Ah ha! James Howard Kunstler is the author of one of my seminal undergraduate books, The Geography of Nowhere.
He's a snappy writer, as the Eyesore of the Month captions attest. I should reread his book now (maybe 10 years later? maybe more?) to see if I still agree with it.
professional complainer. his only 'act of architecture' (his words not mine) is some lake-side bunkhouse...bunk is right, a la A.M. Stern. He seems an expert on all things because he says he is...ah, the theory of nothing based on nothing...he's one paranoid catchprase away from John Ashcroft Status.
his little speech about the Columbine Shootings blames it all on a societal loss of values and morals evident in Littleton, CO's historical/cultural/whatever-ly bleak landscape...yawn...
...if only real theory was this easy. what this world needs is a little RIGOR.
anyone could look at a gehry building and call it an eyesore.
subjective material, of course...
in that i'd agree....but i'd like not to- those paintings totally sucked. there's a 4 yr old from not too far from where this guy seems to reside that's about 300 times better than him. (NYtimes-Metro section 9/28)
to ridicule some of the greatest architects' work, yet show your own bland work with such bravado is somewhat ballsy, but in an ignorant manner....
kunstler is a new urbanist wannabe who should redirect his efforts back to dogging all the sprawling, historicist, gated-community chainstore mediocrity surrounding us (as he started to do in Geography of Nowhere) rather than take potshots at work that actually has some intensity behind it -- he's become sadly misguided and narrow-minded (kind of like our fearless W, who's arguably been that all along)
I just wanted to share Kunstler's writing because it is so funny. When I read his analogy of a FOG building to a pile of machine shop floor sweepings I couldn't help but laugh. Or reference to the "mother ship from Independence day" landing in Boston and "getting a brick veneer."
Maybe this guy is a bit extreme and far too cynical but sometimes it feels good to step back and explore how the critics see our work.
Thankfully after much mouse clicking I wasn't able to find anything I was responsible for even though far too much of my work adorns the great American suburban sprawl-scape.
Shallak-
FOG has some intensity but not REM? (maybe if you're talking formal/sculptural gyration vs. critical/intellectual content), I'll admit HOLL has a little less, and MS even less; but there is a HUGE gap between all of their stuff and the Denny's/crap Kuenstler lambasts that you come across hourly anywhere in the world, that deserves some of his kind of harshness...
it's funny a few months back when the seattle public library was his "eyesore" i sent him a dumb email that simply stated "you suck" surprisingly i got a response from him within an hour and we had an ongoing debate over the rest of the day...everyone should email him comments or engage him in a debate. he's actually got a few valid points and insights, albeit fogged over by a serious skepticism of anything "new" or "individual" even though he decries the loss of individuality and place....definitely an odd-cookie. very much the luddite of modern architectural criticism, i'm definitely sure his fave architects are leon krier and r.a.m. stern.
his email address is on the website.
In reference to Janosh's post above about Kunstler's criticism of Alsop's OCAD:
I took Kunstler's use of the word "faggotry" to be the original meaning of the word "faggot," meaning a bundle of sticks, referring to the "legs" of the building.
you gotta give credit to the guy, true his paintings suck big time but some of the comments he makes are pretty hilarious, i found the one on Machado and Silvetti's turd in Harvard quite enlightening... i think it just goes to show what an elitist and dogmatic discipline architecture is and that we architect - me included - find beauty in some pretty obscure designs, thus completely disconecting ourselves from the general public...
"Have all the homebuilders in America come down with ARDS (Acquired Retarded Designer Syndrome)? Here is a typical specimen nowadays. Grain elevator meets mobile home."
when i'd emailed him id commented on the eyesore-like quality of his own shitty website and now he says on the above mentioned page 'our new look, due to reader's complaints' and in his own paintings says 'new improved and added' - too funny
He's totally fucked up in my view. Look at his May 24, 2004 post (here) where he says the following: "We make amateur porn videos where no one really gets hurt. They make snuff movies." The people that "don't get hurt" or those prisoners in Abu Ghraib.
You may be right. I read that post and couldn't find the part you quoted, but I don't have time to really scrutinize it. What I can't figure out is whether Kunstler is just a nutcase, or is really very clever and ironic and using hyperbole similar to the way Mike Royko did. Alas, I'm not smart enough to discern, only to ponder. He's no Royko, but he still makes me laugh.
