“I have an issue with architects and designers who think about how is the space going to look when it's on an architecture website, rather than how it’s going to feel for the people who either live there, work there or patronise it,” [...]
“I had a couple of nights in Madrid staying in a hotel room that Zaha Hadid Architects had designed. It looked amazing, but was the least comfortable space I’ve ever inhabited... Literally sleeping in a dumpster would have been more comfortable.”
— cladglobal.com
More design forays by the rich and famous:
26 Comments
Zaha worse than a dumpster? Not cool/ antagonistic statement by Moby.
I spent a week in a hotel by Studio Libeskind outside Copenhagen. By the end I was calling it the Holocaust Hotel. The second glass skin, designed for external effect, reverberated everyones voices from every room into all the others. On my last day there the basement totally flooded wiping out breakfast.
Ugh. Sometimes famous people are just as dull and reactionary as the random schmucks you might run into at a bar or online. I recently listened to an interview of Moby on the Brian Lehrer show. It was disappointing to here him wax nostalgically about his youth and his fond memories of his "old" New York in the same way EVERYONE else does. He even took a moment to complain about Ralph Nader, in that same exact way that every other generic liberal has before. Whats next? Is he going to explain to us the virtues of bicycling? Or maybe slow food?
Lets all applaud Moby for his extraordinary courage and insight.
he is clearly a Decorator and not a Designer.
We've been talking about this in the Discussion Forum all day too, but I like your title better!
http://archinect.com/forum/thread/149967883/celebrity-turned-designer-shitting-on-real-architect-thread-du-jour
It does seem these news items pop up regularly! Everyone hates us and yet wants to be us LOL.
Maybe there is something we could learn for Moby's critique.
NO! moby is WRONG!
the elitist bitches have bitched their bitchy bitchiness there is no other answer.
like, literally LOL.
^So sayeth the resident Klan.
"I was all hot as bothered to try this place out! I follow the Instagram and loved what I was seeing! The dishes looked beautifully plated and equally as mouth watering. I also thought it was cool that Moby owned it! However, I shouldn't have allowed my expectations to flourish because I was let down. Not like euthanasia let down. More like firing squad let down.
I met a friend for dinner around 8pm on the back patio. There was no music playing outside to distract you from the fact that you're sitting in a parking lot. Ambiance.
There was a small stack of blankets to ward off the cold(it was about 65 degrees out) in addition to a propane powered space heater which was not fired up. As soon as our server, Peter, came out to bring us water I asked to have the heater fired up. He said that "someone is looking into it" this line became a repeating motif throughout the evening.
I ordered The Mac and cheese, roasted tomato agnolotti, and Brussels sprouts, which were suggested by our server.
20 minutes pass.
Another group of people sit outside. All of which grab blankets. They also ask Peter to fire up the space heater. Same reply. "Someone is looking into it"
About 10 minutes later the Mac and cheese comes out. Peter warned us that the plate( more like a Petri dish) is hot.
I will acknowledge that the plate was in fact hot to the touch. However, the Mac was warm. I mean, I wasn't expecting a steaming tray of Mac, But this dish was lukewarm as if it had been sitting out for 10 minutes. Room temp.
The cheese was already solidifying at first bite. The flavor, or lack of, was bland. Bland as in Kraft Mac as cheese bland. The consistency was mushy. Gluten free doesn't have to be mushy. It was difficult to decipher the cheese from the noodles. That mushy. Veggie grill ()does a better job at gluten free Mac and cheese. For the price, I felt scammed.
A few minutes later the agnolotti was brought out: six pieces of pasta and six cherry tomatoes. Okay. I can deal with that. I cut each piece in half to lie to myself and try to justify. I get it. High prices and small portions. I get it
But again, the dish was cold especially the tomatoes. The sauce was also solidifying. It seemed as if it had been sitting out. This dish actually tasted okay. Just okay. Underwhelming. Priced at $16 I would have expected a larger portion.
--Someone finally comes out 40 minutes later to turn on the space heater. --
I should have sent it back. By this time I already had a solid idea of how this establishment conducted itself did not want to deal with sending any dishes back. I'm beginning to think Moby is the only reason people are actually eating here.
