The Eisenhower Memorial Commission on Wednesday will review two approaches, including one that removes most of these elements. If that plan is selected, Gehry informed the commission, he will ask for his name to removed.
— washingtonpost.com
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If you read unwrapped classical columns or the small town Kansas boyhood in this design, good for you. But to assume you are ignorant if you don't share that or another reading is jsut dumb and not very democratic IMHO.
i will try to help unwrap this for you thayer. this is not the sort of academic intellectualization that only college professors and elitists architects understand. it's a monument everyone, aka "the public," can understand.
see how an actual scale statue of eisenhower as a boy could be read as an actual size statue of eisnehower as a boy? how else would you read that? seriously. you don't need to go to a college of conspiratorial academics trying to overthrow 'traditional' to see that for what it is. it's not a hidden message.
"Your criticism is that this is all about the public connecting with a design that they're (supposedly) comfortable with; connecting with Eisenhower is hardly even an issue."
Actually, my issue is that this design is horrible, but some modernists try to gin up some kind of right wing conspiracy because they are blinded by thier ideology. They'll tell you that the critisism of Gehry's proposal is a proxy attack on modernist ideology that, while still dominant in academia, is steadily erroding. That's why the defensive posture and why the vitriol on the New Urbanists when they where about fixing sprawl. New Urbanists like DPZ unabashedly used traditional designs in thier renderings to get developers attention (becasue they do more traditional) and in the process blew some modernist minds. Like a preacher who suspects people having fun, traditional decoration is verbotten!!!
Speaking of Duany, his proposal is god awful. He should stick to planning.
"you don't need to go to a college of conspiratorial academics trying to overthrow 'traditional' to see that for what it is. it's not a hidden message."
Nor do you need to go to college to understand that this is a horrible design. I never said anything about the boy becasue I could care less. Steven Ward thinks this "a tricky urban-scale negotiation of a large busy intersection surrounded by undistinguished office buildings". How tricky is a public square with sculpture? And the surrounding looks like everyother building that passes as cool on architect...undistinguished becasue they aren't actually modern (recent)? Plus what 'traditional' are academics trying to overthrow? Academia is 99% modernist, as anyone with a computer can see for themselves. I love all those who feign openmindedness and then blast any use of traditional design and decoration by posting midwestern mega churches.
"The design problem was try to make such a place special. The scheme: taking ownership of the space, controlling its vistas via the screens and paths, using large scaled interventions at the centerpiece in order to focus attention on the main event."
Making it special by negating the whole context with a giant screen? I thought it was to 're-invent' how one looks at (fill in the blank). Taking ownership of the space? You mean overwhelming it. How very humble Kansan boy of Gehry. Nailed it. 'Large scale interventions' That sounds like the generic modernist talk to mask whatever the hell it's supposed to be. BTW, Steven, in your defense of this design, how come you never come out and say, 'I like it'? That's what happens when you put content over form, ie: academic (over)intellectualization. The amount of "readings" of this disaster keeps multiplying. What's next?
I can point to thousands of failed "public square(s) with sculpture" that are only populated by rats and trash, so apparently it's trickier than fans of faux nostalgia want to admit.
Donna, I can point to many successful public squares with sculpture and without sculpture. It takes a good surrounding context which this design seems to think will be stuck in time. What's more interesting than your inability to concieve of doing a descent square is your characterization "fans of faux nostalgia". So much for open-mindedness.
Quondom, I and many others have long said why we think this design is horrible, but you aren't interested in an actual debate about it's design merrits, or you'd actually have paid attention. This is why the state of architectural discourse turns off so many people.
^ you said it's a conspiracy because i said it's a conspiracy. that's cute.
how do mega churches relate?
the use of serif font really drives your sign home. i want to believe.
quondam, he mentioned a giant screen. that's a criticism. perhaps he thinks public spaces should not be allowed to have giant screens? also he said:
If you read unwrapped classical columns or the small town Kansas boyhood in this design, good for you. But to assume you are ignorant if you don't share that or another reading is jsut dumb and not very democratic IMHO.
so i assume part of his criticism is that it's hard for him to understand how a statue of a young eisenhower would invoke a young eisenhower. perhaps it's not literal enough?
What if we went full-bore IKE-enator. What if we took that block of land -yeah right there on the National Mall- and built a Washington Monument-sized housing block for all the HOMELESS Veterans that live in cardboard condos all over the country. What would ol' Ike say to that...?
He'd say, "Screw the Memorial and - Take care of my soldiers."
But I bet his damn granddaughters wouldn't approve of that.
They're answering the wrong question. The question isn't "How do we memorialize Eisenhower to show how important WE are." The question is, "How do we BEST memorialize General Eisenhower?"
People keep on blaming Gehry here. Give him the benefit of a doubt...maybe thats all the material he has -or is made available to him to express.
And maybe he's being asked to be more pompous with it. Irrespective of likeability or its lack, maybe its because he's not producing an iconic architectural trumpet call to Eisenhower that drives involved people to fight against it.
Menona, that's the best idea so far. We've got a WWII memorial. Let's help our soldiers coming home from all these false wars. Eisenhower would have approved.
Everything is symbolic. Especially form. When we see something, the very first thing our brains do is try to categorize it in relation to all the experience "stored" there. Most of which is NOT based on the study of classical architecture.
