I guess that I am destined to play the odd man out in this crowd.
Understand that I cherish preservation as much as the next guy/dame. I just
think that you are blaming the wrong thugs here.
>
> > The link here I see with architecture is the still dominant ethos among
> >  architects that "modern", "ahistorical" architecture is a moral
> >  imperative, and that (say) a dentil cornice is as verboten on a modern
> >  building as a rhyme and meter scheme is in a modern poem.  (Venturi
and
> >  the "postmodern" movement would allow it, if-and-only-if it's
> >  transparently fake, as an ironic gesture.
>
> I find it ironic that the resulting architecture is dehumanizing. Worse
yet,
> that the vernacular population finds the architecture as meaningfull as a
> sterile gesture.

Both these statements seem to me to resonate with an us-against-them
mindset that obscures your vision. Maybe we need to come to a mutually
acceptable definition of "modern" architecture (Hey, lets jump back into
the discourse pool), but if one were to consider the term to mean
architecture of this Century that includes a great variety of styles and a
goodly number of valuable structures in those styles that I can't accept
being labeled "dehumanizing".

> Which betrays a lack of enlightenment, a bit of hubris, on the part of
> architects who are not heretics. I'm of the impression that the "leading"
> architects have some pretty heavy egos and prefer to preach to the
masses.
> I'll hold off on examples here. And that the general field of architects
runs
> after the ideas of the leading architects. A lot of group-think and a lot
of
> flaming for any _artist_ that would wander in their own vision, with
economic
> pressures to conform to the predominant ideology. Preservation would be
served
> to get on the psychic map if there were an architectural critic/educator
that
> could sustain themselves in presenting a viable theory for not always
> designing the new and to establish the morality of conservation. I think
> architects are afraid to embrace existing fabric in part because of a
fear
> that it would erode their economic support. Who wants to pay an architect
to
> say, "copy the building nextdoor?"

Which is what 90% of architects do. The vast majority earn their livings
producing viable structures in styles that their clients are comfortable
and familiar with. The metaphorical building next door may be Lever House
or a mock-Tudor Greenwich home or a Colonial or Garrison in a development
or a redwood treehouse, but most consumers of architecture are an
ill-informed gang and the field of architecture very much reflects that.
The "stars", the Mies, Gwathneys, Johnsons are a mere handful of the total
population and have far less influence, I think, on what gets seen in the
common environment than does the guy who designs the mall that achieves
100% occupancy nearest the mall to be designed next. And that is as likely
to be "historical" in some sense, Spanish Colonial in Florida and
California,  American Colonial in New England. I've seen malls meant to be
taken for Tudor towns, Danish villages, Venice, Japanese temples and
western towns, all in Northern New England.
>
>
> >  Another NYC building which is still hated -- and will probably soon be
> >  destroyed -- because it was and is a heresy against modern
architecture is
> >  the former art gallery at Columbus Circle.  Buildings are not supposed
to
> >  be playful, nor are they allowed to take history seriously.
> Another building I know. I think the demise will come from an inability
to
> determine a viable adaptive re-use. I heard one plan was to cut holes in
the
> facade to allow for windows.

Or, the case could be made that Edward Durrell Stone, who designed the
building for Huntington Hartford's vanity museum, was a flashy but vapid
artist who designed a structure that was totally wrong for the sight. Any
way that's my opinion.

> I think this accounts for all of us on BP. I also think that it has been
a
> grass-roots motivation from seeing our environment denuded and sterilized
that
> has caused many people to take action and work to preserve their favored
> buildings. Then again, Walmart has done a job on small town America and
we
> have given over our environmental destiny to multi-national corporations.
If
> people believed what is happening they would protest. Instead we are
barraged
> with "rights" while our local communities are being stripped by
developers.

Now you are getting to the real villains. The cause of encouraging a
satisfactory built environment and protecting what is left of our past,
including open space, would be fall better served by railing against
Walmart and developers than against Bauhaus and Mies.
>
> >  a vast
> >  region of empty blocks left for a future expansion that never
happened.
> >  This is what Modern architecture and its peculiar bloodless morality
has
> >  done in my world.

I  don't know exactly what you are referring to here, but I suspect that
the banks and the syndicators are far more to blame.
>
> We should not be subject to development without representation.
Ken Follett

Right on, brother.

Bruce