Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...
Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...
Landscape – Great Idea! X-LArch III - Department für Raum ...
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30<br />
a large extent the Japanese development from a culture<br />
“closely attached to the earth” (Hara 1966:90) to high-rise<br />
megastructural urban approaches 17. Raised by Tange<br />
in his speech at the WoDeCo the question of mobility,<br />
seen as a conquest of space and as a “combination of<br />
scale and speed”, has been equated with the problem<br />
of the distance between the “naked human being and<br />
the results of ever developing technology” (cf. WoDeCo<br />
1960:180) - so to speak a sociological urban issue. In the<br />
case of Bayer’s constructions the growth in size not only<br />
enables to ‘consume’ art while driving past but is also<br />
creating Bayer’s aspired social infrastructure, a museum<br />
in motion.<br />
Fig.4 Arata Isozaki Clusters in the Air 1960-1962<br />
© Osamu Murai<br />
tured by the artist. But it is not until the mid-1950s that<br />
Bayer refers to linear-structure paintings as “architectural”,<br />
which treat space as “rationalization of volumes”<br />
(cf. Cohen 1984:78) 13. Bayer’s later projects such as<br />
the Roswell emanate out of these considerations. The<br />
spectator is integrated into a flux of constructed spaces<br />
and his walk-in-through becomes part of the perceptionprocess.<br />
Bayer’s future maquettes change into a pictorialized<br />
space-structure, where space is symbolically visualized<br />
and structuralized, and access denied. Repetitive<br />
geometric unit-constellations enable various symbolic<br />
cosmic or religious connotations like in the so-called<br />
Maya or Shinto (1971) studies. The compact clusters act<br />
as gigantic architectural art-constructions of the environment<br />
and vice versa on the environment.<br />
Urban Megastructures <strong>–</strong> Poetry in Motion<br />
One main criterion in this respect is the matter of size.<br />
Although the intended size of numerous maquettes is left<br />
unclear 14, the studies must be understood in Bayer’s<br />
sociological aim to “carry art and design from the privacy<br />
of the museum to the public realm” (Bayer n.d.:3) 15. An<br />
emphasis therefore is the beautifcation of the highway as<br />
photo collages such as of the ARCO refinery project in<br />
Philadelphia (1972) 16 [Fig.5] give evidence of.<br />
Conclusion<br />
Bayer is certainly highly aware of the Japanese debates<br />
on architecture, first mainly through Gropius, but also<br />
through the Aspen Design Conferences and his trips to<br />
Japan. The World Design Conference, he participated in,<br />
not only gives him an insight into the changing Japanese<br />
society and environment, the philosophical metabolist<br />
urban studies, which were nearly unrestricted in scale<br />
and size, seem to have provided Bayer impulses for a<br />
broad, wide-scale urban integration of art in everyday life,<br />
in terms of an architect 18.<br />
Fig.5 Herbert Bayer model for ARCO refinery, Philadelphia c.1972<br />
© Emil Nelson Gallery<br />
Tiered or undulating wall elements contrast with (industrial)<br />
architecture, attracting the spectator’s view and<br />
distracting from high-scale industry. In order to keep up<br />
with these architecture-constructions Bayer’s sculptureconstructions<br />
equally ‘need’ to expand. The positioning of<br />
the ARCO walls however also highlights a second aspect<br />
of the sculptures’ scale, the meaning of cognition. First<br />
considered in the Articulated Wall, which is also sited<br />
along a highway, Bayer resumes the<br />
construction’s appearance, congruently changing by<br />
approaching and finally by passing it (cf. ibid.:2). Consequently,<br />
the low-scale of sculptures had to rise to<br />
“monumental size” (cf. ibid.). This development reflects to