CONTINUITY IN ARCHITECTURE ARCHIVE

Before Sverre Fehn

Posted on December 9, 2008 by Sally Stone

Oliver Postgate is dead.

Posted in CiA, Dominic Roberts, Nostalgia, Sverre Fehn | 1 Comment

Louis Kahn at Rochester

Posted on December 8, 2008 by Sally Stone

Iqbal Aalam’s flickr photostream includes some evocative slides from his 1967 trip to Kahn’s First Unitarian Church in Rochester NY (dedicated 2 December 1962). A commenter on the flickr site wonders whether Kahn’s building inspired the rooflights at Zumthor’s recently completed Kolumba Diocesan Museum in Cologne.

It’s a play really of wall and variety in the getting of various conditions around the windows which caused one to make these changes. And in some instances this window seat turns into a thing which you don’t need at all above and that would not be expressed here…The idea is to develop really quite frankly a silhouette

Kahn’s words and plan and section of the First Unitarian Church from Louis I Kahn, The Complete Works 1935-1974 by Heinz Ronner & Sharad Jhaveri (ISBN3764313471)

Posted in Churches, CiA, Dominic Roberts, Louis Kahn, Nostalgia | 1 Comment

Rope

Posted on December 5, 2008 by Crompton

This elegantly detailed bracket holds a rope barrier. Is this not better
than the spring loaded spools of tape in your bank and post office?

Posted in CiA, Crompton | Comments Off

Five Hundred Years of Andrea Palladio

Posted on November 30, 2008 by Sally Stone

Andrea di Pietro della Gondola, born 30 November 1508.

The Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza. The red plan is Palladio’s design as depicted in his Quattro Libri. The black plan is the structure as built, incorporating elements of the previous buildings on the site.

Graphic by Denis of CiA BArch Studio, Manchester School of Architecture.

Our other Palladio posts.

Posted in Andrea Palladio, CiA, Dominic Roberts, Italy, Precedents, Student Projects | Comments Off

The ‘high game’ of Palladio

Posted on November 30, 2008 by Aventinus

The recent lecture by Peter Eisenman in Liverpool affirmed the current interests of one group of CiA students in the work of Andrea Palladio. Eisenman declared his faith in the value of drawing as a demonstration of thought, in contrast to the thoughtless production of computer generated ‘architecture’. He furthermore asserted that he taught the work of Palladio (along with that of Vignola and Carlo Maderno) as an example of the unity of form and meaning, a relationship which is an increasingly rare commodity. This unexpected endorsement of the playful nature of Palladio’s rules, that discipline of beauty which Lutyens characterised as his ‘high game’, will only amplify interest in an extraordinary body of work which has continued to delight and divert architects for 500 years since Palladio’s birth on 30 November 1508. Here’s to the next 500.

Posted in Andrea Palladio, Aventinus, CiA, Italy | Comments Off

Small earthquake?

Posted on November 24, 2008 by Sally Stone

A rather bland interview with David Dernie, outgoing Head of the Manchester School of Architecture, has appeared on the AJ site: LINK

Posted in CiA, Dominic Roberts, Friends & Acquaintances, Manchester | Comments Off

Christ the King & Ceri Richards

Posted on November 23, 2008 by Sally Stone

The Historic Churches Commission has refused to authorise the reordering of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, Liverpool. The change would have involved siting a new, smaller altar at a lower level.

It is difficult to say whether Frederick Gibberd had an underlying geometrical plan for the Blessed Sacrament Chapel that might explain the proportions and position of individual elements. Unity is provided by the combination of colour, line, light and relief in Ceri Richards’ great painted reredos, tabernacle doors and stained-glass windows. The original intention was that Richards would produce an altar frontal as part of the scheme. This was never executed.

Cathedral website

Photoset

NB The reredos was too big to be accommodated in Richards’ studio so he painted it in the basement of the Tate Gallery (now Tate Britain).

Posted in Churches, CiA, Dominic Roberts, Liverpool | Comments Off

Peter Eisenman or Steve Martin?

Posted on November 20, 2008 by Aventinus

Summer 1983: A restaurant in the North End of Boston with students from Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Where are they now?