"he's making a decision for content over form." - boy in a well
And that's why, on the whole, modernism has failed to connect with the public, it fails to connect becasue for better or for worse, architecture is a visual medium.
there are so many critiques of this confused statement I don't even know where to begin...its literally the most fucked up bit of misunderstanding, forwards and backwards, that I've ever read. Its almost impossible to bother to engage it. which is why I usually just say Fuck Off, Thayer.
its utterly baffling. like, WOW. Le Corbusier the painter somehow didn't get the mimeograph or the teletype about architecture being visual? This has got to be one of the weirdest theoretical statements I've read. What does it even mean? And whose modernism is it a critique of? is SOM's modernism the same as Le Corbusier's or Mies'? Whose modernism is against vision? Sartre's? Gehry's architecture (like say, Zaha's) has to be the most dedicated to the visual as you can get. There's no theory behind it. Its about the joy of the potential of space and vision. All his tech is about getting a vision realized.
I think what you mean is that there is a commonly recognizable traditional vocabulary - not simply that architecture is a visual medium. And you then critique modernism as not recognizing itself as a visual medium when what your are simply recognizing is (generic) modernism's rejection of traditional decorative forms and devices. There is no signature rejection of vision. The only modernism I know of that rejects vision, so to speak, is that which considers architecture as a purely utilitarian problem solving device. And if you are positioning yourself against that then you should invite Peter Eisenman over for Hanukkah. Or at least have a picnic in front of a Venturi building. Anyway, the public isn't interested in architecture as a visual medium. we all know it, unless it has a darth vader sculpture. This shit isn't even worth responding to, but someone has to keep the bathroom walls dirty.
thayer, you're throwing up distractions. this argument isn't about "only the modernist vision of 'joy' being permissible" at all. it's about actually permitting this particular modernist vision as an acceptable way to communicate honor in this particular circumstance.
nobody is saying the previous monuments, classical or otherwise, are invalid or less good. (some of them are less good than others, but not because of their chosen style. more because of compromise and lack of clarity.)
this particular monument was commissioned of this particular architect. it communicates visually, of course, so that 'visual medium' direction of critique is also an unnecessary distraction.
when i said above that part of this strategy is about gaining control of the space, i wasn't saying it's the only way. just that it's a valid way, with successful precedents. the jefferson works not just as a building but as a landscape solution - making best use of the prospect across the tidal basin. the lincoln does the same, benefitting from the site by the potomac and its position on the axis of the reflecting pool. these projects took control of their context through site design as well as structures. it's not just about putting a monument in the middle of a space. these monuments' designers - like gehry - understood the importance of taking control of the conditions around them.
i said pretty directly that i've championed gehry's proposal all along. is that not clear enough? ok. i like it, as originally conceived. design by committee hasn't made it better.
What she or he (Thayer-D) means to mean, if not to say, is that some visuals are more equal to others, the visual she or he likes.
Thayer-D does this all the time: she or he disparages modernism generally, overtly and explicitly -while here and there keeping a window open for herself or himself by referring to some oeuvres that she or he likes to later on offer some measure of denying simply to not be pinnable to his own generalizing arguments- by accusing other people who engage positively with modernism of disparaging classicism because they offer evidence of this engagement and not because they , like her or him, provide explicit evidence of disparaging other schools of thought and visuals.
In other words, her or his "rationale" is underpinned with recurrent fallacies:
- confirmatory bias: priviledging information that serves her or his end and discounting others that go to effectively discredit this end - ie there is an element of "begging the question" at play as well since she or he has his end well in advance of cognizi
- mind projection fallacy (driving in subjective associations as an inherent nature of modernism or indeed "traditionalism" or classicism)
- not so much a logical fallacy but a personal trait tainting her or his overall rhetoric: psychological projection: attributing to others what she or he suffers from, see precedent paragraph).
Steven, I think we are talking past eachother. Some people like this design and most don't, by my unscientific estimation, and that's fine. Personally, I think it's horrible, but again, so what. I was reacting to how this has become another battle between modernists and classicists. I happen to be neither, but tend to defend traditionalists becasue for the life of me, I can't see the conceptual difference between one style or another. In terms of quality, there's ample room to debate, but in terms of validity, there simply isn't, IMHO. Especially when so many of the very same modernist chose to live in lovely traditional environments. If it's good enough to live in, it's good enough to design in, that simple.
So I'm not talking about previous monuments, just the presumptions and prejudices in this current debate that are so closed minded, Ultimatly we don't have to convince eachother though. I learn things from differing opinions regardless wether I agree or not.
I now understand your point better, so thank you for elaborating civily.
Assuming the techtonics and space design where good though, would you object to a design that employes the classical language becasue...
3 - It's too laden with symbolism incompatible with our modern culture?
If you've answered yes to any of these questions, you're a modernist ideologue, and as with any ideologue; classicist, modernist, religeous of political, they tend to impovrish the debate, something I consider antithetical to our modern pluralistic culture.
i won't know if i object to such a design until i see it and can comment on its merits.
as i've said repeatedly, my position here is primarily a defense of the profession, i think/hope: gehry hasn't deserved this public flogging when the original client representation (incl mr eisenhower) knew the character of the work gehry would do and approved of the first iterations of the design.
the problem has always been that the client representation changed. the new client (ms eisenhower et al) engaged with advocates of not-that-kind-of-work and, ultimately, congresspeople in order to disparage the project gehry had designed in good faith and with early support.
i don't care if if the architect hired was someone who did queen anne victorians - if the architect was a known quantity and was hired and encouraged in the early phases, why is it ok to make a public spectacle of it later? it's just a tantrum from those who aren't getting their way.
you've said that the locals don't like it. ok. that's relevant. it's also relevant that this memorial is for/from the whole of the u.s. population, not just from those folks who live near it. chances are the majority would be ok with a great big cannon pointing at the capitol.
maybe the congressional committee will just defund the whole thing...
