What are your views on conceptual architecture?

Question

I'm asking because I've never personally understood (still don't) the link between abstract ideas and form, and more particularly because I've come across a quote attributed to Louis Kahn about FLW claiming that "it doesn't work, it doesn't have to work".

Your comments are welcome. Good luck to all with exams/ crits at this time.

Answer 1

Frank Lloyd Wright also said "Form and function are one." And although he was a great architect, he was a rotten engineer--Falling Waters is beautiful, but he designed it with a stream flowing through the building, which sends its heating bills skyrocketing in the winter. Actually, Wright belived in integrating buildings into the surrounding landscape (ex.--Taliesan West), so it did work with the surroundings, just not from an engineering perspective.

Answer 2

"It doesn't work, it doesn't have to work" sounds like "Art for art's sake."

I studied architecture (although finished with a fine arts degree) because I love the intersection between so many different different knowledge bases architecture requires to be really successful. You have to know design, of course, but also structures, sociology, psychology, geography and geology . . .

That said, I believe that — while in design there is more than one right answer 99.9% of the time — key to any building design are two things above all: Proportion and consideration of surrounding environment. This does not minimize the many other aspects of architecture . . . .

. . . . from what I remember of Kahn and know of Wright, their designs work in the places they are — or at least they did when they were built (noting that the environment around their structures has probably changed since their construction). The same goes for what I remember of Gehry's sculptural and organic shapes — which may presently be the height of conceptual architecture.

I must add, however, that my own opinion of much MODERN design is that it lacks a very necessary human element. That is, much of what you'll find in DWELL magazine is very sterile, uninviting and palpably repulsing (conciously or subconciously).

Answer 3

Since I've worked in construction, done some actual design (but not credited, since I'm not licensed, nor will I be unless I can more somewhere that allows for advancement) - I can say this much.....

Architecture is art, and is always a concept. Engineering comes along to either endorse or condemn a concept. I'd probably make a better engineer, because I'm amazed at how much Western architects overlook the laws of physics and the local building codes when they do conceptual work.

Answer 4

You should watch the movie "The Sketches of Frank Gehry." Some of his buildings, such as Bilbao, look stupid (abstract) on the outside but the interior space is amazing, beautiful, and functional.