to rethink a mono function of other elements of Architecture: a column, a beam, a roof, a space, etc.

On Architecture: Rain Falls Down on the Roof

I have not given enough thought on regard of Architecture.
The thought stroke me on my journey home, on a ferry from Singapore to Batam.

Lately, I think I have strayed around reading, learning, and thinking on anything but Architecture. I feel slightly guilty, I must confess. But Architecture is my long term plan, a destination if I may analogously make such reference. Now that I think of it, I did tell myself to take a break from Architecture, to stray around and be lost; to walk not on a straight path but choose the more uncomfortable winding route which will take me longer to reach yet enrich me with plenty of experiences and knowledge.

Justification aside, a thought hit me when I was sitting in a poorly made site office room. Horrible building, improperly maintained. I thought of a conventional practice versus radical.
When it rained, we were taught to put insulation on out roof so that heat will be lessened and the noise of the rain could also be reduced. I took such lesson, as anybody else, for granted.
Heat, of course, is not comfortable; the accumulation of heat inside the building in not sustainable, it will consume more energy therefore we use insulation to block the heat from entering our building. That is reasonable but I must remind myself that that is not the only way to insulate heat, by using a conventional insulation such as rockwool.
And what is wrong with the sound of the rain? Why do we want to reduce it while it sounds so contemplative?
The whole point I am trying to make on this post is that I should not take thing for granted because of convention. I hate that I am so blinded.
The office is not properly build, but it can still teach me Architecture.

The Unconventional Approach

I could never have had a conventional career in architecture.

I think you do have to take a certain risk.

You have to make a decision when you leave school whether you are going to risk it or play it safe;

That is really fundamental, the main thing.

If you can take risks, I think it is worthwhile.

 

by Zaha Hadid

Advice for An Aspiring Architect

In December of 1931, as the Great Depression took hold, a young man by the name of Richard Crews wrote to a number of prominent architecture firms in the city of Chicago. Soon to enter the profession himself, Crews was curious to learn about an established architect's typical working day, and so sent letters to local masters of the trade to find out from the best possible source. Four incredibly gracious responses arrived, including the one below; a letter filled with honest, sage and extremely quotable advice from Charles Morgan, a highly regarded architectural artist who in the '20s and '30s provided renderings for a number of large firms such as  Frank Lloyd Wright. 

Dear Richard Crews:

I am sorry to be delayed these few days in answering your letter of Dec. 21st but I shall hasten and do it before the new year. 

Of course, you would be more interested in what an architect does in a day's work in normal times, than now. So if you will excuse the liberty I shall make the discussion, or at least the answer, on what an architect should do in a day's work. 

An architect should, unless it is impossible, answer his mail the first thing in the morning. Then his mind is free to plan and design upon the problems of his clients. He goes to work planning from within outward just as truly as from the ground upward. There are very few real architects who get big jobs because it is only the politician who gets big jobs, and the politician never has time to be an architect. So by all means the architect should learn to do small jobs well, because of the very fact that if he is sincere he shall probably never get big ones. 

The architect should always remember that Jesus was an architect and that to be entitled to the same name he should love truth and beauty above all else. 

An architect is too busy to bother much about luncheon. A sandwich at noon is enough. He draws or builds models most of the day because that is an aid to his imagination. Imagination is the only quality that is creative. 

Above all else the artist must not copy. Imitate nothing except principle. That is best understood by reading such as Henry Thoreau's "Walden" and of the lives of great people. 

A real architect like a good man in any business does not waste any time whatever doing things of which he might be ashamed. He must above all be a sincere artist. 

I congratulate you upon your choice and sincerely wish you much strength and happiness. Make no compromise from that which you know is right. 

Sincerely yours,

(Signed, 'Charles Morgan, Chicago Associate of Frank Lloyd Wright.')

December 30, 1931

CLM-M

Building In Nature

The act of building can be brutal.

When I build on a site in nature that is totally unspoiled, it is a fight, and attack by our culture.