"i won't know if i object to such a design until i see it and can comment on its merits. "
Well, you aren't an ideologue, in my opinion. Yes, you might prefer a glass box on a given Sunday, as I might prefer a bungalow, but conceptually there's no difference. Both are valid expressions in our culture.
It's not that Gehry deserves the flogging or not, becasue let's face it, it comes with the territory, but this reaction is real, justified or not. And I'm not sticking my finger in the wind even though I seem to be more curious than the average bear as to why people are reacting the way they do. I think of it as professional research, becasue I like to make people happy, which I recognize other architects might not prioritize, especially if they are predisposed to look down their nose at the uninitiated.
If I where Gehry, I would have simply gone back to the drawing table, to re-think the concept rather than amputate it, but I know Gehry dosen't roll that way. Infact, he sells himself as much as his designs, so backing down might hurt his brand, who knows. It does sound like the process was a cluster-f though.
so you know how gehry rolls, do you? or what he sells, huh? youre such a backpedaling ass sniffer, defending unjustified reactions to see what direction your own wind blows when you pull your finger out of your ass. does that make you happy, a finger up your ass?
you must be the worst sort of bureaucrat,
have I elaborated civilly enough? is this debate too close-minded? because it embraces history in a way which you cant seem to do?
blah blah ' looking down on the uninitiated." take your sarah palin shit somewhere else.
please god please, help us.
who has the time to scrub this much shit cff their shoes everyday?
Thayer, awhile upthread you repeated the common opinion that an architect should always live in the same kind of style s/he designs. This is such a narrow understanding of humans (I'd say it's something of an ideologue's view, no?).
Here is a lovely article that discusses, with much greater nuance, the many decisions made behind what kind of house an architect chooses to live in.
No Donna, you will never understand me becasue you are too deep a thinker.
"Thayer, awhile upthread you repeated the common opinion that an architect should always live in the same kind of style s/he designs."
No, what I said was that as an architecture professor, it's hypocritical discredit traditional designs while living in traditional buildings. It makes no sense. Again, I said clearly...
"If it's good enough to live in, it's good enough to design in, that simple."
If someone thinks that a particular approach to aesthetics, if widely employed, stands a greater chance of increasing human happiness, does that make that person an ideologue?
if your approach to aesthetics is "a system of ideas and ideals" then that would clearly fit the definition of "ideology." if you are an "adherent of an ideology, especially one who is uncompromising and dogmatic" then you would pretty clearly fit the definition of ideologue. quoted definitions provided by google.
I'll ask my question another way. If someone believes that a system of aesthetic ideas and ideals, if widely employed, stands a greater chance of increasing human happiness than does other aesthetic ideas and ideals, does that make them uncompromising and dogmatic?
an ideologue has to have an ideology, so i think you would have to first decide whether your aesthetic belief is an ideology. typically, i do not think that's the case. if i say i like the color blue, it's an opinion, not an ideology. however, your aesthetic beliefs seem to have some sort of set of rules, or a system to it that could be defined as an ideology rather than simply an opinion.
if your ideas of aesthetics are an ideology, then you have to decide whether your belief in that ideology makes you an ideologue. you would dismiss any other opinion or ideology on aesthetics right? to compare, you could say there is an international style ideology, or a postmodern ideology perhaps. you've declared that your ideology has a greater chance of creating human happiness, so i would think from a statement like that, you don't see your ideology as one among many, but rather your ideology is the right one, and others are wrong. that could be dogmatic and uncompromising.
i suppose it's up to you if you want to be an ideologue, but based on the breakdown above, can you see why someone would think you're trying to be an ideologue? you might say that your belief system is not an ideology, or that you aren't dogmatic and uncompromising in your beliefs, either of which could negate you being an ideologue. however you often communicate in such a way as to suggest that is not the case.
Any ideology will contain contradictions, will repress aspects of experience, will 'disappear' that which tends to contradict it or expose its repressions. Ideology's cultural activity will include the construction of pseudo-problems which are given pseudo-solutions (source)
I said that certain design ideologies are more likely to result in environments that make people happy than others. I didn't say that there was only one ideology that is capable of doing this.
so, if we break ideologue into the two parts: a) there has to be an ideology and b) you have to be an adherent of said ideology, generally uncompromising and dogmatic
it seems eke agrees his aesthetic sensibility is an ideology; he is an adherent of that ideology. as to whether he's an ideologue, that depends on whether he is uncompromising and dogmatic.
google says dogmatic means "inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true."
you don't think the way you phrase your inclination towards the ideology you prefer comes across as being dogmatic? in the case of your belief that your ideology creates human happiness with greater success/greater odds, what do you suppose a compromise would look like in that situation? sounds to me like 'mine is better than yours' is not a position that allows for compromise.
