BARCELONA: UIA CONFERENCE
Present and Futures: Architecture in Cities conference conducted by the International Union of Architects in Barcelona, including Australian speakers, 31 June–7 July 1996.
Review by Tone Wheeler
With 30 world names in architecture, 300 papers, 28 exhibitions, 35 venues, a 335-page guide in five languages and 10,300 registrants, the 1996 UIA conference was the architectural Olympics. Appropriately held in Barcelona—and fortunately too, because the organisers, clearly not ready for the hordes of delegates, were forced to switch key events from small venues in the city’s Gothic quarter to stadia built for the 1992 sportsfest. There was a four-hour wait to register, a paucity of refreshments at the opening party in the Parc Güell and, although the main speeches by Foster, Nouvel, Ito, Holl, Hadid, Prix, Hertzberger and others had been scheduled concurrently in three venues, total seating was for only 4000.
The morning session on the first day had to be abandoned when 1000 delegates demonstrated in Las Ramblas and blocked doors to the venues. An impromptu address, hastily convened in the public square in front of Richard Meier’s Contemporary Art Museum, became tragi-comedic as the architects, speaking without slides, were reduced to crowd-pleasing platitudes. The scene descended into farce when students rushed the stage seeking autographs. It was a worry to see Foster and Eisenman being escorted by guards through a throng of groupies.
Things improved at the awards party in the arcades and fountains of Montjuic, overlooking the city. Next morning, the conference had been transformed: buses now conveyed participants to the 14,000-seat Palau Sant Jordi, the Olympic stadium by Arata Isosaki—where the speakers, now with their slides, appeared on the video walls usually devoted to sports replays: but with only half an hour each and no debate, there was a surreal air of champions and their adoring fans.
Norman Foster is sought out by autograph-hunters at the UIA conference in Barcelona. Image: Tone Wheeler .
Two talks on the last day broke the pattern. Ricardo Legoretta from Mexico rejected the thematic base of the conference; arbitrarily divided into five sections named ‘mutations’, ‘habitations’, ‘flows’, ‘containers’ and ‘terrain vague’. “I will not be contained,” he said. “And what is a container? All architecture is a container.”
Charles Correa’s observation that ideal architecture does not make an ideal community seemed to distil criticism of the main exhibition, where an international collection of current works—clearly selected for fashion appeal—was imputed to be the architecture for future cities.
Australia was represented by several dozen delegates, the convenor of the ‘flows’ debate, Leon van Schaik, our nominated principal speaker, Melburnian Shane Murray (an odd choice since the others were speaking on their built work) and academics delivering forum papers, including Jennifer Taylor and myself from the University of Sydney, Michael Tawa from UNSW and Michael Keniger and Brit Andresen from the University of Queensland.
The forums and smaller exhibitions offered gems arising from the strong presence of Latin culture. (There were more delegates from Brazil than from North America, Asia and Australia combined.) Ultimately, it was the small joys from their contributions and the sheer brilliance of Barcelona that made the conference enjoyable.
Tone Wheeler is an architect in independent practice and lecturer at the University of Sydney.
LEBBEUS WOODS AT DESIGNEX
Lecture by New York architect and delineator Lebbeus Woods in the speakers’ series associated with the Interior Designex trade exhibition at the Sydney Exhibition Centre, 25-28 April, 1996.
Report by Stephen Varady
This year’s Interior Designex was a positive step for trade exhibitions in this country. First, the stands were better and, second, a more diverse program of local and international speakers was included. Despite the relatively steep ($35) ticket price, all lectures were well-attended and some sold out.
Lebbeus Woods from New York was one of those speakers. While still not a name in the mainstream here, his superbly crafted renderings of intricate constructions have become familiar to readers of avant-garde publications over the last 10 years. His initial visions were of free-standing structures, seemingly set in another time and place, then became anarchic insertions into post-Wall Berlin, and most recently emerged as tangled bandages for the ravaged remains of Sarajevo. They have always been detailed explorations of fragmented planes and structures, aesthetic manifestations of deeper architectural ideals.
Within the constraints of a one-hour lecture format, Woods attempted to explain the complexities of these ideals. As a champion of ‘experimental architecture’ with no built work, his utopian visions do not attempt to solve all the ills of the world or to replace existing social, political and cultural norms, but seek to confront them—to work ‘outside the game’ and propose spaces for living and working that question those currently available. By creating such spaces, by fashioning forms outside the norm, such as those inserted into the existing rational fabric of Berlin, Woods attempts to provoke. By creating these spaces of apparent buildability but indeterminate function, he appears to call others to join in the spirit, to question preconceptions and search for an ‘other’. Other ways to live, other ways to work, other ways to survive and of course, other ways to shape these spaces.
After the lecture, Woods was asked how his proposals for Sarajevo were received by the citizens and he acknowledged that their impressions had been generally negative, with many wishing their built environment to just return to the way it looked before. Here he highlighted a problem confronting all of us who question preconceptions, seek change and, in occasional cases, explore ‘experimental architecture’.
