Margaret Goldsack ARCH 1390: Text For Poster

Knowledge

Frank Gehry

Re-interpreting the Vitra Design Museum one needs to understand the architect behind it. Born Frank Owen Goldberg on 28 February 1929, he changed his name to Gehry to be accepted by an anti-Semitic industry of the time. He studied architecture at the University of Southern California and later city planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Much of his success appears to be almost accidental and owing to his rebellious nature. He designed cardboard furniture which was successfully sold in Bloomingdales, so in his cantankerous manner he designed more cardboard furniture “which nobody would like”. In response to the revival of Greek temples, Gehry stepped back a further 300 million years to the ‘revival’ of the fish from which he gleans much inspiration for his designs.

Deconstructivsm

In reaction to modernism and post modernism Gehry broke the rules, particularly that where ‘form follows function’. In his Vitra Design Museum (1988) he took typically cuboid forms and distorted them to create unpredictable yet controlled chaos which paid no attention for its intended function and is clearly apparent in his later work the Marques de Riscal Hotel, Elciego, Spain (2006). His designs begin with a series of sketches, impulsive fluid lines with no sense of mass or weight only portraying a sense of direction and spatial context. The sketches are quickly made into 3d models and through “organization of the artist” his buildings remain true to the original designs and budget. He is particularly concerned his buildings are always seen with their surrounding context.

Visualisation

Concept and design

The concept for my interpretation of the Vitra Design Museum comes from the Vitra’s elemental geometry, the sloping roofs and the spiral stairs. Using these playful swirls and planes, I envisaged a public space for the university where people could come together to study, exchange ideas as well as stage functions and performances. Researching folded architecture helped me to comprehend how this may work. I studied another work by Frank Gehry which gave me further insight into his style and design process. Based upon this I sketched my idea of what the pavilion might look like and made a representational montage. The core model was made using Gehry’s style of deconstructivism by disassembling the Museum down to the core form. A second level was added by copying, rotating and elevating the original. With the basic model in place I then reconstructed it to produce cleaner geometry, smoother curves and molded it as one structural sculpture. It was a detailed process to create the new architecture whilst remaining true to the original building and creating something unique whilst preserving the essence of Gehry’s style.

“... a continuous changing swirl of white forms on the exterior, each seemingly without apparent relationship to the other, with its interiors a dynamically powerful interplay, in turn directly expressive of the exterior convolutions. As a totality it resolves itself into an entwined coherent display...” - Paul Heyer

Frank Gehry References

Frank Gehry -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Gehry

Interview - http://www.ted.com/talks/frank_gehry_as_a_young_rebel.html

Portrait – http://www.ninjavspenguin.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/frank-gehry.jpgCardboard

Furniture - http://www.gimmii.nl/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Veiling-Wright-Bubbles-stoel-Frank-Gehry.png

Fish Lamp - http://www.paperny.com/gehry2/gehry_fish_lamp.jpg

Deconstructivism References

Deconstructivism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstructivism

Gehry -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_the_artist

Gehyr - http://www.arcspace.com/studio/gehry/

Marques de Riscal Hotel - http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2584/3748406301_d2ce243f3b_o.jpg

Marques de Riscal Model - http://picses.eu/image/fa6b9716/