Peter returns to ask if we would like anything else. I ask him about the whereabouts of our Brussels sprouts(). He seemed surprised() and left to "check on them". He quickly returned and says "your server may not have put them in. We have somebody looking into it"
Note that Peter was our only server up to this point and suggested to us that we order the Brussels sprouts. I quickly cancel the order and ask for the bill. Which came out in a shot glass by the way.
While Peter was off processing my card, another server came out to check on us. She asked why we didn't have any tea because tea is free for all patrons sitting on the outside patio. Had Peter informed us of this we would have taken that offer.
Peter returns with a "I saved you $9 because I was able to remove the Brussels sprouts from your bill"
Insult to injury at its finest
Considering the cost of a plate and portion size, I would assume a dining experience of higher quality and at the very least a semi-sophisticated flavor to go along with each dish. Also, I would expect DECENT service. I'm not asking for someone to fold my napkin when I go to the restroom or a new cup every time I ask for a refill. Simply someone to take my order, place the order in a timely manner, and to take responsibility when you forget to place an item.
I get it. It's a new establishment. I get it. The servers are green. I get it. But how do you justify the fine dining prices and portions when the sever as green as they come? It's like putting cloth seats in a Mercedes. Except it's not a Mercedes. It's a Hyundai that you thought was a Mercedes. The cloth seats now seem acceptable.
Even if I disregard the time it took to fire the space heater, Peter, Peter's lack of attention to my order, no mention the free tea, the lack of music on the outside patio, the cold food, etc etc etc
My rating would still be 1 star based purely on the food. I tried very hard to love Little Pine but I cannot find any reason to justify the cost per plate. The flavor, portion, and overall quality of the food is elementary at best.
With Sage, Flore, and even Mohawk Bend right around the corner, why would anyone consider dining at Little Pine?"
"Portions not even big enough for a Mouse. Come on Moby it's dinner not a lifeboat ration."
"This place sucks. Service. Food. Music. All around disaster. Train wreck. Such a disappointment. Was so excited to have a good vegan joint in walking distance. This is not that place. It's an amateur excursion into veganism. Unsophisticated staff who don't know a thing about what they're serving. Poor representation of vegan cuisine. Not elegant. Philistine. We gave it three tries and somehow it just kept getting worse! Go to Cafe Gratitude or Sage or any other restaurant. Hell El Pollo Loco does vegan better."
"Okay. I REALLY wanted to love this place. A perfect idea in the right neighborhood. It's cute. I walked in, and was greeted indifferently. I was dining alone, and was escorted into the dining room where I was told I could sit wherever I wanted as long as it was a "deuce"... Red flag #1. I was cheerfully greeted by a young male server who reminded me of Sarah Jessica Parker's character in LA Story. He bounced a lot. To keep things short, he was completely unaware of his surroundings.
I can't break down the whole meal... It would be too long a body of work. Let's just say if you took a yellow marker and marked through duplicate ingredients on the menu you would then have only the same amount of things that you would cross out because they were out of it..... Okay, here is how I would describe the culinary profile in general terms: 3 stay-at-home moms from the Midwest get together and "go vegan". The recipes and presentation are amateur and if you take enough time and look through Pinterest you could do a better job at home.
Finally, the wine selection was probably hands down the worst I have ever seen, and I did drink 3 different glasses of wine. Assuming that the next one would be better than the one before it. When the server came by and asked "how everything tasted" I didn't have the heart to tell him a simple, awful. I felt sorry for him, because he knows not of what he does. Here was his response to the couple sitting next to me when asked to recommend one of the teas: "I'm not really a tea guy." Please, Little Pine, please. Get it together."
I'll post more as I recover from laughing.
Yes, EKE, there is something we can learn for (sic) Moby's critique (I think you mean from): If you can only promote your own brand by shitting on someone else's, you might not have a good product.
I mean look, I love to sing in the shower, but that doesn't mean I have to put out a press release saying Moby's music sucks.
b3ta those reviews are fun to read but sad, too.
Ha ha, Peter is every waiter and bartender in LA.
I'm worried that the media is pushing us down this rabbit hole of caring about what Moby thinks about Zaha. It's pushing this whole celebrity pop gossip architecture content. . . I'd say it's better off to ignore it, maybe impossible when so many media outlets have been commodified for clicks. I'd hope we can all do better.
