Architecture and design

Bums are the ideal clients of modern architecture: in perpetual need of shelter and hygiene, real lovers of sun and the great outdoors, indifferent to architectural doctrine and to formal layout. --Rem Koolhaas in Delirious New York

With regards to this page, my superficial, capriciously subjective, and irreverent exploration of architecture and design... Well, let's face it, the architecture and design community is not really as wired-up as it should be. We'll just do the best we can with what little we've got now. I'll enumerate the designers whom I admire here even if they may not have resources devoted to them on the net. If I do discover links about these designers which are worth investigating, I'll eventually include them. Your suggestions are always welcome.



In addition to visiting my portfolio pages, also remember to check out my literature page for links to various design and architectural publishers, and my art page for resources on selected artists, museums, and galleries. Because many of you have inquired about the academic programmes offered at Berkeley's College of Environmental Design, I have included a brief but honest assessment that may address most of your concerns. So if you're interested in studying architecture at Berkeley, come over here. If you want to know more about the profession, consult the frequently asked questions section. Anyway, you will find in this page:


Sources of inspiration

Good designers make trouble. --Tibor Kalman

Before I tell you bastards what kinds of stuff I dig, let me share with you "The Sixteen Commandments," the sacred creed followed by German industrial designer Dieter Rams whose work for the Braun electrical company once earned him the title of "the last survivor of the modern movement." Although I don't think I'll ever be as worthy as to be able to strictly adhere to these rules, it's reassuring to know that there's someone out there in this overwhelmingly vulgar, superficially post-modernist world who still retains the wisdom to think like this:
  • Good design means as little design as possible.
  • Simple is better than complicated.
  • Quiet is better than confusion.
  • Quiet is better than loud.
  • Unobtrusive is better than exciting.
  • Small is better than large.
  • Light is better than heavy.
  • Plain is better than coloured.
  • Harmony is better than divergency.
  • Being well balanced is better than being exalted.
  • Continuity is better than change.
  • Sparse is better than profuse.
  • Neutral is better than aggressive.
  • The obvious is better than that which must be sought.
  • Few elements are better than many.
  • A system is better than single elements.
Dieter Rams, 1987






That was intense, eh? Tough rules to follow though. Well, here's a list of sources of inspiration which I aspire to. Going over them often reminds me of why I've decided to work in this crazy field. Oh yeah, my three favourite dead architects? Definitely Le Corbusier, Mies, and Gerrit Rietveld. Without further ado:



  • Alvar Aalto. He was the guy who made modernism sexy and sensuous.
  • David Adjaye.
  • Allied Works Architecture, a relatively young firm in Portland whose increasingly higher profile projects I really admire. Brad Cloepfil is sexy too.
  • Ando Tadao makes severely sexy architecture. Think austerity of Comme des garçons in the 1980s. Remember the good old days in architecture school when student designs with concrete slabs and rebar holes were all the rage? I feel very ambivalent about his works. This mostly self-taught architect undeniably creates the most sensually awesome architectural spaces today. However, his urban projects often intentionally ignore or cloister themselves from their contexts. As a result, he's essentially creating mere objects of breathtaking beauty instead of really good architecture, which I think should enrich the urban fabric whenever possible as well as satisfy the programme requirements. In the end, most of his projects can be considered as somewhat mean-spirited, selfish, and almost sinister. They are just too beautiful, too holy, and too out of reach. Anyway, he's one of the few architects who is so big (like a rock star) that he even has a unoficial fansite.
  • Paul Andreu makes designs so sexy they're practically pornographic. Leading the design office of Aéroports de Paris, Andreu has guided the creation of one sublime airport terminal after another at Roissy over the past thirty plus years. Neil Denari once tried to describe evocatively, albeit somewhat awkwardly, the legendary Aérogare 1:

    The walk from the plane to the terminal below ground was mind-blowing. Memory burn. The tunnel was a kind of carpeted brutalism that I had not experienced before-- at least it was not like any [Paul] Rudolph building I had seen. It was light and heavy all at the same time, supersmooth plaster and concrete. It seemed to float like the interior of a submarine, opaque yet buoyant, with relentless indirect artificial lighting systems directing the disembarking passengers. The tunnel had a camber to it, so there seemed to be a horizon line in the middle, with people in the distance rising and falling in relation to it. Something strangely aquatic about it. Upon seeing the inaccessible void at the center of the huge concrete torus terminal, I felt as though this place was beyond architecture itself. I suddenly experienced it as a galaxy with its own gravity, its own event horizon and black hole, moving people in the circulation tubes as if they were helpless particles being spun into another time cusp by the effluvial forces acting in the void.

  • Wiel Arets. Remember this guy's name. He's the Dutch Ando. He's tight, he's from Maastricht, and he's gonna be humongous one of these days. The library for Universiteit Utrecht kicks major ass.
  • Arkkitehdit KY. Finnish firm consisting of Kristian Gullichsen, Erkki Kairamo, and Timo Vormala.
  • Ove Arup & Partners. They're engineers, they're virtually everywhere, and they often do a good job.
  • Bauhaus. What more can I say?
  • David Baker Associates. This local Bay Area firm produces wonderful, relatively small-scale projects which truly enliven the neighbourhoods which they belong in. This well-designed web site is also one of the first firms on the net.
  • Behnisch & Partner. It's quite admirable for such a long established firm, led by Günter Behnisch, to continually develop and produce such adventurous and innovative, but ultimately unpretentious designs. They even do "deconstructivist" (for a lack of a better term) architecture that I can take seriously. When I met Günter Behnisch after a lecture once, I completely lost it; first I gushed, then I melted. It was one of the few instances where I was indeed star-struck.
  • Benson & Forsyth is best known for desiging the National Museum in Edinburgh. I love its use of the Corbusian design vocabulary.
  • Benthem Crouwel Architecten, best known for their long term work for Schiphol, provides elegantly competent Dutch modernism. Nothing to write home about, but quite admirable nonetheless.
  • Braun AG. This illustrious firm has finally acquired a site.
  • Will Bruder + Partners. Seemingly self-righteous and zealously forceful in a Papa Hemingway manner, this innovative Arizona architect does great work and doesn't pollute the built environment with post-modern shit prevalent in that part of the world.
  • Santiago Calatrava. Almost all kids like his stuff in the 90s. Now he's everywhere. His copycats and wannabes are everywhere. Although some of the forms are somewhat questionable to me, I concede that they're always interesting and never boring to look at.
  • Casper Mueller Kneer Architects are based in London.
  • Central Office of Architecture. COA another cool L.A. firm doin' cool L.A. work.
  • De Architekten Cie of Amsterdam.
  • David Chipperfield. Cool (and I don't use this term casually here) British modernist. Who would've thunk he's building so much in the Midwest.
  • Jo Coenen. Another Dutch modernist getting better each year, best known for his Nederlands Architectuurinstituut in Rotterdam.
  • Terence Conran is here because he had increased the public's awareness of the importance of design. Sir Terry also founded Habitat.


