Nova Rectory, New University of Lisbon:
The separation of functional aspects into vertical and horizontal based on size is the generator of the design and its greatest success. This allows the building to use the natural slope of the site to its advantage, and to the advantage of the campus as a connector. While the plaza appears hard and harsh, hopefully over time it will soften with regular use and the influence of the university for which it serves.
"While the plaza appears hard and harsh, hopefully over time it will soften with regular use..."
Hope indeed springs eternal. But I seem to remember hearing that it can be warm in Lisbon with lots of sun and I gather that it can also rain in the winter. So I wonder if a plaza conspiculously (even triumphantly) without any shade or shelter can ever be a pleasant place and have any "regular use" except as a quickly-traversed passageway.
If you were wondering about the windows:
The long facade with the random, slot openings is definitely the building's most distinctive aspect. This "punch-card" architecture is a welcome surprise after encountering the blank wall on the opposite side of the slab. The architects explain that the arrangement of windows is "so as not to allow one to fully perceive its many levels." Tucked under the tiers of steps that lead to a plaza at the level of the adjacent campus are larger spaces, such as an auditorium.
"...so as not to allow one to fully perceive its many levels." Why in the world not?
UPDATE: The source for this statement -- "The separation of functional aspects into vertical and horizontal based on size is the generator of the design and its greatest success..." -- is not entirely clear but in any case its emphasis is slightly odd as isn't such practice fairly standard? Isn't it commonsenical to program a building to keep related uses together? And the largest ones in the largest spces? Putting the heavy traffic generators closest to the elevators? etc etc
Yet, it seems to be presented here as if it is some sort of triumph of practical imagination.
"...so as not to allow one to fully perceive its many levels." Why in the world not?
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As an aesthetic matter, the architects wanted the building to give the impression of a monolithic, thin-section stone slab; an impression expressed directly on its uninterrupted, un-punctured, and unpunctuated rear side.
ACD
Posted by: A.C. Douglas | May 08, 2005 at 10:59 PM
And you are quite sure you understand their intentions, ACD? You've read further (or chatted with them?) And even accepting your statement as possibly accurate, what does it mean? What is the connection between a blank wall on one side and not allowing "one to fully perceive its many levels" by having a confusing array of slit windows on the other side?
Go ahead, ACD. Dig deeper. Make my day.
Posted by: David Sucher | May 09, 2005 at 06:36 AM
I'd never even heard of the building before reading about it here, and then on the website you linked.
It's clear, both from what's written on the website and the photos, that what I said the architects were going for is what they were going for. What does it mean? What does *what* mean? I'm not sure what you're asking about here.
As to your,
"What is the connection between a blank wall on one side and not allowing 'one to fully perceive its many levels' by having a confusing array of slit windows on the other side?"
The connection is that the blank wall is a direct expression of a stone monolith on one side, and by making the necessary fenestration on the other side not readily readable as fenestration from the outside, the *idea* of a stone monolith is preserved on that side as well, giving the entire building a unity of conception.
Get it now?
ACD
Posted by: A.C. Douglas | May 09, 2005 at 07:06 AM
I do get it. I got it. I reject it as foolish pseudo-intellectualizing (on the part of the architects -- you may very well be correct in your explanation). To my value system, their efforts and the client's money could have been better spent -- judging by the photos -- in creating a comfortable space for sensible-shoes bourgeois and bourgeois-wannabes.
Posted by: David Sucher | May 09, 2005 at 07:40 AM
ACD: Is this what you mean?
(1) They wanted to create the impression of monolith,
(2) but for practical purposes they needed to include some windows;
(3) yet a conventional arrangement of windows would ruin the monolith, (4)
so they settled on these slitty windows, which don't.
To me it looks like one of the typical blunders of avantgarde: taking a single, moderately clever idea and blowing it up to a gigantic scale, then thinking you've created a clever building, when in fact you've created a dull building. A really good building provides a complex aesthetic experience. This one is like the single giant starburst at the end of fireworks exhibition. (There's the argument that if you were to pay it sustained attention, you'd realise it is in fact a complex aesthetic object. This might be called the Rohrschach test for architecture. I don't buy it.)
