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In 1977 Charles Jencks, architectural historian cites the demolition of Pruitt-Igoe as the death of modernism. Jencks blamed architecture for the failure instead of the real culprit: the St. Louis Housing Authority. Architectural schools accepted it as fact, but in reality the housing development worked when it was white. Jenks wouldn’t say that, so he deftly spun it into a denouncement of the housing type. Critical thinking in architecture died that day.

There were good egalitarian ideas in Pruitt-Igoe, ideas that an industry of maximum profits found threatening. Slumlords had to nip it in the bud. Innovations such as skip-stop elevators, generous stairs, wide corridors with laundry, trash chutes and other community spaces and amenities that would inspire a pride of place in spite of the low maintenance charged. The list goes on; it was a prototype with all the ingredients for success.

Corbusier and modernism took the fall for a housing administration bent on revenge and sabotage. Smarting from a 1954 civil rights mandate to integrate, they had reason to be vindictive and to show the world, even at tremendous costs to themselves, that equality for blacks was no better than casting pearls to swine. Keep in mind that Missouri was the site of the dreadful Dred Scott Decision, and the northernmost state adhering to the deep-south segregation laws outlawed by Brown v. Board of Education on May 7th, 1954.

The movie featured the nostalgic recall of former residents who saw their dreams dashed, reminiscing about what could have been. It was sad. We all know it as Pruitt-Igoe but they call it Pruitt and Igoe. Wendell Pruitt (1920-45) was a Tuskegee Airman and William Igoe (1879-1953) was a white local politician. It struck me that the black residents could not bring themselves to integrate the names. It was even sadder that the prophetic promise of the names failed to materialize.

I would’ve liked to also hear the recall of the whites that abandoned the project in the flight to the whites-only suburban alternative provided by the same housing agency. The vignette of a white woman strenuously objecting to living with blacks revealed to me that she too was a victim. I know I cringed when one of the Pruitt-Igoe resident’s happiest memories entailed blasting music in the corridor to express appreciation of moving into the project. For me that kind of culture shock is much more troubling than skin color.

Despite all the questions of racism, corruption, and lack of maintenance that the movie raises, one is left to wonder why a community of 12,000 residents could not muster the votes to affect improvements? Pruitt-Igoe was ahead of its time and in the final analysis, architects must not be deterred by those with other fish to fry. My advice is to stay focused on the commitment to the social contract for it is the inhabitant that decides whether the architecture lives or dies. Jencks was dead wrong. Modernism lives. Truth is beauty and form follows philosophy.

Colleges are maximum profit diploma mills in the service of Soccer Moms where competition is a bad word and everyone gets a prize. Education is expensive and as such, the customer is always right. Students have the right to anonymously evaluate teachers who are not much different from salespeople working on commission; conviviality counts. Faculty who insist on rigor will be fired or ostracized by colleges on the advice of their lawyers, fearful of litigious parents who want what they paid for or their money back. After all, other businesses offer refunds.

The race has gone to the hare. Straw pig has nothing to fear. Now it’s OK for men to cry like babies and lying is spin, not sin. Wall Street brokers steal billions and then give themselves bonuses from the coffers of the taxpayers and yet we cannot afford to fund art or philosophy in the public schools. Art is the key to critical thinking and philosophy facilitates complex reasoning. Reading, writing and elocution are on life support, rendered chronic invalids by the shortcuts employed on the digital social media.

According to Foucault, information is power and one would think that with all this information at our fingertips American students would be the most powerful ever. It’s ironic that the reverse seems to be the case. Inquisitiveness to look outward has turned to an indifference to anything outside of one’s immediate needs. Young people have been brought up with the doctrine that sharing is un-American. I miss the draft and the sense of social responsibility that went with it.

I took my students to see the Harlem River Houses and we got stoned. As we stood in the courtyard in the pouring rain, we heard the sound of racial delirium but had no idea it was aimed at us until a shower of ballast gravel from the roof made it clear. As we beat a hasty retreat, the assailants ducked out of sight behind the parapet wall.

What is the meaning of this? We all know that blacks got a raw deal and they should be angry but this way of dealing with grievances is ineffective and counterproductive. I believe the anger should be aimed mostly at their reverends and politicians but that will never happen just as I will never subject my students to that nonsense again.

It’s ironic that this historic project was built in 1937 exclusively for blacks by the Federal Government as a response to the Harlem riots of 1935. From economic to aesthetic, this innovative prototype was a great success. The planned community contained all the amenities (child care, health clinic, stores etc.) essential to civilized living. Its ample central courtyard, public art, textures, finishes and low-rise scale so improved the quality of life that it left no doubt that architects can change the world.

Today the central court is a barren wasteland where one must be careful to avoid dog droppings. It’s a shame that things went downhill after such a tremendous start. The lesson learned here is that housing, no matter how eloquent, cannot overcome the unrefined. Perhaps things will change for the better when the reverends and politicians get stoned.

Excess and Revolution: The Fall of Dynasties

Utility before decoration is the dictate of nature and in the wild, ostentatious displays signal both robust health and deadly poison. Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak and his ilk learned nothing from nature or from George III, Louis XVI, and Nicholas II (all dictators-for-life who lost their heads from excess and ostentation).

The concept of equal rights runs counter to that of dynasties. Nonetheless, we are bombarded relentlessly with news of a royal wedding while the world is up in smoke from the actions of this archaic institution. I am puzzled. Why cultivate parasites that have been known to kill their hosts? How on earth do the 'royals' beguile those yearning to be free? Or for that matter, those claiming to be free?

Just when The Queen is fading from memory, Hollywood is shoving The King’s Speech down our throats. Why do we treasure the crown more than our Phrygian cap? Nancy Reagan committed a treasonable offence punishable by death when she curtsied to Charles, the English Prince, in the White House!!! Our founding fathers are turning over in their graves.

