FvB -- Every cultural field sometimes seems to be turning into a branch of the fashion industry, no? Actually I get a much bigger kick out of fashion (not that I follow it) than out of fashionable buildings. Ludicrous though fashions often are, it's fun to watch the gals, and we know the fashions won't be around next year. Buildings we're stuck with, at least for a few decades...

Raw Data -- Sorry to disappoint, but that's the nicest pan I've ever gotten!

Lindenen -- I kinda like the design of the LVMH bldg myself. Tres chic. That said, I'd be much happier with it as an objet d'art rather than a building on 57th St ...

Susan -- That's a funny line about be-alike/we're-all-diverse. What's doubly hilarious about the phenom in the architecture world is that cities pre-modernism were very diverse -- full of many different kinds of buildings from many different schools and periods. Modernism wiped much of that out and replaced it with a glass-and-steel monoculture (to which many people sensibly reacted by moving out of cities). Now the same crowd of people is peddling zigzags and translucency and telling us that this time around they've got it right. Me, well, you can hoodwink me once but I'm gonna be suspicious the next time around ...

Charlton - It's so true, how people have lost the habit of noticing architectural marvels. They take a lot for granted (which is nice in its own right, of course): the nice public libraries, the classy office buildings with windows that open, the parks that work ... Too bad so many of us let ourselves be blinded by novelty and shininess. Are we rubes letting ourselves be taken advantage of by cynical elites? Or is the picture more complicated than that? In any case, it sure would be nice if our architectural elites had more of a service ethic these days than they do.

Ian -- That's a great point, tks. I'll try to remember, though I'm sure I'll be overwhelmed by the need to throw darts. The soul does need nourishing ...

Rick -- Wasn't it Auden who, when asked by someone what his ideal home would be like, answered something like, "A Victorian house but with modern plumbing and electricity?" I suspect many people would find that a super-agreeable combo. Too bad it's so hard to find these days.

Donald -- Those strapped-together-with-cables expanses of glass are a hoot, aren't they? I wonder if people actually enjoy them, or if they're just a function of designers and architects (and the people who commision them) falling for the latest trend. Come to think of it, it might be fun to keep tabs on the latest architectural trends/fashions with the ol' Kodak. Hint at just how silly most of them are ...

Annette -- "the architectural equivalent of white noise" is perfect. Can I hire you to take over architectural criticism for the New York Times?

Mary -- Scary (if funny) thought!

FvB -- I wonder if the buildings like LVMH are being sold in those old truth-to-materials terms ... My impression is that architectural propaganda has moved along some. As I've run across it, the intellectual rationale for translucency and folding has more to do with "delight" (in the French sense of "jouissance"). We're dissolving and evaporating the old modernist grid and turning it into a bunch of twirling, twinkling pixels (hence semi-transparency) ... It's all part of a relativized, Photoshop world ... All part of self-delight ... It's basically very 1968 French-radical, and all about the wonders of life high on narcissism, mood drugs, and computers. Unfortunately that does seem to be predicated on accepting modernism as a given, grrr ... You know me, I'd rather everyone just decide that modernism was a great big wrong turn, let go of the attachment to it, and move on. What are the chances of that happening, do you think?

CG -- Hey, thanks for dropping by! There's a funny thing about architecture that's a bit of a trap for all of us fans. It's this: the glitzy/chic stuff that gets the press and the praise is largely designed and created in order to look good in pictures. (Very important for architects competing in this particular sweepstakes to "get published.) The buildings often photograph extremely well -- because they're designed and made to photograph extremely well. But that's one of the major beefs we cranks have with a lot of this work: that, while such a building might make for a striking set of pictures, it's a lousy building. Buildings serve many roles. They react to neighbors. They're homes, offices, part of the landscape. They help define public space. Etc etc. We cranks like to point out that, while a Gehry or a de Pontsamparc (did I spell that right) design might be cute as a little foot-high sculpture, they're sometimes disastrous as buildings. We like to argue that architecture and urbanism should first serve human needs and pleasures. Architecture is primarily a social act (except in the case of private little buildings no one ever sees, which are often referred to as "follies.") Imposed, egocentric, or abstract designs can be really destructive. People have to live, work, and pass by 'em, after all, and a badly-judged design can degrade a block and deface a neighborhood. (While a bad modernist poem or song ... Well, who cares, really?)

