Notes from Wednesday March 25th, 2009.
Bernard Tschumi – Acropolis Transcripts.
The evening began with a short introduction by Mark Wigley, (or ‘Wigs’ as the girl who was sitting beside me called him).
Wigs gave a brief historical perspective about the school’s struggle - experimental vs. practitioner.
Proclaiming that, “the old struggle is no longer.”
Bernard walks up to the podium wearing his signature black suit - white shirt - red scarf [branding]
Describing Architectural process as a puzzle - putting pieces together.
Condition of Architecture today, “wow! or what?”
The “what?”:
300yards from the Acropolis.
Utilizing the existing as a protagonist.
Identifying the obstacles. [Or opportunities]
He spoke about his interest in ‘film mapping,’ and more generally about the importance of architectural notation. Beginning with his, “first architectural drawing after a six year hiatus,” which was an axonometric mapping of a walking pattern. He has consistently been interested in mapping movement. [Autobiographical]
Space + Event + Movement = Architecture. [Main statement]
Superimposition of systems. [Consistent architectural strategy]
Time/movement - one does not exist without the other.
Concept + Idea + Strategy__________Never Form. [Really?]
The [Tschumi’s] Glass pavilion, unlike [PJ’s] house is the ultimate glass house, because it is completely made out of glass. [Self – Aggrandizement]
Generic Vs. Specific [Is this in Bilbao... or?]
When content is identical, materiality becomes concept. [Content Vs. Context]
Learned more about Architecture through books about film theory. [Heroic]
The New Acropolis:
2500years
300 yards from the Acropolis.
Column Logic – Hovering over the excavations – which you are aware of on every floor except for the top, where you are aware of the Acropolis.
Two separate pieces moving.
The two realities exist side by side, forcing the spectator to stand in-between where the frieze is and where it used to be.
Pure, flawless concrete columns serve as background to the sculptures. [Materiality as concept]
Procession described as a choreographed dance between columns and statues. [Poetic]
The Q + A. Where the Starchitect proves himself as a superior intellectual who is considerably smarter that anyone else in the audience.
Tschumi: There was a conscious struggle for architects in the late seventies to anti-contextualize themselves. Especially, after the denouncement of modernism and the highly unsuccessful run of nostalgic Post-modernism. [Defining a generation]
The door is open to be redefined.
The question of architecture is in flux.
Architecture is more about concept than context or content. Because context and content are given, the innovation lies in the concept.
There is NO Tabula Rasa in architecture. What most architects call 'Tabula Rasa,' actually begins with erasure. And the process of erasure is never innocent. [Heroic Realism]
The grid is an Abstraction.
There is no architecture without abstraction.
When a GSAPP student who probably spent the whole day scripting on Maya challenged Bernard about the importance of language (or form): “... [it must be important] since you are contributing to the linguistics of the existing environment when you build.” Bernard response: “Architecture is not a language! There is no grammar in architecture. When you begin to establish grammar we return to where we began." [Son’d]