All kings will fall. Maybe except in Spain, where after 40 years of dictator Generalisimo Francisco Franco they voluntarily reinstalled the monarchy for no good reason. That the king is mere decoration did not stop him from publicly reprimanding the elected leader of a country at the United Nations. The danger in his pompous temerity and sense of entitlement appears to alarm no one but me. How can the Spanish square this with democracy?

I would love to know the answer to these questions without the use of Cinderella romanticism, religious censorship or authoritarian fancy.

Listen to Rod's recent guest appearances on "Burning Down the House", a radio program hosted by Curtis B. Wayne on Heritage Radio Network now available on iTunes!

Are Deceit and Duplicity Necessary to Success?

The impulse to smile in secret admiration when someone gets one over on the system is essentially condoning cheating. The secret thrill stems from a repressed injustice that surfaces as, "rooting for the underdog". Caravaggio captures that moment in "The Cardsharps" when we come face to face with our conscience and sense of justice.

We all know that, "life is not fair" and that "cheating is a fact of life." Getting ahead of the competition is not always done with hard work. If that were the case, the rich would not get other people to do it for them. We also know that the accumulation of wealth is not possible by being transparent and trusting.

Architects who try to improve the quality of life and make the world a better place will always be hard pressed to collaborate with those that are motivated by maximum profits. Lemoyne personifies this dilemma in "Time Saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy". The problem with that picture is that Time is always too late to reverse the clock.

Yes, Falsehood and Envy will eventually be banished by Time but by then the damage has been done. Over and over again Falsehood and Envy demonstrate that crime does pay. We see it in senators who, with impunity, cheat and lie their way to retirement and are allowed to keep the spoils that paid for their deep tans, manicured nails and hair helmets, even after being caught red-handed and red faced (that explains the tan).

The Ponzi schemers on Wall Street gained the trust of their victims by surrounding themselves with the trappings of wealth, influence and exclusivity. Exercising due diligence would have been prudent but in the club questions are considered rude. The con artist always plays to the victim’s vanity and false pride and the lucrative cosmetics industry is well aware of that. That they can get feminists to paint their faces and balance precariously on high heels attest to their great power.

PBS, that bastion of sober thoughts, has succumbed to the business model of commercial media by hyping Mitzy Gaynor, queen of razzle-dazzle, ahead of Albert Einstein during their fund raising drive. Colleges, by following suit, have made it explicitly clear to students that money is the great enabler. It is unfortunate that the message spells doom for endeavors that may not yield immediate profits but hold promise for the distant future.

Thinking is something associated with the devil and idle hands, so is it any wonder that the wearing of diamond encrusted gold crucifixes as an ostentatious display of wealth is an irony that escapes the underclass who see no sacrilege in using the symbol of suffering and self-sacrifice as a status symbol. Deceit and duplicity are often self-inflicted as in the loyalty we must at times pretend in order to gain acceptance or to get approval. The resentment of harboring that phony strain is what I believe makes us root for the underdog.

Swimmers cry foul when the competition invents a faster suit, and in the same breath they denounce others who seek an edge with steroids. It's who crosses the finish line first that counts. Those not willing to go the extra mile should compete in categories such as "Vegan" and "Omnivore" and leave the steroid freaks to their own devices.

Deceit and duplicity are necessary to success. The object is to admit it.

August 1, 2009

pics w/famous people....

Up with the seat: an open letter to Ben Affleck

Ben, thanks for leaving the toilet seat up. Your wife, Jennifer Garner, is wrong to impose a fine of $5.00 for violating her absurd mandate. As a man concerned with good hygiene, I, like you, prefer to leave the seat up. I know that men don’t sit to urinate and that it’s easier for them to smear any trace of urine with a wad of toilet paper than to pick the seat up and then put it down afterward.

I also know that for men, urination is mostly a matter of urgency. There is barely enough time to pick up the seat before the flow begins. The entire operation lasts less than a minute, and zip, they are back to what they were doing. The procedure was merely an inconvenience.

Women, on the other hand, spend a great part of their lives in the toilet. Not even a line around the block can speed them up. For them, the toilet is more established ritual than mere inconvenience. Consequently, they have developed a proprietary attitude and have run amok with insignificant rules that drive men to extremes.

I have also noticed that women will routinely leave the seat down on unisex toilets (plane, train, Starbucks etc.) even if they first had to clean the seat of previous urine. They cannot grasp the practicality of leaving it up out of consideration for the next woman who may not have to contend with a wet seat. It is really difficult for otherwise intelligent women to comprehend that logic.

Truth is, women reject this line of reasoning because they are embarrassed to admit that aesthetics is at the root of their complaint. What it actually boils down to is that in this circumstance, it is clear that they value aesthetics over hygiene. Fact is, they really like the look of the turned down seat and try desperately to deflect from that reality.

For men it is not that complicated, the device is utilitarian and the hinge on the seat is for pragmatic options only. Your wife is out of line and I suggest that the next time she says that she is “irritated and grossed out” by you leaving the seat up, ask her how she feels about theater seats that flip up. I bet she looks before she sits.

The only solution to this obsessive disorder is for sensible women to reject it. In the meanwhile, you should counter your wife’s fine with one of your own for her own good. $100.00 is a good starting point. Perhaps the money could go toward counseling.

And to all the long suffering, I say, “Men follow Ben, do not retreat, up with the seat!!!”

April 13, 2009

ICONOTECTURE

Iconotecture, like three-card monte, relies on sleight of hand, misdirection, and gullibility. It takes at least three to play the game, the operator, the shill, and the mark. The mark never wins. He looses because he is fooled into believing he is the smartest of the three even though he has never played the game. He assumes there are rules, but there are none.

The situation is reversed in architecture. The mark assumes there are no rules and the iconotects get away with murder. Bombastic extravaganzas and glittering absurdities pass for the genuine article and no one is the wiser. So-called “iconic buildings” and “sculpture for living in” are as counterfeit as the banks that occupy them.

The new CCTV headquarters that burned to the ground leaves one to wonder if it is in someway related to the culture of cupidity that is a pox upon us. The voices that were singing its praises have fallen silent or simply switched choirs. Follow-fashion that they are, they ingratiate themselves to the makers of razzle-dazzle theatrics because they would not know architecture if it fell on them.

