Page 42 - Studio International - July August 1968

required so that there wouldn't be too much loss of air and light space In the work that I have done in gardens and so forth, I have worked
between the buildings. I'm sure that means will be found to incor- with natural mediums, such as stones, simply because they last
porate the sculptural sense into theory. better. But I have no objections to making a steel garden. In fact I
I myself am fond of the idea of sculpting the earth. I've attempted once proposed doing a parkway between two roads in California, to
things like that—for instance in my garden in Israel, where there was a be covered entirely with aluminium, anodized aluminium. It was for
hillside, very rocky, where it was impossible to walk. So what I did an aluminium company, but they sort of backed out of it. It was to
was to build these very large curved retaining walls, curved both be two miles long. Maybe they didn't have enough aluminium. But
ways, which served to make a sculpture of the whole hill, about five I think some day there's going to be an excess of aluminium, and
acres; that's a pretty big piece of sculpture. And I think the ground you can make things like that. And why not?
around buildings, underneath buildings, into the buildings, need I think that presently we'll be making sculptures to be seen from
not be merely flat space; it can be sculpted. There are many the moon—the dimensions of things are going way out. In fact, there's
approaches whereby sculpture can relate to buildings. one school of thought that thinks that if it's big enough, almost
On the other hand, a lot of architects think that they themselves anything is good. But I don't. I think that everything is merely
are the sculptors, they don't want another sculptor around. Here in relative. It has to be big enough or small enough, as the case
Britain, I'm told, there is a certain kind of brutalist architecture, or may be.
architecture which attempts a more voluminous and morphological
quality.
One knows the general idea of whether a building is really merely a
mechanical shelter or whether it should be a sort of symbolical
object; whether the architect and the sculptor are at one, or whether
they should be combined. For instance, Corbusier's buildings are in
a sense sculptures and he certainly wouldn't have wanted another
sculptor around. Mies, on the other hand, has other sort of clean
sculpture—I don't think Mies has ever thought of sculpture as other
than as a pretty and minor object which serves as a decorative foil.
However, I personally would like to see the sort of counterpoint of
building and sculpture whereby they relate, not necessarily elimi-
nating all sculptural qualities from the building but having an aware-
ness of a sculptural quality in the surroundings in relation to the
building so that they are in good balance.
Now I am a sculptor and I've worked with gardens and attempted
the design of playgrounds, all with the idea of being able to have an
area that I could control and work as a sculptor. Some people say,
`Aren't you being an architect, too?' I don't think so, because I'm
little concerned about the mechanics of shelter and so forth, which is a
very important part of architecture and which I am quite willing to
leave to architects; I don't want to get involved in these difficult
problems.
Then there's the relationship of architecture to the affinity of
sculpture. Sculptures don't have to be asymmetrical, they can be
symmetrical too. Just recently there's a cube in New York—the cube
of the building and then the cube of the sculpture at 140 Broadway;
they are both rather distorted and seem to work. I know that with Mr
Fuller, for instance, with his geodesic domes (we've talked about
working together for forty years but it's never come about) I'm sure
I'd be rather hard put with his symmetry to know how to relate
it. I did a circular garden at the Chase Manhattan Bank of
a number of rocks that seemed to float in space down there.
It seems to work alright. But when you have a large object,
like a building and you are confronted with the problem of relating
it to sculpture or space you put it off to one side, and it might have
some kind of relationship and so on (you either have good taste or
you don't) ; but the necessary relationship, those things which are not
just a question of taste and so forth, would have to be worked out in Isamu Noguchi was accorded a retrospective at the Whitney Museum, New
an intimate integration between architect and sculptor, and I hope York, in the Spring of this year. Recent sculptures by him are on exhibition
that young architects and sculptors will presently appreciate that at Gimpel Fils, London, from July 9 to August 24.
they both have to contribute something, and that the sculptors will
Noguchi's autobiography, entitled A Sculptor's World, with a foreword by
wake up to their importance and relevance to this whole problem.
R. Buckminster Fuller, was recently published by Thames and Hudson
For a sculptor to merely say 'I'm a sculptor and I'm making pure (259 pp., 255 black and white illustrations, 13 colour plates, £5 5s.). In this
sculptures' (or impure, whatever it is) and that the architects can the sculptor records his development from 1906, when he was a child in
use them or not as they wish, and if they fit in, all right—that's an Tokyo, until 1965, and annotates his work in the theatre, in architectural
abandonment of a whole area which I find most interesting and settings, and in garden and playground design.
important as a sculptor: that is, the relationship of sculpture and the
sculptor to the world we live in and how his functioning can be a Facing page, Garden for Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza, New York, 1961-4
necessity. Merely to decorate, does not seem enough to me. Black River stone from Japan, granite paving, diameter 60 ft.
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