Oct 28, 2011 1:24 PM
“What’s interesting is that a lot of people think that if they’re going to do something really inventive and interesting that it should be modernist, and I just don’t think that’s true,” Mr. Whalen said.
“Modernism isn’t a style, despite what people claim,” Mr. Simon added. “That doesn’t make a great building.”
The key is building on what is already in the architecture world by pushing it further, the judges said. An architecture vocabulary is already set in stone; a new one can’t be invented, Mr. Whalen said.
“All five of these have their sources,” Mr. Simon said of the winning designs. “None of these are totally original, and yet all of them have little breakthroughs that make them interesting, that make them their own, what I call creatures. They still have a uniqueness to them, even though their DNA comes from very obvious places, like human beings. We all have DNA that’s from our parents, but we’re different. And we’re all whole beings, and that was true of these houses.”