In this confrontation, I strive to make a building that will make people more aware of the beauty of the setting, and when looking at the building, a hope for a new consciousness to see the beauty there as well.

I think sometimes I have a deal with the climate,

The nature,

And the topography.

It is important to get a dialogue between nature and creative life.

It is curious to say it, but at the same times the dialogue between the past and the present also has to be manifested.

by Sverre Fehn

The Unconventional Approach

I could never have had a conventional career in architecture.

I think you do have to take a certain risk.

You have to make a decision when you leave school whether you are going to risk it or play it safe;

That is really fundamental, the main thing.

If you can take risks, I think it is worthwhile.

by Zaha Hadid

On Architecture: The Dented Wall

What does an architect do?
The idealistic answer would be: to build a building.
The realistic answer would be: to sit in an office figuring the yet to build building.

What is the significant of both statements which seem to be the same?
I think first of its simplicity of the idealistic answer. Architect's job yet simple in the definition, it is complex in execution. Ideally it should be so, realistically it was so.
Now, in our current state of practice, in our epoch which is the early 21st century, we complicate the job definition for ourselves, the architects, yet what we do is so specialized that it is much simpler practically comparing to the real practice of past, the ideal practice of today.

I am trying to record my experience in the construction site, hoping that my one year stay at my current work place would not change my idea of Architecture.

I like the purity of material and construction.
The material has soul. The process of construction is an act and effort put in by the craftsman, it should be revealed. These are among many the legacy left by the Modernists.
I think it sounds brilliant, but I know it is quite impractical. Impractical not because of it is not doable, but the architects lack dedication and patience to see it through, and have it carried out.
A broad themes I am proposing here in this paragraph. I think of one day, if I still remember it, I shall expand on this.

Back on the title of The Dented Wall.
Today, during my site inspection walk around, I saw it. I saw The Dented Wall by nail or screw, I am not quite sure which to be exact. In a conventionally wrong practice, the workers would plaster the dented wall with certain kind of paste depending on the nature of the wall, obvious we cannot use the same universal paste plaster for steel and wood and concrete. The Dented Wall, though has been plastered, the first cover, then painted, the second plaster, it is still visible to my eyes. I have sharp eyes by training and, I think, so should every architect have trained sharp eyes.
I hate The Dented Wall for perfection and design reason. It is fine if I designed The Dented Wall, but in this case it is clearly a flaw in construction. Such mistake is intolerable. I also hate the fact of covering for it does not reveal the process of construction.
Arguably, covering can be excused if it is the design intention and also provided that the architect knows the contractor has a good painter in his disposal. But, of course, being a lousy architect, my current office knows not.

Back to The Dented Wall, yet again to make my point.
Whose fault is it?
Now, most architects will agree that it is the fault of the contractor unable to carry out or to produce decent workmanship. Most architects are lousy architects.
We, as architects, should have ourselves to blame on this matter. It is our moral conduct and architectural duty to be introspective. We should not blame others before we introspect ourselves.
I am not arguing that the contractor is not to be blamed, I am trying to make my point that before we start to blame the contractor, we should inspect ourselves on what could have we done.
To design such a lousy thing is the architect's fault. Why do the architects allow themselves to design a wall that need to be plastered and painted?
There are a lot of flaws in the design, yet I observe the architects blaming the contractor. Where lies our fairness as an architect? Should we not be the fair judge on our design and construction? If we always blame others for our own fault, how are we supposed our profession to be taken seriously?
We have lesser and lesser significance in society because of these mediocre architects sprawling practicing Architecture.

The Dented Wall has taught me so.

A Visit to Construction Site

There are a lot to learn and a lot more not to, my visit to the construction site for the renovation of Turi Beach Resort East Wing has been very educational.

I thought of building construction a lot. I think of how can I carry out construction with my desired result. It is tough to control so many workers and most of them do not know how to read working drawing and they do not have the proper knowledge of how to construct correctly.
I set a role for myself that I should be a teacher to the workers, I should teach them on the proper way to construct. When the time has come for me have my own firm, I will be the architect and the trainer for the workers. I should establish a solid ground, starting with small and intimate numbers of workers then slowly build up the firm and proper construction worker.

