JohnAKeith
Senior Member
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- Dec 24, 2008
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Re: Atlantic Wharf (formerly Russia Wharf)
The grid bothers me too, because it expresses a structural system that does not really exist. Here is a building that looks like an example of high-tech expressionism (in the tradition of Norman Foster) but is actually a garden-variety glass curtain-wall structure.
The grid bothers me too, because it expresses a structural system that does not really exist.
One of the style's characteristic traits was to express or articulate the structure of buildings externally. It was a style that argued that the functional utility of the building?s structural elements when made visible, could supplant a formal decorative articulation; and more honestly converse with the public, than any system of applied ornamentation. A building's structural elements should be visible, Mies thought. The Seagram Building, like virtually all large buildings of the time, was built of a steel frame, from which non-structural glass walls were hung. Mies would have preferred the steel frame to be visible to all; however, American building codes required that all structural steel be covered in a fireproof material, usually concrete, because improperly protected steel columns or beams may soften and fail in confined fires. Concrete hid the structure of the building ? something Mies wanted to avoid at all costs ? so Mies used non-structural bronze-toned I-beams to suggest structure instead. These are visible from the outside of the building, and run vertically, like mullions, surrounding the large glass windows.
The original concept was so much better:
I'm going to disagree with you on this one joebos, the original concept looked like a giant refrigeration unit. What we have now, although not the greatest, is still superior to the original concept. IMO.