What could possibly be strange or dangerous about:
A) As an artist or architect, believing that a key goal of my aesthetics, and the work I do that results from those aesthetics, is to increase human happiness.
or B) that I believe that one approach to aesthetics is a more steadfast path than otherapproaches to achieving that goal?
interesting that i'm reading a book right now ('happy city') that breaks down the reasons people choose what they THINK will make them happy - houses in the suburbs with long commutes, greater pay and longer hours chosen over time with family and friends, etc - thinking they're making rational decisions. often those choices are completely wrong and completely different decisions lead to greater satisfaction.
so, if eke says an approach is 'more likely to result in environments that make people happy than others', should i take that to mean the things eke THINKS will be more likely to have that result, or things that might ACTUALLY have such results?
to answer my interpretation of the 'strange or dangerous' questions,
dogmatism leads a person to over-simplify their thinking and reject evidence that might contradict their ideology. you become less able to learn, and less capable of understanding your environment. you can't really listen to others or understand their problems, because everything is seen through the lens of supporting the ideology and being right. you aren't going to try to find beauty in modern architecture because it doesn't support what you want to believe in. on the other hand, you'll try to believe in the beauty of classical architecture even if it's a poor example, because that confirms your bias. you can't see the world for what it really is.
a person suffering from dogmatism is dangerous because that person is unable to make rational decisions due to their steadfast adherence to an ideology.
Do you think that your example (which, not coincidentally, I'm sure, describes an ideologically-blinded classicist architect) describes my point of view, Curt?
I've said repeatedly and explicitly that I believe that modernism can, and has created beautiful buildings. My firm does modernist work. I have done modernist work, of which I am very proud. I have, from the beginning of my contributions to this forum, been a proponent of both-and rather that either-or.
I do believe that some of the outcomes of the tenets of ideological modernism have rendered many of our environments ugly and dehumanizing, however.
Do you think that efforts to understand what makes people happy are pointless? Do you think that desiring to make people happy is a fools errand, because we can never understand anything about the nature of human happiness?
I understand, of course, that sometimes people engage in behavior they think will make them happy, but does not. But that doesn't mean that this is the prevailing situation, or that we should abandon human happiness as a goal. What I think makes people happy is of no value whatsoever, unless I can demonstrate that it actually does. There are all sorts of ways to do that.
Consider this thought experiment. If you wanted to create an aesthetics that stood the greatest chance of making people happy, would you choose an aesthetics which has evolved over thousands of years, in an iterative feedback loop with human beings, or would you choose an aesthetics conceived by an isolated genius mastermind, endeavoring to channel the zeitgeist?
Embedded in that question is the answer to why so many artistic modernists are uncomfortable with the notions of beauty and human happiness as goals for art and architecture.
if you are an adherent of a particular ideology eke, i believe that ideology is classicism.
thayer certainly has a bigger problem with dogma than you. i'll let you decide for yourself if you're an ideologue or not, i was just trying to establish the framework within which such a determination could be made, as an answer to your question "does that make that person an ideologue?"
as far as your last statement, thayer sees architecture as a binary "traditional" or "modern." i consider you more 'classicist' because that's an actual category among the many prevalent categories in the vast realm of history and architecture, and from what i understand from your previous posts (which could certainly be mistaken on my part; i don't know you that well), you've leaned towards 'classicism' rather than say 'renaissance' or 'gothic' or other 'traditional' design styles.
when you say "modernism" is dehumanizing, that starts to make me think you're falling into the sort of dogma thayer has a problem with. you're not referring to 'modern' as 'international style' or 'bauhaus.' so how do you define 'modern,' which you've designed beautiful examples of, but is also ugly and dehumanizing?
dogmatism, according my previous link, is divided into a system of belief and disbelief (at least they use that as a cognitive tool to explain dogmatism). you don't outright reject all 'modernism' - which is of course the 'disbelief' side - so you could say you're not completely consumed by your dogma. you do, however, establish the framework. you've created a 'correct' side, which thayer calls 'traditional,' and you've more eloquently referred to as 'a particular approach to aesthetics.' you've created an 'incorrect' side, which isn't really defined except to say it's 'modern.'
'modern' is, of course, disbelief in your dogma right? it's not really an ideology on it's own, it's the absence of your ideology.
when i read your comments regarding various architectural styles, i get the impression you view the world through a strong dogma. it's not as bad as others, but i think it's strong enough to influence your perception.
There are basic attributes that makes spaces humane and enjoyable but these attributes are in no way tied to any style. Seating, water, shade...yeah design is not completely subjective...obviously scale and texture and color....are all important... Modern vs traditional vs postmodern vs whatever is not a factor.
When the laymen says "I want a traditional space" what they really want is the quality of a traditional space as they have experianced or imagined it. The job of the designer is to pry deeper and discover the more fleeting characteristics present/provided by that old world "traditional" space that they desire. Rough Textures, massive walls, etc... As an artist, designer, architect, landscape architect...we should be able to pull those characteristics out from the best spaces of any genre or style or era and reanimate them in the "style" and era that we work within.
Style is an annoying word...it's used as if a designer can hop from one to the other. A modern designer is a modern designer like a jazz musician is a jazz musician. Sure he/she may listen to blues and get inspiration from blues but he/she plays jazz and should stick to what he/she has mastered and practiced. At the same time, he/she should be open to all music because all music is music.
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If you read unwrapped classical columns or the small town Kansas boyhood in this design, good for you. But to assume you are ignorant if you don't share that or another reading is jsut dumb and not very democratic IMHO.
i will try to help unwrap this for you thayer. this is not the sort of academic intellectualization that only college professors and elitists architects understand. it's a monument everyone, aka "the public," can understand.
here's an image from http://www.eisenhowermemorial.net - which i'm pretty sure is susan eisenhower's anti-memorial website
see how an actual scale statue of eisenhower as a boy could be read as an actual size statue of eisnehower as a boy? how else would you read that? seriously. you don't need to go to a college of conspiratorial academics trying to overthrow 'traditional' to see that for what it is. it's not a hidden message.
