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 -- To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to: <http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>