r e a l   e_s t a t e
i n  a l t e r e d   s t a t e s

(*****) back in the news

(*****) over-hyped projects in general press

 
[Millennium Tower, London]

• mi££ionnium
  "Foster Holdings reported a 21 per cent jump in its pre-tax profits to £1.2million in the year ending April 1995. Foster himself received a salary of £457,294 in the year, twice as much as in the year before." (aj_96.05.09 - 10:29:10)

 
[Peter B Lewis Residence, Lyndhurst]

• endgame

  D. How did you know when something as complex as this chess game was up? How did you know when the game was over and when the house was right?
  G. Well the client was a part of it. He would come and look at the project and add a sprinkle of paprika by saying, "How much is it costing?" And we would say, "$50 million," and he would say, "Oh, how much does Bill Gates' house cost? We said, "Oh, about $60 million." He'd say, "Oh, okay. We're okay." So those were the little sprinkles of encouragement. The house got up to $80 million and it was flabby. There were a lot of good ideas in it, but it was flabby. (Cynthia Davidson interviewed Frank Gehry, in "Project: Frank O Gehry, The Lewis Residence," ANY 12 1996, "The Dimensions of Play.")
  

   
• "A Xanadu That Didn't -- Or, How a Gehry House Come To a Naught,"

  "an idolatrous crush ... an elaborate tango of flirtation and desire ..." (Leigh Brown); "an odd and asymmetrical love relationship ..." (unnamed critic); "a fertilized egg in a deep freeze" (Kurt Foster); "an armada floating in the mist" (Gehry).
  (Leigh Brown P, nyt_97.05.06)

  
   

• lewis' labor
  40,000 sf, $82 mil. private residence on a nine acres with a stream running through, 11 [ ELEVEN ] years in design, a public scholarly seminar (Guggenheim Forum, the "Peter B Lewis Critical Issues Forum," held, of course, in the Peter B Lewis Theater), a documentary film, a book, AND unbuilt. (Leigh Brown P, nyt_97.06.05)
  

  
  
  

[Aronoff Center, Cincinnati]

• pre-emptive

  " ... a building designed by Peter Eisenman ... in the smallish city of Cincinnati ... has been the subject of a symposium, a dazzling opening ceremony, a television show, countless articles, this book of interpretation orchestrated by Eisenman himself ... What then is an architect, or a critic, or a book designer, or a reviewer to do?" - (Betsky A, "The Book of the Building," blp136_Feb97)

  
    a c t u a l l y

  "ARCHITECTURE BY EISENMAN, BOOKS BY PENTAGRAM: WHO NEEDS AN ACTUAL BUILDING" --

  
  
  

• "Look, Ma, no design"
  "PE's new building here is a stunning defeat of interior decoration," (Muschamp H, nyt_96.07.21)

  
  
  

• emperor's new DAAP

  " ... grumbled mildly - 'Only Peter could have gotten us to show up for this,' said Mr. Graves, no media-shy figure himself - ..." on the opening of Aronoff Center which consisted of a black-tie dinner, a ribbon cutting, an evening of performing art inspired by the building's design, and a two-day symposium 'summit meeting' presided over by Charlie Rose, who taped it for eventual broadcast on his public television program, featuring among others ... ..." - (Goldberger P, nyt_96.10.14.)

 
[Fred and Ginger, Prague]

• pet limit
  " ... [Gehry] felt words have power to limit, and therefore to exclude. ...
  Gehry sometimes does put labels on buildings ... like jokes or pet names." (Muschamp H. "A Masterpiece for Now" nyt_97.09.09)

 
[Villa Dall'Ava, St Cloud]

• delirious grandma
  " ... 'Unfortunately,' said Koolhaas ... 'I know everything'... " - (Rem Koolhaas, in Gandee C, "The Ideal Villa," hg_Mar92)

[Wexner Center, Columbus]

• public nudity
  "... the confluence of an interesting but not spectacular building with spectacular celebration. ... Rarely has a building been inaugurated as was the Wexner Center, where the leading elder statesman of architecture ... joined some of the current leading lights ... - not to mention representative of the so-called avant-garde circuit ... They honored Eisenman's first major project in the US, presented to the public nude, with no visual art to distract from the building." (Ghirardo D, pa_Nov94)

  
  

