Composition

This has led to a crisis of sorts where we no longer discuss or adequately teach composition in our programs.  If it can’t be measured we can’t rationally or reasonably discuss it in an academic setting — unless of course we are hooking subjects up to contraptions to measure their brain waves while they have these “feelings.”  To fill the void most makers turn to mimicry or outright copying — largely unaware and ignorant of what they are doing. In this context art and composition becomes self-referential and quickly loses its meaning and impact. This is how I feel about the new Seattle City Hall Building shown above.

The Seattle City Hall was designed by the award-winning, Pennsylvania-based architecture firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. Completed in 2003, it sits on a steeply sloped block near Pioneer Square. The building is skillfully detailed and was constructed with above average craft.

It is an energy efficient, LEED-certified building and has won numerous design awards and accolades. However, whenever I visit the building it falls flat. There is a part of me that desperately wants to enjoy and appreciate the building, yet I don’t. I have taken students to the building on field trips, and they appear to have a similar response. After several visits I realized that the building was conceived as an assemblage of pieces, parts and features. Each compositional move appears to be inspired by the work of other architects — a little Frank Gehry, a little Rem Koolhaas, a pinch of Renzo Piano, but no soul. It is like going to a musical concert where all the proper notes were played by technically competent musicians, but the result is unmoving and dissatisfying. It is like experiencing a copy of a copy of an idea executed by individuals who lost sight of (or perhaps never truly understood) the parts, pieces and features they were appropriating.