On Sun, 24 Nov 2002, Met History wrote:

> I am thinking not about what "would" happen, but what has happened, at least
> in New York City.  I'm thinking of new construction in historic districts in
> New York in the last decade or so.  The addition to the Jewish Museum; the
> new "neo-Renaissance" cast-limestone 10 story apartment building in back of
> 838 Fifth Avenue [the "love thy neighbor" building]; the new "neo-Georgian"
> apartment house at 52 East 72nd Street [for which a neat little Morris
> Lapidus building was demolished].    They are all ... tepid, at best.   At
> very best.  And this at a time of rather adventurous architecture outside of
> historic districts, even by speculative builders, like the last 10 years of
> towers around Lincoln Center by Costas Kondylis and others - just regular
> guys, not archi-stars.

The only one of those I have seen is the addition to the Jewish Museum,
which we have argued about before.  Since your view of that one project is
so utterly at variance with mine, I doubt we'd agree on the others you
mention.

> I don't think you need to "subscribe to the Howard Roark theory of
> architecture" to hold the opinion that, the thicker the bureaucracy, the more
> finely  minced is the artistic impulse.

Perhaps it can't be taken to extremes, but in my experience, constraints
force architects to produce better work.  Every time I have rejected an
architect's proposal for a new building, the architect has come back with
something better, usually, a whole lot better.  The architecture
profession has a lot of rhetoric about how every site is unique, but in
practice you don't get a building uniquely well-adapted to the site unless
you enforce unique constraints.

> Read also the battle-statements made by the non-profit preservation groups
> involved in such discussions - they show little evidence of connoisseurship
> or real architectural concerns - they are simply about bulk, shadows, views
> of existing tenancies, construction noise.

I am surprised you would expect anything else.

> In such an environment, could even Howard have a chance?

If Howard can't deal with bulk, shadows, views, and noise, he's not worthy
of being an architect.

                                Larry

---
Lawrence Kestenbaum, [log in to unmask]
The Political Graveyard, http://politicalgraveyard.com
Mailing address: P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106

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