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autore |
CECIL BALMOND |
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titolo |
INFORMAL |
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editore |
PRESTEL |
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luogo |
MONACO |
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anno |
2007 |
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lingua |
INGLESE (ENG) |
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Argomento e tematiche affrontate |
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The book invites the reader to enter the dialogues
between the author and the architects he works with, sharing the intimacies
of the design process through sketches and first principles. Projects range from a Villa in Bordeaux to a large
Transport Interchange in Arnhem, from a large canopy in Lisbon to the V&A
Spiral in London and an Exhibition Centre in Lille, highlighting the collaborations Cecil Balmond
has had with the architects Ben van Berkel, Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas, Alvaro
Siza and Peter Kulka with
Ulrich Königs. |
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Giudizio
Complessivo: 7 (scala 1-10) |
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Scheda compilata da: Marco Grossato |
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Corso di Architettura e Composizione Architettonica 3
a.a.2014/2015 |
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Autore: Cecil Balmond |
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Cecil Balmond is an engineer, designer,
master builder, mathematician, thinker and writer. His theory of the informal
is grounded in his collaboration over the last 25 years with many notable
architects including Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind and Alvaro Siza.
Charles Jencks remarked, when asked to list the fifteen most important
buildings and projects that were changing architecture, that “to my amazement, Balmond
scores higher than any architect, if the engineer is credited with partial
creation”. Balmond’s recent projects include the
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion with Toyo Ito, and the largest fabric sculpture
in the world with Anish Kapoor, recently opened in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. Balmond was
born in Sri Lanka, where he studied at university, before leaving for further
education in England. His interest lies in the genesis of form and the
overlap of science with art, using music, numbers and mathematics as vital sources. He is Saarinen
Professor at Yale, was Kenzo Tange
Visiting Critic at Harvard, is a member of the Arup Group Board, and Chairman
of Arup’s Europe Division. He was recently appointed a Fellow of the RIBA and
was awarded the honorary Diploma of the AA. He lives in London. |
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Cecil Balmond |
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Contenuto |
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The book presents Balmond’s
unorthodox ideas through a series of interlinking stories, in which anecdote vies
with analysis, science with art. This approach enables each story (or
chapter) to focus on a particular aspect of Balmond’s
problem-solving methodology without replicating the already well-documented
perspective of the architects on each of these iconic projects. |
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CAPITOLI |
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Capitolo 0– PREFACE |
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The preface is made by Charles Jencks and Rem Koolhaas. They both give their
own opinion about the book, and probably the implication was that if I didn’t agree with them I was somehow
unable to understand. Rem Koolhaas writes “Cecil Balmond
has, almost single-handedly, shifted the ground in engineering – a domain
where the earth moves very rarely – and therefore enabled architecture to be
imagined differently.” |
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Capitolo I – INTRODUCTION |
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The author exposes his ideas and
consequent questions about architecture. He starts from the beginnig, from
the Greek word “techne”, then he touches the numers, the early Greek
mathematic rules and their notion of symmetria.
Balmond writes “Then I began to question what these regular framings of
closed squares and rectangules were; were they containers of an empty
inanimate space?”. He will answer us undirectly in the book later, as he will
do with the other questions he writes about the loose geometry giving shape and formdynamics and static, the
non-linearity.
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Capitolo II- BORDEAUX VILLA |
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Villa Floriac, Bordeaux: diary of
making a box ‘fly’ This chapter seems a diary, the
diary of an engeneer, and architect, a designer.. It shows us day by day (8
days) the problems and the solutions encontred during the project and the
building of this villa, even with the author’s comments and thinkings. From
the beginning of the fist sensation,
with all the classic examples; to the structural problems and even the
spending reviwes they had to aplly to solve the impellent costs of a bigger
beam instead the height of the concrete floor. “The idea of a table is destroyed. Instead, the dynamic is launch.” |
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Capitolo III – KUNSTHAL |
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Kunsthal, Rotterdam: breaking the
Cartesian cage In this chapter it’s treated the
most informal architecture:
Koolhas’ Kunsthal. Balmond explain us how the
projectist intent was to destroy and escape the cartesian rules. He treats also the four proposals
to be made in Kunsthal: brace, slip,
frame, juxtaposition. For each one of these four
porposals he gives us practical examples, helped by drawed schemes and nice
pictures, of them.
