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Post by ironhammer on May 16, 2019 20:29:12 GMT -5
I don't know how many of you here cares or know about architecture, but since buildings have a large impact in the cities we live, I thought I should mention an architect, I.M Pei, the renowned American who passed away at 102. He won the Pritzker prize in 1983, the most prestigious award in architecture and akin to a Nobel prize in the field. He built many famous buildings such as the John Hancock Tower in Boston, the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, The Dallas City Hall, The Bank of China Building in Hong Kong and his most famous work of all, the Louvre Pyramid in Paris.
So have you seen in person any of his works?
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Post by Phaedrus on May 16, 2019 21:18:12 GMT -5
I went to the East wing of the National Are Gallery a few years after it opened. I had read an article in the Smithsonian magazine talking about the building and what his intentions are, the dark and low ceilinged entrance opening up to broad spacious atrium filled with naturl light. I also marveled at the very sharp edges created from his use of triangles in designing that building. Many years later I discovered that the dramatic atrium etc. came from Frank Lloyd Wright's designs when I visited Taliesin West near Phoenix. It was a terrific experience and obviously made an impression.
I was at the Louvre during a work trip and saw the pyramid but was not able to get inside to view it from the interior, as there was a line around the block to get in. We opted for the d'Orsay instead.
People in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan revere him as a point of Chinese pride because he is such a star in the architecture world.
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Post by bigfan on May 16, 2019 21:40:30 GMT -5
Louvre and the pyramid
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Post by XAsstCoach on May 16, 2019 21:43:04 GMT -5
He got a lot of flak for the pyramid at the Louvre, didn't he?
Kind of fun watching tourists positioning themselves on a stand near the pyramid. And when the picture is taken looks like they are touching the top of the pyramid.
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Post by mikegarrison on May 16, 2019 21:51:54 GMT -5
Yeah, saw that. There are a bunch of IM Pei buildings at MIT, because he was an alum.
I started dating a girl for the next four years with a date where we sneaked onto the rooftop of the IM Pei designed Green Building, MIT's tallest building. We spent more than an hour up there looking over the lights of Boston at night. After that we went back to my dorm room and both fell asleep (still in our clothes).
I've also been to the Louvre.
One of the most notorious buildings designed by his firm (he wasn't the lead designer for the building) is in Boston. Used to be called The John Hancock Tower. What made it notorious was that the aero-elasticity was miscalculated and the building flexed enough in the wind to pop the glass sheathing off the building. (There were also thermal stresses in the glass that contributed.) It took five years for the various problems to be found and fixed. The engineering flaws with the building really hurt IM Pei's reputation in the mid-70s.
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Post by ironhammer on May 16, 2019 21:54:36 GMT -5
Yeah, saw that. There are a bunch of IM Pei buildings at MIT, because he was an alum. I started dating a girl for the next four years with a date where we sneaked onto the rooftop of the IM Pei designed Green Building, MIT's tallest building. We spent more than an hour up there looking over the lights of Boston at night. After that we went back to my dorm room and both fell asleep (still in our clothes). I've also been to the Louvre. One of the most notorious buildings designed by his firm (he wasn't the lead designer for the building) is in Boston. Used to be called The John Hancock Tower. What made it notorious was that the aero-elasticity was miscalculated and the building flexed enough in the wind to pop the glass sheathing off the building. It took five years for the various problems to be found and fixed. The engineering flaws with the building really hurt IM Pei's reputation in the mid-70s. True, you are right. I heard about the window problems at the building. He did suffer from some short term damage, but overall, that didn't hurt his reputation long-term though. He won the Pritzker prize and built that pyramid. So overall, a great architect.
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Post by Wolfgang on May 17, 2019 1:27:43 GMT -5
One thing that happens quite frequently is that for massive scale works like architecture (and most of engineering, frankly), a team of specialists is involved in the design and, of course, construction. I'm always suspicious (I'm trying to find the right word here)...skeptical...unbelieving...whenever one person is given credit for the work. Yes, there's always a team leader and lead designer but you know that it's a collaborative effort and lots of input from lots of people went into the design. What I'm getting at is, I wonder how much Pei was involved in each of the works attributed to him? I'm not suggesting he took all the credit but did none of the work, but I imagine he didn't do 100% of the design. I could be wrong as I don't know how architecture firms operate. Maybe they operate with one lead designer like an autocracy and everyone else supports that one autocrat's design vision. I don't know. If they're like engineering firms, it's more of a collaborative effort.
Pei founded a number of firms (or maybe a select few and names just changed?) but I'm sure Pei didn't do ALL the design work. For example, the Broad Center for Biological Sciences at Caltech was designed by his firm but I don't think he had a hand in the design of that building. (Anyway, this building doesn't come up when you look up Pei's monumental works.)
I think we all like to have romanticized views of the world and like to just believe that one man designed THAT structure, just like there was one man Moses who led the slaves out of Egypt. It's simple. It's powerful. We don't want to say the structure was designed by I.M. Pei plus this dude named David and this other dude named Harry and, oh, there was also George and Stanley.
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Post by Wolfgang on May 17, 2019 1:33:22 GMT -5
There are some structures where we're almost 100% sure that they were the work of ONE and only ONE person. For example, the Vietnam War Memorial monument in Washington, DC by Maya Lin. It was part of a nationwide competition and Lin, as a Yale grad student, won the thing. We know it was just her and only her, no one else. The other ones, especially when an entire firm is involved, I'm not so sure about.
