i dont understand why our opinions should matter to stern
of all the architects i personally know, if someone they were not affiliated with tried to tell them not to take a high profile project because that person didnt agree with it, they would laugh in their face
its a double standard that i dont think a lot of architects would themselves live up to if confronted with the same situation
because one alumn from yale disagrees with him, that means the dean should reject what is probably a personal favor from an alumn who just happens to be the president?
i agree with marmkid. i've done work that i'd prefer not to have done. i'm doing some now. and at least half of my clients have 'w' stickers on their cars.
this is, by it's very nature, a project of national importance. stern's a perfect fit, if we make assumptions about what the clients will want for the project. why wouldn't his office take the job?
...but it IS fun to pick on the whole situation, isn't it?
seems to me this discussion is absolutely overlooking the issue of professionalism ... we are, after all, professionals.
being completely honest with yourself, if Bush were suffering from cancer or heart disease, would we be having this discussion about whether the best doctors available should be allowed to treat him? are we going to deny someone the best medical care, simply because we don't agree with his politics. when Bill Clinton was brought before Congress over the Monica affair, was he restricted from obtaining the best possible legal advice and did we criticize any lawyer serving in that capacity? in a case like this, does the fact that Bush is a douchebag really matter? i don't think so.
imo, professionals have a responsibility to deliver the best possible services whenever they are called upon to do so. getting wrapped around the flagpole over the client's politics seems, to me, misguided.
Hey, I'm not saying that our opinions should matter to Stern, or that he should reject the commission. All I'm saying is that I, personally, don't like that he took the commission. I believe it ties the school where he's dean to the commission, and to a lousy, lying administration.
I can't stop him from taking it. Nor can other students at his school. But if we don't like the association that he's necessarily creating, isn't it our right to say something about it?
By the way, file's analogy is ridiculous. Doctors have something called the Hippocratic oath--they MUST treat patients because the patients will DIE if they don't.
No one ever died as a result of an architect NOT taking a commission. But a number of people have died as a result of this administration's misguided policies.
And, SW, working for a Republican on a house or other project (as I said before) is radically different from designing an iconic building dedicated to the legacy of an intensely polarizing political figure. I've worked for republicans many times before, and enjoyed their company, and liked the design process.
But I wouldn't ever work on, say, the NRA headquarters. Or the Citizens for Pro-Life headquarters. Or any other polarizing political commission.
Seems like a lot of you are willing to just throw your values out the window to make a buck, however. That's your American right. But I don't have to think you're a good person for doing it. That's my American right.
first off, i could care less what you think, and have never claimed to care otherwise
just like i would be amazed if you cared what i thought
you opened a discussion, and then insulted people who didnt agree with you, and i commented that i thought that was bold
all i am saying is that i wouldnt blindly reject a commission for the reasons you have stated. someone could argue that by taking that commission, you could help bring some dignity to what you otherwise thought had problems. as opposed to having a bush lacky build a tribute to him, you could design a library to tribute the president's office, not bush in particular
but you say you work with other republicans, and have no problems with that. so essentially you are picking and choosing from people who have the same beliefs. and conveniently, you chose the highest profile member of that group
you are entitled to your opinion about all of this, i dont dispute that at all. i think this has been a great thread up until you said people here were not good people. write a letter to stern if it bothers you this much, because i doubt he checks archinect.
you cant complain about something this much and not actually do anything about it.
In fairness, I'm not saying that anyone on this forum is not a good person. I think we're all probably very good people.
I'm saying that I personally think that a person who would throw their values out the window just to make a buck is (in my estimation) not a good person.
And by the way, even though I was called this—"ignorant, blind and shallow reactionist"—by evilplatypus, and others called me other things, I continued to think this was a great thread.
i think that taking a commission like this without considering the political side of it is probably not the best way to go about it. i'll bet stern weighed all the pros and cons about the entire situation (one would hope anyway)
but taking the commision doesnt mean you are throwing your your values out the window, even if you disagree with bush
that has been my main point of disagreement with you farwest, and you are right, it is still a good discussion to have
there needs to some sort of library to document the bush era - there are for every president, and this one is especially important considering the controversial nature of this administration.
those criticizing stern seem to assume that the library will be some sort of monument to the greatness of bush. while i don't know much about stern's political affiliations, it seems like an unfounded assumption to make. the library will most likely be simply a place to document our current political era and everything that went on during it, rather than a structure to blindly glorify bush.
