Starchitect Discussion Thread

[Hanson784 165]

louisville327 your right, the transition will be better. The skyline will have a nice grade leading up to Midtown after 15 CPW is finished. Trump International Hotel and especially the AOL Time Warner Center, will help make the transition smooth and consistent.

slightlyslack, I'm not sure about 80 South Street. It may grow on me after it is completed, but right now I think it looks like blocks on sticks. A bit odd for the Lower Manhattan skyline. Well have to see how it turns out.

[louisville327 0]

Date: 10/15/2005 3:55:19 PM
Author: Odainsaker

quote>

Clearly, someone spent too much time playing with Legos as a kid. It's a shame San Antonio has to live with the consequences.

[louisville327 0]

Date: 10/15/2005 3:22:38 PM
Author: slightlyslack

I must say, I am quite taken with Calatrava's pending 80 South residential tower in New York. I'm sure louisville327 would hate it, but I find it to be a wonderfully grand experiment in integrating high-rise living with the suburban demand for quiet space, and the New York waterfront is actually a pretty great place to do something like that (as opposed to, say, Central Park West or the Chicago lakefront).

quote>

It's funny that you assume I hate the proposed boxes on sticks tower, because I REALLY DO HATE IT!! You've got me figured out, Mr. Slack.





I mean, what's not to hate? It looks ridiculous, and totally out of place. I think Mr. Calatrava should spend more time in Shanghai, where they actually encourage this dreck.

I mean, creativity.

[hdorriker 190]

Whoops, please disregard that previous message, I was on a friend's computer and he was logged in.

And there doesn't seem to be a way to delete one's own replies.

 

 

 

Anyway:

In my opinon, it's about as out-of-context as (once again) the late Johnson's AT&T building, also in Manhattan. (Which is histroy out-of-context in a perhaps inspired, but nevertheless tasteless result.)

And I happen to find that Lego building pretty decent. It doesn't necessarily have to fit into any historical context though because it does not use a reduced period referrence which would supposedly evoke such a conception from the public.

 

[Mulefisk 15]

Wow. 15 Central Park West has to be the most beautiful modern skyscraper i've ever seen.

It's brilliant in every way. I wish more architects could be like Robert A.M. Stern, making buildings that fit in with new yorks skyline, instead of polluting it, like for example Calatrava's Lets put a bunch of boxes on a stick and see what happens building.

 

louisville327: I agree with you, it really does look horrible.

[Hanson784 165]

I can't stand to look at those renders of what's to come. How the heck did 80 South Street get the green light? This is a great example of stararchitecture that really doesn't work. The only thing it works at is ruining the skyline. When it's blown into the East River by a light breeze I'll say, That was the worst idea in the history of bad ideas and now look what happened

Unfortunately, Calatrava has plans to build similar things in New York.

[slightlyslack 20]

About the San Antonio Library:

The key thing to remember with this is that the architect is Mexican.  In Moorish and Arab cultures, which are clearly evident in most Latin American countries, street life does not exist in the form that commonly know it in the West.  Viewed from above, the typical Arab residential warren is strongly reminiscent of a typical American cul-de-sac subdivision.  This has very much continued in Mexican culture, and since South Texas is basically northern Mexico with a few more white people, I'm not at all surprised that the SA library looks like something you'd see in white portions of the D.F.

[louisville327 0]

Date: 10/15/2005 8:52:42 PM
Author: slightlyslack

About the San Antonio Library:

The key thing to remember with this is that the architect is Mexican. In Moorish and Arab cultures, which are clearly evident in most Latin American countries, 'street life' does not exist in the form that commonly know it in the West. Viewed from above, the typical Arab residential warren is strongly reminiscent of a typical American cul-de-sac subdivision. This has very much continued in Mexican culture, and since South Texas is basically northern Mexico with a few more white people, I'm not at all surprised that the SA library looks like something you'd see in white portions of the D.F.

quote>

You're right about the style of residential buildings in Arab/Moorish/Latin American countries. It consists mostly of walled mini-compounds, and it dates back to the ancient Egyptians. An outer wall and gate surround an inner courtyard and a private residence. This style is especially prevalent in places like Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus, and also in agricultural Mexico.



