I urge everyone to watch the two videos found on this webpage from the "Talkitect" site.
The first video is nice artsy film showing the Campbel Center from different perspectives. The second includes very illuminating comments from the two lead architects on the project.
I know the snarkier among us will think of the building forever as the nicest subway station in NYC, but no one disputes the building was needed. I also know those who prefer rural settings to urban campus sites will never love much about Columbia, BUT you have to respect the HONESTY of the structure and how it does not try to run away from its urban surroundings.
9 comments:
Thank you Jake for these two interesting videos regarding our new Campbell Center; and yet there are no comments from the readers of the blog.
I will comment later; but for now,"talk amongst yourselves".
What has been the reaction from the players?
I've been through the building and looked at it from various vantage points from outside. It is a substantial structure, in terms of size, quality and amenities, that befits a great university, and it has a distinct aesthetic personality. That's all that one can ask for. Whether or not the aesthetic personality appeals to you is a matter of taste, which of course is not disputable. But I would always prefer a structure that had a personality, even if it didn't fit my particular tastes, to one that was non-descript, such as, e.g., Uris or the building that the student union replaced.
Dr.V
I agree with Dr. V; my default preference is for a building with personality. The Campbell Center is not what I would have designed, but it's growing on me and you can't dispute that it has personality.
I wonder whether the athletes think there is enough work-out space. The square footage devoted to the weight room seems like a relatively small percentage of the building's footprint.
I suspect that many of our brethren who are devoted readers and commenters of this wonderful blog probably have an knee jerk negative opinion of the "newfangled" building. (e.g. "it is not like I remember" or "what is wrong with a new brick building with parking?")
I LIKE it! It is a modern statement addressing the needs of coaches and students in this century.
I have hated what now is called "architecture" in Inwood since I traveled to Baker Field Spring and Fall all those years ago. The building is over and above anything else in the neighborhood.
If you listen to the architects explain the building, you'll notice that they don't say a single word, NOT A SINGLE WORD, about the AESTHETICS of the building. They go on and on about the three parts of the building representing mind, body and mind-body. This is drivel. This reminds me of the Art Hum assignment where you're asked to compare two buildings in Manhattan and you turn in 10 pages of bullshit about the Secretariat Building at the U.N. being a penis and the General Assembly Building being a vagina. It's nonsense. It only serves to obscure the fact that this building is cold, bleak , soulless.
Above poster, "Anonymous," sounds "cold, bleak, soulless." The aesthetics are there, but in a non-conventional way, a "distinct aesthetic personality," as an earlier poster said. Most important is the feeling you get, a purely subjective experience. Has the poster visited the Center? If not, perhaps he should and hopefully will find, as another poster does, that "it's growing on me."
taste is a matter of taste(!); it's a somewhat daring design and, for me, makes a good change in the area's somewhat bland buildings; it took a while for the Los Angeles Disney Concert Hall, Gehry's museum in Bilbao and his other buildings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Gehry) to grab people but they have, emphatically for most and I suspect that the Campbell will, too
What does the design matter? The only real importance is that it's helping our players get better and help with recruiting.
Post a Comment