Books Yet To Be Written?

On September 23, 2017 I will be in Chicago for one of the most important conferences on architecture in a long time. The Driehaus Foundation presents “Architecture as Experience: Human Perception of the Built Environment.” A competing symposium that Saturday at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York is entitled “Architecture Books/Yet To Be Written/1982-2017-2052.” Except for the weird punctuation, what distinguishes the New York conference from the Chicago one?

The lecturers in Chicago are interested in neuroscience and its contribution to our understanding of how humans react to the built environment. The “seminal” thinkers in New York are interested in rehashing old Post-Structuralist ideas about “the text” and how meaning in architecture is slippery and co-opted by power elites. So, our New York hipsters are discussing how to write more “texts” about architecture without designing any buildings that people might enjoy or use. Yes, the book killed the building a long time ago in New York. But you can bet that none of the people at the Storefront for Art and Architecture will write anything significant about architecture before 2052. They are the real power elites and a counter-revolution is brewing.

On the other hand, the people in Chicago will be talking about really interesting and significant ideas in science and the humanities that could change everything we do as architects long before 2052. So much has been learned about the brain during the past 25 years that people in the design professions can use that we are being overwhelmed with information. We need to listen to the neuroscientists and counterculture folks (yes, in California, Arizona, Oregon) who are in touch with this stuff. Apparently New Yorkers are too focused on their navels to notice.

Look for my upcoming editorial in The Architect’s Newspaper on this topic. Don’t bother with the New York hipsters.

 

A Virgin Chartres?

From Wikipedia Commons

In yesterday’s New York Times: critics of the restoration of Chartres Cathedral wanted the “Black Virgin” de-restored. The original title of the sculpture was “the White Virgin.” It was painted black during the nineteenth century.

Memories are fickle. Once a couple of generations remove us from the origins of a building or place, we create traditions based upon new versions. The reverence for a blackened medieval icon like Chartres, or some of London’s City Churches, stems from their grimy condition following centuries of smoke-filled environments. Cleaning a building is usually good, as acids and other agents of deterioration take their toll by eroding limestone. When cleaned, the stone looks “new” but it remains in its original molded form.

Though John Ruskin would prefer to see buildings revert to nature as ruins, tourists and art history buffs want to visit the world’s cultural treasures and see them in a unified state of conservation. Today the Sistine Chapel is as popular as ever, despite protests by purists who wanted more “sfumato” in the paint. Chartes Cathedral was carved in beautiful, light colored French limestone, and we can now see what its first visitors saw.

Renovation Gets Its Due

I opened the latest edition of Architect, the AIA magazine, today and nearly fell off my chair. Not only did Paul R. Williams receive the Gold Medal (posthumously), but several re-use, conservation and renovation projects won Institute Honor Awards.  Something good is happening to our profession (at long last). One of America’s pioneering African American architects was honored, decades after his death. Even better, many awards went to firms not previously seen in the publication, or known to me.

It was probably also significant that this year’s awards jury was not stuffed with academic architects, or Starchitects, or other darlings of the media. There was even a professional working for a local school district (Pocantico Hills near New York City). The projects were in places you might want to visit, but were otherwise not familiar, like Hutto, Texas. Two of the awards went to firms working to conserve landmark buildings: one by Lou Kahn and one by Paul Rudolph.

Acknowledging the vital role of re-use and conservation was a major step toward understanding the complex problem of sustainability on our beleaguered planet. It looks as if the Institute is finally waking up. Time to smell the Grande Mocha Soy-milk Macchiato.

 

The other Robert Adam (and a James who isn’t Henry)

Last month the Driehaus Foundation in Chicago awarded its coveted $100,000 annual prize for traditional architecture to an English architect who should be familiar to everyone. No, it wasn’t a posthumous award to an 18th century Scottish designer of buildings, furniture and decorative art. This Robert Adam is very much alive, and has been practicing in London for decades.

I met Robert about 20 years ago in New York, and have followed his career with interest since then. He is an affable, lively and intelligent man with wide-ranging interests beyond architecture and the environment. He is also active in the RIBA, pressing for more recognition of traditional architecture in Europe. No one could be more deserving of the prestigious Driehaus Prize.

The foundation also gives its Henry Hope Reed Award to a distinguished non-architect. This year that honor went (posthumously) to one of the giants of American letters: James S. Ackerman of Harvard. During his long career Ackerman virtually defined the architectural history profession for fellow Americans. He wrote books on Palladio,  Michelangelo and the Villa, and hundreds of influential articles on many subjects.

These two men have inspired classicists and non-classicists with their humanism and broad world view. If the AIA and other establishment organizations had the same pluralistic outlook we might have a positive discourse on the future of the design professions; yet, we remain mired in a bog of misunderstanding about the future of “modernism” and the avant-garde.

