Customer Reviews

Patkau Architects

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For a long time I have been looking for a book that compiles all the work by these Canadian architects. The recent Monograph by Monacelli presents their recent work and illustrates all the way back to their first House, with plans and sections. I have a personal fascination for their analytical models and how these models help to explain all the different aspects of the projects. Spatially, Scale and materiality are the main focus of these explorations. If you like the work by architects like Williams & Tsien (New York), Mathias Klotz (Chile), Morphosis (Los Angeles) or Mecanno (Holland); you probably will enjoy the fine forms by these architects based in Vancouver.

Based on Frampton, PA's architecture can be divided more or less chronologically into two groups.

First group are the buildings that emphasize the combination of earthwork
and roofwork. This group holds the indigenous spirit of the specific
place, telling the story of totem and genius loci expressed in the
irregularity of forms. On the other hand, second group are the projects,
built more recently in an urban setting, that speaks and advocates the
modern approach of universal values manifested in the form of orthogonal
approach.

Chronologically different in attitudes, all the projects have same
attitude towards the poetics of construction. Its organic forms expressed
in wood, its attention to the details and play of light, and its almost
mythical symbolism to site aligns to the approaches of Aalto, Scarpa, and
Fehn. (Per Frampton)

Personally, three projects were favored: Barns House (`93), Canadian Clay
and Glass Gallery (`92), and Grande Bibliotheque du Quebec ('05).

Barns House and Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery is an interplay of
lightness and heaviness. Almost bird's wing-like roof is paired with
smooth hard concrete floor. Likewise, light wooden fenestrations
ungravitate the presence of cmu wall. The anchoring of floor and walls
really emphasize the freedom towards the sky and forest.

One of the most current built projects, Grande Bibliotheque du Quebec,
illustrates PA's future potentials. More advanced and innovative in its
use of materials, but still, basics are same. Structural concrete is in
striking contrast to the light veil systems. This winning scheme of
international competition proved that PA's architecture does not bind
itself to the rural site with single-story program.

Less oriented in theory and abstraction, the projects provide ample
pleasure of making and specificity of architecture.

I have met her through my school days in MA. As a guest critic, she was a great mentor and great designer herself. She even showed up to give an unscheduled private review sessions with one or two of us before she was heading back to Canada the next day and, I was impressed and much thankful for her passion and care for the education.

The book itself does not cover all of her professional works as an architect or as a professor but it was good enough to introduce her name out as it is somehow difficult finding her name or works out internationally.

If you are a student looking for a consistent yet tectonic architect, this book is a good introduction to what a passionate $ insightful architect produces over the time. I hope to see more of her great works in the future.

With plenty of large format pictures, this book helps to capture the detail for which the Patkau's are famous. And an essay by Kenneth Frampton doesn't hurt. This is my complaint about most Monologues: not enough process/methodology information. As an architect, I am more interested in HOW they solve particular design problems, than just the beautiful end product. But overall, this book is better than the their first [depth of analysis and range of products].

Patkau has been my favorite not only because of its formal language which is undoubtedly influenced by Aalto and 90' Morphosis, but also of its rigorous examination of every line, angle, corner, fenestration, texture, etc. all of which best exemplified by Seabird island school and Strawberry vale school. While the latter is arguably overdone, both of them masterfully guide circulation and elevate genius loci with precisely positioned (figural) elements, a method also seen in Haus Tugendhat by Mies.

Unlike tectonic poetry pursued by Todd William & Billie Tsien that often comes down to the choice of fastener type for a detail, Patkau approaches tectonics in a hierarchical order that operates at the design level like structural articulation, material palette, and construction system. That said, one can certainly appreciate surprises like, say, steel plate canopy in Barnes house, or imaginary deleted gutter in Gleneagles Community Centre that allows rain strolling down the roof into landscape.

However, Patkau seems to (intentionally?) deviate from its established site-specific approach when it comes to larger scale projects. Case in the point: Grande Bibliotheque du Quebec. Here Patkau chose to neglect civic and contextual challenge/opportunity with a homogeneous, if not abstract, plan and construction that resulted in an introverted and hard edged building (perhaps the climate or they spend too much on the channel glass skin?). Conversely, Bolles-Wilson successfully answers to challenges of greater magnitude with a complex yet poetic weaving of highly differentiated space and tectonics in the splendid Munster City Library project.

Hence the title.... If you are interested in an earlier yet already mature Patkau, I would recommend "Patkau Architects: Selected Projects 1983-1993", a nicely edited monograph featuring additional projects and illustration, such as original scheme for Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery design competition.

A must for architects interested in challenging their approach to contemporary forms in architecture. A wonderful expression of the models involved in the designing process, a must for the contemporary architect.