Archinect - News2024-05-17T22:12:32-04:00https://archinect.com/news/article/124976094/patrik-schumacher-takes-to-facebook-in-defense-of-stars-and-icons
Patrik Schumacher takes to Facebook "In Defense of Stars and Icons" Nicholas Korody2015-04-10T14:59:00-04:00>2024-01-23T19:16:08-05:00
<img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/dy/dyfa52d9go6fb7lb.png?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><p>Earlier today, Patrik Schumacher of Zaha Hadid Architects <a href="https://www.facebook.com/patrik.schumacher.10/posts/10205380818112860" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">posted</a> a nearly 1,400 word polemic on Facebook denouncing contemporary architecture criticism and defending the “star-system” that has been instrumental in his firm’s success in the last few decades. Instead of “seeing conspicuity and success merely as a red cloth and occasion to knock down icons (and to teach the virtues of the ordinary, obscure and underappreciated),” Schumacher suggests that the role of the architecture critic should be to explicate and defend the work and status of successful architects to an ignorant public.</p><p>Schumacher sets out some “heuristic principles” that he hopes could guide his proposed role for the architecture critic. He states that so-called “iconic architecture” is the invention of critics rather than “the architects’ discourse,” which “serves the purpose of filling the explanatory gap that inevitably opens up because the methodology and motivation behind the unusual appearance of a radically ...</p>