Issue 9 News from the Architectural Association aa RCHITECTURE In seeking the solutions to environmental and social crises, the answer might be found in any return to pre-metropolitan conditions of inhabitation. Landscape Urbanism Guest Series PG 5 AAIS Interprofessional Studio PG 14 Literature is a hybrid, bastardised medium generally, and essentially so. States of Disintegration PG 10 Landscape Urbanism Guest Series PG 5 Strawberry Tables: A Potted History PG 12 VERSO AARCHITECTURE ISSUE 9 aaC R HITECTURE CN O TRIBUTORS NO TE ABOUT THE DESIGN News from the Architectural Alisa Andrasek The first six issues of AArchitecture, 2 Learning from Denise (and Bob) Association [email protected] established in 2006, looked to establish Issue 9 / Summer 2009 a new title in the AA’s ever-evolving 4 Forming Greg Lynn FORM aaschool.ac.uk Andrzej Blonski series of magazines and journals and [email protected] in doing so revisited the legacy of ©2009 numerous short-lived AA publications. 5 Landscape Urbanism Guest Series All rights reserved Giles Bruce Since the publication of the seventh Published by the Architectural [email protected] issue, the magazine has looked to shift 6 Visiting Schools 2009/10 Association, 36 Bedford Square, direction even further, in its structure, London WC1B 3ES Mike Davies now including a student editor, and in its form, as a newsletter with a more 9 Re-reading Palladio Contact: Ricardo de Ostos standardised and repeating format. [email protected] [email protected] At the same time alternative modes 10 States of Disintegration Nicola Quinn +44 (0)20 7887 4033 of publication continue to be explored Henderson Downing though Bedford Press, established at the To send news briefs: [email protected] AA in 2008. In this and future issues it is 12 Strawberry Tables: A Potted History [email protected] hoped that AArchitecture will respond Merlin Eayrs to the changing context of the AA and 14 AAIS: Interprofessional Studio EditR O IAL BOARD [email protected] its public programme to communicate Alex Lorente, Membership student projects and writing. Brett Steele, AA School Director Marina Lathouri 16 AA Student Trips around the World Zak Kyes, AA Art Director [email protected] Architectural Association (Inc.) 19 Urban Geometry from Solar Geometry EditR O IAL TEAM Theo Lorenz Registered Charity No. 311083 Nicola Quinn, Managing Editor [email protected] Company limited by guarantee Wayne Daly and Claire McManus, Registered in England No. 171402 20 AA/IE: Business School Workshop Graphic Designers Kate MacTiernann Registered office as above Scrap Marshall, Student Editor [email protected] 21 Embodied Patterns Lecture Series ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Markus Miessen Shumon Basar [email protected] 22 New from AA Publications Valerie Bennett Eugene Han Nora Nilsen 23 The Canon and its Disjunction Olaf Kneer [email protected] Luisa Miller Christopher Pierce Pavlos Phillipou Andrea Palladio: His Life and Legacy Nathalie Rozencwajg [email protected] Sandra Sanna 24 Hooke Park Visit Yvonne Tan Tanja Siems Tom Verebes [email protected] 25 Le Corbusier’s Paris: Printed by Cassochrome, Belgium Douglas Spencer [email protected] A Tour with Richard Dunlap Theo Spyropoulos 26 News [email protected] 27 News Briefs 1 AA Lecture and Symposium, 30 April—1 May 2009 Learning from Denise (and Bob) By Scrap Marshall In the afterword to Having Words, a collection of heavy. After a brief lecture on the current work of her essays published as part of the AA’s Words series, joint practice with Venturi, students from across the Denise Scott Brown discusses the energy and intensity school provided one image from their current work, of her shared career with husband Robert Venturi. As a very brief spoken outline and a question to her an architect, planner and one of the most provocative regarding an issue raised by the projects. Quickly thinkers and educators of her generation, she also (‘get to the question…’ to quote Brett Steele), interests acknowledges the fight for identity concomitant in and issues arose, with the projects drifting into the such a partnership. After the two events coinciding background. with the launch of the book – an evening lecture and Whether discussing questions of ornament and a symposium the following morning – Scott Brown’s structure or the problems of both physical and social identity, it seems, has never been in question. context, the concentration, insight and clarity of her The lecture, ‘Towards an Active Socioplastics’, written work became fully evident in this quick and was taken from the essay of the same name in Having punchy format. Alma Wang’s Intermediate 3 project Words and stretched to well over two hours. The essay, regarding ‘narrative infrastructures’ became a one of 12 in the book, covers 15 sub-categories and discussion on the different means and merits of describes biographically – or as she says, ‘parably’ – approaching a problem – artistically or scientifically. the origins of her attitude towards socially responsive Denise’s suggestion that beauty can be