Quote:
Originally Posted by gttx
Literally anything would be progress over what is there today - no matter how you want to define the word. Feel free to criticize whatever architecture is eventually proposed here (we still haven't seen actual design proposals, only simple massing studies), but know that, even if it's the second-worst turd of a building ever, it still represents progress compared to what it's replacing. I'm really puzzled as to why this is such an argument.
|
At the risk of being banned, since I'm sure NYGuy is just aching to do it, I'll try to address your post. You seem to subscribe to the same view as NYGuy that "new" and "progress" are the same thing. My contention is that they are not.
"New" is not a subjective term. What was not there before and now is, is new.
However, I argue that "new" does not imply "progress". Progress, subjectively, can be the product of something new, but it does not imply it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gttx
Literally anything would be progress over what is there today - no matter how you want to define the word. .
|
Staying with the theme of architecture, imagine a developer sees an economic advantage in replacing the Empire State Building with a 1 story glass building. By definition, the one story glass building is new. Is it also progress? The answer is not simple and very subjective. The economic advantage provided by the 1 story glass building is "progress" for the developer. However that progress is subjective to economics. Is it progress for the New York skyline or general urbanity? I would argue it's not. That is a view subjective to the average street walking and skyline gawker.
This is why I never accepted the arguement that "New York is not a museum and" and "any new building is progress" because it give developers carte blanche to do as they please in the eyes on what I thought would be an architecturally critical message board. Isn't that what we are supposed to care about?
A less extreme example would be giving Roger Federer an new tennis racquet. By definition it is new. However, if the grip is terrible and the thread tension is bad, and his game suffers as a result, is it progress?
Long story even shorter, new is inherent and time based. Progress is a consequence (sometimes occuring). They are NOT the same thing, and at best form a coupling on certain occasions.
As for the Park Lane, it is good enough and in a good enough location where ANYTHING replacing it would not be progress, even though it is hardly a masterpiece.