Wednesday Book Review / Promotion

The Future of the Past

A comprehensive and eloquent argument for “new traditional” architecture that preserves the style and character of historic buildings.
 
With contemporary design being redefined by architects and urbanists who are recovering the historic language associated with traditional architecture and the city, how might preservation change its focus or update its mission? Steven W. Semes makes a persuasive case that context matters and that new buildings and additions to old buildings should be harmonious with their neighbors.

 

Semes mounts the most thorough attack I’ve ever read on the anti-tradition stance of many architectural and historic preservation professionals. The need for this book is intense….Everyone, including general readers, will find this book’s many illustrations, with their pithy captions, illuminating. This book should help the confused 21st century to create and maintain places of lasting value. (Philip Langdon - New Urban News )

[P]resents a persuasive case against the preservation ethic of oppositional styling; that is, the argument that new additions to historic buildings must be deliberately un-period so as not to be confused with the existing, ‘authentic’ section of the building. Semes illuminates the error of this way of thinking, and walks us through a history of architecture and preservation in the process. (Planetizen.com )

[A] stirring and passionate call to get historic preservation right by respecting the past without making it sacrosanct. (Civil Engineering )

[A] clear and comprehensive argument….adds significantly to the discussion, one that should continue as an important topic within the historic preservation, urban planning, and architecture professions. (AASLH History News )

The Decade’s Most Important Book on Urban Architecture….With the publication of this volume, Steven Semes has vaulted into the first rank of contemporary architectural critics and preservation theorists…. should be must reading for all preservationists and people serving on landmark commissions and design review boards. (Clem Labine - Traditional Building )

Semes has written an indictment so complete and so damning, and yet expressed with such grace and diplomacy, that all thoughtful preservationists and even some modern architects will finally understand, if not admit, the error of their ways….so clear, so strong and so compelling that professionals in the field may be judges by how they react to it. (David Brussat - The Providence Journal )

[S]peaks in common-sense terms, it is didactic and approachable, and the laymen who are in the trenches…will find powerful ammunition in it. (American Arts Quarterly )

[B]eautifully illustrated….comprehensive….[N]eeds to be understood and followed by professional architects and preservationists; most of the lay public, which likes old buildings and neighborhoods, is already on Semes’ side. (Rob Hardy - The Commercial Dispatch )

I do not think I've ever come away from a book more impressed. Its erudition and its force in putting across a complex contrarian argument are incomparable. This book should be required reading for modern architects, who will start to whistle past the graveyard, and preservationists, who will see the error of their ways and, if they are honest, will admit it.... All I can say is read the review - or better yet, go out right now and get the book itself. It is my new bible. (David Brussat - Architecture Here and There, The Providence Journal ) 

 

The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, Urbanism and Historic Preservation
by Steven W. Semes

Retail:  $60.00 Amazon: $37.80

An Architecture of Our Time?

Charles Siegel tackles the criticism of New Classicism and New Urbanism that it resembles a theme park, or if you will a Disneyfication in his book An Architecture of Our Time: The New Classicism. Here is an example. You decide.

Theme Park Architecture[?] Which of these two recent buildings is designed to look like a symphony hall, and which is designed to attract gaping tourists, like a theme park?

Above: David Schwartz, Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, 2006. (Photograph by Kerry Woo.)

Below: Frank Gehry, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, 2003. (Photograph by PDphoto.org.)

Michael Graves' new Louwman Museum opens in The Hague

The recently completed Louwman Museum in The Hague is now fully open to the public, playing host to private collector Evert Louwman’s extensive range of over 230 historic cars and the world’s largest collection of automotive art.

Of his design, American architect Michael Graves said: “In designing the Louwman Museum, we drew much of our inspiration from the historical and physical context and strove to give the new museum an identity of its own within its surroundings. The Great Hall, with its huge, arched timber roof, forms an east-west backbone through the building, which distinguishes the lofty exhibition rooms from the smaller, public rooms by the main entrance, such as the museum shop and the access to the theatre. With the steep, peaked roofs that are typical of Dutch architecture, the exterior of this section of the museum is reminiscent of a coach house. This makes the building as a whole appear smaller, so that it blends sympathetically with buildings in the surrounding area. 

