Architecture for Us - Stories - The Chinese Restaurant
With this series of entries I am exploring some of the factors that contribute to making a building “great.” Moreover, how might we understand “temporal” greatness versus “lasting” greatness? For me genuine greatness more or less stands outside of time. Once while visiting a small neolithic village in southern France I realized that some of the things I loved about the village's dry stone buildings were very similar to things I loved about the Chapel at Ronchamp (Notre Dame du Haut) - buildings that are thousands of years apart from one another. How can this be? What do these places share? Why was I similarly moved in each location? What is it that makes these buildings great?
As is my nature, I start with a story or two…
Many years ago a lifelong friend and I were debating where we would go for lunch. I had a hankering for vegetable mu shu so I suggested a nearby Chinese restaurant. My friend, well-versed in Chinese food said, “You know Glenn, there is a real problem with most of the Chinese restaurants in Denver. Sure - they’ve got the paper lanterns… yes, they’ve hung some artwork featuring dragons and Chinese calligraphy… they play the right music. But, they’ve overlooked the food.”
This small lesson never left me. My friend was arguing that while the local Chinese restaurants had decorated in all the right ways, they had failed at the most important thing: the food.
I’ve been in lots of buildings where something similar happens: the building nails the ornament but fails on the essential. In the 20th century there was a movement that proposed to do away with all ornament and be left with only the essential. Sometimes this worked, but more often architects simply invented a new type of ornament.
Overtime I’ve come to believe that if we truly understand what is essential and let that be our touch stone, ornament can serve to amplify the essential. Let’s get the food right before we hang the lanterns.
Once again I think back to the times I was a regular at the old Stubbs BBQ in Lubbock (not the one in Austin. Ugh). It was a small and well-worn place that prided itself on it’s BBQ and it’s music: both were great. Over time the owner, C. B. Stubbs had put up “ornament” that struck his fancy. A road sign he found that would inevitably lead to an interesting story. Some LP jackets of music he loved. Partially functioning neon beer signs that had so much dust on them the neon had to fight to get through. A mounted animal or two. Photographs. And the scent - my oh my. Years of spilled beer soaked into the wood and the aroma of the smoker in the back. And possibly the greatest “ornament” of all: C. B. himself, always prone to sit down with you and relate an amazing story.
It was a perfect example of the essential and the ornament working together. Remove either and the place would be less. Note, this type of ornament is very different from more recent places where the owners mount various chachkis on the wall and play well-curated music designed for the target audience. At Stubbs the ornament sprang from the essential.
Of course many of my former students are well-versed in this story. I often started a design studio by taking the class to one of my favorite buildings and telling the story about the Chinese restaurant. For this series of stories I am using Old South Church in Back Bay Boston. Along with Sever Hall at Harvard and Kresge Chapel at MIT, it remains one of my favorite buildings in Boston. I’ve walked into the building hundreds of times and never once did it fail to move me. Founded in 1669, the congregation of Old South Church moved into its Back Bay location in 1875. It’s a pretty remarkable history, but not essential here.
In my meeting with students I began by asking them to spend some time walking around the building, getting a feel for it. I stressed to them that this was not about a particular view of religion, but rather a view toward the essentials of architecture. After an hour or so I would gather them in one of the loft spaces and ask them to tell me what they had discovered. There we sat, in a building where the essential literally oozes out of the built form and is amplified by the ornament.
What is it that makes this building great? What can we take away from this as we consider an Architecture for Us?
Continues with What Problem Does Church Architecture Solve?
With this series of entries I am exploring some of the factors that contribute to making a building “great.” Moreover, how might we understand “temporal” greatness versus “lasting” greatness? For me genuine greatness more or less stands outside of time. Once while visiting a small neolithic village in southern France I realized that some of the things I loved about the village's dry stone buildings were very similar to things I loved about the Chapel at Ronchamp (Notre Dame du Haut) - buildings that are thousands of years apart from one another. How can this be? What do these places share? Why was I similarly moved in each location? What is it that makes these buildings great?
As is my nature, I start with a story or two…
Many years ago a lifelong friend and I were debating where we would go for lunch. I had a hankering for vegetable mu shu so I suggested a nearby Chinese restaurant. My friend, well-versed in Chinese food said, “You know Glenn, there is a real problem with most of the Chinese restaurants in Denver. Sure - they’ve got the paper lanterns… yes, they’ve hung some artwork featuring dragons and Chinese calligraphy… they play the right music. But, they’ve overlooked the food.”
This small lesson never left me. My friend was arguing that while the local Chinese restaurants had decorated in all the right ways, they had failed at the most important thing: the food.
I’ve been in lots of buildings where something similar happens: the building nails the ornament but fails on the essential. In the 20th century there was a movement that proposed to do away with all ornament and be left with only the essential. Sometimes this worked, but more often architects simply invented a new type of ornament.
Overtime I’ve come to believe that if we truly understand what is essential and let that be our touch stone, ornament can serve to amplify the essential. Let’s get the food right before we hang the lanterns.
Once again I think back to the times I was a regular at the old Stubbs BBQ in Lubbock (not the one in Austin. Ugh). It was a small and well-worn place that prided itself on it’s BBQ and it’s music: both were great. Over time the owner, C. B. Stubbs had put up “ornament” that struck his fancy. A road sign he found that would inevitably lead to an interesting story. Some LP jackets of music he loved. Partially functioning neon beer signs that had so much dust on them the neon had to fight to get through. A mounted animal or two. Photographs. And the scent - my oh my. Years of spilled beer soaked into the wood and the aroma of the smoker in the back. And possibly the greatest “ornament” of all: C. B. himself, always prone to sit down with you and relate an amazing story.
It was a perfect example of the essential and the ornament working together. Remove either and the place would be less. Note, this type of ornament is very different from more recent places where the owners mount various chachkis on the wall and play well-curated music designed for the target audience. At Stubbs the ornament sprang from the essential.
Of course many of my former students are well-versed in this story. I often started a design studio by taking the class to one of my favorite buildings and telling the story about the Chinese restaurant. For this series of stories I am using Old South Church in Back Bay Boston. Along with Sever Hall at Harvard and Kresge Chapel at MIT, it remains one of my favorite buildings in Boston. I’ve walked into the building hundreds of times and never once did it fail to move me. Founded in 1669, the congregation of Old South Church moved into its Back Bay location in 1875. It’s a pretty remarkable history, but not essential here.
In my meeting with students I began by asking them to spend some time walking around the building, getting a feel for it. I stressed to them that this was not about a particular view of religion, but rather a view toward the essentials of architecture. After an hour or so I would gather them in one of the loft spaces and ask them to tell me what they had discovered. There we sat, in a building where the essential literally oozes out of the built form and is amplified by the ornament.
What is it that makes this building great? What can we take away from this as we consider an Architecture for Us?
Continues with What Problem Does Church Architecture Solve?