Andres Duany, town planner extraordinaire in the New Urbanist way, was impressed by a site offering some helpful town-planning hints to the growing ranks of Occupiers, or, as they hope to come to think of themselves, Occupants. The site is here.

And what follows are a few shots of Occupy Providence, which I invaded a few moments after its opening gong, supposedly at 5, this Saturday afternoon. (Click to enlarge.)

The winners of this year's Bulfinches will be honored on Wednesday, Nov. 30 at the Massachusetts Statehouse designed by Charles Bulfinch, whose work transformed New England's capital into a city whose look would increasingly reflect its greatness. The keynote speaker this year will be Judge Douglas Woodlock, a U.S. district court judge in Boston since 1986 who helped develop design guidelines for the U.S. court system. The victorious entries will be on display in the Statehouse's Doric Hall for five days, Nov. 28-Dec. 2. To register, visit the link following your scroll through the display of the five winning entries.

Grand Prize:
Civic: Restoration of Waterbury City Hall, by DeCarol & Doll Inc. of Meriden, Conn.

Tradewood Windows & Doors

Elwin Designs

Click here to register for the November 30 Awards event.

General Eisenhower in a jeep, in Europe during World War II (From the Internet)

Frank Gehry's proposed modernist design for a memorial to Dwight David Eisenhower on the National Mall is being blasted by a well-aimed (and well-deserved) bombardment.

This summer, Gehry's proposal suffered the indignity of a design competition held to find a classical alternative -- so as to honor Eisenhower more properly. The competition basically said that it's okay to object to the design of the world's most famous architect.

Last week, the National Archives held a forum with Gehry about his design. The proposal is not his typical whirly-swirly concoction. It features a relatively staid, up-and-down set of 80-foot posts upholding metal mesh screens the size of basketball courts (wow!) to display imagery related to Eisenhower.

Still, the forum audience peppered Gehry with hostile questions. Though he is more used to being fawned over than criticized, this was no big surprise. America has a long history of honoring its heroes in a grand manner. Kicking tradition in the shins, as the Gehry design does, was sure to raise a lot of eyebrows.

But it did not end there. The National Capital Planning Commission -- which must approve the Gehry design before it is built -- has also raised some difficult questions.

The Associated Press reported "strong reservations" among commission members about the scale of the posts, and the size of the mesh screens, which could block views to and from the U.S. Department of Education, across the street, not to mention views of the U.S. Capitol down Maryland Avenue. Also noted was Gehry's apparent desire to play down Ike's military career and play up his Kansas roots. [AP's report from Washington Post is here.]

Now the Eisenhower family itself has joined the chorus of criticism. Last week, the general's three granddaughters called for a pause in the memorial's design process.

Susan Eisenhower and her sisters Anne and Mary Jean issued a statement saying that they "are concerned about the concept for the memorial, as well as the scope and scale of it. We feel that now is the time to get these elements right -- before any final design approvals are given and before any ground is broken."

I called Susan Eisenhower to ask about the statement, and she emphasized that the family is "unified" in its concerns. She sought to clarify reports that her brother, David, "supports the design." She said that he has said only that as a member of the Eisenhower Memorial Commission that is sponsoring the memorial, he "supports the work of the commission."

The Eisenhowers, whose letter thanked the Congress and the White House for honoring their grandfather, worry that the Gehry proposal, in its scale, misrepresents the essential humility of General Eisenhower.

Regarding that, Gehry says: "I've read everything I could find about him, and he kept referring to Abilene [Kansas, where the Texas-born Eisenhower was raised]. He talks about the barefoot boy who went on this odyssey."

But Gehry has overreacted, confusing a memorial that honors modesty with a modest memorial. He amended the memorial to honor Eisenhower's roots rather than the man himself or his achievements as supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II and as 34th president. Gehry has reduced the stature of the memorial without much apparent reduction in its mammoth scale.

Gehry's high-handedness was on display at the National Archives forum. From the audience, Eric Wind, chairman of the National Civic Art Society, whose competition got the critical ball rolling, asked: "How does this memorial design reflect [Eisenhower's] great deeds and his great works? I think of . . . the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument . . ."

To which Gehry replied, "The Lincoln Memorial is in the form of a Greek temple. What's that got to do with Lincoln?" Huh?! So the only proper memorial for Lincoln would be, in Gehry's opinion, what? A log cabin?

In fact, Lincoln's role as savior of the republic is perfectly reflected by his memorial's classical idiom. Classicism combines grandeur and simplicity to express the classical virtue of humility. I do not want to suggest that the Eisenhower family's concerns are identical to mine, but Eisenhower's greatness deserves the dignified representation offered by classicism.

The Washington Post's Philip Kennicott has put his finger on what Gehry wants: "To break with centuries of tradition in the aesthetics of memorialization." Gehry is not the first, only the latest architect to inflict such a break on the public -- and with the same predictable result: a negative public reaction. The public is tired of being the lab rats for modern architecture's addiction to experimentation. May the spirit of General Eisenhower put an end to that.

[The National Civic Art Society was joined by the Mid-Atlantic chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art in sponsoring the classical counter-competition.]

[In addition to the essay by Dhiru Thadani linked to from the caption of his drawing (at left), here is a fine essay by NCAS board secretary Justin Shubow, in the Daily Caller.]

