Roll Over Euclid: How Frank Gehry Designs and Builds Williarn J. Mitchell Some architects are angry, really angry, with Frank Gehry. They see his late work as whimsical and capricious —a betrayal of the stern Modernist commitment to rational problem solving and economy of means. To them, he is a seducer of the public, promoter of frivolous fash- ions, and a corrupting influence on impressionable young designers. Others are envious. They admire the spatial bravura of works like the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (1991-97) and the Walt Disney Concert Hall (1987) in Los Angeles, but dismiss them as singularities made possible by uniquely indulgent clients and generous budgets. Gehry seems somehow to have slipped the constraints that bind the average architectural Joe. But both camps get it wrong. Gehry has, in fact, found a way of designing and building that is far more in tune with the realities of our digitalizing, globalizing age than are the stale dog- mas of machine-age Modernism. He has created a powerful new architectural language of computer-constructed curved surfaces, nonrepeating parts, free-form composition, digital analysis, and globally distributed CAD/CAM (computer aided design/computer aided manu- facturing) fabrication. Euclid Rules You cannot miss the curved surfaces. They challenge a deeply embedded tradition that goes all the way back to Euclid (ca. 300 8.C.). Euclid's Elements, as every schoolchild used to know, shows how to construct infinitely varied geometric compositions from points, straight lines, and arcs of circles. Parallels, perpendiculars, and congruencies figure prominently. And strictly speaking, the only instruments you need to explore this rigorously beautiful for- mal universe are a pencil, a straightedge, dividers, and compasses. Traditional drafting instruments comprise these simple, ancient tools, plus some more-modern inventions that save the trouble of explicitly executing the commoner Euclidean constructions. T-squares and parallel bars allow the ready production of parallels. Triangles facilitate inser- tion of perpendiculars. Graph paper provides a modular framework of both parallels andperpendiculars. Graduated rulers and protractors simplify the subdivision of lines and angles. Tracing paper takes the tedious labor out of repli cating shapes. Many common fabrication and assembly tech- niques —craft-based and machine-based—are closely related. Saws most readily produce straight cuts and planar surfaces. Bricks and boards fit together plane-to-plane and at right angles. Brick walls have parallel sides and rise in parallel courses. Rolling and extrusion machinery gener- ates straight lines, while lathes and other turning. devices yield arcs and circles. Jigs and templates make it possible to repeat shapes exactly. The tools ofthe carpenter and the mason give the drafts- Paul Rudolph, Yale School of Azt and Architecture man's graphic constructions material form at a (1959-63), New Haven, Connecticut larger scale—sometimes very literally, such as the corrugated concrete surfaces of Paul Rudolph’s ‘Art and Architecture Building (1959-63) at Yale University, from the parallel hatching of his drawings. Architects tend to draw what they can build, and build what they can draw. ‘Small wonder, then, that classical architectural treatises, from Vitruvius to the texts of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, are explicitly grounded in Euclid, Even before they introduce the classical orders, many of these texts provide geometry lessons cribbed from their great Greek predeces- sor. And John Dee's preface to the first English translation of Euclid (1570) addresses itself directly to architects; it has good claim, in fact, to be the first theoretical text on architecture in English. Early applications of computer-aided design (CAD) technology in architecture simply (and rather unreflectively) reified this ancient tradition. CAD systems were mostly employed as accurate and efficient replacements for traditional drafting instruments in the production of construction documents. They provided points, straight lines, arcs, and circles as basic graphic primitives, and their operations for inserting these primitives into drawings were directly based on fundamental theorems of Euclid. Grids and snap operations were the electronic equivalent of graph paper; copy operations enabled rapid replication of existing shapes; and drawing “layers” explicitly harked back to the days of transparent tracing-paper sheets. By greatly enhancing the efficiency of traditional drafting practices, these systems further marginalized alternative practices. 354The Countertradition Asserts Itself There has, however, long been an extra-Euclidean countertradition, Despite its marginality, it has somehow managed to survive. It shows up briefly but significantly, for example, in the First Book (Chapter Thirteen) of Andrea Palladio's Four Books of Architecture. After remarking that Vitruvius gives no guidance on construction of the swelling profile of a column, Palladio sets forth his own method as follows: The method | use in making the profile of the swelling is this; | divide the shaft of the column into three equal parts, and leave the lower part perpendicular; to the side of the extremity of which | apply the edge of a thin rule, of the same length, or alittle longer than the column, and bend shat part which reaches from the third part upwards, until the end touches the point of the diminution of the upper part of the column under the collarino. | then mark as that curve directs, which gives the column a kind of swelling in the middle, and makes it project very gracefully. In other words, Palladio resorted to bending a