Farwest, you say you wouldn't take any polarizing political commission. But polarizing to who, just yourself? what if you were approached with designing an equal rights for all memorial. while it seems great there are some people who don't believe in equal rights for all. doesn't that make it a polarizing issue? You wouldn't take a commission if it dealt with something you don't believe in, great, but trying to say that stern shouldn't take a job for something you don't believe in doesn't make any sense.
But you really are acting pretty shallow here farwest, your assuming that you and people like are not polarizing, yet the Bush Admin. is polarizing. Well polarization only works on simple minded people who are prone to simple agruments and thus easily polarized. Fine dont take the job, but you went further, you advocated action against someone else, and thats overstepping your freedoms by impinging on anothers.
i will bet each and every one of you $1000 that not one single piece of damning evidence will be housed in this library.
it will, like everything else with this administration, be shielded with lies, scandals, judiciary obstructions and every other last silver bullet these bozos can try and throw at the american people to keep them from figuring out that it was all of us that got sold.
this library will neither be a shrine to W nor a simple repository for federal documentation of the 8 years of hell presented by Bush et al.
it will be nothing. it will be a meaningless speck of dust on the radar of importance. i know nothing of stern or his politics.
farwest - i hear your battle cry, but the reality is that nothing stern does or can do can change the fact that bush himself is a yale grad. get over it. your precious alma mater has been tainted since long before you set foot in its hallowed halls.
that being said...i still think it's reprehensible for an architect or designer to take any commission from a client who's political objectives are anathema to your own world view...whatever those views may be.
meta said this above: NO ONE IS PAYING YOU TO GIVE YOU OPINION ON HOW THE COUNTRY SHOULD BE RUN, OTHERWISE YOU WOULD BE A CONGRESSMAN OR SENATOR
nothing could be further from the truth.
SENATORS AND CONGRESSMEN ARE GETTING PAID TO LISTEN TO MY OPINION AS A VOTING CITIZEN...so in fact, my opinions are vastly more important than those of the chumps in the suits and the limos down there behind the beltway curtain.
So harsh. Sure G-Dub isnt the brightest guy we've ever had in the office but in reality, the guys presidency has not been too bad. We've had one of the largest economic expansions despite a world changing terrorist event, job creation is actualy up, inflation has been kept in check despite wildly volatile oil markets, we've established a standing army in the middle of the most volitile region on earth with minor upheaval and at the same time the entire rest of the planet has said fuck it we dont want to get our hands dirty, just send us more terror oil Iran, and pump to france through your mountain rebels. Ya we are dirty, but no ones clean and we be the cleanest. To be honest - I think a lot of die hard Bush bashers are just jumping on the band wagon - if this dude was really the end all be all antichrist concpiracy monster you make him out to be, I think his sinister plan would have included lurking on archinect to find you and send you to the torture camps by now
you should go back and read what i wrote. i never said i didn't have an opinion, nor that i wouldn't polarize. life is polarizing--opinions are polarizing. i'm not trying to be mr. ecumenical. i happen to be a democrat and a liberal.
personally, for instance, i like the clinton library. but i can understand that there are people for whom polshek's taking this job makes him a partisan architect. i personally like polshek more for having taken it.
i'm not bothered by stern the private citizen and practitioner taking the gwb library. fine--i think his architecture sucks anyway. so it will be a fitting building for bush.
what bothers me is his deanship at yale and the association that brings. hey, maybe i'm blowing out of proportion, though. i just hope yale gets a new dean soon....
The only architect I ever met from Yale was a worthless drunk, who thought he was a genius and the world didnt get him. Im not saying that has anything to do with you farwest but i am saying schools for architecture really mean nothing in the long run. Its the most subjective of any acedemic program one could degree in.
