link to full size photo.
king's college chapel, cambridge, 1446-1515.
architects: reginald ely (1438-1471), john wastell (1460-1515), simon clerk (1434–1489), william vertue (d. 1527)
this is more or less the conclusion to gothic architecture in england and as such, the final flowering of the french style as it was known before renaissance propagandists decided a more derogatory word was needed. I have heard the perpendicular style, the english term for late gothic architecture, called inferior to what came before it, but inferior was not the first word to cross my mind as we entered the chapel and spent some time there by ourselves before other tourists arrived.
yes, if you judge it strictly by the defining categories of gothic architecture set up by ruskin, you'll find it lacking. here is little of the savageness, the changefulness or variety, the naturalism, or the sense of the grotesque he described. in fact, ruskin called the chapel a table turned upside down with its four legs in the air, an acute image of its less celebrated exterior, but he also admitted elsewhere that his attack "took no account...of its superiority to everything else in its style".
one underlying aspect of mediaeval architecture was an ambition of the church to match the classical monuments it had grown up among, the very monuments it had torn down in its early, taliban days but not quite erased from history. several surviving texts ask the same nagging question: how could pagan romans outshine the righteous?
abbot suger who had been instrumental in the very birth of gothic at st. denis - he also wrote a book with the unpromising title the deeds of louis the fat - claimed success in his memoirs in which a traveller brought the happy message that st. denis had superseded even the roman hagia sophia in constantinople. in itself, a learned echo of justinian's "O solomon, I have outdone thee" when he saw hagia sophia completed, but...suffice to say, either the traveller or the abbot was a liar.
epochs of architecture show such different qualities and priorities that they can be difficult to compare (or indeed to supersede, mr. suger) yet with the gothic, invitations to compare abound. monastries and cathedrals were built as fragments of an ideal city, but looking at their atriums, octagons, and basilicas, they are clearly fragments of an idealized rome, not some abstract city of god. now imagine them as they were intended, full of men wearing dresses, speaking latin, collecting art and books, hoarding wealth, burning incense, and buggering choirboys. I know, I know. its classical.
and so is king's college chapel, all order, repetition and symmetry. those vaults, those spectacular fan vaults, are a great physical presence in the space, not some distant gothic apparition. to my mind, it is as classical as anything the renaissance produced in britain. no wonder, ruskin had to dismiss it. romans would feel right at home here, though they would not hesitate to replace that silly organ with a pool and install underfloor heating. it is never too late, one might add as a note to the locals.
on a more serious note, king's college chapel is the finest building in cambridge and the real reason we went there. built by four master masons or architects over almost a century (if you include the stained glass windows), its unity of design is striking. it was the end of gothic, but it doesn't look like the end of anything. if we had only managed to see that one house, our trip to england would still have been justified. just go.
autostitch of several photos.
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if possible, please name photographer "SEIER+SEIER".
if not, don't.
Tags: king's college chapel king's college chapel cambridge cambridgeshire england great britain UK church perpendicular style late gothic gotik fan vault fan vault stone vaulting reginald ely john wastell simon clerk william vertue stained glass windows architecture arquitectura architektur arquitetura Architectuur Architettura tudor renaissance organ wood screen wall seier+seier creative commons CC
bighouse or 8-tallet, housing and offices, ørestad, copenhagen, denmark.
architects: BIG, bjarke ingels group, 2006-2010.
ørestad represents some of the worst planning in northern europe since the fall of authoritarian communism. everything in it was wrong: the huge houses, the crane track urban spaces, the separation of functions. and yet every local architect played along and built their own version of the acontextual big box.
bjarke ingels even built three, but he and his offices BIG and PLOT have in all three projects engaged critically with the deadening surroundings by turning the urbanism inward and each time creating a complex weave of functions and spaces within the perimeter of their site.
but I repeat myself.
I still have my doubts about the size of the thing. why should the hard-won lessons of late modernism not apply to BIG? yet, even if this house looks like nothing you've ever seen before, moving around its ramps and stairs offers all the excitement of great architecture. we spent hours there.
our final descent revealed how much bjarke and his crew have made of the edge condition. the open land in front of the house is protected and the view south continues all the way to the northern coast of germany.
what is more, the route we had traversed which so radically opens up the housing block is the best medicin I have seen so far against the medieval closing off of new buildings and institutions, against the world of gated communities, walls and moats being offered by other architects. instead, bjarke ingels gives us optimism and a novel take on nordic humanism. in ørestad, everyone is waiting to see if he will succeed. if you have the opportunity, get out there now and make up your own mind.
this photo was uploaded with a CC license and may be used free of charge and in any way you see fit.
if possible, please name photographer "SEIER+SEIER". if not, don't.
other BIG projects.