"Your criticism is that this is all about the public connecting with a design that they're (supposedly) comfortable with; connecting with Eisenhower is hardly even an issue."
Actually, my issue is that this design is horrible, but some modernists try to gin up some kind of right wing conspiracy because they are blinded by thier ideology. They'll tell you that the critisism of Gehry's proposal is a proxy attack on modernist ideology that, while still dominant in academia, is steadily erroding. That's why the defensive posture and why the vitriol on the New Urbanists when they where about fixing sprawl. New Urbanists like DPZ unabashedly used traditional designs in thier renderings to get developers attention (becasue they do more traditional) and in the process blew some modernist minds. Like a preacher who suspects people having fun, traditional decoration is verbotten!!!
Speaking of Duany, his proposal is god awful. He should stick to planning.
"you don't need to go to a college of conspiratorial academics trying to overthrow 'traditional' to see that for what it is. it's not a hidden message."
Nor do you need to go to college to understand that this is a horrible design. I never said anything about the boy becasue I could care less. Steven Ward thinks this "a tricky urban-scale negotiation of a large busy intersection surrounded by undistinguished office buildings". How tricky is a public square with sculpture? And the surrounding looks like everyother building that passes as cool on architect...undistinguished becasue they aren't actually modern (recent)? Plus what 'traditional' are academics trying to overthrow? Academia is 99% modernist, as anyone with a computer can see for themselves. I love all those who feign openmindedness and then blast any use of traditional design and decoration by posting midwestern mega churches.
"The design problem was try to make such a place special. The scheme: taking ownership of the space, controlling its vistas via the screens and paths, using large scaled interventions at the centerpiece in order to focus attention on the main event."
Making it special by negating the whole context with a giant screen? I thought it was to 're-invent' how one looks at (fill in the blank). Taking ownership of the space? You mean overwhelming it. How very humble Kansan boy of Gehry. Nailed it. 'Large scale interventions' That sounds like the generic modernist talk to mask whatever the hell it's supposed to be. BTW, Steven, in your defense of this design, how come you never come out and say, 'I like it'? That's what happens when you put content over form, ie: academic (over)intellectualization. The amount of "readings" of this disaster keeps multiplying. What's next?
How tricky is a public square with sculpture?
I can point to thousands of failed "public square(s) with sculpture" that are only populated by rats and trash, so apparently it's trickier than fans of faux nostalgia want to admit.
Donna, I can point to many successful public squares with sculpture and without sculpture. It takes a good surrounding context which this design seems to think will be stuck in time. What's more interesting than your inability to concieve of doing a descent square is your characterization "fans of faux nostalgia". So much for open-mindedness.
Quondom, I and many others have long said why we think this design is horrible, but you aren't interested in an actual debate about it's design merrits, or you'd actually have paid attention. This is why the state of architectural discourse turns off so many people.
^ you said it's a conspiracy because i said it's a conspiracy. that's cute.
how do mega churches relate?
the use of serif font really drives your sign home. i want to believe.
quondam, he mentioned a giant screen. that's a criticism. perhaps he thinks public spaces should not be allowed to have giant screens? also he said:
If you read unwrapped classical columns or the small town Kansas boyhood in this design, good for you. But to assume you are ignorant if you don't share that or another reading is jsut dumb and not very democratic IMHO.
so i assume part of his criticism is that it's hard for him to understand how a statue of a young eisenhower would invoke a young eisenhower. perhaps it's not literal enough?
What if we went full-bore IKE-enator. What if we took that block of land -yeah right there on the National Mall- and built a Washington Monument-sized housing block for all the HOMELESS Veterans that live in cardboard condos all over the country. What would ol' Ike say to that...?
He'd say, "Screw the Memorial and - Take care of my soldiers."
But I bet his damn granddaughters wouldn't approve of that.
They're answering the wrong question. The question isn't "How do we memorialize Eisenhower to show how important WE are." The question is, "How do we BEST memorialize General Eisenhower?"
People always answering the wrong question.
Actually, Menona, the first question would be the actual topical one. The second one is the hollywood guise beneath which the first is posed.
People keep on blaming Gehry here. Give him the benefit of a doubt...maybe thats all the material he has -or is made available to him to express. And maybe he's being asked to be more pompous with it. Irrespective of likeability or its lack, maybe its because he's not producing an iconic architectural trumpet call to Eisenhower that drives involved people to fight against it.
Menona, that's the best idea so far. We've got a WWII memorial. Let's help our soldiers coming home from all these false wars. Eisenhower would have approved.
Stop being daft. You have drones are doing the dirty work for you now. #BringBackOurDrones
That's a great post, Menona. You're right, we're answering the wrong question.
Gold bricks?
Everything is symbolic. Especially form. When we see something, the very first thing our brains do is try to categorize it in relation to all the experience "stored" there. Most of which is NOT based on the study of classical architecture.
Phallus field? Nah, no entasis.
"he's making a decision for content over form." - boy in a well
And that's why, on the whole, modernism has failed to connect with the public, it fails to connect becasue for better or for worse, architecture is a visual medium.
there are so many critiques of this confused statement I don't even know where to begin...its literally the most fucked up bit of misunderstanding, forwards and backwards, that I've ever read. Its almost impossible to bother to engage it. which is why I usually just say Fuck Off, Thayer.
its utterly baffling. like, WOW. Le Corbusier the painter somehow didn't get the mimeograph or the teletype about architecture being visual? This has got to be one of the weirdest theoretical statements I've read. What does it even mean? And whose modernism is it a critique of? is SOM's modernism the same as Le Corbusier's or Mies'? Whose modernism is against vision? Sartre's? Gehry's architecture (like say, Zaha's) has to be the most dedicated to the visual as you can get. There's no theory behind it. Its about the joy of the potential of space and vision. All his tech is about getting a vision realized.
