Architecture Here and There

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November 22, 2009

• 11:33 PM David Brussat on Travel magazine's ten ugliest buildings in the world

  Marlo - I think the babies offended the editors because they put people in mind of the possibility of their falling off. I could be wrong. I should have added that the descriptions of the buildings are as funny as the buildings are ugly.

  
  

  November 22, 2009

• 10:54 PM Mario on Travel magazine's ten ugliest buildings in the world

  The Pompidou Center really is hideous, but I don't think that the television tower in Prague belongs on this list. I've been there; it's bizarre, but it's not really close to the beautiful parts of the city. There are plenty of Soviet-style soul-crushing monstrosities in the same general area that are far worse -- and people have to actually live in them. You can see the tower off in the distance from pretty much anywhere, but it looks perfectly fine since you don't get any detail unless you are up close. And, if you make your way to the top of the tower, you get some of the best views of the city; better even than from Prague Castle, since from there you can see the tower (heh). If your city has to have a communist legacy, you could do far worse. Plus, the mutant babies give it character. I liked them.

  
  

  November 20, 2009

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  November 20, 2009

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  November 17, 2009

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  November 16, 2009

• 10:14 AM David Brussat on Column: Time to intervene in the modernist cult

  Adam - SLAM is (or at least was as of maybe five years ago) a good firm that does eclectic work, including some fine traditional design. I wrote admiringly of it after a presentation at Build Boston several years ago. I was taken aback by its name, which seems to speak more to the Career & Technical High School than the sort of work of theirs I praised at the time. It is deconstructivist mostly because of its planar irregularity, the syncopated rhythm of its fenestration, its quirky hodgepodge of metalic materials and how the columns at its entrance seem to be falling down. The cult I described in my column is more a state of mind than an organization you join. A firm with diversified work like SLAM would be harder for me to accuse of being "of" the cult lock stock and barrel. However, if its architect who built the C&THS actually believes that his (or her) design is "of its era" and "looks to the future," then it may safely be said that he (or she) buys into the notions that characterize the cult of modern architecture. A new book by Steven Semes, "The Future of the Past," is the most erudite explicator of the fallacy of those sorts of ideas. I plan to review the book soon. I quoted from Michael Blowhard's interview with Salingaros in my column of the week before, regarding the failure of Tom Wolfe's book to generate a reaction against modernism. Blowhard seems to get it. I will take your advice and visit his blog.

  
  

  November 16, 2009

• 12:34 AM adam on Column: Time to intervene in the modernist cult

  Please outline in more detail what makes the Providence Career & Technical High School "deconstructivist"? Look at the website of the SLAM Collaborative, which designed it, and try to argue that they are part of this "cult" you describe. One of the best writers on Salingaros is Michael Blowhard; you should join his blog, for sure.

  
  

  November 15, 2009

• 11:55 AM ugg boots sale on Column: Modernist rampage in Providence

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  November 12, 2009

• 2:47 PM David Brussat on Column: Time to intervene in the modernist cult

  Ian - My use of the phrase "modernism's 'deconstructivists'" should assure you that I am aware that modernism and traditional architecture both have many styles. Style is not just a matter of taste, nor is it merely a "fashion show." Style - what something looks like, whether it essentially builds upon or builds independently of the past, whether it fits into or contrasts with its context - raises important questions that transcend "spacial, material and sensual aspects" of architecture. Those are important but they do not answer the question of what should be built, which is the basic concern of my column most weeks. Rather, your suggestion that I shift my attention to those aspects and away from style is an effort to get me to stop picking a scab that bothers modernists very much. Modernists just want me to stop it! And I understand that. It will not work!

  
  

  November 12, 2009

• 2:24 PM Ian on Column: Time to intervene in the modernist cult

  Using deconstructivism as the sole representative of "modern" architecture and then saying we shouldn't teach or build it is like saying we shouldn't build traditional buildings because you don't like pyramids. Modern architecture has numerous styles, as does traditional architecture. Maybe instead of railing against something you clearly haven't taken the time to understand, you should try educating yourself in the language of architecture that is independent of style. What is it about traditional building you like? What is it about modern building you don't like? It has to be about more than just style, or the whole thing just becomes a fashion show and a question of taste. Think about spatial, material, and sensual aspects of architecture, and let those be your guides.