thin elastic spline to create the curve he wanted. This curve can be described by a precise formula—as later theoreticians of elastically deformed structures were to demonstrate—but Palladio did not delve into the mathematics. He simply employed what was, in effect, an efficient analog computation device to produce the required graphic output. Antoni Gaudi made similar use of analog computation in designing the complex curved vaults of the Church of the Sagrada Familia (1883~1926) in Barcelona. In this case, the device was not a bent spline but a cable in tension. Hung with weights and supported at each end, the cable traced out a catenary curve. Inverted, the catenary specified an efficient and beautiful profile for a vault acting in compression. Other architects, such as Félix Candela, Eduardo Catalano, and Eladio Dieste have worked with ruled surfaces. These are generated, in vast variety, by taking pairs of curves in space and connecting them at regular intervals by straight lines—a process most readily carried out by constructing wooden or wire models. The most familiar are the Saddle-shaped hyperbolic paraboloid, as in Catalano’s House (1954; destroyed 2001) in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the hyperboloid of revolution commonly seen in the cooling towers of power stations. Yet other designers have been fascinated by minimal surfaces. One way to produce these, without becoming entangled in some fairly complex and tedious mathematics, is to dip a wire frame in soap solution; the resulting Eduardo Catalano, Catalano House (1954), Raleigh, North Carolina 355soap films immediately give you what you want. With a bit more labor, you can get the same results with spandex. There is a conference room at the School of Architecture and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with interior surfaces that were sculpted in this way by Frank Stella. At the dawn ofthe computer graphics era, information technologists quickly realized that all these sorts of curves and surfaces, and many more, could now be generated by digital rather than analog means. The idea was to encode the mathematical formulas for various types of curves in software, let the user input parameters specifying particular instances of these curves, and then employ display routines to trace out these instances on screens or by means of printers or plotters, An active research community that focused on digital curved-surface modeling quickly sprang up in the 1960s and early 19703, and developed a repertoire of highly specialized concepts and techniques with forbidding-sounding names: triangulated surfaces, parametric curves, bicubics, Coons patches, Bezier curves and patches, B-splines, and NURBS (non-uniform rational B- splines). Curved-surface CAD software based upon these con- cepts became an essential tool of automobile, aerospace, and ship design. In the entertainment industry, related software ‘was put to work in production of three-dimensional computer animations. In these fields, with the aid of ever increasing computer power and ever more sophisticated display technol- gy, free-form curved surfaces became as straightforward for designers to handle as straight lines, planes, circles, cylinders, and spheres were for architects. In the early 19905, Gehry's partner James Glymph estab- lished the connection between the worlds of digitally designed airplanes, automobiles, and animated-cartoon dinosaurs and that of architecture. The breakthrough project was a monumental Fish Sculpture (1989-92) for the Vila Olimpica on the Barcelona waterfront. Its free-form curved surfaces were digitally modeled using CATIA, a CAD system CATIA siructural model and primarily intended for use in aerospace. The digital model Leones eee Building yas used for design development, in structural analysis and 7 design, and in place of traditional drawings as the primary repository of construction information. This opened the way to successful application of digital curved-surface modeling in far larger and more ambi- tious projects, such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Experience Music Project (EMP}_(1995-2000) in Seattle, and the Ray and Maria Stata Center (1998-) at MIT. Gehry embarked on an exploration of a formal universe that was no less rigorously logical and mathematically elegant than that of ancient Greek geometry, but which—as a practical matter—had been inaccessible before computer-graphics technologyunlocked it. If you were a Platonist, you could say that it had been lurking out there all the time, waiting for its cultural moment to arrive. It was curtains for the, well, hegemonic dis- course of straightedge and compasses. Roll over Euclid. Tell Pythagoras the news. The Role of Three-Dimensional Digitizing and Rapid Prototyping It is technically possible to design directly at a curved-surface CAD workstation. Some younger architects have embraced this approach, and Gehry has flirted with it. The amazingly complex freestanding conference room—a horse-head shaped structure —at the heart of the DG Bank Building (1995-2001) in Berlin was done this way. But inserting curved-surface primitives and tweaking control points on the screen is not necessarily a very fluid or congenial way to explore design ideas. And it forces reliance on computer visualization as the primary means of understanding and evaluating forms and spaces, which turns out not to be entirely satisfactory. The alternative is to sketch and sculpt forms using standard physical media as a first step, then to build a closely corre- sponding digital model by fitting mathematically defined curves and surfaces to the initial freehand shapes. This is the strategy mostly favored by automobile