"Death Cube K" The Neoformations of Morphosis

Reading by Anthony Vidler

Metamorphosis. Morphosis. Modernism. Modernity.

define...

[metamorphosis: a major change in the appearance or character of someone or something]

[morphosis: development or change of form of a (specified) thing of space]

[modernism: modern artistic or literary philosophy and practice; a self-conscious break with the past and a search for new forms of expression]

[modernity: of or relating to the present time or the recent past: happening, existing, or developing at a time near the present time]

Embodying these definitions, Morphosis changes the forms of space. Their work defies the traditional, the pragmatic, and the orthogonal. Instead, they employ forms that are "all-enclosing, elliptical, ovoid, womblike." Rather than indirectly suggesting the psyche of modern society, the forms Morphosis creates are literal expressions of modern society: a revamp of modern architecture to reflect late twentieth-century modernism. 

Clyde Frazier's Wine and Dine

Modernism to Modernity. Mies van der Rohe to Thom Mayne.

Vidler discusses "mainstream modernism" as the act of aligning corporatist agenda with aesthetic alibi, coupled with with rejection of ornament. This results in mass architecture that lacks the individuality that comes from responding to the many issues that architecture is supposed to propose innovative solutions.

Seagram Building

This reminds me of a recent trip to Chicago in which a friend kept pointing to 'Mies'-looking buildings asking "is this the Seagram building?" until I informed him that the Seagram building is in fact in New York City. Should streamlined, uniform forms define our urban settings? Or should form making that is grounded on a basis of synthesis/poetics/derivative form inform design....?

(not the Seagram Building)

Metamorphosis & Morphosis

Typology begins as attempt to connect the "macrostructure of the city with the microstructure of the individual building" but is rejected in the late twentieth century in favor of "expressive vocabularies and high technologies".

It is apparent that the ability to morph typologies lies in the opportunities of digital parametric modeling.

Interior of Cooper Union

In its' Cooper Union building, Morphosis morphs typologies into a new identity for a building that has many programmatic requirements. By flipping the Italian piazza on its side, new possibilities are opened in which programs can be situated around the 'vertical pizza'. The computer allows this ability to see design from all angles to, for an instant, leave behind the physical, practical considerations of construction to imagine new solutions.

Exterior of Cooper Union

In order to morph typologies, there is a dichotomy between an "aspiration to invent the new and the inevitable reliance on the form of the old". The two don't necessarily have to reach an agreement; it is possible for them to be in an argument that results in the two smashed together, creating a metamorphosis.