The School of Design and Environment held a public lecture on “Constructing New Materialities” today. The guest speaker was Thomas Schroepfer, an Assistant Professor from Harvard University, Graduate School of Design. His portfolio includes working at Studio Libeskind, a company known for the Jewish Museum at Berlin, and the currently ongoing works, Reflections @ Keppel Bay (If you people do not know who Daniel Libeskind is, just recall that advertisement on TV that shows this guy talking to himself about something that makes no sense, with the advert ending as the proposed design for the Reflections@Keppel Bay)
The lecture explores the striking parallels in the theorizing about materiality and structures between Scheerbart, Taut, and their followers at the beginning of the 20th century and that of a growing number of contemporary designers, all seeking for an architecture that differs significantly from the high modernist concern with dematerialization: today’s experiments once again provide the intellectual and creative framework, which make materialities and structures and the resulting production of a high degree of expression a viable concept in architecture.
Glass architecture is not just about placing glass as a facade for the building. Many research were done prior to the final design. I never knew that different kind of glass is able to create a different kind of effect. Prof. Schroepfer mentioned “working with glass is like designing with light“, food for thought, i think.
Glass architecture is like transforming stone buildings into sacred cathedrals. The crystal like appearance of the glass toys with the light, making the building shine, and thus making itself stand out among the rest.
It is a vehicle of expression in its own way. The effects are produced directly from the matter itself.
The following buildings explore the concept of materiality:
The Louvre Pyramid, France (Ieoh Ming Pei)
The Waterloo Station, England (Nicholas Grimshaw)
Sendai Mediatheque, Japan (Toyo Ito)
Prada Building, Japan (Herzog & de Meuron)
This was the first time I felt interested and listened attentively throughout the lecture. If my future lectures were to be like that, I may start to enjoy school!