David Brussat is a member of The Journal's editorial board (dbrussat@providencejournal.com). This column, with more illustrations, is on his blog Architecture Here and There at providencejournal.com.

* * *Counterproposal by Scott Collison

My last column about the Eisenhower memorial design by Frank Gehry concluded with the hope that the Eisenhower family would weigh in on the proposal. They did so last week, in a statement calling for a pause in the design process. Thursday's column will unveil the statement, and put it in context amid criticism incoming (so to speak) from mortars and bazookas positioned on various heights around the District (of Columbia).

The National Civic Art Society sponsored the alternative design competition for the memorial this summer, along with the Mid-Atlantic chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. The vital role of the NCAS in pushing back against Gehry's design continues to drive the issue.

A source who attended last Wednesday's public forum at the National Archives (lovely building!) held to discuss the design with Gehry kindly taped the event and diligently transcribed portions, and sent me the transcript. It is quite revealing, and it is here:

Introduction by General Carl W. Reddel [from the Eisenhower Memorial Commission]: ...and tonight as a result of the leadership of David Ferriero [Archivist of the U.S.], who has recognized the unique relationship between the designer of the Eisenhower Memorial and the great president that we are honoring. In a nutshell, one of the great transitional leaders in American history was Dwight David Eisenhower: Last president born in the nineteenth century, among other things, the first president to look at reconnaissance photographs taken from satellites in space that he put there. A transitional leader with many other levels, and tonight we have the privilege of hearing from another great transitional leader--in architecture. Frank Gehry, arguably, has brought the architectural profession to a whole new level of understanding of itself. For this great architect, along with his collaborator Robert Wilson, to have the opportunity to share with us the creative process which will enable and result in this great memorial.

[...]

[Introducing Gehry and Wilson] Ferriero: ... Mr. Gehry's work reflects his concern that people live comfortably in the spaces he creates. His buildings address the contexts and culture of their sites, and the budgets of their clients. ...

Collaborating with Mr. Gehry is theater [garbled] Robert Wilson. Mr. Wilson has decisively shaped the look of the theater.

He [Wilson] became a leader of Manhattan's downtown art scene, and turned his attention to large scale opera. ...

***
[Ferriero asked how Gehry and Wilson collaborated]

Gehry: I was sort of the lead in the architectural thing. ... In order to do the competition, I read everything I could [to stomach?], and realized what a great man he [Eisenhower] was. I had no idea he was great. ... It seemed to me that I needed someone who understood how to present the man, how to present him. Somebody who is an actor in his own [garbled], and knows how to develop a character. ... We've known each other a long time. He's turned out to be ten times more than what I expected or what I thought I needed, and now I know I needed in developing this scene. It is, after all, as the great Bard said, "All the world's a stage." We are creating a scene, but it's a complicated one. It's in a complicated place at a complicated time. And so it's very delicate and hopefully subtle. Hopefully in the spirit of the man--the modesty that is all over the history of this man.

[...]

Wilson: [Explaining why he chose the image of Eisenhower as a little boy] ... [searching] Eisenhower's life trying to find one point that somehow balances the span of life. Say that, a man at A, could be alive this long [spreads hands], B could be living a life that's that long [adjusts distance between hands]. And could I find this A point, in this man's life, to balance this longer lifespan? ... The beautiful thing that kept coming back is -- this man who was a general, a public man, the history of the war, peace, the president -- that throughout his life you can see the little boy in him. And that's so touching. Baudelaire said, "Genius is childhood recovered at will." ... So that became this A point.

[...]

Wilson: ... Part of the American myth is that it's simple as apple pie. Jackson Pollock painted with house paint. Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin. So this idea, the barefoot boy from Kansas ...

[...]

Gehry: And it worked with the site. When we started out, we have a bunch of complicated images. We wanted to build a tapestry. Uh, we did a lot of research in jacquard and Chuck Close is working with tapestries, and it was logical that it could be built with metal fibers. If it couldn't be done, we didn't have a Plan B. ...

And then when we realized we were 70 feet from the [U.S. Department of] Education building, and they didn't like the idea of looking into the back of a tapestry, that we had to make the tapestry transparent, which is very hard to do. You put the jacquard loom -- we managed to do it, but it lost its art and purpose and became more of a thing. And the Fine Arts Commission, one of the commissioners mentioned -- he thought we ought to stay away from making a billboard, which we all agreed. We wanted to have an artist do it, but if you ask an artist to do a tapestry like that like Chuck Close, he would select imagery, so we were stuck. We couldn't find an artist that would do it, and, lo and behold, there's a Polish fellow, an artist from Poland, that is kind of an all-purpose handyman. He's worked for [garbled]. He does construction work. But whenever I've had a problem of how to put something strange together, he always comes to the fore. And he kept saying to me, "Let me try it. Let me try it." And I said "okay," so then he made this [points to mock-up of section of the tapestry]. It's gotten much better -- this was the first try. And we studied Albrecht Dürer's drawings, and developed a language of strokes from the Dürer, and applied it to the photograph we had of Abilene [Kansas]. ...

[Showing photo of early design at the site.] We were thinking of visitors driving by. This is kind of like a theater. And maybe eventually you might find places to sit on the back of the aerospace [sic, Smithsonian's National Air & Space] museum, which is not used at all. It's a beautiful terrace that overlooks this thing. ...

