On Mon, 12 Jan 1998, sbmarcus wrote:

> I suspect that there is also an economic element behind modern architecture
> limiting the grammar of adornment that cannot be found in modern poetry.

And this economics was driven to some extent by the modern architects
themselves.  I forget who it was -- Mies? one of those guys -- who
famously told a stonecarver that architecture no longer had need for his
services.  Once something is out of fashion, of *course* it gets more
expensive.

> But I think that you are generally unfair to modernism in both disciplines.

I don't think so.  But as I said elsewhere, I am not knowledgeable about
poetry.  And I do admire some of the products of both modernisms.  I fully
expect to find myself fighting for the preservation of International Style
buildings in the future.

> I've made the argument elsewhere about poetry. But, as to architecture,
> think for a minute how relatively short each of the "schools"  of
> architecture that flourished over the last three hundred years were. With
> the exception of vernacular domestic architecture all before the modern era
> were "revivals" of earlier forms, from classical to Palladian.

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.

I once served on a local historic district study committee with an eminent
modern architect.  While we were touring another city's historic
districts, we stopped to look at a high-style Italianate villa.  He was
asked by one of the other committee members about the probable
construction date.  He muttered, "with all those chimneys, I guess it it
must be from before there was central heating."

> Yet none of those "revival" styles, encouraged slavish imitation of
> their inspirational models.

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.

> Honestly, what would you think if Bill Gates had spent his tens of
> millions on his new home to produce a structure like those produced by
> the millionaires on 5th Ave in N.Y. during the latter half of the last
> century? Or if modern institutional buildings chose Bullfinch as a
> model?

I have no idea what Bill Gates' new home looks like; I assume it's even
more self-indulgent than the 5th Avenue houses.  As for buildings inspired
by Bulfinch, is that any worse than being inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright?
On the edge of Ann Arbor is a massive headquarters complex for Domino's
Pizza which is built in an explicitly Wrightian mode.  Domino's is very
unpopular here in Ann Arbor, but the building is widely admired.

> The "revivals" were filtered through the needs and sensibilities of
> ther time.

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

> 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.

> 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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

> On the rare occasion when I am paid to express myself as a furniture-maker
> in a manner of my own choosing I find it possible to achieve that creative
> satisfaction, and it usually means building on my knowledge of old
> techniques and styles to present my case in a recognizably "modern" form.

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.

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.  Museum pieces perhaps, but not something you'd want
around the house for anything but ideological reasons.  On the other hand,
a simple wooden chair of good materials could be seen as "modern" or as
strongly resembling a vernacular chair of 1,000 years ago.

> 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.

> That said- I honestly believe that if it were perceived as economically
> feasible you would see the evolution of as new grammar of ornament within
> contemporary architecture which would allow for much more surface
> decoration. Maybe the key to this rests in the hands of the preservation
> crafts. I don't get a sense that there is much communication between those
> dedicated to preserving our material heritage and those shaping our
> material future. Work gets bought and paid for all the time in preservation
> that most contemporary architects would never dare suggest to their
> clients.

Would never dare, not because the clients wouldn't embrace it, but because
the architect would be read out of the profession by his colleagues.

> > 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.

                             Larry Kestenbaum