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Neither Mies nor Corb used BIM

The great masters of 20th century architecture changed the world. Their buildings, designs, and ideas shaped not just the built environment, but so much else. It feels narcissistic, verging on megalomaniac, to think one day a currently practicing architect will join their ranks as an equally revered elder.

  • Fact: neither Mies nor Corb used BIM.
  • Fact: neither Frank Lloyd Wright nor Aalto Photoshopped their renderings.
  • Fact: neither Kahn nor Gaudi answered email from their smartphones while away from the office.
  • Fact: neither Sullivan nor Gropius ever shared their writing via blogs or online only journals.
  • Fact: just like all those architectural giants, that world is dead.

The old rules no longer apply. It is time to define a new paradigm for the great architects of the 21st century. It is time for the rise of architects embracing the power we now have at our disposal. If you want to make your mark on history-on the world we live in today-it’s time to find new avenues.

  • Question: would the Bauhaus have embraced Etsy.com and Shapeways.com if the Internet existed in the 1920s?
  • Question: Would Buckminster Fuller have used Kickstarter to help fund some of his utopian dreams if he could have?
  • Question: What would Team 10 or Superstudio have created with access to ubiquitous digital cameras and YouTube?

Don’t tell me the answers. Show me the answers. You have these tools and more. Bend them to your will. Go beyond history. If you have the dream of making history, the route is not through the imitation of what worked one hundred years ago. It is through a re-imagining of how architects make a difference.

Louis Kahn sending Text

You are the future of Architecture

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Comments

  • November 15, 2013
    reply

    David Harrier

    I must say, that these architects that our history is based on were good at what they did. They may have been able to do more with todays technology. Their production staff may also have been able to do more with today technology.

    • January 4, 2014
      reply

      I suspect you are right. I have a foot in each camp, having graduated from design school in the 70s. I can draw by hand a good deal faster than my CAD operators, designing and detailing much faster, but I use computers most of the time. I cannot make major changes to hand drawings nearly as quickly, and the hand drawings, as compelling as they are aesthetically they aren’t as impressive in their finish as well drawn CAD documents, which I insist upon, incidentally (nothing more repellant than bland, inaccurate, ugly AutoCAD drawings, and of course, clients want files, not drawings. And of course, while I can conceive pretty good free form shapes on yellow trace, I cannot produce the construction documents for them without costly programs and expertise–even if I had the clients who could pay for the buildings, which I don’t.

      But, the bigger reason I agree with David Harrier, is based on how much time is lost in the office dealing with technology glitches: printer drivers that are out of date, problems with incompatible programs, new technology that no one has the time to master, e-mail confusion, crashes without backup (even when you think you are backed up), virus problems, etc., etc. I have worked in offices with 200 architects (Gropius’ actually) but my own office has only three architects and I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the computer age is generally hostile to the small office, where it is unfeasible to have an IT on a retainer or on staff and the relatively small budgets don’t allow regular upgrades of programs and hardware that come with economies of scale in large companies.

      And, let us not forget, it doesn’t mean a better product in the end. Not really. Different, but not better

      Michael Miller

        • January 6, 2014
          reply

          Jared,

          We spend a lot of time talking about this around here and there is a fair amount of literature out there about how the profession has changed from the halcyon days of fine drawings and talented craftsmen–for better and for worse. As for losing files your analogy is a good one. I just learned that both my trusty ArchiCad 11 and 12 have somehow been corrupted and the IT can’t revive either, but I remember the knashing of teeth and wringing of hands that went with the discovery that the ozolite machine had eaten a bunch of original vellums.

          Probably zero sum.

            • January 13, 2014

              Thanks. I’ve had Carbonite for several years.

              Question: Renderings: I’m not bad at thumbnails and hand renderings and generally my clients respond better to them than to computer generated perspectives from drawing programs. Also the hand drawings are money makers because I value price and if I can do the sketch in an hour or so….you get the picture. But sometimes, having seen a Zaha Hadid rendering, a client will ask for digital renderings. We can do them reasonably competently using a combination of programs but the process is excruciatingly slow, and really too costly to do in-house. But my projects are intricate and I am picky so we do them anyway. But because of the time they take I can’t possibly charge at rate so at best I will be able to do bill at salary plus, say, 10% (if that), which means I am subsidizing my client (and he will go out and make lots of money off them..but that’s a topic for another time)

              The heart of problem is computer speed but also choice of programs. So here is my question: What are you hearing to be the most cost effective way to do really nice digital renderings (other than going to China)? Programs? Speed? I won’t tell you what we have now so you can be objective.

