Arch.itect.us

It is not so much that they are actually thin, but in proportion they appear wider than they are deep. Intriguing in proportion with maximum exposure to light, cross ventilation opportunities. I’m in no way suggesting any of these buildings offer such benefits by the way. This post is merely a light observation.

Architect: Jean Nouvel
Completed: (unbuilt)
Address: 10000 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles.

Although recently shelved,  this building was to “exhibit a wafer thin, vertical garden appearance.” A lovely transparent ephemeral design by this year’s Pritzker winner. A few words from the Pritzker Prize site.

…Nouvel has a project underway in New York City, a mixed use tower next door to the Museum of Modern Art, called Tour de Verre. It was also recently announced that he has designed a high-rise condominium, Suncal Tower, for the Century City area of Los Angeles.

In the book titled Jean Nouvel: Elements of Architecture, Conway Lloyd Morgan writes, “Nouvel’s buildings engage our interest through their consistency of purpose, within the range of their visual or technical complexities. Very often the sequence of impressions one of his buildings creates—from distance to detail, through the arrangement, proportions, and linking of interior elements, in the handling of mass and façade, by the use of color and light—works in harmonious parallel with the purposes and functions of the building: the qualities of commodity, firmness and delight cited centuries ago by Vitruvius.”

2.

UN Building 38 Story Secretariat Building

Director of Planning: Wallace Harrison.
Architects of Basis for Final Design: Niemeyer and Le Corbusier
Completed: 1950
Address: East River, Midtown Manahtten, New York City

A remarkable and iconic building. Proportioned with finessse expressing, at the time, an international style for a new world organisation. The thin, glazed east and west curtains walls helped maximise floor space, and are covered with thermopane glass (Wikipedia ). This facade is intermittently broken by the mechanical equipment levels. North and east facing walls are clad in marble.

3.

Council House

Architect: Jeffrey Howlett and Don Bailey
Completed:1962
Address: St. Georges Terrace, Perth, Western Australia.

Council house is on the squat side, but its the thinnest I could pluck from atop my head in a local context.  Beautifully modern, beautifully brutal. The metaphoric spark in a long and fertile career for Architect’s Howlett and Bailey. A stark, stark contrast to the flat, physically abrasive Convention centre. A more contemporary manifestation the firm Cox, Howlett, Bailey and Woodland were able to cough onto the riverbank.

Council House appears as a prism of T’s, sitting upon regimented grid Piloti. Its relationship with the ground is especially engaging, setback considerably from the Terrace picking it off as a datum, whilst perched atop a plinth sitting above the Supreme Court Gardens to the south. Some Western Australian public art in the foreground. A definite liability. This building will be covered in more detail in a future post.

4.

Ho Chi Minh City Urban Condition

Super thin, super tall, super death trap. On a recent junket up to one of the most pleasant countries in SE Asia, I couldn’t help but be amazed at what is allowed. This narrow typology is in many cases not more than 3.50 metres wide. They are accessed from a central stairwell, housing two apartments on each level. One on the front, one on the back. This variety of building usually stands 5 stories tall. The buildings appear compressed as if entire avenues have been placed in a vice and squeezed tightly. Light and ventilation is sometimes an issue at the rear, though who needs it? Density is a lovely thing, though so is safe building practice.

Typically the streets in downtown Ho Chi Minh City have wider footpaths than its sister capital Hanoi, with commercial space at ground level. Of interest is the shear quantity of scooters that fly up and down the streets.

5.

Kitagata Apartment Building

Architect: Kazuyo Sejima
Completed: 1998
Address: Gifu, Japan