Well, I can start to buy Israel's "tolerant democracy" bullshit when there aren't 4,000,000 people living under its subjugation and when there aren't another 2 million people living within it's "proper border" who are virtually considered second class citizens.
No offense to some of you naiv...ehem... I mean GREAT people.
way to piss on an interesting thread with all this anti-israel bs.
what i was going to write before i stumbled on to this drivel was that i've never been a kunstler fan, but there's a lot of truth in his criticism. same is true of modernist architecture critics like tom wolfe. i think there's a lot architects can learn from this sort of criticism if we can get past his conservative, anti-modern sense of aesthetics.
i saw james howard kunstler speak a few years ago and he's a f'in lunatic. basically he grounds his advocation of new urbanism in the belief that we are going to run out of oil in 5 years and everyone will be surprised by that and thus have to move to mayberry-style small towns with cutesy architecture and no more cars.
all thoughts on kunstler aside (there's several other threads about him already) the eyesore of the month includes some sublimely ridiculous pieces of american architecture including this month's offering.
i think i would actually find that atm canopy fascinating if it were somehow cobbled together by locals operating in scavenger minded, slum economy...(lots of those columns in rome's old buildings are actually scrap from earlier ruins)...but the fact the someone had to engineer it and stamp the drawings just leaves me a bit baffled.
unfair. not all smart people can look like brad pitt.
personal attacks are sign of lack of something intelligent to say.
kunstler does indeed have good points to make. he also confabulates, conflates and corn-dogs way too much to be taken very seriously. i have all his (non-fiction) books and read them for entertainment more than as sources of information. very acceassable writing, if full of outright lies. it is worht reading "a thousand barrels a second" after or before reading the long emergency, to balance the view out a bit. terzakian is not saying kunstler is wrong, but offers a more realistic timeline for the actual problems of oil scarcity etc.
Jfidler, yes heavens forbid someone might be "anti-Israel" for pointing out the obvious truth -- that a "museum of tolerance" has no place in a society that consistently subjugates an entire population of 4,000,000 people because of their ethnicity. Let's see, middle of the night raids, extra-judicial killings, daily humiliation of women, children, and the elderly, illegal house demolitions, and what Holocaust survivor Sara Roy has called "economic de-development" of an entire population. There is obviously a great measure of irony in the presence of a museum of tolerance.
Oh, and yes, the design of the building itself is silly. I'm not 100% adverse to the architecture of Frank Ghery by any means, but it's too bad he had to get mud in his face by taking on this equally silly and lame project.
What Kunstler does for the "oil crisis" is put it into terms that most common people can understand. Yes, he does sound alarmist, but one could argue that's the best way to get your message across. After all, geologist/scientist speak isn't going to bring the word to the masses.
So far as architecture goes, I think Kunstler brings up some very good points about what suburbia has done to our built environment. And I find his calls for investment in rail very valid, even if we have different reasons for our desire.
I emailed Kunstler once, because I had been a designer on one of his eyesores. I actually kind of agreed with his assessment of it (but still like the building.)
I asked him what his thoughts were on a solution to the problems plaguing cities and architecture—which he complains so much about.
I received a harsh reply. He basically said "if you can't figure it out, you've got problems. Why does every goddamn architect on the planet email me asking for solutions?"
A clever strategy: complain endlessly, but then when you're asked for your solutions, call the questioner an idiot for not already knowing what they are.
"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."
eyesore of the month
Well, I can start to buy Israel's "tolerant democracy" bullshit when there aren't 4,000,000 people living under its subjugation and when there aren't another 2 million people living within it's "proper border" who are virtually considered second class citizens.
No offense to some of you naiv...ehem... I mean GREAT people.
way to piss on an interesting thread with all this anti-israel bs.
what i was going to write before i stumbled on to this drivel was that i've never been a kunstler fan, but there's a lot of truth in his criticism. same is true of modernist architecture critics like tom wolfe. i think there's a lot architects can learn from this sort of criticism if we can get past his conservative, anti-modern sense of aesthetics.
(did i just write that?)
i saw james howard kunstler speak a few years ago and he's a f'in lunatic. basically he grounds his advocation of new urbanism in the belief that we are going to run out of oil in 5 years and everyone will be surprised by that and thus have to move to mayberry-style small towns with cutesy architecture and no more cars.
all thoughts on kunstler aside (there's several other threads about him already) the eyesore of the month includes some sublimely ridiculous pieces of american architecture including this month's offering.
i think i would actually find that atm canopy fascinating if it were somehow cobbled together by locals operating in scavenger minded, slum economy...(lots of those columns in rome's old buildings are actually scrap from earlier ruins)...but the fact the someone had to engineer it and stamp the drawings just leaves me a bit baffled.
unfair. not all smart people can look like brad pitt.
personal attacks are sign of lack of something intelligent to say.
kunstler does indeed have good points to make. he also confabulates, conflates and corn-dogs way too much to be taken very seriously. i have all his (non-fiction) books and read them for entertainment more than as sources of information. very acceassable writing, if full of outright lies. it is worht reading "a thousand barrels a second" after or before reading the long emergency, to balance the view out a bit. terzakian is not saying kunstler is wrong, but offers a more realistic timeline for the actual problems of oil scarcity etc.
lol
Jfidler, yes heavens forbid someone might be "anti-Israel" for pointing out the obvious truth -- that a "museum of tolerance" has no place in a society that consistently subjugates an entire population of 4,000,000 people because of their ethnicity. Let's see, middle of the night raids, extra-judicial killings, daily humiliation of women, children, and the elderly, illegal house demolitions, and what Holocaust survivor Sara Roy has called "economic de-development" of an entire population. There is obviously a great measure of irony in the presence of a museum of tolerance.
Oh, and yes, the design of the building itself is silly. I'm not 100% adverse to the architecture of Frank Ghery by any means, but it's too bad he had to get mud in his face by taking on this equally silly and lame project.
Gehry ... I mean
Before someone starts browbeating on spelling and grammar...
What Kunstler does for the "oil crisis" is put it into terms that most common people can understand. Yes, he does sound alarmist, but one could argue that's the best way to get your message across. After all, geologist/scientist speak isn't going to bring the word to the masses.
So far as architecture goes, I think Kunstler brings up some very good points about what suburbia has done to our built environment. And I find his calls for investment in rail very valid, even if we have different reasons for our desire.
Nothing like the need to dumb it down for the American public.
the bmw thing is not here?
I emailed Kunstler once, because I had been a designer on one of his eyesores. I actually kind of agreed with his assessment of it (but still like the building.)
I asked him what his thoughts were on a solution to the problems plaguing cities and architecture—which he complains so much about.
I received a harsh reply. He basically said "if you can't figure it out, you've got problems. Why does every goddamn architect on the planet email me asking for solutions?"
A clever strategy: complain endlessly, but then when you're asked for your solutions, call the questioner an idiot for not already knowing what they are.
I agree with this month's eyesore.
i wrote in this thread over 3 years ago - and i still laugh at this!:
"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."
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