I think what you mean is that there is a commonly recognizable traditional vocabulary - not simply that architecture is a visual medium. And you then critique modernism as not recognizing itself as a visual medium when what your are simply recognizing is (generic) modernism's rejection of traditional decorative forms and devices. There is no signature rejection of vision. The only modernism I know of that rejects vision, so to speak, is that which considers architecture as a purely utilitarian problem solving device. And if you are positioning yourself against that then you should invite Peter Eisenman over for Hanukkah. Or at least have a picnic in front of a Venturi building. Anyway, the public isn't interested in architecture as a visual medium. we all know it, unless it has a darth vader sculpture. This shit isn't even worth responding to, but someone has to keep the bathroom walls dirty.
Hi eke!
Hope you are having a wonderful day!
and Thayer: Fuck off.
"Its about the joy of the potential of space and vision."
Then tell me why only the modernist vision of 'joy' is permissible.
"Anyway, the public isn't interested in architecture as a visual medium"
Sure. Me thinks thou protest too much.
thayer, you're throwing up distractions. this argument isn't about "only the modernist vision of 'joy' being permissible" at all. it's about actually permitting this particular modernist vision as an acceptable way to communicate honor in this particular circumstance.
nobody is saying the previous monuments, classical or otherwise, are invalid or less good. (some of them are less good than others, but not because of their chosen style. more because of compromise and lack of clarity.)
this particular monument was commissioned of this particular architect. it communicates visually, of course, so that 'visual medium' direction of critique is also an unnecessary distraction.
when i said above that part of this strategy is about gaining control of the space, i wasn't saying it's the only way. just that it's a valid way, with successful precedents. the jefferson works not just as a building but as a landscape solution - making best use of the prospect across the tidal basin. the lincoln does the same, benefitting from the site by the potomac and its position on the axis of the reflecting pool. these projects took control of their context through site design as well as structures. it's not just about putting a monument in the middle of a space. these monuments' designers - like gehry - understood the importance of taking control of the conditions around them.
i said pretty directly that i've championed gehry's proposal all along. is that not clear enough? ok. i like it, as originally conceived. design by committee hasn't made it better.
What she or he (Thayer-D) means to mean, if not to say, is that some visuals are more equal to others, the visual she or he likes.
Thayer-D does this all the time: she or he disparages modernism generally, overtly and explicitly -while here and there keeping a window open for herself or himself by referring to some oeuvres that she or he likes to later on offer some measure of denying simply to not be pinnable to his own generalizing arguments- by accusing other people who engage positively with modernism of disparaging classicism because they offer evidence of this engagement and not because they , like her or him, provide explicit evidence of disparaging other schools of thought and visuals.
In other words, her or his "rationale" is underpinned with recurrent fallacies:
- confirmatory bias: priviledging information that serves her or his end and discounting others that go to effectively discredit this end - ie there is an element of "begging the question" at play as well since she or he has his end well in advance of cognizi
- argumentum ad populum and appeal to tradition , quite clear
- mind projection fallacy (driving in subjective associations as an inherent nature of modernism or indeed "traditionalism" or classicism)
- not so much a logical fallacy but a personal trait tainting her or his overall rhetoric: psychological projection: attributing to others what she or he suffers from, see precedent paragraph).
Steven, I think we are talking past eachother. Some people like this design and most don't, by my unscientific estimation, and that's fine. Personally, I think it's horrible, but again, so what. I was reacting to how this has become another battle between modernists and classicists. I happen to be neither, but tend to defend traditionalists becasue for the life of me, I can't see the conceptual difference between one style or another. In terms of quality, there's ample room to debate, but in terms of validity, there simply isn't, IMHO. Especially when so many of the very same modernist chose to live in lovely traditional environments. If it's good enough to live in, it's good enough to design in, that simple.
So I'm not talking about previous monuments, just the presumptions and prejudices in this current debate that are so closed minded, Ultimatly we don't have to convince eachother though. I learn things from differing opinions regardless wether I agree or not.
I now understand your point better, so thank you for elaborating civily.
Assuming the techtonics and space design where good though, would you object to a design that employes the classical language becasue...
1 - It's not of our time?
2 - It's nostangic faux pastiche disneyland kitcsh?
3 - It's too laden with symbolism incompatible with our modern culture?
If you've answered yes to any of these questions, you're a modernist ideologue, and as with any ideologue; classicist, modernist, religeous of political, they tend to impovrish the debate, something I consider antithetical to our modern pluralistic culture.
i won't know if i object to such a design until i see it and can comment on its merits.
as i've said repeatedly, my position here is primarily a defense of the profession, i think/hope: gehry hasn't deserved this public flogging when the original client representation (incl mr eisenhower) knew the character of the work gehry would do and approved of the first iterations of the design.
the problem has always been that the client representation changed. the new client (ms eisenhower et al) engaged with advocates of not-that-kind-of-work and, ultimately, congresspeople in order to disparage the project gehry had designed in good faith and with early support.
i don't care if if the architect hired was someone who did queen anne victorians - if the architect was a known quantity and was hired and encouraged in the early phases, why is it ok to make a public spectacle of it later? it's just a tantrum from those who aren't getting their way.
you've said that the locals don't like it. ok. that's relevant. it's also relevant that this memorial is for/from the whole of the u.s. population, not just from those folks who live near it. chances are the majority would be ok with a great big cannon pointing at the capitol.
maybe the congressional committee will just defund the whole thing...