Construction and design should stand together in Architecture. I have always considered the skill of the workers when I design, because it is pointless to design like Zaha Hadid or Frank Gehry without the capability to execute the design, it is utterly pointless for it is better to get things right than to get it nice but atrocious. Getting things right does not even mean it is not nice, the beauty of simplicity and the quality of good workmanship never fail the test of time.

Clients: A Real Intense Relationship

I am probable more contentious with a client than most.

I find myself questioning their programs, questioning their intentions...

I get into a real intense relationship,

Which finally ends up synergistically giving more positive results, i think,

Because the client has spent more time thinking about the program and what they want

—they get more involved.

What I am telling them is,

“I am bringing you into my process.

Watch it, get involved, understand that I am not stopping here.”

by Frank Gehry

On Client's Request

It was the fourth meeting with the client.
I had a struggle after I met and presented my design. I think, just like most of the new, and in some cases old and experienced, designers, that the clients, most of them anyway, do not know how to appreciate design. I find myself compromising every time after the meeting. It's ridiculous!

I had a good sense of design, a belief every fresh young designer have, and they just do not get it. It is our duty as an architect to educate and explain to the people what good design is. I hate it they do not appreciate. That's it! I have said it.

It always comes back to the strange request that most of us are very un-eager to do.
I was not thinking clearly. I was in a state of clouded mind.

I am now, in a much more better state of thought. I need this, I want to be like this, the young blood in me, perhaps it is the adrenaline, or perhaps the arrogance in me, I had the tendency to always think that I am the one who is right, I am absolute.
But now that I can think better, the quest of the client is a form of challenge itself, isn't it?

I judged too fast. The client requested me to design with a particular material. I was not happy because the material requested was common and not very interesting. I judged too fast.
It was not the material, it was me who can't design. The fault lies with me.
So now, instead of thinking how to convince the client to use other material, I must now think of a way to design with the given material. By doing so, I can show the local designer, and school them, on how to design properly with the material.

It is my mistake to judge too fast. I should learn to listen better and to think deeper before all else. And of course, most of all, to be calm and remain in non-judgement position.

Ideas Come Naturally

Thank you. It’s a wonderful moment, of course, to get such a prize. There was a journalist, a couple of weeks ago back in Switzerland, asking me: “Now that you’re getting the biggest prize in architecture, will this change your life?” Then I said, “Of course not.” And then I added, “Maybe, I don’t know.” Maybe something will change, but I would like to say it wouldn’t. So, I’m a little bit older now—a couple of weeks older—and something has changed a little bit. Let me try to explain.

As you just heard, when I was a boy, there was no architecture. There were architects. Some of them my father liked, some of them he didn’t like. But architecture didn’t exist. Only later looking back I asked myself, was there architecture in my life? At first I thought, “I don’t see anything.” Perhaps just our house… But architecture? A school? I grew up in a village, in a town five kilometers outside of the city of Basel. So, I looked around, and there was not much. Keep in mind that this is me later looking back. And then all of a sudden, one Saturday evening, we took the little train and went to the movies. Then I started to remember there were all these movie theatres in the streets, and they had a beautiful kind of feeling. They had a beautiful feeling when you got in. There was a really marvelous world of kitsch, really marvelous. And when you went down to the bathroom, the colors were yellow and black. And then all of a sudden, I realized there were this and that, and the balustrades, which had polka dots—polka dot kind of holes—and so on. So, I imagined that this must have been architecture. It was something special. And then later, I remembered that once a year we went to a monastery, a baroque church, nearby. And there were monks singing Gregorian chants in this beautiful Baroque church. Architecture. And then—this was the best—at the end of the service, the family always went down into the rocks, and you came to a very small chapel built or excavated in the rocks. There were a lot of candles and those typical smells and all these things. Architecture! Architectural atmosphere! So, I was glad to discover it. There are other things, of course. But I was glad to discover there was architecture in my youth. I just didn’t know it.

