Sep '06 - Dec '09
“In America in the sixties an extra ingredient was added to this recipe for artistic change: social revolution. Urban renewal, supplier of work for architects for two decades and a major locus of the soft remains of the Modern movement, was not merely artistically stale, it was socially harmful. The urgency of the social situation, the social critique of urban renewal and of the architect as server of a rich narrow spectrum of the population-in particular the criticism of Herbert Gans- have been as important as the Pop artists in steering us toward the existing American city and its builders”
-Denise Scott Brown, ”˜Learning from Pop' 1966
I know that Bob and Denise have been the subject of many conversations conversations here at ”˜nect, but I have been reading ”˜Learning from Pop' and thought I would share this quote. I am of the belief that the ethical, social, political, and economic issues Bob and Denise brought up have not been acutely followed up by the professional and academic architectural world. I don't think that VBS took their ethical arguments seriously! as can be seen some of the more obvious formal ideas got some traction, but the ideas were first used as pastiche and then swallowed by the starchitect system they were fighting. Today the quote above is as valid today as in the 1960's, another example of ethical agnosticism?
P.S.: what happened to quondam?
3 Comments
Good question.
Well, there's now 25 pounds and a whole venue less of quondam. I don't think archinect could handle a leaner, meaner quondam.
try us. we won't disappoint.
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