His work is badly constructed, ravey-balls hair metal, a C.C. DeVille guitar solo that cannot—will not—end until the billionaire clients who keep paying for this shit can be stopped. — gizmodo.com
I guess this is what you get when you put a decent writer in charge of driving traffic.
CPM = 1 / Journalism = 0
80 Comments
I'll rehash some of the reactions I posted on twitter when I saw this article. The main feeling this thing left me with was just sadness. When Geoff was hired by Gawker, I was excited, it seemed like a statement that, when it comes to design, the snark and trash talk they were known for would be deprecated in favor of a turn towards the speculative and thoughtful.
This article rolls back any gains they have made in credibility. The tone is really shocking on the first read, then on the second run through, you realize, 'oh wait, maybe he's trying to be funny', but that impression doesn't hold. Wether or not you think the language of a Comedy Central roast is appropriate for a published rant about a fellow professional, this is not that. There is real, vicious, anger under the surface here, hiding under the 'snark', that comes out in the use of words like 'shit' and 'bullshit'. The pointless side digs at Eisenman and academia make it sound like there is some kind of personal grudge, or even culture war, in play, and that just harms everybody.
Gehry is, for various reasons, everybody's favorite strawarchitect (Zaha is coming up a close second these days). It's lazy and boring to go after these people, and it just makes everybody look bad. From the cranky tenured old school studio critic who hates computers and thinks this work is everything wrong with 'kids these days', to the conservative New Urbanist practitioner who thinks CNC mills should only be used to make styrofoam cornices, to the alienated member of the public who thinks anything that looks different or new is a personal attack on his intellectual capacity, to the lazy student who's always talking about 'the emperor's new clothes' because they don't want to draw a diagram ... I could go on, all of these people are endlessly bitching about Frank Gehry (and they're all coming out of the woodwork in the comment sections), we don't need to hear this crap from people like Geoff, too.
(full disclosure: I worked for an office in 2006 that spent several months in close collaboration with Gehry's office on a large project)
Well the happy thought is that there will be no great angst about razing the buildings. Just reduce the maintenance and upkeep budget to normal for similarly-sized structures and they will raze themselves in short order. Poorly designed, poorly built, with no thought as to their intended use, no relation to their site, or their site's history, and detested by a significant population of their users and neighbors - what's not to like? And when the flaws are pointed out to the architect, as was done with his MIT buildings, the architect can blame the contractor and CLIENT. How wonderful and professional is that?
sevensixfive, I completely agree.
Is there intelligent discussion of architecture happening *anywhere* in the general public (for lack of a better term - meaning among non-architects)? The more experimental works are easy targets, but what about general thoughts on urbanism, material use, symbolism/signifiers of various styles, etc? It would be wonderful if that conversation - about how architecture overall impacts peoples' lives, and how quality experimental projects can be a benefit to society - could happen in a way that doesn't involve attacking everything odd OR watching HGTV.
I am sorry I have not dusc
Geoff Manaugh doesn't do himself any favors with this article--especially comparing Frank Gehry to Dominos Pizza when a closer analogy would be Alexander McQueen to the Gap. Of course high fashion looks ridiculous when compared with the staple brands that you would actually use and wear to work.
I get that Geoff's 'brand' is high tech, urban exploration, high concept stuff, but I would invite him to actually visit these buildings and see them not as the brand of Gehry but have some kind of honest experiential reaction to them. Whether that is disgust or awe, just critiquing a picture with the usual trope is it's own kind of douchebaggery. Gehry's not my favorite architect of all time, but I he has explored the limits of a certain kind of design.
Yes Gehry an easy target, one i'm sure I've made fun of, but actually visiting these buildings always offers a surprise reaction, one that illuminates the limits of this kind of new media 'link bait' formats. One could easily turn the critique around to the kinds of design that BLDGBLOG has posted over the years, the TED talk high concept designs that never really pan out in reality.
actually, if HGTV took up such a conversation, i'd be for it. how great would it be if 'househunters' explored the good urban qualities of a neighborhood? what if the makeover-style shows really explored how to maintain the good qualities of an old house and complement them with good new work? think how addressing the real cost of renovation could benefit watchers, rather than tricking them in to believing that $50 worth of faux painted foam core and some throw pillows can 're-make' their family room!
and, re: 765's statements, agreed. it feels like a hit-piece - and out of character for gm. having been to a few of gehry's buildings, and having had a very particular and rich experience at each, i'd say that gehry-haters should do the same. there are things to criticize, sure, but also some unique and rare experiences to be had.