They rave about the Persian Gulf phenomena where the rich are tripping over each other to live on man-made islands in the middle of nowhere. Don’t they know that the enclosed paradisiacal garden is a virginal metaphor? Critical thinking and philosophy cannot take root in confinement. Furthermore, gated communities are magnets for wheelers, dealers, and Ponzi schemers looking for easy marks and foolish virgins.

As an architect that plays by the rules and is committed to truth and beauty I am repulsed by these absolute monarchies that treat women as chattel and workers like beasts of burden. One can only hope that the shape of the flattened palm is a portent of things to come. Babel was supposed to reach heaven and CCTV was a giant loophole but offered no escape to those caught in its inferno. The iconoclasts are looking better every day.

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Seating Crisis

Shaking leg, restless leg, trembling thighs and the many other quivering leg movements that people impose on others sitting next to them is an inexcusable aggression. One must endure this anti-social behavior or find another seat. At worst you may have to leave the theater but on a fully booked flight your choice is to stand in the galley or kill yourself because they will make no effort to be good neighbors

In most cases the cure is to simply get off the balls of your feet and place your soles flat on the ground but chances are that if you say this they might get violent or make matters worse by widening their stance.

This outrage is slightly worse than the inconsiderate men on the subway who spread out over three seats while others are forced to stand. It’s incredulous that they refuse to close their knees no matter what. Women achieve the same effect with bags on the seat. Not to mention those who cross their legs blocking the isle or even putting the sole of their shoe on your knee.

Also, they should ban reclining seats in all modes of transportation that maximize capacity. I have noticed that young people have a tendency to slouch as if they have no backbone and will recline at the slightest possibility. They are especially prone to assuming the horizontal position and will find a way to do it even in a straight back chair. They also seem to have an uncontrollable urge to get their legs off the floor and on to the seat, the table, and ultimately to an elevation above their heads.

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Barack to the future

The incredulity and incongruity of Barack Obama has eclipsed quantum physics as the ultimate mind-bending experience. I can’t think of a single more salubrious gesture to remedy the Bush disease which made us the laughing stock of cavemen in Afghanistan who wished us the very worst.

Another term of George Bush and they would have gotten their wish. We nearly self-destructed after eight long years of lies, deceit and lawlessness from that science-hating cowboy who squandered our wealth, prestige and influence for reasons of his own. Thanks for the nasty memories George Bush, because without your outrageous behavior there would be no President Barack Obama. Goodbye and good riddance to the worst president ever.

Barack won by subduing a wide variety of opponents ranging from racists, feminists, libelers, LIEberman and the dreaded undecided. Instead of surrendering his list of donors to pay off Hillary’s campaign debts, it is the Clintons who must now undergo an intense vetting process and submit their list of donors if she is to be secretary of state. Brilliant! He will of course find a way to make up with Richardson later. Tall, thin, good looking and smart as faith will allow, this guy could be the best president ever.

But, we will have to wait and see. For starters, he should close Guantanamo at once and undo all the executive powers Bush gave himself to tap our phones, violate our civil rights, torture detainees and hide the coffins of those who died for his folly. These things must be done posthaste so that we can bury the past and go Barack to the future.

Thursday Nov 20, 2008

FANCY FENCES

The Port Authority’s bunkertects continue to insult New Yorkers and the world with their relentless construction of walls that keep us in the dark. Why can’t we see what’s going on at the World Trade Center site? People want to see and they have a right to see. How dare they surround the site with an opaque screen of fancy graphics when democracy is all about transparency?

Mr. Bloomberg, tear down these walls. Save us from these narrow-minded petty bureaucrats who somehow get to impose their expensive ill-conceived ideas on the public. Security my ass, it’s secrecy, plain and simple. Ponderous bureaucracies hate the light of day.

We learn by observation and there is nothing more educational than a construction site. Instead of blocking our view there should be bleachers all around a see-through fence where those who saw the razing of the towers can watch the raising of their replacements. Rude fences make rude neighbors, fancy notwithstanding.

Nov 17, 2008

But, But, Mr. Butts: Divine Comedy or Dramatic Irony?

This week Abyssinian Baptist Church is celebrating it’s independence from segregation. Two hundred years ago, they broke free from a Lower Manhattan church that confined blacks to the balcony. Eighty-five years ago, they moved from Midtown to Harlem and have outlasted the Savoy and Cotton Clubs as the hottest tourist attraction there.

Forty years ago, Martin Luther King was killed marching for civil rights and on the anniversary of his birthday (January 15th), Calvin O. Butts, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church, endorsed a white woman for president over a black man with impeccable credentials. Wow!!! Is the congregation just a flock of mindless sheep to accept this absurdity? How does he get away with that?

But, but, Mr. Butts, don’t you know that feet are made for standing tall and butts are made for stooping small, and marching shoes with well-worn holes means so much more than saving soles?

But, but, Mr. Butts, the final irony is that Martin Luther (1483-1546) was an original thinker who sparked the Reformation as opposed to John Calvin (1509-1564) who was essentially a calculating conformist famous for betraying his friend (Michael Servetus, burned at the stake).

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New Museum

The New Museum is industrial strength architecture with no time for romance. No fooling around, this is off the shelf ingenuity and frugality at its brutal best. The stacked boxes are a striking addition to the Bowery and deserves a visit to see the embodiment of truth and beauty in architecture.

For the sake of its virtue, the hurried look evident in the assembly of the kit of parts is forgivable. But, flaws such as the prominent stress cracks that have developed on the exposed concrete floors, and the dirt collecting reveal at the base of walls gives pause to the technical skills of the architects. Rough beauty depends heavily on sensible detailing.

Unfortunately, the rude materials were eclipsed by the behavior of the guards and staff who were oblivious to the museum’s desire to present an informal alternative to uptown stuffiness. Their grim humorless attitude took the fun out of any light-heartedness that provocative installations might inspire. When a visitor innocently mistook a disposable plastic drop cloth for trash, they were given the frowning of a lifetime. The misinterpretation should have been expected as a part of “experimental” work.

