Demetri Porphyrios

Transcription

[music] Wentworth Miller: Could two buildings be more different in Wentworth Miller: concept and vision? Wentworth Miller: Whitman College, Princeton's first modern, four-year Wentworth Miller: dormitory, is constructed in the traditional Gothic style. Wentworth Miller: Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, the online auction Wentworth Miller: giant, gave $30 million to the University for the $136 Wentworth Miller: million project. Wentworth Miller: It was designed by Demetri Porphyrios, who is Wentworth Miller: unapologetic for his traditional approach to Wentworth Miller: architecture. Demetri Porphyrios I'm interested in doing Gothic Demetri Porphyrios buildings which are robust, meaning that they will have a Demetri Porphyrios longevity of life. Demetri Porphyrios So the external wall has to be properly constructed in stone, Demetri Porphyrios which is bonded with a brick support behind it, Demetri Porphyrios et cetera, et cetera. Demetri Porphyrios And it should be a wall structure which will have to Demetri Porphyrios have at least a lifespan of about 200, 250 years. Wentworth Miller: Far from traditional, the Lewis Science Library, which Wentworth Miller: also houses the Princeton Institute for Computational Wentworth Miller: Science, is unlike any building Wentworth Miller: you've never seen before. Wentworth Miller: New in its architectural forms, new in it's methods of construction. Wentworth Miller: The project cost over $74 million. Wentworth Miller: Designed by the famous and controversial architect, Frank Wentworth Miller: Gehry, the building was primarily funded by a Wentworth Miller: $60 million gift from Peter Lewis, the highly creative, former Wentworth Miller: CEO of Progressive Insurance. Wentworth Miller: Peter makes no bones about his belief that Princeton also Wentworth Miller: needs architecture that looks to the future. Peter Lewis: Frank, in my view, is the first great Peter Lewis: architect of the 21st century, probably more than the Peter Lewis: greatest architect of the 20th century. Peter Lewis: Although he might be that as well. Peter Lewis: Whether history validates my view, remains to be seen. Peter Lewis: No architect, no builder is addressing the future any more Peter Lewis: than Frank is today. Craig Webb: I think we have afew kind of unwritten rules. Craig Webb: But one of them is if it just looks anything like something Craig Webb: anybody has done, no. Craig Webb: And the second rule is, if it looks like Craig Webb: anything we've done, no. Wentworth Miller: Two builders, those two very Wentworth Miller: different visions. [music] Wentworth Miller: Much of the story of Whitman College is a story of stone. Wentworth Miller: Finding stone, cutting stone, finding ways to support the Wentworth Miller: weight of stone, and finding craftsmen who have the skills Wentworth Miller: to construct stone buildings with techniques no longer in Wentworth Miller: general use. [music] John Zeigler: The field stone, the bluestone, each piece was John Zeigler: handled, people estimate roughly eight to nine times, John Zeigler: from the time it came out of the quarry to the time it got John Zeigler: put through the original guillotine, placed in a John Zeigler: pallet, shipped to the site. John Zeigler: And then picked up, chipped away, piece by piece, by the John Zeigler: masons, up to 77 stone masons at one point in time, with 30 John Zeigler: laborers assisting them. John Zeigler: The limestone is saw-cut or hand-chiseled to a particular John Zeigler: location on the building. John Zeigler: If you looked around the site, you'll see many of those John Zeigler: pieces of limestone sitting on pallets. John Zeigler: They all have numbers on the bottom of them, because they John Zeigler: all have a precise location on the building. John Zeigler: The field stone was about 5,000 tons, somewhere around John Zeigler: 175,000 pieces individually cut on site. John Zeigler: The limestone was approximately 2,500 tons, John Zeigler: somewhere around 38,000 to 40,000 pieces of limestone. Wentworth Miller: Much of Demetri's work was devoted to Wentworth Miller: the site plan and the creation of courtyards. Wentworth Miller: One of the interesting refinements, which he borrowed Wentworth Miller: from Ralph Adams Cram's Graduate College, is that the Wentworth Miller: courtyards are not exactly square, but just one or two Wentworth Miller: degrees off a right angle. Wentworth Miller: Most visitors probably aren't conscious of this difference. Wentworth Miller: But it makes the experience of the courtyards mysteriously Wentworth Miller: fascinating. Meg Whitman: You come up to the building and you just sort Meg Whitman: of step back and say, wow. [music] Meg Whitman: Interestingly, it may sound simplistic, but I did it Meg Whitman: because it gave another 125 kids a year a Meg Whitman: chance to go to Princeton. Meg Whitman: Beginning, middle and end of story, Meg Whitman: because I am so fond of this place. Meg Whitman: I adored my time here. Meg Whitman: And I want other people to have that same opportunity. Demetri Porphyrios: We've taken up the challenge of how Demetri Porphyrios: you can actually work within contemporary industrial Demetri Porphyrios: production and at the same time give the sense of tactile Demetri Porphyrios: personality to a building. Demetri Porphyrios: So the materials that we use are always what I Demetri Porphyrios: call natural materials. Demetri Porphyrios: Materials which are not going through an industrial Demetri Porphyrios: production