I once sent a jokey postcard from Santa Fe back home asking why everyone here wants their house to look like a Taco Bell. But seriously folks, my only concern with this stuff is that like Howard Roark’s architecture in The Fountainhead movie, you can easily create dramatic shapes in architecture that are ultimately arbitrary exercises in style, like tail fins on 1950s cars. This isn’t immoral, but neither does it move architecture “forward” in the sense of material improvement, reducing weight or cost, providing better shelter, better structures. Such was at least the goal of Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller in his lifetime of experimentation. Not that he always succeeded, but he was aiming at certain ideals
I once sent a jokey postcard from Santa Fe back home asking why everyone here wants their house to look like a Taco Bell. But seriously folks, my only concern with this stuff is that like Howard Roark’s architecture in The Fountainhead movie, you can easily create dramatic shapes in architecture that are ultimately arbitrary exercises in style, like tail fins on 1950s cars. This isn’t immoral, but neither does it move architecture “forward” in the sense of material improvement, reducing weight or cost, providing better shelter, better structures. Such was at least the goal of Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller in his lifetime of experimentation. Not that he always succeeded, but he was aiming at certain ideals
What I liked best about Prince was how his approach was so simple:
- Him: "I'd like to build a door with ashtrays for windows."
- Them: "You can't do that."
- Him: "Why not?"
- Them: "Uhh, because we said so!"
I like that he challenged this dumb way of thinking.