People were restrained and reluctant to comment or linger and left post haste to more relaxing environs such as MOMA and other tight-assed institutions. My advice to the New Museum is to lighten up, you’re on the Bowery. Provocative is, as provocative does and I’m at a loss to know, how can experimental art demand status quo behavior? The New Museum needs a new attitude.

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Starstruck and amuck in Argentina

Ignoring politics is not as easy as people would like me to believe. How is it possible not to look when the entire country of Argentina drinks “The Kool Aid” until it’s belly swells up like a giant pig bladder about to bust. It’s a dynasty situation with dire consequences.

Holy garchy!!! It’s demonarchy. What was once considered a middle class democracy is now a poverty-stricken aristocracy and they love it. What a World. The hell with food and shelter, the coronation will be televised.

Don’t fry for me Argentina, you have cooked up Christina and Evita and now everyone down there is fat in the head. Botero, where are you?

Holy moly!!! I can’t believe they made me look.

And here comes Hillary; another wife who denies her spouse had anything to do with setting up a dynasty.

Holy Hollywood!!! Tipper can ooh and Lizzie too

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Tennis anyone?

No grunters made the finals of the US Open and it was refreshing. An occasional grunt for a dramatic point is OK but the routine grunting is essentially a classless act of bling and vulgarity by corpulent Viragos raising a racquet instead of swinging one. Thank you Monica Seles.

The equal prize money for unequal work was baffling to me until I realized that the women were getting paid to create a lewd spectacle on the court for men with disposable incomes and deprived libidos. Two sets are what they came to see. Thank you Billie Jean.

For the sake of diversity, I used to root for the Williams Sisters but it was good to see them lose to someone who respects the game. Justine had no serve but justice was served. Discipline and dedication is more beautiful than fashion and pretension.

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Religion, what is it good for? Let them kill each other.

Two songs 100 years and poles apart, epitomizes the moralistic quandary of the most powerful country on earth. Caught between religious zealots bent on violence and rational egalitarians committed to peace, America is at the crossroads and must choose between the musical epistles of Arthur Sullivan’s 1871 “Onward Christian Soldiers” and John Lennon’s 1971 “Imagine”. What will it be?

The battle hymn of 1871 is deeply rooted in shocking atrocities one of which was the Albigensian Crusade of 1209 that pitted Christian against Christian. The entire population of the town of Beziers in Southern France was slaughtered but, before the carnage began a crusader general asked the papal legate Arnaud-Amaury how to distinguish a Cathar from the innocent and his reply was: “Kill them all and God will know which are his”.

John Lennon imagined a world without religion. How about a world without God?

Faith my friends, is not about belief, it’s an institution for people who have a need to feel superior to every other living thing. At the slightest provocation they invoke “divine rights” to summarily dismiss proofs and facts. They hate questions, talk in tongues and forgive themselves whenever they feel like it.

If they wish to believe that an invisible white male is responsible for every top quark, Higgs bosun, and DNA strand in the universe, then I say, be my guest, everyone has the right to be absurd. Believing in the Easter Bunny isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but ramming thousand-year-old writings of cave dwelling, woman hating, old hermits down other people’s throats is a wicked, wicked thing.

Those infernal flag waving evangelicals who keep their children deep within the darkness of the cave should be charged with abuse. They must step into the light. They must know that Jefferson, while drafting the declaration of independence said: “The last king should be strangled by the entrails of the last priest”. Let them kill each other. Religion, what is it good for?

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HOW LONG CAN THE STREAK OF WHITE MEN IN THE WHITE HOUSE GO ON?

The Democrats have three candidates among the many hopefuls who are not white men. They are described as an African American, Hispanic American and a feminist woman. The thought of any of these three in the rose garden has generated quite a buzz in the headlines and considering the high cost of advertising these days, the controversy is a fantastic bargain for them.

Politicians know that inside the booth voters also close their minds when they pull that curtain. And the irony that a lot of these voters are black, Hispanic and women is not lost on them. The politicians know about religion and those who profess to love America. They know that a country that gave George Bush two terms is not going to advance any concept of enlightenment. They know that people who can’t tell the difference between Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan are the majority.

The Democrats lived up to their jackass symbol by pandering to those who support the anti-intellectual, anti-science inclinations of George Bush. His cherry-picking truths have wasted thousands of lives and billions of dollars for reasons of his own and yet they dare not impeach him. They stood with child molesters and corrupt bribe takers to impeach a man for accepting pro-bono fellatio from a big fan. Everyone knows that presidents are more powerful than rock stars.

I just hope they have the guts when questions of qualifications arise, and point out that George Bush set the bar as low as it can go. The only thing thinner than his margin of victory was his resume. Because of his woeful performance, white men should be prohibited from running this time around. It’s time to debunk the myth, give some other group of Americans a chance to govern. Stop the streak now.

But when Schumer says we’re going after swing voters, we know what portends. All voters swing to varying degrees especially when it comes to food, housing, education, and health care. It sounds to me that after all the hype they will go with a white knight because they know the Republicans will bury those three in mud up to their ears. Expect John Edwards to keep the streak alive. At least they can say they tried. Whoo-hoo!

To use a football metaphor in summing up the next election, progressives such as Dean, Kucinich and Boxer will be sent to the sidelines and the Red team will toss Condi a Hail Mary pass over the head of Edwards to end the streak. Of course, that improbable scenario would be the same as two black head coaches meeting in the Superbowl game.

My thoughts on the candidates.

Hillary Clinton knew Bush was lying but she voted for the war because she thought it was manly and popular. It tipped the balance between my dislike of dynasties versus voting for a woman. And at this point Hillary gets my vote only for spite. A good old gal in the clubhouse could be a bigger nuisance than Obama or Richardson.

It won’t be long before we start confusing Obama with Osama. Right now he thinks Rice has broken the ice but he has a lot of overcoming to do.

