Wednesday Book Review / Promotion

A Classical Journey: The Houses of Ken Tate
from an essay on the architect's website
 

Architect Ken Tate’s passage through education, internship and early employment in his chosen field, finally culminating in the establishment of his own Mississippi-based practice, can be described as a Classical journey. When he completed his Bachelor of Architecture at Auburn University, a bastion of 1970s modernism, Classicism wasn’t even on the table as a valid approach to present-day design. Unlike these architects, Tate was drawn to engage more profoundly with the Classical, archaic, and vernacular roots of architecture. These origins fed him on a spiritual level, as well as an aesthetic one, inspiring the title of his thesis: Architecture in Search of Soul.

 
Bringing Karl Jung’s ideas of archetypes that speak the universal language of the collective unconscious to his understanding of past architecture and his own creative process, Tate established the foundation for his future work. “To bring beauty out of ugliness, order out of chaos, and something new out of passion,” was the ambitious student’s goal, and one that still informs the mature architect’s practice.

Not long after Tate completed his formal education, the New Classicism movement arose. Advocating a faithful approach to reviving the Classical tradition, the movement’s leaders called for the study and practical application of forms, proportions, and decorative motifs from Greco-Roman, Renaissance, and Neoclassical architecture. In 1992, the Institute for Classical Architecture was founded with the goal, in the words of an early alumnus, of teaching students “to produce traditional and classical architecture in an informed and rigorous way.”

Although Tate was later to become associated with this movement, his early work revealed a fascination with outsider architecture and the vernacular. Having interned with Bruce Goff, famed for his creative free association and use of borrowed materials, Tate later joined fellow Auburn graduate, architect Sam Mockbee, in Jackson, Mississippi. Describing Mockbee as “a wild, creative person,” Tate served as his head designer many years before Mockbee went on to form the Rural Studio. From these two mentors, Tate learned the practical, architectural applications of unrestrained imagination.

Before starting his own firm in 1984, Tate practiced briefly with Texas architect Richard Davis, whose philosophy celebrated the pluralism of historical architecture. Tate describes his work with Davis, during which he participated in the design of large residences drawing from a range of styles, as an important turning point in his career. “Richard’s work expressed an inclusive approach to the language of traditional architecture, which was very inspirational to me when I started my own practice,” says Tate. During his tenure with Davis, who worked extensively in the early-twentieth-century neighborhood of Highland Park, Tate also discovered another source of inspiration: Colonial Revival architecture.

Twenty-five years later, when Tate is asked to name his favorite period or style of architecture, he invariably points to the rich eclecticism of early-twentieth century America. Whether discussing the Colonial Revival houses in America’s first suburbs or Addison Mizner’s exuberant Mediterranean fantasies in Palm Beach, he praises the fluid[ity] of style and sense of ease exhibited by these dwellings.

By the time he formed his own firm, Tate was ready to put all these lessons into practice, creating an intuitive, open-ended approach that draws upon a wide range of influences, from ancient to modern, and high style to vernacular. “I don’t know if I’m doing anything differently from what’s been done before,” says Tate, “but there aren’t a lot of people doing it this way. I follow intuition, and I’m not afraid to do something that is needed for a project, even though it may have nothing to do with authenticity.”

    While New Classicist architects were approaching antique prototypes in a purist fashion, Tate was asking, “What is authentic? If you have the whole history of classical architecture to choose from, it’s up to the architect to make it work.” This inquiry has informed a wide variety of residential projects, from near faithful interpretations of Federal and Georgian styles to unapologetically eclectic dwellings that marry the Classical and with the vernacular.

According to Robert A.M. Stern, an advocate of New Classicism: “the past is a rich terrain that can be reoccupied, but with that reoccupation comes an obligation to give back, that is to interpret and reinterpret.” Tate’s open-minded approach to employing the wealth of historic styles fulfills this mandate, revealing the vitality, versatility, and beauty with which they can be employed.