Wait, is Moby's shirt trying to match the upholstery? Or the other way around? That "feels" kinda awkward. Matchy-matchy!
The level of defensiveness towards Moby's comments speaks volumes.
1: "the random schmucks " = the public.
2: If you feel like putting out a press release about Moby's music, by all means.
3: Don't let the media get you down (a rabbit hole). Moby is just another generic liberal.
4: Good call on his shirt. It does feel a bit matchy-matchy.
Oh, god, I just had a feeling someone else might have had. Can't empathize, must resist feeling what a random schmuck might have felt. Must stand apart from the rest of humanity... just like all the wanna-be starchitects being churned out of architecture school.
The folks who normally complain about celebrity-architects might now find themselves on the side of a celebrity-non-architect.
Thayer-D, your own biases are showing. No one is saying anything about random schmucks (except that if I put out a press release yes, *I* would be a random schmuck trying to star-fuck Moby. But people don't do that via press releases anymore, they create a YouTube channel.)
What b-list celebrities think about architecture, brought to you by the Facebook algorithm
Thayer-D,
We too are the public. But unlike Moby, I know that I'm not qualified to criticize his food, so I'll defer to the bad reviews it has received from professional restaurant critics.
In my view, Moby is using his privilege to throw around some lazy observations about designers. Based on those half-baked observations he appears to have created (or at least funded) a mashup of hipster restaurant pinterest cliches. He's also selling those Urban Outfitters-esque tsotchkes you see in the press photos, so all this puffery about non-design design is only for profit. The best part of the design is the art deco exterior, which was probably the responsibility of a real architect at some point.
Donna, these comments are a parody of architects, the spinal tap of architecture.
BTW, someone did say something about random schmucks, but this kind of looking down at the layperson is nothing new here, just taken to an extreme in this thread. Maybe it's a shock coming from someone who used to be the symbol of cool, but has outgrown it.
Lazy observations? davvid, you really need to loosen up. Donna can say what she likes about Moby's music and you can criticize his food. This is how we learn, for better or worse.
Thayer-D,
I'm enjoying the calculation you are doing trying to figure out how your pro-dilettante impulse factors in to this story about a celebrity selling a highly designed restaurant interior (complete with Eames chairs) as non-design.
In reality, architects and designers obsessively pay attention to the public, to data, to trends, to feedback, to the market, to subtle shifts in behavior, etc. We gather opinion and feedback from clients and the public all the time. We constantly criticize ourselves and take criticism from others. Part of being a design professional involves taking in a lot of feedback and being able to evaluate it and judge its merit. Your strategy seems to involve prioritizing the most negative outsider views above everything else.
Nobody is forcing Moby to like Zaha Hadid architecture. He could've hired a firm like Roman and Williams. They could've given him a better interior design than what he created, and he could've focused on improving the food and service.
dilettante: a person who cultivates an area of interest, such as the arts, without real commitment or knowledge.
So you and Moby are the public, but he isn't allowed to make opinions on the most public of arts because he hasn't demonstrated a real commitment or knowledge to you, so he isn't qualified to comment. The public isn't qualified unless they agree with your ideology.
Please, go on...
"but he isn't allowed to make opinions"
Never said that he isn't allowed. Of course he's allowed. And we're allowed to voice opinions about his opinions and his general lameness.
So take out 'allowed' and insert 'qualified'. When do you think someone is qualified to make an opinion about architecture? This should be interesting.
"So take out 'allowed' and insert 'qualified'. "
Why should I? Clearly your argument is as weak as a vegan restaurant designed by Moby.
Why should I? Because you made qualifications the issue. Imagine a world where only sanctioned critics get to decide everything. I guess you don't have to.
BTW, you're not "qualified to criticize his food" so take that "weak" comment back! As if a restaurant would ever consider what the public liked to eat. If only we could simply avoid buildings the way we could avoid Moby's vegan food.
...and all this because Moby deigned to criticize a starchitect.
Stop talking about this! Or else we are just gonna see more of the same. Next week, Patrick Dempsey will be musing about Frank Lloyd Wright on Curbed while the NYTimes will continue to not cover architecture because no they think Curbed is doing a great job.
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