Arthur Erickson's buildings?  

Dear DC...
The fast transition from the talent of Arthur Erikson and the likes to my modest struggle with the proper place and shape and the creation of a succession of architectural emotions for a music shrine on a mistral swept plateau in the Provence was a little dizziling but certainly inspiring.
Other than the place to play and record music it is also a place where a few unusual instruments will be kept. The two Steinway concert grands are apparently amoung the five or so best instruments Steinway has build in the last 50 years. One of them I believe is the instrument Keith Jarrett played on his Köln concert.
It makes me think about the differences between the past and history and between heritage and tradition.
When I look at my own experience with "history", for instance in the way I have been introduced in conferences, I am always amazed about the different persons ways one can introduce with basically the exact same information. Although we obviously can not change the past we rebuild it in the way we construct that history, selective, interpretive and often eliminating interesting parts of the past. It might sound as a paradox, but writing history seems to be our way of destroying the lessons we could learn from the past. It happens at a small scale as welll as on a large one.
But back to the building. I have struggled a lot with the approach to the building. I love the traditional scenario of going up a number of steps, as the last effort before reaching the goal. It seems to be imbedded in our culture ever since David's psalms (going up toward Jerusalem) and confirmed by so many chusrches, concert halls etc. I also love the idea that it allows you to go down ones you are inside. Nothing compares to coming into a concert hall or theatre from a higher level. (one of the few flaws I think, with the Scala di Milano is that it is too flat).This being said, I have struggled with the thought that these are all "tradition-based" values rather than innovative ones in which the new sensation and the emotions that come with it are "created" by the place itself and not programed by our culture....I have to get to work, but thank you for your comments, and as far as I am concerned, I will be back

I confess...
I have at times secretly dreamed you would take one of your Atelier Orange ceramic pieces, cut it in half top to bottom, lay it on its side, and see if any of your form language in ceramics could possibly scale up. There is something profoundly pleasing about the white porcelin and the clay ceramic combination. I know, I know, I am talking very simplistically here, when a building is a complex of foundation, structure, infrastructure, skin, load requirements, and roof covering constrained by building codes and budgets and site topography and road linkages. But what the hell! Sometimes inverting a problem briefly can free a mind.
I recall the fellow, Paolo Soleri, who built the quixotic Arcosanti north of Phoenix, AZ, USA. I believe we on DA talked about it once quite some time ago. He built different parts of it with differing materials/construction styles. And I vaguely recall he made a small dome, or half dome, by building a dirt dome, and pouring concrete over it, and then excavating out the dirt and made something quite beautiful.
What if you built a giant sand/dirt casting and poured a ceramic and white porcelin concert hall, or at least something approximating it? At the very least it would be cat proof, would it not? 🙂
Yes, yes, I admit to being very fond of my vase and so I am hopelessly, impractically biased about this issue. And unlike a rigorous designer, I can afford the luxury of having a reverie about adapting from something already done. But perhaps pausing a moment or two, and thinking at least briefly about a white porcelin and ceramic concert hall, might give your mind the playful, rejuvenating moments it needs to refocus on just how goddamned awesomely fun what you are undertaking truly is. Your ceramics quietly, but beautifully exhalt the making of food for the temple of the body. Perhaps a concert hall should be made to exhalt quietly and beautifully the making of the food of the spirit--music.
I know, I know, I speak in analogies when you must speak in a rationally constructable form language.
But if these further musings just give you a good chuckle and allow you a professional's scoff at a wannabee dreamer, I will still feel I have done my duty.
Anais Ninn said, "Proceed from the dream outward." And so I have.

For those who are..
not familiar with Arcosanti (the place dcwilson is refering to)
http://www.arcosanti.org/expCosanti/main.html

Finally got around
to reading Erickson's essay. This has as much meaning for me as anything I've read about architecture in a long long time.
Thank you, Koen.
http://www.arthurerickson.com/sp_mcgill.html

A nice video+interview of Arthur Erickson
Click the link below and please disregard the short commercial in the beginning.
http://www.fashiontelevision.com/videos/?fr_story=c902369d05107b0fa219c6...

Did Erickson build any houses or small office buildings...
in California, or Oregon, or Washington state?

Answered my own question...
He had a very elegant web site.
http://www.arthurerickson.com/houses.html

Make that has...
a very elegant web site.

Two criticisms of Arthur Erickson...
I have written at some length of my admiration for Erickson's buildings, which they richly deserve, but having ruminated on them for awhile, and looked at the photos presented of each of his projects on his web site, I want to now make two criticisms. The criticisms are made as part of my quest to move toward a contemporary design philosophy. Sometimes this quest is about what is work carrying forwards, but sometimes it is about subtraction.
First criticism: there is a giganticism that permeates all of Erickson's works great and small that is I think unhealthy for the independence of the individual and for the independence of the community in society. It is a giganticism that exhalts the big--the state and the corporation. Erickson, as an architect, reminds me a bit of Olivier's Marcus Crassis, in Spartacus. All must bow down and submit to the grandeur of Rome, Olivier opined, looking out over Rome. It is ironic finding this quality in Erickson's buildings, because Erickson himself is a quiet, gentle man, who does not seem the type to fawn over contemporary Rome, though he surely springs from its loins (McGill University) and the bulk of his career has been building monuments to its great state and city and corporate players. In Erickson's defense, I would imagine that he views the giganticism of his architecture as something regenerative; i.e., the imagination and intuition of architecture eclipsing even the ego and vanity and hugeness of the states and corporations that he builds for. To give Erickson the benefit of the doubt in terms of his intent, Erickson might put it this way: all rise up to this building, even Rome itself. But I do not believe in the end that the architecture works the way he might intend. In the end, it makes one feel feel tiny and insignificant in its midst, even as it dazzles and regenerates with its sculpting of space and its elevation of light that also inspires me once I am inside one of his buildings.

Two criticisms of Arthur Erickson...Pt2
Second criticism: this is some what related to the first. Erickson lets his buildings overwhelm their site and context with this giganticism, even though he is obviously highly conscious of the site and surroundings. Because of this keen awareness of site and surroundings, I can only conclude that he consciously intends to overwhelm both; that he is imposing the building as more important that site or surroundings. It is true that we want architects to make us something more stunning and beautiful than what has come before; that we want them to bring the whole neighborhood up a notch by what they do. And I think Erickson accomplishes this in his buildings from time to time, which is a great gift from him to the places where he builds. But on the whole, what I observe more often is a tendancy for the site to disappear, or sink into submission, in the shadow of the building, even as he tries to do striking, beautiful thinks with pools, reflecting pools, stepped public areas, and so forth. This overwhelming of site and surroundings brings an aesthetic imbalance that is not pleasant and hints at a philosophical imbalance that yields both what I am describing and the giganticism that I have noted above.
For a contemporary design philosophy, then, I should like to carry forward Erickson's magnificient, perhaps unexceeded, ability to craft space and fill it with light via a modernist form language, and, at the same time, subtract his giganticism and imbalance between building and site/surroundings.