maleficent

Couldn't help but notice Google's image today...



Nice that they celebrate the anniversary of the birth of Frank Lloyd Wright...

To make a topic out of this... what types of architecture appeal to you -- have any buildings that you particularly like? What makes a building's architecture memorable?

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lurkette

I love craftsman and prairie architecture - especially 20s bungalows. I love that whole early-20th-century era - arts and crafts, art deco, etc. And of, course, I love Frank Lloyd Wright - mostly his earlier stuff. I've never seen Fallingwater but I'd love to make a pilgrimage some day. I like some modern architecture (the Weisman museum in Minneapolis, the Dallas symphony hall) but my heart belongs to Frank.

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streak_56

I like greco-roman architecture. But my favourite by far would be late 1800s, early 1900s. Only because of some of the craftsmanship such as wood carving, mainly it's about the wood. I love carvings, making things with your own hands.... etc.

maleficent

The town I grew up in had a Wright house in it, I recall going with my parents to an open house to look at it, but maybe it was high school attitude, I don't remember it being anything special. I love some of the older buildings in NY - all the art deco style buildings, especially the ones with the gargolyes on the ledges.

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Charlatan

I have been a fan of acrhitecture since I was a kid (I think it was because Mr. Brady was an architect...). I wanted to be an architect but had a bad experience with a drafting teacher in high school...

There are a lot of styles that I like but right now I am going through a modernist phase... I really love the clean lines, the open spaces, the mixing of materials... Unfortuantely this style is large ignored in favour of replicating Victorian style suburban housing... developers are really caught in a rut.



I can appreciate victorian and edwardian styles... I just think there is so much more out there... It's just that we seem to associate these particular styles with quality. Add to this that the suburbs are examples of horriffic urban planning to begin with and you get the thing we call suburban sprawl... Ghastly.

Here is an example of high density modern housing... (I think these are in Amsterdam).



As far as larger buildings are concerned, I have to say that I love the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building in NYC... but also have a fondness for more simpler designs like the TD Towers in Toronto (designed by Mies van der Rohe)
Royal Bank Tower
Detail


In answer to what makes a building memorable... I would say it is good design that makes it memorable. Something that is both beautiful and functional... something that works in the environment in which it is situated (whether that is a juxtaposition or a seamless melding).

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Lebell

I'm a fan of different architectural periods, so this is a great thread!

I have my different likes, just as I like different microbrews.

When I am feeling like something fancy (a stout or porter), I like to look at a victorian style house perhaps a queen ann (one of which I've owned) or a second empire style.

When I am feeling more plain and straight forward (like a good wheat beer or IPA), give me a prairie style/mission bungalow.

I also love Wright and while I have not had the pleasure of seeing "Falling Water", I have had the pleasure of touring his house and seeing several of the surrounding houses he designed in Oak Lawn, Illinois.

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Cynthetiq

I loved being in Madrid...

the mix of architecture there was incredible.


Frescoed facade of the Panaderia in the Plaza Mayor, Madrid, Spain



The Palacio de Comunicaciones

Salzburg's baroque style is also incredible.



when we were in Sedona, we visited the Frank Lloyd Wright Chapel of the Holy Cross
Being in NYC I live in the forest of skyscrapers... each one has it's own beauty.

for those of you who love skyscrapers...

Skyscraper Museum

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rockogre

A Wright tower in Bartelsville, Oklahoma.

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SiN

very cool thread

i've got a very rough eye for architecture ... i definitely know what appeals to my aesthetic and what does not ... but i know not much of anything of the history, the people, etc ...

in other words, i really appreciate 'good' architecture (that which somehow matches with my general aesthetic) but my knowledge doesn't go much beyond what my eye likes (or not).

i do know that I generally prefer modern and clean. glass can be a great element, and i'm pretty particular of the colours of things as well.

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Charlatan

I was thinking about this thread over lunch and thought of two buildings I really like:

30 St Mary Axe "The Gherkin"


The new addition to the Ontario College of Art and Design

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optik_nerve

I personally like the Baroque architectural period or any cantilever archictecture like this:







^ designed by Wright

chickentribs

A good friend was teaching Architecture at the University of London, and sat on the board at the Tate Modern Art Museum in London.. He would spend hours talking about that building. It was an old Power Station that they rehabed on the bank of the Thames River, and just breathtaking in person, not to mention some of the finest collections of art in the world.

Notice the size of the people in the second picture to get an idea of how huge the place is...

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Charlatan

Chickentribs... it is an awesome building. It's so cool that they managed to rehab it...

In the past, many cities would have just bulldozed the building to make room for something new.

The collection there is great as well.

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n0nsensical

Bank of China Tower by I.M. Pei (Hong Kong)

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cellophanedeity

I love architecture, perhaps even more for what it stands for than the look itself. Architecture has this amazing ability to define where you are within a glance.

OCAD (as Charlatan showed) is a brilliant building for what it is. It makes a lot of sense for Toronto's most prestigious art college to look like a crazy box on top of gigantic pencils. (they won't tell you, but they're still not done the inside of the building yet. Still working on it!)


The famous Sydney Opera house looks classy and fluid. It seems strangely aquatic to me, and it remains as one of my favorite buildings.

I also like older architecture, like the colleges I posted in the University of Toronto thread. We want to look dignified and old, big and expensive. All of the things UofT aims to be.

And I can't get enough of old barns.

james t kirk

No time to reply in any decent format, but

Charlatan

Have you seen the models for the addition on the ROM?

Talk about an abomination of "look at me architecture"

I could care less if they wanted to build some ice cube somewhere (like Downsview), but attached to the ROM?

What were they (the museum board of directors) thinking???

http://www.rom.on.ca/renaissance/architecture.php

It looks like some cancerous growth on one of the most beautiful buildings in town.

DDDDave

One of the world's greatest buildings......The top of the dome is 33 stories tall. It looks like a three story building. The sense of scale is amazing. Look at the size of the people. They are not even as tall as the base of the columns.



I am getting ready to develop a new retail center and am going with an architect who specializes in the 'Sarasota School of Architecture' style. This style is actually quite famous in architectural circles. It emphasizes minimalist design. The use of common materials combined with an extremely functional design is the trademark. Paul Rudolph is generally credited with originating the style. He studied and taught at Yale and influenced I.M.Pei.

Some samples......

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Charlatan

Kirk

I am on a wait and see with this addition... What, for me, will make all the difference is what it looks like on the inside... The exterior *might* come out OK. It has changed quite a bit since the first scibble we were shown due to budget. The original design was much more impressive because it was all glass and far more pointy... As it is now, it is clad in metal and glass and just doesn't pop the way it was originally concieved.

It seems it is one of those changes that anger people in process but that a city comes to embrace (no one liked the Sydney Opera House when it was first commissioned). Time will tell but I am not holding my breath

What I'm more peeved about is the Frank Geary addition to the AGO... it looks like like an afterthought... but again budget restraints are preventing more. The interior looks like it will be good though.




The upside of all this new interesting architecture (the ROM, the AGO, the OCAD, the Opera House and the new one on the NW corner of College and University) is that a city that has lamentable buildings is getting interested once more in urban design and good architecture.

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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke