John Hill’s book “A Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture” is filled with examples of the crazy new forms of the last decade, like Frank Gehry’s white wind-filled “sail” on the West Side Highway in Chelsea. [...]
And yet, the United States is in the middle of a great revival of traditional architecture — Georgian, neo-Classical, Arts and Crafts and so forth — that is almost absent from Mr. Hill’s stimulating and enjoyable work. So, what isn’t contemporary about traditional design?
— nytimes.com
17 Comments
The Saratoga Community Center is "traditional" ? Really ? Brickwork with masonry or ceramic trim is no longer a viable architectural material ? What'll be declared dead, next -- the rectangle ?
How old is the building above pretending to be, I wonder . . .
(Don't get me wrong -- I don't defend the example above as a work of architecture. I know nothing about it. But it's a surprising contender for "traditional" -- isn't it ?)
You need to have a good nose for these "liar" buildings. Why just the other day I saw a mid-century modern building that had an absolutley stunning grid facade until I realized its cutrain wall details could only be from the early 2000's. You can imagine my disapointment!
I'm always puzzled by the notion that a building that is built using any language other than avant-garde modernism is "lying" about it's age.
Ok, so the world is getting tired of peeling Gehry's buildings and the odd cowlicks in Morphosis's buildings, and we're headed back to another swat at post-modern, except that this one is Prairie School revival. I would not have been able to deduce that very easily. It's really watered down. And if the people in the Prairie School's focal area of influence probably wouldn't "get it," would they get it in Brooklyn NY?
It's certainly not a very pretty building.
Christopher Gray is stuck in the 70's just like his article.
And he cites Steven Cemes/a rise of copy-paste historicism?!
Yeah ok, article was bought and paid for by faux-old shills
Why just the other day I saw a mid-century modern building that had an absolutley stunning grid facade until I realized its cutrain wall details could only be from the early 2000's
Actually, curtain wall detailing has seen a great deal of improvement in the last decade. What you saw was probably the result of poor financial control, not an inferior copy of the original.
"Actually, curtain wall detailing has seen a great deal of improvement in the last decade. What you saw was probably the result of poor financial control, not an inferior copy of the original."....becasue I'm cool with copying as long as it isn't inferior. Ai dios mio.
I'm fine with copying too. It's better to think of it as "the passing down of wisdom from one practitioner to another". Where would mathematics, or physics, or medicine be if we had to invent a completely new language or approach every time we tried to do something?
ay dios mio indeed.
don't run with that logic in your hands. someone will get hurt.
Copying isn't the issue as much as quality, and the Stern building dosen't quite cut it, what ever styles one can identify in it. Like a racist who spends his time trying to figure out what race someone is to decide how they will think about that person, complete waste of time.
You glossed over the objective of your initial statement, whose assumption was that the bygone was "better."
Copyng (at least as a primary means of practice) is for the lame. Copy-pasting a bygone stone age (faux-old premise) is of low intelligence.
If there is anything to fear, it's an oppressive spread of dumbness.
Where would mathematics, or physics, or medicine be if we had to invent a completely new language or approach every time we tried to do something?
In the stone age, based upon that analogy.
This era is definatly the best becasue we don't have to listen to the high priests of anything to tell us what to like and how to think. You're the one who's stuck in the past with your constant haranguing against people who don't agree with your narrow ideology. BTW, do you own a projector?
Well, at least it's a functional building, although a bad knock-off of Prairie School, and not something that looks like a space station which crashed into the Australian Outback and which is STILL termed a building.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124218023213113609.html
Ada Louise seems to have been a fan of the building.
This era is definatly the best becasue we don't have to listen to the high priests of anything to tell us what to like and how to think. You're the one who's stuck in the past with your constant haranguing against people who don't agree with your narrow ideology.
Spell-check is a crazy modernist invention.
Disagreeing and yearning for backwardness is only indicative of forthcoming loss. It plays out like Rick Santorum's presidential run.
I'm with EKE, except that I do consider the Saratoga Community Center a "pretty" building. That is, there's lots to see there: materials are handled correctly, while the form-making goes its own merry way. There's wit -- but I don't see any wistful nostalgia or kitsch. The play between symmetry and freehand, with the latter seeming to win, is up-to-the minute and a nod to the past at the same time -- as I see it. It doesn't look cheap, that's for sure, so word of a tight budget is even more surprising. Iron-spot Roman brick and mahogany ? Nice. More Scarpa than Wright, if we have to name names.
Those finding bland areas of the complex may be looking at the existing pieces. The job was mostly a remodel, according to the linked article, with the structure above linking two existing ones.
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