    • deconstructivist kitchen
  • Coop Himmelb(l)au. Those crazy Austrian deconstructivists even designed a cool deconstructivist kitchen (above) once. I became a fan after seeing their Groninger Museum project. However, I must concede that I fell asleep promptly during one of their highly-anticipated lectures since I couldn't understand even a word of their architecture-speak.
  • Le Corbusier. This is the official site built by the Fondation Le Corbusier. You can also check out the stuff about him at the Architectonische informatie in Delft or visit the Villa Savoye. Incidentally, Le Courbusier was the first architect I had ever learned about, and he was my first inspiration. I knew about him well before FLW or Mies or Aalto. As an impressionable eleven year-old, I was the probably the only person at the time who regulary checked out the monographs of his works from the then unusually extensive West Covina Public Library. (The volumes were always there whenever I wanted them; I felt they belonged to me.) Ultimately, he provided the first motivation to get me involved in this sordid business. As a matter of fact, pilotis was part of my vocabulary since at least sixth grade, perhaps even earlier.
  • James Cutler works in a vocabulary all his own, but undeniably well-suited to the Pacific Northwest context.
  • Denton Corker Marshall. Great, big Aussie corporate firm doing some surprisingly awesome work (convention centres, offices, museums, hotels, public works) down there and in Asia.
  • Diener & Diener Architekten. This Swiss firm crafts boring-but-exciting-if-you-look-closer projects.
  • Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The firm was featured in the 14 May 2007 issue of the New Yorker, and here's a telling passage from the article:

    "Architects" Diller said-- by which she meant "normal" architects-- "will say, 'We need a conference room,' so they know it has to have a big table, and some chairs, and they’ll start looking at materials. We would start talking about power relationships."

