Lawrence,

 I agree with a good deal of what you've written, but do feel a need to
 respond to some of it.


> Like science or any other human endeavor, we are always influenced by
 > those who have gone before us.  But the architectural Moderns rejected
 > this, imperiously insisting that they knew better, that architects
should
 > not study or even be aware of history.

 True in reference to Bauhaus and the International style. But not at all
 fair to many "Modern" architects from Corbusier, who was greatly
influenced
 by vernacular architecture, to Kahn, who acknowledged a strong debt to,
 among other styles, Romanesque.

 > Nor am I advocating "slavish imitation".  But how interesting would a
 > literature be that decided to reject the classical vocabulary of words,
 > sentences, and paragraphs?  In my mind, this is exactly what happened in
 > architecture.  To extend the analogy, it would be a literature that
 > declared it to be the duty of all good writers to burn the books of past
 > generations.

 > Okay, that last line is a little unfair, but not to all of them.

 Why isn't there room in the spectrum for those who do turn their backs on
 the past, as well as those who don't. You said yourself, above, that there
 are examples of Modernism that you do admire. Is the "made" world not
 better off for the existence of these alternative, out-of-the-continuum
 structures. The fact that the Stellar examples of the International style
 laid the foundation for the mediocre miles of glass on Park Ave. doesn't
 lessen the aesthetic validity of the former. And it's not much different
 from this art , or any other, at other times and places. The streets of
 Paris are filled with boring examples of bad architecture of the styles of
 a dozen periods, as are the streets of New York and London. I admit that
 the totality of the experience of wandering the streets filled with
 traditional structures is a lot more comforting, less unsettling, but
 mostly because of the an engulfing nostalgia, rather than aesthetic truth
 (BIG CONCEPTS there). I for one, would not want to live in an environment
 that didn't include structures that are expressive of our time (But, of
 course, I do, here in rural Maine, and I sorely miss my fix of NOW if I
 don't get out of here regularly).

 > Note that "Revival" is modern terminology.  At the time, each was seen a
 > completely new interpretation within the existing architectural
> vocaulary.

 I argue with that. Absent the term, maybe, but the intention was to build
a
 self-consciously retro environment.

> > They were influenced by economic and cultural pressures that
> > were unique to their eras.

 > In the case of Modern architecture, part of the cultural pressure (as
Tom
 > Wolfe has documented in "From Bauhaus to Our House") came from within
the
 > architectural profession, the rigid notions of the glass box and so on,
 > and the dogma of contempt for any client who wanted something different.
 > For them, it was a moral imperative that a power plant, an elementary
 > school, a county courthouse, an office building, should all be
 > architecturally indistinguishable from one another.  I don't think the
 > public ever bought into this, but they didn't get a choice.

 I agree, but I see the same thing happening here in "Colonial" America all
 the time in the interplay of restorers and their clients. This has been
 discussed before in other threads, but I work with several restoration
 contractors and consultants who constantly bully their clients into
 accepting their ideal "restoration" without adequate reference to their
 client's needs, intention or purses.

 > > As a furniture maker I find the opportunity to create pieces in period
 > > styles satisfying and endlessly instructive, but creative? Not hardly.

 > Then it sounds like you're imitating specific pieces, not working in the
 > vocabulary to create new ones.

 No. I almost never make replicas, just work in period styles. But the
 vocabulary is for me, culturally, a lie, even as it satisfies my
mechanic's
 need for developing skills and being technically challenged.

 A great deal of my childhood was spent wandering in the Museums, galleries
 and studios of New York. On any given Saturday I was likely to spend a
good
 deal of time looking at the rooms full of Ormolu and Sevres mounted Louis
 this and that furniture in the Met, and at an exhibit of Duchamp at the
 Maholy Nage Gallery. From this I seem to have developed a detachment from
 the stylistic partisanship that seems to be the norm in most aesthetic
 stances. My satisfaction comes from experiencing fine examples of work in
 all disciplines and styles. I feel sorry for, in my life spent around
 artifacts, the great majority of my colleagues who only see "art" in their
 style of choice. Staying with furniture, around here it is hard to throw a
 stone without hitting a lover of "country" furniture, but you could drop a
 bomb and not wound a single person who ever took satisfaction in viewing a
 piece of the Victorian period.

