Moore’s appreciation of Disneyland was notorious in an era when the ‘truthfulness’ of modern architecture was largely unquestioned. — places journal
"No architectural essay of the time foretold the preoccupations of postmodernism more memorably: “You Have to Pay” featured the very first architectural appreciation of Disneyland, which had opened just ten years earlier. Moore’s provocation would be upped three years later when Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour led their studio at Yale — where Moore was by then dean of architecture — on the famous field trip that produced Learning from Las Vegas. Moore’s acceptance of the intensely synthetic environment anticipated what French postmodern philosopher Jean Baudrillard, touring Disneyland and California a couple of decades later, would announce as the hyper-real. But already in the mid-’60s Moore was registering the difference between the traditional old city and the new theme park."
INTRODUCTION BY SIMON SADLER. ARCHIVAL TEXT BY CHARLES MOORE.
2 Comments
truth
Actually read this essay. Wow!! So great! Thanks Archinect for introducing me to this writer/architect I missed in my education.
So much to think about.
One thing about highways--I think they are interesting and hold our imagination because they may be one of the last exciting/dangerous spatial experience left in a car-orientated environment. With most of our other spaces pinpointed to the parking space in front of the build we are going to--work, school, home--we miss the ability for chance to come into our equation. Where is the danger? Everything is controlled and calculated.
In that sense, retail spaces--loud public areas filled with public life--offer another small element of chance in an otherwise controlled life.
Architects mentioning Disneyland remind me of this article by Koolhaas that I think about from time to time:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/rem-koolhaas-an-obsessive-compulsion-towards-the-spectacular-a-566655.html
"SPIEGEL: Critics of development on the Gulf say it's 'all Disneyland.'
Koolhaas: In truth, the constant return of this Disney fatwa says more about the stagnation of the West's critical imagination than about the cities on the Gulf. What our office is building is the subject of controversy everywhere, but I have noticed that people who actually live in China or on the Gulf are usually open to our ideas. They happen to be out in the field, and when you're in the field you have a different perspective."
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.