But the architect wasn't building a house, he built a large public library on a major urban street. It has a civic purpose. While the traditional residential areas that you mentioned do not share our conception of street life, Arab/Moorish/Latin American commercial and civic areas are bustling, busy, and heavily-walked. The bazaar is the most famous Arab (actually Persian) contribution to street life, and is also quite common in Latin America.


Cairo, Egypt


San Juan de los Lagos, Mexico


So I'm not buying the argument that the architect didn't comprehend American street life when he designed his Lego Library. Granted, a public library is not a series of street-level shops and vendor stands, but it's not a hacienda, either. I'm far more inclined to believe the architect was just trying to build a clever sculpture (see rolling spheres) and call it a library.

[slightlyslack 20]

Point taken.  Still, the building's closure to the street is probably less of a reflection on the starchitect than on the defensible space obsession of a city government that would approve such a design.

 

Related: why is it that the same Republican voters who advocate such a muscular foreign policy can such craven pansies in the face of crime at home?  Gated communities, high fences, enclosed shopping malls, hotels and office towers that are nearly impossible to enter at street level--these do not reflect very well on the courage of the people demanding them.  On the other hand, given the design of new American embassies--fortified, bomb-proof compounds set far back from arterial roads--perhaps this fear has begun to manifest itself in the GOP's foreign policy.  The high Modernist embassies of the 1960s may not obey traditional laws of proportion, but their glass curtain walls were emblematic of an openness and optimism that we would do well to rediscover.

[louisville327 0]

Date: 10/16/2005 4:45:00 AM
Author: slightlyslack

Point taken. Still, the building's closure to the street is probably less of a reflection on the 'starchitect' than on the 'defensible space' obsession of a city government that would approve such a design.

quote>

Now that's a theory I'll get behind.

Related: why is it that the same Republican voters who advocate such a muscular foreign policy can such craven pansies in the face of crime at home? Gated communities, high fences, enclosed shopping malls, hotels and office towers that are nearly impossible to enter at street level--these do not reflect very well on the courage of the people demanding them.

quote>

If you frequent any left-wing/Democratic blogs (like DailyKos.com), then you are no doubt familiar with the pejorative 101st Fighting Keyboardists. The sorry truth is that Republican voters (for the most part) aren't any tougher than anyone else. In fact, they're terrified of everything. Sex, crime, drugs, terrorism, non-Christian religions, walkable cities, you name it. They advocate strong stances on everything and then hide behind walls, gates, SUVs and ideologies of hate to protect themselves. But I have a feeling that question was rhetorical.

I guess we can look forward to the coming energy crises with the delightful knowledge that a huge percentage of the American population will respond only with panic and reactionary hatred. Yay.



But, to stay on topic (let's not get too political here), I'll mention again Frank Gehry and Los Angeles. No other American city better illustrates our current fixation with security than L.A., and no other architect has done more to promote that fixation than Frank Gehry. Maybe he's not quite that bad anymore, but for most of the 1970s and 1980s, he was obsessed with enclosed spaces and stylistic fortifications. Mike Davis discusses this at length in his moderately excellent City of Quartz.

[slightlyslack 20]

Davis is insightful on a lot of things, especially on race relations, but his characterization of downtown Los Angeles as some sort of fortress is faintly ridiculous.  If Bunker Hill business interests wanted so badly to keep out black and brown undesirables, why did they get behind a rail system that funnels tens of thousands of them into the CBD every day?  Now, the residential towers in the area and the Westin Bonaventure hotel can accurately be categorized as impenetrable, but those were never more than a footnote in the grand scheme of things.

 

Still, once you get outside of downtown it is clear that this is a security-obsessed city, which has led to some absurdities.  You will not find any other American city with so many private security cars on the streets, representing tens of millions of dollars a year in expenditures--money out of the pockets of people whose property tax-fuelled temper tantrum in 1978 led to a 20% reduction in the size of the intentionally skeleton-crewed LAPD.  It would not be a stretch to say that Prop 13 and its after-effects returned Los Angeles to its roots as a Latin American city--one in which the language of the elite is English and not high castellano, but a Latin American city nonetheless, with all that implies.

[louisville327 0]

It's been a few days since I last made a post in anger, so take this as an effort to catch up.

The most recent Starchitectural design to invoke my wrath is this priceless gem:



The monstrosity, designed by Sejima + Nishizawa/SANAA of Tokyo, is an eyesore of epic proportions. Why is it so hard for architects to build structures with straight lines? Why does creativity and uniqueness always demand disproportioned asymmetry?



