Architectural Review Winners 2002
December 6, 2002 1:33 AM   Subscribe

The Architectural Review picks the best of 2002. The ar+d award honors young, unknown designers and architects from around the world. This year's winners include a Honey House, a Cemetary for the Unknown in Hiroshima, and a Pedestrian Bridge in Rijeka, Croatia dedicated to the victims of the Balkan Wars.
posted by Ljubljana (14 comments total)
 
Lovely. I just added a Honey Room to my mental dream house.
I'm worried about the Rijeka memorial bridge, though. It's simple, dignified, useful, and many other fine things, but with people constantly moving across the bridge, it doesn't seem very conducive to standing quietly, which I think of as an essential quality for a good memorial.
This one, too. It's gorgeous now, but what'll it look like crowded with dirty, unattractively-colored cars and trucks?
posted by hippugeek at 2:11 AM on December 6, 2002


hippugeek: I disagree. This is just about the most touching monument I've ever seen - it is beautifully simple and it combines memory of the past with utility to the present. Keep in mind it is not dedicated to some specific persons, but instead to victims of that war in general... and it looks like there is a much more secluded space on the side of the obelisk opposite the bridge.

I think this bridge is astonishingly beautiful. So simple and so graceful in its functionality, both physical and spiritual.
posted by azazello at 3:09 AM on December 6, 2002


That's just total Mentalism.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 3:40 AM on December 6, 2002


I wish I could find out more about this one. So far I haven't been able to Google it up.
posted by SealWyf at 6:04 AM on December 6, 2002


Thanks for this excellent callout, Ljubjana - it's something I might not have come upon myself, but quite interesting. I love that something as simple as the HoneyHouse was selected.
Also, picked up a cool new word: numinous.
posted by madamjujujive at 6:40 AM on December 6, 2002


Yeah, great links, proving yet again that Prince Charles is an idiot -- this probably sounds a little arrogant and (uh...) temporalcentric, but the best new architecture is simply better than the best old architecture. Every structure on that webpage is both a great work of art and incredibly cool. (I particularly liked the Copenhagen Subway.)
posted by Tlogmer at 7:52 AM on December 6, 2002


I'm with azazello: that's a great monument. And hippugeek, keep in mind that one of the tragedies of the Balkan wars was the destruction of communications, and bridges in particular, so a bridge that is functional as well as beautiful is just about the ideal monument.
posted by languagehat at 8:16 AM on December 6, 2002


Thanks, azazello and languagehat. A good part of my objection was the worry that people would be jostled and block traffic while reading the names on the vertical section--except there are no names. I have no idea where I got that. Objection withdrawn.
posted by hippugeek at 8:38 AM on December 6, 2002


The bridge was one of the only photographs I saw with people actually using the architecture. Every other photo is beautiful but sterile, as though the goal of architecture was to design static empty art pieces. Look at how uncomfortable and artifically posed everyone looks in this one, despite the blather about "ergonimic principles".

Stewart Brand's brilliant How Buildings Learn (essential reading for anyone, not just architects, who designs anything used by people) includes a chapter-long rant called "Magazine Architecture". His thesis is that architecture has built up an entire system in which professional success is determined by prizes like this one that reward architecture that photographs well and corresponds to current trends in fashion and intellectual politics. Behind that system is an industry of academic, magazine and building materials interests that can only make money by encouraging the new. The result is that architecture systematically ignores the human aspect.

Of course, maybe I'm reacting more to the coldness of the text and photos than to the actual buildings. But it would be nice to see an architectural movement that focused more on the experience of the people in the buildings, and less on the buildings themselves.
posted by fuzz at 12:29 PM on December 6, 2002


fuzz: But it would be nice to see an architectural movement that focused more on the experience of the people in the buildings, and less on the buildings themselves.

While his groups of students still exhibited an intense focus on the buildings they created, the late Samuel Mockbee is perhaps the best example of the idea of people-centered architecture.

MeFi's previous Mockbee discussion.
posted by samuelad at 12:55 PM on December 6, 2002


Fuzz: I've always been amused by the lack of people in architectural photography (except in real-estate ads, which always feature skipping children and bicycles).

But it would be nice to see an architectural movement that focused more on the experience of the people in the buildings, and less on the buildings themselves.

The Modern movement was based mainly on Socialism and on the Gestalt theories, and as such had a huge consideration for shaping people's actions in space. Post-modernism was worried with people's expectations and evocations.

The thing is, any architecture neccesarily will condense its preocupations into a certain Form, and that's what will get published in the magazines and coffee-table books.

Architecture is mainly preoccupied with architecture, with buildings, forms in space.

Accusing architects of caring more about buildings than about people is like accusing a musician of caring more about sounds than spectators, or accusing a film maker of caring more about litlle points of light than moviegoers.
posted by signal at 12:56 PM on December 6, 2002


Music that's primarily about sound experimentation or technical wankery is generally unlistenable. Film that's about images, without a human element of emotion or story, is unwatchable. On the Web, theories about design always lose out to sites that actually work well for people (like Matt's unFlashy but humanly successful MeFi design).

A preoccupation with theories about how people react to space is not the same as a preoccupation with how people actually do react to space. Your language about "shaping people's actions in space" is telling. Why does architecture seem to operate from the built-in assumption that it is exempt from considering the way that its users actually do behave?

The problem with architecture is made worse because that buildings stick around long after the intellectual point has been made, and people have to live with them. I've worked in a Le Corbusier building, and was surprised to find that architecture could have such a strong soul-destroying impact on me.

I'm not an architect, but I've always found that Christopher Alexander's theories corresponded well both to my vision of what any designer's job is really about, and what I as a user of their work would like to see architects do. I have asked several architects what they think of him, and I have yet to meet an architect who saw Alexander's empiricism as having any relevance whatsoever to their profession.
posted by fuzz at 2:33 PM on December 6, 2002


I have asked several architects what they think of him, and I have yet to meet an architect who saw Alexander's empiricism as having any relevance whatsoever to their profession.

That's incredibly depressing, fuzz. Reading How Buildings Learn pointed me in the direction of Alexander's A Pattern Language -- an absolutely riveting book. It's not about what looks crazysexyGehrycool or what the artist's renderings look like. It's about what works -- from urban planning to something as simple as how wide a balcony needs to be so people will want to use it.

Buildings can look great, but (as Brand points out) the flashiest buildings are not often the buildings that their users love. And shouldn't that be architects' aim?
posted by Vidiot at 12:24 AM on December 7, 2002


speaking of "crazysexyGehrycool", did anyone get to the Blur building (made with mist) in Switzerland? I'd love to hear what that was like...
posted by amberglow at 8:33 AM on December 7, 2002


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