designers; curved sur- face modelers have not made them give up their felt-tip free- hand sketches, their full-scale taped profiles, or their carefully crafted clay models. And itis also the strategy of Gehry, who greatly values the direct tactility of the physical model and the speed, freshness, and energy of the freehand gesture. “The trick in this process is to preserve the essential qualities of the initial two-dimensional or three-dimensional sketch. These qualities are easily lost, or subtly damaged, if unsuit- able graphic primitives or inappropriate approximations are employed. When Jan Utzon first sketched the saillike roof forms of the Sydney Opera House (1956-73), for example, he posed very difficult technical problems for the draftsmen who were to develop and precisely document the design, the engi- neers who were to analyze it, and the contractors who were to Construction views, DG Bank build it. Eventually these probléms were solved by introducing Building (1995-2000), Berlin, a masterful simplification: the free-form surfaces were approx: imated by triangular patches from the surfaces of spheres, so that the composition became, in effect, an assembly of smaller versions of Eero Saarinen’s Kresge Auditorium (1953-55) at MIT flipped on their sides and joined along their upper edges. It was a brilliant move, but it 357carried a heavy penalty. The constructed building, while beau: tiful in its own way, is much stiffer and more classically geo- metric than the version that Utzon had originally imagined. ‘That was before computers and NURBS. Today, with the right equipment, painstaking care, and craftsmanship, it is usually possible to produce very close approximations that preserve the important nuances and subtleties of the original. In Gehry's office, the process begins with the use of a very accu- rate three-dimensional digitizer to capture vertex, edge, and surface coordinates from a large-scale physical model. Using CATIA, mathematical curves and surfaces are then fitted as closely as possible to these digitized points. Rapid-prototyping devices, such as computer-controlled three-dimensional deposition printers and multi-axis milling machines, are then used to “build back” physical models for visual inspection and comparison with the original. The process iterates, with Jorn Utzon skech and longitudinal adjustments as necessary to the digital model, until the section, Sydney Opera House design team is satisfied (957-73) Computer Power Liberates Form (One of the important uses of the digital model is to provide input data for analysis software. ‘And it is here that a crucial advantage becomes apparent. In pre-CAD days, when design calculations were carried out by hand, increases in compu- tational effort resulting from the introduction of complex shapes made an enormous practical difference. Anyone could quickly calculate the floor area of a rectangular room, for example. But it took greater mathematical knowledge, and considerably more work, to do the same for an irregularly polygonal room—and free-form curved rooms were a nightmare. ‘An architect might be able to draw or physically model an arbitrarily shaped building, but would run into difficulty trying to calculate areas and volumes for costing and construction- management purposes, accurately visualize shading and shadows, and carry out structural, thermal, and acoustic analyses to evaluate performance. Producing accurate area and material takeoffs, and the necessary engineering analyses, might even turn out to be a technical impossibility. Today, however, the availability of inexpensive computer power in huge quantities renders these differences in computational complexity almost entirely unimportant. Even monstrously compli cated computations of area and volume are no problem for good geometric-modeling software running on a fast machine, And engineering-analysis procedures have been made far more flexi 358ble and powerful by eliminating the simplifying assumptions that had restricted their applica- bility. Thus, for example, the structural analysis formulas that | painfully learned in architecture school were restricted to rectangular beams, circular columns, semicircular arches and vaults, and the like, but today’s finite-element sofware can efficiently and accurately analyze structures of pretty much any arbitrary shape. The same goes for ray-tracing and radiosity software that accurately simulates shades and Eero Saarinen, Kresge Auditorium (1954), MIT, shadows, for computational fluid-dynamics (Cambridge, Massachusetts software that traces expected airflow in and around buildings, for dynamic-energy simulation software that predicts thermal performance, and for acoustic simulation systems. From a technical viewpoint, simplicity and regularity hardly matter anymore. If designers want, to emphasize these qualities, they must now do so on other grounds. CAD/CAM Fabrication One of these grounds, of course, has long been that simple, regular construction elements are easier and cheaper to fabricate than more complex ones. Furthermore, if designers can restrict themselves to using limited numbers of standardized, mass-produced parts, they can take advantage of industrial economies of scale, The formal implications of these principles were explored with exquisite poetry by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and rather less poetically by postwar exponents of industrialized component building in Europe. Throughout the twentieth century, the straightforward logic of industrial production seemed to provide an unassailable justification for the spare geometries of architectural Modernism But the implications of today's digitally controlled machinery differ radically from those