Part 1 of 2
“Architecture,” William J. R. Curtis writes in the introduction to Modern Architecture Since 1900, “is rooted in the processes and paradoxes of society. . . . The trick is to find the right balance between the internal logic of the discipline and the influence of cultural forces.”
Indeed. From the banal boxes characteristic of public housing to the exuberant edifices that serve as the beacons of culture, architecture is a balancing act of artistic forms and utilitarian function, of styles derived from nature, industry, history and culture, unified in a vessel that is fundamentally intended merely to provide that most basic of human necessities, shelter.
Architecture created for the common good and a public audience is under a particularly nuanced pressure to balance the form and function, to ensure that the various components are effectively balanced, preferably for minimal cost. Sometimes, these buildings place special emphasis on artistry and imagination, in hopes of becoming iconic. What images come to mind when you think of Sydney, Australia? Perhaps some of the generic Australian stereotypes—Crocodile Dundee, the Outback, kangaroos—but more likely, a certain building right on the waterfront: the Sydney Opera House. Bilbao, Spain offers an even better example, as Frank Gehry’s curving, dynamic, metal-clad Guggenheim Museum has become the very essence of the city’s identity.
The economic renaissance brought about by art- and architecture-obsessed pilgrims come to worship at Gehry’s titanium temple has even sparked a new phrase, one that causes wistful stares and sighs of frustration when mentioned in the presence of big-city urban planners.
The Bilbao Effect.
The Guggenheim has, indeed, tremendously affected Bilbao since it opened in 1997, boosting its economy and, in a less tangible way, enhancing the image of the city, raising it into the top echelon of European cities in terms of cultural vibrancy and pure cachet. Forbes magazine estimates that the museum brought $147 million into the local economy in 2001 and another $23 million in taxes, which the magazine says represents about 4,415 jobs. 1.3 million tourists visited in the first year it was open, and even in 2001, a year when tourism faltered across the world after certain events in September, the museum drew 930,000, of whom 82 percent went to the city specifically to visit the museum. (Finally, to wear out the Forbes statistics, 17 percent of the visitors were from Bilbao and the surrounding region; 35 percent were from other parts of Spain, and 48 percent came from other countries.)
An Effect, indeed. One that other locales across the globe have been clamoring to replicate. As Robert A. Ivy, the editor in chief of Architectural Record, said in explaining the sudden rush to replicate the Effect, “Gehry's Bilbao has conflated cultural, economic, and political interests, alerting all to what a dazzling object in the cityscape can accomplish.” So it goes: such efforts include projects in Seattle (The Experience Music Project, another Gehry creation), Milwaukee (Santiago Calatrava’s avian addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum), the Canary Islands (an opera house, also designed by Calatrava), and Dubai’s Burj al Arab Hotel.
But these other projects, the effects of The Effect, have uniformly failed to generate the anywhere near the same level of attention and revenue, and have generally failed by an order of magnitude. This is not to say that these flamboyant buildings are failures; it is an observation of what should be obvious: interesting architecture is never a panacea for economic revitalization.
In some cases, however, failure is the appropriate term. Just ask the leaders of the now-shuttered Bellevue Art Museum in Bellevue, Washington, who commissioned a building by architect Stephen Holl in hopes of their own Bilbao Effect. Instead, the museum closed a mere three years after it opened, three years of financial difficulties and leadership struggles. To be fair, many factors contributed to the demise of the museum … but Holl and those who approved his design deserve much of the blame, as the building was, by many accounts, a functional failure. An art museum exists to showcase art, but in this case, as the New York Times notes, the idiosyncratic design of the structure led to “exhibition spaces less in service to works of art than in service to the building itself as art.”
A museum – or a theater, or an office building – that is a joy to view from afar but a burden to work within, will succeed in selling postcards but not entry tickets. In Bellevue, as in other new museums (such as Daniel Libeskind’s Denver Art Museum), the varied ceiling heights, thrusting angles and space-as-art aesthetic not only distracts from the art within but makes it difficult to display the pieces effectively, much to the frustration of museum staffers – the New York Times article continues, “Faced with a new building's exotic features, some museum staff members may have quiet fits — or just move on. Indeed, heavy staff turnover is a common consequence of major capital projects, so common that a recent article in Architectural Record magazine called it the ‘new building syndrome.’ ”
The culprit in all of this is not so much the desire to create stunning buildings or the pure envy that comes with realizing that other cities have a new toy, but yours does not. These desires are perhaps innate in the human spirit, and are not necessarily inherently flawed or worrisome. It is the manner in which these dreams become manifest that creates the side effects of the Bilbao Effect – the so-called starchitect.
Frank Gehry is a starchitect. So are Santiago Calatrava and Stephen Holl. As are I.M. Pei, Daniel Libeskind (winner of the commission for the former World Trade Center site in New York), Rem Koolhaas, Tadao Ando, Jean Nouvel, and the firm of Herzog & de Meuron, among others. These are maestros worshipped by the design-savvy set, the rock stars of the drafting board, whose every stroke of the mechanical pencil is greeted with awe and applause. These are the names that chambers of commerce and boards of directors view as the inevitable saviors of their museum or town; these oh-so-hip architects, and no others, have the supposed magic touch, the ability to create the next Bilbao Guggenheim.
Their designs are intentionally bold, often characterized by the de rigueur sharp angles and oddly-shaped windows that they all seem to have agreed are the very definition of cool. The designs are often not, however, generated with particular concern to budget or site; they are the product of minds consumed with their own creativity rather than the needs of the client or a desire to place the building within a particular context. Gehry’s building works because it echoes the flow of the river that it abuts and works in an odd conversation with the neighboring historic brick buildings; it manages to be different without being jarring. But many Bilbao wannabes fail in this regard, sticking not so much like a sore thumb but like a $100 million middle finger waved in the face of the people within and the buildings nearby.
And yet, even as architecture that clashes with its environment is inherently harmful, so too is rote mimicry. The Chicago Tribune’s brilliant architectural critic Blair Kamin sums up the problem in a series of probing questions: “Are we bringing starchitects here for image or for substance, for the sizzle or for the steak? Is our aim to create a faux city that is merely collection of isolated objects or a real urban center that is a lively, jumbled stew? The answer to the challenge posed by the starchitects, then, lies not in lurching back to a provincial past, but in intelligently negotiating the realities of the global present.”
Kamin and others wary of the starchitect phenomenon and the Bilbao Effect suggest part of the solution is, to quote a popular bumper sticker, think globally and act locally. Use local architects, who likely have their own bold ideas and who are also attuned to the nuances of local culture and geography. Design based on community-building, not rèsumè-building. Make statements, but do so on a scale and with materials that are inspiring but not harsh.
And, finally, recall the words of an earlier groundbreaking architect, Louis Sullivan, “Form ever follows function.”
Note: In part 2, which will appear in issue 9, we will look at several new buildings in Minneapolis as case studies of the Bilbao Effect and its cousin, the starchitect phenomenon.
Doug Mack (doug@professoryeti.com) builds sand castles on the shores of Lake Harriet in his spare time.
