Architectural Analysis of Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art - Assignment Example

Architectural Analysis of Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's Bloch extension building was designed by noted architect and architectural theorist Steve Holl. How fitting that a museum that showcases the newest trends in art should itself receive a facelift for the 21st century. “Steven Holl Architects’ extension to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City has torn up the rule book of established codes of extension conduct and transformed the existing building into one of the most exciting exhibition spaces we’ve seen. The existing Nelson-Atkins museum is a ceremonial, classical structure – all colonnades, porticos and grand facades, sitting atop the undulating hillocks looking down on Kansas City. When in 1999, Steven Holl Architects entered the competition to build a suitable extension, it was the only firm daring enough to tamper with the existing façade and not hide its proposed structure in the shadow of the grand building. And it clearly paid off” (Yanko Design, 2007). In order to understand the choices that went into the Bloch Building, it is essential to understand architectural theory, philosophy, phenomenology and structuralism. Interpretive Strategies of Architecture as Art Though a kaleidoscopic array of theories exist on the matter of architecture, three should suffice. By far the most important is the architects' theory: Stephen Holls', as explicated in his 2009 Urbanisms: Working with doubt. Holls' philosophy here is that urban planning in the 21st century faces qualitatively new techniques. He argues that the attempt to break down all architecture to quantitative mathematical analysis is quixotic and counter-productive; instead, architects must “work with” and manage doubt in increasingly complex cityscapes by managing Fragments, Porosity, Insertions, Precious and Fusion elements. Holls emphasizes phenomenology here. He argues, “It is odd that few urban planners speak of the important phenomenological characteristics determining the qualities of urban life – spatial energy and mystery, qualities of light, color, sound and smell. The subjectivity of urban experience must be held in equal importance to the objective and practical” (2009, pg. 16). Holl argues that, just as the brain has a rational left side and a creative right side, so too must urban planners synthesize art and science, and urban planning must represent both the vagaries of subjective psychology and the rationality of controlled and planned spaces created by mathematical-scientific intervention. What is phenomenology? “"The philosophical movement that concentrates on the study of consciousness and its immediate objects” (Lecture 2). The distinction is complex. In essence, since the skeptical revolution of Hume, wherein it was demonstrated that it is impossible to philosophically know any empirical fact (such as that gravity follows the inverse square or that billiards bounce the way a pool shark knows they do) because of the limits of inductive logic and the fact that to generalize from the past to the future requires an untestable assumption: That the past is like the future (Hume, 1910). Kant then argued that not only was it impossible to know the nature of things, their ontology, but in fact human beings could never get access to ontological truth. Just as a camera takes an image of the world but that photograph it produces is not the same as the world it represents (“Ceci pas un pipe”), the human eye makes a model of the real world, a model that psychology has increasingly come to realize is a highly specific one with many features jettisoned for ease of processing. That model is not the real world, so no matter how precise our instrumentation or perceptions, we are never seeing things as they are. Thus, Kant argued that the study of ontology was impossible, and sharply cut it off from the study of phenomenology, which Husserl, Heidegger and Sartre later developed (Lecture 2). What does this have to do with architecture? Holl's argument is only one of many that tries to tie in phenomenology with architecture, a philosophy that actually had a post-modern backlash (Otero-Pailos, 2011). Read, for example, argues that phenomenology emphasizes relational and dynamic unity that conventional ontological architects ignore (O'Byrne and Healy, 2008). Perhaps a building in and of itself might be beautiful and artistic, but might it become less so because it does not harmonize with other buildings nearby? The ontologist will be concerned only about the building as an object-in-itself, but the phenomenological thinker will note that the building will never be seen in isolation but only in an organic unity of form, a building as part of many other buildings. Urban planners rarely think about how buildings are going to match with each other, except to impose staid conformity rather than variation. Further, urban planning also has to take into account that, while urban planners have the benefit of a top-down view of the city, others will rarely see that and will only see it from the ground level, as part of a lived experience. Phenomenological analyses like Kant's classical philosophy, though Kant himself did not apply it extensively to architecture, distinguishes between “free” beauty and dependent beauty (O'Byrne and Healy, 2008). Free beauty is unformed, unplanned beauty, seen but not planned or justified. Dependent beauty, meanwhile, has a preconception about form. Many, if not most, architects, then, throughout history, sought out dependent beauty. From Greek colonnades and designs to the modern rationalist architect, architecture has presupposed that particular forms must be beautiful, professional, classical, or what have you, and tried to achieve those goals. But an increasing movement, syncretically combining phenomenological and post-structuralist analyses, argues for focusing once more on free beauty, making things that appeal to