Selfie Architecture

In the world of starchitects and big budget projects it seems that “faint praise” has become something of a badge of honor. Few blockbuster buildings get more than a nod from newspapers. So when my college classmate, David Dunlap, wrote tepidly about Santiago Calatrava’s new transit hub in lower Manhattan in today’s Times, he was forced to admit that the galleria inside the building would serve as a “selfie magnet” for tourists and other curious visitors getting off the PATH lines from New Jersey. Never mind that he found the rest of the building overwrought and fraught with problems.

David writes clearly and generally with a neutral demeanor, but he has been following the Calatrava project for twelve years and knows the tribulations endured by this former Spanish superstar of the design world.  New York is a tough sell and poor Santiago has not fared well in Manhattan, especially after it was learned that his building would cost twice the budgeted amount and take seven extra hears to complete. I wrote about the project in this blog several years ago, noting some of these things.

The new shopping mall and PATH/IRT station is a needed amenity in lower Manhattan and should have been finished on time in order to maintain vital regional transit links. The fact that the Port Authority couldn’t keep its promises did not add to its already tarnished reputation. What should be noted, however, is that architecture such as this requires measured, well-planned, well-executed work by a team of experts who earn the public’s trust when they succeed.  Those who built old Penn Station, and the present Grand Central Terminal, were exemplary. Why don’t we see similar efforts today?

David Dunlap’s writing provides some answers to that question, and more should be written to probe the issue. Perhaps you’ll see more in this blog.

 

 

Goldberg and Goldberger

They obviously deserve each other. Last Sunday’s Times Book Review announced the publication of another book by the prolific Paul Goldberger, a former architecture critic for the newspaper. His subject: Frank Gehry. Probably the world’s most honored architect, and the most recognizable name among non architects, Gehry isn’t really Gehry. He’s Goldberg.

The new biography announces that Frank Goldberg elected to change his name because, planning to become famous, he wanted something a bit more distinctive. With typical aplomb he constructed his new name from the old. Goldberger appreciates that kind of chutspah: he has made a career of jumping on opportunities to increase his own brand recognition. Though he didn’t change his name to get into Yale, he cozied up to powerful New Yorkers during his years at the New York Times and is now a regular A-lister in the Hamptons and on Park Avenue. He now writes for Vanity Fair, a perfect fit for his ambitions.

Though I haven’t yet read the book, the reviewer (author of a biography of Le Corbusier) finds its analysis tepid at best. That’s not the typical description of Gehry’s work. What interests Paul G. is that Frank G. was a clever public relations maven who crafted his fame by cultivating friendships in the art world and being in Los Angeles, among movie people. In many ways Mr. Goldberg became the prototypical “Starchitect,” today’s paltry substitute for a genius like LeCorbusier. Mr. Goldberger has his sights on “Starjournalist.” H. L. Mencken would not be impressed.

LPC Saves the Frick

The Landmarks Preservation Commission was hamstrung for most of the Bloomberg administration, allowing demolitions in key neighborhoods and permitting the NYPL to embark on its ill-fated Central Library Plan. Robert Tierney became a hatchet man for the mayor, who favored development over conservation.

Bill De Blasio has given the agency more room to work, and the results are favorable so far. The best news to date came today with a decision by the Frick Collection to abandon its silly plan to demolish the Russell Page garden and erect a monstrous addition on its narrow site.

Michael Kimelmann writes in today’s Times that counter-proposals by opponents’ architects proved that the museum could achieve its goals with only a modest expansion. His criticism illuminates an issue that frequently occurs when large institutions come to the LPC: how to dissuade applicants from “supersizing” their buildings. Since bigger seems to be better these days, almost everybody wants more space on the crowded island of Manhattan.

Positive reviews of the new Whitney suggest that some museums may be right to look for real estate elsewhere in the city. Going underground is another proven strategy–the Avery Architectural Archives at Columbia has expanded twice by digging more sub-basements. Avery will also achieve its aim of housing all of the Frank Lloyd Wright archives by using multiple locations–at MOMA, on campus, and off site.

Let’s bring the LPC back into the dialogue between development interests and conservation, so that New York’s cultural institutions have a partner (not an adversary) in solving some of their very real space problems.

Pope Francis and Poverty

Pope Francis’ startling Christmas sermon to the Vatican elite has echoed across the world, bouncing from one critical listener to the next like a squash ball in a closed court. When I heard it I thought first of his courage and toughness, wondering how he would fare after the powerful and patently evil curia digested his metaphors and oblique references to their laziness and corruption. He has no fear of their power. They will fade before his visionary leadership. He had a much more ambitious goal with this humble speech to the assembled laity at St. Peter’s. He sounded the alarm to the entire world: a transformation is upon us; embrace it or get out of the way. Change is coming.

For more than a quarter century the world has needed a religious leader with the courage, moral authority and clear vision to take on the increasingly cynical power elites who have controlled political, economic, academic and theological discourse during these troubled times. When John Paul II helped to bring down the Iron Curtain Catholics cheered, but were soon disillusioned by his narrow moral vision and authoritarian tenure in Rome. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church endured its most corrosive crisis in more than a century: the cover up of priestly sexual abuses, particularly in North and South America. Reeling from this blow, Rome stumbled with Benedict, but then elected the unlikeliest candidate imaginable as his successor.

