Although i do kind of wonder was in all his praise of the architectural(ness) of the other prize winners when compared to Zaha I wonder if he is in fact giving a sort of back-handed compliment. That they do architecture, while she just creates global monuments. That at least is how i read it on the second go round.
though not as embelished, i thought this sentence was more descriptive of her architecture:
"icons of property development or city-making, symbols of computer power and expressions of a global taste culture as much as they are explorations of space, place, and structure."
and more interestingly (to me anyways), i think the point here goes beyond Zaha, and more towards today's built architecture, as in:
[other arts] "...might have more to show us of a world that we need to figure out and how we might do that in form, space and place, than..."[architecture itself]
@javier - yeah, saw it. Was just wondering if there was some longstanding beef here, or if this was just another reaction against form because like, there's no money for that anymore. Haven't read much from either party involved, so I don't know.
Mr. Betsky's position seems pretty nuanced, as pointed out by simples above, and I appreciate that. We need more of that.
I read it more as "important figure of our recent epoch." I'm with simples and 765 on this one...
I do agree with the sentiment in the article - that most of the interesting architectural explorations these days are not coming from architects or architecture schools.