Richardson would have to hope that Hispanics know he’s one of them and that blacks think he’s one of them ‘passing’ quietly and that whites think it’s just a fantastic tan.

In the meanwhile, I remain fascinated with descriptions such as African American, Hispanic, and white. One denotes a continent, the other an idiom and the latter, a color. For the sake of consistency the terms should be black, brown and white Americans. More accurately, they are half black, half brown and white; which also makes them half-white, half-white and white Americans. What will it be? The category of feminist will be addressed at another time.

Lastly, fact is, white men are a minority and they should not have exclusive rights to the presidency. Until the streak ends, we cannot in good faith call ourselves a democracy.

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In Praise Of Dilettantes and Other Fakers

“You can’t get higher than architect”. So says comedian George Costanza whenever he pretends to be an architect. He also likes to say “it’s not a lie if you believe it”. It’s funny to watch his antics but when he starts believing his own lies it becomes frightening.

No one is more shocked than he at how successful his masquerade has become. The avant-garde can’t get enough of him, commissions are pouring in, and now he is considering a tenured position at Princeton.

Technology has given George the ability to give form to his bizarre fabrications. At the press of a button he’s Charles Gwathmey and men of letters can’t tell them apart. Yes, George can do the Guggenheim and it wouldn’t take him very long.

Who needs to pass a test for minimum standards when everything is make-believe? Life is just an illusion. Fake architects have no problem with fake doctors, fake lawyers, and fake friends. Fake labels will do just fine because there are a lot of fakers out there.

Diogenes could not find an honest man and neither can the AIA. It is pathetic that a so-called professional organization cannot recognize an architect in a room full of penguins. George has no idea how powerful he is. By simply believing his own lies he has demonstrated that you can’t get higher than dilettante.

Oooh what a world.

Jason Alexander
as George Costanza

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Guggenheim Visit

There are few shows that can detract from the architecture of the Guggenheim and "Spanish Painting from El Greco to Picasso" is not one. It could have been, if only the curators didn’t try so hard to ramp it up. It was exhausting. There was too much stuff to look at. Every niche was filled when all that was needed was half the art. Every other stall should have been set aside for seating and to peruse descriptive narratives.

Billed as one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of Spanish art ever mounted in New York, the length of the ramp obviously dictated the size of the show and it was too long. They laid it on thick and yet were spread thin. The connections and affinities drawn were faint and the 15 thematic sections were not that important me. I would have preferred a chronological order instead of the groupings. If they told me El Greco was Venetian and Picasso was French, it really wouldn’t have mattered much.

Everyone knows that artists copy each other and whatever came before them. The affinities in Juan Gris are arguably more African than Cotan. And furthermore, art allows free associations. That is why I usually skip the audio guide the first time around.

How is it possible to start with El Greco at the juncture of Late Mannerism and Baroque and not talk about the enormous influence of Caravaggio who, in a single painting launched both the Baroque and Bodegas (still life for it’s own sake) with the Basket of fruit 1596? They didn’t explain the wide stylistic disparity between El Greco (1541-1614) and Zubaran (1598-1664) or the tremendous secular impact of Low Country art. To suggest that these were mere coincidences makes no sense whatsoever but it went over big with the Spanish crowd.

The compilation of artists was impressive but I was drawn mostly to Zurbaran, Velazquez. Murillo and Cotan who represent a Spanish school that I believe in essence is a blend of Caravaggism and Carracci academism that came by way of seventeen century Neopolitian painters such as Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, Artemisia Gentileschi, Massimo Stanzione and others. Jose de Ribera and Juan Bautista del Maino were a couple of the first Spanish masters to adopt Caravaggism. Ribera studied in Rome lived in Naples and Maino also studied with El Greco in Toledo. Additionally Velazquez was in Naples in 1630. All of this occurred while Naples was under Spanish Hapsburg rule. So to those who say there is no connection, I say phooey.

I found it strange that they did not cross reference the Frick which is currently showing a duplicate of the Mary and Christ by Zubaran, on loan from the Cleveland Museum. I saw them both within days and thought, am I out of my mind? How many replicas did he paint? But always expect strange things from the Grabbenheim, especially viruses. Sometimes I see the building as a constrictor poised to squeeze every penny from hapless victims. The sign in the gift shop said 50% OFF SELECTED ITEMS but what they really meant was 50% off a box of greeting cards from the show and it was still no bargain.

A word about the Architecture:
It’s always fun to visit the works of a man who proclaimed himself on national television to be “the greatest architect the world has ever known". There are some nice things and there are some bad things about the place. The Guggenheim intrigues me for the unique views no other museum can afford and also for its abundant Vesicas. Seeing where you’ve been and where you’re going simultaneously, is worth any pejorative about the inclined plane. The ramp is both great for wheels and for viewing paintings from extreme distances and oblique perspectives, and best of all, you can’t get lost.

The show went up the ramp as usual and I saw it in reverse. Starting from the top, I set out on a leisurely stroll downhill looking at art, architecture and people. If Frank Lloyd Wright were here today jostling with all the tourists, he would join me in this reverse experience. A walk across the Park to Polshek’s Planetarium ramp would clear up any doubts he may have.

Things were different in 1959, museums were not as congested and commercial it is clear that the ramp was designed to function as a casual two-way promenade; up along the exterior and down along the interior. Furthermore, the slow undersized elevator could not be expected to be more than a convenience.
The large elevators in the new annex can express visitors to the top but no one knows about them. By the time one enters the museum the exterior has left no doubt where to turn, people are drawn toward the vortex. Somewhere in the center there exists an unseen column of swirling energy that accounts for the mighty spiral. Of course the FLW purists regard it as sacrilege to suggest that this force could have been made manifest.

But I believe the bulge into the central space could be imagined as breaking free to assume the role of a free-standing elevator shaft in the form of a tornado-shaped column from his 1956 Lenkurt Electric Company project. It could suck people up to the top in cantilevered high-speed transparent elevators as soon as they enter. And why not? It’s no idea for a hack but, for the world’s greatest architect, it should be a snap.