Either way, I picture Nick Denton sending Geoff an email saying, "congrats on the piece. 200,000 views! Come to my office for a cookie."
This is what hacking out in the design media looks like. I would call it selling out if it paid, but it don't anymore.
Relevant, from 2008: How to be a Gawker: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2008/02/how_to_be_a_gawker.html
There's a lot I could add here, mostly addressing Fred and Donna (Quondam, you and I have disliked one another for nearly a decade now, and that's unlikely to change).
First, to answer the question, "Reasonable critique or typical Gizmodo link bait?" The answer is very obviously not reasonable critique. There is nothing "reasonable" about the post! If I had been trying to argue, in a reasonable fashion, that Gehry is receiving too many commissions and that he is looked upon too favorably by the general public, then I would written a very, very different kind of piece. As it was, the post came out of a feeling of exasperation—the enthusiastic negativity you feel, Fred, which I disagree is the same as anger—that, even today, in February 2014, I meet people who, when they hear I write about architecture, almost immediately name-drop Frank Gehry, as if he is synonymous with global architecture. The inane hyperbole of my rant was thus meant to be in proportion to the inane belief that formally avant-garde architecture has to look like the structural equivalent of a hair metal band from the early 90s.
However, the idea that this post will further turn the public off from interesting design work just sounds self-pitying and fragile to me. I've used this same example in a comment on Gizmodo, but that's like someone saying I shouldn't critique an Adam Sandler film for fear that the general public will lose its interest in cinema. This will actually help focus the public's attention on what's good and worthy of celebrating.
In other words, we should critique what's bad—not all mutually agree, like some self-preserving politburo, to keep silent just in case things get heated out there.
Where I feel genuine irritation with both your comment, Fred, and with Donna's, is that neither one of you is exactly actively clicking on, commenting on, or linking to Gizmodo's ongoing urban and architectural coverage. Did you read, comment on, or share our coverage of the Downtown Project in Las Vegas? Did you weigh in on pedestrian rights of way or even our post on that awful word "sneckdowns"? What about urban emergencies and the trap of the private car? Or how to revitalize Detroit? Or the value of tall buildings in Los Angeles? What about one of my personal favorite syndications yet, looking at postwar suburbia as the spatial inspiration for 20th-century scifi? Did you read about Hart Island, which we covered before the New York Times? I could go on and on with links like this, including more typically (that is, uselessly) BLDGBLOG-esque looks at, say, how corpses helped shape the London Underground or parts of NYC built on the ruins of English cathedrals.
The crocodile tears of your comments thus strike me as functionally identical to the same lack of rational critique you (rightfully) read in my absurd Frank Gehry post: Donna, you ask for "general thoughts on urbanism, material use, symbolism/signifiers of various styles, etc," and yet those are available for you to read on Gizmodo. Sadly, you only clicked on the click bait—and now you're acting as if all those other pieces don't exist (because you didn't click on them!).
The slot machine of the internet means you never know how many people will read something you've written. A truly inane post about Frank Gehry that I wrote at a typically very slow time—late Friday afternoon—in about 20 minutes while laughing happened to explode in traffic. It's actually depressing to think that one of the most tossed-off things I've ever written about architecture is now one of the third or fourth most widely read things I've published. But I don't take it back. Frank Gehry is the Guy Fieri of architecture—with a career and a longevity my post will never affect in any way. He is as solid as the faces of Mt. Rushmore—and I am an over-caffeinated dude with a can of spray paint.
I thought this was the funniest article I heard from you Geoff. I thought I should say something about it.
Now THAT is really rich! Manaugh comes on to chastise Fred and Donna for not participating in his Gawker linkbait. Archinect is a much better place to at least engage the architecture profession in a serious way. If they link to Gizmodo, perhaps there is a reason for doing so (and it's not to highlight their great reporting or encourage comments there). The thing that bothers me about all of the articles that Manaugh cites (why don't you read these "better" articles") is that they are all linkbait in a pseudointellectual and non specific and gimmicky way. Architects think about things as particulars in the ethical real and material world, not as "postwar suburban as the spatial inspiration for 20th century Sci-fi." The only article about a specific thing (Alissa Walker's Las Vegas piece) is so convoluted it is unreadable. Nothing is what it is, it is a layer upon layer that better have something cool sounding in them, whether sci-fi or "corpses." Meant to generate comments.