Hardcover: 450 pages
Publisher: Images Publishing Group Pty. Ltd. (due: February 16, 2011) 
Retail: $90.00 Amazon: $56.70

Alys Beach - Beautifully New Urban

All-Around Town-Architects

Khoury & Vogt Architects are definitely putting their New Urbanist stamp on Alys Beach, formerly a parcel of virgin land in the Florida panhandle that is now a growing resort town.

from Traditional Building / by Gordon Bock

 

An elevated view of Alys Beach highlights not only its all-white masonry construction, but also the stepped and cement-slaked roofs borrowed from Bermuda that are repeated throughout the community as a unifying design element. Photo: Tommy Crow 

Many architects would be satisfied to build a pipeline of commissions and clients in not too far-flung locations, but when you get the chance to do all your work in the same community – and even put your own stamp on it from day one – that's a whole different design game. Yet that's just what the firm of Khoury & Vogt Architects was hired on to do when it took the job of town architect for the growing resort of Alys Beach. Based on the Florida coast near Pensacola, the office, which tops out around six people, has a whole zip code as its most important work-in-progress.

Marieanne Khoury-Vogt, AIA, CNU, and Eric Vogt, AIA, CNU: “DPZ gave us a building type that is both very rare and very appealing – a combination you usually don’t find.” Photo: Michael Granberry 

The title 'town architect' looks good on a business card or sign, but in terms of a practice, what exactly does it mean? Says principal Eric Vogt, AIA, "Traditionally, the job of town architect is to form an office, generally on-site, and oversee basically every aspect of the town's development – and that certainly applies to us." In this case, though, "every aspect" is truly the operative phrase because the town is excitingly different and totally new. "When we arrived, Alys Beach was pretty much virgin land," says principal Marieanne Khoury-Vogt, AIA, "and though there was a master plan and a vision, we were hired prior to the developer even getting his development order."

"We're really soup-to-nuts here," says Vogt. "We work on the larger scale of the town – refining the town center, block by block, and coming up with a vision of how it might look and be implemented, down to the smallest details of, say, choosing a plant palette suitable for a park area. It's very satisfying to find yourself responsible – in good ways and bad – for every detail of not just a building or landscape, but every single piece, from electrical transformers to roof pitches and chimneys." Adds Khoury-Vogt, "We oversee the work of other architects, landscape architects, and designers, as well as the implementation of infrastructure, roads and utilities, but we also produce our own work. Indeed, the very first building that broke ground was one of our designs, a sales center that was planned to eventually be converted into a house, so we've been involved from the very beginning."

One of the seminal New Urbanist design tenets put into practice at Alys Beach is to make the community totally walkable. Pedestrian and bike paths connect to all buildings, as well as the beach. Photo: Maura McEvoy

From Miami to Yankee and Back
As it happens, Khoury-Vogt and Vogt are partners in life as well as professionally. They met in Miami while working as architects for different firms; Vogt in particular spent a couple years with Duany Plater-Zyberk. After marrying, they relocated to New Haven, CT, where Vogt continued his studies at Yale and Khoury-Vogt spent time with Herbert Newman Architects, helping to renovate and restore campus buildings. "Once Eric was done with graduate school," says Khoury-Vogt, "we pretty much knew we wanted to start our own office, so we targeted Miami because it was a city with a lot of work and one we knew well." Back in Florida, they set up their own firm in August 2001 and though commissions were naturally small and modest in the beginning, they had the foundation of a solid practice when the developer of Alys Beach called.

Khoury-Vogt admits that the job of town architect sounded very attractive, but at first they weren't particularly interested in moving up to the Florida panhandle. "We had settled comfortably into Miami," she recalls, "and had started to put down roots and get some very nice clients, nonetheless we did go up and meet with the developer."

In the Palladio-award winning Lake Marilyn Bridge, Khoury & Vogt deftly extend the architectural language of the residential community to a striking piece of streetscape that not only blends landscape design of the lake and promenade, but enhances the idyllic ambiance through its reflection in the water. Photo: Kurt Lischka

It was Andrés Duany, principal at Duany Plater-Zyberk, the master planners for Alys Beach, who encouraged Khoury & Vogt to relocate their practice upstate and take the job as town architects for their New Urbanist resort community. "He convinced us that the town would offer very good design opportunities for us as architects," says Vogt. "Since you don't get many plum projects when you're starting out, we eventually agreed that it would be a great chance to jump-start our design work."

