Quote:
Originally Posted by Ch.G, Ch.G
"Creating character"? That's really stretching it, honte. Those renderings remind me of the Frank Gehry process: Let's produce a ton of slightly different iterations and select the one that is the most emotive or that happens to relate to its context. You allude to other, legitimate functions of architecture but I really don't think any of the alternative designs were created with those functions in mind; in fact, I think their chief justification is that they "look cool"-- hardly a rationalist approach to architecture.
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I don't understand your critique at all. Any architect has to consider what character they give to a space when they design it. It has nothing to do with Frank Gehry more than Mies van der Rohe. It's form, materials, light, space, etc. Those are the basic functions of architecture. Yes,
functions.
I don't know what the renders were within the office, but I suspect they are a series of iterations, not at all uncommon for a building like this. They produce their ideal, talk to the structural engineers who say, gosh, where are the columns? Then they work forward toward something else. Estimates come in, and it gets reduced. Buck sees something and has a comment, or thinks it's too radical and the design gets scaled back. Flashy tenants aren't coming, so the budget gets slashed. And so forth. I highly, highly doubt an ultra-rational firm like G-P was engaged in any kind of totally random form-finding.
The early designs were probably driven by the sense that tenants don't want low space in a tower, just like the early design of 111 S. was. So, once you've identified that problem, you work towards something elegant and powerful, branded and engaging. That's what I mean by creating character. Buildings that don't uplift the spirits are bad business.
You can tell that the first responses were site-driven and view-driven. There's also a diagram in the G-P book that shows their thought process (I don't agree with it at all, but it is a legitimate objective) of giving Randolph a kind of unique urban character by connecting it with plazas all the way from the Kennedy to Grant Park. I'm quite sure that the design for the base of this building related to that larger urbanistic objective. How is that not "creating character"?
By the way, all good architects do "studies." You'd be foolish not to. Some ideas work in your head and they just don't work on paper. Sometimes they even work well on paper and then in 3D it sucks.
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