Prizes, Praises With Slight Damn

One of the more interesting aspects of the coveted Progressive Architecture (PA) magazine awards program is the snippets of dialogue between the jurors in the varied categories of architectural design, urban design and planning, and applied research.

Often revealed in the jurors’ general comments about the body of entries and specific comments about the winning projects is the tone and, sometimes, the substance of the continual debates in architecture and design concerning style, context and content.

From a public point of view I found the increase of awards in the urban design and planning category for projects in Southern California most significant, and I devoted last week’s column to the subject.

But from a professional point of view, I felt the comments by the jurors concerning the submissions in the architectural design category were actually more reflective of the primary and current concerns of most practitioners.

No doubt a reason is that focusing as it does on single projects the architectural design category by far attracts the most entries, this year 649 out of a total of 805 submitted to the magazine. Also, many of the projects are the type architects tend to be involved with, in particular the single-family house, a perennial, popular winner.

Another factor is that the jurors for the category were a particularly diverse lot representing diverse practices: architects Anthony Ames of Atlanta, Terry Farrell of London, Adrian Smith, of the Chicago office of the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and Bernard Tschumi, dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University.

Concerning style, Tschumi, a leader of sorts of the studied, self-absorbed Deconstructivist movement, observed that the submissions displayed a “satisfying” new emphasis on technological development. “After a few years of intense stylistic preoccupations in the architecture profession, suddenly there is a return to drawing one’s language from the nature of materials and structural forces.”

It was a nice thought, but there was disagreement whether this was reflected in the submissions. While Ames felt some indeed were honest expressions of technology, Smith, whose firm built its reputation on a no-nonsense functionalism, declared others were “pure facade styling, like my necktie.”

Farrell, who is known for his forthright high-tech projects, called these efforts “slick tech” and added while some were graphically exciting, most were inherently dishonest.

“I do accept that there is a return to natural materials” he added, “but they are often like a dress, wrapped around a building. Not that I think that is bad, but I don’t agree that that is a fundamentally honest and integral way of expressing technology and construction.” (Amen.)

The jurors also expressed concern over what they felt was the treatment of projects as isolated objects, devoid of context, and the poor level of multifamily housing submissions. (These are issues I have been lamenting for some time.)

While recognizing “a problem with priorities in dealing with the current social, cultural and political situation,” Tschumi said more of the profession’s talents needed to focus on such projects. “Some of our best architects are doing housing in Berlin, but not here.”

Even when picking winners, the jurors appeared at odds with themselves and each other. In awarding a citation to the Santa Monica-based firm of Morphosis for a well-sited, I thought, ingeniously organized 8,000-square-foot house in Montecito, Tschumi declared, “this is my favorite overkill.” He did quickly add that he was saying that “with a lot of sympathy.”

Ames observed that the plan of the building actually was “very simple,” but that perhaps the drawings made it more complex than it is. Replied Tschumi: “I suspect the architects are caught between a contemporary way of thinking and fascination with the grand gesture.”

Whatever, the award was an impressive 11th the firm headed by Thom Mayne and Michael Rotundi has garnered in the coveted, annual PA contest .

Winning for the first time was local newcomer Ronald McCoy, who received a citation for his intricately crafted house finessed onto a 35 by 90 lot in Marina del Rey. Tschumi said he didn’t like it as “a free-standing object,” but it was “actually OK’ as an urban row house.

“What I like is the idea of the compact, simple tubular geometry, and the way it’s being explored internally in a very dense way,” added Farrell. “Like many a good urban house, it relies not upon its external envelope but upon how it handles the interior spaces, and in particular how it stacks them in ways that introduces complexity and inversion.”

There also was an obvious difference of opinion among the jurors for a study of design issues for shelters for battered women and their children that won a citation in the applied research category. The study was a collaboration of research and design teams at Tulane University and UCLA, directed in part by Ben Reufuerzo, an assistant professor of architecture at the Westwood campus.

Juror Donald Prowler said it was not clear whether the study was done for lay people or professionals. “If it was for the profession, some of their patterns were naive or mundane, to a point,” declared Prowler, a University of Pennsylvania academic. “And if it’s for the lay person, the style of presentation was wrong.”

But Polly Welch, a Boston-based public official, said the study provided information that is really needed. And Smith added that “if there is a purpose in research in architecture, this comes closer to helping an architect than anything I know of.” He declared the research “extremely relevant,” with Welch adding “provocative and timely.” Perhaps that is what bothered the academic.

Such debates among jurors provide wonderful grist for my mill. It was with this very much in mind that I recently served on design award juries of the Santa Clara and San Fernando valley chapters of the American Institute of Architects. Those experiences will be shared in the next column.