The Fonville Press building is another Palladio-winning Khoury & Vogt design that houses not only a bookstore but also a café restaurant. Photo: Maura McEvoy  

A Tabula Rasa of a Town
Right from the get-go it was clear that Alys Beach would be no ordinary town. To begin with, town founder Jason Comer was not a traditional real estate developer, and his family happened to own a rare, consolidated, 160-acre parcel of land along the Gulf Coast. Next, the developer had hired not your average architects but DPZ – the firm who took New Urbanism from theory to reality with the much lauded community of Seaside, FL, as well as its nearby sister community, Rosemary Beach. In the vision of Andrés Duany, Alys Beach would be the third generation of "a distinctive beach town designed and founded upon the principles of New Urbanism."

The courtyard plan that defines the housing at Alys Beach effectively creates outdoor rooms. These may be loggias partially sheltered by the surrounding structure, or shared with adjacent houses and often incorporating pools. Photo: Tommy Crow  

As Vogt explains it, what distinguishes Alys Beach as New Urbanist is the way in which it is planned "truly as a town in the traditional sense" with a mix of uses, completely walkable, and built in an architectural style that contributes to a coherent and harmonious urban whole in terms of the street. Adds Khoury-Vogt, "As master planned by DPZ, there is a town center that will have a variety of different building types – live-work, mixed-use buildings, primarily commercial/retail on the first floor, and residential above. It's a beautiful site, and when all is said and done it will probably be 800 to 900 units – a combination of single-family homes and condos, yet all built around the concept of a walkable, pedestrian-friendly environment."

Adds Vogt, "The master plan made by DPZ establishes all this, but the design code is what guides the build-out. And what guides the design code is our office and all of our many collaborators – both on our team, as well as the outside designers who are contributing to the building-out of the town."

 Though individual houses are not architecturally outstanding – just white with dark accents and a defining detail or two – when collected as a streetscape they create an ensemble that is varied and interesting, yet coherent and not overpowering. Photo: Kurt Lischka

What really sets the unique character of Alys Beach is the form and construction of the houses – as unexpected in their form and simplicity as they are hauntingly familiar – dreamlike is a word often used. "In terms of typology, it's courtyard housing – the patio house," says Khoury-Vogt. "Though the precedent is from Antigua, Guatemala, it's inspired by Bermuda, so it's an all-white architecture, 90 percent of which is masonry, making it both sculptural and beautiful."

One of the first structures to break ground, this sales center designed by Khoury & Vogt, gets its exotic-yet-inviting appearance through the careful combination of eclectic features, such as multiple window shapes. Photo: Jack Gardner 

 From this description alone, it's apparent Alys Beach is not yet another spin on the neo-vernacular 'cracker house' – that low, backcountry, frame dwelling with a shallow roof and ample porch that became the poster child for indigenous Florida architecture by the 1990s. "Actually, it's intentionally quite the opposite," says Vogt. "After seeing examples of new wood cracker neighborhoods that started to get a bit frenetic, because they came from the hands of talented architects who got a little competitive, DPZ sought to establish a residential language that would remain quieter in an urban setting."

The residential models for Alys Beach are found in Antigua, Guatemala and Bermuda. Clearly in the Bermudian mode, this freestanding house is built not only low and strong like the island vernacular but also with the short eaves that avoid storm wind lift. Photo: Tommy Crow 

Duany in particular had long admired the island architecture of Bermuda and had been waiting for the right occasion to revisit it. "It's a very simple but coherent vernacular that is just stuccoed walls with tiled and cement-slaked roofs," explains Khoury-Vogt. "So you have these very simple, almost Monopoly-like houses that might appear very staid – even boring – by themselves, but are actually very pleasing when combined on an urban street because each building is not trying to outdo its neighbor."