And we made it to hold out the tapestry, and the engineers told me I needed a 10-foot round column to do it. So I decided at that point to make them in stone. And when we did that, it sort of clicked into Washington. I don't see it as a postmodern thing as much as a -- you know, those columns are -- I think they're bigger than the ones in the [Pension Building, site of National Building Museum] -- what do you call that building there?

In this [early] tapestry, we had VE Day -- so we covered that. We had Eisenhower in the cabinet. We had Eisenhower fixing a fence post. And we had talked about making reliefs, stone reliefs. I was hoping they would get as good as the [ancient] Greek Phidias sculptures. So that's the dream. ...

As we proceeded, we pulled in the tapestry quite a bit on each corner, so that you can see the Education building from Independence Avenue. ...

They sort of create the space because the [surrounding] buildings are very different designs. Some people don't like 'em. ...

When Bob came in with the Abilene picture, we realized this is an incredible fortuitous image from a functional standpoint since it allowed the most open space in the sky, so we could make it transparent ... It wasn't bombastic, overpowering, beating-your-chest Eisenhower. To bring in this Midwestern theme. ... I don't think there's a Midwest representation of the Midwest, and there's a lot of people out there.

[...]

[Referring to landscaping] In the summer, there are trees with leaves. Unfortunately, we can't put leaves on the tapestry. So it becomes a big park, a garden, where people can come and relax. They're not being pummeled with information. It's very subtle. And the tapestry turned out to be a lot more transparent than we thought. ...

[Referring to the "cartway" between the landscaped trees] There's one like it at Princeton. [Showing the photo from Princeton] I think this is called "Einstein Walk."

[...]

The final image [for the tapestry] -- Bob and I will go to Abilene and take a picture. ...

[Referring to the man making the tapestry] We've pushed him hard to make it look like a tree, but I think we pushed him too hard. We want it to be a little bit more artful. ...

It's going to be very subtle, it's going to be very quiet. It's going to say "Abilene," but it's not going to hit you over the head with it. ...

[...]

Wilson: You know I work in the theater, and it's a little bit like a theatrical scrim, which I've used in ... various productions. So this gauze, this tapestry, transparent tapestry. ...

[Referring to the image of the barefoot boy] It's probably not something that is the big headline of what you know of Eisenhower. ... But it was the one point we kept coming back to, the scene for me.

I made a work early in my career called "The Life and Times of Sigmund Freud," and reading about Freud, I read something that when he was 68, his grandson Heinerlie died. He said something within him passed away forever. And he said years later in one anecdote, he said, "I never overcame the death of Heinerlie, this eight-year-old boy." And it was in that year that Freud developed cancer. And it was just this little thing that kept coming back in my mind. Freud is so much discussed in history books, but he seemed to be really that Point A to balance with his life and times. And so this man who was a giant in so many ways was just a simple boy. I think it's a poetic way of looking at things. ... The barefoot boy in Kansas.

Gehry: [Referring to the statue of Eisenhower as a barefoot boy.] And it will be life-size, I think, it'll be sitting on a wall. ... And now we've got to figure out how to talk about him as a president and a soldier. And we're trying not to make it an episodic thing like the [recent Franklin D.] Roosevelt Memorial. ...

[...]

Gehry: [Responding to Ferrieo's question about what it was like to work with the federal government.] I loved the first meeting -- a lady brought in a little time clock. And it went off in an hour and she just got up and left. [big audience laughter]

[...]

[Chairman of the Eisenhower Memorial Commission] Rocco [Siciliano] himself was Eisenhower's chief of staff when Eisenhower was president [ed.: not true]. At least he has the sense of what he did and what's going on. I think mostly we've had good vibes from people. ... We're not trying to jam something down people's throats. We're trying to make something that's lasting, that's in essence, that represents this man's character. And I think we're honing in on getting there. ...

We will tell those two stories [Ike as president and soldier], we will, we're not going to ignore them. ...

Wilson: The strength is -- there's nothing more beautiful than an empty room or an empty space. They say the best architecture is -- forgive me Frank --i s no architecture. [ed.: this is a reference to a line from Aaron Betsky, the "architectural queer theorist"] That's the beauty of this idea, that it's space. It's so much needed. It's not another blockbuster building. ...

[...]

Ferriero: Frank, you've described this project as an emotional portrait of Dwight Eisenhower using the power of architecture, landscape and visual art to tell this man's story, to represent his strength and values, and at the same time paying attention to the balance between respectful and boring.

Gehry: Well, it's hard to comment on that. I think expressing the man is not boring, and if we do it right, it will resonate.

Wilson: The history books record him as a certain way, but this is something that I think will be a backdrop in multiple ways.

Gehry: I think there are people that think this is too big a space for Eisenhower. He wasn't as important as that space is. Why does he have a space that's bigger than somebody else? He doesn't. He's gonna have a little plank, for a little boy. This is an image that's going to contextualize and modify the location so it can accept that little frontispiece and not get lost in the hubbub of the city. I think it's going to be very modest.

[...]

Ferriero: So this is still very much a work in progress.

Gehry: We're getting close. And, you know, we have budget and technical stuff. ...

We're pretty close to our budget. The maintenance part of this is very carefully thought out. We're doing tests on the tapestry to ensure it will last at least 200 years. But you see it's pretty simple, you can just spray and clean it. I don't think things are going to grow in it.

[...]