of earlier industrial technology. This is vividly illustrated by the contrast between an old-fashioned printing press and a desktop laser printer. The prifiting press requires considerable time and effort to set up for a production run, but it then cranks out identical products in high volume and at low unit cost; itis a typical instrument of mass production. The laser printer has a higher unit cost, but itis much more flexible. It can rapidly and automatically be reset for every page, so it costs nothing extra for each one to differ from the last; this property makes it an instrument of computer-enabled mass customization. Even where small numbers of identical copies are required, the laser printer is more economical, since it eliminates the high, fixed preparation and setup costs of the printing press. itis only with large numbers of copies that unit costs begin to dominate and economies of scale effectively kick in 358Mass customization is particularly attractive in fabrication of construction components, since buildings are mostly one-off rather than mass-market products, and itis often difficult to get sufficiently long production runs to achieve major economies of scale. It is also well suited to just-in-time pro- duction and delivery, and similar up-to-date logistical strate- gies that take advantage of sophisticated, computerized management tools. And the very nature of buildings creates demands —which have too often been suppressed in modern buildings — for variation of components in response to their particular contexts. There are, after all, good, practical rea- sons to vary structural members according to their load con- ditions, windows according to their orientations, and so on. ‘Computer milling of mold for glass panels for Condé Nast Cafeteria (2996-2000), New York. CAD/CAM machinery now provides the means to mass- customize construction components. These devices are the architectural equivalents of laser printers. Just as a laser printer automatically translates a text file into tangible printed output, so a CAD/CAM fab- rication machine automatically translates a three-dimensional CAD file into full-scale physi- cal reality, It accomplishes this by performing the necessary physical operations, at high speed, under very precise digital control Application of CAD/CAM technology to structural steelwork fabrication has proven to be particularly effective. Numerically controlled machines can now shape, cut, and drill steel sections with great efficiency. This means that steel frames can economically be formed into complex shapes, and that the resulting complicated joints present litle difficulty. Use of this technology has been crucial for Gehry in such projects as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Walt Disney Concert Hall, EMP, and Ray and Maria Stata Center. In all of then, CAD renderings and construction photographs of the naked steel frames are jaw dropping. For cutting flat sheet material into arbitrary shapes, CAD/CAM laser cutters, water-jet cutters, and routers have become commonplace. These are much like old-fashioned pen-plotters, with a powerful cutting device instead of the pen. Gehry has used them extensively to pro- duce the irregular glass panels for the curtain wall of the Nationale-Nederlanden (1992-96) Building in Prague, and the sheet-metal cladding panels for the EMP. Mutti-axis milling machines extend the idea of computer-controlled cutting from two-dimen- sional sheets to three-dimensional solids. This technology is extensively used in the automo- bile industry for full-scale prototyping of metal parts. In architecture, it has the potential to reinvigorate the tradition of non-planar cut stonework, substituting high-speed, extremely pre- cise mechanical action for the chisels of masons. It is now being utilized, to great effect, in the still-ongoing construction of GaudI’s Sagrada Familia. Gehry has employed it to shape the 360cut-limestone exterior of the American Center (1988-94) in Paris; and in full-scale prototyping of a curved stone wall for the Walt Disney Concert Hall, before that project was redesigned with a metal skin. Three-dimensional milling, and other techniques such as three-dimensional deposition printing, can also be used to create concrete formwork, and molds for metal and glass. Thus, for example, the remarkable curved-glass shapes of the Condé Nast Cafeteria (1996-2000) in New York were pro- duced by CAD/CAM fabrication of metal molds, then slump- CATIA model of glass panel for Condé Nast ing heated glass sheets onto the mold surfaces. Cafeteria (1996-2000). On-site assembly of complex, CAD/CAM fabricated elements can obviously present greater challenges than assembly of simpler, more standardized pieces. But here, too, the three- dimensional CAD model helps. It becomes the source of coordinates that can drive laser- positioning devices and other electronic construction aids. It can provide clear, detailed renderings of difficult assem- blies. And it can even control construction robots that automatically carry out positioning and placement work. The vigorous exploration of CAD/CAM fabrication technology by Gehry, his partners, and some highly skilled collaborators continues his long-standing interest in innovative uses of materials and construction techniques—an interest that ear- lier yielded his corrugated cardboard chairs, his use of chain- link fencing in provocatively unexpected contexts, and other such surprises. Like any such exploration, it requires embrac- ing uncertainties and taking risks; and some innovations have proven more successful than others. But a growing body of successfully completed projects—with more in the pipeline — convincingly demonstrates that CAD/CAM