  • Charles and Ray Eames were the ultimate Renaissance couple.
  • Erick van Egeraat of Rotterdam.
  • Craig Ellwood. He was probably best known for his simple, steel-frame case-study homes built in Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s.
  • Mark Farrow. He's the British graphic designer responsible for the clean Pet Shop Boys record sleeves, among others.
  • Fernau & Hartman Architects of Berkeley work in a rather distinct architectural vocabulary all their own and quite suited to the Northern Californian environment. What do you want to call it? Clapboard modernism? Dairy farm chic?
  • Finland, the entire fucking nation is a source of inspiration... Ahh, the glorious land of Aalto, Sibelius, opaque non-Indo-European language, and great natural beauty! I guess I have a Finnish fetish too. I'm an unabashed Finnophile. So many aspects of this well-organised society are simply irreproachable. Awesome modern design sensibilities and clean lines everywhere. Great design is everywhere here. The endless lakes and forests beckon. If places like Santa Fe, Amsterdam, and to some extent, Seattle, are 'boutique cities,' then nations like Switzerland, Singapore, and Finland are 'boutique states.' However well-organised and ostensibly charming these places may be, something's off. I'm not sure if this is entirely a bad thing. Then again, what a grim nation full of totally cheerless people who often have nothing better to do than to drink themselves silly and be really nasty to each other and everybody else. What about this freaky Elvis fixation that we keep hearing about? Is it true? Have I seen too many Aki Kaurismäki movies? What about the high suicide rate? Is it sunlight deprivation? Too much time on the net or texting? (I heard Finnish toddlers use mobiles too.) Too much annoying ringtones? C'mon, anyone care to disagree?
  • Foster and Partners. Sir Norman Foster and Partners' increasingly tempered and refined, industrial, "high-tech" aesthetic have always been my greatest sources of inspiration. Despite the scale of his office's projects, their designs always remain incredibly elegant. When I was little, I wanted to be just like him...
  • Frogdesign and Hartmut Esslinger. Unfortunately, I'm not too sure about their increasingly excessively curvy and anthropomorphic designs though; they seem to be approaching the grotesque.
  • Buckminster Fuller.
  • Malcom Garrett, legendary British graphic designer. As a kid, I really loved those early sleeves he did for Duran Duran and other British bands. They had helped to make the British pop music scene in the early 80s even more interesting and colouful than it already was.
  • Frank Gehry. What a waste. Although I appreciate his ever-evolving works and his attempts to always try something new, his current stuff is essentially uninteresting mannerist crap. Increasingly these days, one cannot but help to question his sincerity too. You can't trust a guy with that many curves in his buildings.
  • Kenneth Grange wanted to make Britain modern, and designed the InterCity125 trainset and formed Pentagram along the way.
  • Nicholas Grimshaw. Good old British high-tech. His most interesting projects tend to be buildings which can be read as clear structural diagrams by just looking at them. Amazing and educational too!
  • Zaha Hadid. The New Yorker's Paul Goldberger called her the 'Lady Gaga' of architecture.
  • Hargreaves Associates. They are an environmentally conscientious landscape architecture firm that always manages to produce impressive designs.
  • Mikko Heikkinen and Markku Komonen. Thanks, Amily.
  • Herzog & de Meuron. Apparently they're the flavour of the month for far too many architecture students. They seem to be the equivalent of what Ando used to be a few years back. Instead of concrete slabs with rebar holes, we now see far too many wooden screens featured in student projects. Still, they have done admittedly incredible projects dealing with transparency and tectonics.
  • Herman Hertzberger. Although I don't exactly admire his particular stylistic and tectonic decisions, I think there's a lot people can learn from his writings about ways to design varied and interesting environments that allow their users to personalise and make their own. Furthermore, his designs have truly evolved in interesting ways over the years.
  • Hodgetts + Fung. L.A. architectural team of Craig Hodgetts and Ming Fung.
  • Holt Hinshaw. Particularly, the infamous Wes Jones of Holt Hinshaw Pfau Jones, the earlier incarnation of this firm which designed the UCLA Chiller Complex pictured above. Wes Jones got there years before Neil Denari came along, and he did it much better. Unfortunately, I think both are equally irrelevant. Very cool eye candy though.
  • Steven Holl. In architecture school these days, it's not cool to dis this guy. A chick in my studio, Erin Lilly, said, "He's an undergraduate's wet dream." Yeah, it doesn't make too much sense, but the Cartman-esque quote sounds so cool.
  • Ideo. This industrial design firm's web site is one of the best-designed ever.
  • IKEA. I know they're kind of scary in a Starbucks global domination kind of way. Needless to say, IKEA's big box suburbanism can cause a good urbanist to have guilt-induced sleepless nights. However, they're generally a good influence on a culture simply by the fact that they expose many folks to decent modern design. It's a fun place to go, and their catalogues are indispensible references like the phone book. Other than questionable impact on the built-environment, what's not to like? Design for the masses! IKEA is undeniably proletarian without being cheesy. Perhaps cooler than Habitat, and definitely less snooty. "Impossible price!" rings like music to my ears. To quote Sandra Tsing Loh, "It is all we can do not to throw ourselves down on the floor and bow before the image of the slightly balding Ingvar Kamprad." My bedrooms at home in So Cal as well as in Seattle are almost entirely furnished by them, I'm proud to boast. Their motto, "To create a better everyday life for the majority of the people." I mean, how many politicians can honestly claim to have accomplished that?! Despite Douglas Coupland's pathological dislike and perhaps even fear of the retailer, I think it still totally kicks ass. Whenever I get bored during the holidays in So Cal, I or some of my friends and I would just go their showrooms, sit on various sofas or chairs on display, and soak up the different atmospheres. They also have plenty of fun STUFF to buy with prices which I think I can almost afford. As a matter of fact, the annual arrival of the new IKEA catalogue is a major event at my household. Finally, according to the 1998 U.S. edition of the catalogue, "IKEA" is an acronym for: Ingvar Kamprad (the founder) Elmtaryd (the name of the farm where he was born) Agunnaryd (his home village).
  • IKEA Hacker. More like IKEA remixed. Let's face it, it was inevitable.
  • Arne Jacobsen. Clean, classic, Danish Modernism, peppered with a few curving expressionist streaks when he designed his sublime furnitures.
  • Japan. Yeah, the entire bleedin' fucking country! Who's not inspired by Japan?
  • Louis I. Kahn. Check out me at the Salk Institute. Can someone tell me whether it's true that he died while in the can?
  • Erkki Kairamo. The constructivist, rationalist, industrial modernist partner of Arkkitehdit KY (also known as Gullichsen, Kairamo, Vormala) of Helsinki.
  • Ben Kelly Design. He's the guy who built the Haçienda, designed the Factory Communications Limited headquarters on Charles Street and the Dry 201 bar on Oldham Street, worked with esteemed colleague Peter Saville, and designed numerous Factory sleeves.
  • Kishi Waro. He's a master of building on unbelievably tiny lots, and his designs are wonderful eye candies (heat gain from overglazing notwithstanding).
  • Koning Eizenberg Architecture. Stayed at the Avalon or the Standard yet? This Santa Monica firm always hits the mark aesthetically. They've got a nice balance between what's trendy and what's real.