[Referring to tests of the tapestry] Tomas [the tapestry artist] made a face of Eisenhower's eyes in that material, and it's recognizable. So if we wanted to put figures -- we don't -- but if we wanted to, if it became an issue, we're able to do it.

[...]

Ferriero: ... Is there a particular memorial that you think is good?

Gehry: Lincoln.

Wilson: Absolutely, and Washington.

Gehry: And, uh, Maya Lin. [ed.: note he doesn't say the name of the memorial or what it's supposed to memorialize]

Wilson: Beautiful, what Maya did.

Gehry: She was my student, so I'm kind of biased. [audience laughter]

[...]

***

First Questioner: So you may not remember this, but about three or four years ago in The Washington Post, there was this incredible photo of Robert Todd Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial when it first opened. And I would give serious money to find out what he was thinking. And so my question is: What kind of role did the descendants play in your analysis? His descendants: the grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Gehry: Uh, well, we've met with them. [audience laughter] Uh, they've been cordial, they have their opinions -- uh, they're strong. Uh, we've listened to them. I think that when we say we're finished, they'll realize that it wasn't [garbled]. Right now, the idea is the question about we have any stone dealing with the president and the military. So, everybody involved is questioning how you're gonna do that. And I'm questioning it myself. But we're getting there.

[NCAS Secretary Justin] Shubow: Mr. Gehry, previously you've been quite forthright publicly about your design philosophy. If I may quote something you've previously said: "Life is chaotic, dangerous, and surprising. Buildings should reflect that."

Likewise, while speaking of your thoughts for the Stata Center, you said, "I think of this in terms of controlled chaos. I always relate it to democracy. Democracy is pluralism, the collision of ideas. Our cities are built on a collision of thought. Look out there. There is a building by I. M. Pei, there is a bridge, there is that huge hunk in the distance. If it wasn't for democracy it would all look like one thing."

Given your stated predilection for chaos and danger in architecture, is this project a continuation of that or is it a departure? And, moreover, did you explain your design philosophy while applying to the Commission?

[Laughter and a tiny bit of applause.]

Gehry: You know, it's like you take -- I got a nose hair, if you wanna -- I don't remember the context of that talk. I was probably talking to a bunch of students, who are not, who are afraid, and I usually try to say that, um, the chaos of the world is a fact, and recently it's gotten to be more of a fact. And, um, how do you build what's in that. If I'm building a city in the 19th century or the 18th century, I have a format. The cities of Europe have six- or seven-storey buildings lining the streets. They're all similar. They're, they're -- they create a quite beautiful city.

In the democratic world, which I don't want to give up, believe me, everybody has their right to build what they want so long as they live within the zoning codes.

Shubow: Does that include Washington, D.C., and the McMillan Plan? Anything you want, no matter what if it's a big hunk?

Gehry: What?

Shubow: Does it matter that there's stylistic harmony within Washington, D.C.?

Gehry: Yeah, I know. [pause] I'm not talking about Washington.

Shubow: This is where the memorial is going to be built.

Gehry: [Pointing to the photo projection of his latest design] You think this is chaotic?

Shubow: Uh, well, I happen to think that the giant screen represents winter, permanent winter -- trees without leaves. It represents death and nihilism -- in the same way that I see your black t-shirt [referring to his attire], much beloved by downtown hipsters and nihilists everywhere -- and it's a total rejection of the past and tradition and, honestly, of everything that Eisenhower himself stood for.

[Applause and nervous laughter; Gehry said nothing.]

[NCAS Chairman Eric] Wind: Hi, uh, Mr. Gehry, thanks for coming to speak with us. [big laughter]

I just wanted -- a certain analogy popped into my head as we were while watching this, watching your explanation. I don't know if you're familiar with the story "The Emperor Has No Clothes," but they're weaving together invisible clothes and a little barefoot boy says, "The emperor has no clothes." And I just think, you said it's not very postmodern what you're doing, but it seems to strike me as very postmodern.

I don't know if you're familiar with C.S. Lewis and the Space Trilogy. In that age, they have metal trees -- they no longer have real trees -- metal birds, and in a place where there is a huge amount of space you can use real trees and you do use real trees, why do you think of making metal trees and doing something that seems so ridiculous? It seems to me like the emperor has no clothes. How is this a memorial reflecting his great deeds and his great works? I think of, as you said, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, things that are so striking in that they honor these great men, and this just seems to me --

Gehry: Do you have more?

Wind: Uh, that's it.

Gehry: Um, the Lincoln Memorial is in the form of a Greek Temple. What's that got to do with Lincoln?

Wind: I think my mic -- okay, it's on. The deeper symbolism, as they said, in the hearts of our nation -- these principles, which are classical, last forever.

Gehry: Okay, Okay. So in our nation, in our history, world history, the tapestries have been used to tell stories throughout the world. Raphael--

Wind: I find you saying this is a tapestry a little bit ridiculous. It's just metal. I don't call that a tapestry. But I guess it's [recording hard to make out]. Thank you.

The photo above was taken of Dwight David Eisenhower (center, with legs spread) when he was 17, and may represent the only image of the great general, president and patriot on the memorial proposed for Washington's National Mall by Frank Gehry.

The National Archives last Wednesday hosted a public discussion of the Gehry design. The public reaction was negative. The meeting also revealed the existence of a letter of concern regarding the design, including a call for a pause in the design process, from three of General Eisenhower's granddaughters, who have followed the design process closely.

