The silly season is upon us, seen in the Olympic language games and Herculean contrivance of the Designer's Statement where Herzog, de Meuron and Ai have been tasked with issuing an answer to a question that cannot be found. Why is this pavilion here? Wherefore the vanity of follies, folly of vanities, is there some clue in the name? Do you not know? Have you not heard? Life is meaningless struggle, labour in the pit, a striving in search of past times? No? “Like a team of archaeologists” in a present-tense continuous searching for the bones of God, these designers have found only the origin of specious argument; in the bottomless pit of architectural post-rationalisation, they are excavating nothing but solipsistic justification and the lies that lie beneath. This need not be. Happy the children of Hyde Park, haptically ecstatic the lounging lovers of Kensington Gardens, the Kingdom belongs to such as these, and this structure is perfect for an all-weather summer. Witness toddlers toddling amongst the giant champagne corks of our wedding feast existence. See them bodily engaged, lifting, rolling their movingly moveable environment, oblivious to grown-up competitive comparative architectural angst. For those with eyes to see, come and play.
http://www.serpentinegallery.org/
Designer's Statement
No comments:
Post a Comment