    • OMA in Fukuoka
  • Rem Koolhaas/ OMA. Admittedly, after Prada and other high-profile commissions from the mid-1990s onward, he's essentially part of the mainstream architectural establishment like Gehry, Graves, and Meier. He may have lost a bit of his edge. His aesthetics have always been questionable. He may probably be a better performance/ concept artist than an architect. However, he's the guy who originally had made architecture fun again. He's one of the few architects who can write well. He always has something interesting to say about our world. (Don't we all just love those colourful charts and diagrams?) Would anybody be willing to admit that he hasn't read Delirious New York? Weird stuff. Twisted modernism. Entertainment Weekly (!) once called him the "ratty high-brow gadfly of contemporary architecture." He makes all the famous and stodgy American architects seem like frumpy grannies. He's a wonderful humourist. He would take his students out to a strip club in Vegas. ('That's just so Rem!' we would all agree.) He's probably immoral. My friends think he's evil. Maybe he is. He has a perverse fascination with hyper-perverse places like Atlanta, Lagos, Singapore, and other Far Eastern instant megalopolises. He's definitely smug, but he's so effortlessly cool. He has been photographed by Wolfgang Tillmans. He's so sexy. When I once saw him walking into our office, he was like a movie star. Even his considerable entourage included a film crew. Why would we expect anything less? I was star-struck and stupid. It was like meeting bloody Mick Jagger. I was completely at a loss for words. If this Maseratti-driving, mistress-keeping Euro-architect has a musical counterpart, he's probably someone like the Aphex Twin. Even though his music is undeniably unique and awesome, you'll always have the suspicion of, "Is this guy for real? Is he sincere?" Mind-fuck music. Mind-fuck architecture. Totally blows you away. You may complain that his buildings are simply snide jokes or suffer from crude finishes. Ultimately, he always asks interesting questions. Fun questions. Sexy questions. Questions few other architects would bother to ask. Questions that get him written-up in New York Review of Books and in countless other unlikely places. Once quoted in Seattle's The Stranger, "I think my greatest quality is staging the creative process. I'm able to link, compose, and question certain subjects, and to generate an inventory of possibilities which can then be tested against the research until they break." Anyway, here's what I've got on him and his Office for Metropolitan Architecture:
    1. Nomination letter by Rick Grol to the Pritzker Prize committee; it provides a good argument for why Rem should be recognised for his achievements.
    2. Petra Blaisse, Rem's mistress and frequent collaborator. This is the official site of her landscape/ interior/ textile/ exhibition design studio in Amsterdam.
    3. Kunsthal Rotterdam's official site.
    4. Rem Koolhaas/ OMA Source Page. Rem Koolhaas stuff galore.
    5. Another Koolhaas resources index.
    6. Book review of S, M, L, XL. Incidentally, it may be also worthwhile to visit the office of his longtime collaborator, Bruce Mau, and check out his design manifesto (even if you hate manifestos and consider them impractical like I do).
    7. Seattle Public Library project described here.
    8. McCormick Tribune Campus Center on the Illinois Institute of Technology project reviewed here. This site also includes an interview with Rem.
    9. Want a tour of Maison Bordeaux and signs of a Koolhaas backlash? Wouter Vanstiphout's article delivers.
    10. Want to read what nice things Rem has to say about 1960s British Brutalism? Go to Tate etc.
    11. My favourite quote from the incredible S, M, L, XL: "'Why do we have a mind, if not to get our own way?'" (Quote originally from Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
  • Kuramata Shiro. Noted for his use of acrylic, plexiglass, and other ephemeral materials, he was a Japanese furniture, industrial, and interior designer who died a few years ago.
  • Henning Larsen Architects.
  • Maya Lin. CED people, shame on you! She'll probably never come back to our school again! Not after the fact that her ceramic project was stolen from her and eventually winded up pulverised and sprinkled over one of Wurster's famed brise soleil. Young people can be so cruel. Oh and by the way, here I am sitting on one of her nice thingies.
  • Los Angeles. As the evil vanguard of American suburban sprawl, the city is so downright ugly, polluted, crime-ridden, and frightening that there's a weird transcending beauty about the entire place. It's so enormous and ugly that it's somehow perversely beautiful. It's also so freaky that after years of growing up and living there, it remains as overwhelming and inscrutable as ever. Although it flaunts some of America's (and maybe even the Third World's) worst values and sensibilities, the architecture in L.A. have always been the most progressive, daring, innovative, eclectic, and interesting in America. The people in L.A. aren't too complacent about their city. They know that they don't live in the cultural capital of the world. (People in the Bay Area only think that they live in a bastion of culture and intellect.) Most importantly, they don't look backward too often, and what little history (only slighty over 200 years) the city possesses it denies. They also don't have too many restricting traditions to uphold. To oversimplify, the cultural innovators of SoCal are generally honest about themselves, and they tend to want to try something new. Maybe that's why they have the most interesting architecture in America. For an introduction, be sure to visit LAst Chance for Eden, a wonderful exhibition of the L.A. architectural scene. Another place to explore is the exhibit of Julius Shulman's legendary photographs.
  • Mark Mack. Despite defecting to UCLA, he still deserves to be on this illustrious list.
  • Mecanoo. Architects from Delft with a handful of cool housing and academic projects.
  • Richard Meier. He may be stodgy. He may be a megalomaniac. His works aren't has sexy as those of the Peter Zumthors and Herzog & de Meurons of the world, but ultimately, year after year, I end up studying his works for the very basic directions on form and composition. Explaining why Meier's so great, Paul Goldberger of the New Yorker writes, "What Meier has done, perhaps unconsciously, is join the formal complexity of late Le Corbusier to the pure, graceful whiteness of early Le Corbusier. He has made Brutalism light and pristine, and not brutal at all. Meier has pulled together contradictory strands of his [mentor Le Corbusier's] work into a style that connects both periods and yet feels like something that belongs to him alone." That is ultimately what I myself would want to aspire to. People often dismiss him by noting that he's been designing the same building throughout his career. On the other hand, I admire his relentless pursuit of developing, refining, and polishing a unqiue aesthetic vocabulary that comes pretty close to a sense of perfection of forms. If you're a fan like me, be sure to visit the Architecture of the Getty Center site, an exhaustive photographic exhibit of the complex. Finally, here's my take on the Getty.
  • MetaDesign. Among many notable projects, this is the illustrious information design firm most famous for its system for the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG). They're also repsonsible for one of my favourite design references, Stop Stealing Sheep.
  • Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. "I don't want to be interesting. I want to be good." In addition to being one of my two favourite all-time dead architects (the other being Corbu), Mies was good at soundbites. The Barcelona Pavillion virtual tour is still here after all these years. Hey homies, there's more Mies here. You can also see that he sleeps here these days, and his grandson, Dirk Lohan, eats at my foodcourt.
  • Rafael Moneo (GSD profile) has been producing consistent, unpretentious, and beautiful modernist projects for decades.
  • Morphosis. Not too long ago, they were American architectural students' favourite, but I like their shit too. Once under the direction of Thom Mayne and Michael Rotondi, they produced some very cool L.A. architecture.
  • Eric Owen Moss. Also very L.A. Very eye candy.
  • Glenn Murcutt. Like Zumthor, he keeps his office tiny, and I can barely find its website. I don't think I have ever been as inspired by an architectural lecturer as by him. Australians are so good at those corrugated-iron stuff, and he's definitely one of the innovators of this distinct vocabulary. I think they're developing a cool new modernist language of their own. He's such a sincere guy too, and somehow whenever I hear him speak or look at his works, I get a little less cynical.
  • MVRDV is all the rage at the moment, with Farmax and all. I'm told that the firm is the next OMA. I especially admire their housing projects where they do amazing things with sections.
  • The Netherlands. It's an architect's wet dream. It's a designer's paradise. This compact but relentlessly modernist nation is one of the first to have its own consolidated clearinghouse home page. Amsterdam has its own official page, just like Den Haag or Rotterdam (the latter is capable of giving any architect multiple orgasms). The entire kingdom is like a great, big design studio. Every aspect of this pathologically flat country is visually staggering, and often quite beautiful. Everything seems to be well-designed, from banknotes and stamps to airports and housing projects. Even the newly consolidated police force has a coherent, thorough design indentity. In Holland, nothing seems untouched by design. According to Aaron Betsky:

