An aesthetic traditionalist who sponsors an annual architecture award that bears his name, Driehaus is no fan of Frank Gehry's proposed modernist design for the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, D.C. And he's doing what he can to fight it.
Earlier this week, a public relations operative who works for Driehaus called me and offered the following essay, by the influential neo-traditionalist architect Leon Krier, who offers a tough critique of Gehry's plan and ideology.
— BLAIR KAMIN, chicagotribune.com
46 Comments
it looks like Krier, frustrated not being a real architect, so he is trying to snag a project from Gehry.
Here comes Architecture's Tea Party.
In my opinion, these comments are pretty ignorant. Do you know anything about Krier and his career? By what standard do you say that he's not a real architect? Why would you think he's trying to steal the project from Gehry?
"Indeed the remnants of the World Trade Center were eerily reminiscent of Gehry’s style."
ouch Mr. Krier....
EKE, I'm not familiar with your comments but I've noticed in these two Eisenhower Memorial posts how quickly you've come to the defense of Gehry's critics. What are your feelings toward Gehry's work and neotraditional architecture? Can you really say that in this case birds of a conservative/nostalgic feather are not flocking together?
First off, thanks David for asking my opinion and engaging in dialogue. I appreciate it.
As an architect, I work in a variety of languages, and have done modernist and traditional projects. I'm very much a "style agnostic" and my approach when starting to design is to assume nothing, and spend lots of time thoughtfully discovering the appropriate language for a particular project. For me it's "both/and" rather than "either/or". So I'm not a "true believer" in the righteousness of a particular architectural language.
I like much of Gehry's work (as does Leon Krier, BTW, as stated in his essay). I think that Gehry is at his best when he has the opportunity to create a stand-alone sculptural form. The Disney Hall here in Los Angeles is a great example. I think it's very beautiful, like a shimmering flower blooming in the heart of downtown. The Bilbao museum is similar. In those buildings, Gehry seems to be deliberately trying to create lyrical, beautiful objects. This is where he's at his best, in my opinion.
Where I part ways with Gehry's oeuvre is when he takes a well known, often much beloved building type and consciously deconstructs it into some distorted shape. The "Fred and Ginger" building in Prague is a good example. Where he could have been respectful to a much-beloved building type in Europe, the ubiquitous 5-6 story mixed use block, he deliberately pits it through the funhouse mirror, and turns it into a hallucinatory nightmare building. I think it's perverse - I honestly think he's mocking those of us who love the fabric of traditional European cities. I think that the Ruvo Center he did in Las Vegas, and the new highrise he recently completed in Manhattan are in the same vein. Melting buildings.
As I have said, I agree with Leon that conceptually, the Gehry scheme does violence to the L'Enfant plan for Washington DC, and the aesthetics of it are out out context with the great architectural traditions there. For these reasons I'm against it.
I completely disagree with your suggestion that conservative politics and admiration for traditional architecture have any connection whatsoever. Leon Krier is a leftist politically as far as I can tell, having read several of his books. Most of my colleagues in architecture lean pretty hard left in political thought, and many of them design traditional buildings, towns and cities. My partner is a modernist true-believer, and a political conservative.
Lastly, let me say that for me, and for most of the thoughtful contemporary classical and traditional architects I know, or know about, "nostalgia" has absolutely nothing to do with how we approach design. I regard classicism as a living tradition and a living language that's absolutely relevant to how we live today, one that can tell a story that modernist languages may not be able to tell in many instances. I do realize that those who are fully invested in the idea of a Modernist zeitgeist may never understand that.
So you're one of them. This is basically what you're telling me.
I'm sort of kidding. I should probably avoid generalizing so quickly.
I think it comes down to whether you see your work and your ideas as part of the progression of history. If you're in the business of choosing between historical styles then of course you'll have a hard time recognizing nostalgia. I would imagine that its also going to be difficult to draw relationships between your work as an architect and the political discourse or technological advancement that shapes our society.
So you see things clearly, but those who disagree with you are blinded by their ideology?
:)
funny that krier claims gehry's work has its roots in historical precedents from close to a hundred years ago and is therefore unoriginal (and should not be built?)
even if true, connection to historical precedent seems the most ridiculous argument this guy can make since he wants to insert something even older and i guess that means it must also be less original. in which case this is basically just ad hominem...?
is the argument only about how far back we should go in time? 1900 - 1920 bad / 1850-1900 good? anything before the third month of 1728 really awesome?
i guess that must be how the pre-raphaelites felt...except boring-er. at least they were not arguing for pastiche.