Another primary driver of the design is the masonry construction. While frame houses have done very well on the Gulf Coast, building more durably for aggressive hurricanes, as well as the day-to-day wear of the marine environment, made a lot of sense. "It's concrete block with basically every cell filled, then it's reinforced beyond the requirements of the Florida building code, which is already pretty rigorous," Khoury-Vogt adds.
Alys Beach is also built to the Fortified Building Guidelines, which mandates impact-resistant doors and windows. "Since the architectural model is Bermuda," adds Khoury-Vogt, "we have to have pretty shallow eaves – also good against uplift in hurricanes." Since building with masonry has some very real added costs, part of Khoury & Vogt's initial job was to persuade the client base that it's worth the up-front investment, but that logic has been easier to demonstrate as time goes on.

Khoury & Vogt won one of its three Palladio Awards for the design of the Caliza Pool, a complex with a 47,300 sq.ft. footprint. Photo: Jack Gardner   

"All of these things are absolutely traditional elements," says Vogt, "We are inventing nothing here." Rather, he adds, they are taking elements and ideas that have been in various warm-weather cultures – Spain, Italy, the Middle East – for thousands of years and redeploying them. "Like a cuisine, you're recombining ingredients in ways that have not been done before, but you're certainly not inventing any new food."

Like many resort communities along the Gulf Coast, Alys Beach is a magnet for the towns of the South – Atlanta, Birmingham, over to Texas, and even up to Nashville, TN, and the Carolinas. As Vogt explains, they attract people who are generally traditional in taste, but used to Southern architecture in the Classical and Georgian vein. "While there was some initial trepidation about Alys Beach, and we worried that the market might be a little wary of this housing type, all our fears were unfounded." According to the architects, Alys Beach resonates with people as something that is both engagingly new and yet familiar at a hard-to-define level. "We get comments like, 'It's not quite like a place we once visited in Italy, but it reminds me of it in a good way.'"

Depending upon your point of view, designing a town from scratch may seem the ideal way to head off problems or, if you're a pessimist, invite them, but Khoury & Vogt sees it all as an amazing process with benefits in every challenge. For example, Khoury-Vogt notes, "We have been able to forge relationships with millwork companies that help us provide a library of windows and doors that we think are well-suited to the houses that are being designed."

 

 An even bigger asset though has been coming onboard as the town architect right from the ground-breaking – and at that same time the construction company was hired. Explains Khoury-Vogt, "It's been an incredible advantage to work hand-in-hand with the construction company over the last seven years – not only to further refine the architectural model, but also to look at ways that we can be smarter with building materials and the choices that we make."

Vogt is struck by the way they have to keep equal tabs on the larger strategic mission as well as the smallest details. "Since we're still early in the project, we continue to wrestle with what we call global decisions. We may have to select one tiny element of the environment – a lamppost or a paver – but it's a global decision because, whatever the choice, it's going to have to be implemented over a generation of buildings."
Since these global decisions are fraught with a lot of weight, Khoury & Vogt says they've learned the value of pushing them off as far as is practical into the future. This buys time to obtain the maximum amount of information and have other details in place before making a decision. They also try to get input from everyone on the team, and test many different options for a decision, until they're comfortable with a choice. "We're very happy to say we haven't made any global decisions that we'd like to rethink, because it would be very costly and time-consuming to have to change course on any one of them – even though what we're selecting may be very mundane."

Indeed, seven years after arriving at the patch of untouched coast that was to be Alys Beach, Khoury & Vogt clearly would do it all over again, noting "We've learned a tremendous amount, are very grateful to our town founder Jason Comer, and our regrets are less-than-zero." TB

---

Gordon Bock is a writer, architectural historian, and technical consultant whose upcoming courses and most popular workshops can be seen at www.bocktalk.com.

What NOT to do...

from The New Combination of Modern and Classic House by Studio Octopi
By Modern Residential Design July 16, 2010

 

Does this project really have "a unique geometry which seems to blend very well with this building." It may be nicely detailed, however this is just the wrong solution. What do you think?