    In the Netherlands design is a normal part of everyday life. The money you spend, the telephone cards you insert into public phones, the tax forms you fill out, the trains you ride in, the signs you encounter on the roads, the uniforms of the policemen, the posters for cultural events, and the logos of major corporations all speak of the carefully considered application of notions of proportion, color coordination, functionalism, material expression, composition, and typography. Everything makes sense, everything works, and the world around you has an appearance of rationality that you will not encounter anyplace else. The Netherlands is by no means a monotonous place, but a visitor has a sense that every surface and shape is the result of conscious thought about how it works and how it appears. In Dutch, design is the norm, not a moment.

     For the most part, the Dutch have really got their shit together. Anyway, another good place to start exploring the Dutch net is this portal. Finally, here's the oft quoted passage on the Dutch national character from Simon Schama's classic, The Embarrassment of Riches:

    To its first generation of patriotic eulogists, Dutchness was often equated with the transformation, under divine guidance, of catastrophe into good fortune, infirmity into strength, water into dry land, mud into gold. This arrogation of special destiny, marked by suffering and redemption, was not so particular to the Dutch as they imagined. But the uncanny way in which geography reinforced moral analogy gave their collective self-recognition great immediacy. Those who had come through the flood and had survived could hardly miss the differentiating significance of beproeving, or ordeal. So the trial of faith by adversity was a formative element of the national culture...
  • Willem-Jan Neutelings. It seems that Rotterdam these days keeps oozing with cool and relatively young architects. Having worked for Rem Koolhaas's Office for Metropolitan Architecture, this Belgian-born designer, best known for his incredibly clever housing solutions with interlocking units, now works in a partnership with Michiel Riedijk as Neutelings Riedijk Architecten.
  • Richard Neutra.
  • Jean Nouvel. "He's big. He's bald. He wears black. He's a rock star. And he's fucking brilliant, a four-star impresario of space and light," wrote Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin. Nouvel makes très sleek and sexy architecture. He designs in an evolving, unique, but widely varied architectural vocabulary that tries to push the limits of glazing and technology to astounding proportions where reflections, projections, lighting, and varying degrees of transparency interact to create something special that can leave one smitten and speechless. Like his sleek and flashy buildings, he personally projects an indelible aura of celebrity like no other architects. With a strong sense of presence, he can easily be spotted in a crowded room, where he is naturally the centre of attention.
  • Vaughan Oliver. Along with Ivo Watts-Russell, this visionary designer virtually made 4AD.
  • Patkau Architects of Vancouver arguably produces the most interesting projects in Canada. I'm surprised that the recent jump in the scale of projects thus far has not really affect the firm's idiosyncratic sensibilities, nor alter the kinds of problems and issues they choose to research and tackle. Led by John and Patricia Patkau, the firm's works continue to inspire, regardless of scale.
  • John Pawson. If I want to be subjected to sensory deprivation, I want to be subjected by him. His website looks and feels appropriately like his projects.
  • Pentagram. Yes they're old. Yes, they're corporate. Yes, Peter Saville couldn't work with the partners and its culture. However, this organisation has contributed immensely to British and international design sensibilities, even mine.
  • Dominique Perrault. Even though he's only been around a few years, his Bibliothèque nationale de France is still impressive as ephemeral sculptural forms despite compromises like increasing the width of the glass towers. Whether the project would successfully integrate itself into its urban context remains to be seen.
  • Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
  • John Portman. Didn't expect to see his name here, did ya? Well, he's here mainly to spite pretentious architecture students. Although his projects since the 1980s are essentially Post Modern crap, he has truly revolutionalised architecture with his utterly dramatic use of the atrium in hotels. They are incredibly impressive investigations into SPACE, which few large-scale projects can claim to be. Most of all, they are FUN projects. Atlanta, the state of Georgia, and the South should be proud of him.
  • Antoine Predock.
  • Andrée Putman. Her incomparably elegant creations derive often from just simplicity, lighting, and different shades of grey. She once said, "I love colours when they don't exist too much. Life always comes with its own colour; your friends, flowers, things. So you don't have to have so much of it in your decor."
  • Rob Wellington Quigley produces inspiring SRO and mixed-use projects.
  • Gerrit Rietveld. Good, old-fashioned, straightforward modernism at its best.
  • Richard Rogers Partnership. The Centre Georges Pompidou was the first building that I ever fell in love with. However, I don't know about the recent stuff though. There's just too many things going on at the same times. Those cheesy glazed arches have got to go.
  • Paul Rudolph.
  • Aarno Ruusuvuori. The quintessential Finnish rationalist modernist was born in 1925 and has his own practice since 1952.
  • Sauerbruch Hutton are German architects who design delicious proejcts.
  • Saucier + Perrotte Architectes ouvrent les bâtiments très sexy de Montréal.
  • Peter Saville is a god. Further proof can be found here, as well as here, and especially here. He was one of the primary factors for my initial interest in design and being part of the design profession. As you can tell, my site has been stealing his works for years. He provided the visual landscape for my childhood. He was one of the main reasons I became a designer. Inducing wet dreams among style editors, he ran the legendary Apartment with Meire & Meire. He was once a partner at the legendary Pentagram (1990-1993) as well as sleek and savvy Frankfurt Balkind. He helped start the fashion site SHOWstudio. Designer Malclom Garrett was his chum at school. Saville was also the house designer for the Whitechapel Gallery. He had completed work for Centre Georges Pompidou. He once said he got his BA in Roxy Music. He had been featured in the New York Times. His formidable list of collaborators include: fashion art director Marc Ascoli, architect Ben Kelly, photographer Trevor Key, photographer Nick Knight, graphic designer Howard Wakefield, graphic designer Brett Wickens (with whom he ran Peter Saville Associates from 1983-1990), and of course, Tony Wilson of Factory Records. Many of his incredible record sleeves and posters for that Manchester organisation can be found in the link provided here. He has even decorated a bus shelter. If still unconvinced, be sure to also check out the truly delicious Factory Images Bank for the loads of other stuff he has done there. Here's a partial client/ collaborator list: A Certain Ratio, Hugo Boss, Vija Celmins, Christian Dior and John Galliano, Duritti Column, EMI, Peter Gabriel, Givenchy, Goldie, Joy Division, Mandarina Duck, Paul McCartney, Stella McCartney, George Michael, New Order, OMD, Pulp, Pringle, Roxy Music, Jill Sander, Section 25, Martine Sitbon, Suede, Tomato, Ultravox, and Yohji Yamamoto. Last but not least, he has finally put up an official site of his own.
  • Rudolph Schindler. There's so much to learn from his works.
  • Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP. Skidmore's projects before the 1980s were generally awesome.
  • Smith-Miller + Hawkinson, Architects. Behind all that fancy highfalutin' talk, several cool, perhaps even great, moments of New York architecture do happen.
  • Stanton Williams.
  • Philippe Starck, designer internationale extraordinaire with his own official website. Although at times questionable (e.g., at the Royalton in NYC, I couldn't figure out where to take a fucking piss in one of his freaky restrooms), his deacadent creations are always fun to look at. These intensely theatrical and sexy environments always ooze playful perversity, and that's why they're so delightful. It's like visiting avant-garde brothels. Even when they're printed in books and magazines, I still can't take my eyes off them. Apparently, I'm not the only literate person who's fallen head over heels; even This American Life's very own Sarah Vowell (!) has written an article about him in Salon. Incidentally, the Delano in Miami Beach has been dubbed "sanitarium for supermodels."
  • James Stirling had a long and distinguished but very interesting career.
  • Sweden. Good ole Sverige has given us ABBA, IKEA, Volvo, good design, and Ingmar Bergman, all of whom or which I cannot do without in my life.
  • UN Studio of Van Berkel + Bos, also known as the Van Berkel & Bos Architectuurbureau. Their Möbius House is like the Villa Savoye of my generation. Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos are avant-garde and theoretically rigourous without being too pretentious and vacuous, which is no small feat. They may also turn out to be Koolhaas's primary theoretical antagonists in the Dutch architectural scene.
  • Rudy Uytenhaak. Another quite competent contemporary Dutch ex-postmodernist modernist.
  • Wilkinson Eyre Architects. Old-fashioned, cool British high-tech modernism.
  • Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects.
  • Richard Saul Wurman. The god of information architecture and design was also the founder of the almighty TED conference as well as the ACCESS guidebooks, which incidentally were way much better (especially in terms of their focus architecture) when he was actively involved in them than the relatively crappy ones now.
  • Peter Zumthor. Think clean. Think health. Think fresh mountain air and clear alpine streams. Think bottle of Evian. Think sexy. Think bespoke and boutique. This Swiss (naturally) architect seems to be the flavour of the month, but his projects are undeniably non-pretentious, astonishingly-crafter, sensual environments. Kids all over are crazy over him, like they are over Britney Spears. According to my friend Nor, he out-Herzog-&-deMeuroned Herzog & de Meuron.