Will, I think you are missing Krier's point. I don't think that he is criticizing Gehry for being unoriginal. Originality and novelty are not high on Krier's list of virtues, I guarantee you. I think that he's saying that Gehry and his supporters are suggesting that we shouldn't do classical work anymore because it's not "of our time" and not original, and that this is a hypocritical stance on their part.
I knew it was only a matter of time before someone trotted out the P-word (pastiche). :)
In your opinion, is any architecture other than modernist architecture by definition an exercise in pastiche?
A whole lot of modern architecture is also an exercise in pastiche.
there is no ignorance here EKE, my generation is very familiar with Krier's difficult personality and the fact that he was born in the wrong century.
-He has no firm, he has no lisence, he is not an architect.
-He has made a career out of battling modern architecture(which is ok, but in its place he favors a European past)
-He really is the tea party of architecture
He is now using his nostaligic rhetoric to undermine Gehry, and turn attention to his traditional entourage. That shit might fly in the UK where he can brainwash people like Prince Charles, but it will not fly in the USA.
This is a new low for the guy.extremely low, its beyond beating a dead horse.
Gehry said what he had to say to Krier while back when this conversation was really hot...
and the fish. don't forget the fish.
@ donna, true enough.
neo-classical architecture seems often to lean to the pastiche and the cartoon. maybe pugin was the last to do the past in an interesting but rigorous way.
eke, that is an interesting thought, but i really think he is saying exactly what it sounds like - that gehry is not all that. but if we take the comment on your terms, you mean because gehry is influenced by Renaissance art, by coelecanth, and by early 20th century artists and architects as well as his own muse he is being false to the present?
not sure why that follows. i think his approach is simply that the past should not be used as a bludgeon. wasn't that the whole idea behind his drama at the venice bienalle in 1985 when he played the satire part of Frankie P. Toronto? past present and future all at once in dialogue, not monologue (the neo-classical approach is by definition a soliloquy, no?)
... his drama at the venice bienalle in 1985 when he played the satire part of Frankie P. ..
OMG I have no idea what this and the image are about but it looks delicious!
Will- Krier praises Gehry as a "great artist" and singles out two of his projects which he personally visited as places he greatly admired.
As I said before, Krier really doesn't really put originality on a high rung in the hierarchy of importance when considering a work of civic architecture. Appropriateness to context, symbolism, whether it supports the urban plan of the city... these are what he cares about. He believes that a building must be first judged on how it contributes to the city. So he would never criticize Ghery for being unoriginal, except to point out his hypocrisy in criticizing others for unoriginality. Lastly, if you think Pugin is the last practitioner to design in traditional language without engaging in pastiche, well, all I can say is that you haven't spent any time studying contemporary classicism. There are many thoughtful practitioners doing thoughtful traditional work. There is also a lot of terrible traditional work out there, and it's usually a function of architects who have received no training in traditional design and detailing, attempting to meet the public's demand for work in traditional languages. They are unprepared to do it well, and the results are obvious. Before the 1920's, all architects received a basic classical training. The Bauhaus wiped that out... "start from zero". A hundred years of amnesia has resulted in the sad situation where the public has asked for buildings inspired by great traditions, and the profession by and large can't give them what they want. When they do try, it's often thoughtless, superficial, synthetic... Pastiche. They weren't trained to do it well. Thank Walter Gropius for that. I'd answer your last question very simply. No, anything but. :)
The arguments posted here seem to miss the point. Everyone knows that Gehry is a great architect. No one is saying he isn't. But even great architects can come up with stupid ideas. Gehry's proposal is one such project. It is ridiculous. He should not be able to do whatever he wants to. I am grateful to Krier for saying Gehry blew it with this design. I hope they get another design.
always,
Why is the criticism coming from traditionalists?
or the atemporalists.
Atemporalist. I like that. Can I use it?
:)
i have yet to hear/ read any actual criticism of gehry's design's quality. all conversations devolve to discussions of the narrative and its appropriateness, modernism vs something else, or the sculptor's previous work. what has gehry done that people find objectionable? *gehry* was hired, which ultimately seems to be krier's complaint: it's not like gehry would have delivered something less bold.
very true steven. the critique seems less about the project more about the man.
I find the design a bit funny myself but i often feel that way about gehry's work. it looks interesting from the inside. what it is like from outside the block is a bit of a mystery to me, especially along those massive planes.
but he seems to be preserving the ideal of the l'enfant plan and preserving site lines etc...
will be interesting to seeing it built.