It would’ve been much better to get a look at the worlds’ greatest park from a viewing platform at the top of the column before descending the ramp. Then one would have experienced the centripetal ramp as the result of the centrifugal pull to the vortex. It is the stuff of tornados. Oz anyone?

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IN PRAISE OF QUESTIONS
Response to NYIT’s Territories of Teaching Panel Discussion 9/28/06
http://www.nyit.edu/news/current/article_174/article.html

I can never resist an invitation to hear faculty discuss their teaching philosophies. And if it’s a NYIT event, all the better. Dean Judith DiMaio makes these gatherings lively and edifying by speaking up and encouraging others to ask critical questions.

The moderator, Nader Vossoughian, began with the following question to each panelist: Should wetlands setbacks be a part of the architectural curriculum? Frankly speaking, I expected a consensus that would advise students to stay away from wetlands (even marsh Arabs know that by now). Futile as it is, the panelists spent a lot of time talking about things that could either be sidestepping the issue or suggesting architecture may be in need of yet another ‘specialist’. I was left guessing as to why the question was asked.

A student raised her hand and analyzed the panelists according to their resumes. She separated each of them into categories of ‘specialists’ and no one objected. It’s incredulous that she was dead on. I thought that at least two of the panelists offered full range architectural services. She also counted theorists as architects and no one told her that it is the State that confers the title. There is wide confusion amongst students, faculty and the public as to what is an architect. Why didn’t that enter the discussion?

Moving right along, the topic turned to the computer. Someone in the audience believed the computer to be more than a production tool. He announced that there are two kinds of architects, computer citizens (people under 25) and computer immigrants (everybody else). I thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t. He implied the computer is complicit in this evolution. I admit that “Hi-rise for idiots” is now on the shelves but, in the meanwhile, computers cannot design because they cannot dream. And furthermore, Rock and Roll also created a generational schism. So what’s new? I wish the panel had a response.

My feeling is that these so-called computer citizens should take a break from cyberspace. Get unplugged, toss the earphones, grab a pencil and join the immigrants in the cave. The computer needs fresh ideas to work with and where do you think they come from? I’m told that the Hungarian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale is a laptop…Yikes!!! Now I hear there’s no longer a need for ‘the center’ because the computer makes it possible for a group to work apart. Whatever will become of those who are drawn to the ‘face to face’ ferment of the center?

Rodolfo Imas said something about the unimportance of history and the silence of architecture. Unfortunately his speaking style made it difficult to follow so I might have missed some salient points. Dean Judy pressed him for answers but he remained outside of my understanding. Personally, I believe history along with travel is of the utmost importance and that architecture is about as silent as the Bible.

Michael Schwarting recalled a conversation with Colin Rowe wherein Rowe remarked about Cooper Union’s 1970 exhibition at MOMA, “They take soft ideas and render them hard.” Now, there’s something to talk about, but the moderator moved on.

Michele Bertomen, said rigor is not rigid. My God, the dictionary definition of rigor is rigidity; stiffness. I really wanted to know what she meant by that but the moderator didn’t.

Jonathan Friedman alluded to ethical principles when he asked, “Is architecture just decoration for the rich?” It was clear that he regards architecture as civic pride and ethical principles, art notwithstanding. He knows, and so do his colleagues, that architects are by nature virtuous. He knows they must act as honest brokers in matters of structure, utility, materials and all the other entities that go into making a building. The question is about compromise. Is it inevitable at some point along the line? I wish the moderator had put that question to him.

I mentioned Ulrich Conrads’ book Programs and Manifestoes on 20th Century Architecture (English pub.1970) and lamented on the disappearance of the social contract. I associated the current air of apathy with the abolition of the draft and extolled architects to do their duty non-the-less. And speaking of teaching philosophies, Socrates, the father of philosophy, taught that beauty is virtue and virtue is beauty. That means if you tolerate wrongs of any sort such as the mistreatment of Americans (blacks) or the President’s brazen lies, then you’re not as beautiful as you can be. I wish I knew why this is crazy talk.

To me, all truths are related. You don’t get to pick and choose when to be scrupulous. If you can divorce structural truth from social and political truths then you can justify denying a woman her rights or victimizing gays. Probing questions that shake weak foundations put our theories and experiments to the test. Thoughts are made consistent by questions. And the uniform codes and standards that architects must comply with insist on such clarity. How can you teach professional practice without discussing ethics?

A case in point is the nonsensical façade going up across the street from NYIT at 61st Street by a distinguished pedagogue. It’s unlikely this would have happened in an office that worked in transparencies...on and off the boards. The cult of ‘anything goes’ makes critique impossible. So, what can be said about these bombastic extravaganzas except to call them Iconic. If there are no aesthetic standards then why bother taking questions. Lets face it folks, architecture has become fashion that any dilettante can do.

When I first saw the medieval depiction of God the architect, I wasn’t at all surprised; I knew it all along. Howard Roark knew it too. His self-righteousness came from the belief that the architect is God. Roark was the face of sacrilege and also the picture of virtue as opposed to Peter Keating who symbolized the status quo and vice. Ayn Rand portrayed Roark as an artist ahead of his time who, like van Gogh, painted what he saw and you may buy it if you please. Good for a painter, but not so good for an architect.

In Rand’s story, the ego is the fountainhead, the force that drives creativity… and it also drives one crazy. For me, the question is, does it run counter to Socrates’ aphorism that, “It’s a wise man that knows that he knows nothing”? If modesty is virtue and ego is vice, how do we reconcile Roark? These are questions that I would expect at the front end of any discussion of teaching philosophies.

The disconcerting irony with Roark is that the ego is both abrasive and comforting. Frank Lloyd Wright once said to a star-struck client concerned about costly overruns, “Who would believe you could afford a house by Frank Lloyd Wright?” With that, the client wrote another check and left brimming with confidence. I think both Wright and his client were wrong.

