On concrete I

I often struggle to explain non architects the appeal that architectural concrete has on me. The discussion usually goes: concrete is cold, unfriendly, grey, associated with bunker architecture and only architects like it anyway. Well - what is left for me to say? But I like it? Of course that’s not satisfying enough and who has confidence in the taste of a nameless architect anyway?

I then try concessions. I would agree that - yes concrete has often been employed with very little empathy towards occupants and with lack of proper scale. The material has been suffering exploitation of a building construction industry that sees profit in it rather than aesthetic qualities. I try to make the point that the problem lays not in the material itself but in its employment. But even with help from prominent examples it remains a difficult discussion especially when it comes to residential architecture. Well - can’t teach old dogs new tricks - I guess.

Then, over Memorial Day weekend, we drove the coastline south from Los Angeles to San Diego. We stopped in Laguna Beach where we looked at some original Rembrandt edgings and we stopped at the Salk Institute by Louis Kahn in La Jolla. The concrete was in excellent shape and its sharp edges were just stunning. The jointing perfectly described the buidlings modular, scale and told the tale of its making. Puzzling over these things I thought that concrete is really the most artistic of all building materials. It is the making as much as the final matter that is absolutly fascinating. It is the media of a sculptor who designs the negative form in which the actual sculpture will be cast. I instantly related to the Rembrandt edgings we saw earlier. For his edgings Rembrandt had to think in the negative that is to cut out the part that wasn’t going to be seen on paper. Just like Rembrandt, Kahn had to think in the negative that is to design the formwork to achieve the final outcome.

Everyone left the building very happily.