Kennicott’s entry included several pieces published in the Style section last year. One was a review in June of an exhibit of creations by the architect Kevin Roche at the National Building Museum. — washingtonpost.com
Assessing Roche’s work, Kennicott wrote, “In the end, Roche’s reputation will rise or fall depending on what becomes of the corporate world he served. If the end of corporate America is a dystopian hell of environmental catastrophe, vast economic inequity and social instability, the corporate architects of our age will not be remembered fondly. But if our age yields to a better one, just as the tyrannies and kleptocracies of past centuries sometimes yielded (perhaps temporarily) to more enlightened, democratic societies, then Roche’s work might have the charm of baroque palaces, Egyptian pyramids and Parisian avenues.”
2 Comments
That is a lovely three sentences quoted right there.
Mr. Kennicott has a lovely way with words, but his arguments leave something to be desired. If there are seven degrees of separation between an architect and something that's wrong with our society, then that architect is to blame? Nuts! Take his idea that Mr. Roche's work will be judged not on it's three dimensional qualities, on how well it fulfulled it's program, how well it fit's in the urban fabric etc, but rather if the client functions with in an economic system that is flawd. I personally think the carbon based corporate culture of consumerism is an oblosete giant that can't change soon enough, but to assign artistic merit based on one's association with corporate America is fallacious at best. How many great buildings would be judged poorly due to their morally questionable associations.
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