Posted in Aventinus, CiA, Friends & Acquaintances, Name Dropping, Nostalgia | 1 Comment

Palladio 500 Anni: La Grande Mostra

Posted on November 17, 2008 by Aventinus

The exhibition (LINK) celebrating the quincentenary of the birth of Andrea Palladio currently at the Palazzo Barabaran da Porto in Vicenza (until January 6 2009 and then transferring to the Royal Academy of Arts in London) is a stunning collection of work, which will renew interest and scholarship in its subject from both academics and practitioners. The magnificent setting in the piano nobile apartments of the palazzo are fully exploited to display engaging models and paintings of a significant portion of his work

The models, largely the property of the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio housed in the palazzo provide sectional studies of the volumes and spaces of churches, palaces and villas, and amplify the brilliance evident in the superb selection of Palladio’s original drawings (mainly from the RIBA Drawings Collection in London). The narrative sequence of the exhibition works well in the context of its setting and leads both the afficionado and the ingenue through the complex and specific context of work that changed the direction of architecture in Italy and Britain. This is a ‘must see’ show.

The RIBA promise a new online resource Palladio and Britain (LINK) coming soon.

(Even local Mancunian interest is satisfied for CiA by the presence of a pair of Canaletto’s paintings from Manchester Art Gallery depicting Palladio’s Venetian churches of San Giorgio Maggiore and Il Redentore).

Posted in Andrea Palladio, Aventinus, CiA, Italy, Travel, Venice | Comments Off

Social whirl

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Sally Stone

Alexis of Hot Chip at the Le Corbusier exhibition, Liverpool (25 October 2008)

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester to open the Flights of Fancy exhibition decrying minimalism and other “delusions of blandeur” and pleased to be in the “bosomy clinch of floral and flock wallpaper” (7 November 2008)

I’m a Mac. I’m a PC. Eisenman and Jencks discuss Powerpoint problems at theÂ RIBA Annual Discourse, Liverpool (10 November 2008)

Posted in CiA, Friends & Acquaintances, Name Dropping, Sally Stone | Comments Off

Name Dropping

Posted on November 13, 2008 by Sally Stone

In what can only be described as an architectural celebrity bumper period for the northwest, we have been honoured by a number of distinguished guests.

Peter Eisenman delivered the RIBA Annual Discourse 2008 at the John Moores University. His lecture entitled: “Textual Heresies: Le Corbusier and the Palais des CongrÃ¨s-Strasbourg, 1962 to 1964” was an extremely thorough discussion of the building. He also examined the relationship between available technologies and architectural design, not just technology in the construction industry, but also that, which is available in the architects studio. He commented that computers do tend to become the design drivers, complaining that: â€œStudent work all looks the same to me, thatâ€™s why I teach Palladio, I donâ€™t know what else to teachâ€. Apparently the student retort to this one is â€œDrawinâ€™ Palladio pochÃ© aint gonna get me a job in Frank Gehryâ€™s officeâ€.

Charles Jencks introduced Peter Eisenman, describing him as â€œA conscience for architectureâ€â€¦andâ€¦ â€œA thorn in the side of clichÃ©â€. I think that we can all agree with that.

Posted in Andrea Palladio, CiA, Name Dropping, Sally Stone | Comments Off

The Crowd

Posted on November 9, 2008 by Sally Stone

Preston, England 1926. The dedication of the Cenotaph funded by public subscription and designed by Giles Gilbert Scott. Scott, who was architect of the classic British red telephone box, Liverpool Anglican Cathedral and Tate Modern (Bankside power station), described his design as conforming to the ‘Greek feeling’ of the square, dominated by the Harris Museum. Note the orderly arrangement of military, civic leaders and churchmen around the monument and the crowd funnelled and shaped by the medieval road beyond. The sailors on the right are quite variable in stature compared to the soldiers on the left.

Ungraspable statistics dominate descriptions of the Great War. John Ptak has a number of excellent posts about crowds, and, through old photographs, is attempting to put a “fleshy face on an otherwise forensic statistic”. See 20,000 Soldiers & 1 Mule, 1918 and 100,000 People at the Dempsey-Carpentier Fight, 1921: a Remarkable Photograph.

Posted in CiA, Dominic Roberts, Preston | Comments Off