I wouldnt let it bother me - go out and be better than Stern - this school/idol worship of these cheese dick architects is what screws up schools to begin with - if not Stern, some other depends wearing jerkoff
i'm not really the most knowledgeable presidential critic, nor am i an economist, and although i have a natural sciences degree, i'm no environmental scientist, and i certainly can really and truly only speak my own opinion, and no one else's...but man oh man, i hope you come back to that quote in twenty years and see if you still feel that way.
we currrently live in an age of relativism, a postmodern hangover, where people can justify almost any action with "it's just business" or "that's reality." how many arguments basically come down to, "it could be worse," or "someone has to do it." fortunately, i see that age coming to an end very soon.
Thanks, I thought you were going to blast me on the Bush thing.
I dont really like him either, but I put him as "not a good president" - others think he's destroyed the world - they have no clue what a tyrant really is
Bush's administration has been far worse than "not good".
Totally outside of the discussion of this prject and architect, I agree with those who say that the mantra "business is business" is bullshit. If you don't bring morals to your work, and to your life, then who are you? What rights can you claim in a society of people if you aren't willing to respect the rights of others?
righteous fist- well, my problem with that is that my moral qualms with people who have too many children are far greater than my moral qualms with the documentation of 8 years of US history.
I regret those 8 years, and wish I had been old enough to vote against the man the first time around, but I support the idea of documenting it. I agree with those who have said they would not design prisons or 'detention centers' or military installations for this administration, because that is directly supportive of those activities. But I would not have a problem with this, because it is a place of history, not a place of actions. When I saw museums about WWII as a child, documentaries related to Nixon, and other things to which someone would have moral objection, there was nothing about those places that called for my support of the Nazi party. While I wish an architect had been selected that could give life and space to the polarization and conflict that this administration has brought, I don't get the moral repugnance that some here seem to feel.
Obviously its stupid to say i would never take such a commission... perhaps my kids are starving or in dire need of a transplant and the money from that commission would save their life...
otherwise i would avoid it.
jafidlers point about all these relative arguments "its not that bad" "it could be worse" are completely correct. Good and bad might be value judgments... wrong and right the same... but only psychopaths and argumentative flame throwers are so comfortable with blurring that line so completely that it ceases to exist.
its one of the most simple lessons everyone is taught when young... just because everyone else is doing it, doesn't make it right. I would venture a guess that every person here would vouch for its worth... yet some here base their entire arguments on a derivation of just that, something we know to be false... just because people before bush committed atrocities, doesn't mean his atrocious acts are acceptable.
Stern will most likely add into the program space for the Carrier Bush landed on after the assult on Iraq. Because it was a first for a President. The will of course have to decommission the Carrier first.
Then again if Stern has tied his commission to the cost of the Structure he will be able to retire along with Bush. Damn those Yale Boys know how to take care of one another......tongue in cheek!
Rtionalist - the thing about Bush is he didnt polarize America, it was already that way - he just picked a side and ran with it, just as Gore and Kerry did. So its not like he's the root cause of some undoing of society, He just happens to be the voice of the other half of the people you work with, go to school with, buy groceries from, etc. Every president pushes the limits of their power. In the late 1800's these men were much more ruthless and shiftless than Bush. FDR, JFK and Reagan had ties to the mafia even! Clinton was the most feared man in Washington because of his media machine - none of them are perfect and i think a lot of folks here are blowing this guy's presidency way way out of proportion. I think the phsycological term is shared delusion, a comfort in paranoia by a group knowing that they have a common target for their grievences.
I know I'm coming into this discussion a little late but I've had a couple of days to stew on it now, so here's my $.02:
I can't think of anyone living whose architecture who I dislike as much as Stern's. That's the main reason why I personally think he was an appropriate choice for architect....that's just my opinion. This may have already been said, but with contributions like the Yacht Club at Walt Disney World....
...I think we can assume that Stern captures some essence of Americana that some of us either don't care about or don't wish to involve ourselves with. Which is exactly how I approach people who identify themselves as supporters of Bush.
