Arthur Erickson

[SDR]

This little piece found its way onto my computer a couple of months ago -- from where I can't recall -- and I just read it. There are a couple of typos and the white-on-black might be annoying (I found it curiously textural) but the meanings grow on me.

http://www.arthurerickson.com/sp_mcgill.html

Has anyone else read this ? What do you think ?

SDR

[The Architect]

The first time I met Erickson was through my father (a modern master painter) who founded the McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, On., Canada. Erickson designed the gallery's facade. PoMo crap stuff. Then came Arthur's book The Architecture of Arthur Erickson. He taught me the value of 'cadence', but not 'rhythm' per ce. [Also at that time I had the opportunity to meet with and spend some time with Goff.] As a kid, it was a great time of yearning in my life - for me these guys help bridge the Architectural evolutional distance between Wright and myself.

Erickson has this eloquent way (as did Wright) of stating a semi-truth with references that can/do mislead the uneducated and the unsavvy (If that makes any sense.) ...and the opening paragraph of what you cite is no different.
Just check out the opening paragraph, of which I (as usual) disagree with. For one thing he tries to merge
some very unrelated time lines. And he almost completely dismisses Constructivism amoungst other earth moving understandings - he completely ignores the discoveries of Matisse's paper cut-out period in relation to Picasso/Cubism, and all the understanding that went with that. But hey, why let a few significant understandings stand in the way, eh?

Can I go on?


Take care...

[solidred]

Ah, SDR is back too now!
It was an interesting article, 'though the sentiments it expresses don't come as new relative to things I've thought myself. He's a bit, like some other American commentators, overly prone to regard the green grass overseas... the 'culture' of building in Scotland is pretty-much identical to that which he describes in North America.
As for the comments of The Architect, I find your own references: 'cadence', 'rhythm' and 'paper cut-outs viz. Cubism' too oblique to be able to enter into a conversation about them, though I daresay a little more knowledge about Matisse would help on my part. Similarly, the tantalus-like 'truth' that would belie the 'semi-truths' that mislead, without being more explicit on the latter, ends up as something of a blank wall.
I'm reading this book about 'presence' at the moment. It convincingly elucidates three modes of communicative projection. Very briefly, 'first circle' is the shy-type, who hides in obscurity; 'third circle' is the grand-standing, intimidating type who talks *at* rather than *with* people, like The Architect here, and 'second circle' is the one with 'It', as they'd say in the acting profession; someone who immediately engages with those around them by establishing an environment of open-ended equality. Something that those truly comfortable with themselves and a body of knowledge can enter into and bring anybody else in with them.

[JWmHarmon]

"We seem today to have lost sight of the original goal of architecture that is - to ennoble the place and the people who use it. It is a gift we have as architects to be able to do that...
Great buildings that move the spirit have always been rare. In every case they are unique, poetic, products of the heart, of sensibility and with a freshness of view, which shows us the way and reminds us of our mission to inspire." copyright 2000 arthur erickson architect

Erikson's last two paragraphs brought to mind some of the great, though not alway famous, buildings I have visited. I recall a trip to Las Vegas and Reno Nevada many years ago and experienced the emptiness of the superficial glitz.

That same year I visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Marin County Civic Center and many buildings in San Fransisco. Each building had its own feeling, its own character. Some were a delight to enter. Others were oppressive and generated a feeling of the need to flee and escape what terror or discomfort arose within.

I could only see the outside of Alcatraz Prison, but the feeling it generated from a distance was considerable different from that of Coit Tower, a monument to firefighters, rather than a building.

The peacefulness of a small red-sandstone church in the Rocky Mountains was considerably different from the Gateway Arch and the Wainwright Building in St. Louis. The Air Force Academy Chapel has a different emotional impact than the TransAmerica building.

Architecture that enobles the human spirit is rare indeed. Architecture that celebrates the superficial will, like clothing fashion, have its day, and will then be torn down to make way for "the lastest thing," or "the next big thing."

Not all architecture is meant to inspire. Architecture that enobles us, encourages us, and speaks to us on a deeper level, inspires and refreshes us is rare indeed.

Architecture that embodies what Erikson celebrates is that architecture that makes us say to ourselves, "This is a great place to be. I hate to have to leave here. I wish I could stay forever, but I have many things to do."

I have been in many such buildings. Not all of them are widely known. I have great respect for the architects who are inspired to create such places.

[SDR]

I appreciate these thoughtful responses to Mr Erickson's essay. When a particularly tiresome work week is over, I will be able to devote myself to further discussion of this interesting topic. Thanks for your helpful input !

SDR

[solidred]

Ah well SDR, only a few more hours to go!
The project of 'ennobling the human spirit' is a group exercise. In terms of buildings, it takes clients, builders, engineers, quantity surveyors and so on to share that goal. Looking around the building sites I'm involved in yesterday, the amount of work other people were doing, steadily and carefully, contributed to a real 'feel good' factor.

[SDR]

Well, I'm "off the job" -- no wait, that sounds like I was fired (or do you say 'made redundant' ?) -- I'm free for the weekend.

A little gin, a shower, a toke and JS Bach, and I'm all yours. Two weeks in a client's home with an assistant, putting together a cladding with panels and hefty slab doors of rift oak solids and veneers, and it came off as I had wished. Satisfied employer and client, and perhaps most importantly, self. Those Rixson pivot hinges are unforgiving; I had to invent some adjusting devices and techniques. . .

