The circumstanses might be different but the outcome the same -- what Mayer's thirst for spetacular monuments by spetacular often alian Icons have brought us here in Eu. is in much sense not any different -- untill next spetacular castle museum public building , alianiting public to architcture as such, and as by you, these things reside by internasional architectural road-shows.
What is lost by local tallent, in terms of real architectural quality , there are no measure big enough to tell that. But it is no local , so to say. sickness ; these silli calls for spetacular surfaces and fake structure, is an internasional sickness, the public's influence is not so much a matter of democratic decisions but the only way to stop this silli perspective of architecture is by public protest, --- and belive me there are a growing care for the qualities that each and each one of these spetacular theater cliche's of structural beauty arogantly try to overshaddow, the sickness that architecture are not about humble family houses and cheap places to live with qualities these Icon makers jettisoned along with the academic protests that is also growing, will leave us with an architecture historie , very dull indeed --- in those 30 years that is the lifespan before so little wear will uncover the Icon's real core qualities there hopefully start a revolution that will not leave the thirsty mayers and the masters of internasional architectural roadshows, with just the historic hero status their followers today want to sacrifice them, --- the way to stop this is to educate the public how fake and hollow , how arogant towerds the real qualities these Icon makers act ; what is lost and what sad arogant architecture replace the real quality architecture shuld provide.

n.o. has picked a perfect example for a point he want to make, but i'm unsure how many OTHER good examples there might be. the barnes foundation has always operated in a behind-closed-doors kind of way and i think it's been to the benefit of the institution.

which is a PRIVATE institution, by the way, despite the fact that the galleries are open to the public.

i trust them to make good decisions for their institution, a challenge in itself given the restrictions that barnes put on his gift. enlisting twbta is a great first step.

n.o. acts like no one will ever get to see the new facility until its unveiling. i don't know where the site is, but there aren't too many urban locations these days where a facility of this size could be inserted without public meetings and impact studies and vetting by the planning and zoning reviewers.

early client/architect interactions maybe SHOULD be privileged conversations - or there is, anyway, nothing nefarious about such conversations. if my public projects had to be subject to open conversations every step of the way it would be like torture and drag the project out way past my clients' budgets for my time. and the result would be more design-by-committee if put out there before the natural gestation period required for a concept to gel into a design.

the public's chance to critique and suggest and discuss will be during the public hearing process required by local planning guidelines. hope n.o.'s still paying attention then. but i'll be surprised since those public hearings are not as sexy and interesting - are sometimes dead boring - and he'll be on to rake more muck somewhere else. this article suggests either a real or willful ignorance of how the whole planning and approvals process works. or maybe he's just jealous because he's outside the closed doors.

No offence -- but have you thought about this that those closed doors work both way's ?

an intriguing turn of phrase, per, but when i think about it i realize that i have no idea what it means.

The AIA should act as a surrogate to public descision making. After all, this organization is educated and knowledgable in all architectural discourse and holds the publics life safety in it's highest esteem. This organization will be able to separate the seed from the husk, reveal and cull the interlopers, elevate the true cream of this proffesion to heights as yet unknown. If we all volunteer for subcommittees for the advancement of the Voice Of The Public Arm of the AIA, we all as a society will be uplifted and may I dare say enlightened to "GOOD DESIGN". Please gather round in a circle and everyone hold hands as we sing "We Shall Overcome Non-Standardized Architecture".

You describe very good what I heard before, and you are right.
But --- how do we change things so those doors are not so closed.

Agree with your post, Steven. Sometimes we need to trust our experts, and TWBTA are such outstanding experts that I have few worries they will produce anything that will cause harm to the shared built environment. I am certain they will only improve the Parkway - and the Barnes collection - through this project.

Having made the "psychological journey" out of the city to the Barnes more than once, I'd say, frankly, it's not that big a deal. If anything it was a huge hassle and only resulted in making me feel annoyed, not better-prepared to enjoy a transcendent art experience. The drawn out history of conflict - the neighbors hated the traffic the Barnes brought to their idyllic streets - and the constant feeling of having to tiptoe around under the hawkish docents, not park in the street, the timed tickets...all added to the sense that visitors were not welcome at this institution. That's fine, it IS private, except the only way it could survive and fulfill its mission as a teaching collection was to allow the public in.

