We introduced the recently completed project, Yokohama International Port Terminal designed by Farshideh Moosavi and Alejandro Zaero Polo in the previous issue. In this issue, you we'll read the opinion of four different Iranian architects invited by Me'mar magazine on this project: Mehdi Alizadeh, Seyyed Hadi Mirmiran, Bahram Shirdel, and Kamran Afshar Naderi. The original text is lengthily, thus the main ideas are mentioned here for the benefit of English-speaking readers.
Alizadeh
Yokohama project is beautiful. It's the extenuation of a city. But the designer has been tied up in his idea: A dragon is designed and its form and body movements haven't allowed the designer to make it shipshape. It's the dragon itself who has created everything. It seems that the designer hasn't had any freedom in shaping his basic concept.
The project resembles to a neighborhood. Just like our own mountainous villages, with all their different levels, slopes, movements, and roofs. Maybe the designer has chosen such concept, in order to find the solution within it, but has failed to do this. I'm not very sensitive to theories, I'm interested in results.
Mirmiran
I made an attempt to figure out from what point has this project started and why has it ended up with something like that. I also read the articles concerning the project. All the arguments revolve around structure and stability. But such a project is expected to result from a three dimensional concept. The novelty of this project is in a kind of space continuity. The idea of creating such space is interesting but hasn't been very successful. Another intention has been to eliminate the distinction between the roof, the wall and the floor. But neither the continuity, nor the elimination of such distinction, are merit by themselves and not a novel one either. They should be judged according to how they help architecture. The responsibility of architecture is not that minute. Architecture is a thoroughly logical practice and it's not a matter of diversion at all.
Skill is the essence of architecture. You might make your ideology out of others', you might even obtain their ideas, but there's something that is totally yours: your architectural skill, which reveals the theoretical ideologies and architectural ideas.
Shirdel
This is a totally unusual and professional project. From the point of architectural ideology, it's a post-structuralist project. It has its own theories, some of which are even today still under discussion pursuing structuralism, phenomenology, deconstruction, post-modernism, and modernism. This trend of architecture we're talking about developed in the early 80's. It seems as if this project is the first of its kind to be constructed in the 21st century, and that's what makes it so valuable. It is architecture with an ideology more comprehensive than the architectural discipline, an ideology covering different disciplines, including architecture. Here, one's taste is not taken into account; it's something unfavorable. It's not a matter of choice which is already substituted with undecidebility. The problem of esthetics is not concerned and skill isn't of any importance either.
I believe Moosavi-Zaera Polo are the faithful students of this school. They know their trend of architecture very well. While Eisenman, Gehry, and others don't know what they're doing.
Afshar Naderi
First of all, I should say that when somebody wants to be distinguished and wishes to come to the centre of attention, he/she develops a distinct scheme. All these achievements drive architecture to extremities instead of helping it improve, and day after day, make it more difficult to adopt a distinguished and original design.
For this project, the problem lies in whether architecture is an analysis of the world or just a simple picture of it? Yokohama project is a critique on the city. Of course a great number of architects hide themselves behind this theory. This is what Moosavi-Zaera Polo do to justify their choice. A choice which is basically a three dimensional figure that is claimed to be a result of structural concerns. But the novelty of Yokohama project lies in the problem of locality, and moreover, its critique on human residence and its problems and difficulties. Of course, many restrictions lead us to this conclusion that it's an unskillful attempt. One reason is that the introduced topics are so ingenious that there is no proper technological answer still found for them.
In spite of some contradictions, there is something interesting about this project: a successful attempt to create a tectonic architecture.
Hashemi (editor-in-chief of Me'mar)
In my opinion, the new architectural trends of the recent decades — which mostly have been a kind of antagonism — result in complete negation of the architecture itself. If it is supposed to mash and mix everything, to remove all the distinctions between the building and the context, well, nature is already like that. The theories explaining these architectures directly speak of the negation of architecture. The chief problem is why does this trend insist on being known as a continuity to the history of architecture? Imposing external ideologies from the outside of architectural discipline to architecture has caused it not to be the origin of itself anymore.
Mirmiran (further)
In poetry we have prosodic metres; in architecture there is something of the same kind. Someone, for instance, picks fractal geometry. The Yokohama project has approached the matter in this way. Recall the work of Frei Otto, or the UNESCO amphitheatre in Paris built long before this — in essence an accordion-folded surface that covers a large span. But because, when an accordion-folded surface rests on supports, it begins to open up, a flat sheet runs through the folds. Otto placed that sheet at the location of the moment-of-inertia opposite. The move has its inverse-moment, both beauty and great simplicity and clarity. Well, we see that Otto found a solution but is not its prisoner. But sometimes we become prisoners of our own idea.
