wow, even having this thread offends some people (and yes, lb, they're architects!)...yea, ok, medit et al, we get it, you don't like Venturi, he does nothing for you, he sucks, why save this piece of crap, yada yada yada...doesn't matter, the house is saved and is now next to another Venturi design.

And if we were to make a spur-of-the-moment decision on "archi-geeks" not mattering, we'd have lost a few Le Corbusier landmarks along the way because they're prematurely deemed of no interest to the casual tourist or even the casual local.

How many people go to Paris to see the Louvre? How many people go to Paris to see the Cité du Refuge/Armée du Salut on Rue Cantagrel? Oopsie, better scratch the latter, then...

...and all the more so considering how the Cité du Refuge was deemed a functional failure, tortured through "necessary alterations", etc. Like a Boston City Hall in the boondocks: what kind of "normal" person, let alone tourist, would go there to see a building that worked like crap and, to a "normal" person, looks like crap, too? All the more so for being designed by that #1 c20 city-destroying archi-quack of them all--why enshrine him? It's like erecting a statue of Hitler or Stalin.

If you haven't guessed, I'm being sarcastic. While inverting Godwin in the process. (The sad thing is: in a lot of blog comment pages out there, you'll find similar sentiment expressed *totally devoid of sarcasm*, like, say, whenever the future of Boston City Hall turns up in the news again...)

"The impact of Lieb House is undeniable in architectural history, whether anyone likes it or not"

I'll read "north-american architectural history" there... Sorry, this house is unheard of in other places of this planet -save for some arch history teachers interested in Venturi's legacy-... his mother's house on the other hand, is a building that is used in schools to explain what this po-mo thing was all about or how it was born -at least that's my experience-... but this house, sorry never heard about it until this thread appeared.
So, yes I CAN -through my own experience- question its impact on "universal" architectural history... besides if I like it or not, which, by the way, I don't (though that's not important).
But hey if some people want to save it, it's ok with me... people keep all kinds of things. It's the usual thing to do in Europe... I'm in Barcelona, but Emilio who I think is from Italy, must know what I'm talking about... the problem is that it's a thin line between "local architectural history" and "universal architectural history".. and who has the right to decide what is what. And since there's no mathematical formula to use here, I deny that this house has had any global impact, the same way that you can say the contrary.

I was going to try a Google fight between Vanna Venturi house and Lieb house to decide which one was cited more, but I see that all this moving episode has altered any possible valid comparation.

rondo - most people aren't going to see the louvre, they're going to see what's in the louvre.

i was completely uninterested in venturi after architecture history in school. just didn't get it. i also sort of simplistically blamed c&c for all that was bad pomo.

it wasn't until i did a fellowship with a professor in germany that i learned from the people at some of the german architecture schools in which i spent time how important they thought venturi's work was. and i don't think it was just because of his mom's house.

I guess all the art museums should just de-accession their early Picassos and Cezannes, shouldn't they? I mean, nobody cares about seeing the early works of masters, might as well burn them or sell them off at garage sales.

actually brandeis was going to sell all their paintings and close their museum to pay for their budget deficits. i guess arts value is what you can get for it.

I don't deny Venturi's contribution to this discipline. As I said before I think C&C is a very interesting reading and his writings, like Rossi's, were certainly influential - though they have a value in a very particular context: you don't learn too much lessons from Las Vegas that you could apply to Barcelona's gothic quarter, for example.

What I say is just that this particular house I don't think is that important in architectural history, that's all. The difference between an early Picasso or a Shakespeare first writing is that architecture has a function and occupies a certain space in a city... so unless you have a room big enough where you can put all these "old" buildings -exemplary or not- and save them like if they were sculptures, you have to get rid of them -take pics of them, document them, whatever, but they have to go..-

and yes, people go to the Louvre mostly to see what's inside the building.. take all these paintings and put it in Corbu's Cité du Refuge and see what happens... I think a Mona Lisa is still much appreciated than a Bernini building.

*much more appreciated*

Yes, Medit, I am familiar with the "we must keep everything as is" mentality in Italy and other places in Europe: sometimes what is given total respect does not deserve it. In this case though, what was removed is being replaced by a McBeachmansion, which I'm sure will be a masterpiece...

I'll read "north-american architectural history" there... Sorry, this house is unheard of in other places of this planet.

that statement is unproven...if a Japanese architect can appreciate an obscure Kahn house in Philadelphia, even go and visit it, then certainly another architect in Barcelona could learn something from an obscure Venturi house in New Jersey.

As I said before I think C&C is a very interesting reading and his writings, like Rossi's, were certainly influential - though they have a value in a very particular context: you don't learn too much lessons from Las Vegas that you could apply to Barcelona's gothic quarter, for example.

That, and the other italics statement above, show amazing small-mindedness for an architect. Venturi specifically did NOT pick out historical uses of scale, symmetry/un-symmetry, symbology, resolving difficulties and other methods of making and reading architecture in order to create Pomo architecture: that was a complete misreading of what he wrote in C&C, and what he was in fact doing in his own work, a misreading which you perpetuate above.

The very reason he looked at and wrote about the buildings he did was to show that these important lessons WERE NOT limited to modern architecture, in fact were often forgotten by it, and COULD IN FACT be applied equally in a building in Las Vegas or one in Barcelona's gothic quarter. What gets repeated about Venturi (and his book) is a tired and mistaken platitude.

If you just opened up your closed mind and actually LOOKED at the Lieb house, you might see some nice things, like how to scale elements in order to make a small structure seem larger, how to push/pull plan elements to accomodate changes from front to back and from lower level to upper, how to use simple, contextual materials in new ways, etc., etc....and yes, you might in fact apply some of those things in Barcelona or Tokyo.

but - and I've said it in this thread already - I really shouldn't have to explain how it is that you can look at a piece of architecture from another place or culture, or even from an architect whose work you don't like and be able to get something from it...not on an architecture forum.

