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Source of this article: Kendo Tsukuge ArchiDogs
Ungano & Agriodimas
In 2018, Jewish-American female architect Elizabeth Diller was named one of the "100 Most Influential People of the Time." This is the second time he has been inducted as an architectural designer after receiving the honor with partner Ricard Schofield in 2009.
"Maybe it's because she's from a male-dominated industry, maybe it's her background as an abstract artist, and her partner's achievements in art, architecture and life (in the field)." But whatever the reason, Liz sees the challenge as an opportunity. She can accomplish things that no one else can do. ”
-- Eli Broad, founder of broad art museum
As one of the founders of DS+R, Elizabeth Diller (hereinafter referred to as Liz) not only leads the firm's architectural design projects, but her unique experience and insights on interdisciplinary experiments – especially art and architecture – make the firm's projects actively generate questions, discussions and innovations in architectural scholarship.
The Broad Museum
The Blur Building
Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center
In this era, buildings were always criticized for their peculiar shapes or super high costs, but DS+R's New York High Line Park received a lament that "the park made the railway line popular at once, resulting in a doubling of house prices and leading to the gentrification of the surrounding areas".
The high line received such criticism is also the consequence of the success of the project, in a sense, many of her projects are desperate, but also a blessing and a curse, but again and again to devote themselves to public buildings.
Why would Ritz go to great lengths to achieve the project's unique social and public effects?
Where does this desperate rebellious spirit come from?
Poke the video to learn more
The author | Sanshui Jin
Edited | Yihan
- 01 -
The "guts" bred by free art
Youth
Liz was born in Poland in 1959 to parents who were holocaust survivors. According to her own account, her home was only five blocks away from where Lee Biskin lived.
In 1960, Liz's parents immigrated to New York with their family, starting from scratch. From coming to New York to attending college, Liz moved four times.
Screenshot of Elizabeth Diller's public lecture
Liberalism prevailed in New York at the end of the 1960s, and human rights movements, feminist movements, and anti-discrimination movements filled the streets of New York. Liz's high school was repeatedly suspended due to frequent demonstrations, and students spent a lot of time on marches. This atmosphere of advocating freedom and rebelling against authority had a profound impact on the young Liz.
Screenshot of Elizabeth Diller's public lecture
The shock of liberalism to the art world has made Liz have a strong interest in the visual medium. In fact, as a young woman, she never wanted to be an architect, she always wanted to be an artist.
Artists such as the American avant-garde Hollis Frampton and the German artist Hans Haacke fascinated Liz with cross-media art.
Hollis Frampton
Hollis Frampton, Untitled, 1970 - 1973
Hans Haacke, Blue Sail, 1964-5
Hans Haacke, Water in Wind, 1968
The most profound spiritual influence on her was the American artist Gordon Matta Clark, who cut out geometric shapes directly on architecture. He does not stick to the canvas, subverts the traditional art medium, rejects the exhibition form such as the gallery art gallery, and shows a strong spirit of resistance to subvert the tradition.
Gordon Matta Clark, Splitting, 1974
For Liz, Gordon Matta Clark's enlightenment also lies in the possibility of presenting art through space.
Gordon Matta Clark, Conical Insect, 1975
Gordon Matta Clark, Circus, 1978
In many art industries, film and filmmaking also had an enlightening effect on Liz. As an artistic medium, film breaks through the static of images and contains another dimension of time.
Films such as Playtime gave her the idea of using the material of "glass" to dramatize scenes of everyday life, which was later reflected in her own art installation projects. Her favorite movies also include "Blue Silk" and "Clockwork Orange".
Play Time, 1967
Blue Velvet, 1986
A Clockwork Orange, 1971
Liz's deep thinking about art and architecture was also inspired by two characters: Marcel Duchamp and Cedric Price. The former attempts a variety of forms to emphasize the dominance of "vision" and the continuity of incomplete works; the Fun Palace of the latter is a flexible public cultural magnum, which is the prototype of DS+R's The Shed.
