Saturday, April 7, 2007

RPI and the Modern Architecture Dilemma, Part One

Public Art Seminar, Spring 2007
Ryan Andress, Chemical Engineering '07

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Modern Architecture Dilemma

Part One: The Failure of Art and Architecture

Art ended in 1976, the year that Alexander Calder died. This date is conservative, as Guy Debord published a book 9 years earlier, The Society of the Spectacle, in which he declared “the beginning of the end of art.” Jackson Pollock was already dead for twenty years before this date, Andy Warhol stopped producing good works in the 1960s and Frank Stella, although still alive, has fallen to the ignorant masses in his style of art. If art is dead, architecture, being a form of art, is most likely dead also. This paper will suggest there is no proof otherwise.
Several criteria apply to art, these criteria are indescribable and may seem vague to the standard observer, but come natural to the true master artist. The art must be of a certain quality, have power, and poses authenticity. Modern art and architecture, when they originated fit these criteria, well some did, but they have lost their authenticity. We have seen everything, so your art must posses quality and be of a true, but not forced, artistic nature. Most modern architecture is neither authentic nor artistic. Even if today’s modern architecture did fit the proposed criteria, for it to be good architecture, it must also posses one more additional criterion not needed for other forms of art.
The criteria for good architecture include that needed for art, such as creativity or authenticity, power, and quality, but also the additional factor of purpose. Purpose should be indicative of the piece, except for the molding and other ornate areas. I began my project on public art with these criteria in mind. Figure 1 and Figure 2 display architecture on our campus, RPI, which has gone terribly wrong. Figure 1 is an interior view of the biotechnology center, although it looks attractive it does not satisfy the criteria of purpose. The building is supposed to serve a purpose however the atrium and modern architecture of the building violate this purpose. There is a lot of wasted space which is inherent to the architecture used. It is very difficult to navigate, please see the Appendix, and is therefore bad architecture. The biotech center will be discussed in further detail later in part two of the paper. The structure shown in Figure 2 fails at being architecture for obvious reasons.


Figure 1. Useless
Biotech Center, RPI: example of architecture that does not truly fulfill its purpose
By establishing a clearly defined atrium space the Architect has failed to incorporate all of the space for functional purposes and has created an erratic layout making it near impossible to reach your desired destination.



Figure 2. Failure
A fountain on the RPI campus, which broke; a testament to the lack of quality and skill of execution
This demonstrates the lack of skill associated with Modern Architecture,The landscape architect who designed this piece (and claims full responsibility) has little to no technical knowledge, and chose not to use mortar, which resulted in a fatal flaw

As can be seen form the above figures, modern architecture lacks key criterion needed to be considered true art or even architecture. This can even be seen on RPI’s campus, as the only buildings with good form were made in the earlier half of the twentieth century. The newer buildings are unappealing, lack purpose, or are just unoriginal. Figure 3 best represents the failure of today’s architect, as I think the media and today’s culture, or lack of culture as suggested by Guy Debord, is the root of this epidemic in the art world.

Figure 3.The Cause
An interior of a typical college dorm area at RPI, the reason why today’s art is so bad
A Modern society, who’s stupidity, lack of taste and culture, and need for mindless entertainment increases with each passing moment,This Modern “culture” has spelt the demise of quality Art and Architecture



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