The Yokohama work is, of course, beautiful — the extension of a city. But it is plainly visible that the design is held captive by an idea the designer has chosen. The worst details, the worst spaces, the worst forms, and the worst surfaces have been brought into being in connection with that idea. A dragon was chosen, and the dragon's body and its movement have not allowed the designer to make the project compact. It is the dragon itself that has produced everything. Unfortunately, all of these solutions are short-lived. Otto's work is not so. Even Utzon's Sydney Opera is not — at least its shell is a durable shell. Or what the Germans did at the Olympics is a durable model. Mies van der Rohe's museum (the New National Gallery in Berlin) is a durable solution. But when you look at Yokohama you see no durable element. These perspectives, with the surfaces they have, and the dust and dirt that will gather on them, cannot keep their beauty for ever. The spaces are false spaces. These roofs could have been executed in other forms, and the model and the computer have carried the work as far as they can.
But the event itself is great. To enter such a great event takes skill. It is like a disordered carnival. But truly I see in this work no elements that can give it durability and firmness. The surfaces of this project are mostly twisted, crooked surfaces. There is also nothing wrong with shaping mountains, hills, and humps as architecture. It does not matter whether one chooses the form of the quatrain (ruba'i) or that of the ghazal and the masnavi; the result is what matters. I have no quarrel with someone over the form he chooses to express his subject matter; what matters is the success of arriving at the desired result.
The novelty of space-flow
The novelty of this project is in a kind of spatial continuity that wishes to come into being in architecture — spaces we have not encountered before. If we want to find novelty in it, perhaps it is the effort to bring about a kind of fluency and continuity, with space sliding so that one can move through it to the end, as if swimming in water. This may be counted as a quality in architecture. That is, it is not as in conventional architecture where there is a space, then a break, and then another space begins. In modern works I had this feeling once on seeing Hans Scharoun's library in Berlin. It is an interesting idea — but I do not put much weight on its degree of success.
Another argument in this project — present in traditional, modern, and even post-modern architecture — is that it has wished to negate wall and floor and ceiling. As if we are walking on a flat surface, and then in one part we press our foot a little and it sinks in; and if we want to come up, we lift the pressure and we rise again. A surface has been imagined that has been pressed down wherever wanted: that is, to make space we no longer have to use the elements of floor and wall and ceiling. The attempt has been to shape an idea in which a single surface bends, hollows, rises — and in this its resistance is greater.
But my question is: what problem do we really have with the customary elements? What structural problem do we have with floor and ceiling and wall? Was the aim to bring forth a new meaning? Because the customary space — composed of floor and wall and ceiling, to which we are accustomed — is no longer here; instead it is a curved form in which the floor becomes the ceiling. This is achieved through a new structural idea of closed shells. There may be positive structural results too, though I doubt that one can control such a thing in structural calculations. In any event it is a claim, and proving it is no simple matter.
Why fluidity should be preferred
My impression is that this work has come about more from the angle of a new fluid, slipping, endless space, and from a wish to do away with the architectural tradition of floor, ceiling and wall. From this angle one may evaluate it as good work. But the discussion is over this: even granting this idea — the elimination of floor, ceiling, and wall and the creation of a fluid space — who has said that fluid space is preferable to other spaces? For every space has its own reasons. Unless the central idea of the project is to create a fluid space. And besides, fluid space is not a new thing. Once when I saw the Beijing Winter Palace I felt this fluidity; especially the Summer Palace, from the very moment of entry one thinks one can keep slipping and reach the end of architecture. But this is only a spatial concept. By contrast, in our architecture there is a deliberate cutting of one space to give rise to another. Therefore neither is in itself an advantage; neither is novel.
I did not understand the reason for removing floor, wall, and ceiling either. I have always loved this right-angle of the corner of a room. What disturbs us in it that we should remove it? Only because we want to bring something new into being? If the answer is that we have done such a thing because we are tired of this architecture, that is not a satisfying answer. Architecture is not pastime. To say that the art of this work is in its structure is also not right, because architecture does not follow structure. Sometimes architecture has been able to realise itself even with an incorrect structure. The shape of the concrete roof of Le Corbusier's Ronchamp Chapel runs against the natural behaviour of concrete.
