Review: Swiss Innovation Architecture Exhibition

This jab at American architectural education seems unnecessary, however the exhibit adheres to its goals: displaying works crafted by experienced architects and their students that run the gamut in function and construction. Models designed for Western Europe and the U.S. include libraries, a parking garage, the Les Halles shopping center, personal residences and educational institutions. The works range in medium from sheet metal to wood to digital.

The set-up

The gallery is an engulfing vacuum of space, and it's expanse is offset by a single installation made up of many architectural models. The platform, a green wave of wooden planks topped by models that hover precariously on thin white metal poles calls into question whether the display is one work or many. This undulating wooden platform is an interactive 131-foot walkway designed to evoke an imaginary cross section of the Swiss Alps. The 1,000 individually curved green rafters, assembled like a comb's teeth, invite the visitor to navigate each model by treading up and down the platform. Interactive engagement is paramount: walk the rickety planks, view models and monitors with web-based architectural content, read publications that dangle from bending metal supports and add your own thoughts at given stations.

What visual goal do the students and teachers hope to achieve with this fantastical cross section of the Swiss Alps? Is it narcissistic to consign models of buildings intended for cities around the globe to the framework of a particular Swiss landscape? Or perhaps the placement of models intended for urban areas on a rendering of natural space is an act of humility, minimizing the importance of human work in the face of nature. The sheer fragility of the thin white poles that buttress these delicate models in the "Alps" supports the latter assumption and suggests that we only add small, impermanent appendages to nature.

Labeling

The labels are the most problematic aspect of this installation and actually hinder the learning experience, undermining the intentions of the show itself. Reading the labels requires as much engagement as viewing the models. For the most part, the labels stick out at angles that require (at least) a ninety-degree head tilt and in some cases a commitment to sit or even lie on the floor. What's troubling about this "innovative" labeling is that it ensures that only the fanatically interested will learn. The maze of models already makes it difficult to haphazardly skip by any particular work. Forcing someone to the floor for a little information is taking it too far.

In addition to being difficult to read, the labels are not particularly informative. 'The Chelsea Architectural School' is a nimble structure that boasts a delicate interplay of subtly placed staircases and floor to ceiling windows. Details are rendered so minute that thumbnail size figures people each floor of the model. However, the intrigue created by the school's model is dismantled by a label that merely tells us that the building "explores the possibilities of structure and space as a three-dimensional grid which allows for non-specific occupation." The same could be said of planet Earth.

The label for a 'Day School in Zurich Switzerland,' a multi-floored geometric wonder, offers a somewhat fuller description: "Located in an urban green area, the new school building functions beyond its educational mandate also as a second home for children." But what exactly does this label mean by "a second home?" Are there literally beds for the children? Is this a boarding school? Or is this simply metaphorical rhetoric to suggest the homeyness of the building? The label goes on to note, "the absence of a strict order could be described as a kind of conceptualized infantile spirit." Good. So the design aims to emulate childhood "spirit." But the label continues, "Inside and outside spaces are equally important and the morphology of the fire escape reproduces again the idea of a children's house." Since the viewer is not privy to the "outside spaces" , it is impossible to judge the accuracy of this statement. A further issue is substantive: function and design often walk hand in hand, but in the case of a life-saving device for a children's school, should function not supersede design? Is it necessary to have fun while escaping from a fire?

The student models appear at the tail end of the platform on a revolving conveyor belt reminiscent of an airport carry-on baggage x-ray machine. The significance of this display is debatable. Is this just one revolving piece of kitsch, or is there a reason for small, rudimentary models to flip around like pieces of candy at a factory?