The letter has not been made public, and has been seen, apparently, only by the Eisenhower Memorial Committee overseeing the design work and by Philip Kennicott, an architectural writer for The Washington Post, whose report on the meeting is here.

I am trying to find out what's in that letter.

I wrote a column on this issue last July in which I asked whether the general's family would make known their feelings about the Gehry proposal. This was after the winners of a alternative design competition sponsored by the National Civic Art Society were announced. Read it here. The NCAS is leading the fight against the Gehry proposal. The NCAS believes as I do that such a "memorial" would do little to honor Eisenhower.

Below is the latest proposed design by Gehry for the memorial.

Below is one of the alternative designs sponsored by the NCAS, by Michael Franck and Rodney Mims Cook.

This essay by Nikos Salingaros and Michael Mehaffy explains why modern architects might as well not have ears, let alone eyes - eyes they definitely do not have - and what is to be done about it. Click the link here.

Here is the summary of what they have written:

We highlight a little-understood cognitive phenomenon that may play a key role in the maladaptive failures of the modern human environment. There are implications for our future ability to integrate built environments into sustainable ecosystems. By discussing vision we mean how architects interpret what they see in front of them, not the brave new world they envision populated with their own designs.

Yes, that sounds dry and academic, but don't be fooled. Their essay packs a punch, and its punch is backed by science.

Kudos to Ross Douthat for noticing the difference between beauty and ugliness. His remarks about new urbanism suggest, however, that he doesn't recognize the difference between the future and "the future," or have much of interest to say about yesterday, today or tomorrow. Notiwthstanding Steve Jobs's excellent sense of design, there are more ways than one to move forward.

One is novelty for novelty's sake, which most architects, artists and other designers like to think they practice. Most architects are not Jobsian geniuses, however, and so their "novelty" generally is some form of copying the more recent past. The neo-Corbu, the contemporary Mies, the Brutalist revival, the proto-Eismanesque and the thousand-and-one ways to twist Gehry come to mind. In short, most modernists copy the past and are either too shallow to recognize it or too arrogant to imagine that any critic will call them out.

Another way to move forward is to embrace the lessons of the past. But criticizing tradition remains the hypocrisy that dare not speak its name.

Does new urbanism "save the row houses of yesterday without building the neighborhoods of tomorrow"? Douthat is way off the mark. Sure, some are suburban enclaves without any genuine walkability. But even some of those are no worse than collections of market tested traditional houses. Some traditional developments merely steal the label of new urbanism. The movement has grown popular throughout the country because new urbanism at least tries to embrace the sense of beauty Americans still pine for. In doing so, it picks up the evolution of place making where it was cut off. It moves neighborhoods back to the future, reclaiming and reviving the traditions of civic design that were once in the American bone, proud adaptations of the village and town concepts our forefathers brought from Europe.

Though most critics haven't noticed, the new World War II Memorial on the Mall embraces the stripped classicism of the Works Projects Administration. It has not Speer but FDR in its lineage. That's why it's rung a chord with so many WWII vets. It has the audacity to look like a monument!

The one thing you can criticize without hazard today is tradition. Critics of tradition carry a "get out of jail free" card. They have total immunity to spout whatever nonsense they want in denouncing attempts by designers in every field to learn from the past - which is really the only place that has anything to teach us, however absurdly many pontificos corkscrew reality in resisting that truth.

The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art and the architecture schools at Notre Dame and University of Miami will host a conference Nov. 11-12 on the brief "period" of architecture known as postmodernism. Participants include Tom Wolfe, Robert A.M. Stern, Andres Duany, Michael Graves, Stanley Tigerman, Witold Rybczynski, Robert Adam, Thomas Gordon Smith, Vincent Scully, Paul Goldberger, Robert Campbell, Charles Jencks and Demetri Porphyrios.

Many other heavy hitters are among the speakers and panelists; these are only those whose names are most likely to be recognized by readers of this blog, and the list includes not a few who are generally unfriendly to the idea of contemporary classicism. The cost of such a conference, to be held at the City University of New York, must be astronomical. Can there be a reason for the choice of subject that might justify the outlay?

I could think of a hundred more useful topics. Why not a conference examining the future of contemporary classicism and strategies for promoting it? Why not a conference examining the growing scientific evidence for biological reasons why human intuition seems to prefer classicism to modernism? Why not a conference examining why so many schools of architecture, architectural historians, historical preservationists and architecture critics are hostile to any classical revival? Or, indeed, why not a conference examining soffits?

Postmodernism in architecture is widely considered a reaction against modern architecture. I've long considered it a strategic retreat by modernists - a sort of rear-guard action that briefly, and with a wink, permitted classical ornament on modernist boxes in order to fend off the baying masses - popular and professional - who were getting tired of boring, sterile "old" modernism. As we have seen to our sorrow, this strategic retreat was remarkably successful.

(Michael Graves's Portland Building, a model of which is at left, is typical of postmodernism.)

Still, there are those who say that without postmodernism, contemporary classicism would not have made the progress it has today. That's debatable. Indeed, without postmodernism, the pressure building up against modernism might have caused the whole boiler to explode, forcing an aesthetically, historically, intellectually and morally insupportable institution to be jettisoned altogether by society - much as Communism and National Socialism were after their cataclysmic failures. We might instead have embraced the old tried and true, traditional classicism. Modern architecture may not have murdered millions, but its inimical influence on cities, the built environment and the way humans live cannot be denied, and traditional architecture was the most logical alternative to the failed experiment.