It would be good to set aside the role of structural factors and accept that the aim of the project has been to create a new space. But in my view the mere creation of a new space can never be the aim of architecture. I never tire of repetition and do not chase pastime and variety. If the porticos of the Naqsh-e Jahan Square, which are 520 metres long, were to extend another 2,000 metres, they would still not be tedious.
The philosophy and our world
It is good to know the philosophy of this kind of architecture and then to judge it. In these new architectural philosophies, for instance, they say the world is complex, takes the form of chaos (kā'us), is catastrophe, and so on. Suppose the world is so; why should architecture be so? What logic exists for this resemblance? For if the world is so as they say, our mind does not picture it that way. Our mind is a wholly logical mind; all minds are logical. The world may not be logical, but in our mind logic prevails. Why should architecture be a catastrophe or chaos? Be unreasonable and illogical? Such ideas, sometimes drawn from the sciences, do not have an architectural logic.
The discussion that matters for us is our approach to such adventures in architecture. After all, as Third-World people we have been imitators of fashion. When we went to school, Le Corbusier was the fashion and a number worked like Le Corbusier. Then Louis Kahn came and a number worked like him. Post-modernism came; Frank Gehry came; and so on. Of course this work (Yokohama) does not have Frank Gehry's mastery. But a number may follow it blindly.
When I look at this work, the mere fact that it is something new does not make me come under its influence. I have not yet understood it: the mere wish to bring forth a new space is not a sufficient reason. Even Frank Gehry's work — though new — is never stronger than Mies van der Rohe's thought. Clothes one may wear by fashion, but one cannot look at architecture this way.
Alizadeh (response)
This project, which is like a neighbourhood, brought two things to my mind. One was a scene in Pasolini's Gospel According to St Matthew, where Christ is born and on a tall hill people move along the slope to see him; and the other was the movements and roofs. It seemed to me that this project chose such an idea and wishes to find its answer within it — but in this it has not been successful.
Shirdel (response)
I do not understand this discussion of question and answer. Mr Alizadeh said this work is not like Frei Otto's. Mr Mirmiran also raised a great deal — including the question of how this architecture has come about. Should there be floor, ceiling, and wall, or should there not? And how can we set a value on this project? I have heard nothing other than your own concerns. And in your concerns I find no really interesting issue. I have not yet understood the particular subject of this meeting.
Mirmiran (response)
The subject of this meeting is no strange thing. The history of architecture has rendered its judgement on several thousand years of architecture, and we do not need to prove it again. It has counted some works as outstanding and some not, and our discussion has no effect on that. Today we are facing a work that differs from other customary works, has a particular form, and we wish to see whether this particular form is a step forward or not. Architecture is not an irresponsible business, in which anyone can produce something and let it run on; it has a wholly logical course and knows where it goes.
Shirdel (response)
But no one has said that architecture must be customary. The project under discussion is an unusual work and is wholly professional. From the standpoint of architectural ideology it is a post-structuralist project. It has its own theories, some still under discussion today, and proceeds in pursuing structuralism, phenomenology, deconstruction, post-modernism, and modernism. This trend of architecture we are speaking of took shape in the early 1980s. It seems that this project is the first instance of its kind built in the twenty-first century, and this is what raises its value. It is an architecture with an ideology more comprehensive than the discipline of architecture itself — an ideology covering different disciplines, including architecture. Personal taste does not enter here; it is unwelcome. It is not a matter of choice, which has already been replaced by undecidability. The aesthetic question is not at issue, and skill has no importance either.
This project won a first-rank international architectural competition. People such as Koolhaas, Toyo Ito, and other well-known architects were the jury. After the competition, in the course of detailed design, the project was also very difficult; the time of design exceeded the time of execution. It is a very expensive project. In short, Moosavi and Zaera-Polo are the faithful students of this school. They know their architectural current very well, while Eisenman, Gehry, and others do not know what they are doing.
End of the roundtable
The roundtable continued with structural, philosophical, cultural, and professional questions about the project — from the concept of transition, non-linear evolution, nature and architecture, to questions of dimension, economy, and the ethics of design. In the end, the five voices present at the meeting shared the view that, whatever the final judgement, the Moosavi-Zaera-Polo project is a great event in contemporary architecture and offers the Iranian architectural community an occasion for reflection and serious conversation.
