The starchitect’s “patron’s moneyed interests” and the resulting commission usually preclude an examination of your interest in “placemaking.” The boundaries of contract, property and motivation create short and long term figurative and literal barriers to inclusion of other interests. Starchitecture is a grand way for the elites to front a public purpose while keeping the masses at bay, leaving the ‘iconic’ structure’s front yard empty, perfect for photography, as you showed in your Duddeldorf pictures.

All in all, a great and well-written description of just one of the wedge issues in our conflicted times.

Your old neighbor.

The Pritzker Pavilion is more than just a building which is unusual for Gehry. The larger Park is a disappointment because it is a series of different design statements, two by artists, one by a Landscape Designer and a “square” where there is dinning during the Summer and a skating rink in the Winter. It is a very shallow experience when you look at it as a whole. We are working on a piece about landscape design which is where the real problem lies. When we do that Millennium Park will be placed against more holistically developed destinations. Any suggestions would be welcome.

The Opera House in Oslo is only interesting from a public space perspective because one can literally be all over the building. It isn’t just another “look at me” building. All the fixed seating is hard and almost invisible and the movable seating is part of two outdoor restaurants which add some relief to the starkness of the building. The setting is isolated from the rest of Oslo which will always be a problem. Putting a building like that into “context” is impossible. Thus the question remains, should we be building these expensive, seldom used buildings that draw people away from what is a very interesting city?

Your article stimulated some thoughts.

You commented favorably about Chicago’s Pritzker Pavillion.
I think the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park is outstanding – a true iconic architectural achievement. The concert stage, the “Trellis” that spreads an excellent sound system across a large expanse of grass and the seating area are all awesome. I think it is his finest work.

Have you visited the site? I found Millennium Park to have interesting pieces, but overall not a good place at all. It was as if whoever planned it had no concept of place. Was your experience of Millennium Park different?

You also commented favorably about the Oslo Opera House.

Purely Iconic in its design, the new opera house in Oslo, Norway by the Snohetta firm (based in both Oslo and New York) takes contemporary architecture beyond just the building to create an amazing public space where the public may literally use the entire site as a playground. In fact, Snohetta has explained that for this project, nature defines form and not function. The building itself is wonderful, featuring a dynamic design that allows for creative uses and opportunities for exploration. It is a masterpiece of form, function and nature, and thrives despite its isolation from the rest of the cityscape. To remain vital for the future, the building must grow into a larger mixed-use destination for year-around activity.

On a recent visit to Oslo I missed the Opera House so I didn’t experience it. Instead I am relying on just pictures. Although the building looks somewhat interesting I don’t see a comfortable place near it. Is there one? Does the public really linger there even when there is no performance? In its isolation from the rest of the city, how can it become “part of a larger mixed-use destination for yea-around activity’?

Bruce

Bruce Liedstrand
Community Design Strategies
12, place d’Anvers
75009 Paris, France
01.53.16.47.10
Liedstrand@mac.com
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And the questions posed at the end of this piece re the impact of the building on community are questions that should be addressed not just for buildings but also for every product and initiative launched by corporations and not-for-profits as well.
I particularly liked the word “delight”–it is a word that is found in the fifteenth principle of the LIving Building Challenge issued by Cascadia Regional Green Building Council. Wouldn’t it be great if all that we created were gauged to delight?

You didn’t write anything about that but there is a couple of other issues that are closely related to most buildings’ public success, or a lack of it.

And that’s why, most probably, Gehry dismissed the question.

First, most of the owners of architectural firms, you know, the salesmen of their architectural wares, simply don’t care – they just want to avoid any controversy, make their clients happy and be able to pay their staff every two or so weeks. All while knowing that the uninformed public will put up with almost any urban/architectural crap. As it has in the past. Secondly, and Gehry realizes that probably more than anybody else, architects have usually no influence over what kind of site the developer has purchased or a city owns and wants to built on. Some of the sites, like the Millennium Park in Chicago are really good in terms of their potential for public life, some, like the site of the Museum in Bilbao are less inspiring. And the architects like Gehry, or less talented like the majority of them, really, have to live with the consequences and design what they can.

That’s said, the work PPS is doing, and the attention to necessities of public life that it generates is irreplaceable. Keep staying the course and doing what PPS has done so far. We need it more than ever.

Krzysztof Zukowski.