I invite all to read R.G. Collingwood on amusement art vs. magic and art proper.
The same problem is infecting the design world, from academia to the museum world at all levels, this fetishization of the gimmick as a marketing device. It is a nonethical way for the design profession to go forward. Let's think about specific buildings again, not these brand names of Gehry, Las Vegas, suburbia, sci-fi, brutalish, etc. etc. etc.
Geoff, I've been a fan of your writing for over ten years, I bought both of your books the day they came out, and I got to meet you personally when you were in Baltimore for an AIA talk in what, 2007?
That's why this thing was so "wait, what the hell?" I'm being honest when I say above that I have been optimistic about a different tone at Gawker. I hadn't seen many of the articles you're linking, but that's mostly because I just can't keep up with everything design on the internet anymore. Like many people, I've let following blogs slip in favor of more direct convos on social media. Like you say, something like this cuts through the signal/noise ratio, and yeah, generates clicks like crazy. I just think that's really unfortunate.
Ask yourself this: would you want to actually hang out with or have a conversation with most of the people in the comment section of your piece? All the throwaway accounts who are going "yeah, Gehry sucks!"? Would you have a beer with them?
This is a perfect storm of a few of my pet peeves: snark for clicks, Gehry-bashing, things that reinforce the split between academics and practice, and the willfully ignorant reaction of people who leave drive-by comments on blog posts.
I (kind of) know you, and I (kind of) know Frank, and I think you two would get along. It makes me sad to see people who are smart and do good work, who should be allies, have needless beef.
(and I think the film analogy works better if you change 'Adam Sandler' to 'Martin Scorcese', Gehry is like a formerly indie-director with an avant garde niche set of interests that made the bigtime, and is now in a "late" period that some find problematic)
Geoff, my apologies that I'm not able to read every article published everywhere on the Internet every day.
Donna, my point wasn't to solicit an apology or to be an asshole; it was simply that, if you ran a restaurant that served a particular dish, for example, and I then joined a comment thread where I publicly lamented that Donna Sink doesn't offer that exact dish (when, in reality, I had just never spent time in your restaurant), you would probably be just as interested in trying to get me to come back to sample the goods (and just as impatient).
Fred, I totally hear where you're coming from, and I also (of course!) remember meeting you back in Baltimore; I also remember your interesting takes on infrastructure, containerization, harbor-front urbanism, cycling there in Baltimore, and more back on 765. Your beer question, though... alas, I just don't think, for a website the size of Gizmodo, that that's a useful criterion to use. On other fronts, though, point taken re: Adam Sandler vs. Martin Scorsese.
Finally, your friend Peyton notwithstanding, I genuinely think you'd like the article about Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, and other mid-century scifi writers that we ran on Gizmodo; it's just one example of the kind of stuff I'm enormously happy to be able to post there, for a readership that probably isn't expecting that kind of thing, something that's as much a work of cultural & literary studies as it is a kind of sustained infrastructure fiction. The notion that I would syndicate a 3,400-word historical essay by an English professor as a form of click bait is absurd.
I understand. And, to follow my own advice and try to be more generous, it *is* a hellaciously funny piece; the Fieri reference was my favorite, and "enfecalize" is a wonderful term I will put to use. But I kept reading looking for it to turn into something more - I don't know, nuanced? Academic? Less pop-referential and more seriously critical? The criticism that clients seem to be easily swayed by flash and thus spend millions on the way things look without sufficient concern for substance beyond the flash is a real problem of our trend-driven society and has likely been covered in other articles plenty. But, as I posted on another Archinecter's FB posting of this article: Gizmodo has an audience that is looking for humor along with their learning. This article wouldn't have appeared in Architect.
The comments from the non-architecture world, though, remind me of Annie Choi's Architects I Am Sick of Your Shit piece - fairly ignorant, and mean. I kind of had a feeling of "Here we go again…".
