Mies devotional

Thanks for allowing me to momentarily hijack the blog for Mies devotions.

The “sarcophagus” over Cherynobyl

“The most important building in the world.”

So much for the end of the importance of physical architecture.

House of healing and perpetual life

I wonder if the effects of this house are determined less by the house than by one’s disposition toward it?

Build a modern museum on the Presidio?

Excellent thought pump.

The Presidio is such a quiet, unexpected place in SF. In the middle of the highest dollar land in the country there is this inexplicable huge sorta derelict old army base. It always seems like a perfect place for a haunting. The owner and founder of Gap (who has a history of being a classic overrich republican) wants to house his admittedly awesome art collection in a nice modern gallery, right in the heart of it.

Interesting that he has secured a pretty well known architect willing to do this–I don’t think it would be nearly as easy to have done so 50 years ago or so. Lots of people who are claiming architecture has become simply an expression of wealth will use this as an example if it happens.

#79 sounds like some people we know

hey all shout out to A and T for this link here

yes, I do think some of us resemble some of these

Best house in Paris

Snazzy article on the Maison de Verre in Paris. I’ve been reading on the Internationalist architects (Le Corbusier, Mies, Saarinen etc.) and the idea of house as “machine for living”–this one always strikes me as a quintessential example of this. It was featured in one of the architecture videos, btw.

These dudes were, almost to the person, serious philosophy students. I’m just starting to dig into what they were doing philosophically, but check this article on jstor(you’ll need to prob be on campus to see it): on Le Corbusier’s reading Bataille’s  La Part Maudit.

Mies

Maybe singing this in our board review will help out.

speaking of architecture…omg

While looking at rentals today we ran across this. That is Mies van der Rohe’s first skyscraper, and it’s located about 4 blocks from UC in Hyde Park. It’s called The Promontory after Promontory Point — a park and beach — which is across the street. From a Times article in 1986:

It is worth remembering that the 1949 Promontory Apartments at 5530 South Shore Drive, a streamlined 22-story apartment house, came about because a barely 30-year-old Chicago developer, Herbert Greenwald, wanted to build the finest architecture using modern technology. Walter Gropius told him Mies was his man; and in designing the Promontory, Mies in fact sought only available stock items; he used reinforced concrete (even the inside window sills are concrete) with the same buff brick for the panels, and aluminum for window frames.

Because the concrete columns fronting the building bear less weight as they rise, he expressed this by thinning them down so that they step back at three points and appear like buttresses on a Gothic cathedral. The floor in the glass-enclosed lobby is concrete with stone aggregate that is polished smooth but is left rough outside the building. The buff brick and this outdoor paving make a beautiful blend with the columns.

And nothing was missed - distinctive mail boxes and mail rooms, and indirect lighting in the elevator. From a solarium on the top floor the length of the long facade, one faces the lake and the small inlet between Promontory Point and the lighthouse where the lagoons opened up for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

So the first Internationalist residence in the US? With brutalist use of concrete? We’re totally in. They are renting that very unit (which has been for sale) for exactly what we were thinking we wanted to spend. We’re going to try to look tomorrow.

architecture in town I can’t wait to see

We’d been wondering what the building project at the Museum of Science and Industry is. Come to find out, it’s a full on build of one of these new awesome concept prefab houses. Check it.

And I really despise flash sites, but the Calatrava Spire video at the site devoted to it gives me goose bumps every time I watch it. I cannot wait to see this thing built.