It's been my policy to view the Internet not as an 'information highway,' but as an electronic asylum filled with babbling loonies.-Mike Royko
No matter what you guys say I still think he has an amazing command of the English language and is quite comical in his reviews of buildings. Comparing a FOG model to machine shop scraps is an analogy that most architects will never imagine but you've gotta give credit and chuckle a little bit.
He also might be a little extreme in all his rants but he is a huge anti-sprawl type and I respect that. Do you really enjoy the suburban world of superhighways, stripmalls and everything looking the same across the country? Just get past his criticism of your pride and joy building and have a laugh each month as his latests eyesore.
You guys are taking him way too seriously - he's not out to start a new religion or anything, don't expect everything he says to stand up to some sort of biblical exegesis.
I see his paintings as mocking the Kinkadian nature of contemporary society, seeking this fluffy impressionistic built environment, when actually it is totally blighted. I don't think his glowing McDonald's is meant to be taken seriously.
And his critiques of the built environment are mostly dead on. I don't think that Gehry eyesore belongs in Jerusalem, I can't judge the Predock building from that one picture, but based on that one picture, it certainly doesn't live up to Predock's self described pretentious hype. And say what you will about the Seattle Library, its own designers are intentionally producing an eyesore to challenge conventional notions of beauty. I actually thing the library is totally appropriate for its context and program, but it's not meant to be easy on the eyes.
The guy may not be the best designer, but he's good at what he does. He is a humanist critic who thinks our technocratic capitalist society has gotten way out of hand, and that this is reflected in the built environment. He uses all the linguistic tools at his disposal, including irony and hyperbole, to get his point across.
And if he is a professional complainer, more power to him. At least he's making money off something everyone on this board seems to be doing for free.
At this point we all know and for the most part agree on the deficiencies of the built environment, particularly in the suburbs. We don't need so-called urban theorists to keep beating this dead horse. We need solutions! We need solutions that have a greater breadth and depth than the rehashed new urbanist crap people keep resorting to. I just don’t see Americans moving en masse back to dense cities anytime soon, particularly considering the fact that we have a low population density compared to other industrialized nations and a generation of Americans who’ve grown up (unlike my parents’ generation) without living a day of their formative years in a city.
It’s also absurd, as his website seems to suggest that the car’s days are soon numbered. While the days of oil may be numbered within our generation, it’s doubtful that the car will disappear overnight or that we won’t find another way to power our cars once oil declines as the principal source of energy. Some might argue that developing a cheap, renewable means of powering cars might actually lead to an increase in automobile use rather than a decline. So while it would probably make sense to find more intelligent ways to deal with the car and to arrange communities in a way that would minimize its use, it’s absurd to suggest the car’s irrelevance is right around the corner.
I have read two of Kunster's books over and over again. They are fantastic, I keep them handy for quick reference. I think he has a lot of good language to describe architecture. I too, am cynical and critical, it drives me nuts, but I believe him. He speaks about the present as though it is a past that we can see clearly.
jhk is a pretty entertaining guy...i saw him lecture about a year ago and i was impressed.
has anybody else read his recent book called "the long emergnecy" where he speculates about the emerging global energy crisis? he paints a pretty grim picture and i'd love to hear if anybody can refute his some of his claims.
“The citizens of Jerusalem will now have to suffer a building that looks like a pile of floor sweepings from a machine shop.â€
Sometimes a pile of floor sweepings from a machine shop are incredibly intriguing, and can even be considered beautiful. Who’s to say where beauty can be found anyway? I hate those banal paintings of random dramatic landscapes. The most interesting beauty is found in unexpected places.
In San Antonio, near 281 and 1604 (way north suburbs), the city is allowing the developers to completely scrape a hillside of all trees to build these two story houses 10 feet apart (to meet the 5 ft building site line/talk about impervious cover). People are buying these things without any remorse.
The funny thing is the infrastructure isn't built for the traffic, and now all the large gas-guzzling Texas trucks and SUVs are sitting in 1 hour of traffic to complete the 5 miles to reach their "hill country villa." Oh, the irony...
wait, why are there bushes in front of the garage door?
i will say that kunstler's writing style can be quite humorous, and he's helped to keep the pro-life* movement from co-opting the word abortion. but for the most part, he's a raving loon.
holz - this was a resale of an existing home. I'm sure they enclosed the garage to add square footage for resale, and then landscaped over the driveway. this is horrible. they deserve the traffic!
