CONVERSATION: MARBLE FAIRBANKS

Columbia University Dept. of Art History Slide Library by Marble + Fairbanks

This past Wednesday, PRE sat down with Karen Fairbanks and Scott Marble to discuss the genesis of their practice and their thoughts on the discipline today.  Both the partners graduated from the Columbia University GSAPP and in a way, never left.  They parlayed their TAships while in school into teaching positions at both Columbia and Barnard which allowed them a degree of freedom in practice and fostered an evident dedication to architectural education.  Their thoughts on the evolution of practice and the evolution of the nature of teaching were compelling.  Our thanks to Karen and Scott.

INSTANT CITY: VALUE AND SPECTACLE

(Note: This text was to originally appear in the now-defunct "Arch_Enemy" publication. Images courtesy of Google Image Search)

In a post-war environment, the spectacle not only suppresses the cathartic admission of tragedy, it posits itself as a glittering monument of value and meaning that far outweigh the cost of the conflict; a justified sign of progress. Concurrent shifts in cultural origins and re-establishment of identity are then used to give historical reference to time as either pre- or post- conflict (see above). With all the spoils, however, the premises are lost, indeed consciously drawn into concealment. Archigram’s “Instant City” rests somewhere between; the full disappearance of value in fetishizing technology and war and the picturesque deployment of images as an architecture of public distraction.

Instant City | Original Image by Archigram

From without, the couple embraces post-industrial-coitus, in the glow of technological prowess, lucky to have such a marvelous city emerge so quickly, and so close to their home (advantageously missing both the highway and their driveway). The floating displays and spotlights speak to the perversion of surveillance, but are thinly guised in the Technicolor of the spectacle. The confectionary temporality of the Instant City obscures the voyeurism from the casual viewer. From within however, the crowd is disaffected, looking not at their prize but at each other, searching for reflected recognition of the mass of images, icons, and slogans. The craftsmanship is shoddy, the space empty, and the images provocative only in their divergence. Even in their execution the strict organizational logics of the grid (the Instant City needs the grid) is revealed in the spectacle, making the “instant” in fact, rather calculated and methodical.

Instant City | Original Image by Archigram

Considering the “Instant City”, created in 1967, is both remarkable and terrifying. The drawings themselves are far from instant. The joy of making, the complexity through labor, and the conscious construction of meaning are present in spite of the subject matter. They are remarkable in their understanding of color, composition, and (gasp) manual technical prowess. Perhaps this is a semantic problem, the association of the “instant” with the “spontaneous.” Or perhaps it is true to its name, using “instant” in relation to the span of time as a definition of the current, the now. They, then, are terrifying in the regression of 40 years into complicity, both personally and pedagogically, in the extraction of meaning and power from the literally constructed image to those that are catatonically mute, their absurdity already naturalized.

We watch war on television.

RISING TIDES

Designed for the The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, Smart Levee is a manifold response to a water quality crisis, an energy crisis, and the sub-prime lending crisis. We see the California Delta site as a confluence of crises: a spectrum ranging from environmental to economic all contributing to the ecology of this crisis. A response to the rising tides must be synthetically situated within this confluence of crises, addressing the Great Recession holistically and accounting for the lives it has affected. Our proposal is one of a new sustainability, a systemic sustainability where the criteria lies in achieving net gains in systemic electric grid performance by synthesizing potential solutions to the housing crisis, an agricultural land management crisis, and a water quality crisis with energy storage. We have imagined the potential future lives of those most deeply affected by the Great Recession into the proposition and ask how will the next 100 years of electricity affect Architecture? Moreover, how will Architecture affect the next 100 years of electricity?

Conversation: SHoP Architects

Dunescape by SHoP

On Friday, 26 June 2009, PRE sat down for a fantastic conversation with SHoP Architects' Gregg Pasquarelli and Chris Sharples.  Much like these gentlemen's practice, the interview was fun and informative.  The topics covered ranged from the salon gatherings they threw shortly after graduating from architecture school as a means of keeping the network of students alive to the role of technology and software in their office.  We appreciate their candor in talking about this recession's effect on their business as well as their advice on starting out in this climate.  What we took away from this conversation, as we recounted its lessons at our favorite watering hole, was a set of invigorating, optimistic, and actionable to-dos for the immediate future.

Many thanks to SHoP.

CONVERSATION: KARLA ROTHSTEIN

On Wednesday, June 24th PRE sat down with Karla Rothstein of SR+T Architects at their Tribeca studio.  A theme of our discussion was blur, that is to say, the blur between practice and academics and the blur between architecture and development that has infused SR+T's method of practice.  Rothstein's career as a practitioner began while still a student at Columbia's GSAPP and her first built work was coincidental with her first teaching job at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.  Indeed, the blur is an attitude that has been carried all the way through the arc of the practice, both in the spirited academic careers of the partners and to the extent the desks are on tracks and casters allowing the office plan to blur in response to various forces in a work day.

Our thanks to Karla.

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