"i won't know if i object to such a design until i see it and can comment on its merits. "
Well, you aren't an ideologue, in my opinion. Yes, you might prefer a glass box on a given Sunday, as I might prefer a bungalow, but conceptually there's no difference. Both are valid expressions in our culture.
It's not that Gehry deserves the flogging or not, becasue let's face it, it comes with the territory, but this reaction is real, justified or not. And I'm not sticking my finger in the wind even though I seem to be more curious than the average bear as to why people are reacting the way they do. I think of it as professional research, becasue I like to make people happy, which I recognize other architects might not prioritize, especially if they are predisposed to look down their nose at the uninitiated.
If I where Gehry, I would have simply gone back to the drawing table, to re-think the concept rather than amputate it, but I know Gehry dosen't roll that way. Infact, he sells himself as much as his designs, so backing down might hurt his brand, who knows. It does sound like the process was a cluster-f though.
Thayer you say you dislike ideologues because they impoverish the debate: how exactly are you NOT an anti-Modernist ideologue?
so you know how gehry rolls, do you? or what he sells, huh? youre such a backpedaling ass sniffer, defending unjustified reactions to see what direction your own wind blows when you pull your finger out of your ass. does that make you happy, a finger up your ass?
you must be the worst sort of bureaucrat,
have I elaborated civilly enough? is this debate too close-minded? because it embraces history in a way which you cant seem to do?
blah blah ' looking down on the uninitiated." take your sarah palin shit somewhere else.
please god please, help us.
who has the time to scrub this much shit cff their shoes everyday?
This might explain things better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNboCSpEiIU
There's a reason nobody has pulled boy in a well out. Now somebody should just fill the damn thing with concrete.
Thayer, awhile upthread you repeated the common opinion that an architect should always live in the same kind of style s/he designs. This is such a narrow understanding of humans (I'd say it's something of an ideologue's view, no?).
Here is a lovely article that discusses, with much greater nuance, the many decisions made behind what kind of house an architect chooses to live in.
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/sep/23/stirling-prize-architects-own-homes?newsfeed=true
Also I got five minutes into your video and it was too boring to continue. So I guess I'll just never understand you.
No Donna, you will never understand me becasue you are too deep a thinker.
"Thayer, awhile upthread you repeated the common opinion that an architect should always live in the same kind of style s/he designs."
No, what I said was that as an architecture professor, it's hypocritical discredit traditional designs while living in traditional buildings. It makes no sense. Again, I said clearly...
"If it's good enough to live in, it's good enough to design in, that simple."
If someone thinks that a particular approach to aesthetics, if widely employed, stands a greater chance of increasing human happiness, does that make that person an ideologue?
if your approach to aesthetics is "a system of ideas and ideals" then that would clearly fit the definition of "ideology." if you are an "adherent of an ideology, especially one who is uncompromising and dogmatic" then you would pretty clearly fit the definition of ideologue. quoted definitions provided by google.
Fine. Thanks for the definition.
I'll ask my question another way. If someone believes that a system of aesthetic ideas and ideals, if widely employed, stands a greater chance of increasing human happiness than does other aesthetic ideas and ideals, does that make them uncompromising and dogmatic?
an ideologue has to have an ideology, so i think you would have to first decide whether your aesthetic belief is an ideology. typically, i do not think that's the case. if i say i like the color blue, it's an opinion, not an ideology. however, your aesthetic beliefs seem to have some sort of set of rules, or a system to it that could be defined as an ideology rather than simply an opinion.
if your ideas of aesthetics are an ideology, then you have to decide whether your belief in that ideology makes you an ideologue. you would dismiss any other opinion or ideology on aesthetics right? to compare, you could say there is an international style ideology, or a postmodern ideology perhaps. you've declared that your ideology has a greater chance of creating human happiness, so i would think from a statement like that, you don't see your ideology as one among many, but rather your ideology is the right one, and others are wrong. that could be dogmatic and uncompromising.
i suppose it's up to you if you want to be an ideologue, but based on the breakdown above, can you see why someone would think you're trying to be an ideologue? you might say that your belief system is not an ideology, or that you aren't dogmatic and uncompromising in your beliefs, either of which could negate you being an ideologue. however you often communicate in such a way as to suggest that is not the case.
Any ideology will contain contradictions, will repress aspects of experience, will 'disappear' that which tends to contradict it or expose its repressions. Ideology's cultural activity will include the construction of pseudo-problems which are given pseudo-solutions (source)
I said that certain design ideologies are more likely to result in environments that make people happy than others. I didn't say that there was only one ideology that is capable of doing this.
so, if we break ideologue into the two parts: a) there has to be an ideology and b) you have to be an adherent of said ideology, generally uncompromising and dogmatic
it seems eke agrees his aesthetic sensibility is an ideology; he is an adherent of that ideology. as to whether he's an ideologue, that depends on whether he is uncompromising and dogmatic.
google says dogmatic means "inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true."
you don't think the way you phrase your inclination towards the ideology you prefer comes across as being dogmatic? in the case of your belief that your ideology creates human happiness with greater success/greater odds, what do you suppose a compromise would look like in that situation? sounds to me like 'mine is better than yours' is not a position that allows for compromise.