It is the questioning client that drags the architect kicking and screaming to greatness. Just ask Aline Barnsdall, Edith Farnsworth, Constance Perkins, Truus Schroder, and the talkative Stein-deMonzie gals. I believe Judith DiMaio is in that tradition and I want to encourage her to keep asking questions, it’s a good teaching philosophy.

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Bad Boys

Women love bad boys because their whole reason for being is to change them. It’s a nefarious instinct meant to insure their survival. Bad boys make better hunters and red meat is essential to the developing fetus. If you own a womb it would be prudent to also own a bad boy.

Can a bad boy be owned without diminishing his hunting ability? The answer is a resounding no! But, for a handsome fee, there is no shortage of counselors like doctor Phil willing to tell confused couples otherwise. Their remedy for everything is “sensitivity” training for the male to develop his feminine side.

Women like to hear that and before you know it, the man is producing estrogen just to please her. He morphs into a specialized woman, loses his will to hunt, and she starts looking for a bad boy with lots of red meat.

Whatcha gonna do? Bad boys.

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Walking Billboard

Once upon a time, men down on their luck could always pick up a few bucks by wearing the iconic “Eat at Joes” placards. Corporations used to give away tee shirts and caps to get their name out there. “Free gifts” and “free samples” were clever oxymora that effectively lured the frugal to part with their money.

Back then, it was assumed that anything other than a discreet logo had to be either trade-fair tchochki or free promotional offerings.

Today, people are paying good money to be walking billboards. Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein and Nike have little difficulty peddling their overpriced wares emblazoned with oversized logos to people who strut it around as a status symbol. The idea that people will pay top dollar to be a walking billboard is puzzling. What is the meaning of this?

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Hair today. Gone tomorrow?

Hair, what is it good for? Samson, Absalom, Mary Magdalene, Rapunzel and Goldilocks found it useful but for the most part it’s a breeding ground for germs and vermin.

There are cultures in which hair or the lack of it signifies a state of mourning, celebration, punishment, shame, pride, beauty and anything else you can think of. Some societies even issue mandates that forbid exposing hair to public viewing. Hair configurations can dramatically and instantaneously change one’s appearance for reasons of disguise or for recharging a waning libido. It can even make you look smarter.

Depending on where on the globe you stand, Venus and Adonis could be a Hirsute woman and a bald man. Attractiveness is simply a result of cultural conditioning. Therefore, beauty is essentially in the eyes of the believer. Madison Avenue is well aware of that when they trot out their latest fashions. They know all too well that people can be induced toward a new aesthetic even if it makes them look ridiculous. And hair is a big part of the scam.

Trendy consumers know that life is so much easier without hair care and maintenance and yet they invest so much time and money cultivating, eradicating and restoring hair all over their skin. They all want hair to die for. Perhaps because it grows even after death.

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Security: An Exercise in Futility

Au secours! When will I be secure? I am afraid to go out. I have nothing to hide and yet I find myself making a conscious effort at being myself. I wear no shoes, no belt, no watch, and carry no loose change. At times, I am even made to put my bow tie in the scanner. I would go naked but I’m afraid I would be asked to remove my stents?
Maybe I’m naïve or just plain stupid, but I refuse to accept this paranoid state of affairs as a permanent change. Why is diplomacy a bad word? Why is it wrong to debate, arbitrate and negotiate? Whatever happened to walking softly and carrying a big stick? America should never cower behind bollards and barricades. It’s not the right thing to do.
The war on terror is futile. In fact the term is an oxymoron. Although there is no comparison to the horror of 911, I recall that in my thesis year at Cooper Union I came into the classroom one morning to find all my work ripped to shreds and scattered on the floor. I picked up the pieces and continued to work in the open with no change to my routine. This anonymous act of jealousy I later found out came from a “clean-cut conservative” classmate who resented the attention my work was getting from the Dean.
There have been many such occurrences in my life including my time in the Navy. And in each case, I refused to withdraw into a bunker. It’s the right thing to do.

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Passion Plays

http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=1867

Susan S. Szenasy, Editor in Chief
Metropolis Magazine
61 W. 23rd St., 4th Floor, New York, NY 10010
212-627-9977 (tel), 212-627-9988 (fax)
edit@metropolismag.com

Dear Ms. Szenasy,
It is pathetic that, at this late remove from the “event” Alex Gorlin glamorizes his biography by wildly exaggerating an incident in which he recalls I figure.
In addition to numerous other inaccuracies in his MetropolisMag.com posting of March 20, 2006 his statements that I hurled “profane invectives” at Eisenman and that “it took all of Hejduk’s powers of persuasion to quiet me down” are flatly inaccurate though they serve to connect Gorlin’s self-made autobiography with some significant names in architecture. “Hurling profane invectives” is not, and never has been, my style.
Sincerely,

Rod Knox
Professor of Architecture
The Cooper Union

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March Madness

The PSAL Championship game between Coney Island rivals Lincoln and Grady

At three o clock Sunday afternoon the intersection of 8th Avenue and 34th Street suddenly became thick with young black people. The usual mix of tourists and shoppers milling around were brought to a standstill by the strange phenomenon. It was surreal.

The source of the homogeneous density was Madison Square Garden two blocks to the south where a steady stream of teenagers flowed out amid hundreds of cops trying to keep order and maintain the flow of traffic. When I asked a cop what’s going on he replied “high school basketball” and kept on policing.

I then asked a young man, what schools were involved in the game and he replied “the game is over.” But who were the schools? I repeated. Just then, another young man in the group smiled broadly at me and said “get the fuck out of here.” The look on his face sent a chill up my spine but it did not prevent me from saying "that’s not very nice." No one in the group showed any disapproval whatsoever of his unnecessary hostility.

As I moved away, a couple of white bystanders whispered to me “they are nothing but animals”. And to think, Martin Luther King marched for this madness. I was thankful for what I initially thought was too much police presence.

