the canopy covers 11,000 square feet of an easement in Battery Park City; effectively, North End Way is a north-south passageway or alley, lined with shops and restaurants. Part of what makes this a notable public space is the quality of construction... But it’s the canopy, which Goldman also commissioned, that formally elevates what is really just a gap between two buildings into something almost as inspired as the nave of a great Gothic cathedral. — New York Times
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"One of the best new works of architecture in New York isn’t a flashy skyscraper or museum"
Its a flashy canopy and a flashy wine shop.
Kimmelman is quickly realizing there is no big print architectural column without the usual gang talk. You have to give the establishment what they want, right? That is, flashy buildings for flashy corporations for flashy readers who want flashy corporate words.
As far as NYT is concerned, transition to "same old" is completed with different list of favorite players with an overture of going "social."
The disarming standard apology at the end is particularly laughable when attached to Goldman Sachs architecture department..
"There’s a metaphor at play. A free society consensually accepts its governing burdens and principles. Constraint and freedom: the essence of good architecture and a healthy culture."
"There’s a metaphor at play. A free society consensually accepts its governing burdens and principles. Constraint and freedom: the essence of good architecture and a healthy culture."
This is confusing in the context of the article. He is writing about a nice piece of corporate-commissioned architecture in a small corporate space accessible to the public. Tacking this sentence on at the end thus carries the suggestion that our once civil contract is now a consent to rule by corporation.
Have the 'governing burdens and principles' we 'accept' become... the fact that "public" now means "owned and operated by a private corporation that invites the public (for now at least) to use the space"? The fact that our civil government - the one we created by social contract, and the one that is beholden to us - no longer seeks to create and maintain pleasant public spaces to serve us, its owners, but instead encourages private corporations who aren't beholden to us to create their own private spaces, often with taxpayer-paid incentives?
hmmm... how did Preston get this commission?
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