What could possibly be strange or dangerous about:
A) As an artist or architect, believing that a key goal of my aesthetics, and the work I do that results from those aesthetics, is to increase human happiness.
or B) that I believe that one approach to aesthetics is a more steadfast path than otherapproaches to achieving that goal?
interesting that i'm reading a book right now ('happy city') that breaks down the reasons people choose what they THINK will make them happy - houses in the suburbs with long commutes, greater pay and longer hours chosen over time with family and friends, etc - thinking they're making rational decisions. often those choices are completely wrong and completely different decisions lead to greater satisfaction.
so, if eke says an approach is 'more likely to result in environments that make people happy than others', should i take that to mean the things eke THINKS will be more likely to have that result, or things that might ACTUALLY have such results?
to answer my interpretation of the 'strange or dangerous' questions,
dogmatism leads a person to over-simplify their thinking and reject evidence that might contradict their ideology. you become less able to learn, and less capable of understanding your environment. you can't really listen to others or understand their problems, because everything is seen through the lens of supporting the ideology and being right. you aren't going to try to find beauty in modern architecture because it doesn't support what you want to believe in. on the other hand, you'll try to believe in the beauty of classical architecture even if it's a poor example, because that confirms your bias. you can't see the world for what it really is.
a person suffering from dogmatism is dangerous because that person is unable to make rational decisions due to their steadfast adherence to an ideology.
http://www.all-about-psychology.com/dogmatism.html
Do you think that your example (which, not coincidentally, I'm sure, describes an ideologically-blinded classicist architect) describes my point of view, Curt?
I've said repeatedly and explicitly that I believe that modernism can, and has created beautiful buildings. My firm does modernist work. I have done modernist work, of which I am very proud. I have, from the beginning of my contributions to this forum, been a proponent of both-and rather that either-or.
I do believe that some of the outcomes of the tenets of ideological modernism have rendered many of our environments ugly and dehumanizing, however.
Steven-
Do you think that efforts to understand what makes people happy are pointless? Do you think that desiring to make people happy is a fools errand, because we can never understand anything about the nature of human happiness?
I understand, of course, that sometimes people engage in behavior they think will make them happy, but does not. But that doesn't mean that this is the prevailing situation, or that we should abandon human happiness as a goal. What I think makes people happy is of no value whatsoever, unless I can demonstrate that it actually does. There are all sorts of ways to do that.
Consider this thought experiment. If you wanted to create an aesthetics that stood the greatest chance of making people happy, would you choose an aesthetics which has evolved over thousands of years, in an iterative feedback loop with human beings, or would you choose an aesthetics conceived by an isolated genius mastermind, endeavoring to channel the zeitgeist?
Embedded in that question is the answer to why so many artistic modernists are uncomfortable with the notions of beauty and human happiness as goals for art and architecture.
if you are an adherent of a particular ideology eke, i believe that ideology is classicism.
thayer certainly has a bigger problem with dogma than you. i'll let you decide for yourself if you're an ideologue or not, i was just trying to establish the framework within which such a determination could be made, as an answer to your question "does that make that person an ideologue?"
as far as your last statement, thayer sees architecture as a binary "traditional" or "modern." i consider you more 'classicist' because that's an actual category among the many prevalent categories in the vast realm of history and architecture, and from what i understand from your previous posts (which could certainly be mistaken on my part; i don't know you that well), you've leaned towards 'classicism' rather than say 'renaissance' or 'gothic' or other 'traditional' design styles.
when you say "modernism" is dehumanizing, that starts to make me think you're falling into the sort of dogma thayer has a problem with. you're not referring to 'modern' as 'international style' or 'bauhaus.' so how do you define 'modern,' which you've designed beautiful examples of, but is also ugly and dehumanizing?
dogmatism, according my previous link, is divided into a system of belief and disbelief (at least they use that as a cognitive tool to explain dogmatism). you don't outright reject all 'modernism' - which is of course the 'disbelief' side - so you could say you're not completely consumed by your dogma. you do, however, establish the framework. you've created a 'correct' side, which thayer calls 'traditional,' and you've more eloquently referred to as 'a particular approach to aesthetics.' you've created an 'incorrect' side, which isn't really defined except to say it's 'modern.'
'modern' is, of course, disbelief in your dogma right? it's not really an ideology on it's own, it's the absence of your ideology.
when i read your comments regarding various architectural styles, i get the impression you view the world through a strong dogma. it's not as bad as others, but i think it's strong enough to influence your perception.
There are basic attributes that makes spaces humane and enjoyable but these attributes are in no way tied to any style. Seating, water, shade...yeah design is not completely subjective...obviously scale and texture and color....are all important... Modern vs traditional vs postmodern vs whatever is not a factor.
When the laymen says "I want a traditional space" what they really want is the quality of a traditional space as they have experianced or imagined it. The job of the designer is to pry deeper and discover the more fleeting characteristics present/provided by that old world "traditional" space that they desire. Rough Textures, massive walls, etc... As an artist, designer, architect, landscape architect...we should be able to pull those characteristics out from the best spaces of any genre or style or era and reanimate them in the "style" and era that we work within.
Style is an annoying word...it's used as if a designer can hop from one to the other. A modern designer is a modern designer like a jazz musician is a jazz musician. Sure he/she may listen to blues and get inspiration from blues but he/she plays jazz and should stick to what he/she has mastered and practiced. At the same time, he/she should be open to all music because all music is music.
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