One of life’s great joys is to go on what we call Industrial Walking Tours. This can be done in large cities, or in smaller towns. Walks like this yield the most unexpected, wonderful and interesting features. The photo below was taken in nearby Albany during an industrial spelunking session. We have engaged in these sessions in Boston, Montreal, Amsterdam, you name it. You just have to get your radar sensitized to where the industrial areas are when you get to a locale. And then have fun.
This is another installment in our continuing series, Buildings Without Architects, or BWA. Today’s tribute goes out to Harold Berry and his wonderful work building in his stone yard on Route 166. Back in January of 2012, we introduced the phenomenon of BWA, and their typical use of a wood frame and translucent panels. Harold’s building is a masterpiece. Note the translucent center courtyard, clarity of structure, subtle shifting of alignments, changes in translucency, etc. It sensitively integrates with the landscape, yet it is absolutely modern; an inspiration to us all.
If you grow up surrounded by steel industrial buildings. If you grow up with excellent examples of architectural styles from deco to prairie. If you are continually exposed as a kid to old barns. Does this make you a better architect? Does this give you a propensity to be an architect in the first place? We pondered these questions as we visited Evansville, Indiana after a 20 year hiatus. Although we will probably never know the answers to these questions, one fact remains. Evansville has great buildings.
As this column attests, we have a tendency to visit modern buildings by famous architects. While we typically are proud of what our colleagues have accomplished, we felt nothing but embarrassment when we visited the City of Cuture in Santiago de Compostela in Spain. This project, by Eisenman, was supposed to do for Santiago what the Guggenheim did for Bilbao. The City of Culture was supposed to be a world cultural magnet, with art galleries, concert halls, etc. The fantastic curving forms are meant to reinforce the hills and the city geometry. Alas, this is not the reality. The building complex is not finished, and likely never will be, given enormous cost overruns. Some of the stone cladding is already crumbling and streaked with rust. Unlike the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the City of Culture is completely divorced from the city fabric; it seems that the only way to get there is by an indirect car route. When you walk around the buildings, there are very few other people. I had the impression that the building was a product of some sort of alien intelligence. But I think that our son, Max, said it best, “It seems to me that all of this will need to be torn down.”
We love public hearings. Whether citizens make negative or positive comments, we are always heartened by the passion of their statements. An event like a public hearing demonstrates how deeply we care about our buildings, and what our buildings say about us as a society. The fact that citizens take time out of their day to sit thru a long meeting and make comments in a room full of people about architecture is an amazing phenomenon. Architecture is called the mother art, and a public hearing only reinforces that precept.
While in Seattle last week, we saw a James Turell Skyspace. This is our second Turell experience, the first being the Guggenheim installation mentioned below. This was an oval cylinder that you entered via a bridge. There is a reclining perimeter bench which makes it easy to put your head back and stare at the mysterious hole in the ceiling. This one stays with you; I keep seeing this dark blue oval light at the most unexpected times. All we know is that we are going to be the first on the plane when he gets Rodin Crater finished.
We happened to be driving around Canastota, NY and came upon this great ruin. Typically you can’t get next to relics like this nor can you see inside. Yet we were able to do both, as the photo below demonstrates. Another amazing thing is that the interior was completely clean. You can still see how natural light entered the building from roof clerestorys. The north wall of glass most certainly contributed to the quality of the interior workspace. And lastly the central interior space was clear span. It is such a great feeling when you stumble upon something like this in an out of the way corner. Buildings like this speak directly to the past industrial might of New York State.
This page has occasionally focused on the farm building decay that we observe here in Otsego County. We were saddened and yet not surprised to see this gothic arch barn fail. We continually noted the increasing sag in the roof over the past 15 or so years. It is amazing that even when they fall down, there is a soft organic quality to the gothic arch barns. Looks like a crashed airship.
More about industrial landscapes. Sometimes the most incredible things are right in our own backyard. While driving thru Rome, NY yesterday we were stopped in our tracks by the Rome Cable factory. The late afternoon light reflecting off of the bright tower panels was stunning.
On a recent trip to Ireland, we spent an inordinate time looking at, what else, barns. A typical barn employs arched and shed roof forms which are combined in different ways. The interplay of the forms made each one more interesting than the next. And, as you might expect, the curved roof integrated them with the landscape.