"Every August, by tradition, the EOTM takes a break from the immersive hideousness of America to offer up something rewarding, admirable, and/or beautiful. This year's spot goes to Cottage in the Gothic Style by architect Milton Grenfell of Washington, DC, for client Field Horne of Saratoga Springs, New York. Unpretentious, well-proportioned, and restrained, it serves as a good model for others who would like an alternative to the Home Depot McHouse method of design. The absence of balusters on the porch can be explained by New York's building codes, which have such idiotic requirements that it's not worth putting them on -- at least not now while the codes are enforced. I'm convinced that we will stop enforcing the codes as we enter the Long Emergency and have to build things differently than the codes allow. And forget about reforming the codes."
I agree, the Israelies should not be building a tolerance museum until they've stopped bombing the piss out of Gaza every time there is a week in the month. I mean, you got a right to defend yourself but that doesn't mean you should be an asshole about it.
eyesore of the month
All morning I have been laughing my ass off looking at these "eyesores" and reading the comment.
this moron hates everyone! SOM, antoine predock, gehry, alsop, koolhas, machado, etc.!!! omg. i'd like to know what he likes.
check out his own paintings
http://www.kunstler.com/paintings.html
those paintings are the definition of eyesore...
gawd... a painting of McDonalds and the highway?!?!?
Ah ha! James Howard Kunstler is the author of one of my seminal undergraduate books, The Geography of Nowhere.
He's a snappy writer, as the Eyesore of the Month captions attest. I should reread his book now (maybe 10 years later? maybe more?) to see if I still agree with it.
professional complainer. his only 'act of architecture' (his words not mine) is some lake-side bunkhouse...bunk is right, a la A.M. Stern. He seems an expert on all things because he says he is...ah, the theory of nothing based on nothing...he's one paranoid catchprase away from John Ashcroft Status.
his little speech about the Columbine Shootings blames it all on a societal loss of values and morals evident in Littleton, CO's historical/cultural/whatever-ly bleak landscape...yawn...
...if only real theory was this easy. what this world needs is a little RIGOR.
A pillar of tolerance - he refers to Alsop's OCAD as "avant garde faggotry".
http://www.kunstler.com/eyesore_200311.html
One wonders if what he really means is that homosexuality in Colorado was responsible for Columbine.
funny site.
anyone could look at a gehry building and call it an eyesore.
subjective material, of course...
in that i'd agree....but i'd like not to- those paintings totally sucked. there's a 4 yr old from not too far from where this guy seems to reside that's about 300 times better than him. (NYtimes-Metro section 9/28)
to ridicule some of the greatest architects' work, yet show your own bland work with such bravado is somewhat ballsy, but in an ignorant manner....
kunstler is a new urbanist wannabe who should redirect his efforts back to dogging all the sprawling, historicist, gated-community chainstore mediocrity surrounding us (as he started to do in Geography of Nowhere) rather than take potshots at work that actually has some intensity behind it -- he's become sadly misguided and narrow-minded (kind of like our fearless W, who's arguably been that all along)
Thanks for the insight Shalak.
I just wanted to share Kunstler's writing because it is so funny. When I read his analogy of a FOG building to a pile of machine shop floor sweepings I couldn't help but laugh. Or reference to the "mother ship from Independence day" landing in Boston and "getting a brick veneer."
Maybe this guy is a bit extreme and far too cynical but sometimes it feels good to step back and explore how the critics see our work.
Thankfully after much mouse clicking I wasn't able to find anything I was responsible for even though far too much of my work adorns the great American suburban sprawl-scape.
Shallak-
FOG has some intensity but not REM? (maybe if you're talking formal/sculptural gyration vs. critical/intellectual content), I'll admit HOLL has a little less, and MS even less; but there is a HUGE gap between all of their stuff and the Denny's/crap Kuenstler lambasts that you come across hourly anywhere in the world, that deserves some of his kind of harshness...
it's funny a few months back when the seattle public library was his "eyesore" i sent him a dumb email that simply stated "you suck" surprisingly i got a response from him within an hour and we had an ongoing debate over the rest of the day...everyone should email him comments or engage him in a debate. he's actually got a few valid points and insights, albeit fogged over by a serious skepticism of anything "new" or "individual" even though he decries the loss of individuality and place....definitely an odd-cookie. very much the luddite of modern architectural criticism, i'm definitely sure his fave architects are leon krier and r.a.m. stern.
his email address is on the website.