A little bit later—10 years or 15 years—all of a sudden I decided that I wanted to become a real architect, which was sort of a lonely decision in the kitchen. And I started to do my work. I started to enter competitions. I won a competition. I did my first two buildings. The two buildings started to grow. And I remembered at the time we looked at these two buildings, Annalisa and I. I got really depressed. It was terrible. I saw the buildings, and I could see the models of the buildings. This was terrible. I could hear the architectural discussion of the time in my buildings. This was the last time that this should happen to me. The last time that I’m not being myself.

So what is this being myself? It is interesting that in these buildings, which gave me this headache, heart ache, there were things I liked, such as things that did not come from a magazine or from a discussion that I can talk about with somebody. Rather, this is me! What is this “me”? Of course, I don’t know exactly. But I can try to explain a little about the process of what I feel when this happens, when I have the feeling “this is me.” Maybe those of you who play tennis, you know. You have to concentrate on the ball. If you start to think just for a moment, “Oh, my friend is looking at how I play,” then you are lost, right? You have to keep this total concentration on what you want to do. This is one thing. The other thing is you have to be loose. Now, I’m talking about myself. I should say I have to be loose. I go to the place. I listen to the client. I walk around. I hang around. I’m not going to do research.

When I start to do research, I’m really bad. This I know from studying. No research. You are just hanging out, listening, feeling, having the place resonate a little bit. And then all of a sudden, ideas come naturally. I don’t know when and where. I think this is a very natural process. Everybody—all of you, all of us—we experience this. And what I discovered was that when I have these feelings, it is like being a boy again. All of a sudden, I think this is me when I was 10 years or 12 years old. I’m dreaming. I’m there and something comes to me, but it’s not, of course, naïve dreaming. Everything, which is part of my biography, is there. But it’s not there as a research product or as reference material. It went into me, as part of my life. Then it comes out from somewhere—from my emotions or whatever, my feelings.

So, I’m at the same place as at the time when I experienced architecture as a boy without knowing it. This is what I love. These beginnings, these moments of the beginning. And then comes the really hard task when I have to take care that nobody destroys my first image. Because, as you know, we’re doing a job as architects. We are surrounded by politics, by laws, by money, by clients who have weak moments, and all these things. Sometimes people want to take away or harm my image, my baby. So, this needs a little bit of persistence. Maybe that’s where my reputation comes from that I’m a stubborn guy, which I’m not, of course.

As I get older, I think I got some kind of a… I’m sort of secure that I can do this—be a boy, and in being a boy and dreaming, doing something. Then I say, “When I like it, you will like it, too, because I’m not so special.” Now comes this moment when I get this prize. And I think now, and I start to feel that dreaming becomes even easier. Maybe I can. You help me to go on dreaming even stronger. Thank you.

Pritzker Prize 2009 Ceremony Acceptance Speech,
by Peter Zumthor

The Reason to Read

I left school when I was fourteen years old, so I had no education. I worked for an architect. When I came to his office, he said, "Here is your table." I cleaned it up and looked in the drawer. What I found there were two things, a magazine called Die Zukunft. It was a weekly magazine. It was a very interesting magazine. It was partly a political magazine, but in the way as Walter Lippman would talk about politics, not a party affair. It was a cultural magazine, let us say that. It talked about music. It talked about poetry. It talked about Architecture, but very seldom. That was one thing.

Then I found another pamphlet about Pierre-Simon Laplace theory. That was these two things. From then on I started to read this magazine, Die Zunkunft. I bought it every Sunday morning and read it. Then I started to read.

A few years later, When I came to Berlin, I had to build a house for a philosopher. It was at the university in Berlin. There I met quite a number of people, and I started to read more and more. When this philosopher came to my office for the first time--I had an office in my apartment, and my books were lying on a huge drafting board, about a foot high--he looked around and he saw all these books. He said, "For heaven's sake, who advised you on your library?" I said, "Nobody. I started to buy books and read them." He was very surprised. He saw no discipline in it or anything like that.