Stephen Varady is the principal of Stephen Varady Design in Sydney.
MODELS INC.
Exhibition of architectural models, curated by Val Austin, at Arts+Industry gallery, Melbourne, 20 May–20 June, 1996.
Review by Tone Wheeler
Following the revival of interest in architects’ drawings as art in the 1980s, design models may well become the architectural collectible of the 1990s. Models are proliferating as both high and low art. Do-it-yourself models of famous buildings are now available in kits and as postcards, the Vitra chair museum sells (at considerable cost) miniatures of their famous chairs, and elegant presentation models form the centrepieces of every major architectural exhibition.
Away from their display role, models are a vital part of the design process. In the 1950s, Alvar Aalto required juniors to work up to two years in the basement model shop before progressing to the drawing studio above. Thirty years later, Frank Gehry—with a very different but no less sculptural architecture—had the same requirements. In Australia, local councils often require models for projects over a certain value, but these rarely have been exhibited. So this display of 35 examples, mostly by Melbourne architects, at Melbourne’s Art+Industry Gallery—a Little Latrobe Street showroom established with Agenda 21 funds from Arts Victoria—was a welcome innovation.
For this event, curator Val Austin gathered models representing forms and ideas rather than fine finishes. Refreshingly, most works were mixed media, rough and seemingly of work in progress; a contrast to slick polystyrene examples for public consumption.
Houses by Neil Durbach, Sean Goodsell and Kerstin Thompson were simple; concentrating on the fundamentals of composition. More abstract were conceptual musings from Allan Powell, Norman Day and Alex Selenitsch—the last a beautiful assembly of timbers. Karl Fender’s mixed forms and Denton Corker Marshall’s chequerboard volume showed rich mixes of materials, pointing to the painterly approach of recent built work. More sculptural was Andrew Murdock’s dazzling oval oculus, incongruously fitted with a rectangular frame on sticks—elegant in model form but an adventure if built full-size. Additive tactics were evident in the frames by Greg Burgess and Raytheon Brun/Sean Hessian of Argo; exploring Meccano-like qualities.
Two forms which riveted attention were Ivan Rijavec’s slender, tapering, metal tower and Ashton Raggatt McDougall’s clear cruciform over a round “mega coffee table” base.
Model by Raytheon Brun and Sean Hessian of Argo.
These maquettes emphasised a problem of miniaturisation: what is powerful as a small entity may be overwhelming and simplistic at full size.
Having imagined oneself at the scale of the models, drawn Hornby-like to their fantastic world, it was then strangely disorienting to emerge into a Brobdingnagian Melbourne—most of which, however, started life as a model.
Tone Wheeler is an architect teaching at the University of Sydney.
Colonial Syndey; referred to in the first position statement by NSW Government Architect Chris Johnson.
THEORY AND PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE
Launch of refereed journal Architectural Theory Review and a lecture by NSW Government Architect Chris Johnson, at the University of Sydney, 24 April 1996.
Report by Rob Puflett
The launch of Architectural Theory Review, by the Department of Architecture of the University of Sydney, is significant as it is the first refereed journal of its type in Australia. Editors Anna Rubbo and Adrian Snodgrass have an inclusive policy “to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and information on the theory of architecture” and are interested in current thought in other disciplines. A student section (not refereed) reinforces the inclusive nature of this enterprise.
Marking the journal’s launch, NSW Government Architect Chris Johnson delivered a lecture entitled Public Architecture in a Changing World. This was also significant for debate in Sydney, because architectural discussions here are so frequently based on banal descriptions, uninspiring slides and skimpy research and analysis. Our pathetically superficial level of discussion has never truly represented the quality of thinking necessary to underpin work of excellence. On this occasion however, an ambitious position was developed by Johnson to explain—without reductive polemic or self-gratification— the complexity of his role as Government Architect.
His agenda is to redefine the position as a major contributor to development policy and design in the city and region. In building his at times swerving argument, the ‘architect as scholar’ was recreated and the ‘bureaucrat as architect’ revived. This, he argued, is within the tradition of several of his pre-Federation predecessors, such as Barnet, Vernon and Wardell, who strongly influenced the city’s development.
The didactic nature of the GA’s presentation—exaggerated by his recourse to keywords to reinforce his concepts (for example, on the history of his office: ‘heritage’, ‘transformation’ and ‘interpretation’)—indicated that he seeks to elevate perceptions of his role. This has implications for his potential to influence the design and production of major civic projects leading up to the Olympics and beyond. In this initial contribution to Sydney’s urban debate, he emphasised notions of urbanity, political astuteness, scholarship and reference to tradition. Sydney Hospital—recently refurbished by Johnson’s office—was presented as an example of how the private sector has always influenced Sydney’s public works: the original hospital was built by developers granted the licence to import rum to the colony.