Tags: bjarke ingels group BIG bighouse 8-tallet ottetallet building site architecture arkitektur modern modernism modernist denmark megastructure housing ørestad orestad architektur Arquitectura arquitetura Architectuur Architettura gebäude haus gebouw bouw batiment maison edificio huis casa copenhagen københavn seier+seier creative commons CC
temple of castor+pollux, agrigento, sicily.
the corner of the temple of castor+pollux is the symbol of modern agrigento and not a bad choice at that. this is what tourists come for and why they began to arrive in the first place when the valley of temples below agrigento turned up as an option on the 18th century grand tour of upper class education.
condemned to repeat history as a travesty, we arrived 200 years later in a taxi alongside several coaches full of other tourists, all of us flashing our plastic cameras. the number of identical photos a single day must see does not bear considering - even if some are good, with the low evening sun turning the dark brown, volcanic stone into...well, into light brown, volcanic stone.
my only real apology is that these were my first greek temples. and yet, not quite...when the british first arrived, the temples were nowhere to be seen. they had to dig out the stones and actually erected the corner of the temple we see today. helping the site to match expectations, they nevertheless mismatched parts and seemingly even brought together pieces from more than one temple: the greeks never knew the corner as it stands, but clearly it would be commercial suicide to take it down.
buildings make invisible forces in society manifest, even in their ruin, although naively, I had dreamt of meeting the temples unmediated.
so what are we really looking at here apart from british amateur archaeology? I found the background - supposedly the old hill town - intriguing. not only is the hill town barely visible, but there is something haphazard about the growth of modern agrigento. it turns out that the town has been one of the hardest hit by mafia activity which in turn means that the area was one of the most neglected. construction, which is where you find big money locally, must have been badly infected. building permits, anyone?
a 180 years ago, stendhal tellingly compared sicily to ireland, two naturally rich islands that could support large populations but whose nobility would never dream of spending time there, preferring rome or london to home. the islands were mismanaged to the point of starvation. there is theory that the mafia originated in the gangs that kept order while the ruling classes were away. it goes some way to explaining how the mafia could operate as a state within the state if that was its intended role to begin with. the authorities behind the planning are not necessarily the planning authorities.
it is to those other local heavies, the christians, we must turn to understand the ruinous foreground of the image. I could have said earthquakes, since the christians have received so much help from below, but many good buildings stand up to earthquakes and the temples were very well constructed. somebody wanted them in the ground.
the early centuries of christianity as a recognized religion were optimistic. if this seems strange considering that the roman empire which did the recognizing was coming to its protracted and painful end, it is only because we lie to ourselves about our religious origins. the christians had been promised the end of rome in the bible. in fact, they had been promised the end of the world. it would mark the second coming of christ, and they longed for it. to get things going, the early christians tore down greek and roman buildings with a fervour that makes the taliban of bamyan look like conservationists.
the edicts of emperors ordering, asking, begging their converted populace not to eradicate their common heritage are still with us today, the buildings are not. however, soft readings of the bible tend to divert us from the eschatological core of western culture and we rutinely dismiss as nutters believers from the american heartland who remind us what is really in the good book.
the impulse to reduce christianity to the heroics of jesus at the stoning and paul's words on love to the corinthians - forgetting among so many other things paul's suggestion on what to do with women who pray without covering their hair only two chapters earlier - is a luxury admirers of ancient architecture are not allowed. destruction follows us from site to site.
Tags: temple castor+pollux agrigento sicily sicilia italy italia ancient greek architecture architektur arquitectura arkitektur columns ruin jenskristianseier seier+seier creative commons CC
villa rüthwen-jürgensen, skodsborg strandvej 300, skodsborg, denmark 1953-1956.
architect: arne jacobsen, 1902-1971.
for some reason it is more fun to upload photos the same day they are taken...today, one of arne jacobsen's largest villas, situated on the coast north of copenhagen, was open for inspection before being auctioned off following the bankruptcy of its former owner.
it has always been impossible to gain access to this piece of midcentury modern. I hurried up there with a bunch of colleagues, and the lawyers in charge of the estate were kind enough to let us in even though the skoda we arrived in made it quite obvious that we weren't buying: after all, the last known bid for the property was 55 million kroner, roughly 11 million US dollars...
jacobsen's 1956 villa is interesting and rather complex, combining the quirky angles of his early 50's projects with the cool international style of the following years. it has, however, been gutted and its new interior is not so much in bad taste as it is entirely out of scale with the delicate detailing of jacobsen. sadly, the same is true of the buildings added to the original house: they look as if they were built for people twice the size of jacobsen's clients.
in this and the following photos, I have attempted to portray aspects of the original building. the swimming pool and urns shown here are later additions.
my jacobsen set so far
Tags: arne jacobsen house villa architecture denmark danmark midcentury modern modernist modernism arquitectura danish nordic scandinavian architektur bygning arquitetura Architectuur Architettura gebäude gebouw bouw batiment maison edificio arne jacobsen seier+seier creative commons CC
vor frue kirke, copenhagen cathedral, 1811-1829.
architect: c.f.hansen, 1756-1845.
view on black.
it's back to work in copenhagen and I have a million photos/buildings to show you.
the other day, my daughter and I managed to find our way in to the small museum housed in the enclosed ambulatory of copenhagen cathedral, vor frue kirke, and so we got to see the big round windows from the inside. the light was right out of hammershøi and the space was splendid. I have no recollection of the exhibition, though...
before showing you anything else from this summer, we have to go back to sicily for the final buildings we saw there - and I have comments and mails to answer, apologies for the long wait.
more copenhagen architecture.
Tags: c.f. hansen copenhagen cathedral architecture vor frue kirke seier+seier all rights reserved
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