That's the aesthetic side. On the practical side, I can only imagine what a disaster the interior is. Who the hell wants windows on only one side of a building? Who the hell wants to look out little slitty windows?
Posted by: Chris Burd | May 09, 2005 at 07:59 AM
Oh, I see there are windows (conventional ones, at that) on the at least one *end* of the building, though not on the side opposite this facade. No doubt the dean will have his office down there.
Posted by: Chris Burd | May 09, 2005 at 08:03 AM
David, my dear fellow, you're an incorrigible SSB.
As to the building being a "comfortable space" within which to work, well, we don't know anything about that yet, do we. It may well be just that, or it could be a disaster in that respect. Only those using it for a while will be able to make judgment on that aspect of the building.
BTW, just on exterior aesthetics, I rather like its look.
ACD
Posted by: A.C. Douglas | May 09, 2005 at 08:18 AM
"...within which to work...." == "...within which to live and work...."
ACD
Posted by: A.C. Douglas | May 09, 2005 at 08:20 AM
This is the kind of building that makes architecture seem insular -- it looks like a building that an architect made for the appreciation of other architects, and not for non-architect people to either use or understand.
It's just ugly, harsh, and hostile. It's hard for me to understand why the people paying for buildings like these pony up the money. The best thing to do is throw a tarp over it.
Posted by: Lisa Williams | May 09, 2005 at 08:24 AM
ACD, of course I haven't been inside so I pass no judgment on its interiors and din't men to suggest one.
But I can see the exterior plaza and I think one can see enough to say it is silly and pointless.
Of course, that could very well have been what the architects desired in the outdoor spaces: -- like Antonioni in L'Aventura, to express the pointlessness and boredom and discomfort in life by making us feel it ourselves and suffer through it. O Artist!
Posted by: David Sucher | May 09, 2005 at 08:32 AM
David:
Here are a couple interior shots.
http://data.over-blog.com/lib/1/7/1571/pics/AIRES-MATEUS-3.jpg
http://data.over-blog.com/lib/1/7/1571/pics/AIRES-MATEUS-4.jpg
Yum!
ACD
Posted by: A.C. Douglas | May 09, 2005 at 08:59 AM
David, I agree with your critique of the plaza, but I don't what you find meaningless about the fenestration. Do you consider any kind of architectural concept to be "foolish pseudo-intellectualizing"? Because this would rule out most of the Greek, Roman, Mediaeval European, and Renaissance architecture on which today's traditionalism is based.
Posted by: Joseph Clarke | May 09, 2005 at 09:07 AM
Thanks, ACD.
Not truly unpleasant interiors but a bit cold/boring for me.
Posted by: David Sucher | May 09, 2005 at 09:17 AM
Joseph, I don't recall that I described the fenestration as "meaningless."
But I do find enfusing a supposed "idea" into the design of a building to be boring and ultimately an ineffective way to communicate a suppoised idea.
ACD may be correct in discussing 'the *idea* of a stone monolith...' as the architects intention but such an idea is a very weak one for lacks a verb...what is the idea? What is it doing? The idea is that "stone monoliths" exist? Uh...That they are good? Bad? Indifferent? You can't have a meaninful idea unless there is a verb somewhere about. And I don'te believe that such intellectualizing is really, after all, very intellectual
Posted by: David Sucher | May 09, 2005 at 09:25 AM
To some extent the design of the interior is independent of the exterior. But no one is likely to be grateful for a little slit of a window, or no window, in their office space.
Joseph Clarke: I don't know exactly what DS means by "pseudo-intellectualizing", but my point would be that the architects are trying to make a very small idea go a very long way. To put it in terms of information theory, the whole facade could be encoded in maybe a couple of hundred bytes (which is more than the 60 or so bytes on a computer punchcard, but not much more). I don't think there's enough there to sustain the interest of the plaza's users over months or years.