This is the point that the internet makes criticism interesting. It is much harder to critique someone if you risk offending someone you know and respect.
Gehry is an easy target for good reasons. At best he is a brand, like Range Rover (one of the least reliable cars made that is absolutely adored by overly funded social climbers). At worst his buildings fail and are subject of contentious lawsuits while completly ignoring all of he pressing issues of our time (environmental responsibilty, sustainability, social equality, etc.). And that doesn't even touch on aesthetics.
Aside from that, there is quite a bit of competition for the title of "worst".
I promise to read more Gizmodo posts about architecture. This one is good! Both the post and the building.
Geoff you are right that its insane how many people bothered to forward or discuss this ridiculous post, since it has no content and is basically just faux troll (I assume you aren't a real troll). Guess it goes to show how much easier it is to get a rise from hate than from praise.
Buildings by Gehry I have been to have all been really exceptional, btw. Haven't been to the ones you showed, but then I assume you picked those to make a point, not to be honest.
wow
how did you guys even get past the first paragraph? I feel bad for ever enjoying bldgblog.
wow.
seriously, ive never seen someone piss away their credibility so fast, wtf? kevin spacey must have bought him a new phone to get that kind of access. I've never seen a car crash like this. I really hate to watch. totally baffled. Gehry's Louis Vuitton Foundation is amazing.
baffling.
Brilliant analysis Geoff, and funny as hell. It's amazing to see how brittle this audience is when anyone dares to criticise their sacred cows. Donna: "kept reading looking for it to turn into something more - I don't know, nuanced? Academic?" why, becasue then you could take the criticism as valid!?! Unless you've been through the academic mill, your criticisms are considered illegitimate. Control the language, and you control the message.
"The comments from the non-architecture world, though, remind me of Annie Choi's Architects I Am Sick of Your Shit piece - fairly ignorant, and mean. I kind of had a feeling of "Here we go again…".
News flash Donna, architects build for the "non-architectrure world". That's why so many young architects leave the profession, becasue they get almost no skills that have any relevance to what architecture is actually about. It certainly isn't the Gehry Looney Tune show, unless you can bull shit your way in to the few slots available.
"So, yeah, he used software normally found in airplane design—great. That's awesome. I can imagine amazing things coming out of such an irreverent mixing of design tools." Exactly.
That's a bit to generous to say that this article was written with a wink. I think we all know at this point that hate travels far on the internet. If that is the point of this article (to generate polarizing comments) then it is an admission of the failure of the gawker design to engage intelligently. Though I'm not a fan of some of the BLDGBLOG type of content, at least it was obnoxious in a semi-intelligent way, and didn't serve the lowest common denominator, and not just whip the same old brands.
I never cease to be amazed and appalled at how so many who are trained in the profession remain so ignorant and/or inconsiderate of building performance, the only objective measurement that can be made.
I had to double check the article to make sure this is indeed Geoff's authorship. From the first paragraph, I could not make the connection that this is the same person who is in charge of Columbia University's New York Studio-X.
I personally know Geoff and I have not known him to be so crest, pithy, and loathing.
First of all, I would like to make a point that Geoff Manaugh's relationship with Columbia GSAPP does not mean we, alumnus, faculties, students, and staff condone, approve, or agree with what has been written in this article.
That being said, I would like to speculate that the true authorship may not be genuine and maybe a target of an immature, cyber prank.
I do acknowledge that he is the new editor in chief of Gizmodo, which makes me even be more suspicious of the crest nature of the article.
Can someone please confirm the genuine source of the authorship?
http://www.arch.columbia.edu/about/people/gm2436columbiaedu
I don't think anyone was calling Gehry a sacred cow. The point is that the type of content that travels farther falls on the same kind of hateful, non-serious, poorly researched content that has a very limited scope, that is the well known brands that the public already knows. If Gehry wasn't already a well known architect, the article doesn't get written. Most people who care about design are bored with anti-Frank Gehry arguments, what is interesting here is a niche writer trying to appeal to the masses with a witty but poorly researched hate piece on, you guessed it, Frank Gehry!
