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Frank Gehry: an architect’s architect? How would you describe him
Frank Gehry: an architect’s architect? How would you describe him? What would you say his opinion of architecture schools is, or an ‘official’ architectural training in general? What were or are (he’s still going strong) some of the generative factors in his life informing his buildings?
-how do Gehry buildings compare to the Bullitt Bldg (which we’ll discuss on Wednesday)?
-think of Vitruvius here, and his triad of firmitas (structure), utilitas (function), and venustas(aesthetics or ‘beauty’)- are the three goals or components equally balanced with Gehry and Miller/Hull (architects of the Bullitt Bldg)? If not, how are they tipped?
-What do Thomas Jefferson”s Virginia State Capitol (1789s) and Yamasaki’s, Northwestern Life Insurance Building (1955s) have in common?
-what is the Pruitt Igoe myth?who started it? What was the argument to demolish it?
-What are the principal differences betw “Formalism” and “Brutalism”? How do their basic priorities (think Vitruvius again) differ?
-what were some of the basic reasons why orthodox modernism (European Modernism; Miesian Modernism; International Style – note, these terms often used interchangeably) was challenged?
-how would you characterize orthodox modernism, what were its basic characteristics?
-Kahn: in a class by himself. Why? Where does he fit, and where does he not fit into stylistic categorizing?
-why was the Richards Medical Research building seen as so radical? What were its problems?
-how was the Salk Institute an improvement over Kahn’s earlier research laboratories, the Richards Medical Laboratories on the Penn campus, if it was?
-Where does the Fisher house fit in the development of American arch in the late 1950s, early ’60s, or does it? It was located in roughly the same neighborhood as Robert Venturi’s house for his mother, same years. How do they compare? What was Venturi doing that was different?
-Farnsworth vs Venturi house: an obvious comparison. Focusing on the essentials, how do they compare? What about Farnsworth house and the Gehry house? Venturi and Gehry hses?
-tougher one: Eisenman’s House III and Gehry’s own hse in Santa Monica. Think in terms not just of style here, but of basic attitudes about or priorities in architecture. How did their aims in designing a house compare? What about the Eames house in Pacific Palisades?

-where does the basic bungalow fit here? Levitt’s houses?The typical Levitt house vs Venturi house: there’s a good one! How do they both address history, or historical models from the past? How do their aims differ? their clients or audiences?
-how would you describe Philip Johnson’s role in the history or development of American architecture?
-why did Graves’s Portland Building make such a splash? What would you say was important about it?
-how does Deconstructivist architecture differ (basically, fundamentally) from Postmodernism?
-how does it differ from orthodox modernism?
-tougher: how does Venturi’s work differ from Graves’s? What does it have in common? how differ?
-why does Gehry not fit comfortably into the “Deconstructivist” stylistic category? Why was he included in the Deconstructivst exhibition in the first place?
-Graves’s Portland Building and Gehry’s house in Santa Monica: both designed/built about the same time. Two very different building types, to be sure, but they have certain things in common. What, for example? How does each address the question of history? What are several of the biggest differences betw Gehry’s whole approach to architecture and Michael Graves’s, would you say?
-Lincoln Center in New York, early ’60s, was seen as the epitome of the modern cultural center, and thus greatly admired (by some) and much emulated. How did Charles Moore see it, and how did he respond to it in his design of the Piazza d’Italia a decade or so later?
-Venturi and Gehry: both built houses for their mothers or family. They have much in common, lot of differences. Focusing on the most important (in the context of architectural history), what are some of the commonalities? the differences?
-Gehry used a lot of recycled materials (chainlink fences, old plywood, aluminum siding, etc.) in his 1978 house in Santa Monica. Yet in “Sketches of Frank Gehry,” the film we saw in class, he never mentioned a concern about ecological issues. How ‘green’ an architect is he, would you argue or contend?
-What do we mean by “green architecture”?. How do definitions or conceptions of it differ?[I hope we’re able to discuss this on Wednesday]
-what do Charles Moore’s Piazza d’Italia and Disneyland have in common? In what fundamental ways do they differ?
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