(And apparently, the building will serve only ghosts.)

Naturally, people like Lisa Chamberlain of Polis are lapping it up. She says, regarding the awkward design to be located in the Bowery 'hood of Manhattan:

With all the scary condo buildings going up around there, this promises to be a lovely antidote.

Is she on crack?

I think she is letting her support for the use (as a museum, rather than a scary condo) trump her ability to recognize an ugly building. Or maybe she honestly likes it. Stranger things have happened...

[GAT-X105 3]

The Bowery?
The Bowery.

wow. WOW. On a street of busted old brownstones, you put that weird thing. It doesn't even look like a building, it looks like a bunch of ice cubes on top of each other.

OK, that thing is just butt-ugly. And it will look even worse next to all the old, old, old stuff in the neighborhood.

[Jasoncw 11,940]

I like this building, but it isn't as radical as the others posted.  It looks like the brown building and the blue building are the same building.  I might like each one better if they were seperated.  It reminds me of that building in Hong Kong (bank of china tower, I think it got renamed though), but I like this one better.

 

I think it's interesting that some of these buildings are seen as creative, yet literaly anyone could design them.  The designs look like the creations of people who are new with 3-d programs.  hmmm, create cube, another cube, another cube, create sphere.  I wan't to experiment with some modifiers...  Then that file gets sent over to get built in real life and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between it, and something by these other architects.  But I do think that in reality, most common people dislike this sort of architecture.

 

That building in centeral park really is fantastic.  It is very practical and functional: big windows, balconies, cubic rooms (how are you supposed to put furniture against a wavy wall?) it blends in with it's surroundings, and looks new.  You could mistake it for an old building at a quick glance or a new one at a quick glance.  I think it could use big windows on the ground floor, and maybe a resturaunt and a cafe on the ground level.

 

http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/3594/bannana2pr.jpg align=baseline border=2>

I propose Banana Tower.  Its fruity elegance and its bold yellow statement make it a residential tower unlike any New York has ever seen.

 

But the real thing isn't too bad.  I really like the idea of having those open terraces (although I'd never go near the ledge).  But the overall design is too much.  Plus, although I'm sure it's structuraly safe, it looks flimsy.  I like the idea of moving architecture foward while improving functionality, but I don't think this building is neccecarly the answer.

[louisville327 0]

Date: 10/20/2005 12:55:36 AM
Author: Jasoncw

I propose Banana Tower. Its fruity elegance and its bold yellow statement make it a residential tower unlike any New York has ever seen.

quote>

Amazing. That building makes a true statement about New York City's devotion to potassium intake, and nothing says balanced meal quite like Banana Tower. It's a phenomenal design. Truly breathtaking. A work of genius and a fine addition to the downtown skyline.

[Hanson784 165]

That Banana Plopped Downtown looks better than Calatrava's building.

And as for the Sejima lego building in the Bowery, it needs to be taken back to Japan. Where the heck are the windows!? And yes louisville327, Lisa Chamberlain is on crack, LOTS of it. She was probably doing a little sniffy sniffy when she made that comment. Oh, Brownstones and post war condos; scary stuff indeed..

It really kills me to see this junk going up in my city and ruining the cityscape.

[rp2005 165]

Date: 10/12/2005 3:33:57 PM Author: louisville327

I find it disturbingly ironic that most grand deconstructivist and/or starchitectural projects are civic buildings: libraries, museums, city government buildings, etc.  Buildings meant for use by everyone are designed by architects with only their own personal expression in mind.    'Civic' now equals 'ego'. Some recent examples include Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim, Koolhaas' Seattle Library, Libeskind's Denver Library, Gehry's Hollywood Library Compound (all pictured above), and these: East Wing of the National Gallery Of Art in DC by I.M. Pei:  Steven Holl's expansion of the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City:  (A giant glass box sure compliments a neoclassic masterpiece!) Bellevue Art Museum in Bellevue, WA, again by Steven Holl:  Gehry's Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, MN:  Dallas City Hall by I.M. Pei:  All public buildings (according to use, not ownership), all the products of solitary, ego-driven architects with only their own self-expression in mind. 