In any event, postmodern buildings merely added to the sort of confusion and anomie that 30 years of modernism had already instilled in the public mind about architecture. It's unlikely that a conference designed to "understand" postmodernist architecture will do anything to undo that legacy. And it's difficult to imagine any participant emerging from the conference believing anything other than what he or she believed going in - if anyone really knows what, in all honesty, he or she thought about postmodernism going in.

Bob Stern is involved in this conference, and his relationship to postmodernism's past is well known, if not always well understood. He came up spending time with the iconic postmodernist (among other things) Philip Johnson, whose AT&T Building stands atop this post. It has always been among my favorite postmodern buildings - a collection as small as that of my favorite modernist buildings - but its relative lack of incoherence undermines its status as an icon of postmodernism.

Perhaps, in the end, the conference will somehow help promote contemporary classicism and those who favor new architecture that builds upon the traditions interrupted by modernism - and mocked by postmodernism as part of its successful attempt to ensure that the reaction against modernism would not be a resumption of the evolution of traditional building and design practices. But I can't see how.

To take a dimmer view, it is not impossible that classicists have been lured by those who sympathize with modern architecture into hitching contemporary classicism's star to a postmodernism respected by very few.

Or perhaps the conference will merely promote the sort of intellectual and aesthetic incoherence that was the primary hallmark of postmodernism - a confusion that links it far more closely to modernism than to the classicism that is said to have grown out of it (not to mention that which came before).

Even the brightest of these possible outcomes doesn't stack up to what might have been accomplished by a conference dedicated to almost any subject but postmodernism.

I hope someone on the list will be able to disabuse me of my doubts.

Now look here, preservationists!

By David Brussat

Publication Date: October 18, 2001
Page: B-07 Section: Editorial Edition: All

Preservationists are in Providence this year for the annual meeting of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. What should they look at? What should they see? Look at Benefit Street and see what preservation has done.

Well, that was easy. Now try this:

"Until [the 20th] century, the public and the profession [of architecture] shared a known vocabulary; the divide between them was simply a matter of the degree to which traditional forms were mutually understood. Like so much else in the arts, architecture has taken new forms and developed a new and often arcane vocabulary. The alienation that started with the distrust and dislike of the unfamiliar in modern architecture has been exacerbated by the increasingly abstract and esoteric nature of current philosophy and practice."

Before I reveal the author of that sensible passage (no, it's not Prince Charles), look again at Providence. Compare it with other cities you know. Why does it win such accolades for preservation?

Why? Because so much of this city's historical fabric is intact, but also because much that is new fits into its historical context. Or, in plain language, it's got relatively little modern architecture.

Many cities have beautiful old buildings, but their "sense of place" is often interrupted by modern architecture. In Providence, on Benefit Street, College Hill, Federal Hill, in downtown, the Armory District, Elmwood, even in neighborhoods not listed on the historic register, block after block unfolds uninterrupted by "abstract," "esoteric" or "arcane" build-ings. There is little foothold for "alienation."

[This column was written before the end of a brief burst of contemporary classicism in Providence. After 2005, the usual modernist junk reasserted itself here.]

The long quotation above, which accurately expresses the relationship between architecture and the public, comes, oddly enough, from Ada Louise Huxtable's The Unreal America: Architecture and Illusion (1997). The famous critic is very upset that the public dislikes modern architecture. Her book attempts to explain this without admitting that the public simply has better taste than much of today's architectural elite. That people merely like the sorts of buildings that our culture has long revered is too straightforward to interest the 1970 Pulitzer Prize winner. Unreal America tries yet again to reform the public's taste. But the public remains unbamboozled.

No, Huxtable has bamboozled herself, mistaking fancy word play for higher truth. Her vivid prose offers the reader a thrilling ride on an intellectual roller-coaster through the obviously not true.

She asserts that Americans cannot tell the difference between the real and the fake. Old buildings are "real," she says, and modern architecture is "real," but new buildings in styles similar to those of old buildings are "fake." Andres Duany's traditional towns, such as Seaside, in Florida, or Kentlands, in Maryland, are no different from Disney's Main Street: They are all "theme parks" that "copy the past." The fakes, she professes to believe, have faked out the public.

She talks about "real fakes" and "fake fakes," assigns levels of "authenticity" to her likes and dislikes, and cites Umberto Eco and others who think nothing is what it is. She blames "marketeers" (all developers descend from Mouseketeers!), who have created a culture that purposely conflates entertainment and reality. She pretends, between sneers, to absolve the public for "preferring fakes." Finally, she introduces new architecture that we ought to like, "the subtle and searching complexities that seek to break through existing conventions."

She fails to explain why, after 2,500 years of architectural evolution, there was suddenly something wrong with "existing conventions" and the "known vocabulary." Along with many architects and critics, Huxtable professes to believe that buildings should reflect their time. Of course! Architects distill into glass and steel the spirit of an age that eludes philosophers and historians. Buildings that are difficult to understand, that disorient and alienate the public, are clearly the most "authentic."

Aha! First, shatter the conventions - the history of the last century of art and architecture, then get preservationists, of all people, to proclaim that architecture that seeks to rebuild those conventions is fake and inauthentic. What chutzpah!

