What, pray, is a "Calatrava" and is it related at all to designer Santiago Calatrava, who is now an honorary citizen of Milwaukee?

https://woondu.com/modern-milwaukee-art-museum-by-santiago-calatrava/

 

The museum is spectacular. I photographed it shortly after it was built, one of the most photogenic pieces of architecture I have had the pleasure with which to work.

Don’t know squat about the watch namesake.

 

Truly some magnificant architecture. Makes the Kahler extension they ruined the War Memorial with look like the crap it is. It was pooly constructed and I doubt they have fixed all of the leaks yet. They should really tear it down and restore Saarinen's original vision.

 

A Patek Philippe model of watch that had a very simple dial design. I think it is often incorrectly applied to other brand's gold dress watches such as Omega and Longines that have slim cases, and plain dials with hour markers but no numbers.

 

A couple of them do now. But I get your point.

Must be named after the city in Spain.

 

Now you have captured my interest!

 

The original Saaranin design

the addition


Way to totally fuck it up guys

 

A long time ago in a gal... er, in 1957, a new War Memorial, designed by Eero Saarinen. The design won awards. You can see it in the lower right portion of this picture.



Somewhat later, Saarinen's award winning design was sullied by adding an ugly concrete box onto the back.



You'll note that you can no longer see the War Memorial properly from the lake side because the Kahler extension is in the way. This building holds the Art Museum. Why they had to attach it to the War Memorial I will never know. It was constructed poorly and leaks.

You'll notice the 1899 train station is gone. The county, which owned it at the time, didn't want to pay for maintenance and down it went in 1969. There are a lot of old buildings that could have been saved that were knocked down in the name of "progress".

You can see Santiago Calatrava's museum extension and Bris Soleil. A magnificant modern building grafted onto crap that shouldn't exist but does. In my opinion, it should have been a separate building and the Kahler piece of 70s junk torn down. But, no one listens to me.

 

Frankly, nobody cares about design anymore- it’s pretty obvious. I think the Calatrava should have been pushed further down if it could have- at least do them as separate pieces with an underground connector- they are both crowded now and lack continuity IMO.

 

Probably interference from the county.

 

As a structural engineer, I personally hate Calatrava's work. It often has no contextual link to the environment around it, requires specialized fabricators, and often a shit ton of change orders because his designs often forget practicalities like actually being able to stand up.

The opposite of the watch in every way.

 

Same artist sketched the addition?

 

You say that like it's important or something. (yikes!)

 

Ouch.

Might as well paint an adjunct to the Mona Lisa.

 

Oh, it gets worse.

This is what the Kahler originally looked like:



Kinda sorta matched the Saarinen, a little?

Now, after they remodeled it a bunch of times...



No longer has any harmony with the Saarinen.

 

I worked at the HUD building in DC for my college internship- built by Marcel Breuer
during the height of brutalism. Everyone who worked there hated it- it was cold, sterile, confusing floor plans, exposed concrete and aluminum trim, long barren walls with punched doors- they said it felt like a prison.

I loved it- it was sculpture, it wasn’t meant to be pleasant, it was all about materials and line and shapes....but I only had to work there for a summer.

 

Thank goodness the furniture that came out of the Bauhaus was better than its architecture.

 

But it’s soooo pretty!

 

Blah blah blah architecture architecture architecture . The LEAKS are what interests me! And thanks to JwRosenthal coming through as always -- troubleshooting leaks at HUD was one of the projects we had in my early days, and we just did another round a couple years ago.

This exposed concrete structure buildings are nearly impossible to keep dry, since any control and shrinkage cracks telegraph all the way through the exterior. You can add J Edgar Hoover Building and Forrestal to the brutalist gov't buildings in DC as well.

But yeah, I can see how that museum totally effed up the look of the Memorial. That borders on criminal.

And props to JwRosenthal for the nice picture of HUD -- it makes it look a lot less stark and soviet-looking than it does in real life. I suspect besides his technique it is because there is so much marble cladding in the photo, which you only see when looking at the ends of the building.

 

You mean it's like he's an architect?