~~~~~
Now, that said, I'm currently doing an assignment in which we had to choose a building to diagram, and I picked the Clinton Library. I have a lot of warm feelings towards this building, not just because I like Clinton so much, but because the building itself is attractive to me, for its clean modern lines and the structural expression that make it so unique. It makes me sick to think that Bush is going to get his own building that someone, someday, might associate with Bush's "greatness", since I regard him as an almost total failure as a leader. So, while I don't think Stern should be chastised for taking the job, I do hope he makes one hell of an ugly building, and with his track record, I think he's capable.
i don't think all of his work is "butt-ugly" liberty bell. some of it is, but i could also argue that a lot of more celebrated projects are ugly as well. i think his work is just unfashionable and uninteresting. but some of it is rather beautiful in my opinion, which really has nothing to do with the former if you think about it.
i like shingle style architecture. i like gambrel roofs, i like mckim mead and white. i like the architecture of the gilded age. is it appropriate in today's world? well as much as a corbu or a mies ripoff is...
it's easier to rip off mies or corbu than it is to rip off mckim, mead and white. opulence is not in today's budgets. perhaps that is why i don't think much of stern.
I also have a problem with using metal studs to frame an arch, for instance, then covering it over with stucco or wood siding, or even worse, thin brick. An arch (and every other piece of historical construction) serves a specific structural purpose.
When you make an arch purely as a symbol, it's not structurally honest. I think if you look at Stern's architecture, you'll find this kind of dishonesty everywhere. It's all pasted-on fake historicism. It's all a bunch of tacky symbols lashed together with cheap materials.
Should Stern be Chastised for taking the Bush Library job?
i dont understand why our opinions should matter to stern
of all the architects i personally know, if someone they were not affiliated with tried to tell them not to take a high profile project because that person didnt agree with it, they would laugh in their face
its a double standard that i dont think a lot of architects would themselves live up to if confronted with the same situation
and george bush went to yale.
because one alumn from yale disagrees with him, that means the dean should reject what is probably a personal favor from an alumn who just happens to be the president?
i agree with marmkid. i've done work that i'd prefer not to have done. i'm doing some now. and at least half of my clients have 'w' stickers on their cars.
this is, by it's very nature, a project of national importance. stern's a perfect fit, if we make assumptions about what the clients will want for the project. why wouldn't his office take the job?
...but it IS fun to pick on the whole situation, isn't it?
stern who?
haha yeah it is fun
in a perfect world, we all would have the guts to turn down something like this on principle alone
seems to me this discussion is absolutely overlooking the issue of professionalism ... we are, after all, professionals.
being completely honest with yourself, if Bush were suffering from cancer or heart disease, would we be having this discussion about whether the best doctors available should be allowed to treat him? are we going to deny someone the best medical care, simply because we don't agree with his politics. when Bill Clinton was brought before Congress over the Monica affair, was he restricted from obtaining the best possible legal advice and did we criticize any lawyer serving in that capacity? in a case like this, does the fact that Bush is a douchebag really matter? i don't think so.
imo, professionals have a responsibility to deliver the best possible services whenever they are called upon to do so. getting wrapped around the flagpole over the client's politics seems, to me, misguided.
frankly i have more problems with the architects working in china. you know who you are...
Shot through the heart.
Vado - If its any consolation a firm i worked for did some big work in China then got the big China stiffy - good luck collecting
Hey, I'm not saying that our opinions should matter to Stern, or that he should reject the commission. All I'm saying is that I, personally, don't like that he took the commission. I believe it ties the school where he's dean to the commission, and to a lousy, lying administration.
I can't stop him from taking it. Nor can other students at his school. But if we don't like the association that he's necessarily creating, isn't it our right to say something about it?
By the way, file's analogy is ridiculous. Doctors have something called the Hippocratic oath--they MUST treat patients because the patients will DIE if they don't.
No one ever died as a result of an architect NOT taking a commission. But a number of people have died as a result of this administration's misguided policies.
And, SW, working for a Republican on a house or other project (as I said before) is radically different from designing an iconic building dedicated to the legacy of an intensely polarizing political figure. I've worked for republicans many times before, and enjoyed their company, and liked the design process.
But I wouldn't ever work on, say, the NRA headquarters. Or the Citizens for Pro-Life headquarters. Or any other polarizing political commission.
Seems like a lot of you are willing to just throw your values out the window to make a buck, however. That's your American right. But I don't have to think you're a good person for doing it. That's my American right.
thats pretty bold to say we arent good people
Correction: I am saying that, as dean and representative of a school of architecture, he should reject the commission. But I know he won't.
