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September 9, 2008
A Way of Saying "Here I Am": Perspecta 40 Interviews Kevin Roche
Archinect
In November 2006, the editors of Perspecta 40 Monster interviewed Kevin Roche at his offices in Hamden, Connecticut. We were initially drawn to the work of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo Associates—in particular the firm's heroic projects of the late 1960s through 1970s—by the bold, rational manner in which these projects addressed scale.
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[Perspecta 40]: In the case of the Interstate Highway, you mentioned cost-effectiveness as one driving mechanism that can help steer the actual form or materials being employed. I wonder if you see anything today, in current work, which is a mechanism that architects like yourself or others are employing in their work to achieve large-scale projects.[Kevin Roche]: That is a very good question. I guess probably Frank Gehry is a good example of a person dealing with very large-scale projects such as the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn. It is a very, very tough problem. How do you deal with the underlying drive to provide as much possible rental space—which is the reason the project is being built—and at the same time do that in a way that is sympathetic to the community, the urban design, and the humanist aspects of it. It will be interesting to see how that develops; it will be interesting to see how it will be experienced. Certainly he has shown his genius at providing these forms that become interesting.
It is another way of saying "Here I am." When you see this distortion of the rectilinear form into something else, it immediately arrests your attention. It is not the same old cube. It is a twist of a cube, or a bent cube, or a broken cube, an exploded cube or something else and so your attention is immediately attracted to it. You never get the message across unless you wake people up. People don't see architecture. Most people are only peripherally aware of architecture. They don't see any of the details of architecture that we worry so much about. Their preoccupations generally are elsewhere.
NoLandGrab: Most "people don't see architecture" because they are too busy experiencing it. Though Gehry has proven himself to be a masterful designer, he has been frequently criticized for overlooking, or glossing over, the context of his projects. Unfortunately for Gehry and Brooklynites, scale and context are related and the issues only become more complex for megaprojects, that is, unless they're put on the back burner.
Posted by lumi at September 9, 2008 3:45 AM