"What I say is just that this particular house I don't think is that important in architectural history, that's all."

Maybe it's because your judgment of what's "important in architectural history"--or of a heritage/landmark/historical database based so narrowly and obtusely upon such parameters--sounds like a time warp from 40 or 50 years ago. Whether out of ignorance or nostalgia or hubris, I don't know.

Suffice to say, when it comes to the actuality of today's preservationist realm, you'd belong here

great notes on C&C emilio, thanks.
this is interesting, that this will be the third pair for VSBA.
somewhat spontaneous contrast to planned trubek and wisloski houses in which, the larger one, trubek was referred by the architects, "complex and contradictory" and smaller one, wisloski, was , "ugly and ordinary".
then there are coxe-hayden studio houses.
now the lieb house sits across the glen cove house.
talking about C&C in architecture...

what great pairings...
some people thought i was insane when i made the love connection between cctv & tvcc, after the fire. sure...
will the lieb house like Deborah Sarnoff and her husband, Robert Gotkin's current residence, which is definitely is more masculine and robust?
is this a love story or sad immigration for the lady lieb?

* btw, with two other friends, we did make a special trip to jersey coast in 92, just to see the lieb house...

Yeah, you definitely have absolutely no idea, soplapollas retrassat mental...

the actuality of today's preservationist realm

again... I read there "the actuality of today's north-american preservationist realm"
you can save one of those caps for yourself.. and bring it in your next visit to the Cité du Refuge, tontopollas...

probably it's beside the point but i visited the cite du refuge in 1990 and found it to be very edifying - a lot to learn there, despite the modifications.

recently used it and the swiss pavilion as precedents for a project proposal - and probably would never have realized their relevance if i hadn't had the opportunity to visit them, walk through them.

i'm glad the cite du refuge still existed then and glad it still exists now.

carry on.

"again... I read there "the actuality of today's north-american preservationist realm"
you can save one of those caps for yourself.. and bring it in your next visit to the Cité du Refuge, tontopollas..."

=====================

Actually, even by so-called "universal" preservationist standards, you come across as a pompous, insensitive prick...

Steven Ward,

In Germany were they interested in his work on a formal level? Funny that you say that bc when I was in Spain I met more ppl who knew his work well from a formal level than all the ppl here Ive met in the States.

We'd be looking through random projects like the Philly Nurse Building and some ppl would be like 'ah yah, that project is very good...' Weird how many seemed almost uninterested in his writings but v informed about even his unbuilt pojrects. While here in the US all ppl talk about is his writings. Odd.

Yeah, the curious thing about medit's hubris is that I can't imagine any European branch of Docomomo that *wouldn't* be on-side with the case for the Lieb house.

And if by espousing "universal architectural history" standards, he means that it's only the absolute Grade A UNESCO-list stuff that matters; well, that's only a more pompous version of writing off a whole slew of local landmarks with alibis like "it isn't the Parthenon" or "there's buildings much older and/or more impressive in xxx".

So, medit claims to speak on behalf of an enlightened European perspective on modern architectural heritage? Yeah, sure, and Pim Fortuyn spoke on behalf of an enlightened European perspective on immigration and multiculturalism...

Perhaps the posters to this thread might explain why their aesthetic opinions are better than that of the person who wants to tear it down?

Tearing down the building doesn't demolish the design and it doesn't destroy architectural history.

Could someone explain these concepts?

Why is architecture considered a profession? It seems more like a bunch of Simon Cowells wagging their fingers of disapproval over other people's sense of personal style and strutting and promoting the virtues of their own good taste and sensibilities.

we interrupt this thread to answer eje's question:

opinions about historic structures have little to do with why architecture is a profession, eje. we're a profession because we are trained to facilitate the translation of a (often poorly communicated) list of wants into documentation that clearly describes how to construct a safe and accommodating structure. a lot of people have no idea what that entails.

ok, back to the regularly scheduled programming...

Perhaps someone can explain these concepts? Eje, maybe you can tackle this one?

who in this thread said it does?
the issue is the loss of the original...you can burn a painting or destroy a sculpture and you'll still have reproductions and photos and it will still exist in art history...is that the same as having the original?
and just because someone wants to destroy something doesn't then mean he has a good aesthetic knowledge of anything, much less of what he's tearing down.

taste ain't aesthetics dog.

"Why is architecture considered a profession? It seems more like a bunch of Simon Cowells wagging their fingers of disapproval over other people's sense of personal style and strutting and promoting the virtues of their own good taste and sensibilities."

===================

But if one views this more expansively as a *preservationist* issue, rather than simply an architectural issue, then really, all of these petty duels over "good taste and sensibilities" ought to be moot--right?

Personally, I might divide the "anti" view into two extremes: the paleo-conservative/neo-traditionalist one which views "modern preservation" (including early non-retro postmodern such as this) as antithetical to what the preservationist movement was supposed to be all about; and the hyper-libertarian one which views preservation of all but the select cream of the cream as antithetical to "progress".

The case for Lieb ought to bridge those extremes while smothering them in abutment concrete.

Sure, you can claim that "Tearing down the building doesn't demolish the design and it doesn't destroy architectural history"--but then you're showing an obliviousness to how expansive the scope of preservationism has become today. That is, unless you want to invite a revisionist critique of the last half century of the preservation movement--maybe even going so far as deeming the Penn Station demolition to be a "necessary sacrifice", or at least it would have been had Mies rather than Luckman designed the replacement.