The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Batchelors, Even
(The Large Glass) 1915 – 1923
Fun Palace, 1959 - 61
- 02 -
Anti-disciplinary anti-power "rebellion"
First involved in architecture
When Liz entered the Cooper Union, she chose film and photography because she was full of contempt for the construction industry at the time, frankly calling it "intellectual corruption."
At that time, modernism was weak, and postmodernist architects such as Rem kuhas, Zahahadid, Daniel Liebiskin, etc. had not yet shown their sharp edges, and all of them poured their energy into theoretical research and images, on paper, without actual projects.
Daniel Libeskind, Micromega Drawing, 1979
Zaha Hadid, Kurfeurstendamm, 1986
Even education in institutions of higher learning was very different from what it is today: Mies, Venturi, and White were criticized, and the postmodernist Enlightenment work The Complexity and Contradictions of Architecture was banned. In her final year of college, Liz could only hide the book in a drawer, and she was able to read it secretly in her spare time.
Perhaps forced by reality or perhaps deeply rooted in the spirit of an artistic activist, Liz chose a very different path from her fellow architects of the period – using art installations to discuss critiques of institutional power.
Elizabeth Diller and partner Ricard Schofield
From the 80s to the end of the 90s, Liz and her partner produced a large number of installations and performances. "Indirect existence" and "critical institutional power" are two prominent themes.
Moving Target shows two forms of existence for performers, one direct and material, the other indirect and virtual. The two forms of existence are juxtaposed in front of the viewer, giving the viewer a kind of separation and adjustment of reality, reflecting on what is "authenticity".
Moving Target, 1996
"Indirect presence" evolved into architectural projects, where huge picture windows were juxtaposed with a small display in slow House. The same picture on the monitor as the window shows forces people to think about the meaning of the real environment and the digital environment. The deep implications of these attempts, which are significant today's social media scene, are nearly 30 years old.
Slow House, 1991
"Critical institutional power" is another question that Liz still reflects on to this day. The objects of criticism of early art installations are various exhibition spaces, which shows her homage and spiritual continuation of Goldon Matta Clark.
Para-site is a commissioned exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, while Ritz has set up several monitors, connected to the museum's lines with wires, and set up monitors at several entrances. People don't realize it when they enter the museum until they enter this special exhibition hall to "spy" on others.
This project is a critique of the act of "seeing.". "Seeing" is the most basic behavior of people in the art museum, and it is also a symbol of the rights of the upper class of society. The device's access to the museum via a circuit is an interfering parasite.
Para-site, 1989
Jump Cuts is another installation. Through early analysis, Liz found that the real performance space in the theater space accounted for only one-fifth of the flow space. Through this installation, she questions the legitimacy of the theater as an institution, who is watching whom? Who are the performers and who are the audience?
Jump Cuts, 1996
Even now, Liz is incompatible with the mainstream in the eyes of her peers, and she has more courage and dare to be bold.
“You don’t fuck around with her. She’s got a mind that works at the speed of light. There’s really no other figure in this country who does more interesting work.”
"You're not going to provoke her (Liz)." She thinks quickly, as fast as lightning. I am afraid that no one in this country has made her work more interesting. ”
-- Tom Mayne
Architectural critic Sarah Whiting, the current president of harvard's School of Architecture, even believes that the reason why DS+R has been slow to win the Pritzker Prize is not because its contribution to the architectural world is not large enough, but because the concept of its project representatives is too advanced to be accepted by the mainstream.
- 03 -
Faithful to the heart of the "dare"
Gradually mature
The Success of the High Line has revitalized surrounding communities, but with it has been a surge in housing prices, forcing more and more New Yorkers who originally lived in the area but could not afford to pay rent to move out.
Real estate development that has sprung up from the ground has more or less been linked to the high line from the name to gain gain; internationally, many cities have applied their best results to the east, but the results are not satisfactory.
520 West 28th by Zaha Hadid Architects
Highline 23 Neil M Denari Architects
Liz responded to these criticisms very positively, and the idealism of the artist seems to fade away in Liz, replaced by a more faithful "dare" energy.