So the fact is that architecture and urbanism are best judged not by looking at photos but in the actual experiencing of them. Hanging in the neighborhood, visiting the offices, either living there or comparing notes with people who do, taking note of whether the public spaces are used, how the building affects the neighborhood, etc. For a crank, it's just awful -- inhuman, totalitarian, etc -- to elevate the aesthetic dimension above the human dimension, at least where architecture and urbanism are concerned. Real beauty in these fields comes from the melding of respsect for the human, a willingness to accept wisdom and tradition, and a humble determination to add modestly to what already exists. Beauty from this point of view isn't just aesthetic -- it's human, with "the aesthetic" folded into it.

Which also means that the best new buildings (for us cranks, anyway) often don't look so hot in photographs. They aren't meant to. Maybe they're a bit dowdy -- but they serve the neighborhood well, or they're lovely to live in, or the office workers there appreciate the thoughtfulness of the spaces, or it helps carve out a successful urban space ... That kind of thing. Very hard to capture any of that in photographs.

Another challenge is that much of the work we cranks approve of is very small scale and hard to find. The architecture schools and press -- the mainstream -- is devoted to glassy angular stuff, weirdo materials, etc. Traditionalists and people doing the modest/helpful thang are largely overlooked by the press -- something I should do a little more to fight. It's hard for civilians to find out about this stuff. It takes a lot of specialized knowledge, as well some effort at clearing the head of modernist sludge.

Anyway, for an architecture-and-urbanism crank, the question that's far more important than "what's it look like?" is "what's it like to be there, and to experience it?" Very hard to capture that in photos. And many of the places/buildings that deserve a crank's approval may not make for dazzling photos.

But ain't that often the case? Gotta look past a field's self-generated p-r to see what's really there?

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on February 15, 2006 1:58 PM

No no no, Michael, don't change the subject. The question wasn't "what architecture "you, traditionalists/cranks" find attractive. You were asked: "Mr.MB, give us specific examples of contemporary architecture you (personally, since the original post was written in first person)like". However difficult they are to find I assume you did,right?

Or I'll have to conclude you're just an old (sorry) grumpy mean blowhard.

Posted by: Tatyana on February 15, 2006 3:08 PM

Michael,

The very good thing, then, for those of us who do live in big cities is the presumable presence of those buildings that don't photograph well.

Which ones? And where?

I want to see with my own eyes.

Thanks!
CG

Posted by: chelsea girl on February 15, 2006 7:11 PM

Michael: "I wonder if the buildings like LVMH are being sold in those old truth-to-materials terms"

I don't think they are. That's too serious. It was Philip Johnson, I think, who insisted everything had to be "fun". So now we're all being grimly, earnestly, dutifully "fun". (It's sort of like the assigned reading effect, isn't it? If your grade-school teacher ordered you to go home and have fun, could you have done it?)

The other stupid word they use is "play".

BTW, I hope you don't mind if I steal your line that the best thing about fashion is that it will be gone by next year. I'm gonna pretend I made it up.

Posted by: Brian on February 15, 2006 7:41 PM

Check out this symposium coming up at Bard:

PANEL DISCUSSION
Streamlining Architecture: East to West Coast
Thursday April 27, 2006

Streamlined design in architecture, pervasive in the cutting-edge metropolises of the United States, came to symbolize the cities of tomorrow during the 1930s. As in industrial design, streamlining in architecture became a central metaphor for speed, technology, and modern life. Architectural historian Rosemarie Haag Bletter will lead a discussion examining the beginnings of this concept as it was first proposed by German architect Eric Mendelsohn during the 1910s and 1920s. Architectural historian Thomas Hines and curator Sarah Schleuning will join the discussion and illustrate how American cities, from Los Angeles to Miami, utilized the principles of streamlined architecture in their own unique ways.

The panel discussion will be followed by an exhibition-viewing reception at 18 West 86th Street.

$25 general
$17 seniors and students

Time: 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Location: BGC Lecture Hall, 38 West 86th Street, NY, NY
Phone: 212-501-3011

Posted by: winifer skattebol on February 15, 2006 10:19 PM






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