              Thanks,

              Michael Miller

  • November 15, 2013
    reply

    willard

    Why aren’t todays architects doing enough with their current tools? Zaha isn’t building Falling Water or ginger bread houses. Her organization along with a handful of architects, engineers, and contractors are exploiting technology throughly.

  • November 16, 2013
    reply

    Djordje

    these giants also did not have project managers, extensive legislation, PI insurance, and other stuff that stopped architects being what they should be … and that has nothing to do with BIM, it has to do with the legislative run litigation oriented adversity fueled today.

    as for today’s names … frankly, i don’t see the point, ms hadid onwards. there is no pushing of the technology (see mies) or even architectural boundaries (see all of them), just blobotecture that still finds some clients willing to pay.

      • November 18, 2013
        reply

        David Harrier

        I need to believe that many of the greats would not have designed solely for their own idea of design. Many of them would have found and addressed Life-Safety, municipal ordnances and other items that are being referred to as legislative restrictions. And then there are those who insist on designing within their own world; and expect the world to accept their design or adapt to their design. Many of the greats did not push the technology of the period, they worked at creating the technology of the period. That is why they could accomplish the criteria of the design that they developed.

  • November 21, 2013
    reply

    Djordje

    David,

    I would say that they did design for their own idea – before Corbusier, you did not have many ideas that are the base of the Athens Charter, before Mies you did not have the use of structural elements as architectural elements in contemporary materials … Yes, they created the technology, pushing the limits of the exisiting solutions, but that was because the period itself was one of general advancement.

    Compared to today, I am not sure how many legislative restrictions they did have, and had observed. Probably not a lot (observed) because if they did, they would not have done what they had done.

    All this has nothing to do with BIM, but a lot to do with the industries that produce the built environment, that are very far away from the people that work in them. BIM is the last chance to catch the reins for us, construction professionals, before the legislators take them away forever and we are reduced to mere clerks, without any right to make decisions.

  • December 3, 2013
    reply

    I have to wonder if we should even be trying to build in the same context that they did. As modern materials emerged, modern architecture evolved to exploit steel, concrete, and glass, while abandoning fluted columns, gargoyles, and stone pediments. Their media were the new materials, and I think to design it best, you have to TOUCH the materials. That art is falling away, as we rarely even touch paper anymore, much less steel beams.

    If we are to commit ourselves to design in the digital realm, are we even suited to work in the real, brick-and-mortar universe? For the hard-core modelers, simulation of space has superseded the experience of physical spaces. I, personally, have spent vastly more time driving a computer than galavanting around Europe, and I generally work for clients in much the same boat. I sit in my old cubicle (which is the unholy antithesis of architecture), and design new cubicles for them. Why bother, when we live in the machine anyway?

    Perhaps we should look inward. No, I’m not talking about your soul, chi, mojo, or anything esoteric; I refer to the box you are staring at right now: the tool you design in, your typewriter and bookkeeper, the malt shop where you meet your friends, your theater, library, and shopping mall all rolled up into one. The Matrix. Skynet. The Robot Overlords that have restructured our world. That’s where an increasing fraction of human experience takes place. PLACE.

    PLACE is what we make, as Architects, and it seems there is less and less demand for real places. However, there is an insatiable appetite for more digital experience, and most of what is out there is ugly, 2-dimensional, and fleetingly fashionable. If we really dig the digital design environment (and generally just complain about the hurdles of construction), maybe a few of us should be redesigning that, the Place where everyone is going, the Place that could use a facelift, the Place in desperate need of a Gestalt Mechanism.

    I look back on stories I loved, Snow Crash and Neuromancer, and some really bad movies (Virtuosity and Lawnmower Man come to mind), and I see the opportunity to be part of an Inception of a better virtual world, navigable by people using people-like navigation. Infuse the natural into the artificial, and create real destinations out there, in there. We could generate a sense of Virtual Reality purpose, a VRML village, and a road less taken that’s worth bypassing the hyperlinks.

    And perhaps, if we apply our vast knowledge of the health, safety, and welfare of human beings, we could be the catalyst to implement the most important element of any Place into the Internet: the Egress.

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