Florian Beigel, Philip Christou – Architecture Research Unit
There are thinks I don’t like about the way Florian and Philip talk about architecture. There seems to be a large degree of ignorance about the receivers of their designs, their projects. All they seem to care about is art. But this at the same time the most seductive thing about them. Through the series we have heard about participation, communities, jokes, bad and good ideas but we did not hear about art. Here it is. Architecture for arts sake. Or...one moment please: City for arts sake.
Youl Hwa Dang Boolchall Building, Paju Book City, Korea.
A building can be a city. Where does that lead us. If a building is a city than it is made to be like a cluster of buildings, than a passage through it is a street like journey. It’s exactly what Youl Hwa Dang Boolchall Building is like. The speakers did not mention the client, nor the budget, nor the procurement process. The Building is a city and it is beautiful in its tectonics, it sits well in its surrounding. This is what matters.
Saemangeum Island City, Korea.
City built from scratch on water. Man made islands. Florian and Philip had a free unlimited scope for creation. Square kilometres of water were to be filled with earth but in which form, what principles were to be applied. They choose to create small connected cities that would function on their own. They were to be concentrated in spaces looking out onto the natural beauty of the sea. Again: the islands were to be laid in a manner allowing the view onto the sea. Not that there weren’t any other design principles. This is one that stroke me the most. Beauty of the nature to be admired is one of the most important ideas behind where tons of earth are to start infilling a sea bay! Fascinating ignorance or bravery!
I'm not sure if it is fair to describe the design of the city islands as 'ignorant', part of the reason Floran and Philip won the competition was because of the lucidity of their scheme. Rather than pilling up new areas of land, they worked with the existing topograohy of the land levels below the sea's surface, taken from research and maps of the area. Starting with a pragmatic approach (though I imagine they would cringe at being described as pragmatic) and then applying their knowledge of scale to create interlinked islands, though not small by any measure (Emma blogged that the size of them scared her). The walk across one island would potentially take fourty minutes, and as for the view of the sea, well that has the potential to be ruined or optimised by whoever actually develops the city islands. Afterall, Florian and Phil only proposed the framework of islands, they are still (very large) blank canvases.
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