Reading about the recent coverage of the bienalle and more specifically on the talk ‘My kind of Town’ which included a discussion between Rem Koolhaus and Alain DeBotton on Architecture, PartIV quoted something DeBotton said and which was taken up by rob about ugliness;
When at the end, he (A de B) said that he was “looking forward to being able to appreciate the ugly”, I don’t think he was being ironic at all.
and then rob found an excellent quote refering to myspace from ze frank’s the show;
In Myspace, millions of people have opted out of pre-made templates that ‘work’ in exchange for ugly. Ugly when compared to pre-existing notions of taste is a bummer. But ugly as a representation of mass experimentation and learning is pretty damn cool.
There is a question underlying this and possible meme, can ugly buildings make great architecture? If I can find an ugly building which I think is great architecture maybe that will go some way to answering the question. In the end it wasn’t hard to find, its the PA1 house by PPAG Arkitekken, (see A10 issue11). Its by most standards of Architectural criticism pretty ugly, it looks unfinished and slightly temporary and apart from the frames of the windows and doors nothing is quite straight. You may not like the external cladding which really does look like elephant skin. It’s a world away from a starchitects frontpage project, but I think it’s great Architecture whether you like the look of it or not.
It was built to a tiny budget with really innnovative techniques where the walls are made of reused plywood and coated in a PU coating which also acts as the insulation. There is no finishing on the inside, and on the outside the roof sheds off the rainwater without any drainage system at all. It’s what great Architecture should be, innovative conception and use of materials, and willingness to see the basic ideas through without using an alternative perhaps safer aesthetic. And in finding an ugly building maybe an answer to the first question can be made. Like other forms of beauty Architectural beauty isn’t just skin deep either.
2 Comments
..but what the heck…its like the scene from The Fountainhead, when by elevating bad taste, good taste is rendered meaningless..
..its a hideous looking house..give the same materials to some bloke from a (take your pick) vernacular culture and quite possibly, the result would be clever..AND cheap…
..ugly is to be taken at face value….you can start with ugly (take some of FAT’s work in London) but its not where you want to end up..
Dave,
Dave said:
That’s the point really.. a vernacular builder and polyurethane cladding wouldn’t have gone together. They would never have even thought of it let alone build something with it. It took the ideas of the architect to do this. You are right that beauty is important and is worthy of being an end in itself just not the onlt one, and certainly not at the expense of everything else. Sometimes to explore new forms and materials you have not to be afraid of designing something ‘ugly’.