In reference to Janosh's post above about Kunstler's criticism of Alsop's OCAD:
I took Kunstler's use of the word "faggotry" to be the original meaning of the word "faggot," meaning a bundle of sticks, referring to the "legs" of the building.
Or he might be a homophobe...
you gotta give credit to the guy, true his paintings suck big time but some of the comments he makes are pretty hilarious, i found the one on Machado and Silvetti's turd in Harvard quite enlightening... i think it just goes to show what an elitist and dogmatic discipline architecture is and that we architect - me included - find beauty in some pretty obscure designs, thus completely disconecting ourselves from the general public...
Am I the only one who is fond of the Machado/Silvetti building?
let's hope so, that thing is a disgrace
i know i knocked his paintings, but this one is just too damn funny
http://www.kunstler.com/eyesore_200112.html
"Have all the homebuilders in America come down with ARDS (Acquired Retarded Designer Syndrome)? Here is a typical specimen nowadays. Grain elevator meets mobile home."
i think he should list his website as the "eye sore of the month"
if you are going to talk about aesthetics, don't look like a hypocrite
that's a fair enough comment moratto, his website sucks ass indeed...
this website = hilarious! yeah!
has anyone read the 'hip replacement update'? AWESOME!
early release! heh heh heh
i just emailed the asshole
I must say that the guy is onto something in his October 4th entry.
http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary11.html
when i'd emailed him id commented on the eyesore-like quality of his own shitty website and now he says on the above mentioned page 'our new look, due to reader's complaints' and in his own paintings says 'new improved and added' - too funny
He's totally fucked up in my view. Look at his May 24, 2004 post (here) where he says the following: "We make amateur porn videos where no one really gets hurt. They make snuff movies." The people that "don't get hurt" or those prisoners in Abu Ghraib.
Javier,
You may be right. I read that post and couldn't find the part you quoted, but I don't have time to really scrutinize it. What I can't figure out is whether Kunstler is just a nutcase, or is really very clever and ironic and using hyperbole similar to the way Mike Royko did. Alas, I'm not smart enough to discern, only to ponder. He's no Royko, but he still makes me laugh.
It's been my policy to view the Internet not as an 'information highway,' but as an electronic asylum filled with babbling loonies.-Mike Royko
No matter what you guys say I still think he has an amazing command of the English language and is quite comical in his reviews of buildings. Comparing a FOG model to machine shop scraps is an analogy that most architects will never imagine but you've gotta give credit and chuckle a little bit.
He also might be a little extreme in all his rants but he is a huge anti-sprawl type and I respect that. Do you really enjoy the suburban world of superhighways, stripmalls and everything looking the same across the country? Just get past his criticism of your pride and joy building and have a laugh each month as his latests eyesore.
You guys are taking him way too seriously - he's not out to start a new religion or anything, don't expect everything he says to stand up to some sort of biblical exegesis.
I see his paintings as mocking the Kinkadian nature of contemporary society, seeking this fluffy impressionistic built environment, when actually it is totally blighted. I don't think his glowing McDonald's is meant to be taken seriously.
And his critiques of the built environment are mostly dead on. I don't think that Gehry eyesore belongs in Jerusalem, I can't judge the Predock building from that one picture, but based on that one picture, it certainly doesn't live up to Predock's self described pretentious hype. And say what you will about the Seattle Library, its own designers are intentionally producing an eyesore to challenge conventional notions of beauty. I actually thing the library is totally appropriate for its context and program, but it's not meant to be easy on the eyes.
The guy may not be the best designer, but he's good at what he does. He is a humanist critic who thinks our technocratic capitalist society has gotten way out of hand, and that this is reflected in the built environment. He uses all the linguistic tools at his disposal, including irony and hyperbole, to get his point across.
And if he is a professional complainer, more power to him. At least he's making money off something everyone on this board seems to be doing for free.
At this point we all know and for the most part agree on the deficiencies of the built environment, particularly in the suburbs. We don't need so-called urban theorists to keep beating this dead horse. We need solutions! We need solutions that have a greater breadth and depth than the rehashed new urbanist crap people keep resorting to. I just don’t see Americans moving en masse back to dense cities anytime soon, particularly considering the fact that we have a low population density compared to other industrialized nations and a generation of Americans who’ve grown up (unlike my parents’ generation) without living a day of their formative years in a city.