Wednesday Book Review/ Promotion

 

New Classicists: Robert Adam and the Search for a Modern Classicism 

by Richard John

 

Robert Adam Architects has an international reputation for classical and traditional architecture and design informed by the latest technology. The firm has offices in the UK with work throughout Britain, the USA, continental Europe, and Asia. Their portfolio of award-winning projects covers a range of commercial and institutional developments, master planning, historic buildings, and country houses within the UK and abroad. A variety of classical styles abound in the firm's spectacular residential work, including Georgian, Victorian, Gothic, Medieval, Colonial, Arts & Crafts, Baroque, Queen Anne, Palladian, and Regency. The firm's unique ability to combine a modern interpretation of the classical tradition with the latest developments in solar energy research is evident in projects such as its 'solar house' on the Sussex Downs. This handsome volume presents more than 100 projects in categories including commercial developments, private residences, and country houses. Robert Adam Architects has an international reputation for classical and traditional architecture and design informed by the latest technology. The firm has offices in the UK with work throughout Britain, the USA, continental Europe, and Asia.

Robert Adam Architects has an international reputation for classical and traditional architecture and design informed by the latest technology. The firm has offices in the UK with work throughout Britain, the USA, continental Europe, and Asia.

Robert Adam and the Seach For Modern Classicism
by Richard John
Publisher: Images Publishing Dist A/C (October 16, 2010)
Retail: $90.00 Amazon: $65.70

Take a Drive Through Poundbury

  from Green Life Style Magazine

Prince Charles dreamed of building a new eco-friendly community – using traditional architecture – where people would live and work in close proximity. In 1988, he appointed well-known architect and urban planner, Leon Krier, to work on an overall concept for 400 acres of virgin farmland in Poundbury, Dorset. This ‘model’ village has a mix of town houses, cottages, shops and businesses at the edge of Dorchester in Dorset now housing up to 5000 residents . The developments at Poundbury are part of a wider movement called New Urbanism and one of the first examples of this was Seaside in Florida (where The Truman Show was filmed). Despite nicknames such as ‘Toy Town’ or ‘Charles Town’, Poundbury remains a popular place to live. Initially Poundbury was dismissed as an irrelevance, and was subject to unfavourable reviews in the press especially from those who disliked the ‘old fashioned’ style of the houses. However, the principles it was based upon have recently come to be accepted as good practice and the village is now considered to be very relevant to public policy and how best to build houses in the countryside. The development is now the subject of worldwide interest by planners, architects and housebuilders and many of the principles are being incorporated into other developments. Duchy of Cornwall official website.

Modern Nazca Lines??

What are we saying about ourselves?

Christoph Gielen's aerial studies of suburban land-use patterns can be seen in Culturehall, the online art magazine curated by David Andrew Frey around the theme "Future History."

[Image: "Skye Isle II, Florida" (2009) by Christoph Gielen].

[image: Zigzag pattern - Nazca, Peru]

Glyphic, abstract, and typological, Gielen's chosen land forms span the multi directional universe of ribbons in the highway structures of Southern California to kaleidoscopic rosaries of Arizona houses.

In his own words, Gielen "specializes in conducting photographic aerial studies of infrastructure in its relation to land use, exploring the intersection of art and environmental politics."

[Image: "Untitled Arizona III" (2010) by Christoph Gielen].

[Image: Spider - Nazca, Peru]

The results are often stunning, as monumental earth-shields of anthropological sprawl reveal their spatial logic from above. Seemingly drab and ecologically disastrous—even intellectually stultifying—suburbs become complex geographic experiments that perhaps didn't quite go as planned.

Some of the photos—such as "Sterling Ridge VII, Florida" (2009), below—look genuinely alien, more like conceptual studies for exoplanetary settlements as imagined in the 1950s by NASA.

[Image: "Sterling Ridge VII, Florida" (2009) by Christoph Gielen].

[image: Spiral - Nazca, Peru]

How strange, though, and deeply ironic would it be for a photographic project ostensibly intended to show us how off-kilter our built environment has become—Gielen writes that "he hopes to trigger a reevaluation of our built environment, to ask: What kind of development can be considered sustainable?"—to reveal that the suburbs are, in a sense, intensely original settlement patterns tiled over the landscape in ways our species could never have anticipated? We are living amidst geometry, post-terrestrial screens between ourselves and the planet we walk upon.