IMO, the design process for the interior space of this institution does not need to be opened to public review. How the building meets the very public, very highly used civic space of the Parkway should be open to public input, though again, only via a typical process that allows experts - designers and public review officials - the opportunity to do their best possible work. In this case I think closed - mostly closed - doors are appropriate.

Set up an elementary school competition for said "PUBLIC" building. No better way to get adults to design some Architecture. Then put designs on display at the community religious center, The Mall, and have a public judging with trophy, newspaper article and photo... rock bands included for the wine sipping crowd. Fame is the big hook.

I guess my point/questions was why isn't the public involved more,
Trying to involve the public more in competitions would it seems be a great opportunity for some low level education on/about architetcure for the public.
Plus if there are public funds involved the public should especially have a say. (which obviously isn't the case for the Barnes as it is a private institution)

Perhaps, Europe is more open (as Nicolai pointed out), because public funding is more widespread and available for the built environment across the board from housing to cultural institutions etc...??

Finally,
@ Steven Ward
Although i agree with you about the existence of public committees and plannign boards etc ( i actually am a big fan of watching my local meetings on the public access channel)
these don't seem to provide an arena for the sort of society/public wide discussion and educational opportunity that i mentioned above...
Or maybe they do???

nam - how would you include the public in a design competition? i believe the competitors would need to be qualified as design professionals or there wouldn't be much point to selecting joe mechanic from down the street as the winner of the competition.

this is not to say there shouldn't be more public input on public buildings. quite the opposite, even in the case of twbta, i believe that a public discourse should most certainly affect their process. i guess the real question for me is what is the best way to garner public input.

calthorpe has made a career of holding public master planning workshops. while i like the premise, there is still a strong top down attitude coming from his office at these workshops. while the public is ostensibly giving input, the design or outcome of the workshops is too often predetermined.

the ground zero masterplan competition was as good an example of public participation. the public said 'no' and now we're stuck with a quagmire of lebeskind's vision hijacked by David Childs, and the memorial unbuildable. Wish they had just waited a few years before jumping into figuring out what to do with the WTC site.

The Barnes debate has been going on for longer and it seems that most folks in philly (and marion) would prefer the museum to be on the parkway. there was a vote to fund the move and the bond(?) passed with flying colors. So that was enough participation to kick the Barnes' board into action.

@ jafidler,
"i guess the real question for me is what is the best way to garner public input."

That my question...How? I am not sure, but i think that including them not as judges or even competitors, but simply for discussion would be beneficial for the competition, for the profession, and most importantly for the public

Wow, I almost missed a gem of a thread here.

Treekiller - Actually Merion's community generally do not want it on the parkway from what I've heard.

The Merion community combined with those opposed of "moving" the Barnes Foundation have made a big impact in terms of debating the move itself.

In terms of design: I think N.O. picked the wrong museum to discuss transparent-open competitions. There is a lot of private money involved here, but more importantly the design of the museum will require a very intricate solution in response to many complex factors. Depending on the sensitivity of the design, there might not even be a need for debate whethere there should be move. I'm against the usual distrust in the American public, but this is one case that I think would require too much time and scrutiny (more than anyone can afford) for the public to understand and have an intelligent response.

Phil- I stand corrected. Certain parts of the philly arch community desire the move because it will make them $$$. certain parts of philly with vested interests in the parkway wan the barnes to move too. certain politicians want the barnes to move to become their new legacy.

So who cares if the citizens of marion who have all but forced the issue in first place suddenly realize what they have to loose...

This may sound naive and optimistic - but I really think the move was centrally based on the fact that the move would save the institution from going bankrupt, not necessarily make them a lot of money. They've already had to resort to selling some of the paintings in storage to keep them afloat. This is one institution that has really kept the integrity of the founder's wishes - so much so to the point of going bankrupt. Barne's wishes didn't translate over time to the point where staff and maintenance fees are more than revenue of the museum and school.

So as I kind of alluded to, if TWBTA makes a sensitive response to the problem at hand, they will not have to take much away from the Merion community. Some solutions may be architectural, some may be infrastructural, and more importantly in this case both at the same time.