Moneo's theoretical analysis

[Landy]

comment on a book:
"Rafael Moneo's
theoretical anxiety and design strategies in the work of eight contemporary architects".
Rafael Moneo's book is a great one that allows us to understand the apparent complexity in the design strategies of eight contemporary architects. I think Moneo's analysis of Delirious New York is of particular importance. Because allows the reader to understand it's content and how the book was conceived. In it's overall content suggests the reason for chosing figures of the so called star system and it delivers it as society's need to understand the perils of architects besides the everyday protocol. Another example that explains how the book works is the chapter on Herzog & De Meuron's work. It displays a reason for success, that their aim to bring professional practice to perfection gave them their necesary edge. Whereas the architectural language of their work is of second importance.

This is not a book to be read once, it has to be studied or better put in a lecture state of mind. If one is to read the book hoping for a Vincent Scully on Kahn, it can only lead to dissapointment. Jeffrey Kipnis made that exact same mistake. One only needs to read his critique on Moneo's book to know how literal it happened. Again when properly studied the book breaks through the myth of the star system. Exposing Ventury and Denisse as at times marketing prodigies of the architecture profession. The book shows the husband and wife team staccato in styles that suggest the question, Is it their response to marketing or trends their strenght or is it architectural theory? My believe is that the book's translation to english has blurred it's clarity and content.
kind regards
Landy Miguel

[solidred]

Landy, this book's been sitting on my shelf for a year or more now. I fully intend to read it of course because I admire Moneo: he really impresses me as a thinker and architect. Jeff was my Grad School tutor and he really impresses me as a thinker too, albeit of a different stripe. I'd be interested to get the reference to Jeff's take on the book.

[Landy]

dear solidred here is your request:

Harvard Design Magazine; fall 2005 / winter 2006; pp 97-104

[The Architect]

Hey Landy, thanks for posting that reference. A pdf of that review by Jefrey Kipnis can be found here:: Moneo’s Anxiety Rafael Moneo’s Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies in the Work
of Eight Contemporary Architects

In conclusion Kipnis states ::

"Despite these long digressions on
Bilbao and the Bibliothèque, the issue
here is not at all to hold Moneo’s book
hostage to a reading of but two build-ings,
but to trace their respective anxi-eties
and the resulting contest that lurks
beneath the author’s casual remark,
“for among the eight taken up in this
book, only Koolhaas and Gehry con-sider
that program lies at the origins
of architecture.” The two employ
opposite uses of program because the
speculative goal of their architectures
are opposite. In my opinion, to the
extent that projects and buildings are
ever theoretical at all, then they will
never differ merely about program or
plan or section.

For all that I admire in the book,
its failure to rise to the promise of its
title must give pause, particularly
because it is not a matter of Moneo’s
lack of skill or intelligence, but of his
will. Permit me, then to conclude by
noticing one last feature of the book.
Each chapter, without exception, tells
a story of an architectural practice that
eventually loses its way, including that
of the luminary Siza. That narrative
arc suggests to me a kinship between
Rafael Moneo and Martin Heidegger.
I do not say that Moneo is a Heideg-gerian;
he mentions the philosopher
in the book only once in passing and
with short shrift. Nevertheless, both
hold that authenticity and meaning in
life flow from groundedness, which in
turn flows from place. And both despair
of the capacity if not the inevitability of
sophistication, artifice, and technology
to set us adrift. Perhaps, in that sense,
the book was never about the theoret-ical
anxieties of its subject architects,
but about the anxieties of the author
as an architect searching for authen-ticity
in a world that feels to him more
interested in novelty. In his Gropius
Lecture at Harvard in 1990, Moneo
said, “It is not possible today to put
forward a single definition of architec-ture.
Today’s understanding of the
concept of architecture . . . includes
what architecture was before, but
embraces also many other marginal
and not-so-marginal attempts to react
architecturally to different circum-stances.”
7 After reading the book, I
began to feel that, although the
author may believe that statement
intellectually, he does not believe
it emotionally."


Within the last 5 years or so I've read very few critiques, but I have to say that book rewiew was entertaining.

It has been a long time since I stopped my search looking for an Architectural equal, and from the architecture that I've seen recently published - as far as I know - I'm still alone. But, I'm going to grab copy of Moneo's book anyway! The book seems to be a quick overview of contemporary architectural thinking, which will make it a fun read for me.

Thanks again.


Take care...

[solidred]

thanks for those refs. I'll go read...

[solidred]

"It has been a long time since I stopped my search looking for an Architectural equal, and from the architecture that I've seen recently published - as far as I know - I'm still alone."
says 'The Architect'

I took that at first to be a jokey piece of arrogance but, on reflection, it's possibly more subtle. Originally taking 'equal' for 'as good as' of course 'equal' is simply 'similar'.

[mx2]

[studio]

this book is cool... this is the reasons that i keep reading architects' words...
thanks.. mate..

www.architect-studio.blogspot.com

[solidred]

I'm sitting at breakfast looking over the designs a couple of friends at my office are doing for the re-cladding of a very large and prominent office block in central Glasgow. I've also just completed a short nostalgia piece for possible publication in the Architectural Association's newsletter about my experiences studying in the Grad programme with Jeff Kipnis as mentioned above.
I compare the kind of decision-making / critique strategies I'm contemplating on the one hand and what I remember of Jeff's appreciation of the fact that, for example, Rem Koolhas, whilst being deeply original, was also referencing Mies, Corb and so-on in a sort of re-synthesized way.
So I'm thinking, if the project in front of me is to be considered Architecture, I would consider historical precedent, wouldn't I, so that the Theorists of the future could discover - Marlowe-like - the subtle chains of acknowledgement and development, right?
Well, not exactly.
See, we live in a world formed of more than this. Each new design has its own (often very limiting) series of constraints and sometimes it's simply not useful to say 'OK, tower office block. Let's refresh our understanding of Mies and Gordon Bunshaft.'
Instead, sometimes has to think: 'I know this city and its people. I know both rather well. I know this re-clad block will form a prominent part of this scenario. Apart from making the thing work well for the users of the building inside, this building is a great slab of a canvas to Glaswegians on the outside. How can we make this thing a)work well and b) be something people might look at and think 'Ooh... that's a wee bit special.' And by 'people', I don't mean architectural aesthetes and cultural commentators. This is not some sort of an in-joke we ought to be embarking upon.
We, here, reading this forum, are all NEW people. Let us use our own sensitivities and sets of values to think well and think appropriately and, if the circumstances don't give us a completely free hand like, say, in Meier's Getty Centre, let's not struggle with imaginary conversations with Borromini or our so-called peers as evinced in the architectural press to score points off one another.
Instead, all we sometimes have to offer are our intelligence, understanding, generosity of spirit, humanity and technical know-how.
You never know, you might even end up designing something Iconic, if we forget a moment that that's currently something of a term of withering abuse in debate confined to architects alone.

[Kevin]

righteous!

[solidred]

I'm not sure if you mean 'self-righteous' there or not Kevin
If I apply myself to working out how to post pictures to the forum here I think that would be a good thing, for I do tend to talk alot more than I show, heh.

[mx2]

[Landy]

exactly Solidred "post 293/fellowship thread" that is why Moneo's book is so important, in it stresses the debate that architects have come to a point of being critics rather on what was understood as the traditional role of the architect. I'm positive no one really knows if one wants to own falling water, design it, work in the design process, or write about it "the critic".