people innately rather than projecting the authors' preferred form. Take Predock's creation of the Social Sciences building, the “Death Star” or the labyrinth, on the University of California, Davis campus, oft compared to an Escher painting (Harrison, 2007). “Its offices and rooms lack a sensible cohesion and order. It has paths that crisscross but never meet, rooms in close proximity that are not adjoined and catwalks that lead to seemingly arbitrary destinations. It is a geometric wasteland laced with asymmetry and dotted in irony. Like a run-on sentence, the pathway at the base of the structure lacks a subject and a destination: It twists, circles and repeats itself to the point of exhaustion; hidden staircases that blend into their surroundings and dizzying catwalks with glass walls are all part of the adventure” (Harrison, 2007). The reason for this often unpleasant end-user experience is simple: The building is a geographical representation of the state of California. From above, it is amazing to see California's geography; from the ground level, it is merely a pain. Predock emphasized dependent beauty over free beauty, and ignored the phenomenology of his ultimate subjects. The result is controversial, rather than successful. Of course, Holl's emphasis on subjectivity, post-structuralism, and combining rationality with subjective interpretation is not the only way of viewing architecture. One common metaphor that is being used in design is organic and biological analogies (Steadman, 2008). “Architects and designers have looked to biology for inspiration since the beginnings of the science in the early nineteenth century. They have sought not just to imitate the forms of plants and animals, but to find methods in design analogous to the processes of growth and evolution in nature. Biological ideas are prominent in the writings of many modern architects, of whom Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright are just the most famous” (Steadman, 2008). Increasingly, in the modern era, the mapping of the genome and the availability of computer technology and new instrumentation makes using biological analogies much more diverse (one can represent everything from a strand of DNA to a blue whale) and much more viable. Further, it is not just form that architects and artists are looking towards, but models and processes culled from the science of biology (Steadman, 2008, xv-xvii). Genetic algorithims, e.g. algorithms that self-improve over time from a naïve initial state to a highly developed later state, sees use in modern architecture. Similarly, the idea of “memes”, of biological transmission of ideas and fads, has also become popular (Steadman, 2008). Steadman is not arguing that the organic analogy is the only way of doing things, but that it is a valuable one. Nonetheless, this approach, despite being unorthodox and breaking free of established conventions of rigidity, is a highly objective, scientific, structuralist one. Biological and organic metaphors involve computers, algorithms, microscopes, and so forth. It is thus in sharp contrast to Holl's perception. Finally, post-structuralists disagree with both. Post-structuralists are not anti-architecture: Post-structuralism and post-modernism arose as counters to structuralists in linguistics (Lecture 3; 4). Structuralists argued for the fixed nature of sign and signified; post-structuralists argued for their inherently arbitrary, subjective nature. What makes a duck a “duck”? Intersubjective agreement. There is no law against calling it a “kwixally”. Post-structuralists in architecture, then, tried to separate signifier from signified. They also emphasize that social meaning is constructed by people, and not all people equally. “For poststructuralists, the project of art is largely a project of liberation from authoritarian meanings constructed by elites. It is a recognition of the artificiality of such meanings, and therefore of their illegitimate claim to “objective reality.” On the contrary, meaning is shown to be emergent in the structure of language and culture, and therefore, participatory in its essence. Meaning is a personal and social construct, to be built with others in a participatory fashion” (Mehaffy, 2004). Post-structuralists in essence would reject both Holl and Steadman's approach as meaningless. “Further, this view of things carries profound implications for our art, our architecture, and our intelligent interaction with a threatened world. The architect/artist cannot possibly make architecture that improves the quality of people's lives, because there is no agreement -- no possible agreement -- on what that might mean. Such a "meaning" would merely represent the hegemony of one privileged elite viewpoint over others. Who is to say, for example, that car exhaust is bad for people over time, or that a disordered environment is psychologically damaging? Such claims are merely the narratives of professional elites from medicine and psychology, imposing their own privileged constructions” (Mehaffy, 2004). Holl's idea of making phenomenologically pleasing landscapes are based in absurd constructed notions of “phenomenology”, “subjectivity”, “urban planning”, etc. that are defined arbitrarily. Similarly, the idea of an analogy to biology is ludicrous: Even if the notion of biology was not a social construct, certainly the form of the analogy would be. Le Corbusier's admonition in Vers une Architecture seems to be the best way of judging architecture's potential: “Architectural emotion exists when the work rings within us in tune with a universe whose laws we obey, recognise and respect. When certain harmonies have been attained, the work captures us. Architecture is a matter of harmonies, it is a 'pure creation of the spirit'” (Lecture 1). Given all of the above theory, was Holl's Bloch Building successful in evoking that architectural emotion Analysis of Bloch Building and Conclusion We can see that Holl put his money where his mouth is in the construction of the