@ donna, gehry did a performance piece at the bienalle in 85 where he gave voice to his skepticism with po-mo. there are some bits on the web here and there though not a lot since it happened before the age of media saturation. in interview he says he found the arbitrary fixation on historical quotations of that time to be silly and was around then he decided why not go back to coelecanth and prehistoric fishiness as inspiration since it was as valid as say 1843 or whatever - which led in some way to bilbao etc. would have loved to see the performance. the still shots look very coolio and i hear it caused a ruckus. possibly even a rumpus.
@EKE, pugin seems the last critical thinker about the past who still believed in its validity. there are lots of thoughtful practitioners who take up the past but they are not what i would call critical. do you have any suggestions for someone of similar achievement? pugin was as interesting as his theory when he built. krier is much better as polemicist...
comparing the urban planning of populist planners like bjarke ingels with the rigidity of say bob krier, i find bjarke more humane and interesting. not sure where it leaves us in the future, but then again i don't buy the idea that a city needs to be designed for some ideal future either. it tends to leave us with designs that race to the bottom for fear of failure.
in that light this design by gehry seems appropriate. it addresses the past, plays with the present and leaves room to wonder about the future. much better than many works of architecture out there...
Gehry's "design" is a billboard. Make that three billboards. Billboards have been banned in many states, and with good reason.
Krier must really hate Amsterdam, where so much of the city's vitality is borne out of the interaction of old and new. So many of the comments after Krier's piece express resentment re: what outsiders are doing in America's capital city. So Gehry's an outsider, but Krier (from Luxembourg, right?) isn't?
This proposal is billboards like Lin's wall is just a hole in the ground. The difference will be in the refinement of the design - the control, intention, and discipline in its making. Gehry has proven that he can pull this off. (He's a long way from the days of his house.)
steven,
i think there's been a fair amount of criticism of the scheme itself - if we peel away all the silly modernism vs. classical junior high playground posturing, the design itself isn't, i'd argue, one of his best nor is it particularly suitable for d.c. for me, at the root of the whole dilemma is the actual area of the thing: it's huge - a full d.c. block... the scale of those piers and screening (and infrastructure to support said screening, which isn't being truthfully conveyed in any rendering i've seen)... it's going to be a pure overwhelming by force situation. (in fact, it's been interesting to see how much, between the earliest and latest renderings, the screening and piers are being downplayed and the landscaping highlighted:)
in that vein, i think leon's dead on with this observation: "My guess is that there is no intended meaning in the extravagant size. Why should the Eisenhower memorial be over twice the size of WWII Memorial? Why should it be so vast as to comfortably house two Lincoln Memorials, two Washington Monuments, and two Jefferson Memorials all six at once?
The fact that these three memorials can be fitted on site, leaving an ample piazza between them, demonstrates that, to put it mildly, the organizers are unconscious of the sheer size of the undertaking they are embarked on." (quoted from the metropolis article). it really is the difference in urban planning, thought and attitude. in a sense, i don't blame gehry as much as the organizers - why give this much space over to the memorial at all?
lastly, the question for me is 'why does gehry feel compelled to 'fill it up'? why not take 1/4 of the site, do something interesting and just make a nice park out of the rest? and i think it's because if he (personally) did that, he'd be condemned for making a pure 'object' which would never be able to live up to the competing and conflicting demands that would be placed on it.
one last observation, from calder loth, who was the senior architectural historian for the virginia department of historic resources, which i think is a brilliant position for thinking about the appropriateness of memorials in general. we've now fully conflated size with importance, grandeur with gravitas. and we're no better for it:
"I think of how the other great leaders of World War II have been honored. Churchill has a memorial slab in the floor of Westminster Abbey and a single bronze statue on Parliament Square. Do we need more than that to honor Churchill? Does his reputation not speak for itself?
King George Vl has a single bronze statue just off the London Mall.
Charles de Gaulle wanted no memorial, but the most honored place in France, the Place d’Etoile had been renamed the Place Charles de Gaulle. Is that not enough? The French don’t need outdoor tapestries to be reminded of the importance of de Gaulle.
I think one of the most moving monuments to the heroes of the era is the original Roosevelt memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue. FDR said he wanted a memorial no larger than his desk, and that simple marble block was long the only memorial to him until the present over-wrought memorial was erected in a place that’s difficult to find. I think that original understated monument says everything about the character of that great man.