Although these entries aren't always necessarily the greatest sources of inspiration for me, they represent significant figures whose legacy and distinction in the design field are unquestionable.



  • Erik Gunnar Asplund. This site's dedicated to the famous Swedish proto-proto-Modernist.
  • Ban Shigeru. The way he works with recycled and lightweight materials is sublime. The Nomadic Museum is a masterpiece. Who who have thunk that shipping containers stacked together can be so beautiful?
  • Eichler Network shows why the web can be such a cool resource of knowledge and networking for folks with idiosyncratic interests. Everything you ever wanted to know about the increasingly renowed Eichler homes and perhaps even more can be found at this site.
  • Adolf Loos. Information about the proto-Modernist.
  • Rick Mather. Although he was originally from Oregon, his sensibilities are very British. He did the coolest Chinese restaurants I've ever seen anywhere.
  • I.M. Pei and Pei, Cobb, Freed and Partners once in awhile produce a pretty good project, and their legacy is impressive.
  • Aldo Rossi. Post modernism I can stomach, perhaps even admire.
  • Ettore Sottsass. I'm not really a fan of Memphis, and maybe that's why he's not on the above list.
  • Moshe Safdie. I'm certainly not a fan of his current post-modernist crap, but I must admit that I grudgingly admire the dramatic interior of the Vancouver Public Library.
  • Louis Sullivan Page. He was an important figure in the history of architecture, particularly functional, steel frame highrises.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright. Whenever I'm at a party or someplace and meet somebody and tell him or her that I'm studying architecture, he or she would, more often than not: a) say that they've always had an interest in architecture but that they somehow just didn't seem to get around to studying to become an architect; and/or b) say that they've "always liked Frank Lloyd Wright." Maybe that's partly why he's not on my above list.


Finally, these are architects and designers who have made it into my hall of shame. I reckon this is my shit list. Think of them as ENEMIES OF DESIGN, or perhaps my version of the legendary Outrage column in the Architectural Review. I don't have anything against them personally, but they do manage somehow to consistently put out stuff that either panders to the worst sensibilities of the masses and/or makes the design professions look superficial and arbitrary. Sometimes they just put out too many ugly shit. Most of all, they seem to lack a sense of sincerity. Don't get me wrong, but I do believe in the place of ugliness in our world. Ugliness has a right to exist, and who am I to judge whether something is ugly or not. As a matter of fact, if the entire world and all the buildings in it look beautiful, I think it would be a rather boring world. However, the works of these often pretentious and/or insincere people seem to have no redeemable value whatsoever, and their appearance on this list of infamy would hopefully deter young and impressionable designers from following their dishonourable paths. Hey kids, just say no!



