Miles, yes its the poo from the homeless at the Seattle Public Library. Oh, it seems like I am walking all over your house with it!

^ I was referring to Tammy's replies to you. LOL

I don't think tablets were built for the likes of me. Anyway...

First, let's not confuse one's shit for another's. Sameoldoctor wades in his own shit and ignorance and not in mine.  As I'm sure you do in yours, Not-so-Yafe.

Actually I  believe this topic is fundamentally interesting. For instance, while Rem Koolhaas is far above the  third tier that translates criticism into an abusive haganah (the first tier being that of ideological and intellectual  nascency, second being the popularisation), is he not at least indirectly and in part responsible for the origin of this disciplinary ouroboros turning around to bite its own bum. 

This in relation to the discursive criticism of critical discourse both degrading into- and maybe for a time being supported by- a mocking, caustic, silencing rationally-stingy force (we even see it on archinect). A cynical soulless silencing that even its agents might regret having allowed it to impose itself so uncritically. I recall reading that either FOA or UNStudio were voicing a possibly guilty regret that architectural discourse has been exorcised out of the discipline given that they had a role to play in that exorcism.

 Quondam, in your quote the issue of naivety crops up. I thing that's a bit of a fallacy. One is naive if one is oblivious to a concurrency that corrupts one's original intentions. Koolhaas' denominator of naivety is the 1980s. Learning from Las Vegas was concocted in the early seventies. And even if we give that the kernels were already in place, can we not see a definitevely knowing non-naive fetishistic , dehumanizing anthropology in  Learning from Las Vegas? In fact, one may look at the book as being closer to a sensibility of ironic complicity in mimicking the form of research detachment apropos what  calls for an ethical positioning  ( http://www.paperny.com/venturi.html , Fred koetter criticism) to one of sincere paradigmaticism. And I think the intelligence behind that is more likely to be DSB than Venturi. 

Another thing. If well intentioned american neo liberalism first informed Koolhaas' architectural worldview with its anti hierarchical egalitarianism, where do we situate Koolhaas now with other collapse of this mythopoetic attachment to american capitalism, usurped by institutional feudalism and the hidden rule of the very few? Where do we situate him in his Asian ventures where the divorce between capitalism and liberalism is complete and a priori? has he degenerated from the inspiration of an avant garde opportunistic liberalism to a corporate liberal opportunism? Was he himself naive or has he always the opportunistic Dutchman? A European's view of naivety is necessarily different from that of a  north American's, no?

LLV is mid to late sixties, not the seventies, in its initial appearances. "theoretical" discourse more exorcised than exhausted itself around 2000 (in my limited experience - it would be good to hear other variations of this story - I think this is why Patty Schumacher is valued by today's youngsters - he expansively fills a seeming void) in an almost perfect parallel with the mass availability of design software - say rhino, not cad - which demanded a 'discourse' around technical competency rather than broadly read theory, and was also inflected with the 'urgency' and need to be credentialed in sustainability. Koolhaas is still the author of Junkspace, involuted as it might be. While he might ironically celebrate Manhattan as the culmination of Europe's avant garde agenda, he still wants to scrub mies with his own hands. the difference between naivete and opportunism is simply no longer allowed, unless you rely on the hope than one day some fool will drag your sketches to the bibliotheque when you're dead.

not-so-yafe is funny if you bother to look it up.

the ugliness of the disagreements on this forum are perhaps its best lessons. they reveal the real and consistent divides in our architectural culture (in America that is). They are incredibly persistent. They haven't altered in seven years (the time I've been posting my own bs on this site). If they had, i'd just go start a music blog. Maybe that's why Im not too flustered by posts like this: its all simply status quo and you're foolish to expect otherwise. it gets old though. What to say? some of us will always hate new urbanism and some of us will always forgive frank gehry. nonetheless, the discourse around architecture suffers when all we have to consider is what Pappy did when the roof leaked that one time and he wasn't busy fucking my sister (typical anit-critical situation, y'know?).

Quondam and tammuz should find their own forum to flower each other with compliments.

the sense of how any idea is debased before it is launched

Lexington Kentucky has a new hipster smoked meatery now. Not that I don't think every city should have a local smoked meatery, but does every city have to use it as an example of ascendancy?

"They haven't altered in seven years"

Fku2, I think this place has changed dramatically with the shock of the economic crisis. maybe architecture itself became less relevant to architecture, let alone architerctural discourse to architecture. Does background-as-foreground qualify a post-hubris architecture I.e. pretend/accept architecture as non-architecture? Or is thematically post-hubris architecture and architectural discourse inherently hypocritical and reinstates the hubris it bears in its soul? Not so much the inevitable acts of necessary construction but the contingency of  unnecessary abstractions that create all that is not mute?also  This is what I see increase on this forum, the tendency to mute. It stopped being an extraneous trolling; it has been internalized. The debasing base denominator of a mute and dumb reality. The logic of 'we're fucked anyway as the passive objects of a number-crunching reality,  so if you don't act in accordance with my perception, fuck off/ you. In fact, fuck you anyway". Yeah things have changed. 

Perhaps the above post seems unrelated to the OP but actually it is still centralised around the theme of bashing. 

Thanks Quondam. I enjoyed the full speech. But actually, the notion of Venturis naivety makes even less sense given the overall tug of the speech. How to resolve the remarked-upon darkness and irony with the retrospective description of naivety? I think there is still validity in posing the questions I had.

One more interesting thing. I completely agree that there is an irony in the Last Vegas book, but I don't see that irony for instance in the vanna venturi house. There isn't that darkness that koolhaas brings to light. I think this was discussed in a previous thread.

Another question:

Why is everyone bashing VSBA?