Quote:
Originally Posted by thoughtcriminal
..."and rippled metal bands used on the exterior are a nod to railroad cars once manufactured at the former Budd Co. plant."
wut?
this is the kind of thing that drives me crazy, this postmodern desire to extend a "nod" to some other thing, especially some esoteric thing that no one, that NO ONE, would ever understand just by looking at the building. no one would ever look at that building and say "oh yes, that reminds me of the railroad cars that were once manufactured at the former Budd Co plant." (and I don't know this for sure, but I doubt Norman Foster ever thought of the railroad cars thing, it seems like something one of his designers or else the marketing people came up with, but that is speculation. I can't see him sitting in his studio, working on the design, and thinking "hmmmm, we need something here. Let's look at the railroad cars that were once manufactured at the former Budd Co plant. Eureka! that's it!" but again, I don't know for sure...)
why can't they just let the building be its own thing? why does it *have* to reference something else? why can't they just say that the metal bands are what they are because they look good and function well? It's such a stretch to try to reference something obscure like that, it seems so tacked on - like they really thought that the bands were just good design, but felt they had to justify it with this esoteric historic reference which has nothing to do with the building or the site or anything. It's crazy.
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Whether an architect is great or poor, they almost all are full shit when they talk about their dear buildings. The desirse for context is so strong that most will say just about anything. Whatever happened to form follows function as a starting point. Certainly in a hospital function, and in this case the site, has much to do with the basic design.
Has anyone read or heard if this building was engineered to allow additional floors to be added if needed?