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A great little book; a sneaker Oct 28, 2009
By Steven M. Johnson
Architect Sidney Magee's THE OPEN SYSTEM is a sneaker. My first, second, and third impressions of the book evolved from 1) What is this odd book about? 2) This guy is really different, and 3) He is way ahead of the pack, a genius. As I read the book -- it is slow going at times for a non-architect -- I came to appreciate his frankness, honesty and wry, self-deprecating sense of humor.
Yet Magee is not for everyone, not even for every architect. He comes off as being at once brilliant and stubborn. He describes for the reader his unique building system that by its very definition creates structures that are rigid, precise, and modular and yet when done correctly and perfectly fitted together, can be disassembled in reverse order of their building! The system is "open" because a structure can be reconfigured and remodeled in a modular way. He is serious about this, and it is not a simple task that he has assigned himself, given that he is bucking a modern building tradition that has evolved into a system with crudely stuck-together, often redundant, parts. In a later chapter he contrasts his Open System with frame construction. He describes his efforts at taking apart a frame-constructed building. It is a nightmare task: "Once the gypsum board is off, a skeleton of studs, nails, blocking, live wires, junction boxes and pipes is revealed; and you have to carefully shut these systems down (like a guy from the bomb squad)..." His hope and aim in his building projects appears to be to create structures that can be assembled simply by using readily-available supplies and parts at building supply and hardware stores, in ways analogous to buying parts for a PC computer and assembling it oneself. It appears that his decades-long odyssey with his Open System anticipated, and yet went beyond, the thinking behind modular home systems touted in magazines like DWELL and in books like Allison Arieff's PREFAB. His aim is proletarian. Perhaps partly as a byproduct of the simple, available building materials he uses, his buildings at first glance may seem crude or unfinished, or at least cabin-like.
The author knows how to construct buildings on site himself. The worst criticism of him as an architect and designer might be that he thinks almost too typically like a male! He describes his "wife Susie fighting him tooth and nail..." Elsewhere he laments that he is "losing the love of my life because the house doesn't feel homey to her." In places in the book, his prototype building system is described as if it would be perfect for creating a hut for rustic fellow who does not care about the unconventional appearance of some of the home's fixtures. There is a surprising discussion of the convenience of having tools and clothing hang from the metal ceiling, using hooks-with-magnets. His book is a quietly radical work; my sense is that Magee may feel that his genius has been largely unrecognized in his own lifetime.
The author's two books, THE OPEN SYSTEM and SIMPLE BUILDING, should be purchased together and read together if possible. A failing of THE OPEN SYSTEM is that his stunningly well-executed computer-aided drawings, which show every bracket and fitting, are less than perfectly informative about the overall project. The reader wants to see either on-site construction photos, or sketches of assembly steps like those seen in BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS or MOTHER EARTH NEWS. There is no photo or sketch of a completed building, for example. Yet by chance, when looking through his other book, SIMPLE BUILDING, I discovered photos of buildings where he used his Open System.
The book will cause many readers like myself to start saying "why not?" "He is right!" I heartily recommend this book -- with my caveat about the need for more or different illustrations and photos.
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A masterpiece Jun 02, 2011
By Robert M. Koretsky
"DIYer"
Finally, a 21st century masterwork of architecture, both in theory (which is written in very articulate, plain language unlike many "theorists" who are so esoteric their prose is unreadable) and in practice. I love the hands-on, DIY approach, so equalitarian and free of conforming codes and practices. We are subjected to the commodification of our own existence, products have lives and a real being, human beings don't. The illusion of "custom-built" or "building-as-usual" is shattered by Sidney Magee with the Open System approach to constructing our built environment with off-the-shelf products and components that don't dictate use but conform to it. This book offers a way out of being a media society, new-age drone. If only I had this guy as a teacher when I went to architectural school, I would have learned what was important to architectural innovation and design. All of my teachers were money-power-hungry pedants. You may not like the Ikea look of his buildings, but the theme of this book is more than that, it's the revamping of the design activity itself so it is possible to fashion a useful world to live in. I would also suggest reading this book in tandem with "Simple Building".
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