On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, Met History wrote:

> But sadder still is the Roche firms design for an annex to the 1907
> Jewish Museum, at 92nd & Fifth, a 1990's "Francois Ier" retro design to
> break a longstanding logjam-controversy over development of the site.
>
> The retro design is widely praised by preservation groups - I must be a
> killjoy, but I wince every time I pass it, for the lost opportunity it
> represents for an architect (and a mason, and a glazier, and other
> trades) to design something, whether good or bad, that was not just
> "compliance architecture".

Okay, I'm way behind on my email, but I did notice in some of the postings
received since the above that some of y'all agreed with this assessment,
or even found the building nauseating.  But I have probably missed some of
the replies that referenced this.

Let me take a moment to try to understand this.  Or rather, let me start
by restating what I know about it in the context of my own perspective.

I have been to the Jewish Museum (years ago), but I have not seen this
addition since it was built.  However, quite contrary to the "widely
praised" in the above excerpt, I have yet to hear anything but deep
hostility toward it.  In particular, I think Herbert Muschamp savaged the
thing in the New York Times.

But the more I read Herbert Muschamp, the less I like him.  He is
positively hostile toward the notion that a building has to fit into its
context.  On the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, he bewails the fact
that it lacks the (dogmatically required) "irony" in its classical
facades.  In effect, he is a caricature of everything I hate about the
"Modern" architecture mindset, in which every building must be a prima
donna that rejects its neighbors and either ignores or ridicules history.

So, what exactly is wrong with the addition to the Jewish Museum?  Met
History (above) calls it "compliance architecture".  Is that such a bad
thing?  Those of us who have labored for years to administer preservation
guidelines in urban historic districts certainly can see "compliance" as a
small victory when the alternative is something intrusive, out of scale,
etc.

Presumably the controversy over the site indicates that a lot of
constraints applied to it: financial, contextual, legal, political,
aesthetic, etc.  Perhaps as a politician, I am too fond of compromise as
the art of the possible, but I take pleasure in seeing a compromise that
simultaneously satisfies multiple requirements, such as a building on a
difficult site that manages to harmonize with very different neighbors
and serve unmet needs without getting in the way.

I think it was Ian McHarg who wrote that architects do their best work in
response to constraints.  Freed from constraints, they'll give you a
carbon copy of their last project, or maybe something irretrievably banal.
As a county commissioner working with architects on construction projects,
I certainly found it to be true.  We preservationists and community
activists are surely interested in more constraints on new urban
buildings, more "compliance" with the needs of the neighborhood, not less.

Just lately, I have noticed that the best "retro" buildings (and
additions) are coming in for very heated criticism, as if they were a
bigger crime than all the crap that goes up without comment.

My interpretation: the architectural orthodoxy, having already taken a big
hit with the widespread abandonment of glass boxes in favor of
"postmodern" buildings, is desperately trying to hold the line against
quality buildings that do not show obeisance to the old dogma.

If there is a critique of the Jewish Museum addition from outside that
orothodoxy, I have yet to hear it articulated.

                                 Larry Kestenbaum