  • Autodesk. We take it for granted every day. However, just for a moment imagine a world without Autodesk, specifically, without AutoCAD... feel better? Somehow more inspired? Imagine how much better design would be if architects are able to work with tools that help them instead of against them. Imagine how much more beautiful our built environment would be if designers were freed to concentrate on design instead of perpetually trying to overcome obstacles imposed by AutoCAD, which seems to get clunkier, more bloated, and more complicated year after year (and yet just as useless in the end). This is another one of those classic cases where the worst product becomes the dominant platform.
  • Ricardo Bofill. WTF??!!
  • Mario Botta. I know a lot of people are going to hate me for putting him here, and I concede that there were some pretty cool early projects of his back in Switzerland. However, he's also the guy who designed the San Francisco Musuem of Modern Art, a building indicative of what's wrong with him. While it does incorporate responsible urbanism by not antagonising pedestrians walking on Third Street, it's still bloody ugly, and we're fuckin' stuck with this big fuckin', stinkin', steamin' pile o' shite. For fuck's sake, it looks like a bloody fuckin' bank! What about that big fuckin' drum thing with that bleedin' cunt in the middle? That's so bloody fuckin' creative, eh? So dope that the fuckin' bastard decided to use it in all of his other recent fuckin' projects throughout Europe. That's fuckin' creativity for you! Why so many cretinous tossers around here admire the Botta building is bloody beyond me. Even Dave fucking genius Eggers called it a "humidifier." No, I take that back. The bloody, buggery building is just the right architecture for pretentious, holier-than-thou, Bay Area yuppie scum who just seem to infest this region like a bloody fuckin' curse. These bloody arseholes think they're soooo fuckin' intelligent simply by the virtue of the fact that they live in that bloody city. C'mon, get real! San Francisco doesn't even have a decent daily newspaper! San Francisco, you've been had. You've been horsefucked. These bloody wankers can all bugger off and just fuckin' die!!!
  • Peter Eisenman is such a pompous, narcissist asshole that he epitomises the worst of our profession. An example of his contemptuous attitude can be found in a Sunday New York Times article from 18 September 2005. It's simply astonishing how many gullible people find his crap worthwhile in the 1990s. Yeah, many famous architects were major league assholes, such as Frank Llyod Wright. But you know what? He ain't FLW. Not even close. Don't be fooled, kids.
  • Frank Gehry is the only guy to be on the inspiration list as well as this one. What a loss. Where did it all go wrong? Perhaps it started with the fish-thingies. Someone once said that he's the Kim Kardashian of architecture: all curves, no substance. Just because you can do it fancy and curvy doesn't mean you should. Alas, for the most part, he shouldn't have. I'm often reminded of the story about the emperor having no clothes, whenever I think of all those prestigious clients trying to get hold of him to design their ever more prestigious projects. I hate the fact that his curvey buildings don't look the way they do because they have to, but because he can design them that way.
  • Michael Graves doesn't need any introduction in an enumeration of infamy. While seemingly a good idea (bringing design to the masses), even his line of products for Target misses the mark. Sarah Vowell explains in one of her columns for Salon.
  • Bjark Ingels appears more about marketing than anything profund. The lengthy New Yorker profile doesn't contradict this. BIG projects aren't particularly ugly per se, but they certainly have never excited me in a profound or intellecturally rigorous lebel.
  • Daniel Libeskind. Alas, so many students and critics fall for his narcissistic crap. So much for contextual-based architecture... every one of his tilted, angular volumes look the same anywhere in the world-- it's sculpture trying to grab attention, not responsible architecture. I'll let Rem comment on his master plan for the World Trade Center site in his essay "Delirious No More" in the June 2003 issue of Wired:

    Instead of two towers-- the sublime-- the city will live with five towers, wounded by a single scything movement of the architect, surrounding two black holes. New York will be marked by a massive representation of hurt that projects only the overbearing self-pity of the powerful. Instead of the confident beginning of the next chapter, it captures the stumped fundamentalism of the superpower. Call it closure.

  • Rafael Viñoly and his firm, like Gehry, has produced many great projects over the years. However, recent buildings often tend to be way off the mark. Strangely, I'm more angered by the municipal entities involved that have actually approved them than the architects. With the blessing of governmental bodies, his office has already desecrated two skylines. I'm thinking of the "walkie talkie" in the City, and the slender out-of-scale 432 Park Avenue in Midtown.



cool links

Steven's house was so modern, in fact, that it contained no 90-degree angles. It made my own family's Cleaver-esque number seem like a frumpier version of Anne Hathaway's Cottage. It was hard to imagine inviting Sean Connery and Jill Saint John over to our house for cocktails, while Steven's house positively exuded the aura of spies and politicians contemplating sex. --from Douglas Coupland's "Dutch reformation"

Welcome to architecture. Well, the following sites aren't exactly all cool, but these links may prove to be quite useful resources.


sustainable development

The Chinese hawthorn has a rather vulgar name, but when all the other trees have lost their blossoms, its dark red leaves shine out impressively from the green surroundings. --from ch. 27 of the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, translated by Ivan Morris

The following links are sites that provide information and resources for planning, designing, and building sustainable environments.