“Let the
informal in. Have a syncopation instead of the dull metronomic one-two repeat of post and beam.” |
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Capitolo IV- INFORMAL |
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Balmond
gives us many examples and a detailed glossary of the key-words that compose
the meaning of informal. Sketches
and practical elements are very usefull to understand the definition of this
word. This
chapter treats constructive techinques, philosofic concepts and sociology
elements as one only network that works together. |
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Capitolo V– THE CHEMNIZ SOLUTION |
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Sports Stadium, Chemnitz: algorithm
versus mimesis The author opens up this chapter
with a question to all of us: shoud a
stadium in a cross-section be a composite building of dependant attachments; why
not try different layers that are indipendant? After that he talks of the process
that borught the architects Peter Kulka and Ulrich Konigs to the concept, to
the paper model. Sketches, sensations, motivations and feelings are envolvers
of the reader into the projecting process. The questions that the architecs
asked themselves and the solutions they thought are well explained.
“We wanted something different, eccentric orbits, a release of the wild energies that Nature seems so easily to control.” |
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Capitolo VI – REVISITING LILLE |
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The best way to resume this chapter
is copy Balmond’s introduction: “The fantasy always compeals, the thought of new plan is exciting. In contrast, hard reality, the end result oh what we do in the name of that
quest, is less interesting. Once we’re done with design the next adventure
begins opening up new horizons. The concentration is on start-up rather than
finish. But when the ambition is huge and way beyond the normal scope of a
project, then the sheer scale and presumption needs its own incredulity
questioned. Did it work? Was the ambition right? When that plan is to
supersede the old with the new and redefine a whole city centre than the
project and its theory are worthy of interrogation, repeatedly. It was with this in mind that I revisited Lille, to return as a visitor
and walk the streets, to view the contruction and to partake of the vision it
offered. In the process I hoped to learn something new about the project
again.” From this introduction, we can
easily understand the content of the chapter: a sommary of remembered
feelings and sensetions walking in Lille after the project. |
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Capitolo VII- SPIRAL |
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V&A
Spiral, London: animated geometries Informal
takes an other meaning (different from the Kunsthal), it’s decomposition of
the normal surfaces and elements that compose a building. Balmond shows us
the thinkings and the experiments beyond the shapes and the geometries of the
Spiral. “Does space
have to be container-like and neutered to house works of
art?” |
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Capitolo IX –MANIFESTO |
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It’s
a collection of Balmond’s high sentences about architectural composition and
philosophy in architecture. |
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Capitolo X- WINDOWS OVER BORDEAUX |
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Black
and withe pictures of the main beam’s holes that frames the view from the inside
of Koolhas project in Bordeaux |
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Capitolo XI- FRACTILES |
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It’s
all about Cecil Balmond and Daniel Liebeskind reasoning on tiles. They
consider all the examples in hisotry, during the Victorian Age, in the
Ammann,.. also the mathematic rules and proportions that alouds to create so
armoniously patterns like Fibonacci’s numbers and the golden section. |
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Capitolo XII- FRACTAL |
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This chapter talk of the
fractal and the crations possibles with them, like starting from a triangle
we can drow in it many other smaller triangles all similar, or we can draw
from a square a chess desk. |
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Capitolo
XIII- CONGREXPO |
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Congrexpo, Lille: city within city Balmond explains all the
difficuties born from the insufficent money to realise the buiding over the
railway. All the problems coming from the shed of the Congrexpo, of the
structre, how to solve the tensions and not to give to the visitors the
impression of being soffocated by it or to lose themselves under that big
shadow. “It was essentially a one storey, shed-like building. But
what a shed it turned out to be.” |
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Capitolo
XIV- CANOPY |
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Portuguese
National Pavilion, Lisbon: structure as a cut in space Probably
the most fascinating chapter of the book, reveals all the problems and complications
of this project. From the easiest idea of a line, to the difficulties of the
building process, the intuitions to solve the tensions and cracking problems
of the concrete; the choice og using such an heavy material like the concrete
to transmit the idea of lightness and floating canopy. It
is lovely written and treats complicated calculations with bright simplicity,
associated with clear diagrams and draws. “The
mystery is in the unseen calculation of exact balance, of up versus
down.” |
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Capitolo XV- ARNEM
Central
Station, Arnhem: flow diagram as enzyme
The theme treated
in the chapter can be resumed in using modern modeling technologies to create
shapes and structures different from the one we are used to know. The creation
of a natural shape, as an organic element, where walls roofs and floors
converge one into the others. This is the Arnem’s
Station’s project.
“Layering and folding take over and the concerns of a Newtonian
mechanics fall away.”