Quote:
Originally Posted by vandelay
But from what some of you fanatics write you would think that Chicago is a land of blue blooded, old money aristocrats who live in Mies high rises, and this sort of tower is only suitable for that architectural and cultural backwater New York City. And that Robert Stern should hide in disgrace to that fly-by-night architectural school where he's dean, Yale.
|
Your post sounds less insightful and more axe-to-grind, and I think you
really missed the mark. I don't see evidence of a slavish adherence to Modernism here but the exact opposite: insistence on the same progressive impulses that led to its ascendancy during the past century, which, in Chicago, drew upon a rich tradition of pragmatism and frankness.
And let's get a couple of things straight about Stern: He is not dean of the YSOA
because of his architecture; he is dean
despite his architecture. (He himself refers to his designs as "background buildings"—his words.) Stern is dean because he knows how to foster an intellectual, forward-thinking environment. I mean, duh,
just look at the faculty. He would never in a million years impose upon his students a particular architectural style.
This also means that, contrary to what some people in this thread think, he has a deep appreciation of all architecture. (We're talking about the man who spearheaded the beautiful restoration of the Paul Rudolph masterpiece that houses the YSOA and who was a vocal opponent of the renovation of 2 Columbus Circle.)
I'm not sure how he reconciles his role as principal of RAMSA with his role as dean of the YSOA. Maybe it's a classic paradigm of needs of the body versus needs of the soul. (Remember, he does contemporary architecture, too. Comcast Center? I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that he follows the money.) Maybe he doesn't see them in binary opposition at all. I don't know.
Personally, I think there's a place for what he does. He and others like him use already-developed architectural vocabularies to solve contemporary architectural needs. It's not like this is new; it's the story of architecture for two thousand years. I mean, a facade composed of a pediment, entablature, and columns was once upon a time used
only for Ancient Greek temple construction. Civilization expanded, political philosophies flourished, Rome took over, government became more sophisticated and important, and that vocabulary was suddenly adapted to all the new civic spaces that began cropping up. This happened over and over and over. Sometimes it was clumsy and crude, especially when new technologies were developed as in the case of the Pantheon. Sometimes it was sublime like St. Peter's Basilica, when Michelangelo finally figured out how to put the dome and pediment and columns all together.
I do think the advent of Modernism eliminated the main, most important reason people constrained themselves to historical architectural vocabularies (basically reverence), but I don't think that means there aren't other reasons to continue to use them, and I don't think it's a problem unless the result is an incoherent mess. And, IMHO, RAMSA's work is usually far from an incoherent mess.*
Back to my original point: Vandelay, please stick to saving beached whales.
*For a true butcher, see Lucien Lagrange from whose stalled imagination falls dud (2550 Lincoln Park) after dud (Elysian).