It is proposed to remove the reflecting pool at the east end of the Mall at the base of the U.S. Capitol, and replace it with a new national plaza. I can think of no more appropriate place, one in the heart of the heart of the nation’s capital, in the shadow of the national Capitol, to be named the Eisenhower Memorial Plaza."
Another big concern I have about Gehry's proposal is the potential impermanence of it. Those mesh "tapestries" are likely to break down and corrode over time. No stainless steel is truly stainless. It all begins to corrode eventually. Anyone in Los Angele up to a couple of years ago may remember Gehry's Santa Monica Place mall. It had a parking garage cloaked in chain link with super graphics on it. By the end, it had a sad patina of rust, and looked like hell. I'm personally glad it was demolished. Also, I'll bet that the "tapestries" will get clogged with blowing trash and debris, be a trap for flying birds, etc.
last, last thought steven: my personal experiences meeting krier and talking with him lead me to think his position (at least it used to be) less as a modern vs. traditional in a pure aesthetic sense as it is modnerism (post industrialist sense) vs. traditionalism (pre to early industrialist sense). i think - again just my read - he's fine with truly great modern works. he just doesn't think that the larger implications being drawn from that philosophical vein have done anything but destroy most cities. his diatribe about classical being the only language, blah, blah, blah - maybe he's gotten more crusty with age. he and duany talked for ages about doing a version of seaside that was all modern, but within the traditional urban planning/guidelines.
The commission hired an architect who is famous for creating challenging work. Why would anyone expect Gehry to change course now? Were they expecting a xerox copy of Bilbao?
And the criticism has been coming from the usual subjects who advocate for neotraditional architecture. This isn't a groundswell of objective criticism. If the commission wanted to please Richard Driehaus and Leon Krier they should have hired Robert Stern at the beginning.
davvid - for grins and giggles - what about the scheme (not gehry) do you like? 'challenging' is relative...
for grin and giggles?
I agree with what Aaron Betsky wrote in his Feb 13 piece for Architect Magazine
"Like many recent structures of the sort, it moves away from only putting a statue on top of a pedestal and towards shaping a space to make us remember certain qualities. It started, at least in this country, with Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and continued with Lawrence Halprin’s more elaborate FDR Memorial. The 9-11 park is a recent example of the trend."
"If it works according to the model (Gehry has eschewed the kind of computer renderings we count on these days to give us a facsimile of proposed reality), the bland facades of the surrounding buildings and the competing centers of power strewn along Washington’s axes will disappear, and you will find yourself immersed in a simpler, more rural place.
At the center, on top of a concrete slab, will sit the requisite statue of The Man, but here Eisenhower will be portrayed as a young boy, still in Kansas, looking out towards the career and future world he helped to shape.
It is a radical idea: the images of power are only ghostlike evocations, and what predominates in the place of innocence and strength from which Eisenhower rose. The statue is based on a photograph of the young boy on a camping trip, already possessing the sense of power and charisma that would lead him to such great heights."
ah - but are the screens necessary to even complete what's described in his review? i'd argue no - that, in fact, they're going to become the most annoying part of the design over time. don't forget - those things are 8 stories high...
honestly, if they're there to block out the blandness of the buildings, save the money from putting them in and use it to help actually improve the facades of the actual structures themselves....
that's a great way to describe it.
i like that he is proposing a memorial to a person by highlighting the time before he became the famous man. something about the naivete and hope for future that is not yet written is great in such a bleak time.
lightness in the place of gravitas is fantastic idea, especially in washington where let's face it some of those people need to really lighten up ;-)
nice, davvid. thanks, i had missed that. betsky put into words what i hoped the screens were about. not billboards but anti-billboards, really.
i like that he is proposing a memorial to a person by highlighting the time before he became the famous man. something about the naivete and hope for future that is not yet written is great in such a bleak time.
I love this idea too. My husband did a similar proposal for an Abraham Lincoln project several years ago - Lincoln's boyhood as a farmer being so romanticized, and seriously isn't the notion of coming off the farm and making good a HUGE part of Americana? Sadly Eisenhower's family seems to only want to memorialize the politician, not the person.
Gehry's scale is often overly big, IMO. I like the quiet personal part of this proposal, the bigness not so much.
I don't know if anyone's asked the question that's really bugging me, but - "Why" is there going to be an Eisenhower memorial?
And... on or near the National Mall?
So... Washington, Father of the Country - sure;
Lincoln, Martyred Savior of the Union and Republic - ok, I get it.
Jefferson, author (albeit with a little help) of the Nation's founding document - maybe a little shaky in his importance as far as president goes - although the Louisiana Purchase was no small matter.
