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Kevin Matthews Joined: 13 Apr 2004 Posts: 647 Location: Eugene, Oregon	Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 1:11 pm    Post subject: ArchWeek - Venice Biennale - World of Cities This forum thread is for discussion of the ArchitectureWeek article:
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Landy Joined: 15 Dec 2005 Posts: 463	Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 7:44 pm    Post subject: Thank you Kevin and the editorial group for Architectureweek good article. My sidenote is on the acknowledgement of a good group that have been a source of inspiration. These are Nicoletta Artuso, Andrea Balestrero, Gianandrea Barreca, Antonella Bruzzese, Maddalena De Ferrari, Fabrizio Gallanti and Massimiliano Marchica with contributions to the built environment and architecture. It should be a good idea to ask this people what they think of the bienale here is their e-mail address, gruppoa12@iol.it here is the link to see some of their work: http://www.cca-kitakyushu.org/english/project/a12_project.shtml
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mx2 millennium club Joined: 18 Jan 2006 Posts: 1977 Location: Miami, Florida	Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 8:10 pm    Post subject: My question is, in response, who really shapes any city? With dwindling influence on decision making, Architects have had their roles usurped by the non-professionals... mx2.5 _________________ *Art of Architecture: The conscious use of skill and creative imagination in the production of an aesthetic building. *Science of Architecture: The calculated use of technical skill and knowledge in the construction of a functional building.
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Richard Haut millennium club Joined: 18 Apr 2004 Posts: 1198 Location: Nice, France	Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 11:02 pm    Post subject: Great article. What shapes cities is need-and-greed. The design of cities is a matter of logistics. To pretend that it is matter of aesthetics as the first influence is self-indulgent. In this respect it does not appear that architects have been usurped by non-professionals so much as being increasingly treated as a performing side-show. Being "focused on statistics" is an essential. The exhibition sounds fantastic, but it is a shame that they could not find urban designers to discuss the subject. I found zero - ZERO - relevance or concern for the reality of cities in what the architects were saying. It is about sewer networks, water and power supply, housing, transport, commerce, the balance between the need and the greed. Aesthetics comes in as the elegant and appropriate balance of such essentials. And "re-branding" ? Leave it to the professionals. Re-branding, the re-shaping and positioning of the image of a city, needs a Branding House - from the advertising world. The exhibition itself seems to have understood this very well and sums up the concern: "will it be a merely aesthetic approach, privileging object over context?" Or will it be to "shape the spaces that stimulate democracy, justice, sustainability, tolerance, and good governance?" _________________ Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe.
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Landy Joined: 15 Dec 2005 Posts: 463	Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 7:03 am    Post subject: Urban design, Urbanity, Planning, Urban Renewal, Brownfields and even a courthouse takes to many people to actualy credit one person for design. Urban design is not a small building nor interior design. Who design cities? the people that inhabit the land to be developed. It is not as easy as how a civil engineer gets away with a new strip of highway. Urban design affects to many variables in it's surrounding vicinity. We can only blame ourselves on how Urban design is understood, our very own ambition to design the buildings in our master plan has trigered this ongoing ambiguity.
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mx2 millennium club Joined: 18 Jan 2006 Posts: 1977 Location: Miami, Florida	Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 10:46 am    Post subject: Quote: The exhibition itself seems to have understood this very well and sums up the concern: "will it be a merely aesthetic approach, privileging object over context?" Or will it be to "shape the spaces that stimulate democracy, justice, sustainability, tolerance, and good governance?" Good points Richard...never *really* thought of it all that way...one thing is for certain, our educational system and professional associations have created a niche for "aesthetics" over substance...everyone else takes care of "business" while we just make it look and function better. But the idea of stimulating people (democracy, justice, etal...are extensions of human activity) through architecture has been left up to the privileged to muse over...it is not a proletariat concern. Gone are the social ideas, replaced by simple need to survive in an over-populated profession...too many hookers on this corner. Everyone does what they can, a few do the best they can... mx2.5 _________________ *Art of Architecture: The conscious use of skill and creative imagination in the production of an aesthetic building. *Science of Architecture: The calculated use of technical skill and knowledge in the construction of a functional building.
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solidred Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 732 Location: Scotland	Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 3:40 am    Post subject: As I'm just back from Venice, I thought I'd take a leap and try attaching a picture for a change... I'm afraid I got exhausted after two trips around the Giardini campus of the Biennale and, having sat through the RIBA conference at the Arsenale, found the prospect of lolling around pavement cafes in the sunshine more appealing than more city talk. Don't get me wrong, the whole thing's fascinating just... information overload, know what I mean? Your average Venetian building site: the boat's grab-arm is actually shifting bricks that have fallen / been dumped into the canal    Filesize:  78.38 KB  Filename:  construction work.jpg  Viewed:  320 Time(s)
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solidred Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 732 Location: Scotland	Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 3:48 am    Post subject: The Greek pavillion proposed the entire Agean as a sort of city: an 'exploded Venice' if you like, where each island enconomy was part of a wider maritime infrastructure. Quotes from Greek writers and photographs of the loading bays of ferries made the whole exercise enjoyably poetic but I was thinking (and discussing with others, over dinners in the back rooms of wee tavernas at night, ah!) that 'City' is almost becoming the new 'Post Modern' i.e. the term is becoming less a name for a thing than a description of a way of thinking: a conceptual method for analysing a situation or of combining previously disparate elements. It's aligned with a theme certainly writ large at the RIBA conference: environmental and social sustainability. Cities are our collections; the pool of our efforts and ambitions. To venture into fey thorist mode, there is an infrastructure of human thought too.
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elisa kouloumenta Joined: 24 Sep 2006 Posts: 110 Location: greece	Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 12:45 am    Post subject: hi solidred, it's really funny i took the same picture from venice, the boat-track carrying the materials for the constructions.it looked so difficult to manage, but they were so cool about it!!!! so, what did you like the most in the Bienalle? It's true there was too much information...but not without a reason.Isn't it the way we live? the way we work? the quick info period... _________________ elisa kouloumenta
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solidred Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 732 Location: Scotland	Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 3:56 am    Post subject: In that case, I confess to enjoying the tabloid newspaper style statistics on the Royal College of Art exhibit, along with one of their proposals which seemed to be big blobby (MX2, don't get too excited ) pink letters made into a sort of groundscraper landscape building. I wanted to buy the big book and study all the ideas later but I feared for my luggage allowance. I actually spent more time reading some books either about or set in Venice: Joseph Brodsky's Watermark; William de Riviere's A Venetian Theory of Heaven; Thomas Mann's Death in Venice; Robert Coover's Pinnochio in Venice (which I read beforehand; in fact, I've been slowly reading the thing for years...) and so on. So one wanders through the city overlaid by all this imagination and in this city, the architecture seems to fuel that imagination to a huge extent.
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mx2 millennium club Joined: 18 Jan 2006 Posts: 1977 Location: Miami, Florida	Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 6:39 am    Post subject: I was impressed by two things here...one, I applaud both of your efforts to emerse yourselves in architectural events such as this (I don't get much down here for some odd reason), and two, the cmment about post-modernism has me hanging from my ceiling, chomping at the bit...but I shall let it go...not the place, again. The most important issue here is that there are great strides being made to further the discussion for City Planning, with an emphasis on planning on a large scale in hopes of improving the cityscapes we have greatly populated worldwide...rather than leaving them up to the accountants and microchip manufacturers to dictate their outcome... mx2.5 _________________ *Art of Architecture: The conscious use of skill and creative imagination in the production of an aesthetic building. *Science of Architecture: The calculated use of technical skill and knowledge in the construction of a functional building.
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