Many of these kind of writers are always one step away from bashing architects themselves, as in the assumption that they all love Frank Gehry, which is hardly the truth. While I don't love every building he's done, try to write this same article after visiting the buildings. It may have the same premise, but at least it would be fair. The media is always pushing the stereotype of Gehry as representative of architects as egotistical, not interested in post-occupancy, etc, maybe not here, but elsewhere (see Miles Jeffe's comment). "Appealing to a wider audience," is usually code for writing more hate, stereotyping, etc. etc. for the purpose of generating polarizing fights on the comments section. The media created starchitecture, not architects themselves, just like it creates these debates.
This debate has less to do with architecture, more to say about the design of media today.
Or this is someone's (Geoff or else) idea of an inside/bad/dirty joke with extremely poor execution.
Thayer, if some other Gawker writer had written this I wouldn't have been looking for nuance or serious critique. It's Geoff Manaugh: I own and have completely read his first book, he's blown my mind dozens of times over the years with his insightful and poetic connections of the material world to how we perceive them. This piece, from him, was shocking and unexpected.
...That's why so many young architects leave the profession becasue they get almost no skills that have any relevance to what architecture is actually about... You have any proof of this? Any statistics? Or is this your own bias presented as fact? I've taught Pro Practice AND Design and can easily point to cases that deny your claim.
I'm talking about people outside the profession critiquing PRACTICE, not design. When I hear criticisms of practice it reminds me of how often doctors are accused of being shills for Big Pharma. Of course there are outliers, but do most people truly believe that ALL doctors put their own wallets above the health of their patients? How long would such a doctor last in practice? And similarly, how many architects, of the roughly 100,000 (registered) practicing in the US today, see their clients as a non-stop ATM funding an egocentric artistic vision? And how long will those architects last in practice? In Gehry's case, people are coming to him, eyes wide open, for a Gehry building. If they don't get one they'll be disappointed. How this aligns with consumerist trends in our society is IMO a far more complex discussion than this piece engaged. The fact that it never aspired to go to that level in the first place is my mistaken misreading.
I hear you Donna, but who cares if this person dosen't like this Gehry building or his work in general? Does anyone think it will be everyone's cup of tea? I mean, this constant distinction between who's commenting and what are their credentials is just stupid. We've all done work that somebody, somewhere thinks is bad. In Gehry's case, I agree with Geoff, (if that's REALLY who he is) that Gehry had an interesting schtick that's now devolved in to farce, which invariably happens when you approach something as schtick. But again, why's everybody getting thier panties in a bunch over some negative criticism? Who actually HATES Gehry's work? It's sculpture, so if you don't like it, just move on. My issue is more with the architectural media sites like this that continually put up this kind of work as worthy of emmulation. Let the billionairs build their fun houses or their Versailles immitations, who cares. But for the majority of architects, this just dosen't fly in the non-architect world.
Media is always driven by controversy, especially celebrity breakdowns. It's an old formula for increasing advertising revenue. Archinect's reposting of this nonsense follows the same pattern with the primary difference of being trade specific.
;)
"I hate rock and roll stars. The star system was good in the 60s with the Beatles and the Stones, even then it was sick. But the end of the star system you could see in the 70s when you could see those without any personality were set up as stars (like Joe Cocker or Led Zeppelin). They aren't like John Lennon and Mick Jagger. For every Bruce Springsteen or Patti Smith you have a dozen STIXX'es. I don't see how you can call clones of Mick Jagger like that guy in Aerosmith or completely faceless bands.
It fits into the cult of celebrity [Warhol] when you are famous for being famous. The end result is that when someone who actually does something good is equivalent to someone who hasn't done anything. Then nobody has any reason do do anything good.
Once you decide that you have an image that is fixed, and then this image becomes marketed, then you have to live up to this image, then you are sunk. How can you grow as a person or artist if you are locked into this image. This cult of image has destroyed music because people become self parodies. This is as true of non rock and roll people like Hunter S. Thompson. It's sad when people get locked into this."
-Lester Bangs
Now this is a better critique of both Star Gehry and Starsuckers Gawker itself.
Sorry for the rush typo; auto-correct error.
Meant to write "crass", not "crest".
Geoff, for the record, I liked the piece, I laughed heartily at the references, but then again I like Howard Stern.
Isnt Geoff the guy that writes here sometimes?
Maybe I'll try writing something racist, sexist, or homophobic and then say, "see, i was TRYING to get all of the blogs worked up with my irony! It worked! Yay me!"