But, EISENHOWER? Uhhhhhhh? Sure he had a worthwhile military career. Made that grossly unheeded statement about the Military Industrial Complex - but his accomplishments as president? The Interstate system? Monument in and of itself really. Anything else? I mean, anything worthy of a monument?
Is this more of The Greatest Generation romanticizing their own history because they're no longer relevant and building monuments to themselves?
Who's next? Millard Fillmore? James K. Polk?
How 'bout a big swimming pool on the Mall shaped like a bathtub dedicated to Taft? It would be a salute to postmodernism, and also to the fact that Americans have fulfilled the Taftian promise of many, many chickens in every pot - AND Cheese STUFFED into the crust of their pizza.
This country's ridiculous.
And in response to the article, the classicism of the WWII monument is hideous. Really an embarrassment to our times and the conflict for which it is intended to memorialize.
steven, donna, (anyone really): can you rationally defend the size of the screens? yeah, the ideas and concepts... all nice and all.... but seriously? the size, scale and sheer physical presence of them - they don't disturb you immensely?
who the heck is Dreihaus and Krier .. not like I want to know
Krier looks like he is from the future in that pic. I think he is going for the jedi pimp look.
Gregory, not snarking, but my post above about Gehry's scale often seeming overly big to me also applies to this project: I think the screens seem too big, but more so the pillar/column things supporting them are chunky and scale-less and looked lopped off at the top. I can't defend them and don't want to.
The idea of big transparent-ish screens forming an outdoor room seems cool. And I love the idea of more modern, contemporary expressions for memorials, and I think imagining our leaders as humans who worked hard and grew into greatness is a fantastic place for our contemporary discussion about leadership to evolve. All that said, I'm not crazy about this proposal for this location. But the conversation for me also needs to go back to Steven's original point: why would anyone hire Gehry to not-do Gehry? It's not like it's hard to find examples of his previous work style out there...
donna - i don't think hiring someone like gehry gives license to expect (and then not criticize) anything they throw up. (no pun inte... no wait, yes, in this case...)
idea is fine. execution what's not there yet. and i think it's good the scheme's being called out for that reason. i'm not making it personal (though that seems to be the misguided sentiment for some of the other people in this). and I don't think he should be removed. rather, go back, let's rethink some of the guiding principles and go from there.
This is fascinating stuff. Architectural and political rhetoric seem to be converging at this project. I found this website titled "The Truth About the Eisenhower Memorial" which chronicles the controversy from the perspective of those who oppose the current design with links to news coverage and negative reviews from politically conservative publications mostly.
Ah yes, the TRUTH about the Eisenhower Memorial, featuring "extensively researched" assertions about the design such as these:
-The Memorial design has contained benches spelling out “IXXI,” the Roman numerals for 9 and 11. Whether this reference to the 9/11 attacks was intentional or negligent, the Memorial’s architect, Frank Gehry, can no longer be trusted with its design.
-In 2003, Gehry refused to help design a replacement for the Twin Towers since he was not offered enough money. That alone makes Gehry unworthy of Eisenhower, who exemplified selfless public service.
Didn't we discuss this already and decide the NCAS is looneytunes? Hahahahahaha
Greg: excellent pun, I lol'ed….and yes I think it's fair to criticize this design fairly. Questioning the scale and detailing is fair, calling him a 9/11 sympathizer is not. ;-)
that site also re-presents every self-effacing comment gehry has made (i.e., those where he makes fun of himself) as if they're meant to be taken seriously. his most intentionally provocative statements from 20 yrs ago are proffered as if they have some bearing on his current practice and this project. you're right, davvid, it IS a political attack, using the same defamatory tactics that politicians wield so notoriously.
while it's a shame that he, himself, has decided to take the victim role (other article) for which i'm sure he'll receive no sympathy, i do think that in 'the truth about...' there is entirely too much attack of gehry simply because he was (un)lucky enough to get hired.
I thought this passage from a review of the proposed design by Philip Kennicott, published: December 15 in the Washington Post
"Gehry has produced a design that inverts several of the sacred hierarchies of the classical memorial, emphasizing ideas of domesticity and interiority rather than masculine power and external display. He has “re-gendered” the vocabulary of memorialization, giving it new life and vitality just at the moment when the old, exhausted “masculine” memorial threatened to make the entire project of remembering great people in the public square seem obsolete."
particularly interesting. Not sure if the reading of Gehry's intent re: gender and rethinking the form/meaning of memorials is accurate but makes for a thought provoking piece....
*that* won't win over its opponents.
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