This is an unbelievably reactionary thread.  Don't people understand that a city needs building styles that contrast with what is already there as well as those that compliment what is there.

 

Most of the reaction to sculptural or abstract buildings is because of they are too different to be accepted immediately.  But time mellows people's view of radical buildings - the Eiffel Tower and the glass pyramid at the Louvre were both hated initially, gained the affection of people and are now loved.  (a giant glass box/pyramid sure compliments a neoclassic masterpiece) - it's called contrast; it creates artistic tension and prevents the world being bland!

 

As to the reason why many of these buildings are civic projects - it's because, as has always been the case, civic projects want to make a statement, they are always intended to be more than just functional.  Look at the Victorians and their buildings for public utilities - why build a water tower that looks like a folly or a pumping station that could double as a church?!

 

Whether it's the first ever neoclassical town hall, a moghul style palace in a British coastal town or a Gehry or Libeskind museum in a former industrial town - this is architecture as art as well as engineering.  I mean why would anyone want to build a 100m cube with a hole through the centre .... think of all that wasted potential office space ...

 

Luckily there are also a few corporations with the imagination to commission something more interesting than yet another box with windows.  Thank goodness there are companies like Swiss Re (30 St mary Axe, London) and ING (ING House, Amsterdam).

 

What is the alternative, to fill our cities with dull postmodern pastiches of what is already there like that building in New York posted earlier in the thread.

 

http://inghouse.ing.com/intra/eng/buildings/images/inghouse.jpg align=baseline>

 

No thank you!  Give me architecture that tries to be different.  I want architecture that makes you feel something.  Whether I love it or hate it doesn't matter - but for God's sake make it interesting!

 

 

[louisville327 0]

Date: 10/21/2005 1:12:32 PM
Author: rp2005

This is an unbelievably reactionary thread. Don't people understand that a city needs building styles that contrast with what is already there as well as those that compliment what is there.

quote>

It's not that some of us are opposed to diversity, we're just opposed to egotistic abstractions that openly defy the patterns and traditions of the locations in which they are built simply to fulfill the egotistical needs of the architects.

Most of the reaction to sculptural or abstract buildings is because of they are too different to be accepted immediately. But time mellows people's view of radical buildings - the Eiffel Tower and the glass pyramid at the Louvre were both hated initially, gained the affection of people and are now loved. (a giant glass box/pyramid sure compliments a neoclassic masterpiece) - it's called contrast; it creates artistic tension and prevents the world being bland!

quote>

There's a notable quote from architect Leon Krier that I'll paraphrase: Buildings that get nicknames are buildings that lack dignity.

Every single building I've criticized in this thread is a building with a funny nickname (either coined here or long-standing). These buildings that you defend as noble statements of contrast do not invoke any sense of dignity or command respect---and that's not just my own personal judgement. They are merely abstract architectural gimmicks wrapped in colossal packages to inspire a brief wow and that's it. It's interesting that you cited the Louvre pyramid and the Eiffel Tower---they are both a monument who's PURPOSE is to stand out and be different. We're criticizing buildings people are supposed to actually USE on a daily basis, to live in, to interact with on a basic level.

Monuments have an important purpose. Our cities are better for having them. But continuity and cohesion are critical for everything else, for aesthetic, functional and psychological reasons. It may seem like a city full of abstract and unique structures would be cool to live in, but the reality is, it's mentally disruptive and desensitizing. I'll save the long-winded explanation for much better books that have been written on the subject.

As to the reason why many of these buildings are civic projects - it's because, as has always been the case, civic projects want to make a statement, they are always intended to be more than just functional. Look at the Victorians and their buildings for public utilities - why build a water tower that looks like a folly or a pumping station that could double as a church?!

quote>

It's called architectural continuity. Why build a condo building that looks like boxes on toothpicks? At least a folly and a church follow a specific and traditional vernacular.

Luckily there are also a few corporations with the imagination to commission something more interesting than yet another box with windows. Thank goodness there are companies like Swiss Re (30 St mary Axe, London) and ING (ING House, Amsterdam).

quote>

I certainly agree with you here. Nobody is arguing in favor of the modernist giant rectangles so often nick-named, like the Seagram Building (Black Rock) in New York City.

What is the alternative, to fill our cities with dull postmodern pastiches of what is already there like that building in New York posted earlier in the thread.

quote>

One man's dull is another man's timeless. One man's abstract colossus is still another man's abstract colossus.

