Lecture date: 1975-01-18
At ARTNET
Day 2 PM – Speakers Jo Rykwert, Rosalee Goldberg
Jo Rykwert claims to be “better informed, but no wiser.” To hold a conference on non-conceptual architecture would be very difficult; as people had repeated, all architecture is conceptual in some way or another. He happens to be interested in the history of handwriting: if you pretend that it is indifferent the way in which you handwrite a note; the choice of paper, of color of ink etc. then you are also ultimately uninterested in the way in which you are going to design a building. There is no conceptual break between the two process, only a difference of complexity. The point at which we talked about conceptual architecture is one in the history in Western art in which there is a radical division between the ways in which architects and painters operate. We (architects) are ultimately producers of papers and the fact that what it is on papers is translated into a volume does not alter the fact that our essential product is that of the paper.
Rosalee Goldberg points out that there is an specific aesthetic for conceptual art. The only place where the concept gets realized, in which the concept gets visibility is in the gallery. In architecture there is not such an organized system as it is in the organized world. Goldberg discusses the political implications of so called art movements. For instance, abstract expressionism was proclaimed by the Rockefellers (developers of the Museum of Modern Art), by the Whitneys etc. as a symbol of political freedom. She critically addresses the work of conceptual artists: Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni. Questions follow.
Symposium over two days speakers include; Will Alsop, Peter Eisenman, Charles Jencks, Peter Cook, Cedric Price, Bernard Tschumi, David Stezaker, Colin Rowe, Dalibor Vesely, Jo Rykwert, Rosalee Goldberg. Chairman Bob Maxwell.
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