For more on Nasca and the Geoglyphs visit National Geographic Online.

A Redesigned Boston City Hall

The Boston Globe recently featured ideas from readers for a few ditched projects around Boston, including the idea abandoned by Mayor Menino of demolishing and rebuilding City Hall.

 
Cambridge resident Aaron Helfand rendered a new Boston City Hall. "I think Boston does need a new city hall, and I think it should be built on the site of the current City Hall Plaza, in the heart of the city," he said in an e-mail to Boston.com. Aaron recently graduated from the architecture school at Notre Dame, one of only three or four in the country with a classical curriculum.

This illustration depicts the west and south elevations of Helfand's proposal.
Helfand, who completed University of Notre Dame's graduate architecture program in May, used these renderings for his senior thesis. This interior detail shows a reception room.






















"With my project, I have attempted to figure out why the current City Hall and its plaza are as unpopular as they are and to offer an alternate vision, one which will create a lively public plaza, defined by inventive architecture that builds on Boston's rich architectural traditions," he said.

"Most importantly, I sought to design buildings that would last, since this is one of the most important requirements of sustainability in architecture," Helfand said in his e-mail. This image shows more details from Helfand's rendering.

The South Lawn at the University of Virginia

Architectural Criticism from Traditional Architecture Compendium
A Compilation of Articles of and About Classical and Traditional Architecture
Posted by Dino Marcantonio
May 26, 2010

A student recently reminded me of the architectural hubbub of a few years ago at our alma mater, the University of Virginia. In September 2005, to kick off the semester, a large majority of the faculty members of the school of architecture signed "An Open Letter to the Board of Visitors, the University Administration, and the University Community" which criticized the university's periodic tendency to commission traditional architecture for buildings on grounds. It was penned in response to the university's firing of the staunchly modernist firm Polshek Partnership and the hiring of the slightly less staunchly modernist firm Moore Ruble Yudell to design the South Lawn Project.

There was a fierce reaction from the international community of traditional architects, culminating in a full page ad in the school paper, The Cavalier Daily, supporting the university's efforts to extend the principles embodied in The Lawn, the university's original buildings.

The University of Virginia Lawn, designed by Thomas Jefferson.
 

Architects, historians, alumni, students, and concerned citizens lobbed more letters back and forth over the net, attracting national attention. But the most thoughtful attempt to spur the university in the direction pictured below was provided by Professor Edward Ford, one of the letter's signatories, in his talk Some Thoughts on Architecture at Virginia.

The University of Virginia's Hereford College,
by architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien.

To his credit, Ford was reserved in his praise for the hope-sapping Hereford College, surprising considering the school had recently awarded Williams and Tsien the prestigious Thomas Jefferson Medal. Nevertheless, his talk is a good reprise of the standard fallacies which dominated the discussion. They are the same prejudices which paralyze architecture schools and the profession today. It is worth reading if only because it is not so couched in jargon as your average manifesto.

I summarize his points and offer rebuttals below.

1. The Traditionalist's argument that buildings should respect their context is a fallacy. In Venice, for example, the Renaissance interventions in the Gothic context were not contextual. Therefore, buildings don't have to be contextual to be good.
2. The argument for Classicism is based on the fallacy of Associationism, i.e., the meanings we associate with certain forms are constantly changing, therefore they provide an unsound foundation on which to form judgments. There are "deeper structures" to which we must appeal if we are to judge architecture properly. We see that deeper structure when we take away the "cow skulls" (i.e., the extraneous ornament) of Classicism.

Ed Ford, Pages from Venetian Sketchbook.

Superfluous detail on the left, essence on the right.

3. Modern Classicism (presumably as opposed to traditional Classicism) is a fraudulent appliqué concealing a building's true construction.

4. Diversity vs. Euro-centrism: we cannot achieve the intellectual (and therefore stylistic) unities of the past and we are richer for it. Therefore we are bound to look beyond style.