What I want to know is why it has to be all one or the other. If buildings are built following traditional models of excellence, they're called boring by people like you, but why does the alternative to traditional excellence have to be abstract monstrosity?

quote>

And finally, all I want to know is why every single unique and creative architectural joke has to look like a crashed spaceship? What is this obsession with crashed spaceships?!

[rp2005 165]

Date: 10/21/2005 1:56:25 PM Author: louisville327 It's not that some of us are opposed to diversity, we're just opposed to egotistic abstractions that openly defy the patterns and traditions of the locations in which they are built simply to fulfill the egotistical needs of the architects.

 

 

 

Who cares what a particular architect's motivation is?   What matters is the end result.  Most of the buildings being derided in this thread will, in 5 or 10 years be an accepted part of the cityscape.  People take a while to adjust to radical design shifts. 

 

Design shifts come through evolution and through revolution, the latter is always going to be seen as defying existing traditions.  But for every 'starchitecht' are hundreds of jobbing architects who will take elements of old and new, backfilling the jump in styles.  But the work of architects like Gehry or Libeskind is absolutely essential to changing the language of architecture, just as Corbusier and Mies van de Rohe were in the modernist moverment.

 

We're criticizing buildings people are supposed to actually USE on a daily basis, to live in, to interact with on a basic level.

 

But the interior space and the exterior of a building are two different things - a radical, abstract exterior can surround the most functional of public spaces - and why shouldn't it?  Why shouldn't a building be a sculptural work of art on the outside and a library or a museum or a factory on the inside?

 

 

It's called architectural continuity.  Why build a condo building that looks like boxes on toothpicks?

 

 

Why not?!  Besides, that building is hardly that radical - it will seem a natural part of the skyline in a very short time.

 

 

Leon Krier's phrase is very quotable, but like most such things it doesn't really stand up to much scrutiny.  Buildings, like people, gain nicknames for all sorts of reasons ... mainly through having some distinctive character.

 

In terms of modern buildings The Gherkin proves that a building can be radical, characterful, functional and loved by the majority of the public.  A provocative shape does not equate to a lack of dignity.  30 St Mary Axe gained its nickname at the hands of disparaging tabloid hacks, but it's an affectionate one now.

 

 

What I want to know is why it has to be all one or the other.  If buildings are built following traditional models of excellence, they're called boring by people like you, but why does the alternative to traditional excellence have to be abstract monstrosity?

 

Most of the backward-looking architecture is nothing to do with models of excellence it's to do with feeling safe in what is known.  It's lazy.  Architecture by designers with no imagination for clients with even less.  I'm not especially attached to abstract architecture any more than I'm attach to Art Deco or modernism (both styles I love), but each age deserves to have an architectural style that identifies it and the desire by some people to simply ape what has gone before denies that possibility.

 

 

The thing is we see our cities as they are now and look at new additions from that perspective.  Anything that is very diffrent from what is already there feels radical, but the current cityscape is an accumulation of 'respectful' evolutionary change and 'defiant' revolutionary ones.  We just forget that someone else has complained about the disrespectful, egotistical buildings of the 'starchitects' of the past.

 

Take that Christopher Wren - reshaping the whole of London, what kind of ego thinks he can do that?  And don't get me started on that bloody Haussmann character .... 

 

 

 

 

Finally, as far as crashed spaceships are concerned ... in case you hadn't noticed, there are no spaceships.  Filmmakers have adopted a certain design language to portray a vision of spacecraft that is based on an extrapolation of technology and design in the transport arena.  Does that fact mean that architects (who now have materials and CAD design tools to allow them to make buildings using those same technologies) should stay away from any design that evokes images of [non-existent] spaceships?

 

 

 

[Jasoncw 11,940]

I think futuristic space-age-y architecture should be stayed away from, mostly becuase they don't age well. Look at some of the buildings from the 60's and 70's that where supposed to be space-age-y, now they're not all that great.

With some of these buildings, the shine will fade, possibly get rust on it, and it will look like a old tin can. Plus, these types of buildings ussualy don't look as good in real life as they do on the computer

I think architects should be working to evolve and expand on traditional architecture instead of trying to make something completely different.