At that time, we were working for Peter Behrens. There were other architects in Berlin. Alfred Messel, he was a very fine architect, but a Palladio man or something like that.

I was interested in what Architecture is. I asked somebody, "what is Architecture?" But he didn't answer me. He said, "Just forget it. Just work. You will find that out by yourself later." I said, "That's a fine answer to my question." But I wanted to know more. I wanted to find out. That was the reason I read; for nothing else. I wanted to find out things, I wanted to be clear. What is going on. What is our time and what is it all about. Otherwise, I didn't think we would be able to do something reasonable. In this way, I read a lot. I bought all these books and paid for them in all the fields.

by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

New York, 1955

Architecture Is The Art of Building

I believe passionately that architecture is a social art

—a necessity and not a luxury—

That it is concerned with the quality of life and the creation of benefits.

This focus on the social dimension acknowledges that architecture is generated by the needs of people

—both spiritual and material. it has much to do with optimism, joy, and reassurance—

Of order in a disordered world,

Of privacy in the midst of many,

Of space on a crowded site,

Of light on a dull day.

It is about quality:

The quality of the space and the poetry of the light that models it.

For me, architecture is the art of building.

I am interested too in the way that the design process can question our assumptions about buildings

And can reconcile needs which are often in conflict.

Sometimes this process can lead through innovation to the reinvention of a building type.

In that sense, design is a process of integration.

by Norman Foster

A Sense of Place

There is a strength that this landscape possesses, that people can possess,

A strength and sensitivity.

It is that strength,

That toughness,

Together with a gentleness,

That is very important to me.

The clarity of light in Australia is phenomenal.

On a bright day, it is very clear light that separates the elements in a landscape.

In the northern hemisphere the light connects the elements;

Here the light separates...

I am interested in this legibility,

This transparency,

This particular kind of shadow,

The particular light we get here.

It informs me how to articulate structure and deal with a building as a response to this place.

by Glenn Murcutt

Aspiration And Inspiration

As a child I was always interested in sketching and drawing and making things.

I was fascinated by model aircraft and construction kits which were called “trix” and “meccano”.

I worry about students who might feel that the power of sophisticated equipment has somehow rendered the humble pencil if not obsolete, then certainly second rate.

I have never been embarrassed to state what might be self-evident,

So it will come as no surprise to suggest that the pencil and computer are,

If left to their own devices, equally dumb and only as good as the person driving them.

by Norman Foster

Architecture and Civilization

Architecture is actually something of no importance.

It is only a psychogram of what people are,

What cities are,

What cultures are.

That is what makes architecture interesting,

Not architecture in itself.

Because all the things that you can discover and analyze in architecture can also be found in other areas of our civilization.

by Herzog and de Meuron

Le Corbusier - Unité d'Habitation

Bréton brut had as a style been established for a short while prior to this buildings inception, but it was its somewhat trend setting architect that gave widespread acceptability and validity to the movement. It captured the imagination of architects reacting against the recoil of New Humanism and restricted by the economics of the time.

The Unité d'Habitation built in Marseille, France in 1952 is absolutely of its time. Every tower block in the immediate vacinity appears to pay homage to the Unité, They are unashamed of their debt, aesthetic or otherwise, and yet even with benefit hindsight do not appear to be 'better buildings', mere pale imitations.

Steel being consumed in the war effort and the lack of skilled labour in France lead to the choice of concrete, with a more honest and rough finish. Banham says it is ever the more successful due to Corbusiers abandonment of the “pre-war fiction that reinforced concrete was a precise, ‘machine-age’ material”. This notion which had been maintained by extravagant and un-necessary means, such as “lavishing on it skilled labour and specialised equipment beyond anything the economics of the building industry normally permitted”. That is equipment that would give rise to the exacting edges and if these were not achieved then the “roughness and inaccuracies” were plastered over to give a more crisp image, hardly accepting the ‘realities of the situation’. The situation was firmly one of a “messy soup” with “dust, grits and slumpy aggregates, mixed and poured under conditions subject to the vagaries of weather and human fallibility”, hardly an image of high-technology.