I answer Ford's points as follows:

1. To argue that a Modernist building is to a traditional context what a Renaissance building is to a Gothic context is really to misunderstand Modernism, the Gothic, and the Renaissance. The Renaissance developed naturally out of the Middle Ages. In no serious way can it be argued that the Renaissance represents an approach at odds with the Gothic. In both periods the very same tradition is being tended to, but in the Renaissance period improved scholarship and economic power are brought to bear, as well as a change in taste and emphasis. Modernism, in stark contrast, seeks to end the Greco-Roman tradition, and it pursues the pipedream of an abstract architecture whose forms have no substantive meaning. It is impossible to build an abstraction.
2. Classicists do not argue for a superficial architecture, the smearing of molding sauce all over mediocre buildings without integrity. We hold, as suggested in my point one above, that forms have substantive meaning. Ford's drawing "Pages from Venetian Sketchbook" is perfect evidence for our case that the Modernists oversimplify classicism. I can't imagine many would believe Ford has revealed the reality behind the style with these sketches.
3. If Ford really believed he had revealed the reality behind the style, Ford would have to denounce the whole history of architecture. Greek moldings are not intrinsic to ancient stone construction--would the Parthenon be better without the intricacies of the Doric entablature to disguise the real load bearing going on underneath? Are the triglyphs "inauthentic"? Roman architecture is all revetment. When the Romans invented the arch (the high technology of the day) they didn't reveal the bricks that bore the real loads, they covered them up with archivolts.
4. Ford's point here seems to contradict his point regarding context. Was Venice, a pre-modern city, uniform or not? The classicists are not arguing for perfect uniformity in any case. We are arguing for intelligibility. Renaissance buildings in the Venetian context were and are eminently intelligible, just as modern Classicism in the context the University of Virginia makes perfect sense.
Ford's principles lead to Hereford College. And had Polshek not been fired and continued with the now almost complete South Lawn Project, we can be certain it would have turned out in a similar vein. Moore Ruble Yudell, however, are a more compromising firm, shall we say. The results are now coming into full view as the project nears completion.

A view of the Commons Building,

a pale imitation--mockery, really--of Jefferson's Rotunda.

Cue the trombone: WAH-wah! Alas, had the university hired a competent, staunchly traditional firm, the result would have been so much more edifying. The site plan is not awful. There is a fairly clear sequence with good spatial definition. The open circus at the end of the axis is supposed to frame the originally intended view of the mountains, blocked a century ago by McKim Mead and White's Old Cabell Hall. Strikes me as a rather weak frame, however. Jefferson positioned pavilions at the end of the Lawn to punctuate the composition, while here there is no such gesture.

The South Lawn is in the foreground, Jefferson's Lawn

in the background. In between the two are

New Cabell Hall, and Old Cabell Hall behind.

The basic diagram, a miniature of the Lawn set at right angles to the original, is getting to be a rather trite response at this point, having already been tried at the Darden School and Hereford College (such as it is).

The details of the building are an utter disappointment. We've already seen the boring and out-of-place glass curtain wall. The masonry bits which attempt to abstract traditional classical elements betray a decided lack of interest if not literacy on the part of the architect. What else can explain these columns and entablature?

Certainly not budget, as in ages past we have been able to do a lot more and with fewer resources. Omitting detail is sometimes a practical necessity; however, there are ways to do it while retaining elegance in proportion. Here is my favorite example, from Palladio's Villa Pojana.

Palladio, Villa Pojana

So powerful, yet there is so little there! And it is not about capturing the essence of the orders. The essence is not captured by removing architectural detail any more than a symphony's essence would be captured if we removed half the notes. Remove half the notes and you destroy the symphony! No, it is about calibrating expression to suit the occasion. Here the message had to be toned down, simplified, and it was done with a sure hand.

What is Palladio's secret? How does he know which lines to remove and which to keep? I can assure you, it is not through the Ed Ford method. The answer is: years of careful study of the canon, from the grandest gestures, to the most minute detail. There are no shortcuts.

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

————————————————
“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.”
————————————————

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

————————————————
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