In this month’s issue of Vanity Fair, there was a quite seductive reason for me to lay down the $5.99 (plus tax) to get the goods. It wasn’t Angelina Jolie doing her best Sophia Loren or the bright pink 72 point helvetica saying “SEX”, no, it was the article title of “50 TOP ARCHITECTS pick THE GREATEST BUILDINGS of the Last 30 YEARS”
(though I’m not going to lie, the “SEX” did initiate the interest, turns out it was about Maureen Dowd vacationing in Saudi Arabia, I keep forgetting that Vanity Fair is not Cosmopolitan and vice versa).
I was really interested to see what the crème de la crème picked as the best examples of their generation. This top ten is as follows:
#10Architect: Sir Norman Foster Structure: Millau Viaduct, France Year Completed: 2004 Number of Votes: 4
#9
Architect: Maya Lin Structure: Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C. Year Completed: 1982 Number of Votes: 5
#8
Architect: Tadao Ando Structure: Church of the Light, Osaka, Japan Year Completed: 1989 Number of Votes: 6
#7Architect: Sir James Stirling Structure: Neue Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany Year Completed: 1984 Number of Votes: 6
#6Architect: Toyo Ito Structure: Mediatheque building, Sendai, Japan Year Completed: 2001 Number of Votes: 6
#5Architect: Rem Koolhaas (Office for Metropolitan Architecture) Structure: Seattle Central Library Year Completed: 2004 Number of Votes: 6
#4Architect: Sir Norman Foster Structure: HSBC Building, Hong Kong Year Completed: 1985 Number of Votes: 7
#3Architect: Peter Zumthor Structure: Thermal Baths, Vals, Switzerland Year Completed: 1996 Number of Votes: 9
#2Architect: Renzo Piano Structure: Menil Collection, Houston Year Completed: 1987 Number of Votes: 10
#1Architect: Frank Gehry Structure: Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain Year Completed: 1997 Number of Votes: 28
I looked through the article and it was actually pretty even handed. Acknowledging that we are in the age of
STARCHITECTURE but not criticizing it too harshly, that is except for Peter Eisenman who wrote to as his top five:
#1: Firminy, Le Corbusier
#2: Nothing else, All PM junk
Eisenman always gets to me, one the one hand, I hate that he only likes dead people, but at the same time he includes himself amongst the wretched living. Intellectuals man, go fig.
Though, I think Bilbao did deserve to win.
Frank Ghery often gets criticized for his buildings being “fluff” or “dumb” and that if you are looking for more serious architecture, you should opt for the more conservative and far more cerebral, Renzo Piano. However, as Piano quotes himself “ People say “ok. Renzo Piano is the opposite of Frank Ghery” … I think all this is just silly.”
This article was certainly interesting as a window into contemporary architecture. It reminds us that in the post-postmodern, Robert Venturi's mantra found in
Complexity and Contradiction has become the unspoken (and certainly never-admitted to) law.
Vanity Fair stated that we are living in the "Age of Ghery", I have to disagree - We are not in the age of Ghery as much as we are in the age of "inclusive architecture" over "exclsive architecture."
This makes the whole business tougher because the core concepts of freedom and self-expression require ingenuity rather than the perfection of a tried and true method.
Not only do you have to re-invent the wheel, you have to explain that it rolls, like, all the time.
Keeping that in mind, it’s easy to blame your Daniel Burnhams or Bernard Maybeks for keeping the “revolutionary architects” back, but part of "inclusive architecture" means we have to admire their work just as much as a Koolhaas or a Foster . It may be apples and oranges, but in the end they're both fruit. I’m glad that as a field we have come to accept that.
Long story short: not a lot of surprises, except for two
Firstly, Le Corbusier made the top 30 even though he hasn’t been practicing for 45 years (being dead has its disadvantages). A church , Firminy, as previously mentioned, was built in 2006 based off of one of his later designs - there is just no escaping the raven-like one or this mystique that the architectural elite seem to have of fearing a god long since dead.
Secondly, I noticed there wasn’t ONE residential listing in the top 20 (with the possible exception of the Peter Zumthor entry). Maybe there was a misunderstanding on my part, as this compedium consists of “buildings” and not “houses” but let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?
It seems the humble architecture of the home isn’t very popular right now. If you did the same article in 1970, it would be nothing BUT houses. Not to wax nostalgic, but in that era, people could afford a Khan or a Wright and the larger scale projects were typically the punched-hole big-box variety. That seems to have all changed with Bilbao, suddenly the perfect house is'nt as appealing as public glory.
I guess the rich are different from you and me, they rent.
Overall, Starchitecture does a few funny things. This kind of architecture (and yes, for this article they are all being lumped together) is simultaneously extremely public and snobbishly exclusive. Massive structures that seem indifferent as to whether or not the are human-scale or even percieved as beautiful for that matter. The references and concepts behind the building may be "inclusive", that is drawings from many different styles to form their own, but the dependence on wide-spread public admiration is shattered.
Sure - Anyone can go, but not everyone can get it.
For the slide-show see link -->
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/08/architecture-survey-list-201008
