M 9:30 – 12:00 p.m.
TBD
A truss-and-shading structure is visible on every elevation of the Menil Collection building, designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop and constructed in Houston between 1981–1986. A version of this figure appeared in the architect's earliest sketches, and in the eventual design, developed in collaboration with the engineer Peter Rice of Arup Associates, an array of concrete "leaves" is carried by steel columns and cast iron trusses. While this configuration responded in a literal way to the client's desire to view the artworks in filtered daylight, the display of the mechanism was a dramatic divergence not only from Houston's historicist and postmodern architecture of the mid-20th century but also from local modern architecture, whose compositions tended to emphasize expanses of glass and smooth, solid walls.
Considered in a broader historical perspective, the Menil Collection is just one in a series of buildings with exposed structural elements. Already in 1850 Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace was an exhibition pavilion based on a greenhouse. Projects like these raise fundamental questions about the absorption of technically performative elements into architecture. Opposing answers to those questions are latent in the theoretical literature and the debate has resurfaced perennially as mechanization has advanced, as iron, steel, and other novel materials have worked their way into architectural practice, and more recently as architects confront new structural challenges and urgent questions about the materiality of buildings. Some theorists and critics have maintained that structurally performative forms that blur the distinction between the natural and manmade are signs of humanity's continuity with the wider organic and inorganic world. For others, the artist's role is not to reveal nature but to conceal its messy actuality beneath abstractions that allow the viewer to sustain an attitude of contemplation.
Is architecture not art? If a design meets all functional requirements, is it by definition beautiful? Or is functional design the glorification of what works over what moves us, of expedience over beauty?
The seminar investigates these and related questions about architecture and the architect that arise around the exposure of structure, exemplified in the Menil. To construct an interpretive framework that articulates what is at stake, we will review and discuss a series of key theoretical positions and references. Seminar participants will work individually to develop instructive case studies. Comparative analysis and peer feedback will be integral parts of the working process.