Quote:
Originally Posted by hammersklavier
I think the issue isn't so much the utter lack of interesting avant-garde architecture in the U.S. so much as it is that all the good stuff is happening at smaller scales. For instance, the neighborhoods of Nothern Liberties and (increasingly) Kensington are hotbeds of avant-garde architectural ideas in Philadelphia. Architects like Erdy-McHenry, Onion Flats, Interface Studio Architects, etc.*, are all set up over there and work at scales of between three and ten stories (Scott Erdy does think big, though).
But the lack of interesting architecture in big (expensive) projects in the U.S. is as arresting as its prevalence underground.
_________
*There is tradition here. Philadelphia was/is the home of Frank Furness, Edwin (?) Hale, Vincent Kling, Louis Kahn, and Robert Venturi, among others.
|
Well I ask you what was the last big building boom in the US? It was with housing and condos, not really in office space or airport expansions or anything like that. With housing, developers want something safe that people with be willing to buy and live in, therefore much of the towers built in this country over the past decade were safe and boring because that is what has the biggest target audience when it comes to looking for buyers.
Which as you pointed out, doesn't mean innovative things were not happening, it just means they were taking a different form. There were a number of museum expansions that happened over the past decade that were some of the most breathtaking buildings, I look to Seattle for their library and art museum expansion, or Chicago with the museum expansion and Millennium Park and Aqua tower (which actually pushed the creative level for condos), or the next building that Cooper Union built in NYC or the Beekman Tower in NYC, San Francisco just built two huge museums in Golden Gate Park that are definitely cutting edge and amazing works of architecture.
As I pointed out, the only reason why this thread is able to exist is because it is ignoring all the amazing architecture that has been built in the US over the past decade for a hand full of unique buildings that have been built in Asia and the Middle East in their massive building booms. Now if everything that was being built in Asia and the Middle East could be called cutting edge, then there would be a valid argument, but none of these cutting edge buildings that are being built there are for housing.
Heck, when it comes to housing the country I am most jealous with is Japan because more often than not people there work with an architect to build their house regardless of size, while in the States it is very rare for someone to work with an architect when it comes to building their house unless it is a huge expensive house. If even the most modest, small affordable home was being designed by an architect for a specific client, we would have a much better display of architecture in this country.