Mr. Stern said the building, which is scheduled to have its groundbreaking next year, was not designed to reflect on Mr. Bush personally. “It’s not a portrait or a defense of his policies,” Mr. Stern told The Morning News. “It is about the presidency, the dignity of the office.” NYT
21 Comments
it could double as a mausoleum. i wonder how can anyone rest with dignity after being instrumental to more than several hundred thousand humans to perish in lands most citizens can't point on the map.
what an apologetic crap of a statement!
there is a lot to deconstruct in this building's meaning.
The blank walls, the vaguely classical symmetry... it looks appropriately totalitarian.
the ability of W to still draw the most vitriolic statements out of the left continues to humor me. And here I though Palin was gaining as the Satan du Jour.
Sarah Palin is a comedy value, especially now that she has no power at all; Bush was President for 8 years, and has a lasting legacy. Which will be memorialised as a building... and it's a strange set of design choices Stern has made for a president who authorised torture by American forces.
i'm sorry, where's the vitriol?
not that it isn't deserved, mind you...
but yeah, it's pretty fugly. i have to give it to stern for making it as fittingly horrendous as the W administration.
btw, this is the money shot. the rest of it is even worse.
sarah palin? we should just ignore her, not prop her up with sexist put downs (as many in the media and political commentary tend to do).
bush? started two wars, at least one of which is completely immoral, the other at best ill-considered. presided over and condoned acts of torture, vilification and actual false persecution of muslim americans, watched as new orleans drowned...
he should be tried for crimes against humanity and then locked up in that building.
Geoffgc, Bush did do a lot to draw deserved vitriol. But one of the tasks of a Presidential library is to give future scholars a chance to assess the deeper, longer term impact of a president's term.
This building looks incredibly restrained, and elegant yet strong. As maccoinnich said, it brings to mind, and pretty overtly IMO, the Italian Fascist architecture. Google images of Esposizione Universale Roma to see what I mean.
I think it's a fair question to ask whether this relationship to Fascism is intentional of not, and if it's a good image or not for a future impartial reading of the former president's administraiton. From what I can see in that image above, the building looks pretty closed and inflexible, both attitudes I think exemplify the GWBush administration quite well. I wonder if that's what they were after when they hired their architect.
This is not one of Terragni's better projects.
a few comments|
nice watercolor, although i think i see some of the bush cronies in there. at least some architects are working. it seems to be missing barbed wire and orange jumpsuits. lastly, poor little geoffgc, missing all of the fun from a lil bush presidency? well, don't worry, in hell he's the guy giving rim jobs.
#replies=proves point.
Plus, we've already managed to use: totalitarian, fascism, hell, rim job, authorized torture, Italian Fascism (almost got to Hitler with that, guess Godwin's law will be invoked in a post or 2 more..), crimes against humanity, condoned acts of torture, persecution of muslim americans, and I'm sure the list will go on after this post.
I'm wondering if Obama has managed to get to the level of hatred Clinton received yet. Same crap, different team.
btw, i should add that I completely agree that the building looks like a neo-classical, slightly totalitarian p.o.s. Why an architect would ever consider a design such as this right now, is beyond me.
“Yet this is the point at which we must remind the reader of the obvious, namely that this whole global, yet American, postmodern culture is the internal and superstructural expression of a whole new wave of American military and economic domination throughout the world: in this sense, as throughout class history, the underside of culture is blood, torture, death and horror.” Fredric Jameson (1984)
A slaughterhouse would be more appropriate a structure. Maybe a prison, but either way Georges Bataille would be proud. Congress should stop the funding of this now.
I just feel sorry for all the Yale SOA students who have to submit to Stearn's tyranny. This building proves that he is not fit to lead a university department.
politics aside:
the design seems, from the one image, to be an appropriate response to a very difficult problem - people will see it differently, some will see totalitarian, some will see strength...some will see reflections of mausoleums, some will see reflections of defense...some will see conviction, some will see stubbornness...
i think Stern has been very calculative in this approach - i was not expecting much, but i won't call it fugly just yet, as there seems to be more to the building...
more pics:
http://www.politico.com/slideshow/slideshow.html?xml=xml/451#id=451&num=1
the building is without doubt fascist-leaning. even my 1st year students can see that. take it for what it is, but somehow presidential libraries have not been very good lately as architecture goes.
maybe they are great archives. america's leaders lack imagination and trust/interest/desire for the future?
The US's [and GB's and FR's etc] identity is supported by affirming the past. China's [and India's and Dubai's] identity is supported by affirming the future. Both use nostalgia and aspirations as propaganda, it's just two sides of the same coin.
i kinda with it were more terragni-esque.
so, archinecters, if you were offered the commission for gwb's library, would you
a) tweet the news with pride
b) a commission is a commission is a commission
c) turn it down politely. you don't do prisons and gwb libraries
d) something else
"wish..."
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