  
  

  November 12, 2009

• 1:14 PM David Brussat on Column: Time to intervene in the modernist cult

  Adam - For example?

  
  

  November 12, 2009

• 1:02 PM adam on Column: Time to intervene in the modernist cult

  you have no idea what you are talking about.

  
  

  November 9, 2009

• 3:11 PM Ray Sawhill on Coming up: Salingaros reveals Nature's architecture

  Excellent, great to hear -- Salingaros is brilliant and deserves to be widely-known. FYI, a blog called 2Blowhards did a thorough interview with Salingaros a few years back. You can get to all five parts via this link: http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/000735.html Looking forward to your Thursday column.

  
  

  November 6, 2009

• 12:16 PM Sam Lima on Coming up: Murder most foul

  That last image makes me angry. That's pathetic.

  
  

  November 5, 2009

• 3:53 PM David Brussat on What happened to the bollards at City Hall?

  Jef - Within the last couple of hours I talked to Alan Sepe, the city's property manager, who tells me they were removed because people eating at Haven Bros. diner (blessed institution!) were sitting on the chains and damaging the bollards. He said they may reinstall them. For what it's worth, I suggested that I thought City Hall looked as good without them as with them. They did serve one other purpose, though, Jef. They were an aesthetic embellishment. That is a valid and indeed a laudable purpose. In the end, I don't think the embellishment did much one way or the other to improve the building, but that was the original purpose. They surely had no reason to make it harder to visit the space within the ballards.

  
  

  November 5, 2009

• 3:38 PM David Brussat on What happened to the bollards at City Hall?

  Jef - Within the last couple of hours I talked to Alan Sepe, the city's property manager, who tells me they were removed because people eating at Haven Bros. diner (blessed institution!) were sitting on the chains and damaging the bollards. He said they may reinstall them. For what it's worth, I suggested that I thought City Hall looked as good without them as with them. They did serve one other purpose, though, Jef. They were an aesthetic embellishment. That is a valid and indeed a laudable purpose. In the end, I don't think the embellishment did much one way or the other to improve the building, but that was the original purpose. They surely had no reason to make it harder to visit the space within the ballards.

  
  

  November 5, 2009

• 3:24 PM Jef Nickerson on What happened to the bollards at City Hall?

  As far as I know, it is to make the space behind the bollards usable. Recently, Haven Brothers has set up tables and chairs when they are parked on Fulton Street at night. The bollards really served no purpose other than to make the area behind them unusable.

  
  

  October 27, 2009

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  October 23, 2009

• 3:46 PM David Brussat on Column: Proofs of the public's good taste

  IAF - Those are fair criticisms. Clearly a limit of 800 or so words forces upon the writer a certain degree of simplification, and I recognize that context of many sorts is missing from each of my examples. But the point was to pile up examples, and even without context the examples are pertinent, given my limited goal of ennumerating the popularity of traditional architecture. I occasionally write about singular examples of this (such as my separate columns on the AIA survey and several pieces on the Chelsea Barracks style wars), and there you will find lots of context. As we all know, there is a percentage of people in a totalitarian state that benefits from such a form of rule. It may be unfair to say the exact same 24 percent who regretted the loss of the Palace of the Republic (have you ever seen a picture of it?) also regret the demise of the Stasi, but if you will consider it a jocular remark, then maybe you will find it less unfair. It was, in fact, intended to be a wry twist on the unhappy fact that not everyone in the East welcomed freedom with open arms.

  
  

  October 23, 2009

• 9:46 AM IAF on Column: Proofs of the public's good taste

  While I find these ideas presented here interesting, I think you are engaging in some extreme acts of oversimplification. Many of the examples you provided were not placed in any historical or social context. The decision to rebuild the Frauenkirche in Dresden is as much about the German wartime and post-war experience as it was about the aesthetics of Baroque architecture. Rebuilding a destroyed traditional building is a different act than constructing a new building in a traditional style--even if the results look similar. You also write: "The same 24 percent perhaps also wished that the Stasi (East Germany's KGB) had not been disbanded." What a preposterous comment! To equate the two is absurd, and you are doing the discourse a disservice by doing so.