Friday, December 5, 2003

Adrian Smith of SOM discusses the Jinmao Building (美國名建築師論金貿大樓)

Adrian Smith of SOM discusses the Jinmao Building (美國名建築師論金貿大樓)
[文化創意產業]
(2003/12/05)





Interview with Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)

Adrian Smith is a consulting design partner with the architecture firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, and is one of the most recognized architects in the world. His work includes several major skyscrapers, including the tallest building in China. In the following conversation with Skyscrapers.com's Director of Communications Tom Finnegan, Mr. Smith discusses his design philosophy, the economics and engineering of tall buildings, and his project history including a new world's tallest building.

Smith: Another project in Chicago called Dearborn Center was designed in 1989. Its structural system had a solid concrete core with only eight super frame columns and eight corner columns around the perimeter so its typical floor was extremely open. Although Dearborn Center didn't get built, it had a strong influence on Jin Mao Tower, designed in 1993. Except for the top, the shape and the floor plates are very similar. One of the main massing attitutes that Jin Mao borrowed from Dearborn Center and AT&T was the way the building wall steps back as it rises to the sky. On AT&T there are steps at the 15th, 30th and 45th floors. On Jin Mao, I tried stepping in 8 floor segments but determined that this was too static. So I tried modulating from larger stepped segments at the bottom of the tower to progressively shorter segments at the top. This approach solved the issue of the tower feeling complete even when the view of the lower levels was blocked by adjacent structures. The side effect of this stepping system is that it resembles the pagoda forms used in ancient China. These were actually the first form of high rise buildings. [emphasis added]

Finnegan: A lot of people have made that comparison, which I suppose comes as no surprise.

Smith: The comparison is direct. It wasn’t meant to look like a pagoda, but it was intended to evoke the memory of pagodas, much the same way I.M. Pei's pyramid at the Louvre is a modern depiction of the ancient pyramids in Egypt.

Editor's Comments:

Sometime during the conceptual or schematic design phase of the Jinmao Building, Adrian Smith apparently apprised himself of the numerological significance of the number eight in Chinese culture. That is probably why a preliminary design scheme featured a stepback every eight floors. A spokesman for C. Y. Lee, architects for the Taipei 101 Building also told reporters that their design team deliberately divided the Taipei 101 Building into eight sections for numerological reasons.

The difference is that the designer of Taipei 101 became enamored with his pet "canted section" feature, to the eventual detriment of the overall design. The designer of Jinmao on the other hand, wisely reconsidered his initial "one setback every eight floors" scheme when it became apparent it just didn't look right.

Ironically Smith was right and Lee was wrong. Smith did what ancient Chinese artisan/architects would have done -- trust one's eye. Lee on the other hand, didn't. The consequence is Jinmao looks right, while Taipei 101 doesn't. Jinmao even feels more authentically Asian than Taipei 101.

Chinese architects should be busy creating a vital and convincing modern, Chinese-inspired, East Asian architectural style. They should be doing it better than Japanese, European, and American architects, but they aren't. That doesn't mean they won't, but at the moment they aren't, and that fact saddens me deeply.

-- Bevin Chu

Explanation: Interview with Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM)
Illustration(s): Jinmao Building, Shanghai: Dearborn Center, Chicago
Author(s): Tom Finnegan, Interviewer
Affiliation: Skyscraper.com
Source: http://www.emporis.info/en/nc/iv/as/
Publication Date: November 2003
Original Language: English
Editor: Bevin Chu, Registered Architect

Monday, December 1, 2003

The Pagoda, Prototype for Modern Asian Skyscrapers (寶塔, 現代亞洲摩天大樓的原型)

The Pagoda, Prototype for Modern Asian Skyscrapers (寶塔, 現代亞洲摩天大樓的原型)
[文化創意產業]
(2003/12/01)








The Pagoda, Prototype for Modern Asian Skyscrapers

A previous article explored reasons why the nearly completed Taipei 101 Building is not a well-designed high-rise skyscraper.

This article examines two examples of far superior modern skyscraper designs, inspired by an Asian architectural precedent, the pagoda. Considering that the pagoda is among the oldest forms of high-rise tower in the world, modern high-rise towers based on the pagoda make perfect sense.

Jinmao and Petronas, Modern Pagodas

The Jinmao Building and the Petronas Twin Towers are superior to the Taipei 101 Building. They are superior because they embody the same visual characteristics as the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings: vertical continuity, vertical emphasis, and progressive setbacks. In the Jinmao and Petronas buildings the continuity of the primary building mass is maintained from top to bottom, allowing one to experience the building's full height. Collectively, the building's design elements underscore the building's vertical axis over its horizontal. The floor plans step inward, diminishing in size as the building ascends, giving dramatic emphasis to the building's height.

The traditional pagoda exhibits two of the three previously cited visual characteristics of modern point towers: vertical continuity and progressive setbacks. The traditional pagoda exhibits comparatively little vertical emphasis. Close examination of the traditional pagoda however suggests that a relative lack of vertical emphasis is not necessarily a defect. Vertical continuity and progressive setbacks are enough to ensure a visually convincing design.

Designers of Taipei 101 Flunk Architectural History

Taipei 101's lack of vertical continuity, on the other hand, is a much more serious matter. Taipei 101's tower is broken into sharply segmented "canted sections." These canted sections look like discrete blocks stacked precariously atop one another, ready to topple over any moment.

To make matters worse, the shape has an undesirable pop iconographic connotation. As one coworker noted, Taipei 101 looks remarkably like a vertical stack of Chinese takeout food cartons. Earlier schematic design sketches reveal that Taipei 101's designers became enamoured with this arbitrary shape starting day one and never wavered. They were presumably unaware of this unwelcome iconographic connotation, one that could make Taipei 101's image less appealing.

Traditional pagodas do not resemble separate blocks stacked on top of one another. Traditional pagodas look like monolithic shafts. Cornices or eaves, if any, look like projections from the pagoda's central shaft. Traditional pagodas, unlike Taipei 101, convey a reassuring visual impression of vertical continuity, hence structural integrity. The designers of Taipei 101 apparently, were oblivious to this not so subtle distinction.

Chinese Modern

Those knowledgeable about the sorry state of architecture in modern China may notice the irony. Taipei 101 architect C. Y. Lee is one of the few architects on Taiwan who is making an effort to integrate traditional Chinese architectural motifs into modern architecture. Unfortunately, Lee has never quite figured out how to pull it off. By grafting grotesque and historically inauthentic "Chinese" ornament onto otherwise modern buildings, Lee is truly barking up the wrong tree.

Traditional Chinese architectural themes can be successfully integrated into modern architecture. Japanese modernists have been skillfully integrating Japanese variants of Chinese architectural themes into modern architecture for several decades. So we know it can be done.

The way to integrate traditional Chinese architectural elements into modern Chinese architecture is to draw primarily on traditional Chinese architecture's spatial characteristics, and only secondarily its ornamental motifs. But that is a topic for another essay.

-- Bevin Chu

Explanation: The Pagoda, Prototype for Modern Asian Skyscrapers
Illustration(s): Xinghua Temple Pagoda in Anhui, China; Haibao Pagoda in Ningxia, China; Twin Pagodas at Yongzuo Temple in Shanxi, China; Jinmao Building in Shanghai, China; Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malayasia; Taipei 101 Lacks Vertical Continuity
Author(s): Bevin Chu
Affiliation: CETRA Design Promotion Center
Source:
Publication Date: December 1, 2003
Original Language: English
Editor: Bevin Chu, Registered Architect