GRGR(29) - The Grid, The Comb

[Mark Wright AIA]

Howdy
--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> > you
> > accept the world and work with what you have
> 
> OK:
> epistemological question - what is the world like?

Look around as carefully as you know how, suspending judgement for a
while...

> ontological question - which (and whose) world is this?

Why *this* one, uh, ours.

> 
> >> Isn't one criticism of the sort of architecture that Venturi & co.
> >> have
> >> built that people get lost for months at a time in the malls and
> keep
> >> hitting their heads on things while they're walking around?
> >
> > Venturi and co (who do you mean?  His partners and colleagues?  His
> > imitators? His admirers?) don't build malls, and people don't "get
> > lost" or hit their heads in his buildings. I'm sorry, but this is a
> > silly thing to say...
> 
> Well, no, I read a not altogether negative critique of one or another
> postmodern shopping complex/something else (hotel I think, with maybe
> a road
> through the middle of it or something), which made the point (the
> critique
> that is, not the building) that the disorientation effects of the
> internal
> spaces were such that it was almost impossible to get your bearings
> once
> inside and moving from area to area. 

Every movement produces its share of crappy work.  V's is not in that
category, and is neither disorienting nor, really even quite Post
Modern in the way you're thinking of (but that's an argument for
another time and place...)

The catalogue of effects Venturi
> says
> he is striving for -- "vestigial elements, circumstantial
> distortions,
> .... exceptional diagonals, things in things, crowded or contained
> intricacies, ... redundant spaces" -- certainly sounds like there'd
> be
> things I'd be hitting my head on. The idea of "good *and* bad spaces"
> also
> seems to imply that there is meant to be some level of discomfort or
> inconvenience for the reader/user.

Not at all.  This use of these devices is intended to allow for a rich
and complex experience of an architecture that connects with the human
being, in a context which changes over time, on as many levels as
possible.  Rather then offering a *pure* experience, as Mies long ago
strove to do, they offer a rich experience for *both* the Elect *and*
the Preterite (in a lame effort to tie this back to GR somehow for
everyone else on the list).  Further, Venturi acknowledges his ultimate
responsibility for acheiving a legible and relevant "difficult whole"
(also alot like GR) rather than a simplistic unity.

> 
> >> Escher, Kurt Schwitters, the Dadists, Piranesi?
> >
> > He is indebted to none of these.  You are thinking, I believe, of
> the
> > "Deconstructivist" strain of moderist revival so popular in the
> 1990's.
> 
> Not really: I was thinking about the list of effects you cited.
> 
> > corinthian facades no,
> 
> Actually, there's some nice-looking cutlery with corinthian columns
> for
> handles designed by Venturi at that banaldesign website david pointed
> us to.
> 

But the candlestick they illustrate is much more characteristic of V's
work.  (*V* -- another Pynchon link!!) Have you looked at www.vsba.com?

Mark

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