To me some of these buildings are not that unique or creative anyways. Most of them use cliches, stereotypes, and that kind of stuff, but then claim to be groundbreaking and unique and that kind of stuff. I also don't see where some of the talent is. If you ask some random guy off the street to draw the most unique, super-modern building he possibly can, he'd draw something very similair to most of what we see. These designs don't seem to take much time either. The one building was based off a sculpture the artchitect made, and based off the design would take very little time and effort to plan. the origonal sculpture probably took more time to do, and even that probably didn't take much time either.

I don't mind the most recently posted building, except that it does look like a spaceship, or maybe some kind of robotic insect, and that makes me unable to think of it normaly. But I like it's curves and textures. I think it would loose the insect/space ship image if it was tilted vertcily, but right now I think it would work well as a monorail station with some modification.

I have a few ideas for a building that would make it beautiful, unique, modern, but still comfortably traditional. I'd BAT it, but since most of the details would be too small (since it would be built on a human level, not a sim city level), and many of the details are for the interior of the building, I think they'd get lost. When I get access to nice 3-d software and I get some skills I'll definitly make it and show screenshots of it, but that probably won't be for a while.

[louisville327 0]

Date: 10/21/2005 3:20:46 PM
Author: rp2005
Who cares what a particular architect's motivation is? What matters is the end result. Most of the buildings being derided in this thread will, in 5 or 10 years be an accepted part of the cityscape. People take a while to adjust to radical design shifts.

quote>

I agree that the end result matters, and the vast majority of starchitecture now being produced will be as fleeting and forgotten as the whims upon which they were built.

Design shifts come through evolution and through revolution, the latter is always going to be seen as defying existing traditions. But for every 'starchitecht' are hundreds of jobbing architects who will take elements of old and new, backfilling the jump in styles. But the work of architects like Gehry or Libeskind is absolutely essential to changing the language of architecture, just as Corbusier and Mies van de Rohe were in the modernist moverment.

quote>

And what happened to the modernist movement? It was abandoned! You know what they do with Corbusier-inspired towers in the park? They demolish them! The single worst influence on American public housing policy was Corbusier, and now giant housing project towers are being taken down in every city in which they were built---now reviled as dangerous, denigrating and demoralizing to the inhabitants.

But the interior space and the exterior of a building are two different things - a radical, abstract exterior can surround the most functional of public spaces - and why shouldn't it? Why shouldn't a building be a sculptural work of art on the outside and a library or a museum or a factory on the inside?

quote>

Speaking of libraries and factories, let's examine this theory of yours:

For instance, let's use the Seattle Library by Koolhaas as a prime example of starchitect interior disasters:


Nothing says read a book in comfort like a giant steel and glass bee hive.


This sure is a comfortable tomb we're in.


It's good to know those two tiny pillars are all that's holding up that giant wall of glass death. At least, that's what it looks like.


I've always wanted to read a book sitting in a drainage culvert.


Koolhaas got his inspiration for the reception orifice from the blood elevator in The Shining, apparently.


And what says library better than an auto plant assembly line?

So on the outside you have a giant metal monster, and on the inside, a disorienting, cold and metal auto plant. Unique! Creative!

Leon Krier's phrase is very quotable, but like most such things it doesn't really stand up to much scrutiny. Buildings, like people, gain nicknames for all sorts of reasons ... mainly through having some distinctive character.

quote>

The Chrysler Building is one of the most distinctive buildings ever built, and it's still called The Chrysler Building. That's a sign of respect and grace. An item of distinction can be good OR bad, but does not have value simply because it is distinct.

Most of the backward-looking architecture is nothing to do with 'models of excellence' it's to do with feeling safe in what is known. It's lazy. Architecture by designers with no imagination for clients with even less. I'm not especially attached to abstract architecture any more than I'm attach to Art Deco or modernism (both styles I love), but each age deserves to have an architectural style that identifies it and the desire by some people to simply ape what has gone before denies that possibility.

quote>

There's a vast difference between aping a past trend and following basic, proven styles and forms. It is indicative of your post-modern bias that anything that looks like something older/traditional is automatically posing, rather than affirming an acknowledged good.

Ultimately, this whole argument boils down to personal preference. We could argue all day long and it wouldn't change each other's minds. While I don't share your viciously relative view that anything that's cool right now is ultimately good, I appreciate your well-written and articulate responses. It's nice to find people with more to say than Look! Wavy lines! Cool!