Francis, like his namesake, is a man of peace who sees the plight of the world’s poor as the inevitable result of crony capitalism, authoritarian regimes, and economic inequality. Poverty is not simply a condition of the least fortunate, but rather a pervasive moral issue for the world today. Poverty of vision, poverty of ideas, poverty of spirit, poverty of leadership. Francis called upon his flock to struggle against this pervasive abnegation in their midst. The world is listening, and his words will bring a new ethic to those who hear their truth.

Two Critics, One Literate

The English speaking world has given up on the notion that journalists should offer critical commentary on the built environment. Few periodicals or newspapers have full-time architecture critics, and the number of periodicals devoted to architecture has shrunk to a handful. Gone are the days when British and American journals competed for attention from both professional and non-professional readers–Nicholas Pevsner wrote for The Architectural Review, Lewis Mumford for The New Yorker, Ada Louise Huxtable was at The New York Times, and Charles Jencks crossed the ocean to offer his talents to London when New York no longer found him stimulating. Often the Brits seemed more trenchant and literate than the Yanks, though Progressive Architecture had the best stable of writers during the 1960s and 1970s.

That said, I find it strange and a bit disconcerting that the United Kingdom is in the same doldrums as the U.S. when it comes to real design criticism these days. Yes, Colin Amery still writes regularly for several newspapers in London, and Alain de Botton publishes witty books on houses, but there is otherwise little to celebrate in London’s contribution to the current debates about architecture and urbanism. The sorry state of affairs can be summed up in a comparison of two recent books by Gavin Stamp and Rowan Moore. The former has been at his craft for many years, the latter for a few.

Mr. Moore was trained as a architect, and has written for two London papers: The Observer and the Evening Standard. Stamp is a historian and writes a column for the elite journal, Apollo. Both are highly critical of the world as they see it today, and for somewhat similar reasons. All similarities end there.

In his book, Why We Build: Power and Desire in Architecture, Moore surveys contemporary architecture with the eye of a sometimes bemused, sometimes horrified Everyman. He takes the role of client (for a building by Zaha Hadid), user, and coddled journalist (when flying in a helicopter above Dubai’s follies). Chapters treat topics as diverse as sex in architecture, home economics, financing buildings, and the rebuilding of the World Trade Center after 9/11. Many of his rather naive observations ring true, as long as we accept a degree of detachment. Anyone with knowledge of the history and theory of architecture will find his book topical, but often trite. But he aims for a lay audience, writing prose that might attract the attention of tabloid readers.

There is nothing wrong with standing with the masses when confronting powerful interests like developers, Arab princes, and hedge fund moguls. Unfortunately, Mr. Moore’s observations and opinions spew forth like an out-of-control fire hose. His prose is no better than that of a cub TV reporter. Worse, his editors seem oblivious to numerous errors of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and fact. Clichées ring out like cell phone alarms; there are passages of embarrassing crudity.

No English architecture critic that I know of proved incapable of writing in his native language, so with Moore we have a first. How has he earned kudos from the likes of Frank Gehry, Martin Filler, and The New York Observer? How has he achieved his popularity? Most important, why does he occupy the post of critic at a major newspaper?

To Moore, cities “have always proceeded with hiccups and belches,” “symmetry, doubling and repetition are signs of might,” and Stanford White’s buildings are so animate that they can “pluck wood, stone, tapestry or carving from whatever forest, mountain or palazo they please [sic].” He cannot use one sentence when five are bouncing around in his brain.

Meanwhile, in the protected world of connoisseurs and peers Gavin Stamp continues to write short essays about the historical and contemporary built environment. His new book is called Anti-Ugly: Excursions in English Architecture and Design, a title that should have set editors’ teeth ajar.  Paradoxically, what is inside is not only literate and urbane, but also much less elitist than might be expected.

Stamp has contempt for the globalizing interests that have destroyed much of the British countryside and wreaked havoc on historic cities. He also looks critically at architectural cartoons, other writers like John Betjeman, and even at popular magazine illustrators. Refreshingly brief, his essays educate, provoke, and entertain.

But Stamp stands firmly among Britain’s intellectual and social elites, at least as he is popularly known. He can write scathingly about a darling of the conservative classicists, Quinlan Terry, but because he reveres Edwin Lutyens he will be pilloried in progressive circles. He argues for the preservation of an early Modernist building and praises Coventry Cathedral, but will be remembered for defending eccentric owners of “mock-Tudor” castles.

Which book, and which writer, will reach a larger audience? Which will sell better? It seems very likely that Mr. Moore will succeed in capturing the attention of Starchitects and powerful developers, despite his complaints. His book looks trendy and provocative. Alas, the little volume with the atrocious title won’t cause much of a splash, but anyone still looking for literate criticism will find gems between its covers.