Ada Louise Huxtable has studied plans proposed for the World Trade Center site. “The conceptual daring and advanced technology of these schemes – the sheer drama of their bold images – brings cutting-edge creativity to New York, where it is long overdue. Buildings like these have already changed skylines from London to Hong Kong. This is the architecture of the 21st century, and about as good as it gets. That’s the good news. The bad news is that these provocative and beautiful presentations have also given us a stunning demonstration of how to do the wrong thing right.”
Category: visual
Architecture’s Wrong Turns And Faulty Values
Philip Langdon is angry about the current championing of architecture that puts people and context in subordinate roles. “Unfortunately, the spirit of the ’60s is returning in building design; the tragedy of architectural arrogance is now being replayed as farce. Across North America, a rash of anti-social architecture is erupting. Public participation in design decision-making has blocked some of the worst ideas, but alienating buildings are rising in significant numbers. Indeed, advocates of ‘progressive’ architecture proclaim many as instant landmarks, and portray their designers as stars.”
Computer-assisted Art
How is the computer changing the ways artists make art? We don’t mean digital artists, but those traditional artists who have begun using the computer as a tool in their artmaking…
Picture Hunting – On The Hunt For Chicago’s WPA Murals
An effort to find and restore WPA murals in Chicago’s public schools has turned up hundreds of them – many painted over or tagged with graffiti. “Others had tears and severe water damage. And all of them were covered with up to 70 years’ worth of dirt and grime.” So far the project has resulted in restoration of 400 heavily damaged and hidden murals, painted during the WPA (1933-1943) and Progressive Era (1904-1933). Many of the works are by prominent artists.
Salle Forth – David’s Back But Evasive As Ever
David Salle is back with a new show in New York, back at Mary Boone’s gallery, where he came to prominence in the 1980s. “Salle is right up there with Jasper Johns as one of contemporary art’s all-time great question dodgers. Although he was initially viewed as a cynical provocateur, that characterization is no longer useful or even accurate. With the gift of hindsight, he seems more like an art Sphinx. His pictures feed at least partly off Mr. Johns’s use of pop images, and their work is similarly confounding, a box of puzzle pieces that you keep trying to put together only to realize that six pieces are missing on the floor of your hall closet.
Gehry Weighs In On The WTC
Why wasn’t Frank Gehry among the architects submitting plans for the World Trade Center site? He tells Deborah Solomon: “I was invited to be on one of the teams, but I found it demeaning that the agency paid only $40,000 for all that work. I can understand why the kids did it, but why would people my age do it?”
What The Parthenon Marbles Would Look Like In Greece
The campaign to put pressure on the British Museum to return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece is intensifying. The Greek goervnemtn is building a new museum to display the marbles should Britain return them. Now a high-tech exhibition in the British House of Parliament shows what the marbles would look like in the new museum. “The display includes a computer-simulated walk through the museum showing the reunited marbles displayed in glass cases.”
The Online Museum – Five That Get It Right
The wrold’s great museums are the world’s great museums. But the online museum is a recent development. Here are Joseph Phelan’s picks as the most interesting online art museum presentations…
Virtual Marbles
The British Museum still doesn’t plan to return the Elgin marbles to Greece anytime soon, despite growing support for such a transfer, but a new exhibit in the UK shows what the marbles would look like were both pieces to be reunited in Athens. The exhibit uses virtual reality technology to simulate the joining.
WTC Glare – Too Much Publicity?
The glare of publicity focused on choosing a building plan for the World Trade Center site is probably greater than on any other project in recent memory. But not all the architects involved are happy about it. “Many have privately expressed reservations about the designs’ details, the handling of the competition and even the spotlight in which the contestants now stand.”