Robert Venturi for Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates, Inc.
Trees, 2000-03
Painted steel and aluminum
Anlyan Center, Yale University School of Medicine
Intersection of Congress and Howard avenues
Clearly established in the ancient world, the dialogue of sculpture and architecture mediates between the human and the monumental. The sphinx makes the pyramids reasonable. The mechanical forest outside of one of Yale’s medical laboratories is a comic variant on that tradition. The building itself has a a Willy Wonka factory look that belies what one is sure are its deeper interior chemistries. Outside, one of Nature’s trees looks like a Rockette trying to push into a dance line of robots. What’s missing here is the animation — and practicality — of a row of Joseph Smolinski’s “Tree Turbines” spinning as a power source for some electrical microscope inside. It would be enough if Rube Goldberg-like they only managed to lift the lid of a recycling Dumpster nearby. As it is, they stand impervious, like the permanent spring that was a dream of the gardeners at Versailles.
Object Lesson #14
Object Lesson #13
Object Lesson #12
Object Lesson #11
Object Lesson #10
Object Lesson #9
Object Lesson #8
Object Lesson #7
Object Lessons #5 & #6
Object Lesson #4
Object Lesson #3
Object Lesson#2
Object Lesson #1