The war had also changed Corbusiers perspective of technology’s place in architecture, compare for example the machine for living in, the Ville Savoye (Paris, 1929), compared with schemes such as (although later than the Unité) Notre Dame du Haut built at Ronchamp in 1954. The Unité had been described as “the first modern building that has room for cockroaches”, retort to Le Corbusier stating in a letter to Madame Savoye that “‘Home life today is being paralysed by the deplorable notion that we must have furniture” and that “This notion should be rooted out and replaced by that of equipment”. Banham in his book ‘The New Brutalism’ notes the Unité’s “originalities in sectional organisation”, with its rue Intérieure, apartments with double height spaces all of which in section span the entire width of the block. He also suggests “few buildings anywhere in the world had such a hold on the imagination of young architects especially in England”. Corbusier described his rough concrete style as béton brut, words which (rightly or wrongly) would come to be misinterpreted as representing the New Brutalist style as well as that of béton brut. The solidity of the Unité is furthered from mere concrete security by the setting back of “user-scale elements such as windows and doors” into the concrete frame of the building, giving a sense of a secondary boundary further to the superstructure of the building. As Banham describes it, a building where “word and building stand together in the psychological history of post-war architecture” . He attributes further its success to the “hard glare of the Mediterranean sun” . Something which does not quite translate so well in the greyer skies of Britain, something of the disappointment of driving a new car out of a showroom and home, notwithstanding your home being an equally apt setting.

by James Woodward

The Architect in Society

Today an architect is certainly aware of the key elements of construction,

But he or she is not in full dominion of all the technical imperatives.

Nonetheless, the ultimate definition of the role of the architect still centers around the notion that the architect must assume responsibility for what is built.

The study of contemporary formal problems,

The ability to build within a variety of urban mediums,

The knowledge of new programs,

Keen knowledge of technical issues,

And lastly, a deep investment in the world of culture while grasping the pregnancy of a moment.

All of these things are essential in the making of an architect,

And all of these things comprise the reasons why we can still talk about the indispensable role that the architect continues to play in our society.

by Rafael Moneo

Personal Effort

For me and for the people that work for me, in a way what we do is less about the final product and more about achieving the final product, because that’s what we spend all of our time doing. So aside from the fact that we all consider ourselves lucky that we are in a position to work with great clients and great consultants, what matters to us most is the process of doing all of it. Not that many people understand what that’s all about because they never get the chance to see that side of it. Probably the biggest mistake is to make assumptions—in this case to assume that we never think about function or budget, that we just sit around crumpling paper and we let the computer do the rest, that we are just concerned with creating spectacles to get ourselves on magazine covers.

I consider it a personal effort. I don’t think about it in megalomaniac terms of taking over the world. I think maybe what’s been successful about it is that I have been able to keep on a sort of personal course. I have had little forays into somebody else’s thing, but I pull back and have been consciously pushing this personal signature, or whatever you want to call it. I don’t know what its impact is going to be; It has been so personally satisfying, that that has been plenty for me.

by Frank Gehry

Intuitive Craftsmanship

I often refer to what I liked as a child. The configuration of the back door of the house I grew up in—you will find in the front door of my mother’s house, and now that door is all over the world. And it is in the entrance of the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery. The vivid multicolored terracotta on the exterior of the Philadelphia Museum of the Modern Art which I loved as a child has influenced our museum in Seattle. And so I find I have respected my early intuitions—acknowledged what I liked, and I think artists might go wrong when they fail to monitor their intuitive likes and dislikes and when they think in terms of what they should like, or they adapt an ideology they think they should adapt.
From the beginning, we haven’t ever thought in terms of “we’re going to be leaders, we’re going to be great, we’re going to be original.” As an architect you are a craftsman, and you just try to do your best every day, and if it turns out you become a leader, if you become original and revolutionary or whatever, it is incidental.

by Robert Venturi