On Fri, 20 Nov 1998, Dan Becker wrote:

> I started this thread with an observation that design review provides
> for the lowest common denominator; that it protects us from bad
> designers.  For bad designers, you just make them make it look like
> everything else, and you have at least not introduced anything bad into
> the environment.  Nothing inspired, but nothing bad.  If you want good
> architecture, hire good architects.  But commissions don't have any
> control over that.

I don't disagree with this, necessarily, but implicit here is a value
judgement which contains a lot of dynamite for cities.  A "good" building
designed by a "good" architect is by definition something qualitatively
Different (and the more different the better?). That "change good:
stability bad" bias, though perhaps natural and American, is profoundly
anti-preservation.

> You can have contemporary architecture that responds to its context
> without being a slavish imitation of past styles.  But many
> preservationists seem to prefer compliance architecture over
> contemporary architecture that is sympathetic to its context.  This is
> what Christopher is alluding to, 'retro design [that] is widely praised
> by preservation groups,' and suggests that we are going to freeze our
> cultural evolution in a time capsule.

If I could be permitted my little turn of being peeved: I think
"compliance architecture" and "retro" are getting to be slurs here.  And
this constant use of "slavish" really gets to me and make me wonder
whether dialogue is even possible.  Okay, that was my overreaction.

My sense of the preservation movement is VERY different from yours.
Despite the comment about the Jewish Museum addition being "widely praised
by preservation groups", I have yet to see a single positive word about
the thing from anyone but me, and I have never seen the building.  Even on
this list of preservationeers, everyone who commented seemed to agree that
the building induces nausea.

Indeed, the Secretary of the Interior guidelines contain language which
recommends "contemporary" design for additions to historic buildings.  I
have raised the issue of what happens when "contemporary" has been
redefined by the culture as "postmodern", and everybody looks away
embarrassed.  International Style dogma has enormous power even within
preservation.

Let me tell you about a building that meets *MY* "barf test": a big new
(about 1990) sorority building in downtown East Lansing, on a prominent
site across the street from MSU, on the corner of Delta Street and
Michigan Avenue.  Despite the obvious expense that was gone to, the
exterior is sided in red fake brick (I think it's called "thinbrick"),
installed in such a manner that the thinness is (deliberately?) obvious.
A front porch with two-story tall white cylindrical columns with no taper
whatsoever.  There's more, but you get the idea.  A badly executed version
of somebody's vague recollection of a cartoon image of a Southern
plantation house.

Back when it was first built, I mentioned it to a few people, architects,
city planners, etc., and everyone instantly knew which building I meant
and agreed that it was dreadful, a shame that such a bad building would be
built in such a conspicuous site.  But that was all.  Nobody passed any
resolutions about it, no committees were formed, not a critical word
appeared in any newspaper.  Okay, it's a smallish city, but in that same
area, reams of copy were written denouncing the Habitrail, and I think the
local AIA had a meeting and issued some kind of hostile memorandum about
it. (See my parking structure ramble, earlier today, for more about the
Habitrail.)

Meanwhile, an addition to a building in New York is subject to nationwide
denunciation for being "retro".  How many new buildings are built in New
York every year?  How many people even notice the building as they pass?
Why does this one building merit such horror simply for following the
style of the one it's attached to?  Why is the functionality of the
building so irrelevant in its evaluation by newspapers and leading
architects?  How could one building (an addition no less, not a standalone
new building) "freeze" cultural evolution in a "time capsule"?  Why
d'y'all care so much?  The only explanation can be that this building
violates cherished dogmas about architecture that brook no dissent.

One of the circles I move in is the folk music and dance community.
Contrary to those who imagine that folkies sit around endlessly repeating
the old standards retailed by Peter Paul & Mary 30 years ago, it is a very
vibrant subculture, constantly bursting with new ideas and new music and
new influences.  Yes, this music is usually created and performed using
traditional instruments rather than electric guitars, but that is hardly a
constraint that matters.  My favorite dance band, Wild Asparagus (from
western Massachusetts), so creative and open to diverse influences that
they delight in shocking the purists, can swing seamlessly from St. Anne's
Reel to something written last year, and the dance goes on.  Continuity
with history does not mean that anything is "frozen".

> To me, good contemporary design for a new structure that is of its own
> time indicates vitality in an urban environment.

Sure, but the era of the glass box is now history; that's not "our own
time" any more.  Strict adherence to Venturi's commandments about irony is
much more slavish than any "retro" new building I've ever seen.

                                 Larry Kestenbaum