Only one of the new buildings is ready, its centrepiece artwork had to be dismantled after bits fell off – and people are more excited about getting their first Ikea. [...]
A €155m new station, designed by Santiago Calatrava as a swooping sci-fi bird, is so far no more than a concrete foundation slab. It replaces a much-loved 1950s station by a local architect, and it’s now optimistically scheduled to open in 2018, having escalated to four times its original budget.
— theguardian.com
6 Comments
WTF... who, approved, this, disaster?
This article is pure gold:
...
One of the showcase projects has thankfully finished on time and on budget – although, from a distance, it looks like it might have suffered the same fate as the doomed nest. Lying like the twisted hull of a shipwrecked boat, marooned across the railway tracks from the old town centre, stands Daniel Libeskind’s new €30m conference centre, the afternoon sun bouncing off its fractured hull.
“How cool!” says a beaming Libeskind, standing in snakeskin cowboy boots on top of the building, hot off a plane from New York, as he admires the golden glow of a shard poking through the roof. “What else is architecture if not a ray of light on a wall?”
I have to say I don't find this Libeskind (the conference center) as dangerous-looking and overblown as his other buildings, but Wainwright's criticism here is spot on, especially this:
When the seminal Jewish Museum opened in Berlin in 2001, Libeskind’s unique language of jarring fissures was a shock to the system. Here was a gigantic metal shed, wrenched open by the trauma of the Holocaust. It was architectural space wrought with the power of an earthquake. Almost 15 years on – with a plethora of wonky shopping malls and faceted apartments under his belt – Studio Daniel Libeskind has flattened the aesthetic of trauma into a form of appliqued styling.
I know, Mr Wiggin, that line was great! I totally don't disagree with Libeskind that architecture is a ray of light on a wall, but I wonder how well it would go over if I said that to my clients or my boss. Or to the group of angry NIMBYs I had to face last night LOL.
Donna, why were you facing NIMBY's? Museum expansion or the dream cottage?
Neither, Nam. This was a proposed development in my neighborhood by an architect I know. Good project, and I was there to speak in favor of it.
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