[louisville327 0]

Date: 10/21/2005 3:20:46 PM
Author: rp2005
Finally, as far as crashed spaceships are concerned ... in case you hadn't noticed, there are no spaceships. Filmmakers have adopted a certain design language to portray a vision of spacecraft that is based on an extrapolation of technology and design in the transport arena.

quote>

Thanks, smart-@ss, but I understand the concept of spaceship as a cultural/technological icon. You don't have to explain it to me.

What you do have to explain is why great architectural firms like ING keep building them:

Does that fact mean that architects (who now have materials and CAD design tools to allow them to make buildings using those same technologies) should stay away from any design that evokes images of [non-existent] spaceships?

quote>

Yes. It means they shouldn't build giant SPACESHIPS and call them buildings. That's what Disney does to entertain 5 year-olds.

[hdorriker 190]

I happen to like spaceship buildings. In fact, I absolutely adore them. I think we need more of them because they break up the monotony that happens when everything tries to look like everything else. The argument that there are no more trully new styles left to invent is a not so much a scientific argument as it is a self-fulfilling prophesy. If nobody tries anything new, nothing new comes along and architecture becomes a dead art.

Which is why I think we need the spaceship buildings of the modernist era, and why we need some experimentation out there.

Even if some of the experimentation sucks, some of it is bound to turn out some good original material.

I don't mean to say that we should just abandon history. Because we shouldn't. But we also shouldn't sell ourselves short of originality and just give up and follow a fatalistic philospohy that this is trully the end of architecture as a living and changing art.

I think people's tastes will change with time as well (as history has shown). I doubt space-ship buildings will ever become very mainstream, but I'm absolutely certain that Pastichey Italian refference (that is presently ubiquitous in commercial vernacular architecture) will go the way of the Greek revival back in the 1890's. Where people just get plain tired of seeing it everywhere. I think the more European-style Postmodernism (often utilized in the newest of new-urbanist developments) will become more mainstream because it offers something that the old mainstream, simplified-pastiche postmodernism doesn't: Character.

[AgentUhOh7 10]

As far as the spaceship-looking buildings goes, I know the real truth behind the sudden influx of such structures. See, it's to prepare for the Exodus. You know, the secret of SimEarth?

[slightlyslack 20]

I must say, louisville327, that your Kunstlerian invective is getting wearisome.  JHK's incredibly arrogant writing style has done more harm to New Urbanism than a thousand pages of screeds in Reason.

[toxicpiano 125]

I think these to buildings have to extremes, some are really beautiful and others, and horifically extreme. there does not appear in my opinion to be a medium, a reasonable vote.

[louisville327 0]

Date: 10/22/2005 7:44:27 AM
Author: slightlyslack
I must say, louisville327, that your Kunstlerian invective is getting wearisome. JHK's incredibly arrogant writing style has done more harm to New Urbanism than a thousand pages of screeds in Reason.

quote>

slightlyslack: I'm not sure I'd call my postings here an invective, since I'm not really being very abusive. Sarcastic and denunciatory, sure, but not abusive.

But, semantics aside, I value your opinions greatly and enjoy reading your insightful posts. If I'm boring you with my presentation style, you'll have to accept my apology. My preference for sarcasm is something I just can't subdue.

As for Kunstler's value as a standard-bearer, that's open to interpretation. I'd argue he's converted as many people as he's turned off, but I've only got personal experience to back that up. If you know for certain that Kunstler has damaged New Urbanism, I'd love some examples.

Once again, sorry if I'm wearisome---I'm often weary myself when I get around to posting here.

[Bank 0]

You know you're in a goofy position when your argument against the starchitects boils down to attacking 'egotism'.

[louisville327 0]

Date: 10/22/2005 2:29:12 PM
Author: Bank
You know you're in a goofy position when your argument against the starchitects boils down to attacking 'egotism'.

quote>

Who's argument boils down to that? That's just one aspect of mine. You'd have to ignore all the poor design and shoddy construction for starchitecture to be bad just because it's ego-driven.

That said, why, specifically, is an argument against run-amok egotism and celebrity worship so goofy? I'm interested.

[Bank 0]

Lots of reasons. It's pop psychology, at best.