Marmkid: so you admit that you will throw your values out the window to make a buck?
If so, then why do you care what I think?
first off, i could care less what you think, and have never claimed to care otherwise
just like i would be amazed if you cared what i thought
you opened a discussion, and then insulted people who didnt agree with you, and i commented that i thought that was bold
all i am saying is that i wouldnt blindly reject a commission for the reasons you have stated. someone could argue that by taking that commission, you could help bring some dignity to what you otherwise thought had problems. as opposed to having a bush lacky build a tribute to him, you could design a library to tribute the president's office, not bush in particular
but you say you work with other republicans, and have no problems with that. so essentially you are picking and choosing from people who have the same beliefs. and conveniently, you chose the highest profile member of that group
you are entitled to your opinion about all of this, i dont dispute that at all. i think this has been a great thread up until you said people here were not good people. write a letter to stern if it bothers you this much, because i doubt he checks archinect.
you cant complain about something this much and not actually do anything about it.
A presidential library for Bush is not importnat at all - No one will care until he dies - It's going to be really bad no matter what -
In fairness, I'm not saying that anyone on this forum is not a good person. I think we're all probably very good people.
I'm saying that I personally think that a person who would throw their values out the window just to make a buck is (in my estimation) not a good person.
And by the way, even though I was called this—"ignorant, blind and shallow reactionist"—by evilplatypus, and others called me other things, I continued to think this was a great thread.
i think that taking a commission like this without considering the political side of it is probably not the best way to go about it. i'll bet stern weighed all the pros and cons about the entire situation (one would hope anyway)
but taking the commision doesnt mean you are throwing your your values out the window, even if you disagree with bush
that has been my main point of disagreement with you farwest, and you are right, it is still a good discussion to have
there needs to some sort of library to document the bush era - there are for every president, and this one is especially important considering the controversial nature of this administration.
those criticizing stern seem to assume that the library will be some sort of monument to the greatness of bush. while i don't know much about stern's political affiliations, it seems like an unfounded assumption to make. the library will most likely be simply a place to document our current political era and everything that went on during it, rather than a structure to blindly glorify bush.
Farwest, you say you wouldn't take any polarizing political commission. But polarizing to who, just yourself? what if you were approached with designing an equal rights for all memorial. while it seems great there are some people who don't believe in equal rights for all. doesn't that make it a polarizing issue? You wouldn't take a commission if it dealt with something you don't believe in, great, but trying to say that stern shouldn't take a job for something you don't believe in doesn't make any sense.
But you really are acting pretty shallow here farwest, your assuming that you and people like are not polarizing, yet the Bush Admin. is polarizing. Well polarization only works on simple minded people who are prone to simple agruments and thus easily polarized. Fine dont take the job, but you went further, you advocated action against someone else, and thats overstepping your freedoms by impinging on anothers.
i will bet each and every one of you $1000 that not one single piece of damning evidence will be housed in this library.
it will, like everything else with this administration, be shielded with lies, scandals, judiciary obstructions and every other last silver bullet these bozos can try and throw at the american people to keep them from figuring out that it was all of us that got sold.
this library will neither be a shrine to W nor a simple repository for federal documentation of the 8 years of hell presented by Bush et al.
it will be nothing. it will be a meaningless speck of dust on the radar of importance. i know nothing of stern or his politics.
farwest - i hear your battle cry, but the reality is that nothing stern does or can do can change the fact that bush himself is a yale grad. get over it. your precious alma mater has been tainted since long before you set foot in its hallowed halls.
that being said...i still think it's reprehensible for an architect or designer to take any commission from a client who's political objectives are anathema to your own world view...whatever those views may be.
meta said this above: NO ONE IS PAYING YOU TO GIVE YOU OPINION ON HOW THE COUNTRY SHOULD BE RUN, OTHERWISE YOU WOULD BE A CONGRESSMAN OR SENATOR
nothing could be further from the truth.
SENATORS AND CONGRESSMEN ARE GETTING PAID TO LISTEN TO MY OPINION AS A VOTING CITIZEN...so in fact, my opinions are vastly more important than those of the chumps in the suits and the limos down there behind the beltway curtain.
