This afternoon, I made a post in the architecture section about the Technical museum entrance foyer and shop by Querkraft architects.
The first thing that came to my mind , a modernized abstraction of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Johnson Wax building. Pretty cool.
Come on ,this is not a new design as they say:
Basic principle of the new design:
The creation of clear master plan and visitor circulation with an accompanying welcoming emotional atmosphere, which improves the building physics. At the middle of their design solution are multifunctional pieces of furniture made of glass-fibre reinforced plastic and fabric. These ‘trees’ provide seating, shade and acoustic absorption and at night they serve as an illuminate bodies which fill the room with white or blue glowing light. The objects, which resemble trees and can be perceived as a innuendo to the relationship between technology and nature, formally envelope the steel columns and allow a view through the glass ceiling and on to the historical façade.
The Jhonson Wax
The construction(built 1944–1951) of the Johnson Wax building created controversies for the architect. In the Great Workroom, the dendriform columns are 9 inches (23 cm) in diameter at the bottom and 18 feet (550 cm) in diameter at the top, on a wide, round platform that Wright termed, the “lily pad.” This difference in diameter between the bottom and top of the column did not accord with building codes at the time. Building inspectors required that a test column be built and loaded with twelve tons of material. The test column, once it was built, was tough enough that it was able to be loaded fivefold with sixty tons of materials before the “calyx,” the part of the column that meets the lily pad, cracked (crashing the 60 tons of materials to the ground, and bursting a water main 30 feet underground). After this demonstration, Wright was given his building permit.
Additionally, it was very difficult to properly seal the glass tubing of the clerestories and roof, thus causing leaks. This problem was not solved until rubber gaskets were placed between the tubes, and corrugated plastic was used in the roof to seal it, while mimicking the glass tubes. And finally, Wright’s chair design for Johnson Wax originally had only three legs, supposedly to encourage better posture (because one would have to keep both feet on the ground at all times to sit in it). However, the chair design proved too unstable, tipping very easily. Herbert Johnson, needing a new chair design, purportedly asked Wright to sit in one of the three-legged chairs and, after Wright fell from the chair, the architect designed new chairs for Johnson Wax with four legs; these chairs, and the other office furniture designed by Wright, are still in use.
Despite these problems, Johnson was pleased with the building design, and later commissioned the Research Tower, and a house from Wright known as Wingspread. The Research Tower is no longer in use because of the change in fire safety codes, although the company is committed to preserving the tower as a symbol of its history.
So is this a new design?
In the end we really have to admmit they put an extra bonus on those things. In Lloyd Wright’s building the structure could not interact with people, this is so much fun and cool.
And though this doesn’t look like its a structural column. it`s very well executed, liquid/free form, better located in an open space for it to be appreciated.
So basically, it’s not a crime to copy an idea, but it’s odd not to mention where you got the “inspiration”, isn’t it?
By @arturoolav
