architecture forum
09.10.17
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Dallas is quickly becoming a center of architectural innovation. On October 17 downtown Dallas welcomed the addition of two new architectural gems to its Fine Art's District, the Wyly Theater by REX and the Winspear Opera House by Foster+Partners. Both architecture firms came to Dallas to talk to the public about their projects and other works they have going on.
Lord Foster's lecture was inside his newly completed Winspear Opera House on the west side of the Fine Arts District. This opera house has a very distinct exterior appearance. The opera house itself is contained in a brilliantly red extruded oval with all other programmatic functions contained under a massive "urban canopy." The majority of the project is actually designed exterior public space that is covered by this "urban canopy." This exterior public space has all kinds of spaces set aside for specific uses, i.e. sitting, eating, and lounging.
While the urban experience around this building is a point of importance; arguably one of the most important spaces in the project, the performance space, had a distinct echo during Lord Fosters lecture, so much so that the designer himself commented on it.
That aside Lord Foster's lecture centered on his new projects and how they are the result of the design philosophy that he has developed over years of distinguished projects. The basis of his design philosophy in his own words was, "culture, cities, sustainability" The project of interest in the lecture was the zero carbon, zero waste that Foster currently has under construction in Abu Dhabi. In this city there is no car presence. The “street” level has been raised 25 feet above the desert floor and the streets are completely reserved for pedestrian use. The level below the street is full of these “personal transportation devices.” These bumper car looking devices allow people to call up one of the track bound “cars” to their location for them to board with three of their friends and just dial up their destination. Then the car will transport the occupants with no further input from the occupants.
While this project was warmly received by the audience there were several flaws with this urban strategy. Simply to sum it up, rather than deal with the issues that the car brings to the urban fabric Lord Foster has chosen to avoid the car all together in favor of these personal transportation systems. These personal transportation systems remove the movement of people from the urban organization strategy. This divides the city from a comprehensive understanding of place, circulation, and density. All the public spaces in the city looked the same. There was no significant investigation into the scale of public space or the specifics of urban infrastructure.
After the Foster lecture it was Joshua Prince-Ramus turn to introduce his firms Wyly Theater to the city of Dallas.
The Prince-Ramus lecture was entirely different. The Prince-Ramus lecture was in the Wyly Theater which is across the street from the Winspear Theater. Prince-Ramus began the lecture with three statements. One, he is an insomniac so he had only forty five minutes of sleep, two that he tends to get easily excited when he speaks publically, and three when he gets excited he tends to swear, a lot.
Prince-Ramus' lecture was clearly geared towards a different crowd than the Foster lecture. Rather than just present projects that Prince-Ramus’ firm (REX) had completed he chose to present the manner in which they design. By clearly explaining the manner in which they design one could clearly understand the intentions behind any project that they had designed, past or present.
Prince-Ramus admitted, “I don’t care if you don’t like any of my projects, I don’t care if you think they are ugly! I know that when you leave any of our projects you will like the way they work.” He passionately defended the architectural philosophy that the designing of “universal space” has created an “architectural zoo.” Where architects instead of being involved with how projects are used are more concerned with the way projects look then how they are used. He said architects need to be more involved with the "doing of projects".
Architects need to be less timid and more involved. He described a profession that is so scared of litigation and professional liability that architects have become sidelined and no longer advocate for our design and our clients. He told the audience of architects that they need to be involved in all aspects of a projects lifespan. From contracts to construction architects need to become a profession of doers and not the design only figures we have become.
Prince-Ramus described a project that he had to bring before a planning commission that only wanted projects of the Spanish style. The project that REX was bringing before the commission had not one feature in it that could be considered “Spanish” style. Realizing that the problem Prince-Ramus was having was not with the project but with the design review board Prince-Ramus went to the design review board with only two images.
One image had a series of photographs of other projects that the design review board had approved that were not of the Spanish style. In fact Prince-Ramus told the board that a majority of the projects were just “bad.” He told the board that if they were to squint their eyes and look at those projects the only thing they had managed to make law was not the design style, and then he changed slides to reveal the word, BEIGE.
After that statement Prince-Ramus left the meeting and the board gave him a list of changes they wanted to see but Prince-Ramus got to keep the a majority of his design. Had Prince-Ramus caved into the fickle requirements of the design review board both he and his clients would not have the project they both wanted. Prince-Ramus had fought for his design.
After the lecture Prince-Ramus displayed the flexible nature of the Wyly by moving pieces of the theater around and this theme of flexible architecture seemed constant through the two new buildings.
Both the Wyly and the Winspear have functional systems that adjust the way the buildings frame the public interface. Both hint at the future role that functional design will play in architecture.
