2024-05-08T13:15:37-04:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/102190685/archinect-rounds-up-critical-reactions-to-koolhaas-biennale Amelia Taylor-Hochberg 2014-06-19T11:42:00-04:00 >2024-01-23T19:16:08-05:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/9v/9vgex3jicofo8lwt.jpeg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><p>This year's Venice Biennale of Architecture, curated by Rem Koolhaas, officially opened on June 7, under the theme "Fundamentals". The deluge of criticism and reporting coming out of the Biennale will surely continue until it closes November 23, but so far reactions from the architectural journalism community seem pretty consistent. Critics seem at once relieved that the biennale is not given away to preening and doting upon architectural personalities, but instead focused on "<a href="http://archinect.com/news/article/66227111/rem-koolhaas-announces-fundamentals-to-be-2014-s-venice-biennale-theme" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">architecture, not architects</a>", as per Koolhaas' design. The flip-side of this could be seen as replacing objects of starchitectural value with a too-safe generalism, imbued with the self-importance of Koolhaas' cult of personality. Responses seem largely concerned with interpreting the man at the same time as his Biennale, rather than investigating the interplay of national pavilions' personalities under a unifying theme. But we've got many months to go, and this is only the beginning.</p><p>But with the sheer mass o...</p> https://archinect.com/news/article/86857898/parametric-smackdown-patrik-schumacher-and-reinhold-martin-debate-at-calarts-conference Amelia Taylor-Hochberg 2013-11-19T16:05:00-05:00 >2022-03-16T09:16:08-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/73/73mlg5wsaxny7zuy.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><p> CalArts two-day symposium on &ldquo;The Politics of Parametricism&rdquo; opened last Friday with a conversation between Reinhold Martin, associate professor at Columbia University&rsquo;s GSAPP, and Patrik Schumacher, partner at Zaha Hadid Architects. Their debate, while at times tending more towards dysfunctional improv theater than academic discussion, revolved around the relationship between architecture and politics -- generally speaking, Martin sees the two as indelibly linked, while Schumacher idealizes their explicit separation. Their debate didn&rsquo;t concern the visual aesthetics of parametric design, so much as argue about its utility in political systems.</p> <p> <img alt="" src="http://cdn.archinect.net/images/514x/vd/vdyx3jfi45n9tnzk.jpg" title=""><br><em>Patrik Schumacher</em></p> <p> As an event presented by CalArts&rsquo; MA Aesthetics &amp; Politics program, the Martin-Schumacher debate did not explicitly discuss individual architecture projects, but tended more on the side of critical architectural theory. To introduce their debate, both Martin and Schumacher presented papers on their approach to parametr...</p>