Their reputations may not quite up there with bankers just yet, but the stock of the celebrity/iconic architect is most definitely on the wane. After Building claimed earlier in the month the end of the era of the ‘icon’ building due to the recession two more pieces appear this week to twist the knife in. A strongly-argued letter appears this morning from Albert Rydale in Building and architect Rab Bennetts takes an indirect swipe at grand architectural statements in a piece in BSD.
Rydale’s ire is both aimed at the architects themselves – he describes Daniel Libeksind’s Imperial War Museum as “practically designed to waste energy” – but also the over-excited journalists that were caught in their spell of over-wrought rhetoric and puffed up pretensions and ego.Architectural journalists “must share the blame for promoting ’stararchitects’ who have left many clients with disastrous buildings”. Mea culpa Albert – I remember interviewing the aforementioned Libeskind for Building back in 2003 after he had won the competition to design to new Freedom Tower. You couldn’t help be bowled over by the energy and enthusiasm of the man, although trying to take shorthand from a man who probably gabs at 200 words a minute. And while some of his buildings are undoubtedly stunning (Berlin Jewish museum) there’s a now a whiff of snake oil surrounding what he delivers.
Rab Bennets has a rather different but equally valid point to make. he takes to task the gulf between the architect as artist and the architect as deliverable of usable and measurable objects. And specifically those that talk a good game sustainability-wise but fail to back it up. He calls this delusion and runs through some examples – Swiss Re (no data as yet, air-conditioned, no solar shading), the Palestra office building in Southwark designed by Will Alsop, the “eco chimney” planned for the Battersea Power station and Bishopsgate Tower designed by SOM. The latter has a BREEAM excellent rating, which perplexes Bennetts.
How is it possible for air-conditioned, deep-plan buildings with full-height unshaded glazing to get BREEAM excellent? It
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on Mar 27th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Having seen the likes of Chris Wilkinson (Wilkinson Eyre), Christoph Ingenhoven (Ingenhoven Architects) and Thomas Herzog (Herzog + Partner, no relation to Jacques) talk about sustainability last year, it was refreshing to know that “big name” architects are coming up with elegant solutions to sustainability, and many have been doing so for decades.
Whilst these three names in particular are possibly not considered “starchitects” by many, they are three prime examples of the many vastly successful (though usually unsung) architects and firms who have long been demonstrating that art and practicality are not mutually exclusive.
on Mar 27th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Simplicity aligned to design is certainly what the smart thinkers are predicting for post-recession architecture, not least because it’s cheaper to build. I think you’re right to flag up the poor sustainable ambition of some of the “starchitects”. For some it’s simply something the engineers take care of during construction. The idea takes precedence. But if sustainability is not embedded in the design from the get-go it is never going to be effective.
At least as big a threat, which I think Rab picked up on, is the idea of sustainability being used as a marketing tool. IMHO, Rafael Vinoly’s “eco-tower” was never anything other than a marketing gimmick designed to get the scheme into the press. But the developers can now use the argument they were forced to scrap it to lower their sustainable targets.
We see similar things coming from the Middle East every week. If you believe the hype, Foster’s Masdar development is going to be the most environmentally-friendly scheme the world has ever seen. But how green can you really be when air-conditioning and desalination are a necessity? I suspect this is the real snake oil. Seeming green is a lot cheaper than being green.
on Mar 27th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
[...] View original post here: Celebrity architects and sustainability [...]
on Mar 27th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
[...] news & events forum…http://enuws.com/japan-oks-deployment-of-missile-defense-system-ap/…Celebrity architects and sustainability | Zerochampion…Freedom Tower – downtown Miami « Miamism pix…Defacing at The Freedom Tower | Pablo [...]
on Mar 27th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
There’s more than “a whiff of snake oil” around Libeskind’s work.
The Washington post described the Libeskind’s ROM in Toronto as “the most perverse and disastrous museum expansion in living memory.”
Libeskind’s Imperial War Museum in Britain received the country’s worst possible energy rating for its failure to be environmentally responsible.
And the interiors Libeskind’s Denver Museum had to be rebuilt to comply with ADA regulations, not to mention the problems trying to hand art on walls better suited to skateboarding.
Which is probably why Libeskind hired a more capable architect to design his own home near his workplace in New York. Even Libeskind seemes to have acknowledged his own incompetence.
Given the wasted millions, Libeskind is worse than a snake-oil salesman. He’s architecture’s Bernie Maddoff.
on Mar 28th, 2009 at 3:58 am
The only “sustainable” thing about Daniel Libeskind is his sustained lack of intelligence, his constant ignorance and his perpetual facetious grin.
Given the sad state of the world, I’m at least glad that he’s someone to continue laughing at.