So harsh. Sure G-Dub isnt the brightest guy we've ever had in the office but in reality, the guys presidency has not been too bad. We've had one of the largest economic expansions despite a world changing terrorist event, job creation is actualy up, inflation has been kept in check despite wildly volatile oil markets, we've established a standing army in the middle of the most volitile region on earth with minor upheaval and at the same time the entire rest of the planet has said fuck it we dont want to get our hands dirty, just send us more terror oil Iran, and pump to france through your mountain rebels. Ya we are dirty, but no ones clean and we be the cleanest. To be honest - I think a lot of die hard Bush bashers are just jumping on the band wagon - if this dude was really the end all be all antichrist concpiracy monster you make him out to be, I think his sinister plan would have included lurking on archinect to find you and send you to the torture camps by now
evilplatypus,
you should go back and read what i wrote. i never said i didn't have an opinion, nor that i wouldn't polarize. life is polarizing--opinions are polarizing. i'm not trying to be mr. ecumenical. i happen to be a democrat and a liberal.
personally, for instance, i like the clinton library. but i can understand that there are people for whom polshek's taking this job makes him a partisan architect. i personally like polshek more for having taken it.
i'm not bothered by stern the private citizen and practitioner taking the gwb library. fine--i think his architecture sucks anyway. so it will be a fitting building for bush.
what bothers me is his deanship at yale and the association that brings. hey, maybe i'm blowing out of proportion, though. i just hope yale gets a new dean soon....
The only architect I ever met from Yale was a worthless drunk, who thought he was a genius and the world didnt get him. Im not saying that has anything to do with you farwest but i am saying schools for architecture really mean nothing in the long run. Its the most subjective of any acedemic program one could degree in.
I wouldnt let it bother me - go out and be better than Stern - this school/idol worship of these cheese dick architects is what screws up schools to begin with - if not Stern, some other depends wearing jerkoff
...
wow!
i'm not really the most knowledgeable presidential critic, nor am i an economist, and although i have a natural sciences degree, i'm no environmental scientist, and i certainly can really and truly only speak my own opinion, and no one else's...but man oh man, i hope you come back to that quote in twenty years and see if you still feel that way.
evilplatypus, i know i get in to your nerves, it doesn't bother me.
i got to give you due credit for great lines like this though.
this school/idol worship of these cheese dick architects is what screws up schools to begin with
i'm with you, farwest.
we currrently live in an age of relativism, a postmodern hangover, where people can justify almost any action with "it's just business" or "that's reality." how many arguments basically come down to, "it could be worse," or "someone has to do it." fortunately, i see that age coming to an end very soon.
Thanks, I thought you were going to blast me on the Bush thing.
I dont really like him either, but I put him as "not a good president" - others think he's destroyed the world - they have no clue what a tyrant really is
Stern should be chatised for doing crap work after his parents house...such potential such promise, tsk tsk
he's worse than a tyrant...he's a wolf in stupid person's clothing...
Wow, finally some help on this thread.
Bush's administration has been far worse than "not good".
Totally outside of the discussion of this prject and architect, I agree with those who say that the mantra "business is business" is bullshit. If you don't bring morals to your work, and to your life, then who are you? What rights can you claim in a society of people if you aren't willing to respect the rights of others?
will the real Modernists please stand up! Gesamkunstwerk and that means total! through and through!
righteous fist- well, my problem with that is that my moral qualms with people who have too many children are far greater than my moral qualms with the documentation of 8 years of US history.
I regret those 8 years, and wish I had been old enough to vote against the man the first time around, but I support the idea of documenting it. I agree with those who have said they would not design prisons or 'detention centers' or military installations for this administration, because that is directly supportive of those activities. But I would not have a problem with this, because it is a place of history, not a place of actions. When I saw museums about WWII as a child, documentaries related to Nixon, and other things to which someone would have moral objection, there was nothing about those places that called for my support of the Nazi party. While I wish an architect had been selected that could give life and space to the polarization and conflict that this administration has brought, I don't get the moral repugnance that some here seem to feel.
I am with farwest on this one.