fabrication works. Within schedule and budget frameworks that don’t need to be extraordinary, it opens up an exciting new way of conceiving and making buildings. Glass panel mock up for Condé Nast Cafeteria {1996-2000}, New York. Repeating and Non-Repeating Parts In any building, there is a particular balance between repeating and unique elements, which gives the architecture much of its character. There is also some sort of balance between fac: tory work and on-site handiwork. As Gehry has realized, CAD/CAM fabrication can shift theseModel, CATIA model, and finished structure, Fish Sculpture (2989-92) 2 Vila Olimpica, Barcelona balances—so, one of the critical design issues is to figure out where they should be established for a particular project. In the Barcelona fish sculpture, a simple conceptual division was created between structure and skin. The steel frame is all CAD/CAM, but the surface is made from copper strips that were hand-woven together in situ. At Bilbao, the external shapes and profiles were precisely specified by the CAD model, and there is no repetition or symmetry of the large-scale masses; but the titanium cladding panels are another matter. These were fabricated at a standard size and shape, and they were then bent and twisted into place on site. The result is an energetic and compelling interrelationship of mathemati- cally smooth curves and surfaces at the macro scale; of dis- crete, repetitive panel rhythms at an intermediate scale; and of a micro-scale texture of wrinkles and kinks that resulted natu- rally from the panel fabrication and placement operations. The macro-scale curves visually connect to the river and the hills, the intermediate-scale panels to the fenestration patterns of nearby buildings, and the irregular reflective surface texture to the cloudy Basque sky. The Der Neue Zollhof (1994-99) office buildings in Dussel- dorf resolve the balances in quite another way. Here, the walls are fluid curves, but the windows are standardized, mass- produced rectangular elements. The difference between the two systems is resolved by an adjustable framing element, which allows each window to be fitted to its particular, non- standard context. ‘At EMP, nothing on the exterior repeats. The major masses are free form, and if you look closely at their sheet-metal cladding panels you can see that these are all different. The surfaces were subdivided according to a logic that took account of local curvature and the technical proper- ties of the material — particularly the limits on its capacity to bend. The CAD software performed the immense amount of intricate computation required to unfold each surface facet onto a plane. Then CAD/CAM cutting machinery accurately produced each unfolded shape from a flat sheet, These machine-cut sheets were efficiently transported to the site. Finally, they were bent back and fixed in place to produce exactly the right nonplanar polygonal facets. Regular grids and repeating parts have been so fundamental to architectural composition for so long that most designers find it difficult to imagine life without them. But EMP begins to show how this is possible.Reimagining Design and Construction Three-dimensional digital models and CAD/CAM construction techniques not only have profound intellectual implications for designers; they also shake up the organization and everyday management of architectural practice. It can no longer be business as usual —the opportunities and demands fundamentally change. Before computers, most architectural practices logged the bulk of their billable hours at the design development and con- struction docurients phases of projects. This is where they really made their money. Then, when early CAD systems appeared, workstations took the place of drafting tables, and electronic computation replaced technical labor. The effect, pretty unexcitingly, was to automate the production of docu- ments that had previously been prepared by hand. But more advanced CAD/CAM processes, as employed by Gehry, are far more revolutionary; they begin to eliminate, rather than automate, traditional construction documentation. CAD/CAM steel fabrication, for example, can now be a largely paperless process that relies on transfer of digital files rather than shop drawings In the now-fading industrial era, catalogues of manufactured components and materials have played an indispensable role in architectural practice. Architects spent a lot of their time searching, selecting, and procuring, In the context of CAD/CAM, though, the crucial thing is to know the capabili- ties and availability of the fabrication facilities offered by various vendors. Then, it becomes possible to design directly _Saperience Music Project EMP) for those capabilities—a move that provides a great deal of [1995-2000] model being digitized 7 é ad view ofthe completed building, creative freedom, and involves the architect far more directly Seate in fabrication and construction processes. It is easy to imagine that Gehry's high-flying, high-profile, international practice has few lessons to offer architects applying less advanced resources to more modest projects. But that ‘would be to miss a vital point. Many of the digital-era strategies and techniques that he is pio- neering now will be increasingly commonplace in the future, just as innovative uses of steel, concrete, and glass in early Modern buildings eventually became mainstream. His remarkable late projects will ultimately be remembered not only for the spatial qualities and cultural reso- nances that they have achieved, but also for the way in which they have suggested that every- day architectural practice can be liberated from its increasingly sclerotic conventions. a