... given allegations of inappropriate and unacceptable behavior by two AIANY 2018 Design Award Recipients—Richard Meier and Peter Marino—the AIANY Board of Directors has made the decision to rescind the honors that were announced in January 2018 and were to be celebrated at the Honors and Awards Luncheon next month.
AIANY executive director Benjamin Prosky issued a statement on their decision to revoke Design Awards from Richard Meier and Peter Marino. Prosky states, “Our decision does not speak to the design quality of the projects or the contributions from the respective firms’ design teams, rather we cannot in good conscience confer these awards under these circumstances.”
The full statement by AIANY can be read here.
just playing devils advocate here...but does the character of the maker detract from the value of the work? If so, 99.99% of art and architecture history needs to get thrown in the trash heap. I don’t think removing awards is sends a good message. It seems more like the AIA trying to save face.
T1J over on youtube has a pretty levelheaded approach to this question. The entire video is worth a watch, but the TL;DR is that when a creation is directly informed or inspired by real life sh*tty behavior, that's probably when you should consider discarding the work.
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just playing devils advocate here...but does the character of the maker detract from the value of the work? If so, 99.99% of art and architecture history needs to get thrown in the trash heap. I don’t think removing awards is sends a good message. It seems more like the AIA trying to save face.
What’s next, do we burn a Jackson Pollack because he was a womanizer? The reason I say that it sends a bad message is because it reinforces the importance of the maker as a heroic character rather than the value of the work itself. This is the essence of celebrity culture, and the reason we elevate sometimes shitty work to undeserving heights. Overall, it hypocritically reinforces the culture that it pretends to want to stop by blending the maker and their work as one in the same.
“Our decision does not speak to the design quality of the projects or the contributions from the respective firms’ design teams, rather we cannot in good conscience confer these awards under these circumstances.”
Yeah, but that sounds like a disclaimer. This trend can eventually morph.....Do you think that the work itself will be tarnished? Not that it was that good to begin with...but I’d hate to see future architecture history books affected, not for their sake, but the sake of an objective view of architecture itself. I don’t know if that makes sense?
I mean, I totally understand that the AIA can’t award them now after this came to light...but do you think that their work/firms will be forever shunned, and the architecture itself stigmatized?
It’s like, bombing a whole village to punish one guy.
Kevin spacey is a creep...Netflix cancels House of Cards..
It's taking away an award, not murdering a village of people; he'll survive, the buildings stand, life will go on. Your hyperbolic statements fly in the face of reality. They're assholes.
Yeah, I was more raising the question about the trend being set, rather than this particular reactionary decision by the AIA (which is completely understandable). Also, the AIA is a professional association (judging the work as well as professionalism) so I understand that this situation is different. I’m sure many great artists and architects have been assholes. It’s not about silly prizes, but about the perceived value of the work itself being conflated with the morals and ethics of the artist. I think that’s a very lumpy thing to do. It’s possible to be a good actor, artist, architect, and still be an asshole...even a total scumbag...My question was...Do awards institutions and critics have an ethical obligation to the public to be objective and view art for its value as art? Otherwise, we will be writing a story about architecture and art based on a very biased narrative controlled by the personal actions of the artists, even though self inflicted and most likely deserved. Will we do the inverse as well, elevating mediocre work to undeserving heights because of the squeaky clean and politically appeasing nature of a particular maker? I don’t think that’s a good thing to do on either end of the spectrum. We should judge art as art and people as people. Yes, the persona affects the art, but the art also transcends that persona. In architecture, there are also many other people contributing. By conflating to two, we consequently elevate the importance of their persona and reinforce the overall hero ethos. I’m sure FLW, Kahn, and others have done things that we wouldn’t approve of in 2018, but the work that they created should be judged independent of that.
It’s not about silly prizes, but about the perceived value of the work itself being conflated with the morals and ethics of the artist.
You seem to be contradicting yourself. Is it about silly prizes, or is it about value of the work? I don't do work for "silly prizes" and I doubt most successful architects do. I find value, and my values, in the clients I rep.
I get what you’re saying. I’ll try to be more precise about that point. The prize itself is “silly” from the perspective of awarding an achievement and puffing an ego, but prizes and media coverage propel certain work into the spotlight. It’s more about the affect that giving or withholding a prize, or writing accurate media critique has on the overall narrative of contemporary architecture. If someone does something extremely groundbreaking, something that is of a significant contribution to the history of architecture/art, and it’s ignored or shunned because they happen to also be an asshole, well then the public is getting a skewed narrative. I can imagine the media being afraid to positively review the work of an “asshole” in the future even if the work is deserving of positive coverage. I think the real contradiction in what I’m saying is that the narrative is already being skewed by fame, and is a false narrative anyway. I’d say that’s true most of the time, but if someone like Shiguru Ban is labeled an asshole (which I’m sure he’s not) and is kept from the public spotlight by being shunned from the prize and denied media coverage, then I’d say the effect is negative, because the public ought to know who Ban is and understand the importance of his work. If no prize existed at all then that’s a different story, but since something has to fill the void, it ought to be the thing that is most deserving not the person that is most deserving. Also, I’m all for changing the narrative on what is and isn’t of value. I hear you on that last part. That’s something that has to be argued and theorized in more depth. Why do we value what we value in the field? That’s a cultural phenomena that also heavily skews the narrative. It’s topic worth thinking more about.
Pritzker next, please. Then Obama's Nobel.
T1J over on youtube has a pretty levelheaded approach to this question. The entire video is worth a watch, but the TL;DR is that when a creation is directly informed or inspired by real life sh*tty behavior, that's probably when you should consider discarding the work.
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