![Austin Motel, Austin, Texas. [Photo by donte]](https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/u8/u8jbx1lui5bqsx1d.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat "Austin Motel, Austin, Texas. [Photo by donte]")
Architects think people aren’t interested in buildings anymore, and don’t look at them, and consequently don’t — can't — appreciate what architects really want to do, which is make fetishized constructions to sit on the landscape like mechanical praying mantids, which will make people look at them some more. — Places Journal
On Places, architect David Heymann writes about a heartbreaking house commission outside Austin — the kind of larger-than-life story that could only happen in Texas.
The feature includes an audio recording of the author reading his work.
1 Comment
a weird and wild ride between grain-and-splinters specificity and irresponsible stereotyping generalities. i guess the former are supposed to make us overlook the latter? anyway, this was entertaining - and the commission he describes intriguing.
if i'm in a group of architecture friends, we seldom moan about trophies we don't get to build. it's usually more a discussion of how we can make folks understand what we DO, how we actually spend our time. you know, all of the things we do with the 95% of time when we're not designing.
architects, when writing about architects, often fall into criticisms of architects that make us look bad to those outside the profession. i wonder why that is. heynman's story could easily have been - and maybe will be in future installments - about those little moments when we are called upon to solve intractable issues, counsel clients down the more difficult but better paths instead of the easy obvious ones, and spend huge amounts of time developing details and specs to achieve 'simple'.
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.