Ungano & Agriodimas
The High Line offers people living in New York another way to see New York and New York life, a no-brainer, a return to the original, stop-and-go. For her, her original intention of doing the high line has been reached, and the problems caused later are not something she can control, and she will not regret the completion of the high line.
Iwan Baan
The Shed, not far from the High Line, reflects her loyalty to her heart and dare to try.
"A flexible cultural megastructure," Liz had as early as 2008. In fact, the completion of The Shed is the complete opposite of the process of ordinary large-scale public buildings.
In 2008, hearing that New York City was planning a cultural project call for proposals, DS+R and David Rockwell (who had previously collaborated on a project) drafted a proposal for a "flexible cultural megastructure." After the economic crisis, New York City responded to the project proposal, and the developers of Hudson Field began to step in, forming a foundation, executive board, etc. to advance The Shed.
In 2008, the developers of New York City and Hudson Field issued a petition
There are no unique cases of an architectural proposal spawning institutional powers to enforce it. However, the win-win situation in the middle is also contradictory.
In order to achieve the flexibility and huge capacity of this cultural megastructure, and to accommodate the required machinery and service equipment without exceeding the red line of the site, DS+R also formed the design of the tower adjacent to the site.
15 Hudson Tower
Such a purely commercial building is something that DS+R has never done before, and it is contrary to Liz's long-standing critique of the power of capital. But the tower will help achieve what is more important to her. After much thought, she took the "devil's deal."
The tower provides a Back of house area for the megastructure
“… to have an opportunity to do something that was really not natural to our studio, to do a commercial project like that. But it was maybe a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do that here, to make an ensemble.”
"Going to do a commercial project like this is an extremely unnatural decision for our studio, but it may be a unique opportunity to do it only once in our life and combine them."
-- Elizabeth Diller
She is a bold artist, a rebellious designer, and an architect who dares to be loyal to herself.
For her, as long as she can achieve what she imagined, a Cedric Price the Fun Palace reincarnated cultural magnum, and flexible, lasting, unleash the potential of public art, and truly change the cultural life of New Yorkers, it is to be true to her heart, both to make compromises and at all costs.
Poke the video to learn more
She would rather be an active social artist than an architect on paper;
She would rather be a lobbyist between various authorities than a B architect under the leadership of the market;
Elizabeth Diller's charm comes from her artist nature and matures in the constant exploration of architecture, inspiring us.
“I’m now convinced that you’re doing your best work doing something you’re unqualified to do.”
"When you're doing something that you're completely unqualified to do, it's the moment when you're doing your best work. I have no doubt about that. ”
-- Elizabeth Diller
Reference：
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/dsr-architecture-elizabeth-diller-1128931/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jan/26/liz-diller-elizabeth-high-line-new-york-london-centre-for-music-diller-scofidio-renfro-interview
https://timesensitive.fm/episode/elizabeth-diller-new-york-city-punch-list/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sGClBZgaIA&ab_channel=ArchitectsnotArchitecture
https://www.surfacemag.com/articles/elizabeth-diller/
https://www.richardsaltoun.com/artists/57-hans-haacke/overview/
https://flash---art.com/article/hans-haacke-new-museum-new-york/
https://aestheticamagazine.com/gordon-matta-clark-anarchitecture/
https://placesjournal.org/article/gordon-matta-clark-spacism/?cn-reloaded=1
https://deepfocusreview.com/definitives/playtime/
https://arttheoryreadgroup.wordpress.com/marcel-duchamp-the-delay-in-glass/
https://dsrny.com/project/moving-target?index=false&tags=performance§ion=projects
https://arquitecturaviva.com/works/centro-cultural-the-shed-nueva-york-2#lg=1&slide=13
https://dsrny.com/project/15-hudson-yards?index=false&tags=residential§ion=projects
https://dsrny.com/project/mile-long-opera?index=false&tags=performance§ion=projects
https://dsrny.com/project/jump-cuts?index=false&tags=installation§ion=projects
https://dsrny.com/project/para-site?index=false&tags=installation§ion=projects
Unless otherwise indicated, the images are from the firm
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