of manufacture. Demetri Porphyrios: That does not project the coldness of industrial Demetri Porphyrios: production, but it actually presents a more kind of humane Demetri Porphyrios: face, something that you can actually touch, a building Demetri Porphyrios: that you will love to actually touch. Demetri Porphyrios: A building that you would love to kind of lean against, to a Demetri Porphyrios: talk with a friend or whatever. Meg Whitman: You might have heard a funny story. Meg Whitman: There was a summer executive program here. Meg Whitman: And they were watching the finishing touches being put on Meg Whitman: Whitman College this summer. Meg Whitman: And one of the group said to one of the faculty members at Meg Whitman: Princeton, "Boy, when Princeton renovates a building, they Meg Whitman: really go to it." Meg Whitman: They thought this had been here for 100 years. Wentworth Miller: While the plans for Whitman College were Wentworth Miller: moving forward, the impossible occurred. Wentworth Miller: Princeton decided that Frank Gehry, who had been rejected Wentworth Miller: in the past, could design a building for the Wentworth Miller: campus after all. Peter Lewis: Harold Shapiro was retiring as president. Peter Lewis: And there was a dinner over at Forbes College. Peter Lewis: Harold takes me to the corner, and he says, "We can get a Peter Lewis: Gehry building on campus." Peter Lewis: I said, "Harold, there's no way." Peter Lewis: And he said, "Oh yes, we can." Peter Lewis: And he said, "We have a need. Peter Lewis: We have to build the science library. Peter Lewis: We have a wonderful site for it. Peter Lewis: The budget's $60 million. Peter Lewis: Jerry, the provost and I, got it all figured out. Peter Lewis: And we think it would be a great spot to have a Gehry Peter Lewis: building on the campus." Peter Lewis: I said something like, "Harold, I don't think it's possible. Peter Lewis: But if you can get it done, I'll pay for it." [music] Wentworth Miller: Created with 88,000 pounds of stainless Wentworth Miller: steel from Sweden, 400 tons of structural steel, 35,000 Wentworth Miller: square feet of Canadian clay brick, and almost 25,000 Wentworth Miller: square feet of glass, the design of Louis Library pushed Wentworth Miller: the limits of construction complexity. [music] Frank Gehry: Why these shapes? Frank Gehry: Why do you twist and turn like that? Frank Gehry: Why would anybody do that? Frank Gehry: It has to do with my belief that a building can have Frank Gehry: feeling, that there can buildings that are deadly Frank Gehry: inert and don't give you anything. Frank Gehry: And I think my favorite buildings feel. Wentworth Miller: The Lewis Science Library represents an Wentworth Miller: attempt to rethink what a library does in 21st century terms. Shirley M. Tilghman: The really intriguing, interesting ideas Shirley M. Tilghman: in science increasingly are happening at the boundaries Shirley M. Tilghman: between sciences, fields like biophysics, fields like Shirley M. Tilghman: geochemistry. Shirley M. Tilghman: These are fields that if you had said those names 50 years Shirley M. Tilghman: ago, no one would have known what you were talking about. Shirley M. Tilghman: The library is in fact sort a representation of that. Shirley M. Tilghman: It is a way of our saying the collective knowledge of the Shirley M. Tilghman: natural sciences is now brought together in a single Shirley M. Tilghman: place on the Princeton campus. Craig Webb: The Tree House, which I don't know where that Craig Webb: name came from, but that was originally the map room. Craig Webb: And I think it still contains a lot of map cases. Craig Webb: And the way the roof planes really hang out over the side Craig Webb: of the building and create a kind of protective Craig Webb: environment. Craig Webb: Because it has these roofs that are cantilevered off the Craig Webb: side of the building, kind of shade the ground around them. Craig Webb: And then really connect the building to the trees, which I Craig Webb: guess is where tree house idea came from. Craig Webb: I love the atrium that comes through here and the Craig Webb: exploration of color, which is related to painting and to Craig Webb: perception of the world around us. Craig Webb: In particular on this building, I Craig Webb: was looking at Kandinsky. Craig Webb: His paintings have lots and lots of different colors. Craig Webb: And the part that's the most interesting to me is the way Craig Webb: the colors relate to each other. Craig Webb: And then the most exciting part is then you finally paint Craig Webb: the building. Craig Webb: And a lot of really unexpected things start to happen. Craig Webb: Because now you're dealing in full scale. Craig Webb: There's a lot of daylight that comes into this building. Craig Webb: And the colors start to bounce, one off the other. Craig Webb: It produces a whole different palette of colors that you Craig Webb: weren't quite expecting. [music] Wentworth Miller: Two very different buildings, two Wentworth Miller: extreme visions. Wentworth Miller: In very different ways, they embody an ideal of excellence, Wentworth Miller: of doing things better than you did before. Wentworth Miller: And in very different ways, they both encapsulate the Wentworth Miller: deep-rooted ideals of Princeton University as a Wentworth Miller: university. Wentworth Miller: They embody both the venerable traditions that provide links Wentworth Miller: with its past and the creativity and innovation with Wentworth Miller: which it will lead us into the future. [music]