Preservationists once understood why the public was alienated, and what to do about it. Preservationists should embrace new architecture that builds on what they have saved. They should not hop into bed with those who reject it. Architecture's chief role is not to reflect our time, but to help people cope with life, and with this frightful period. Architecture that resists fads and embraces tradition offers stability in a time of great change. From this role, modern architecture inherently shrinks, indeed flees. If preservationists cannot be relied upon to understand the role of architecture, or even that of preservation, then our nation's "sense of place" must continue to erode.

David Brussat is a member of the Journal's editorial board. His e-mail address: dbrussat@projo.com.

The Biltmore, in Coral Gables, Fla., has the nation's largest hotel swimming pool. (Courtesy of the Coral Gables Biltmore) The photos below are also not from 1000 Ultimate Sights.

At the end of column text below are five photographs from 1000 Ultimate Sights that put the virtuosity of the travel authority's photographers on full display.

Ultimate's moment has arrived. Greatest, finest, best -- get thee to a nunnery! Yet, in his dictionary, Dr. Johnson defines ultimate as from the Latin ultimus, not best but last, as in final. Nevertheless, Lonely Planet's 1000 Ultimate Sights (2011) arrived, ultimately, on my desk.

There's much to like in the book, from Lonely Planet Publications, and I'll get to that. First, let me whack a couple quibbles. Leaving aside that it should be 1,000 not 1000 sights, the book contains 1,000 sites, not 1,000 sights. It is not clear whether the editors know the difference. In fact, the book's ultimate flaw is that it lets you see very few of the sites to which Ultimate Sights directs you. It has 1,000 sites but a mere 140 sights. Each of its 100 lists has 10 places to visit or things to see, but only two items in each list are pictured in 70 of the lists -- the remaining 30 lists are entirely unillustrated.

I can see the editors of "Lonely Planet'' sitting around a table, debating whether to offer readers a sight of every site -- 1,000 small photos in a mid-sized book or 1,000 large photos in a much larger book. The winner, inevitably, by compromise, was large photos in a mid-sized book (allowing a mid-sized price, $22.99).

So the reader luxuriates in lush photography, but every page is chock-a-block with descriptions of great places whose actual appearance is left to the imagination. The result is a serious case of ultimus interruptus.

Notwithstanding these crimes against readers' patience, a brief list of list headings should suffice to charm the potential reader:

Most Fairytale-Like European Castles, Craziest Buildings, Most Astounding Ego Trips, Most Bizarre Monuments, Best Baths, Sights from British Childhood Literature, Most Fascinating Corpses, Ultimate Predators in Action, Tastiest Gourmet Sights, Strangest Optical Illusions & Mirages, Most Iconic Trees, Coolest Caves & Grottoes, Best Sights from Above, 20th Century's Darkest History, Best Sunrises & Sunsets, Most Vertigo-Inducing Cliffs, Most Impressive Steps & Staircases, Kitschiest Sights, Most Eye-Opening Workplaces, Ugliest Beasts, Soaring Spires & Needles, Most Fascinating Artists' Gardens, Best Places to See Red, Spookiest Buildings, Most Risqué Sights, and Sights Most Featured in the Movies.

The editors' description of the Chimi Lhakhang monastery, in Bhutan (the second to the last list listed above), makes you really yearn to see it. "Many houses are decorated with ['Divine Madman' Lama Drukpa] Kunley's 'flying phallus' to ward off evil," reads the description. Alas, there is no picture. And frankly, my dear, how likely are we to go there? Luckily, there is Google Images (and Wikipedia spells the Divine Madman's name Kinley).

Go to any section and you might end up telling the editors to put up their dukes.

The National Cathedral, in Washington, is in the Most Bizarre Monuments chapter. Yes, it has a gargoyle of Darth Vader, but still . . . In Greatest Mansions & Grand Houses you'll find Marble Palace, in Kolkata, India, but not Marble House, in Newport -- or any of our "cottages" on Bellevue Avenue, one of the ultimate collections of mansions on this lonely planet. Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater makes the list. It belongs in Most Visionary Architects & Their Works -- or maybe in Craziest Buildings.

("Put up your dukes," I hear the editors say.)

I went to Must-See Masterpieces looking for a fight. I found not buildings but paintings, and none pictured. I turned to Most Classic Art-Deco Buildings only to find Miami's Biltmore Hotel -- classic, yes, but classical, not Art Deco. In the Big Things in Australia list, the town of Penguin, in Tasmania, is described. Unrevealed is the population of Penguin (pop. 2,943 in 2006, says Wikipedia) or how tall stands Penguin's chief tourist attraction, a concrete statue called Big Penguin (10 feet, same source).

With so few illustrations, the text must tell the tale. The prose often rises above the cutesy-wootsy normally encountered in such fare. In Most Impressive Steps & Staircases, Rome's Piazza di Spagna is described as "[a] Spanish staircase leading to a French church in the Italian capital, flanked by the deathbed of an English poet" (Keats). That's very nice.

And that must be the verdict on this curiously enjoyable but ultimately frustrating travel book. It is a book for those who enjoy thinking about travel as much as for those who actually travel. Get it for your favorite masochist.

[Except for the Coral Gables Biltmore, none of the sites from the book mentioned above were illustrated in the book.]

