Well , thisis a bummer . FAT — the UK collective that ’s build up some of the most annoyingly smart as a whip buildings of the past two decades — is no more . Have n’t heard of FAT ? permit us explain .
FAT — it stands for Fashion Architecture Taste — is Sean Griffiths , Charles Holland , and Sam Jacob , three British architects who created their own studio in the early nineties . It was the middle of the last recession , and FAT was less a house than a jest : “ the idea of being a young designer in Britain at that time was completely ludicrous , ” order Jacob inone audience . “ There were n’t any . ”
In a path , that joke give them the freedom to pursue projects that ran against the popular grain at the sentence , like a dwelling house with completely segregated living areas for children and parents called the Anti - Oedipal House , or a guard place in the Hague that support a flyspeck rook that released puffs of smoke and lighting over the course of a day .
Then there was the Blue House , a wood - shutter home whose frontal reads like a child ’s cartoon drawing . The skin of the building indicates what ’s go on inside : Up top , a home situation is argue by a factory - like row of windows ; the residential blank space down below has its own eaves and cloud .
These beautiful little jokes became cult objects amongst scholar — myself include — and critics . They included small-scale projects , too , likeSoft Hercules , a president made from a foam cast of the famous bout .
And installations , too . Last class , FAT poked fun at their contemporaries at the Venice Biennale with a clapper - in - cheek task call The Museum of Copying . The idea was simple : In conception , there is no originality . If everything is a riff on something else , then there ’s no such thing as architectural plagiarism .
To prove it , they vivify one of the world ’s most - copy buildings , Palladio ’s Villa Rotunda , in a hall of the Biennale , and filled it with a story of architectural copying .
plagiarization , for FAT , is a ceaseless theme : Anachronistic periods , schooltime , “ style , ” aesthetics , and polemics are all mashed together into multi - layered buildings like the window dressing of BBC Cardiff , that flux Baroque cosmetic flourishes with unicode symbol :
Or another late task , 2008 ’s Heerlijkheid Hoogvliet , a civil center and green in Rotterdam :
Or their collaboration with London bakery Peyton & Byrne , for whom FAT contrive a shop . It ’s “ like being submerged in fondant,”said Holland at the timeof the shop ’s white subway roofing tile and pistachio grout .
FAT ’s prominent project was finish in 2006 , in Islington , where they built 23 single - menage homes faced with brick decorated with super - graphical flourishes , like upside - down arches and clouds :
The firm ’s two final works will be a task at the 2014 Venice Biennale and a capricious menage designed in collaboration withGrayson Perryin the English countryside :
Because each project is contrary to a popular notion about what architecture should look like , FAT ended up nark a whole bunch of multitude — which was incisively the point . In fact , in their statement today , the radical makes trusted to thank the “ outraged ” commenters on The Guardian along with their confederate and friends .
This month , the spiritualist world has been embroiled in a dialogue about the true - relation and snark . The debate , which is play out fromGawkertoThe New YorkerandThe New York Times , pitfall unction — feel - good pseudo - journalism — against snark , a mode of criticism that seeks to expose truths .
http://gawker.com/on-smarm-1476594977
I mention this debate because there ’s a perfect parallel in the architecture world , where fulsomeness is represented by shimmering , too - good - to - be - true rendering — designs that “ tend to favor things which are danger destitute , innovation free , and quality free,”in the words of FAT ’s Charles Holland . Meanwhile , snark is typify by architects like FAT , who let out gloss - over truths and divulge the messy reality of the professing .
The past two decades has consider the computer architecture world overproduction by figure smarm of all sort : Buildings that are designed to be photographed , not used ; “ criticism ” that placates intriguer building bad undertaking ; the categorial obsession with becoming a “ celebrated ” architect . FAT was one of the few protest voices in the bunch — combiningbiting criticism with laugh - out - loud witthat reminded us all that architecture and photoshop are not synonymous .
Images via FAT andPhaidon .
Architecture
Daily Newsletter
Get the good tech , scientific discipline , and culture news in your inbox daily .
News from the hereafter , delivered to your present .
Please select your desired newssheet and submit your email to kick upstairs your inbox .
You May Also Like