Posted by: Chris Burd | May 09, 2005 at 09:35 AM
Maybe we should just admit that sometimes a geometric abstraction can be "cool"-just so they are plopped on some exurban estate where they don't destroy the convivability and life of a city? :)
Posted by: Brian Miller | May 09, 2005 at 11:37 AM
Projects like this make interesting sculpture, and models (interesting to some people, not me), but a building is not a sculpture... it is much much more. And it is sad to have architects who cannot realize this and build this crap.
Posted by: mstehlin | May 09, 2005 at 01:20 PM
Looks like a perfect place to work on your tan, though.
Posted by: Michael Blowhard | May 09, 2005 at 03:01 PM
But...But...It's European, man. Don't you know that Europeans just automatically know how to build urban buildings (LOL)
Posted by: Brian Miller | May 09, 2005 at 03:16 PM
Now I remember what it reminds me of: the facade is a monochrome version of the kind of geometric pattern that might have graced the lobby of a 1950s or 60s apartment building.
Posted by: Chris Burd | May 09, 2005 at 05:02 PM
David:
I should have remarked to you that one of the tests of the integrity and conceptual depth of a building's architectural (i.e., aesthetic) design is to imagine the building -- inside and outside -- cluttered with the inescapable accumulated junk of everyday use. Does the building's aesthetic integrity hold up well against such clutter, or is that integrity destroyed or compromised to any meaningful degree by imposing such alien presences on the architect's pristine vision? On the very meager evidence available to me, I suspect this building will survive such a test with good grades, so to speak. And I suspect as well that that starkly blank plaza was made intentionally starkly blank to allow the messy clutter of everyday use to actually define it's space (how about, for single hypothetical instance, a spontaneous, random, and chaotic growth of wildly-colored beach umbrellas scattered across the plaza's surface, put up by users to keep the sun at bay?).
Not at all a bad idea that initial blankness, I think.
ACD
Posted by: A.C. Douglas | May 09, 2005 at 06:53 PM
Oops
My,
"Does the building's aesthetic integrity hold up well against such clutter, or is that integrity destroyed or compromised to any meaningful degree by imposing such alien presences on the architect's pristine vision?"
would more fully have read:
"Does the building's aesthetic integrity hold up well against such clutter, or is that integrity destroyed, compromised, or called into question to any meaningful degree by imposing such alien presences on the architect's pristine vision?"
ACD
Posted by: A.C. Douglas | May 09, 2005 at 06:58 PM
"...a spontaneous, random, and chaotic growth of wildly-colored beach umbrellas scattered across the plaza's surface, put up by users to keep the sun at bay?"
What a delightful image. And I will believe it a likely/plausible scenario for the evolution of the plaza when I see students start carrying beach umbrellas to school. Or even more unlikely, when the administration of the school (which authorized this lonely desolate plain in the first place) allows street-food etc etc kiosks to be set up.
Posted by: David Sucher | May 09, 2005 at 06:59 PM
David: I think that every work of design (be it a building, a consumer product, a web site, or a piece of clothing) requires some sort of organizing concept or concepts. Some of these concepts will relate directly to use, but a building that's strictly functional would be dull, ugly, and inhuman (e.g. a warehouse). In many traditional buildings, the "idea" is difficult to discern because it is buried under many centuries of architectural tradition; we are so accustomed to the forms that we don't think of them as idea-driven. But I believe the precedents they are based on (Greek, Renaissance, Modernist) did have strong formal ideas.
Chris: I hesitate to pass judgment on a building I haven't personally visited, but I tend to agree that it seems a little stark. Then again, architecture doesn't need a lot of visual complexity to be good. Careful attention to proportions and to circulation patterns can make an excellent urban space -- and these are elements we can't judge from the photos. But I agree with the larger point that a giant shadeless plaza in Lisbon doesn't sound like a fantastic idea.
Posted by: Joseph Clarke | May 10, 2005 at 04:18 AM
>>This "punch-card" architecture is a welcome surprise after encountering the blank wall on the opposite side of the slab.
This is my favorite bit, 'One side's so bad that ANYTHING would be better.'
After the excruciating pain of my infected molar, the root canal was a welcome relief.
Posted by: Rob Asumendi | May 12, 2005 at 03:23 PM