David Brussat is a member of The Journal's editorial board (dbrussat@providencejournal.com). This column, with more illustrations, is on his blog Architecture Here and There at providencejournal.com.

Lonely man in nation's largest swimming pool at the Coral Gables Biltmore
(Richard Cummins/Lonely Planet Images)

View of Roman Forum and Colosseum from Capitoline
(Glenn Beanland/Lonely Planet Images)

Boatman on Jamuna River near the Taj Mahal
(Sean Caffrey/Lonely Planet Images)

Avenue du Baobab at sunset, Madagascar
(Anders Blomqvist/Lonely Planet Images)

Empire State Building taken from Rockefeller Center at dusk
(Richard I'Anson/Lonely Planet Images)

Not long ago a publicist for The Lonely Planet group of travel literature wrote wondering whether I'd be interested in printing excerpts from 1000 Ultimate Sights, a new travel book that would be coming out in September. Send it and I'll see. She did and I have. Thursday's column sums up my reaction to the book, which contains a collection of large photos of the "ultimate" in places, or at any rate "sights," but ... but you'll have to wait until Thursday to see what the uh, butting's all about. Meanwhile, if you dare take such a step before reading the review, you can purchase the book here.

Hint: My reservations (if any) have nothing to do with the exciting or beautiful quality of the book's cover.

The horrible project for a new high-rise Edvard Munch Museum in Oslo, "Lambda" by Spanish architect Herreros, will not be built. A majority in the newly elected Oslo City Council has confirmed their rejection of the project, which in 2009 won first prize in an international competition.

Audun Engh
INTBAU Scandinavia,
Oslo, Norway

Diapering means "making a diamond shape." Baby diapers used to be a diamond-shaped piece of cloth. So the crisscrosses are not actually crosses, they are diamond patterns.

Meanwhile, here is Calder Loth in reply to Gerald Forsburg's speculation on the derivation of diapering, from TradArch (and Wikipedia):

I have heard two explanations for diaper or diapering.

(1) from Greek dia (thoroughly) + aspros (white) = pure white; i.e. pure white cloth

(2) the more interesting is the tradition that the term comes from the Belgian town of Ypres, which in the middle ages produced cloth with diamond-shaped patterns; hence it was cloth d'Ypres. With the British insistence of Anglicizing the pronunciation of French words, they pronounced Ypres as "Wipers." Hence the cloth with the diamond shaped patterns from Ypres was cloth d'Ypres or "Diapers."

So diamond-shaped patterning in brickwork got to be called "diapering."

I can't document #2 but it has an amusing plausibility about it and it does help people recognize the brickwork pattern and remember the term.
(I'm not a Greek scholar so I can't vouch for #1 either)

Calder

-----Original Message-----
From: Gerald Forsburg
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2011 10:35 PM
To: TRADARCH@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU
Subject: Re: Some examples of external colouration on English brick buildings, c. 1500-1650

Leave it to Wiki: "The etymology of the term is unclear. It is
sometimes said to derive from an old term for the fabric damask.
Collins gives it as from the Greek di-aspros, meaning pure white, which
seems counter-intuitive and implausible.[1] The French language however
supplies the most likely source, Larousse giving the verb diaprer from
the ancient French diaspre, a bed of flowers, branches etc., ultimately
from the ancient Greek iaspis, meaning jasper or precious stone.[2] It
can thus be seen as a term for "bejewelling." in which sense it is used
in modern French: Le diaprure des prés au printemps, the diapering of
the spring fields (with flowers).[3]"

The word today is diaprer, as in the following:

* Les couleurs dont la nacre est diaprée.
* Les fleurs dont le gazon est diapré.

Translated today, the word means "variagated." In the case of bricks,
a variagated brick pattern.

It may be purely coincidental, but amidst the run of an exhibit in which flying cars play a major role buzzing around the phallic towers of futurist cities, an actual flying car has just received FAA approval, and the car's manufacturer is headquartered in Woburn, Mass.

Read all about it in Journal auto writer Peter Elsworth's piece in today's paper, nicely headlined "With this car, the wings come standard." Then run over to Nathaniel Walker's excellent exhibit at Brown's Bell Gallery, on College Street, to see how much flying cars really did grab the futuristic imagination over the past hundred years, as Elsworth's article says. My Sept. 15 column about Walker's exhibit, which runs through Nov. 6, is here. Terrafugia's Web site, with many photos and diagrams, is here.

Great fun all round, even if you don't end up with a Transition ($279,000, by Terrafugia) in your very roomy garage.

On Wednesday night, Millais will use his professional familiarity with engineering - he is a structural engineer himself - to put modernism's shoddy definition of architectural "utility" on display at the Algonquin Club, 217 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. The provocatively illustrated talk, for which you may register here, is sponsored by the New England chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. Seats are $25 in advance for members of the ICAA, the Boston Society of Architects and the Algonquin Club, and $35 at the door. The festivities begin at 6 p.m.

Malcolm Millais's friend and fellow architectural theorist Nikos Salingaros, a mathematician at the University of Texas, San Antonio, joins the author of this blog in having written a review of "Exploding the Myths." This blogger has written several columns about Salingaros and his theories linking human biology to a preference for traditional and classical architecture. The Salingaros review of "Exploding" may be read here. The book itself may be purchased here.

Wednesday is sure to be an evening for rattling cages and raising rafters.