It’s also absurd, as his website seems to suggest that the car’s days are soon numbered. While the days of oil may be numbered within our generation, it’s doubtful that the car will disappear overnight or that we won’t find another way to power our cars once oil declines as the principal source of energy. Some might argue that developing a cheap, renewable means of powering cars might actually lead to an increase in automobile use rather than a decline. So while it would probably make sense to find more intelligent ways to deal with the car and to arrange communities in a way that would minimize its use, it’s absurd to suggest the car’s irrelevance is right around the corner.
I have read two of Kunster's books over and over again. They are fantastic, I keep them handy for quick reference. I think he has a lot of good language to describe architecture. I too, am cynical and critical, it drives me nuts, but I believe him. He speaks about the present as though it is a past that we can see clearly.
jhk is a pretty entertaining guy...i saw him lecture about a year ago and i was impressed.
has anybody else read his recent book called "the long emergnecy" where he speculates about the emerging global energy crisis? he paints a pretty grim picture and i'd love to hear if anybody can refute his some of his claims.
puddles did >> http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=20460_0_42_0_C
has anyone sent him pictures of 3D-H yet?
i tried to send him an eyesore photo last month, but he was too busy to post it....
“The citizens of Jerusalem will now have to suffer a building that looks like a pile of floor sweepings from a machine shop.â€
Sometimes a pile of floor sweepings from a machine shop are incredibly intriguing, and can even be considered beautiful. Who’s to say where beauty can be found anyway? I hate those banal paintings of random dramatic landscapes. The most interesting beauty is found in unexpected places.
But I guess that explains those paintings…
His default position seems to be that if something is bad (like
this) then it is the fault of Modernism.
Criticizing airport hotel architecture is as cheap and easy as criticizing the paintings of Thomas Kinkade (Painter of Light).
Eyesore of the Month, December 2002 posted above, is few small steps away from being a displaced aldo rossi. it ain't eyesore, imho.
adso - "Criticizing airport hotel architecture is as cheap and easy as criticizing the paintings of Thomas Kinkade (Painter of Light)."
LOL, you took the words right out of my mouth.
the latest eyesore is definitely worth revisiting this thread.
That thing is ridiculous.
Um.. Can I get a section of that to see how it works?
In San Antonio, near 281 and 1604 (way north suburbs), the city is allowing the developers to completely scrape a hillside of all trees to build these two story houses 10 feet apart (to meet the 5 ft building site line/talk about impervious cover). People are buying these things without any remorse.
The funny thing is the infrastructure isn't built for the traffic, and now all the large gas-guzzling Texas trucks and SUVs are sitting in 1 hour of traffic to complete the 5 miles to reach their "hill country villa." Oh, the irony...
wait, why are there bushes in front of the garage door?
i will say that kunstler's writing style can be quite humorous, and he's helped to keep the pro-life* movement from co-opting the word abortion. but for the most part, he's a raving loon.
*sometimes
Yeah the Israelis are really ones to preach "tolerance" let alone embrace it by building a museum.
Good PR and publicity stunt.
holz - this was a resale of an existing home. I'm sure they enclosed the garage to add square footage for resale, and then landscaped over the driveway. this is horrible. they deserve the traffic!
this is kunstler's idea of an anti-eyesore...
this was his groovy thing of the month for august 2007...
"Every August, by tradition, the EOTM takes a break from the immersive hideousness of America to offer up something rewarding, admirable, and/or beautiful. This year's spot goes to Cottage in the Gothic Style by architect Milton Grenfell of Washington, DC, for client Field Horne of Saratoga Springs, New York. Unpretentious, well-proportioned, and restrained, it serves as a good model for others who would like an alternative to the Home Depot McHouse method of design. The absence of balusters on the porch can be explained by New York's building codes, which have such idiotic requirements that it's not worth putting them on -- at least not now while the codes are enforced. I'm convinced that we will stop enforcing the codes as we enter the Long Emergency and have to build things differently than the codes allow. And forget about reforming the codes."
Long Emergency?
oil crisis?
I agree, the Israelies should not be building a tolerance museum until they've stopped bombing the piss out of Gaza every time there is a week in the month. I mean, you got a right to defend yourself but that doesn't mean you should be an asshole about it.
israelies are the new nazis
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