A graduate from the University of Sydney, Johnson’s recent intellectual development—documented by his M.BuiltEnv degree from UTS and current enrolment as an M.Arch (history and theory) student at the University of NSW—is evident from his appropriation of diverse, complex arguments to support his own. Unlike recent predecessors, he has articulated a clear theoretical position which supports scholarship and the necessity for intellectual rigour in professional practice—but this also contradicts cherished modernist notions about crafting immaculate objects.
It will be interesting to see how Johnson’s intellectual appetite and strategic agility impact on the physical development of Sydney at this crucial, adolescent, stage of its growth.
Rob Puflett is a lecturer at the School of Architecture, University of NSW and a director of Puflett Associates.
KRANTZ AND SHELDON: ARCHITECTURAL PROJECTS
Exhibition of work by Perth architects active 1940s-1960s, at the Cullity Gallery, University of Western Australia, 4–22 March 1996.
Review by Ian Kelly
This exhibition of projects by Harold Krantz and Robert Sheldon is the fourth of a series, including notable catalogues, which recognise the work of modernist architects in Perth: the others being Jeffrey Howlett, Geoffrey Summerhayes and Gordon Finn.
Shelson’s Hillside Gardens apartment building in Perth (1963). Image: Fritz Kos.
In Perth, where their practice produced up to one thousand home units a year, Krantz and Sheldon are synonymous with the design of apartment blocks, or flats as they were more popularly known. And at a time when Perth, like other major Australian cities, is experiencing a boom in the construction of city apartments, it is most appropriate to celebrate and evaluate the contribution of their architectural practice. Apartment buildings designed by Krantz and Sheldon are notable for their emphasis on reducing each dwelling unit to a minimum, achieved by tight planning rather than smaller spaces; conventional construction combined with rigorous detailing to maximise structural strength of building materials and minimise waste; and the bulk ordering of standard building materials, fixtures and fittings to achieve economies of scale. The results were rental apartments—built for investors throughout the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s—that are utilitarian, minimal and structurally innovative, contemporary and urbane in style and, importantly, affordable to anyone wanting, or needing, to live in the city.
There is some current criticism that investment in city apartments is focused on the more affluent section of the housing market, and this hasled to demands for more affordable housing for a wider cross-section of city residents. Krantz and Sheldon’s apartment blocks stand in stark contrast to the expensive, pseudo-Federation, mock-Georgian and Palladian revival designs favoured by today’s architects.
This exhibition of projects provides a timely record and recognition of the architecture of Harold Krantz and Robert Sheldon, although the value of the catalogue would be enhanced by a more rigorous evaluation of their contribution to the contemporary debate. That minor point aside, it is to be hoped that the University of Western Australia’s School of Architecture and Fine Arts continues this informative series of exhibitions and catalogues of post-1945 architects in WA.
Ian Kelly is the Heritage Council of WA’s conservation officer.
UME IN BRISBANE
Brisbane launch of a new format of UME, a periodical focusing on architectural drawings and processes of designing buildings, with speakers John Denton and UME’s editors Haig Beck and Jackie Cooper. At the RAIA, South Brisbane, 11 April. Different launch events were also held in Melbourne and Sydney.
Report by Robert Riddel
The Brisbane launch of the architectural theory journal UME(pronounced U-me) with the help of John Denton was an important cultural milestone. Editors Haig Beck and Jackie Cooper were the prodigals back in the city where they met and began their joint careers. UME is a new direction in writing about architecture and the making of buildings, although it has had a long gestation. In 1969, Beck, now professor at Melbourne University, abandoned architecture at QIT and followed Cooper to London, and an ongoing relationship with the Architectural Association and each other.
Cooper and Beck spoke together of their background in architectural writing and covered Beck’s experience at the Architect’s Journal andAD in London, and their joint venture with International Architect. Gold Medallist Denton followed with a polished visual presentation of the work of Denton Corker Marshall, revealing the way the firm works through ideas and the drawings used to communicate those ideas to their clients.
It was quite clear, after seeing Barrie Marshall’s seductive vignettes, how potent drawings can be. This was a valuable insight into DCM’s evolution. Denton relished the opportunity to show by example how the conceptual drawing was the distilled essence of the completed project. UME explores and exploits this connection.
The idea of UME was born in Sydney following Cooper and Beck’s return to Australia. Between 1991 and 1993, several boxed, hand-printed, limited editions of archival quality drawing material were reproduced. These were not so much about finished work but the process and conceptual diagrams which precede it.
With the encouragement of those like Peter McIntyre, Daryl Jackson, Garry Emery and John Denton, UME has come about with the infrastructure support of the University of Melbourne. It is of high quality, both in text and topography, and a refreshing change in the discussion about how buildings are conceived and perceived. It does this by focusing on drawings, which, after all, are what architects read best. Brisbane has provided more than half the subscriptions so far, which is a measure of the culture of architecture which now exists in this city, reflected in the work being produced. Long live UME.
Robert Riddel is an architect in Brisbane, specialising in conservation and adaptive reuse.
