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The new paradigm in architecture. (Theory).

Architectural Review, The, Feb, 2003, by Charles Jencks



" In spite of these problems, the question of whether the new paradigm exists in architecture is worth asking. Do these seven strands hold together, does something unite them? Does the Organi-Tech architecture relate to the fractal, do the enigmatic signifiers emerge out of datascapes? Are they connected to the fashion for folding and blob-architecture, the prevalence of landforms and waves; an iconography based on Gala and cosmogenesis? My view is that the sciences of complexity underlie all these movements, as much as does the computer, while an informing morality has yet to emerge. The answer is mixed. As Nikolaus Pevsner wrote concerning the paradigm of Modernism in nineteenth-century Britain, seven swallows do not necessarily a summer make. True, this maybe a false start, the old paradigm of Modernism can easily reassert its hegemony, as it is lurking behind every Blair and Bush. But a wind is stirring architecture, at least it is the beginning of a shift in theory and practice."


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MVRDV's pavilion at the Hanover Expo 2000 (AR September 2000), a strange and humorous interpretation of modern Dutch culture.

1 Santiago Calatrava, City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia, 1991.2002. Positive organic metaphors but not a fractal grammar. This spectacular urban landscape has many qualities of the new paradigm, and several virtues sods as the sculpted white concrete that profiles the structural forces in exciting and innovative ways, but the repetitive nature of the elements typifies the old way of thinking. Much EcoTech shows this ambivalent aspect - a half step toward the new paradigm.

2 LAB with Hates Smart, Federation Square, Melbourne, 1997-2002. Containing a museum of Australian art, cinemas, a glazed atrium for public meetings and an outdoor amphitheatre for political events of the city, this fractal landform summarizes so much of the new paradigm. Its enigmatic shards suggest a new contextualism: the glass, metal and sandstone of surrounding buildings is here splintered and reassembled in a dynamic way. Like Eisenman's Santiago landform the result is a form of neo-medieval urbanism, the city fabric as site new icon.

3 Norman Foster, Swiss Re Headquarters, London 1996-2002. Originally conceived in an eggform, this blob shape was stretched to resemble many other organic things in addition to the notorious gherkin - a pine cone, pineapple, cucumber and phallus - as well as a missile, bullet and bomb. Not only does this polysemy make it an enigmatic signifier, but the computer-perfected entasis makes it a good example of propositional beauty - the central planned skyscraper with elegant double curves shooting to the sky.

4 Frank Gehry, The New Guggenheim, Bilbao 1993-97. The popular and critical success of this building confirmed the enigmatic signifier as the convention for the contemporary monument. Although critics captured part of the suggested overtones of this building - Constructivist artichoke, fish, mermaid and boat - it is the capacity to mean many more things that makes the enigmatic signifier a multivalent symbol. Metaphors drawn by Madelon Vriesendorp.

5 MVRDV, Dutch Pavilion, EXPO 2000, Hanover. A stack of synthetic ecologies and artificial grounds determined as a statistical representation of the future Dutch landscape. From tise top dowucan be found l)windmills, and water on the artificial lake that flows into 2) sheets of water in an exhibition space and then to 3) a forest grown with high-powered lights. Next level down 4) is an auditorium with projection space, to 5) an agricultural section of smaller plants again artificially lit, to reach 6) a ground floor and grotto of houses and shops. Views and movement are celebrated by the exterior staircase. The sustainability of the closed cycle makes sense, the juxtaposition of gardens and moods is a delight, the remorseless logic humorous, but the question is raised: 'will all of life be managed and pharmed?' No wonder a vocal group in Holland want more wilderness (MVRDV Foreign Office Architects (FOA): Moussavi & Zaero-Polo, Yokohama International Port Terminal, 1995-2002. The landform building as infrastructure and folded landscape of activities. Like the blob building the landform tends to merge floor, wall and roof in a seamless continuity. The architects do not intend the appropriate ship, water and wave metaphors, but like Mies van der Rohe seek a neutral, generic and technological architecture-yet they allow emergence of the unintended.

6 Foreign Office Architects (FOA): Moussavi & Zaero-Polo, Yokohama International Port Terminal, 1995-2002. The landform building as infrastructure and folded landscape of activities. Like the blob building the landform tends to merge floor, wall and roof in a seamless continuity. The architects do not intend the appropriate ship, water and wave metaphors, but like Mies van der Rohe seek a neutral, generic and technological architecture-yet they allow emergence of the unintended.

7 Daniel Libeskind, Imperial War Museum of the North, Trafford, Manchester, 1999-2002. A symbolic, spiritual and cosmic architecture is still relatively rare but a few architects are trying. Here the globe shattered through conflict is reassembled as three curved shards: the tall Air Shard, marks the entrance, and holds flying instruments of war in its open structure; the Earth Shard is a huge exhibition area with even the floor curving gently, the Water Shard curves down to the adjacent canal and minesweeper moored there. This huge expressive structure is both a giant advertisement, in the sense of Venturi's Duck Building, and an enigmatic signifier of conflict and its resolutions.


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visual artist gregg d kemp converted a mattel barbie digital
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Selected from the Best Examples of the Different Series od Caves at : Ellora, Ajunta, Cuttack, Salsette, Karli, and Marvellipore. Drawn on Stone by Mr. T. C. Dibbin, from sketches carefully made on the spot, with the assistance of the camera-lucida, in the years 1838-9, by James Fregusson, Esq. London: John Weale, MDCCCXLV Pages measure 21 1/4" x 14 1/2"


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"The tar-papered Black Maria was the color of a police paddy wagon, hence its nickname. It was even painted black on the inside. Part of its roof opened on hinges to allow the sun to shine upon the shooting stage. Sunlight was the only light source strong enough to register an image on the slow film emulsion of the day. If the sun happened to be on an inconvenient side of the Black Maria, the building was simply rotated on casters to face in the proper direction."



"Ironically, the earliest surviving paper print submitted to the Library of Congress by Edison was not intended to be shown in the Kinetoscope. This was a five-second snippet entitled the “Edison Kinetoscopic Record of A Sneeze,” or better known as “Fred Ott’s Sneeze.” Ott was an Edison employee who amused his co-workers with outrageous exhibitions of comic sneezing and Heise put the resident clown to work. “Harper’s Weekly” needed a series of picture of someone sneezing, so Heise filmed Ott expectorating in front of The Doghouse and chose the best frames for publication."


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"Let's start with a warning: it's important to know what NOT to buy. Don't buy lifestyle books (all rubbish), don't buy monographs on living architects and designers (mostly uncritical vanity publishing), and don't buy books listing the hundred best this or the world's most beautiful that (see below). All that stuff is chaff. Clear it away and you get to some genuinely interesting books, such as: "


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