• joy of materials
  "Eisenman once visited the Etruscan tombs at Cerveteri, but he saved himself the trouble of touring them by purchasing postcards." (Ghirardo D, pa_Nov94)

h o s t i l e   f i r e
(*****) intensely scrutinized projects in general - and architectural - press

o f f   t h e   r a d a r
(*****) EXile -- shunning/shunned from publicity

["Z" Bank, Vienna]

• thought police
  " ... Toshio Nakamura (editor of a+u) spending four days in Vienna in the early 1980's and being driven anywhere except past Gunther Domenig's "Z" Bank. Toshio is too professional to be put off ... and having wormed his way over to the bank out of sight of his captors, had the wit to publish it wham bang on the cover of his magazine." (Peter Cook, "An Architecture of Optimism," dom743_Nov92)

[Congrexpo, Lille]

• l'architecte du roi
  "Lille has been shot to ribbons by the French intellectuals. The entire city mafia, I'd say, who call the tune in Paris, have renounced it a hundred per cent. I think that was partly because it has had no intellectual defence. They simply saw it as a return to La Defense, and no more than that." (Rem Koolhaas, The Critical Landscape 1996 010 Rotterdam)

• more

[Erasmus Bridge, Rotterdam]

• teen
  " ... We still think it's terrific but have to report that the appropriately named cable no.13 has started to vibrate due to combined action of wind and rain, which has caused the whole bridge to shake in a way in which major civic monuments should not. ..." - (blp135_Jan97)

-
[Hotel Il Palazzo, Fukuoka]

• devoid
  "At the beginning of the novel, the view of Florence is very important ... But at the end, what is really important is the stay at the hotel, the love, the life of the hotel." (Aldo Rossi, invoking E.M. Forester, explaining Hotel Il Palazzo which "has a facade of carved columns and lined with massive copper lintels but devoid of windows" -- Obituaries, Iovine J.V. nyt_09.05.97)

• gas stand
  "the white frame also provides the neighbors with a ready quip for owner Giovanniti: 'It looks like a gas station.' Meier is good natured: 'You mean they didn't say it looks like a hamburger stand?'" (arec_Nov84)

[CMU Research Institute, Pittsburgh]

• "... by 1989, the Oxford Development Company had been unable to find any clients interested in Eisenman building. ... Eisenman's design, Oxford felt, was too unconventional." (Barney K, focus_Nov/Dec90)

• corner rock
  "Executives here can't jockey for corner offices with windows and views, since there aren't any. But the fanciest offices do have certain charms, exposed limestone walls, for instance. SubTropolis's general manager, Mr Steadman, has such a craggy outcropping in his office. ...

  An ad for SubTropolis reads: 'Close to the airport, downtown -- and quite possibly, China." (Carrns A, "Between a Rock And a Hard Place Toil the Mole People" - wsj_98.04.02)

  -

• amuparkadium
  "... spend the day hanging out at a private pool ... soak in adjacent hot tub and catch some rays on a sun-tanning deck.

  And if they want, they can watch a little baseball.

  ... shopping, hair salons, brew pubs and cigar bars. ... people who got bored with baseballs can go to a stadium mall underneath the outfield stands and shop for a new car." (Walker S, "Hair Salons, Hot Tubs and ... Oh, Yeah, Baseball" - wsj_98.03.27)

  -

• ukulele-nium
  "This isn't just the usual hyperbole. The vista of Vancouver Harbor's Indian Arm is spectacular, and to get a spot in Mr Mitchell's five-story white-marble building, you really do have to be dead.

  Atop the 110-foot-high edifice, mourners will be able to watch loved ones being cremated on a pyre overlooking the city. Below will be theme floors: one for Catholics, with a nativity scene; a floor for Buddhists, with statutes and incense burners; one for Canadian military veterans, with medals and weaponry; and a simulated tropical island, with palm trees and piped-in ukulele music, for late memebers of Vancouver's substantial Fijian community." (Carlton J, wsj_98.03.09)

  
  -

• smoking fuselage
  "... designed to appeal to those among us who are drawn to car wrecks, burning buildings, collapsed bridges and other acts of destruction.

  The mayhem, Mr Turner says, will be 'mesmerizing.'" (Gibson R, wsj_98.02.26)

  
  

• . . .   (continued from)
• . . .   (ctd. from) previous snapshots

"Michael Graves at the time was more modern than I was. His whole ambition was white. He was Mr White Architecture. He was doing Le Corbusier-like work. Even his signature had evolved from Le Corbusier's signature." (Peter Eisenman, interviewed by Levrat F, l'Ad'A)