An Imperfect Graft

Layna Chen
While I understand there’s a standard format for the first starchitect lecture of the year, I’m still surprised by how similar this lecture is to ones that happened seven years ago. It’s a little surprising how the ways in which we talk about architecture and projects has not evolved much since. If I went on Archinect and googled Jeanne Gang’s projects, I would have learned the same things.

Marusya Bakhrameeva
What I felt missing from her lecture was the mention of money. She was romanticizing the work so much, saying that sometimes architects just need to propose something they’re interested in, without payment.

If that work was possible because of good financial planning within her firm, that’s amazing. Please share with us, we want to know how it’s done. But if it was a privileged thing of money from something else, maybe that’s also valuable to share.

Tian Hsu
I kind of enjoyed how the lecture didn’t grapple with the reality of money and finances, and that there was more of a focus on design and community and the different sightlines of the Aqua Tower. I understand that in your eyes it’s romanticized, but to me, that’s kind of a relief and a refuge. And an answer, maybe, to the why of studying architecture.
I thought it was odd that she didn’t talk about the other skyscrapers she’s built other than Aqua Tower. Jeanne Gang is known for building one of the tallest skyscrapers in Chicago, and skyscraper building is a very masculine, technology-driven field…

MB
The skyscrapers were not grafted.

TH
Exactly, yeah, it’s a completely different side of what she does.

Tony Salem Musleh
In many regards, the purpose of the lecture was for her to elaborate on the concept of grafting through her work. But every project demands its own approach, so the analogy of grafting came through in some projects more clearly than others.

For example, as she said, we should think of ourselves not as ends, but as one person in a chain of future interventions. Her addition at the Arkansas Museum of Art has to reconcile with many existing expansions. She dissected these different parts of the building to make them open, which was a very beautiful thing. But seeing the completed project, it’s hard to imagine it being further modified in the future.

LC
The presentation was quite image heavy, or at least the projects were in service of an image, which is at odds with what it means to be green and sustainable in architecture now. Environmental sustainability is a process.

MB
There was definitely a deliberate framing that may also be a result of the way lectures work. In that sense, maybe she was not mentioning other skyscrapers because then the story will fall apart, because it’s not really grafting. She has a big firm with different types of projects, and she was speaking about just one of the narratives they are interested in.

Majdi Alkarute
I think she did a good job of saying that the idea of adaptive reuse is currently vague, and describing the ways that she’s been working through that to find good, specific strategies.

The climate crisis is a major problem, and there’s tons of innovative solutions, but, at least in her perspective, the simple idea of not demolishing buildings—of preserving them, or reusing them, or grafting with them—is by far and away the answer. I think she did a great job of making that point, advocating for that point, and staying on topic. And, of course, selling it in a way that looks beautiful.

LC
I mean, Studio Gang does massive projects. While she notes that there is space for research, I feel like the scale and institutionality of these projects inherently forces them to be less flexible. It would be interesting to see how offices can support experimentation through smaller, less formal, and less final projects.

To me, I’m not sure environmental sustainability is the focus of her work. I’ve always thought that her office was more interested in the ability to manipulate structural engineering and architectural space to replicate the imagery of nature. It’s beautiful and she’s very good at that type of formal expression, but it’s different from making environmentally sustainable architecture.

TSM
Our education system tends to tell us that we will be the agents of this transition from a fossil fuel society towards something new. Yet, lectures from practicing architects remind us that we are often not on the forefront, but instead on the receiving end of a rigorous regulated process.

On top of that, museums have to grab people’s attention, especially now, while the public is more aware of environmental issues. Nobody would go to the Gilder Center if it weren’t a beautiful space. Figures like Jeanne Gang can build on their extensive research to start weaving together these often contradictory demands.

MA
When you’re in school, you see possibilities, so when leading architects are not at what you think is the edge of possibility, it can feel a little disillusioning. But like what you’re saying, Tony, we aren’t the sole authors of architecture. I wouldn’t say we passively receive either, but any building is made possible through so many actors, and they all have to be at a high level in order to build something sustainable.

So it’s not only what the designers are capable of thinking up, but how do you cause the most change within your limited authorship or agency?

That’s why I liked her focus on something super simple, which is, how do you make use of what’s there? I agree it comes across more in some projects than others, but that basic idea is really thinking about how to make a difference in a world where you have to work with a million people to do your job.