Bloch building. In particular, the building emphasizes two of Holl's principles: Fusion and Insertion (Holl, 2009, pgs. 16-36). Holl emphasizes that urban spaces, being already constructed, need to be designed around flexibility: Insertion into the new space, fragmental buildings that serve partial purposes, and fusions of existing and prior styles and spaces. The Bloch building stands in sharp contrast to the staid Nelson-Atkins museum (Yanko Design, 2007). Yet the contrast is harmonious, not distinct. Like a musical harmony, Holl uses different notes that nonetheless work with the original piece. Holl's space is efficient: It added 70% more gallery space to a much larger building (Yanko Design, 2007). It uses a bright white to offset the more traditional stone or eggshell white or beige that the main building uses, making a gradation of color and shade. Unlike other proposals for the expanded building, Holl's stands out in front: Instead of feeling like an addition, it feels like it is a quirky but authentic wing of the original building. It fuses with the original building. Similarly, the glass lenses of the building contrast with the original stone, making a harmony of material as well as color. Holl had a type of architectural humility in his design: The building clearly serves a support role. This emphasizes his argument that urban planners must be humble, willing to design fragments and insertions as much as whole buildings. Thus, Holl's philosophy led to an effective design which in turn led to an effective building. What of the biological analogy? First of all, there is no necessary contradiction between Holl and Steadman's approaches here. Holl is arguing not for pure subjectivity (a building based on the subjective idea that wood doesn't burn is not prudent architectural design), but a combination of subjective and objective methods. One perfect middle ground is emphasizing the fluidity and freedom of life in the design of architecture. More importantly, though, it seems to me that those arguing for a biological analogy are being arbitrary. Why a biological analogy? Why is it so valuable? One could argue that it must be beautiful for whatever reason (it calls to mind things that people like, find cute and are comfortable with, like birds and dogs and pets; it breaks conventional molds; it allows non-rigid, non-square, non-right-angled design that is nonetheless rational and sustainable), but that is dependent beauty. Why not embrace free beauty? Why not make buildings that people like, not that some architect thinks must be artistic? Using biological analogies is a tool; Holl is proposing a methodology to evaluate tools. As for post-structuralist methods: There are some value to them, but unfortunately, the idea that meaning is subjective not only flies in the face of the objective limits on architecture but opens one up to nonsense and pablum. “The deficiency of the poststructuralists is precisely that they can do nothing about the "real" world, because they deny the very basis on which we would know about this world and intelligently interact with it. All we can do is construct shared meanings about our plight. Meanwhile, we seem to have no responsibility for it, because we have no power to act. We literally have no ability to respond” (Maheffy, 2007). Further, post-structuralist architecture is based on an absurd premise: The idea that architects should be aware of the fact that their work is inherently class-oriented to serve the needs of ruling elites but do nothing about it. Architecture is expensive, so bringing in stakeholders such as corporations and rich endowments is essential. Alienating them with post-structuralist rhetoric makes no sense. At the same time, however, it is certainly possible to design buildings that attend to the needs, designs and opinions of the poor as well. Holl's theory does have some flaws. Ironically, it fails to note that some factors may be out of the control of planners. When he emphasizes smell, for example, he fails to the note that the smell of an urban landscape is going to be largely determined by very geographically broad factors having nothing to do with the buildings themselves: Garbage, pollution, litter, sticky gum on the ground... But, nonetheless, Holl's methodology and theory is the best way to manage a hybrid of and compromise between post-structuralist gibberish and an excess of scientific rationality. Works Cited Hale, J. 2000, Building Ideas: an introduction to architectural theory, London:John Wiley & Sons Harrison, M. 2007, “The Love-Hate Building”, UC Davis Campus Views, Winter, Available at: http://ucdavismagazine.ucdavis.edu/issues/win07/campus_views.html Holl,Steven. 2009, Urbanisms: working with doubt. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Hume, David. 1910, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Harvard Classics: Volume 37. P.F. Collier & Son. Jodidio, P. 2005, Architecture :Art. New York: Prestel Publishing Leach ,N. 1997, Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory. London:Routledge Mehaffy, M. 2004, “Meaning and the Structure of Things”, Katarxis, Available at: http://www.katarxis3.com/index.html O'Byrne, B and Healy, P. 2007, “Architecture and Phenomenology”, Footprint, Issue #3, Autumn, Available at: http://www.footprintjournal.org/issues/show/architecture- and- phenomenology Otero-Pailos, J. 2011, “Phenomenology in Architecture: Of Places and Lifeworlds Beyond Intention”, GSAPP, Course. Saieh, N. 2008, “The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art”, Arch Daily, July 30, Available at: http://www.archdaily.com/4369/the-nelson-atkins-museum-of-art-steven-holl-architects/ Steadman, P. 2008, The Evolution of Designs ,Biological Analogy in Architecture and the Applied Arts. London: Routledge. Yanko Design. 2007, “Extension of Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art by Steve Holl”, June 14, Available at: http://www.yankodesign.com/2007/06/14/extension-of-nelson-atkins- museum-of-art-by-steve-holl/ Read More