ANTHONY YUE

"The Guggenheim Resort & Hotel for Art" published in CLOG Guggenheim

Unlike the catalytic nature of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the impact of the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas was marginal at best. Instead of revitalizing an entire city, the Hermitage could only provide a sliver of culture before closing its doors in 2008. Designed by Rem Koolhaas, the museum was carved out of the Venetian Resort Hotel and Casino as if by a sloppy, Boolean subtraction. Koolhaas described the Corten steel of the museum’s envelope as a “moment of authenticity” in contrast to the surrounding, Baroque-themed stucco. Though the authenticity of the identically-clad interior could be questioned (would a rogue fire sprinkler weather the Corten panels to truth and honesty?), further examination reveals that the Hermitage was unwittingly appropriate for the Las Vegas Strip. 

"Texturing Images" published in PLAT 4.0, Rice University School of Architecture

In the ever-pivotal year of 1968, Manfredo Tafuri declared that “critical praise or rejection counts, in fact, less and less, when the sophisticated photographic images on the smart glossy pages of architectural magazines ooze with often cunning visual seduction.” Today, architectural imagery is more seductive and more promiscuous than ever. “Sophisticated photographic images” – that is, computer-generated renderings – can be produced for un-built and never-to-be-built projects and the “glossy pages of architectural magazines” have transformed into byte-sized blogs accessible and author-able by anyone. 

While much has been written about digital rendering in the past few years, perhaps the most telling “discourse” can be found in the software manuals, how-to tutorials, and making-of time lapses that detail this translation from three-dimensional geometry into two-dimensional imagery. "Texturing Images" is a “tutorial” of sorts, an overview of the varied techniques that allow the visualizer to ground digital form through the use of texture.

In the near future, armchair historians might find it suitable to label the current starchitectural boom in Miami as "MiPoMo," in reference to both Miami's 1950s hedonistic brand of Modernism and some notion of a late-blooming Post-Modernism (ala Reinhold Martin).

The former - the “MiMo” - is clearly reflected in an overeager sensitivity to context. OMA’s winning proposal for the Miami Beach Convention Center looks suspiciously like a stepped version of Morris Lapidus’s nearby Fontainebleu Hotel. The promotional video for BIG’s runner-up proposal for the same development emphasizes apparent connections with the local surroundings. Even Frank Gehry's typical paper crumples are neatly tucked away in an unassuming glass and plaster box at the New World Center in South Beach; it almost appears as if Gehry was simply exhibiting his building within an existing building.

The latter - the “PoMo” - is exhibited by the results of this marriage; in an attempt to be contextually sensitive, our beloved starchitects fall into referencing the historic surroundings of Miami. In a recent interview in Thresholds, Reinhold Martin suggests that we have only recently become Post-Modern through recent neo-modernist revivals that borrow freely from our favorite Modernist heroes, both pre- and post-war. MiPoMo is no different, drawing from our own ancients.

Furthermore, the work of a starchitect tends to self-referential by default. In effect, the recent high profile work in Miami reaches a surprising level of kitsch; not only do these projects reference their historic surroundings, they reference their own recent histories. Zaha Hadid’s One Thousand Museum Tower, a project that supposedly differentiates itself through an exhibition of structure, appears to be a recycled version of Hadid’s rejected design for 425 Park Avenue in Manhattan. BIG’s Grove at Grand Bay resemble, quite frankly, the majority of BIG projects (Scala Library, LEGO Towers, Kimball Art Center, etc).

Miami is transforming into a Las Vegas for architects, or perhaps a city-sized version of Charles Moore’s beloved Madonna Inn - a collect-’em-all of Bilbaos, an array of themed projects tied into one. While the typical tourist is treated to a collage of tourist destinations in Las Vegas, the architectural tourist is treated to a collage of architectural spectacles. Though critical regionalists and the envious might decry this starchitectural invasion, the truth is that the likes of Gehry, BIG and/or OMA, Norman Foster, and Hadid fit quite nicely in Miami.