BookHampton’s On the Edge series, taking place on Thursdays at 8:00pm in Sag Harbor, looks at what takes us to the new frontiers and what's changing the face of the familiar, and we've invited some extraordinary guest speakers.
This past Thursday night, the internationally renowned architectural critic Paul Goldberger joined us for a fascinating and fulsome conversation about the “edge” of architecture: new versus modern, art in sync with function. Every seat was filled, and it seemed that the room was buzzed by the well-versed audience; I counted two dozen architects among the rapt listeners.
Goldberger, who received a Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Journalism and writes the acclaimed "Sky Line" column for The New Yorker, currently holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School, and this teaching position seems to give him an extraordinary insight into the “edge” and the future of architecture.
Always the most comfortable and engaging of speakers, Goldberger began by reminding everyone that while architecture is most definitely an art, it is unique in that it is fully dependent on a benefactor (or an employer.) Unlike painting or sculpture, writing or composing, the building of buildings must be a collaborative effort between the architect/artist and the person who hires him/her to design that structure.
An architect, it seems, has a long creative arch; it takes many years and many projects before a young/original thinker is handed a substantive project. Frank Gehry, whose masterpiece Bilbao was held up as a perfect example of the longevity of a brilliant design “edge,” was 50 years old before he was recognized. Chicago great Louis Kahn wasn't noted until he, too, was past fifty. So to have your innovative edge seen, Goldberger said, you have to live long enough.
Student architects have a tremendous level of creativity and the economic freedom to fantasize, and Goldberger offered the audience examples of wonderful architectural innovations that one day might or might not make it to our urban landscape.
He drew a distinction between modern and cutting edge. Modern, he said, is what we've come to call buildings that were on the frontier in the first half of the 20th Century: they are all now 50-60 years old. The edge, quite distinctly, is about true innovation, whether it is exterior magic like Bilbao or the rethinking of space's interior usage. Of course, Goldberger acknowledged, the interest in sustainability and green living have brought architects to a new venue, and the most immediate edge is seen in the design of spaces that integrate design with energy and demand.
Goldberger said that the mission of great architecture is to challenge the way we see our landscape and yet not alienate us: the challenge and comfort continuum is how he phrased it. A perfect example, he said, is the new HighLine space in Manhattan's Chelsea area, where a joint effort of public and private funding enabled the architects to reclaim and reinvent one of the City's most glorious spaces. So, too, the new Park at the Financial district, and the evolving Brooklyn Bridge Park. These are all examples of the architect’s role in a visionary re-creation and re-invention of public space.
— Charline Spektor
For further reading on the constantly evolving role of architecture, please read Paul Goldberger’s Building Up and Tearing Down (Monacelli Press) and Why Architecture Matters (Yale University Press), available on our website. There are also a few signed copies still available.
On the Edge continues on July 28, with On The Edge: The Futire of Publishing, a conversation with Harper Collins publisher John Burnham. BookHmpton's full schedule of events can be found here.