 My creative nerve responds best when I have the opportunity to take what I
 know from the past and include it in a design that makes sense in terms of
 my experience, which is a world that included jets, e-mail, VCRs, WWII,
 rural roads with cars driving at 50 MPH,  Ezra Pound, Duchamp, Alben Berg,
 Artaud, etc., etc.

 > While I was at Cornell, they were just finishing a large addition to the
 > Gothic law school building.  Since the addition was going to be large
and
 > conspicuous, they wanted it to be consistent with the architecture of
the
 > existing building.  However, the existing building was highly assymetric
 > and no two parts of it were the same.  Nor was any large part simply a
 > routine section of wall with regularly spaced windows.  It would have
> been ludicrous to simply mirror the building with copies of an existing
facade
 > or tower.  Instead, the architect had to come up with a whole new facade
 > and tower in the spirit of the original.  I bet this was not easy work
> for an architect trained in twentieth century dogmas, but the result was
 > successful.

 Louis Kahn did a similar thing at the Mellon Museum at Yale, and I can
 think of numerous successful examples by architects unknown to me, with
 expansions of public and residential buildings. Of course, I can think of
a
 lot more failed efforts, but that's what one would expect, no. Not because
 the architects were Modernists unschooled in the past, but because the
 majority of architects are uninspiring, just as are the practitioners of
 other arts, who's banalities are just easier to avoid.

 > And how could the process not have been an expression of creativity?
All
 > kinds of constraints (word meanings and connotations, structural
 > integrity, availability of pigments, heating ducts, project budget,
shape
 > of the site, etc.) are an integral part of any creative process.  To
 > design a Gothic building in this decade is no less creative than to
> design one in the International Style.

 Yes, if you are building an addition. I bet that you couldn't find an
 architect willing to take on a commission for any reason other than money
 to design a free-standing Gothic structure if you polled the entire AIA:
 Not because they are slaves of their discipline, but because the
vocabulary
 would be a lie.

 > > It just does nothing to allow me to express myself as a child of my
 > > century.

 > Anything you do is of this century, regardless of how you make it or how
 > it looks.

 I'll skip this one.

 > In some cultural contexts there is a requirement to "mark" an item with
 > symbols of a time or place or idea, as with carpet weavers in the Near
 > East deliberately leaving a tiny error as a religious obligation, or
 > clothing makers attaching a union label.  The notion that anything made
 > today must be "marked" by a rejection of traditional forms is a survival
 > of Bauhaus ideology.

 Only if you accept your thesis that all architects practice that. Think of
 post-modernism. I can't say that I like much of it, but the reference to
 traditional ornament is not, to my mind, as someone here stated, only
 ironic. The redaction of Post-modernism to domestic architecture is a
 rebirth of rural vernacular vocabulary that often works quite well and in
 my neck of the woods fits in quite well with existing historical examples.

> Maybe I'm expressing my ignorance about furniture here, but I'm under the
 > impression that furniture-making is quite different from architecture,
and
 > the range of variables is much tighter.  I think we are far more
demanding
 > of our furniture, in terms of its comfort and usefulness, than we are of
 > our buildings.

 Not so. Demands and responses range all over the place. The world of
 "studio" furniture is full of the same kind of hyping of less than usable
 artifacts as is contemporary architecture.

 > If you're making wooden furniture, almost without regard for its form,
 > it's probably not something that the architectural Moderns would have
 > approved for inclusion in their "International Style" buildings.  The
 > furniture they made -- or even Frank Lloyd Wright's furniture -- seems
 > ludicrous to us now.

 Maybe to you. There is a sizable industry devoted to producing
 reproductions of furniture by Wright, Stickney, Mackintosh, Eams, Mies,
and
 numerous others. This stuff sells and gets sat and slept in all over the
 world.

> > Put another way, I think that it is a pity that there seems to be a
 >> complete cultural schism between those who pursue "traditional" design
>> and its material manifestations and the "modern".

 > That schism exists, I think, because of the unbending ideology of Modern
 > architecture.

 HOGSWALLOW! Is your ideology any less unbending then that of the moderns.
A
 curse on both your houses. (If I were given to emoticons, I would insert a
 big grin here).

 > > > Some years back, many years ago now, a Greek Revival townhouse in
 > > > Greenwich Village, NYC, was blown up by someone experimenting with
>>> bombs in the basement.

> > I knew those people. I was managing a bookstore on 8th St. when it
 > > happened. They were not architectural critics.

 > I didn't say they were.  I assumed the explosion was an accident.

 Forgive me, it was just an effort at a grizzly joke.


 Bruce