So it’s down to UCLA v. Yale, due April 15th. More on that soon.
Columbia’s out because it’s only real advantage (for me) is that it’s in New York, and I suddenly realized that I don’t have to pay Columbia $37,000 a year to live in New York. (Apparently I can get a “job,” whereupon I am the one who would be paid! Hah, the pupil has become the mastah!)
In other news, I actually got to leave work early (i.e., 9 PM) today, but I didn’t get to sleep early because I geared up for my usual night of detailing with a dump truck of caffeine. DRAT. I just can’t win!
The suspense is over: Harvard rejected me! I shouldn’t have applied “Advanced Placement,” that was pretty stupid.
BUT, now I can sit down and make a choice, as soon as I have more than five consecutive free minutes… better get back to work. They’ll… they’ll put me in The Box….
Oh dayamn, some hot shit’s going up in The City!
Apparently, Renzo Piano’s swooped in and created proposals for five new towers to compliment the proposed Transbay Transit Center tower: 1200, 1200, 900, 900, 600 and 1200+ feet tall. The towers will be mixed-use, including condos, hotels, and office space. Hells yeah. The idea is to generate tax revenue for the Transbay Station project, which is set to go from slightly scary pigeon roost to the Grand Central Station of the West Coast. Indeed, thirteen towers are being proposed, of which Renzo’s are only the tallest.
Please please please let this happen.
High-rise construction in SF stalled after the 1980s because of 1) hippies against “Manhattanization” and 2) the later dot-com bust. Of these, it’s the damn hippies that fill me with dread—in SF, hippies have a lot of power, and they could easily derail the whole project if their smokey desires saw fit. They have a lot of practice choking San Francisco’s future. The following is a typical hippie response, from the enjoyable but flaming liberal SF Bay Guardian:
All the new high-rises the Planning Department is reviewing will contain what’s known as market-rate housing. That translates to condos selling for prices far beyond the reach of most San Franciscans. (…) The new neighborhoods are going to be nothing but very wealthy enclaves, the equivalent of vertical gated communities. Families who are being driven out of San Francisco by high housing costs won’t find refuge here; the housing is designed for singles, childless couples, retired people — and world travelers who want a nice San Francisco pied-à-terre.
Oh noes, rich people are going to live there! Ugh. See, here’s the thing: everyone wants SF to be cheaper, particularly in terms of housing. Housing prices are so high partiall
David Adjaye (London): Royal College of Art
Tadao Ando (Osaka): self-taught
Norman Foster (London): Univ of Manchester, Yale
Frank Gehry (LA): USC, Harvard
Zaha Hadid (London): American Univ. of Beirut, AA
Steven Holl (NYC): Univ of Washington, AA
Rem Koolhaas (Rotterdam): Dutch Film Academy, AA, Cornell
Michael Maltzan (LA): RISD, Harvard
Thom Mayne (LA): USC, Harvard
Richard Meier (NYC/LA): Cornell
Farshid Moussavi (London): Bartlett, Harvard
John Pawson (London): AA
Renzo Piano (Genoa): Politecnico di Milano
Billie Tsien (NYC): Yale, UCLA; and Tod Williams (NYC): Princeton
Marc Tsurumaki (NYC): UVa, Princeton
I don’t think a school’s name means much in practice, but when considering the big dawgs those names seems to pop up a lot, especially Harvard and the AA (the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London). Of course, in the end, raw talent wins out—just look at Ando (self-taught, former boxer), Gehry (drove a truck before enrolling at LA City College), Pawson (worked in textiles then taught English in Japan), and Zaha (undergrad degree in math, went years without a commission).
Another trend is that people seem to go somewhere else for grad school: a different state, coast, or country. I think that’s really important: to keep shaking things up, not getting too comfortable. For whatever reason I associate comfort with complacency, and I’m way too young to get complacent.
(As a side note, London, NYC, and LA seem to be popular places to start up internationally renowned firms.)
Gehry’s got a new building, the IAC Headquarters in NEW YAHK CITY. I have to say that, over the years, I’ve gone from burning hatred to grudging acceptance of Frank Gehry, partially because it’s a miracle that his designs got built. When the guy’s good, he’s GOOD (Guggenheim Bilbao); when he’s bad, he’s VOMIT-INDUCING (the Bilbao-spawn); and overall, he’s done a lot to keep the architecture profession egotistical and in the public eye. I have to respect him for that.
Now, the IAC:
During the day, it’s kind of ugly, like an autistic vandal with a whole lot of chalk had a week-long go at the windows. But,
at night it’s gorgeous. (I mean, at least in this professionally manicured NY Times photo.) The white fritter on the glass makes for some interesting blur-ry effects.
I’m a bit torn, but at least he’s giving the damn metal skins a rest.
*Upon finishing this entry, I’ve realized that the whole building looks like a fragmented failing soufflé, or may be a flan gone rather wrong. That makes me uncomfortable.
(Photos from here and here.)
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