Word: netsch
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Slab Rendezvous. Fortunately, the man who designed the Chicago Circle campus prefers subways to taxicabs, is a champion of city living and a fancier of pop and op. He is Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's gangling M.I.T. Grad Walter Netsch, 45, architect of the Air Force Academy's space-frame chapel. Rather than trying to carve out grassy plots, he has opted for the tough, rapidly moving esthetics of the city. His results are what he calls a "microenvironment," a miniature city for learning...
...SORRY TO ADD CORRECTION TO YOUR WONDERFUL AIR FORCE CHAPEL COVERAGE [JULY 27]. WINDOW'S COLLAGE, DESIGNED ON FLOOR OF MY LIVING ROOM, MADE BY JUDSON STUDIOS OF LOS ANGELES, THE DALLES GLASS BY BLENKO GLASS CO. OF WEST VIRGINIA, NOT CHARTRES. WALTER A. NETSCH JR. SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL CHICAGO...
...Netsch tore up eight false starts before the final design came to him from one of those inspired doodles from which architects so often get ideas. He had drawn a horizontal line, then a series of near-vertical connected lines that looked a bit like the tracing of a seismograph gone wild. Then the idea of using tetrahedrons came into being-100 four-sided structures of steel tubing serving as the building blocks of a whole series of spires that would reach up to heaven and still flow logically from the design. "By literally placing the tetrahedrons...
From the very beginning, Netsch had ruled out what he calls "a supermarket cathedral"-a single chapel that can change faith at will, using gimmicks such as revolving altars. Each religion would have a chapel of its own. The Protestants, being in the majority, got the largest, and since the academy service is fairly formal, the chapel was endowed with lofty grandeur. The Roman Catholic chapel and the Jewish place of worship are underneath, which caused one Catholic chaplain to observe: "The Protestants are nearer to Heaven, but they need the head start." The Catholic chapel, with its gentle arches...
...Spirit. A number of Netsch's colleagues in the field of architecture have criticized him for not relating the building more closely to the setting, on the theory that the jagged structure seems to clash with the rolling mountains around. Yet had Netsch tried to relate more to the mountains, he might very well have ended up clashing with the campus. And to Netsch the community is the main thing: it seems quite natural that the spires should also suggest giant wings, and even the hangar-like quality of the Protestant chapel interior seems in its way appropriate...