This architect has abandoned traditional cube and sphere building blocks for more amorphous forms
You Could Call Him Mr. Softee
By RICHARD LACAYO
There are architects who love the Parthenon. Greg Lynn has a thing for the blob. This would not only be the '50s sci-fi thriller about a belligerent wad of jelly. The blobs that beguile him are any "isomorphic polysurfaces," meaning shapes that are, well, blobs. Architecture is a profession in which the cube and sphere are still the literal building blocks. What Lynn prefers reminds you of amoebas and bundled foam. In the most pliant forms of nature, in very irregular geometry, he sees the future.
"Architecture has been nostalgic forever for a bygone era," he says. Lynn isn't. At 35, he's already a much discussed theorist who teaches at both ucla and the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zurich, Switzerland, where he is nothing less than professor of spatial conception and exploration. At form, his Los Angelesbased architecture firm, he practices what he preaches.
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Examine Greg Lynn's computer-generated designs as they come to life. |
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Name: Greg Lynn Age: 35 Why critics are taking note: Lynn's radical use of design software and computer technology |
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Listen to excerpts from TIME reporter Richard Lacayo's interview with Greg Lynn. |
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