Obviously its stupid to say i would never take such a commission... perhaps my kids are starving or in dire need of a transplant and the money from that commission would save their life...
otherwise i would avoid it.
jafidlers point about all these relative arguments "its not that bad" "it could be worse" are completely correct. Good and bad might be value judgments... wrong and right the same... but only psychopaths and argumentative flame throwers are so comfortable with blurring that line so completely that it ceases to exist.
its one of the most simple lessons everyone is taught when young... just because everyone else is doing it, doesn't make it right. I would venture a guess that every person here would vouch for its worth... yet some here base their entire arguments on a derivation of just that, something we know to be false... just because people before bush committed atrocities, doesn't mean his atrocious acts are acceptable.
will be nice to see stern take it up the butt (literally)...i'd like to know if they will show that in the library.
"but in reality, the guys presidency has not been too bad."
what is your benchmark for bad, then?
Stern will most likely add into the program space for the Carrier Bush landed on after the assult on Iraq. Because it was a first for a President. The will of course have to decommission the Carrier first.
Then again if Stern has tied his commission to the cost of the Structure he will be able to retire along with Bush. Damn those Yale Boys know how to take care of one another......tongue in cheek!
^ what rationalist said.
Rtionalist - the thing about Bush is he didnt polarize America, it was already that way - he just picked a side and ran with it, just as Gore and Kerry did. So its not like he's the root cause of some undoing of society, He just happens to be the voice of the other half of the people you work with, go to school with, buy groceries from, etc. Every president pushes the limits of their power. In the late 1800's these men were much more ruthless and shiftless than Bush. FDR, JFK and Reagan had ties to the mafia even! Clinton was the most feared man in Washington because of his media machine - none of them are perfect and i think a lot of folks here are blowing this guy's presidency way way out of proportion. I think the phsycological term is shared delusion, a comfort in paranoia by a group knowing that they have a common target for their grievences.
I know I'm coming into this discussion a little late but I've had a couple of days to stew on it now, so here's my $.02:
I can't think of anyone living whose architecture who I dislike as much as Stern's. That's the main reason why I personally think he was an appropriate choice for architect....that's just my opinion. This may have already been said, but with contributions like the Yacht Club at Walt Disney World....
...I think we can assume that Stern captures some essence of Americana that some of us either don't care about or don't wish to involve ourselves with. Which is exactly how I approach people who identify themselves as supporters of Bush.
~~~~~
Now, that said, I'm currently doing an assignment in which we had to choose a building to diagram, and I picked the Clinton Library. I have a lot of warm feelings towards this building, not just because I like Clinton so much, but because the building itself is attractive to me, for its clean modern lines and the structural expression that make it so unique. It makes me sick to think that Bush is going to get his own building that someone, someday, might associate with Bush's "greatness", since I regard him as an almost total failure as a leader. So, while I don't think Stern should be chastised for taking the job, I do hope he makes one hell of an ugly building, and with his track record, I think he's capable.
like i keep saying, Stern is a perfect choice
ohhh, thaat stern
I hope the CAD monkeys in Stern's office are getting enjoyment (schadenfreude?) from this thread.
His work truly is butt-ugly. Thanks (sort of) for the visual reminder of that fact, DubK!
that yacht club is rather handsome looking and i'd happily park my boat there.
i don't think all of his work is "butt-ugly" liberty bell. some of it is, but i could also argue that a lot of more celebrated projects are ugly as well. i think his work is just unfashionable and uninteresting. but some of it is rather beautiful in my opinion, which really has nothing to do with the former if you think about it.
i like shingle style architecture. i like gambrel roofs, i like mckim mead and white. i like the architecture of the gilded age. is it appropriate in today's world? well as much as a corbu or a mies ripoff is...
it's easier to rip off mies or corbu than it is to rip off mckim, mead and white. opulence is not in today's budgets. perhaps that is why i don't think much of stern.
because you're against opulence?
I also have a problem with using metal studs to frame an arch, for instance, then covering it over with stucco or wood siding, or even worse, thin brick. An arch (and every other piece of historical construction) serves a specific structural purpose.
When you make an arch purely as a symbol, it's not structurally honest. I think if you look at Stern's architecture, you'll find this kind of dishonesty everywhere. It's all pasted-on fake historicism. It's all a bunch of tacky symbols lashed together with cheap materials.
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