The war on patina

[imomus]

Yesterday I really fell in love with Berlin again. I saw the Berlin Biennial, an event I thought I'd missed (it's been extended until June 5th). The art was pretty good, but in a sense it was upstaged by the city itself, and by patina. Curators Cattelan, Gioni and Subotnick found all sorts of spaces up and down Mitte's Auguststrasse; a cargo

Comments

[onthemoon]

Here in the states, as you likely noticed while in NY (as it is probably one of the main staging grounds), there seems to be a real re-birth of the notion that newer is better; cold and characterless high-rise condomium buildings are making a comeback and considered far preferable to the city's many old and character-full brick and brownstone buildings, which for awhile were really winning folks over, especially in the backlash to our postwar urban renewal. It sometimes amazes me how easy of a sale it is to convince people that they need the cold clean look of glass and steel, greys and blues, sterile and sane.

I think the materials are key here, too, not just there patina (or history shown through aging), but their origin. Up until the mid-twentieth century buildings largely reflected their landscape in the materials from which they rise: brick, brownstone, limestone, sandstone, timber, stucco. They greatly define the character of the city; the feeling of the city. The new cities that rise do so almost entirely out of manufactured materials: glass, steel, cement, etc., and as such completely lose their precious materiality and reflect little more than whatever their perfectly policed facades of glass bounce back.

[imomus]

Agreed. It is worth saying, though, that glass has at least the potential to complement the landscape, either by reflecting it back or by letting the eye pass directly through the building to what's beyond. Of course, it's rarely used that self-effacingly; a new building tends to want to be a focal point, not a window.

[onthemoon]

True. All materials have a lot of great potential, be they natural or manufactured, old or new. Sadly, though, as you point out, so few architects or developers seem interested in working with the existing landscape. It would be laughable, were it not so disheartening, reading Frank Gehry talk about he and Ratner's plans for the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, and how he "carefully considered the existing landscape." Of course it all boils down to ease and ego. Working with the existing landscape, and all the patina it has to offer, means looking outward and actually thinking about the world that will exist beyond their shiny new plot. And of course blending in with, or even complimenting the existing landscape would mean less attention for the new. It would be lovely to see some contemporary architecture focusing on sharing the landscape with the past (it does exist, but, perhaps for reasons just noted, is hard to find).

Another note on the recent boom of modern architecture and high-rise building...I suspect, be it conscious or unconscious, that a good deal of it is in response to seeing the development in East Asian countries (as well as Dubai). America feels the need to be in the lead, as does Europe to a lesser extent; not having the newest, tallest, and flashiest architecture is an admittance of falling behind in the eyes of many, not just in architecture, but all of the things our buildings represent. Of course that starts wading into far deeper conversational waters.