If this is the kind of 'work' you do, please jump off a bridge immediately.
Id like to see a show about architecture in the tone and style of Anthony Bourdians "Parts Unknown" I love how he makes such complexity so accessible for the mainstream without dumbing it down. He is an awesome host. Andrew Zimmerman too. We need a likable front man like that in the architecture world.
As for FG, I like his work better than the cvs down the block, better than 99.9% of the shit out there. In the arena of architects/architecture he is not my favorite, but lets put this all into perspective. Who would rather spend a day at the local strip mall than the worst FG building? Not I.
jla-x, are those the only two options? The more the peanut gallery attacks this guy the more he seems interesting. I found this sequence particularily amusing...
Boom2: "This is Dennis Miller stuff is tough to read Geoff, you're better than this - who cares if its a different audience. By writing for a much wider audience you can help to educate non-designers to try appreciate work like this....It's a bummer that you're advancing design thought and discourse at BLDGBLOG while at the same time tearing it down from "the outside" here at Gizmodo. The damage you're doing here is worse, since it turns non-designers even more against Design in general."
Geoff's response: "It is Frank Gehry's work that "turns non-designers even more against Design in general," not a deliberately absurd 20-minute rant written by a blogger on Gizmodo"
Geoff, can't you see what you are doing? You're supposed to be getting non-designers to appreciate work like this, since it's so hard to do by looking at it. They need to be intellectually convinced, and with your gift of gab, you're the perfect person to do it. Can't you see the damage you're doing!!! Geoff, your coolness badge has just been revoked.
Thayer, those are not the only 2 options. Never said they were. People in the mainstream are often critical of this kind of stuff but allow the other 99.9% of the shit out there a get outta jail free card. we should begin our critique at the bottom of the barrel and work our way up. The mainstream tends to see the norm as the norm. Its not. Its not the norm and it is not the base to judge from. Its a mutated freak of nature that has no relevance or evolutionary justification other than to suck money from the masses like a parasite. Its form follows dollars at its very worst. We need to critique the broader architectural condition (in the mainstream) before we can critique the few that actually found a way to make something of interest. For the architecturally educated folks, that's another story. We can all judge the top of the barrel because we all understand the condition of the bottom. For the public to truly appreciate the anomaly they must first be awakened to the dismal soul sucking state of the norm.
the freak scape must be exposed to break from the mindset that it is a base popular condition. It is not. The freakscape is a corporate parasitic condition. Its an invasive species that keeps growing and growing...
in order to appreciate "weird" things people need to cleanse themselves of their biases because "weird" implies that there is a "normal" that we are diverging from. there is not. people think the pop landscape is the norm. It is not. Its just the condition that happens to be plaguing us at this particular moment in history. Nothing normal about purchasing mechanically separated fried chicks through a small greasy window...We need to expose the absurdity of our "norm." Most people I talk to really don't get it. They think that this is the best we can do.
Many non-designers I talk to can't get enough of Frank Gehry and think his buildings are "cool" and don't understand what the big deal is. On some level they also subconsciously agree with the premise that 99.9% of the built world today is mindless nonsense. But critiquing that stuff can be soul sucking in its own way, and tends to be 'sponsored' praise in one way or another. Many critics become hacky when they start offering patronizing praise to McDonalds. I've seen this in recent Michael Kimmelman columns. What does this say about the state of the world? Then again, I was never a Venturi, sorry, I mean Denise Scott Brown (and Venturi) fan.
I also think many architects get into the profession because of Frank Gehry then later learn to dislike him because he started repeating himself for every project. It is what it is.
I know most of you all get it, but go ask the everyday person.
Now that we have devolved to this level of conversation, I'd like to add to it by saying that Geoff sounds like a bozo yahoo Frat Boy.
Again, Geoff, have you built anything yet? Ive thought better than pay attention to your rants over the years, but just want to know if there is any substance to the hoopla.
Well intentioned, thoughtful critics don't have to defend their lack of built work (their care speaks for itself), but bullshit ones do.
It's too bad there aren't many well intentioned people on this discussion. Instead you're all beating the same dead horse, missing the point, and treating Geoff as if he was some deity who betrayed you.
Does spitting vitriolic venom come naturally or does it require effort?
Ciao.
I'm changing my first name to Frank.
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