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Post by ironhammer on May 17, 2019 1:48:36 GMT -5
One thing that happens quite frequently is that for massive scale works like architecture (and most of engineering, frankly), a team of specialists is involved in the design and, of course, construction. I'm always suspicious (I'm trying to find the right word here)...skeptical...unbelieving...whenever one person is given credit for the work. Yes, there's always a team leader and lead designer but you know that it's a collaborative effort and lots of input from lots of people went into the design. What I'm getting at is, I wonder how much Pei was involved in each of the works attributed to him? I'm not suggesting he took all the credit but did none of the work, but I imagine he didn't do 100% of the design. I could be wrong as I don't know how architecture firms operate. Maybe they operate with one lead designer like an autocracy and everyone else supports that one autocrat's design vision. I don't know. If they're like engineering firms, it's more of a collaborative effort. Pei founded a number of firms (or maybe a select few and names just changed?) but I'm sure Pei didn't do ALL the design work. For example, the Broad Center for Biological Sciences at Caltech was designed by his firm but I don't think he had a hand in the design of that building. (Anyway, this building doesn't come up when you look up Pei's monumental works.) I think we all like to have romanticized views of the world and like to just believe that one man designed THAT structure, just like there was one man Moses who led the slaves out of Egypt. It's simple. It's powerful. We don't want to say the structure was designed by I.M. Pei plus this dude named David and this other dude named Harry and, oh, there was also George and Stanley. Of course, a complex architectural project isn't due to just one man...or woman. There is a team of architects behind them as well as engineers to help them out. BUT, these men and women are the driving force of their vision. Without them, the project would not be realized, so in that sense, they deserve recognition and respect.
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Post by mikegarrison on May 17, 2019 13:09:19 GMT -5
So have you seen in person any of his works? I was just getting ready to say that I actually had worked in a building he designed, but figured I better check it out rather than just repeat what I'd been told. As it turns out, I was misinformed. Apparently he initially designed the master plan of the complex where I worked, but did not design the building. Even though I'm fairly sure that I was told that he designed the building, my quick research suggests that while the tower was the "hub" of Pei's master plan for the area, he didn't design it. Government Center in Boston? I could have added that I took a math class in the Green Building, so that means I took a class in an IM Pei building. But the date I had in the same building was much more significant to my life than the class was!
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Post by Wolfgang on May 18, 2019 12:31:32 GMT -5
When I was a kid, architecture was one of the professions I was thinking about pursuing because Mike Brady (the father in The Brady Bunch) was an architect. The show never actually showed what he did exactly because, you know, it was a sitcom, but he did have a cool private study and he was at his drafting table doing stuff. Once in a while, he had a small scale model of a building design he was working on so that was kind of exciting.
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Post by Phaedrus on May 18, 2019 12:48:31 GMT -5
Yeah, saw that. There are a bunch of IM Pei buildings at MIT, because he was an alum. I started dating a girl for the next four years with a date where we sneaked onto the rooftop of the IM Pei designed Green Building, MIT's tallest building. We spent more than an hour up there looking over the lights of Boston at night. After that we went back to my dorm room and both fell asleep (still in our clothes). I've also been to the Louvre. One of the most notorious buildings designed by his firm (he wasn't the lead designer for the building) is in Boston. Used to be called The John Hancock Tower. What made it notorious was that the aero-elasticity was miscalculated and the building flexed enough in the wind to pop the glass sheathing off the building. (There were also thermal stresses in the glass that contributed.) It took five years for the various problems to be found and fixed. The engineering flaws with the building really hurt IM Pei's reputation in the mid-70s. My dad actually worked in the John Hancock in the when they were having the problems. He said everyone there had a procedure they had to follow. They had people stationed out on the street watching the light reflect off the windows and as soon as the shadows changes shade suddenly they alerted everyone in the building to be ready for a window to pop out. They didn't have social media or emails back then so it was just an automated phone call from the building manager.
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Post by ironhammer on May 19, 2019 20:09:41 GMT -5
Yeah, saw that. There are a bunch of IM Pei buildings at MIT, because he was an alum. I started dating a girl for the next four years with a date where we sneaked onto the rooftop of the IM Pei designed Green Building, MIT's tallest building. We spent more than an hour up there looking over the lights of Boston at night. After that we went back to my dorm room and both fell asleep (still in our clothes). I've also been to the Louvre. One of the most notorious buildings designed by his firm (he wasn't the lead designer for the building) is in Boston. Used to be called The John Hancock Tower. What made it notorious was that the aero-elasticity was miscalculated and the building flexed enough in the wind to pop the glass sheathing off the building. (There were also thermal stresses in the glass that contributed.) It took five years for the various problems to be found and fixed. The engineering flaws with the building really hurt IM Pei's reputation in the mid-70s. They didn't have social media or emails back then so it was just an automated phone call from the building manager. Even today, I find that sometimes a phone call can get things done quicker than a email. With a email you have to wait until the recipient actually reads it, which could be hours later. But with a phone call, you can get that other guy right away. And since a phone conversation is interactive, it might have a slightly lower chance of confusion and misunderstanding since one can ask for clarification if they don't get entirely what the other guy is saying in real time. Of course, there is always the busy call, but with dedicated work lines between colleagues or specific departments, that is less common. The one thing I do hate about phone calls is outside the work setting. When you have to get through the automated phone system where it takes forever to get an actual person on the line and the options provided by the system just can't answer your query. In those cases, I much prefer emails.
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