The design incorporates modern details alongside distinctive Dutch elements. The bricks in the facades have been laid in a special woven pattern, forming a stark contrast to the other, more understated surfaces. It is complemented by quarry stone details and a slate-tiled roof. As well as serving as a special exhibition space, an octagonal pavilion at the rear of the building has been positioned in line with an existing avenue of trees, connecting the building with the landscape.”

Landscape architect Lodewijk Baljon designed the park that surrounds the new Louwman Museum. Housed in a monumental building with its own surrounding parkland, the Louwman Museum has been designed with the look and feel of a grand estate. The structure occupies an enviable location in a line of beautiful estates that fringe the A44, near Wassenaar. Both the architecture and surrounding park had to reflect this stately location. The firm of Lodewijk Baljon, landscape architects from Amsterdam, was commissioned with this task, planting majestic trees and extensive hedges to form a frame for the museum that will mature with the passage of time.

Louwman Museum
Leidsestraatweg 57
2594 BB Den Haag
Tel.: +31 (0)70 – 304 7373
Fax.: +31 (0)70 – 383 5587

Modern Faves: The Open Ended Box

Today we are exploring in photo-montage the ubiquitous Modern Architecture element:  

The Open Ended Box.

Some may say it is a reference to early cave dwelling and has a deep seated existence in our unconscious mind. Some say the environment is participating in the architecture by being the "fourth wall". Some say it is the culmination of a "journey" through it to a framed view in the distance, or a view capturing device.  Some may even say it  is aimed at man's hopes and dreams for the future.

Whether on the ground or raised up; singly placed or stacked in mock nonchalance; no matter how beautifully described by written word, we can't get enough of it.... drum roll please, I give you:

The Modern Open Ended Box! (or MOEB in the biz.)

Building designed by world leading classicist architect is new landmark for Beirut

Originally Posted 05 March 2010 on Architecturelab online magazine.

architecturelab.net

The building provides a striking entrance to the Place de L’etoile

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“1458 Marfaa is a mixed use building on an historic site. Completed in October 2009 the building responds to the client’s request for a building of ‘timeless’ quality for a prominent corner site that marks an important medieval gateway into old Beirut.

The Bab Idriss gate of the city was said to have once sat on this site and marked the line of the rising sun on the day of the city’s foundation. The building design draws on this historic memory relating physically and symbolically to Beirut’s past. The building also acts as a formal entrance into the Place de L’etoile, created under the French mandate.

British architect Robert Adam cooperated with the Beirut architect and friend Fadlallah Dagher after his firm Dagher Hanna & Partners Architects won a competition to develop the site.

 This building provides 5,840 m2 of retail and office space and eleven luxury apartments, plus additional levels below ground for car parking.

Decoration reinterprets traditional Ottoman and Islamic forms and uses different levels of embellishment across each façade, graded in detail from the simplified street elevations to the more elaborate classical detail on the corner as the most important element of this building. A modulation of three bays with recessed balconies and set backs creates a characteristic streetscape. A proportion of 1 to 1.8 is used for this building, which is consistent with the proportions of Ottoman period town house bays.

The rooftop beacon or lantern emphasises the corner along the axis of the Roman gateway and provides a focus between the junction of the old centre and the surrounding modern city. It is a contemporary lit structure that develops a Middle Eastern classicism with modern materials.”
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Simplified street elevations

Lantern develops Middle Eastern classicism

The elevations move smoothly from minimalist approach to full classical expression 

Decoration reinterprets traditional Ottoman and Islamic forms

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About the Architects

Robert Adam Architects

The Practice was founded in 1955 and became Robert Adam Architects in 1992. It has an international reputation in classical and traditional architecture and has become a world leader in progressive classical design, combining tradition with the latest technology.

As well as significant projects in the UK and the USA the practice works across Europe, the Middle East and Japan.

Its portfolio of award-winning projects includes exclusive town and country houses, public and commercial buildings, pioneering work in master planning, urban design and the conversion, restoration and extension of important historic buildings.

The work of Robert Adam Architects has been widely published, exhibited and broadcast. As widely acclaimed experts in classical design and progressive technology, its directors are consulted by government agencies and ministries on policy and design, and regularly invited to write, lecture and teach.
In addition, all five directors are trustees of many national interest groups and founders of international architectural and urban design organisations.”

UK Architect: Robert Adam at Robert Adam Architects
Client’s representative/Local Architect: Dagher Hanna & Partners Architects