As you say, it's a world of trades and talents which is responsible for the built environment. The best of it qualifies as architecture, thanks be. Architecturally sensitive clients, even when quite demanding, are worthy of respect and gratitude. Something worth looking at occasionally gets built !

SDR

[The Architect]

SDR ...off topic...

Have you seen Frank Stella's foray into architecture? It's being exhibited by the Met in NYC. I bought a copy of the Met's... Frank Stella: Painting into Architecture, which I think is an interesting read - if nothing else - of why artist should not dabble in architecture.

Take care...

[csintexas]

Erickson's article seemed to me just another romantic whining that somehow things where much better some time in history and today everything's gone to hell. (boo-whoo)

I've heard that story many times and still don't buy it.

[88]

Being a developer, businessman is not evil or easier than being a good architect. Most architects are doomed to fail due to this way of thinking about architecture vs the business world.
A successful architect needs to provide good design....and financially stable so the payroll will be made and also take care of the family . To provide good design he/she needs to be effective as a designer as well as a business person.
Erickson's thinking is ok for architects who has already inherited a lot money made by some rich daddy or relative.....or those professors who talk more than build.

[SDR]

It seems a losing proposition (a loss of the finer things that art can give us) to assume that aesthetic quality assumes greater cost, and that no right-minded client, builder, or architect can afford it.

It is not unusual for an honest challenge to be denied and repelled. As a romantic idealist, I will continue to believe that a truthful analysis of a situation is the only way to go from good to better -- and that despite necessary compromises, better can be had if we want it.

I will have to see what Frank Stella is up to. Thanks for the cue.

SDR

[csintexas]

A truthful analysis? -only if you happen to agree with what he is saying.

It's an opinion and so could never be analytical.

These types of articles are always based these types of propositions:
The average person has no good taste in art because they don't like the "modern" style.

In the past any average carpenter could just whip up a Queen Ann Highboy and when we developed machines we forgot how.

Nobody cares about quality any more, it's all about profit.




In my opinion the general quality of architecture in the USA has never been better. I certainly don't want to go back to some of the main streets we had in the 60's and I would seriously not want to go back to when a few people controlled all the money and could afford to build cathedrals.

I wish the universities would stop producing so many "artists" it makes for a bunch of discontented people when they get out of school and find out that there isn't much demand for them.

[P.C.]

Ontop there are the autodidacts ,thost alway's there those being the majority in fact ,individuals with such great creating povers, that they stand for also, the majority of progress already.

[usarender]

" In the Po Mo period, a change that signaled the questionable new direction to architecture was the shift from the modernist concern with space to the preoccupation with surface. Space is and has always been the spiritual dimension of architecture. It is not the physical statement of the structure so much as what it contains that moves us. Modernism released us from the constraints of everything that had gone before with a euphoric sense of freedom. Post- Modernism reverted to surface, the face of the container, the palette for the decorator. After 1980, you never heard reference to space again. Surface, the most convincing evidence of the descent into materialism became the focus of design, space the essence of architectural expression at its highest level, disappeared."

Thus, structure and architecture "contain" space, to a sense.

It is interesting how the idea of "space", according to the article, is not being addressed significantly in architecture since the 80s.

The descent into materialism, so to speak, has led us away from the highest levels of architectural thought.

What Erickson calls a misplaced rational approach, the characteristic of a material society concerned with function to the nth degree, economics, the practical, the immediate, and the oppressive consequence of specialization and it's influence on stifling creativity. As a result, the art of building as a craft has thus been lost,

"Building is seen as a craft, and techniques tightly coordinated under the direction of the architect."

and further -->>

"Nearly all of the advances in structural and aesthetic innovation is coming from abroad. The new architecture of transparency and lightness comes from Japan and Europe. Industry and building codes - curtail that same approach here. Besides the inflexibility of industry, we are stymied by regulations, limited choice and the threat of litigation. Neither professional consultants nor industry itself provide the research which encourage those innovative techniques which takes architecture forward in Europe and Japan. There is no greater pleasure than working with a firm like Arup or Coop Himmenblau who amalgamate all the professional skills with an in-house research arm and are largely responsible for the abundance of remarkable buildings arising outside this continent. "God is in the details", Mies said meaning that the details are the very source of expression in architecture. But we are caught in a vice between art and the bottom line."

This has been stated recently on these forums as well, and some have engaged in ridiculing others who have stated similar.

and

" Whenever we witness art in a building, we are aware of an energy contained by it."

This is the essence of our proposition, that energy is contained in various forms, and it's ultimate expression can be contained in a great work of art. Why reduce it down to a set of codes, a function, a pragmatic practical application of an immediate need ? In doing this, we loose our sense of spiritual contemplation, our ability to contemplate the aesthetics as we become focused on merely the practical aspects.

When searching for solutions, artists and architects alike must not simply design as a direct function of some immediate or practical needs. There is a need for a moment of inspiration, a liberation of the arts, a liberation of the form, and a more "organic", " natural" and intuitive approach, call it what you may. But it is one that is not based on simply pragmatic, practical analysis and material concern with the financial result of the problems at hand. One that allows for inspired vision.

" No amount of thought can ever reveal what comes unexpectedly. Picasso said "I don't seek - I find." Archimedes also found it in the "Eureka" experience in his bath, the basis of "specific gravity". It is the mystery of the creative act that something other than our conscious self takes over. The artist himself is loath to acknowledge it for he likes to seem totally responsible for his work. Often to cover himself he begins to explain it, after the fact, to make it appear as if it were a reasonable process."

[csintexas]

You argument assumes that you can't have both. That if you put function first there is no room left for spirituality.

This is a false assumption.