a by-product architecture and planning. From her tricontinental of a scientific or functionalist methodology showed upbringing and education, her time at the AA, and the her modernist sensibilities, but she also noted that, as influence of her mentor Herb Gans at Penn, to her with writing, a visual and artistic approach can be a own research and teaching with the ground-breaking tool to test, criticise and bring to light a problem. Her Denise Scott Brown giving her lecture. Learning from Las Vegas and Levittown research insistence, however, was that an artistic approach studios, she conveys both the rigour and emotional should never come at the expense of science. In Kyle’s involvement that contributes to her stance that Schertzing’s Emtech project, simple wooden elements ‘making should be associated with ideas’. are combined to become friction-based structures. His The essay shares the ‘cool warmth’ of the question ‘how would you use them in your own work?’ writing of her mentor, Gans, and provides a brought laughs from the guests but also fundamental fascinating and detailed study of the growth of an questions of scale, weight and weather which are often obviously ongoing education. A committed teacher, brushed aside. Scott Brown’s desire is that the essays and her life’s Not only did this session show an architect, work become a ‘quarry’ of information, a ‘living will’ academic and educator still open to new ideas, to help guide her ‘architectural grandchildren’ and it’s questions and the possibilities of the future, it perhaps fitting that the compilation is brought to provided a counterpoint to the traditional evening fruition through the school where she first started to lecture. It showed that when students participate in formulate her own architectural identity. the discussion, theories, attitudes and indeed the However, transferred to a long and image-heavy lecturer can really be questioned. lecture, the constant flux between this ‘quarry’ and The evening lectures, unique in their inception a masterclass in both planning, and the development continue to be relevant and provocative but often end and use of the diagram became exhausting. That’s not in glassy-eyed silence from the audience. If somehow to say the lecture lacked relevance or wit, but in her the qualities of Denise’s morning session could be foreword to Having Words, she insists the writing translated into some of these evening events, then they should be ‘cogent and graphic without the need for could become even more productive and enjoyable for pictures’, whereas the lecture suffered from an the audience, student or otherwise, and the presenters abundance of such pictures. Trying to fit in 50 years themselves. of work into two hours is a tall order for anyone, let alone someone as prolific as Scott Brown. Scrap Marshall is a second year student and student The following morning, however, saw one of editor of AArchitecture the most interesting, student involved and relevant symposiums – with as few consonants as the lecture hall has seen all year: image-light and discussion- The Symposium with Venturi and Scott Brown. Photos Valerie Bennett 2 3 AA Lecture, 11 March 2009 AA Lecture Series, February—March 2009 Forming Greg Lynn FORM Landscape Urbanism Guest Series By Douglas Spencer M atthew Gandy preparing for his talk. Photo Valerie Bennett Landscape Urbanism’s annual programme of public of recent entanglements between the body and lectures assembled a range of designers, historians and technology in urban space’, he offered significant theorists to consider the discipline’s current practice, insights into how urban infrastructures are, significance and scope. simultaneously, the means through which the city is Charles Waldheim, who originally coined the joined to ‘nature’ and through which its inhabitants term ‘Landscape Urbanism’, adopted an historical are socially segregated. perspective in order to assess the significance of its Infrastructural concerns were also the focus distinctive contributions to urban design. In his of Kelly Shannon’s Water Urbanism in Asia. She lecture, Planning, Ecology and the Emergence suggested the ways in which water-based Greg Lynn presenting his new book, Greg Lynn FORM. Photo Valerie Bennett of Landscape, he presented Landscape Urbanism’s infrastructures could function as both a “structural origins in the late 90s as an historical moment of and a structuring” agent to ameliorate some of the Greg Lynn was at the AA on 11 March 2009, in ‘It’s unlike a chronological monograph. We ripped distinct and lasting significance – an ‘epistemological problematic conditions identified in Gandy’s talk. conversation with Ross Lovegrove, Mark Rappolt the thing apart into topics. I think concepts would be paradigm shift’ – whose origins might best be located Introducing a range of projects drawn from her (former editor of AA Files) and publisher Robert too strong a word… So topics; like structure, aperture, in examples such as Ludwig Hilberseimer’s mid- practice, she argued for the integrative and strategic Violette.