  • Arcosanti. Explore Paolo Soleri's city in the Arizona desert.
  • BuildingGreen.com puts out the Environmental Building Newsletter as well as the GreenSpec.
  • Green Clips. "Sustainable Building Design News Digest."
  • Lighting Design Lab of Seattle is similar to the PG&E Energy Center in San Francisco, and it's funded by local utilities companies. It provides resources, consulting, product information, classes, and demonstrations for designers to build more energy-efficient buildings, particularly in areas of lighting. The cool people who work here also conduct daylighting model studies for your projects, which are quite helpful and perhaps even fun.
  • William McDonough is the ubiquitous guru of green buildings with green roofs.
  • Northwest EcoBuilding Guild.
  • Pedestrain and Bicylcle Information Center seeks to foster safe built-environments that support cyclists and pedestrians.
  • PG&E Energy Center. However you may feel about PG&E, there are lots of cool and talented people working here. This important Bay Area resource helps builders and designers to be more energy-efficient in almost every possible way. "[Their] goal is to help PG&E customers, architects and engineers learn about and identify energy efficiency opportunities in lighting, HVAC and the building envelope."
  • Portland Office of Sustainable Development. Not only is Portland, Oregon a planner's wet dream and fantasy-come-true, but it also supports a viable green building industry. This site shows how local governments can actively encourage and foster the building of responsible environments.
  • Real Goods. They sell everything (from photovoltaics and wind turbines to soaps) you need to build, power, and furnish a sustainable, ecologically-minded home.
  • Sierra Club provides a primer on sprawl.
  • Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse.
  • Sustainable Architecture: Eco Design and Landscaping. This page has been around for quite awhile, but it's interesting.
  • Sustainable Communities Network.
  • TreeHugger is being green made palatable to the Wallpaper* set. Why, that's us!
  • United States Green Building Council "is the building industry's only balanced, nonprofit, consensus coalition promoting the understanding, development, and accelerated implementation of 'Green Building' policies, programs, technologies, standards and design practice." Come here if you want to learn about their LEED programme.
  • Urban Land Institute deals with just about everything regarding land use issues.


excursions

A preacher ought to be good-looking. For, if we are properly to understand his worthy sentiments, we must keep our eyes on him while he speaks; should we look away, we may forget to listen. Accordingly, an ugly preacher may well be the source of sin... --from ch. 21 of the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, translated by the incredible late Ivan Morris

Although the following sites aren't strictly related to the field of architecture, I don't know where else in my site to put them. I reckon you can put anything under the rubric of "design." Many of the following include sites on graphic design, furniture design, industrial design, and interior design. If your looking for links about web design, check out my computing page.



  • Adobe Type Library has expensive fonts to sell you as well as brief histories.
  • American Center for Design.
  • American Institute of Graphic Arts.
  • Chronicle Books. As the publishers of several interesting coffee table books, they always feature strong and competent graphic design sensibilities. Their books are often delightful objects to own too.
  • Communication Arts, the serious graphic design trade mag.
  • Terence Conran's breathtakingly delicious empire of stores, restaurants, and other ventures can all be reached here.
  • Curbed L.A. Think Wallpaper* meets blog, with a focus on the Southland and its built environment. It's snide too, but the kids here are smarter.
  • Danish Crafts, Art and Design.
  • Design and Architecture (DNA) explores just that on KCRW 89.9 FM and is hosted by the wonderful Frances Anderton.
  • Design Engine is a magazine covering the industrial, graphic, interior, furniture, and architectural design scenes.
  • Design Intelligence.
  • Design Library in Sweden focuses on industrial design.
  • Design Musuem in London.
  • Design Online.
  • Dornbracht. For a lack of a better description, I guess you can file this under 'Euro plumbing porn.' You can also get it from Agape and Duravit. Down, boy!
  • Dutch. Hip site with stuff about contemporary Dutch fashion and culture.
  • Emigre. Those crazy typographic folks.
  • Finnish Design is a very useful clearinghouse site.
  • From Here to Modernity is an online Open University course produced by the BBC.
  • Habitat International. Conran home furnishings stores.
  • Herman Miller currently markets furniture by Eames, among other products for the office.
  • How Now. This is the online companion to the graphic design magazine How.
  • Gary Hustwit has been making hardcore docs about design lately.
  • Industrial Design Society of America.
  • Interiors and Sources magazine.
  • Knoll markets several modernist furniture classics.
  • Landor Associates. Respectable corporate identity hacks.
  • Lego. This is the official one. They were pretty tough on the guy who put out the unofficial one. Anyway, I still like playing with them, and I guess this is where it all started with regards to my fixation on architecture.
  • Modern | Postmodern is an Australian design journal with content on architecture, interiors, furniture, and design in general.
  • MUJI. Who can possibly not be in love with MUJI?
  • Netherlands Design Institute.
  • Nofrontiere. Talk about trendy websites with slick eye candy graphics with very short shelf lives. Fun though, and bandwidth matters here.
  • Point Central serves up delicious, original, and fun public domain fonts for downloads.
  • Print. "America's Graphic Design Magazine."
  • Scandinaviandesign.com.
  • Spacing is a print and online journal devoted to Canadian urbanism and planning.
  • Taschen. Whenever you're in L.A., be sure to stop by their Beverly Hills store designed by Philippe Starck. It's a compact space, enveloped by lacquered walnut and perfect lighting for browsing. It's almost a traditionally elegant space, as opposed to the usual erotic, avant-chic environments you'd expect from Starck.
  • Tribu-design is a clearinghouse site covering the furniture and industrial design scenes with an emphasis on modernist and contemporary design classics. Don't forget to visit the fun Flash house.
  • Urbanophile is a great blog by Aaron Renn that discusses solutions to fix Midwestern Rustbelt cities.
  • visuelle.co.uk is also known as 'Visual Resource': come here for some nice, relaxing eye candy and design inspirations.
  • Vitra. For the renowned furniture makers, this really fun site shows off the long list of architects and designers who have worked for them.
  • typographic. More cool stuff about type.
  • Wallpaper*. It's fun. I like the luscious pictorial spreads and the topics it covers. I like the concept. You'd think that someone like George Michael would really enjoy something like this. However, you've got to admit that the writing is just atrocious; it wavers between trying-too-hard hipness to embarrassingly ignorant and superficial prose. It's badly in need of well-educated writers and editors. I don't think you can forgive phrases like "Mount Fujiyama" (Wallpaper* 28). Read it strictly for trashy eye candy.


writings

These are a selection of writings from my gripe index that, in one way or another, are related to architecture, planning, architectural education, or design:


access




post

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