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Winter Olympics

Why do they call it the Winter Olympics? The Nordic Games, Las Vegas on Ice or Dalliances of the Idle Rich would be more appropriate. That would explain the presence of fifty three year old men in spandex swooshing down a chute in the prone position and middle aged couples in ridiculous sequined costumes appearing for the fifth time in the ice prancing contest.
There were skiers wearing tiaras, string of pearls and other assorted costume jewelry. There were blond teens competing with iPods in their ears, ironically dressed in the baggy fashions popularized by incarcerated black youths. Speaking of which, a black man won an individual gold for the first time and his white teammate who already won gold, called him selfish for pulling out of the relays thereby spoiling his teammate’s chance for more gold. Yikes!!!
The whole spectacle is a joke. Athletes from other sports enter for a lark but are disappointed to find that the medals are not real CDs. Where have you gone Eddie the Eagle and the Jamaican bobsled team? And what’s with that screaming lunatic at the starting gate?
Why not have three Olympics? The Winter Olympics implies that there is a Summer Olympics held in Saharan conditions in addition to the regular plain old Olympics. Mark my words, it will happen someday if a buck can be made. Denver happens to be the only city smart enough to have turned down these bombastic extravaganzas. Who needs to be drowning in red ink for generations to come for frozen decadence?
If androgynous steatopygia or swishy limpwristedness is your thing then it doesn’t get any better than this. I had to settle for curling. Those $6,000 computerized brooms are the most exciting things I have ever seen in these so-called Winter Olympics.

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Alito

Alito is bad news for progress. Unitary presidency? George Bush doesn’t need any more power to abuse.
The Supreme Court hearings again exposed the Democrats as paper tigers infatuated with the sound of their own voice. How could they allow themselves to be bullied by two old fogies like Arlen Specter and Orrin Hatch who are know for their blatant disregard of the facts. Specter was caught in a lie when he said he received no correspondence from Kennedy regarding Alito’s membership in a Princeton hate club.
I wanted to hear more about what the club stood for; but Hatch decreed that I couldn’t because Alito’s name did not appear in the records. And the docile democrats took it lying down once again. They dropped the subject and droned on and on instead of turning the screws. They were more concerned with the pundits than with the people.
It makes sense only when you remember that they are all members of the most exclusive eating club in the world. Both parties believe that God wills them to be rich but the difference is that the democrats pretend to have a conscience by leaving more table scraps.

Republicans are mostly chicken hawks: they talk tough as long as you do the fighting for them. Should anyone be surprised that they are riddled with corruption? Their tactics are as dirty as the terrorists they vow to defeat. Fight fire with fire is what people are inclined to endorse when they feel desperate. It gives comfort to the gullible and they know it.
Critical thinking will never be in style as long as the democrats choose to dumb down the rhetoric and join the suicidal stampede hoping for a miracle instead of grabbing the lead bull by the horns and putting a stop to this madness once and for all.
You don’t have to look beyond Alito’s family sitting behind him to see what’s in store for us. They all wore a smugness that that he was almost able to conceal in himself. Someone advised his wife to switch from conceit to disconsolate and it worked. The democrats backed away from her tears. The whole scene tells me that this guy has a lot of scores to settle. He came a long way, bided his time and now those anti-war, abortion-loving, race-mixing jerks that razzed his berries at Princeton better watch out.
The tone and timber of his voice was stressed and his answers were weak and evasive. It seemed clear that he has a lot to hide. Membership in a racist organization and refusal to recluse himself from ruling in cases involving his own stocks in Vanguard are things worth hiding.
Happy birthday Martin Luther King. Germany, Liberia and Chile elected females to lead them for the first time and yet your dream just took a giant leap backward.

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Thoughts on Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tookie Williams

The people who elect movie stars for office are dreamers. The ones in California thought they were getting a stand up Governator, a he-man, but instead, they got a girlie-man. Beguiled by his muscular build they didn’t notice the ruby slippers.
He was expected to do the right thing right now. And he acted the part. Accusations of woman-groping, steroid-popping and Nazi sympathizing were denied and they believed him. There was even talk about changing the constitution so that he could run for president sometime soon. And, why not? Thaaaaank yooooou George Bush!!!
Arnold was given the chance… of a lifetime.
Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams was terminated by the Terminator. He didn’t stand a chance. Tookie was a brutal thug who acted out the violence on the ‘big screen’; the stuff portrayed and marketed by Arnold and his ilk. He took it to extremes and ended up on death row. There, he spent twenty-four years transforming himself into the kind of person who would be nominated for the Nobel peace Prize on four occasions.
Arnold had to kill him. Tookie did not apologize and could not be redeemed, was the reason he gave. Anyone can see that the execution had little to do with apology, redemption, revenge, forgiveness or even rehabilitation. It was about politics. Arnold simply traded Tookie’s life to enhance his chances for re-election. The polls made him do it.
Arnold maintains Austrian citizenship, a country that banned the death penalty. He made his fame pumping iron in apartheid South Africa. He governs a State whose police are famous for planting evidence on blacks. He knows that one out of ten death sentences are overturned by DNA testing. He knows that blacks are disproportionably given the death sentence. He said he was the victim of false testimony but he gives no merit to Tookie’s denial. Does anything from the Kennedy’s ever rub off on that guy? How does he go home and tell his children that he had the chance to save a man’s life today (another father) and chose not to.
Apology and redemption indeed. Whenever the question of reparation comes up white America goes crazy. The past is the past they say, let's move on. There has never been an apology for the mass murder of Blacks and there has never been redemption for Whites. He missed his chance to set a good example. How can it be that Tookie and Arnold worship the same God? And finally, Arnold knows life behind bars is not exactly a second chance…it’s a fate worse than death
All things are related. We are interconnected and interdependent in ways that are missed the first time around. Second chances are what life is all about. The second coming, a second spring, the second time around, are the stuff of life. To quote a rich friend “First gets the glory, second gets the goods.” Second chances mean a lot. Tookie deserved a second chance. It made no sense to kill him...but for another term.
In a few months, Arnold will all be asking for a second chance. He will not win. Tookie will.
To be continued