TAG Talk #26: New Vernacular Architecture. A talk by Jonathan Weatherill.

[@kylejmarsh3988]

Thank you for the excellent presentation Mr. Weatherill - your approach to placemaking and deep respect for local vernacular architecture should be a model for others to aspire to. It seems so simple in principle - to simply look around at the existing patterns and use them to inform the design of the project, infusing them with a knowledge of placemaking to create a result to which nothing need be added, and nothing removed. It represents in one project the slow historical building up of a local Architecture which is not only Human in it's execution, but is logically defensible in it's detailing and grounded in the Tradition of the place. This is certainly not the short-attention-span slop which forms the core of the 'creeping crud' quickly destroying the countryside - this is long-attention-span Architecture which dignifies both the Architect, and those future residents with the mind to see and understand it. Kudos.

[@Strohkopfs]

ok . its not rem koolhaas in hamburgs its herzog and demeuron and this one really fits well unto the building beneath..

[@katiatrost3759]

Great presentation, I hope traditional architecture makes a big comeback. I hope never to live in a modernist architecture again. It feels soulless and looks ugly.

[@traditional_architecture_group]

If you live in Great Britain or Northern Ireland then do consider joining TAG. We also have an Associate Membership which can include UK-based non-practitioners. See our website for further details: traditionalarchitecturegroup.org/join-tag

[@ppuzzello64]

This presentation should not be a critique about modernity, but about mediocrity. I see plenty of sameness with traditional architecture. The "traditionalists" do not own the idea of placemaking.

[@Slingsby_architecture]

We may not own the idea of placemaking but we are the ones that are consistently and inherently engage with it. And it is very evident that modernist (and they off shoots) have consistently disregarded it in favour of high concepts, abstraction, and the deconstruction of culture - which is the heart of placemaking.

[@verticalmatt]

Whatever your argument it would benefit from images. I can't imagine anything more monotonous than modern design.

[@ppuzzello64]

@@verticalmatt That is such an over generalized statement. First of all, it's a matter of taste. Second, there are plenty of examples of good contemporary public space: Bilbao museum in Spain, Millennium Park in Chicago, St. Louis Arch and park, Addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Pompidou Center in Paris, Eiffel Tower (it is modern design, rejected initially, now defines Paris), The Louvre Museum pyramid, Seagram's building and forecourt, Cranbrook Educational campus in Bloomfield Hills MI, Times Square New York, 911 site in Lower Manhattan, any public observation deck in any tall building around the world, Golden Gate bridge, The Getty Center Grounds in LA (both the one by Richard Meier and the one by Machado and Silvetti). Should I go on? Ok. Anything done by Frank Lloyd Wright, anything done by Louis Sullivan, Kahn's Salk Institute, all of the art modern buildings in Miami Beach, Kahn's Kimball Art Museum, Kahn's Exeter Library, Kahn's Parliament Building in Dhaka, Enric Miralles' Parliament building in Scotland, The Neues museum in Berlin, Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin, The Wrapped Reichstag by Cristo... Now, these works might not be to your taste or those that prefer Corinthian columns, metopes and triglyphs, but they are examples of contemporary design that are overwhelmingly endeared and in the public realm. I can provide images if you like.

[@verticalmatt]

@@ppuzzello64 sir if you kept up with modern science you would know that it is not a matter of taste, but an objective measurable parameter. Now cristo's wrapped reichstag is an art installation, but gehry s Guggenheim looks like an art sculpture. Do you think architecture should be sculptural? What about background buildings like 99% of offices and residences?

[@ppuzzello64]

@@verticalmatt What?? Modern science?? I would much prefer spending time at a space like Cristo's wrap in Berlin, or Pompidou museum than a space the traditionalists could conjure up and I am not alone sir. Does that make me mentally sick? Or in some twisted way against science? BTW yes, Cristo's wrap of the Reichstag is absolutely an architectural project in addition to being art and legitimate for the discussion here.